The last time this happened, he'd gotten into an awful fight. He'd assumed Nina didn't want the trouble of a man, not when men make the lives of women like Nina so hard-- and not when he had his heart so firmly set on someone else. He'd told her she didn't have to be afraid of any lingering feelings, and she'd taken it as an offense.
He's stopped trying to predict her. He shouldn't do that with Rey, either. But it's difficult, when the time before Nina was Grace, when Grace made all of his predictions and trust collapse in on themselves like a house of cards. He wants that control, would sometimes rather destroy a good thing before it happens so that it can't hurt him. As long as he has control over that pain.
But this isn't Nina; this isn't Grace. This is another woman still, and he's sure she's smart enough to know Tommy won't throw himself into her arms, that he won't assume there is something there when it's just him, with another man's life buried inside of him.
She approaches him steadily and even smiles, but he can't bring himself to. He's got his fingers wrapped around a matchbook, and he shakily takes it out.
"Yes," he says, finally, finding cigarettes in his inside pocket. "But only after I've eaten."
It's just a little, and she wouldn't have caught it if her eyes hadn't been dropping away from his face right the exact moment they were, but the fact is she's seen it now and it makes all her decisions for her.
"I can meet you somewhere after," she offers at once, not thinking for a second he'll want her anywhere near him for that. "In the-"
But then she stops and her eyes go a little wide because she'd almost said in the garden. For a moment there's nothing but vulnerability in her face, her eyes are even a little glassy, but she locks it down so fast it makes her feel a little ill.
"On the deck."
Not one of their rooms. Not somewhere private if they're not ready for that yet.
His shoulders hunch when she says that- when she almost says something he remembers from a few days ago, when the wind made her hair dance and he laughed at her and kissed her indignation right off her face. He feels lighter for the memory, but immediately pulled down when he remembers who he is, where they are.
He licks his lips and lights a cigarette. The first pull settles him a little, and his eyes close in brief respite.
"On the deck," he repeats, and then opens his eyes again and nods. "Give me half an hour, Rey," not my love, not anything like that. Just Rey.
She's honestly impressed he can even say her name at all without it bringing up any memories he'd rather not have in his head, and she nods to show she accepts this and then has to fight, hard, the immediate instinct to just turn on her heel and walk away. He deserves more than that, she can at least try.
"I'll see you then." It sounds hollow and too quiet, but at least it's something. "Enjoy your food."
There, that's good enough. Now she turns to go, goes to wait for him on the deck where she can look at the stars and pretend she's seeing them from the cockpit of the Falcon. She can only manage stillness for a few minutes, though, before she's up and pushing chairs out of the way and making herself enough space to get her staff off her back and go through some forms with it.
She intends to stop before Tommy gets there, even times herself in her head, but the familiarity of these movements is immediately soothing and she gets lost in it, in putting her attention into fluid movements and solid strikes. Tommy smokes to center himself, but this is how Rey does it, and she's hoping it's going to be enough to get her through the conversation they're about to have.
He has no idea how it'll make her feel, but when he sees her from inside the door opening it makes him feel... better, somehow. It creates a distance between the woman he whispered sweet nothings to and the woman he met here. He wasn't sure why she carried that staff everywhere, but he understands now.
She's graceful in a way he's never seen anyone be. It's strength and knowledge and control over her body as well as the weapon in her hand. There's danger in there, and that puts more distance between the two.
But it does make him feel strangely attracted to her- like he wants to understand her, get to know who she is and where she learned how to do that. It's danger that calls to him, and that's been proven over and over.
He makes sure the door closes with a bang, so that she knows he's arrived. He's smoking again, a fresh cigarette between his fingers as he approaches her.
She doesn't jump at the sound of the door slamming, glances over at him but doesn't stop right away. Not until she finishes the motion she was in the middle of, one last swing at an enemy that doesn't exist, because if she stops in the middle it's going to nag at her because she hadn't done it right and that's really not an extra thing she wants to deal with at the moment.
