He didn't have hands, but he still needed to do work with his sort-of hands. So he took to decoding and typing on an old type-writer and enjoying the satisfying click click click ching! Like music to his ears.
Isadora, however, just took odd jobs. She did seem to prefer small, intricate working with her hands, though. So it was no surprise when he found her crocheting, sitting down in an overstuffed chair, in an alcove of the new VFD artic base, humming to herself some familiar tune.
"On break again?" he said, leaning over her chair.
"I'm doing a job." she said. The yarn was a baby blue, and looked amazingly soft, spun between her pale fingers so carefully.
"What, making a parachute for your mission tomorrow?" he said with a bit of a chuckle. She paused for a second, then went back to the crocheting.
"You know, I haven't gotten much info on it, what is this mission about?" he asked. She was never this quiet. She looked at him, her wide eyes accented by the dark circles around them.
"It's simple," she started. "We go down to where the old arctic base. Look around and see what there is to see, and come back. They keep thinking they missed something. They're not sure what, but it's something." She looked back down, continuing her crocheting. "Personally, I think they're obsessing. They've been down there so many times that there's nothing left to see."
"There's gotta be something." Fernald said. "Or else they wouldn't keep sending you there."
The was a silence. She was never this quiet. Never ever.
"I'll be gone for a while, you know." she said, never looking up.
"I know." he replied.
"3 weeks, tops."
"I know."
"I'll miss you."
A pause. He wanted to say I know again, but that wasn't it. That's something he didn't know.
The smile seemed to crawl back onto her lips. "I've gotten attached to you. I didn't really care much when I first went on the expeditions. But I like you now." She swung her legs in the chair, like she always would. "Hey Ferny."- He hated that nickname, but she sounded so sweet right now- "Scoot in closer, you got something on your face and I don't want you to stab it off." That was how she always was. Smirking, he leaned in closer to her, expecting her to draw a mustache on him or pinch his cheeks---
And he got a kiss straight on the lips instead.
For the seconds it lasted, he comprehended that he should be dead for this. She was a lot younger and he knew wrong from right, and for a while he did wrong because it felt right, but this wasn't right at all, and if her brothers or hell, anyone else in the base witness it he would have his ass kicked and be thrown out in the cold, but he did not give a damn about all of it. She tore away and dammit, he wanted more from her lips and the sweet gingerbread chapstick she had on them but she just shrugged and giggled and he realized he should probably go to bed before she forced even more sweet, sweet guilt onto him.
He slept peacefully that night, didn't wake until Isadora was long gone and as he slipped on his old overcoat, he noticed something on his desk. A baby blue scarf, intricately stitched together and had the odd smell of gingerbread chapstick all over it, like she was trying to transfer more delicious guilt onto him.
Sorta a sequel to "Kitchen Raids". I dunno. I NEED TO WRITE MORE GODDAMMIT. GIVE ME SUGGESTIONS.