Author's Notes: As with many things, I blame Thescarredman, a prolific, skilled, and incisive writer here on FanFiction. On Cyborg Central, the Gunslinger Girl forum off-site, we nicknamed the maid seen occasionally in Director Lorenzo's office as 'Tea,' given that she provides tea service during his meetings. One recent day, we were on the chat wondering about her story, and I proposed the following. TSM was the one who brought her up first, so blame him.
Angelica liked to sneak into the kitchen at the Agency. They fed her enough, but all the tests, all the exertion left her feeling famished by the end of the day. She was lonely. Occasionally, her augmented ears heard murmurs of "another cyborg," but for now, she was the only one.
She smiled. She was the first one. She was the only one. And, while she wished she had someone else with whom to talk, to train, and maybe even to play, she bore weeks and months without a peer. Oh, everyone treated her wonderfully. She felt like they paid more attention to her than a princess.
Angelica closed her eyes and imagined the prince from Marco's story. The Prince of Pasta. Someone so great and loved, yet so lonely. He wandered the land and found friends wherever he went, but never did he find someone with whom to share pasta. She looked at her hand, petite, slender, and able to punch through a wooden door. She spread her fingers, and imagined them as the tines of a fork.
The Pasta Prince had the only fork in the land, and without another fork, no one could share a meal with him.
A slightly odd gait sounded beyond the kitchen door. The Agency only had a baker's dozen of men and women, and she thought she knew the sound for all their footfalls. This one was slow, with a slight scuffing of one foot. The tread was light, and the breathing normal.
Curious, Angelica hid between the restaurant-sized refrigerator and the commercial dishwasher. It afforded her a view of half the kitchen, the half where her visitor would enter.
The stranger did. The woman was dressed in a maid's uniform, modest and clean. Her eyes were half-lidded, and a gentle smile on her face led Angelica to believe she was happily in her own memories. Angelica thought back to the first time she fired her pistol, how she hit the black center-of-mass zone. She recalled how pleased she was when Marco complimented her. Angelica's smile was as warm as the one this newcomer wore.
A faint clink of china brought her back to the now. The woman, a young lady actually, set down a serving tray. On it was a teapot and a single cup. Still happily in her own world, the lady set about to boil some water. A tea kettle from a shelf. Water from a waiting pitcher. As the kettle sat on the range, she brought the tray closer.
She was going to wash the tea service, right next to Angelica.
Angelica hurriedly debated whether to greet her, or to simply stay still and hope the young woman didn't notice her. She thought that perhaps emerging to greet the maid might startle her. That in turn might cause her to drop the tray and harm the fine china. So, the little girl stayed still.
With that slightly impeded stride, the woman started to wash the cup. Angelica smiled to herself. She made the right decision; she might even be unnoticed the whole time. As she waited, an imp-like smile on her face, the refrigerator sang to her. Oh, what leftovers might greet her...
However, this was a vain hope as a spoon dropped on her shoulder. It clattered under the exposed sink and pipes, but it came to rest not more than an arm's reach from her. She could not remain hidden; surely she would be discovered, and discovered told to go back to her dormitory room.
The young lady bent down picked up the spoon. Her half-lidded eyes slowly swept once over Angelica as she arose from her crouch. She didn't acknowledge the little girl, neither with eye contact, or a conspiratorial edge to her smile. Instead, her face remained smiling; it was the same smile she wore when she entered.
Angelica emerged from her blind and regarded the young lady. The latter was washing by rote, with her hands moving slowly, making the same motions as many times as needed, then proceeding to the next motion.
She acted more like a robot than a person.
Angelica looked at her own arms. She had mechanical limbs, but her core, her mind was still human. This other person, with her fixed smile and slow, repeated motion, could be the same.
"Hello?" Her curiosity overcame her caution.
"Oh, I didn't see you there." The woman's voice was flatter than a normal voice, but not the steady monotone she expected. The words were slightly slurred and the pace uneven.
"Sorry, I didn't mean to scare you."
"Oh, I wasn't scared. I … uh, didn't expect someone to there." Her brow wrinkled slightly as she seemed to struggle with that simple sentence. "I'm Fiona. What's your name?"
"Angelica. It's a pleasure to meet you."
She paused, her mouth open to reply, but frozen. "What does that mean?"
"Um, it's something people say to be nice." Her affect to her voice wasn't just flatter, but she tended to end her sentences with an odd emphasis, one that wasn't common. It wasn't normal.
"Oh. Then I guess I say it's a pleasure to meet you, too."
Angelica brightened her a smile and nodded.
The other lady just turned her head slowly from the teacup in her hand and Angelica. "Uh, will you be my friend?"
"I'd love to!"
"That's good. That makes me happy." The kettle started an airy wheeze, and it grew to a full whistle. "Uh, I should go. The Director doesn't like it when other people see me. Can you not tell him?"
"Sure! That will be our secrets. That's what friends do: we keep each other's secrets."
"All right. Good bye." With that, she turned and tended to the wailing kettle.
Her eyes, her smile, they did not change the whole time.