It's only when she's finished the form that she lowers the staff, slings it back over her shoulder and takes a breath, steadying herself for whatever will come now.
He looks... she's not sure how he looks, but it's not her place anymore to worry about that. Or... well, maybe it is if they're friends, but she isn't even sure if they're that. If they were, if they are anymore, none of it is something she can say for certain.
She has no idea what to say to him now, so she opts to say nothing, just waits for him to come over to join her in the space she's cleared out.
He scrapes his throat and jerks his chin at her staff, at her stance.
"That looked very impressive," he comments, vaguely-- rather than say what's really on his mind, what they'll be talking about later. It'll happen: let him ease into it.
"Not sure how much use it'd be when facing guns," he says, flatly-- unnecessarily cynical, especially when he's just expressed that he found it impressive, but it's what he's used to and that's much easier than talking about something he doesn't know much about.
He takes a long drag of his cigarette, not meeting her eyes. "This happened to me before," he starts, vaguely.
She hasn't offered that on her own without prompting before, so the rejection stings more than it should before the slams the door on it. It doesn't matter. None of this means anything. She doesn't look hurt, but if he had been looking at her he'd have seen the way her eyes went just a little harder.
A wall is going up, brick by brick, and she feels uncomfortable standing there motionless so she looks away out towards the stars before she moves the end of her staff out of the way and just sits in one of the chairs. He's launching into this abruptly, so she just waits. Lets him say whatever he's going to say.
He can see it, and part of him aches for her, wants to pull her close and say I'm sorry I'm like this, forgive me. But that isn't him; this version of himself doesn't apologize, not for things like this.
"Last time, I didn't resolve it the way I should have. I want to do better." But the implication is clear in his voice: he doesn't know how to. The cigarette is pinched between his fingers, now, almost forgotten in his concentration.
She's thinking what he is, and she can tell he's struggling and she likes him, this version of him right here in front of him and not just the man from the breach, enough to try to make this a little easier.
"I know it wasn't real," she says, slowly, like she's measuring out the words to find the ones that are right. "I know that person wasn't me, I've never been like that and I never will be like that. I don't expect anything from you."
He lets out an audible sigh of relief at that: that's exactly what he'd been afraid of last time, and he's so glad that she's saying it for him. He nods, and finally looks back at her.
"Thank you. I'm not-- good, like he was. And I know that wasn't you, either."
Alright, that... went better than she expected. She's never had anyone thank her for being cold, sharp, and rude before, but perhaps there's a first time for anything after all. She would disagree with the idea that he were a bad person because a bad man would be taking advantage of the feelings she had had for him, would have gone about this a much meaner way, but she also knows the absence of good doesn't automatically make someone bad.
He's both, just like everyone in the world. Or worlds, as it were. So she nods, accepting of his thanks, and for a moment there's a desire to give him a little more, to tell him that his desire to do better has been fulfilled, that this went fine.
But that wall is still up, even if a few bricks have fallen out of it again. She's not ready to take any more risks yet.
"Nothing has to change. I intend to go on like none of that happened."
Not Tiffany being her sister, not finding a mother in T'Pol, and not falling in love with Tommy. None of it is real and it's better to let it die.
"Do you think," he starts, and then hunches down again before he finally makes himself sit down-- two beds removed from her, of course, because it won't do to be too close. He stubs out his cigarette, grinds it down underneath his booth before rubbing a hand over his mouth.
"Do you think there's a reason for these things? Why the breaches go the way they do?"
And now he's surprised her again by staying when he could have left and she would have understood. Maybe she was right after all, maybe things really won't change.
For all her insistence that she was going to pretend nothing had been between them, there's still an ache in her at all that distance between them. This is going to take longer than she thought to shake.
