love is always patient
[After Chapter 18 of The Toll]
The superior officer's bedroom in the VOQ suite at Briggs was arranged exactly as it always was, although Roy had confirmed it with cane and hands. He dumped the Brigg's information packet and some reports, all in night writing, on the table at the far end of the room from the door. His garment bag with the spare uniforms he found in the closet and his suitcase was open on the bed, both right where Hawkeye had put them.
He thought of her standing next to the bed, but Roy knew where that line of thought would go, so he sat down at the table and picked up one of the reports. It was Falman's "book" on Cretan military history, very long, and he'd only gotten ten pages into it so far. Another two pages of dates and battles and the succession of kings and he was ready to unpack.
As Roy set insignia and gloves and handkerchiefs and underwear away in drawers, he fretted over Warrant Officer Karley. For the first time since they'd figured out the whole setup with the earpiece, he was nervous about wearing it. Usually, it made him nervous if he couldn't wear it, unless he was somewhere like home or his office in East HQ. He took it out of his ear and set it on his bedside table.
It was still fairly early, just 2030, so he went through the tiny office to the main room of the suite, with its bookshelves and conference table, hoping Hawkeye would be there.
"Here, sir," she said as he entered the room. Roy stood at the table across from her voice and ran his left hand over a 3-D map of the border area with Creta that was on the table.
"Trees," he said, "nothing but trees."
"Um-hmm," she said.
He heard a page turn. "What are you reading?" he asked.
"A cookbook. You like mutton stew, don't you?"
"I don't mind it. That's not the same thing," he answered. "But you surprise me, Captain. If you're reading a cookbook, shouldn't it at least be about Cretan dishes?"
Hawkeye turned another page. "I'm sick and tired of Creta right now. I'm expanding my horizons, sir."
Roy laughed. "We haven't even gotten to Creta yet and you're already bored with it? Besides, how is reading a cookbook on Eastern cooking expanding your horizons?"
"It's a cookbook, isn't it?" she answered and reached across the table to put Roy's right hand to her face. He read the arch of her eyebrow and her smile, but then he kept his hand there, so she gently took it down herself.
He sighed, then asked, "Would you mind getting me something hot to drink, Captain?"
"I'll see if they have anything besides coffee, sir," Hawkeye said as she left the room.
Roy went back to the map of Creta. His hands followed the border south to where the trees actually stopped. He found the distance legend and calculated the distance of the border without trees. 25 miles. He was estimating the distance between Riviere and the nearest Briggs company when Hawkeye came back in with two cups of hot cider.
She put one cup in his right hand. "Ahh," he said, feeling the warmth of the cider. Roy hadn't realized how chilly it was until he felt the heat from the cup on his hands. He sat down and took a sip that almost burned his tongue and that felt good too.
"Read to me, Captain," he said, but it was a request, not an order.
"What do you want me to read, sir?" Hawkeye asked.
"Just what you're reading," he said. "The recipe for mutton stew."
"Oh, I've moved past that. Now I'm reading about lamb cutlets."
"That's fine too."
Roy leaned his elbows on the table and sipped his cider while he listened to Hawkeye read recipes. Every once in a while, as she read, he got up and re-read another part of a 3-D map on the table or touched the hyacinths in the vase.
After a while, his cider was gone and she was quiet. When Roy listened, it sounded like Hawkeye had dozed off. It had been a long day and he should be as sleepy as she was, but he wasn't.
"Captain," he said. "Wake up. You need to go to bed." And despite the suggestive sound of that, it just made him think of ordering her to go to sleep that first day in the hospital after the events of the Promised Day. "Captain!"
"Sorry, sir," she said, stirring. "It looks like we were in the middle of roast potatoes."
"You are in the middle of going to bed, Captain. Hand me the book. I'll finish it by myself."
She handed him the book, which was in normal printing of course.
Roy opened it, looking for all the world like he was reading it. With his hands.
Hawkeye laughed at the sight. "You know, you're amazing sir."
"That's what everyone says," Roy agreed. "Did you know that there's enough variation in the thickness of the ink that I can actually make out some of these words?"
"Really?" she said. "Then why are you holding it upside down?"
"Shit," he said and turned the book around. Roy hadn't expected Hawkeye to believe him, but it had ruined the effect.
"Just kidding, sir," she said. "You had it right before."
"Clearly, I am completely unable to trust you, Captain," he said. "So you're using the bathroom first?"
There were two doors into the bathroom: one opening onto the officer's bedroom and one opening onto the staff sleeping quarters, with its four twin beds. And the staff quarters also had a door on the main room of the suite.
"Yes sir," Hawkeye said. "Where should I knock when I'm done?"
"I'll stay in here," he said. "Knock on the door to this room." Roy wasn't going to be in his bedroom, just one door away from her while she took a shower.
"Actually, wait here a minute while I grab Falman's report," he said. "I want to catch up on my Kings of Creta while you're in there."
Roy had finished another fifteen pages when he heard the knock on the door from the staff quarters. He had to counter a suggestion that popped into his mind to go around to the other side of the table and try the door to where Hawkeye would be sleeping. He had a lot of practice countering such suggestions. He touched the hyacinths and smelled them one more time, then opened the door to his own quarters.
He went through the tiny office and when he was in the bedroom, Roy turned the lock on that door, just as he knew Hawkeye would have done for the door to the staff quarters. In an emergency, between his alchemy and her guns, the locks would be no barrier at all. But otherwise, they were an aid. To a patience they'd both practiced for many years now.
By the time he'd washed up himself and gotten in bed, though, Roy didn't have to keep his mind on Cretan history. He thought of blue hyacinths and Hawkeye reading the cookbook as sleep took him.