Disclaimer: I don't own, and the world is probably really grateful.
Starring: Kwai Chang Caine/Mary Margaret
Author's Note: Because he just acts so ethereal-ish, as if he's on a different plane of existence altogether.
Summary: The problem is, he's an ancient relic and she's a modern gizmo.
_o0
She's sitting there, drumming her fingers on the worn countertop and staring at the window. Her coffee is cold; the empty cream packages have made tiny little puddles on the scratched red surface while the old checkered plate boasts crumbs from a Danish that was not on her diet and a crumpled napkin. Her coat is warm, warmer then whatever he is wearing in the cold wet of late November. The rain is quiet against the thrum of the heater and the soft monotonous voice of the interviewer on the radio behind the diner counter.
The waitress has been, for the last hour, polishing the counter, placing water worn glasses up in tacky stained cabinets and has flipped through two different magazines ("Newest Alien Experiments at Area 51!" and "Is it Cancer?"). She, on the other hand, has been sitting at her table, drumming her fingers and staring out into the night. The serving girl, probably no older then twenty-two hasn't come back after she offered to refresh her coffee, knows instinctually what is happening.
He's not coming. It is her first thought after the clock (a neon light contraption at the end of the diner) strikes a hour after the already promised date and time. She knows she hasn't confused the hour or the day, their private evenings out are so few, scattered like the dust bunnies underneath her bed. He may show up in another hour or so, the diner is open all day, every day, but she's beginning to wonder if she wants to wait for him.
These occurrences are never intentional. He is simply too genteel to be rude. It was one of the things that had attracted her to him, his ability to simply open doors, pull out chairs, think before speaking, and ask for her opinion. Characteristics like that were becoming increasingly difficult to find in a partner these days, and she had done her fair share of trailing and searching. She understands his commitments to the people of Chinatown, and probably the whole world, it's the commitments of a cop – to serve and defend. But she is beginning to wonder if she'll ever have a part in his world of good.
She doesn't understand why when he looks at her; it feels like he's not looking at her. It's obvious that he hasn't been with a woman in any way in many years, but she notices a twitch sometimes that crosses his face. Instinctually she wants to apologize but she always stops herself, like when she's almost going to fall of the edge of her bed in her sleep, because she knows that she hasn't done anything worth apologizing for. She wants to be recognized for something more then a woman with breasts and skirts fit sugly over legging clad hips and long, curly hair. She wants to be seen sometimes as somebody with an attitude and assertiveness, not as a reflection of somebody that was before. She just wants to hold onto the good that he embodies.
The problem is, he's an ancient relic and she's a modern gizmo, and the chasm that hovers between them is too far to cross sometimes. She will never bring up the before, even though she has heard snippets – rumors, memories that Peter will bring up sometimes- of the temple and the wife and the lost years. He will never ask her of the men that she knows he knows she sees when the chasm is too wide between them. He will not ask her why she sits there and lets the lost years hurt him, and why she continues to wait in faded diners late at night for him to appear.
The coffee is cold to her lips.
"Hey – Denise?" she calls. The girl looks up from her mopping. "Can I have a refill? And one of those watchamacallits?"
"Sure thing ma'am. What kinda Danish do you want?" she calls back over her shoulder as she moves towards the coffee carafe station.
"Something sweet."
"You got it!"
She wants proof that the world is good. But she is beginning to wonder if she needs him to see it.