"I don't know," she answers honestly, and she stands up again once he's sitting because she just- she can't be still. The staff comes off and she picks up the form she had abandoned, going through the motions of it as she thinks. "Maybe the Admiral thinks forcing people to experience things like this will change the inmates in some way that will make them better."
He thinks of Lua, sitting here last time, and her saying maybe telling a stranger is better. And Rey doesn't feel like a stranger, feels quite like the opposite right now, but perhaps there was some truth in that. Perhaps telling someone, telling more people, is better.
So he takes a deep breath, watches her as she goes through those motions. "Have you ever had someone like that, Rey?"
She glances at him a little too sharply, but the rest of her stays fluid. On anyone else that would be an insult, but she can see he's being genuine and more importantly, that this is a question that's meant to lead into him saying something else.
"No," she says it simply, easily, because it's the truth. "I've never had anyone."
"I did," he says, frankly honest. The pain is very, very clear in his voice, however, making him look tightly wound up.
"It ended badly, right before I came here." Which makes this perhaps just as painful as it has been for her, but in a very different way. This was a reminder for Tommy how badly things had ended with Grace, instead of a list of taken firsts.
The staff stops its movement through the air, comes to rest on the surface of the deck as she stops to look over at him properly. Things are sliding into place now, she's putting together why this is hard for him now, why it would have been worse the first time and why it made such an impression then that he'd go out of his way to keep things from going badly again.
It had been clear that she wasn't the only one struggling, and she hadn't ever thought of it in terms of who had been hurt worse, but now she realizes she had assumed he had taken it a little better than her.
But they really are on the same page, and thanks to Luke and Han she's reached a place where seeing someone she likes in pain has developed the urge to try to help. She's still not very good at being a form of support, but she'd done well enough in the past that they had been thankful after the fact.
Or maybe they had just accepted she was horrible at being nice and were giving her a pass for trying. Either way, against her better judgement she crosses the deck and puts her hand, delicately, on Tommy's shoulder. It's a big risk and she hates herself a little for making it after he'd already rejected the staff lessons, she should know better, but it's who she is now and not her memories of him during the breach that make it impossible to just let him sit there suffering.
"I'm sorry, Tommy." Her voice is even and soft, but not overcome with sympathy or too much emotion. There's sincerity, and that comes with a very gentle squeeze, but she's keeping this from getting too sentimental very much on purpose.
He hadn't expected that- not because he thinks she's unkind, but because she's particularly closed-off, and because most people react to this confession with at least a little contempt. People tend to be disappointed in him, or at least that's how he feels they react.
So he hadn't expected this kind of sincere sentiment. It doesn't mean he doesn't flinch a little, hunch over so he can look at his folded hands, but it's not... bad. He isn't sure how to react to it, so he just lets the silence linger for a little while as he thinks on it.
"So now you understand a little more," he settles on, finally.
Her hand doesn't stay there long, at least. She takes it away to sit down across from him instead, but she isn't sure what should come next. She doesn't want to pry into what happened with the person he was in love with before his heart was broken, but she feels like she should say something.
"I do," she agrees, just to be sure they're on the same page and he knows he can maybe relax with this a little more. "I can... if you need space, I can do that."
As much as she doesn't want to lose one of the very few friends she's made on the barge, he's become important enough to her that she's okay with letting him take that decision out of her hands if it's going to help him process things better.
He clears his throat and shakes his head, without looking up from his hands. "No. It's been months." Which means more I shouldn't still be upset about this than I'm no longer upset about this.
She does kind of get that feeling, so Rey nods and just like that it's something filed away, something she can remember to give her perspective on him but something that she'll never bring up on her own. Something he can choose to speak to her about, if he ever feels a need to.
And... the level of relief she feels when he says no is a little disturbing for her. She doesn't quite like this, becoming this attached to anyone at all, but it's inescapable and she has no idea what to do about it. Let it happen? She doesn't want to fight it, so that's really the only option.
"How often do things like that happen?" She asks instead of lingering on a topic that clearly causes him pain. "I didn't know it was possible for the entire ship to become somewhere else like that."
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He's stopped trying to predict her. He shouldn't do that with Rey, either. But it's difficult, when the time before Nina was Grace, when Grace made all of his predictions and trust collapse in on themselves like a house of cards. He wants that control, would sometimes rather destroy a good thing before it happens so that it can't hurt him. As long as he has control over that pain.
But this isn't Nina; this isn't Grace. This is another woman still, and he's sure she's smart enough to know Tommy won't throw himself into her arms, that he won't assume there is something there when it's just him, with another man's life buried inside of him.
She approaches him steadily and even smiles, but he can't bring himself to. He's got his fingers wrapped around a matchbook, and he shakily takes it out.
"Yes," he says, finally, finding cigarettes in his inside pocket. "But only after I've eaten."
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It's just a little, and she wouldn't have caught it if her eyes hadn't been dropping away from his face right the exact moment they were, but the fact is she's seen it now and it makes all her decisions for her.
"I can meet you somewhere after," she offers at once, not thinking for a second he'll want her anywhere near him for that. "In the-"
But then she stops and her eyes go a little wide because she'd almost said in the garden. For a moment there's nothing but vulnerability in her face, her eyes are even a little glassy, but she locks it down so fast it makes her feel a little ill.
"On the deck."
Not one of their rooms. Not somewhere private if they're not ready for that yet.
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He licks his lips and lights a cigarette. The first pull settles him a little, and his eyes close in brief respite.
"On the deck," he repeats, and then opens his eyes again and nods. "Give me half an hour, Rey," not my love, not anything like that. Just Rey.
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"I'll see you then." It sounds hollow and too quiet, but at least it's something. "Enjoy your food."
There, that's good enough. Now she turns to go, goes to wait for him on the deck where she can look at the stars and pretend she's seeing them from the cockpit of the Falcon. She can only manage stillness for a few minutes, though, before she's up and pushing chairs out of the way and making herself enough space to get her staff off her back and go through some forms with it.
She intends to stop before Tommy gets there, even times herself in her head, but the familiarity of these movements is immediately soothing and she gets lost in it, in putting her attention into fluid movements and solid strikes. Tommy smokes to center himself, but this is how Rey does it, and she's hoping it's going to be enough to get her through the conversation they're about to have.
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She's graceful in a way he's never seen anyone be. It's strength and knowledge and control over her body as well as the weapon in her hand. There's danger in there, and that puts more distance between the two.
But it does make him feel strangely attracted to her- like he wants to understand her, get to know who she is and where she learned how to do that. It's danger that calls to him, and that's been proven over and over.
He makes sure the door closes with a bang, so that she knows he's arrived. He's smoking again, a fresh cigarette between his fingers as he approaches her.
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It's only when she's finished the form that she lowers the staff, slings it back over her shoulder and takes a breath, steadying herself for whatever will come now.
He looks... she's not sure how he looks, but it's not her place anymore to worry about that. Or... well, maybe it is if they're friends, but she isn't even sure if they're that. If they were, if they are anymore, none of it is something she can say for certain.
She has no idea what to say to him now, so she opts to say nothing, just waits for him to come over to join her in the space she's cleared out.
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"That looked very impressive," he comments, vaguely-- rather than say what's really on his mind, what they'll be talking about later. It'll happen: let him ease into it.
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"I've been practicing a long time," she says, hand resting lightly on the end of the staff. "It's not hard to learn, if you wanted to try."
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He takes a long drag of his cigarette, not meeting her eyes. "This happened to me before," he starts, vaguely.
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A wall is going up, brick by brick, and she feels uncomfortable standing there motionless so she looks away out towards the stars before she moves the end of her staff out of the way and just sits in one of the chairs. He's launching into this abruptly, so she just waits. Lets him say whatever he's going to say.
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"Last time, I didn't resolve it the way I should have. I want to do better." But the implication is clear in his voice: he doesn't know how to. The cigarette is pinched between his fingers, now, almost forgotten in his concentration.
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"I know it wasn't real," she says, slowly, like she's measuring out the words to find the ones that are right. "I know that person wasn't me, I've never been like that and I never will be like that. I don't expect anything from you."
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"Thank you. I'm not-- good, like he was. And I know that wasn't you, either."
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He's both, just like everyone in the world. Or worlds, as it were. So she nods, accepting of his thanks, and for a moment there's a desire to give him a little more, to tell him that his desire to do better has been fulfilled, that this went fine.
But that wall is still up, even if a few bricks have fallen out of it again. She's not ready to take any more risks yet.
"Nothing has to change. I intend to go on like none of that happened."
Not Tiffany being her sister, not finding a mother in T'Pol, and not falling in love with Tommy. None of it is real and it's better to let it die.
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"Do you think there's a reason for these things? Why the breaches go the way they do?"
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For all her insistence that she was going to pretend nothing had been between them, there's still an ache in her at all that distance between them. This is going to take longer than she thought to shake.
"I don't know," she answers honestly, and she stands up again once he's sitting because she just- she can't be still. The staff comes off and she picks up the form she had abandoned, going through the motions of it as she thinks. "Maybe the Admiral thinks forcing people to experience things like this will change the inmates in some way that will make them better."
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So he takes a deep breath, watches her as she goes through those motions. "Have you ever had someone like that, Rey?"
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"No," she says it simply, easily, because it's the truth. "I've never had anyone."
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"It ended badly, right before I came here." Which makes this perhaps just as painful as it has been for her, but in a very different way. This was a reminder for Tommy how badly things had ended with Grace, instead of a list of taken firsts.
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It had been clear that she wasn't the only one struggling, and she hadn't ever thought of it in terms of who had been hurt worse, but now she realizes she had assumed he had taken it a little better than her.
But they really are on the same page, and thanks to Luke and Han she's reached a place where seeing someone she likes in pain has developed the urge to try to help. She's still not very good at being a form of support, but she'd done well enough in the past that they had been thankful after the fact.
Or maybe they had just accepted she was horrible at being nice and were giving her a pass for trying. Either way, against her better judgement she crosses the deck and puts her hand, delicately, on Tommy's shoulder. It's a big risk and she hates herself a little for making it after he'd already rejected the staff lessons, she should know better, but it's who she is now and not her memories of him during the breach that make it impossible to just let him sit there suffering.
"I'm sorry, Tommy." Her voice is even and soft, but not overcome with sympathy or too much emotion. There's sincerity, and that comes with a very gentle squeeze, but she's keeping this from getting too sentimental very much on purpose.
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So he hadn't expected this kind of sincere sentiment. It doesn't mean he doesn't flinch a little, hunch over so he can look at his folded hands, but it's not... bad. He isn't sure how to react to it, so he just lets the silence linger for a little while as he thinks on it.
"So now you understand a little more," he settles on, finally.
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"I do," she agrees, just to be sure they're on the same page and he knows he can maybe relax with this a little more. "I can... if you need space, I can do that."
As much as she doesn't want to lose one of the very few friends she's made on the barge, he's become important enough to her that she's okay with letting him take that decision out of her hands if it's going to help him process things better.
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And... the level of relief she feels when he says no is a little disturbing for her. She doesn't quite like this, becoming this attached to anyone at all, but it's inescapable and she has no idea what to do about it. Let it happen? She doesn't want to fight it, so that's really the only option.
"How often do things like that happen?" She asks instead of lingering on a topic that clearly causes him pain. "I didn't know it was possible for the entire ship to become somewhere else like that."
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"Every couple of months. This was my third one- first time around there were dinosaurs, last time it was the fucking Wild West."
And each time he's a crook. He swallows against that thought- at least this time he came closer to good than bad.
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