Note: I'm not too sure about the pacing, but I think it's okay. Maybe.
Beta-reader: Bardicfaerie.
Chapter summary: Morgan gets used to Reid's quirkiness.
Chapter 02
As soon as he had his passengers all settled in, Morgan let himself flop into his control chair and started up the engines. He wasn't going to awaken the Aurora just yet, so he was going to fly manual on his way up into space. He didn't want to attract any attention from the local P-reps by going above the speed limit. Especially this close to Kaltek.
There was no trouble at all flying above the city and into the night air. All of this was pretty easy; he'd done it a million times before and he had no trouble avoiding the P-reps. He knew when there were the most of them, and when the bored officials would be more likely to cut their patrols short. Before too long, they were sailing way above the planet. Still a little too close for Morgan to feel comfortable going above the limit, but it was tempting. He had only had a couple of hours of sleep, and it was nearly the time when he usually woke up. The thought of just speeding away to some quiet corner of space so he could lie down for a couple hours seemed more and more enticing.
He heard the door open behind him and he turned his head, not entirely happy at the thought of having one of his two weird passengers intrude in on his personal space. The kid peeked in. When he noticed Morgan sitting at the controls, he faltered slightly. "Oh," he said, "I'm sorry, I, I didn't mean to intrude. I was merely curious, I've never had the chance to travel off-planet before."
"S'all right, Kid," Morgan lied. "I didn't expect you to still be up. What time is it anyway?"
The kid – Reid, Morgan reminded himself; some-weird-first-name Reid – looked at his wrist where an old-fashioned wristwatch hung loosely, "Assuming you mean the time it is now down at our departure site, then it is currently five thirty-three in the morning."
Morgan blinked. "Huh," he said, as nothing else came to mind. He was too surprised that Reid had answered his rhetorical question, and slightly uncomfortable with the kid's weird speech pattern. He wondered briefly if all of the graduates from the University spoke like him. He hadn't encountered too many of his kind, so he wasn't sure. And who even wore wristwatches anymore?
Reid stood there, blocking the door, preventing it from closing. He was looking all around the cockpit, eyes taking in all of the controls and panels. Morgan had no choice but to leave him to it. He regretted having lied to the kid now. He kind of wished he would leave. He navigated for a while, but once they had left the planet's gravity and all of the space junk behind, there wasn't much to do at all. He just had to set his course and slow down the ship so that he had time to wake up and react if anything came their way. It wouldn't do to just go to bed only to end up pulverized by an asteroid. Satisfied that he wouldn't have any surprise upon awakening from his nap, Morgan pushed himself up and turned around. The kid was still standing there, gawking. He was just so, so strange. Derek had no idea how to deal with him. At all. "Uh, Kid," he said after a moment, "it's not that I'm not happy to see you like the ship and all, but I'd kind of like to take a nap."
"Of course," Reid said. And didn't move.
Morgan waited for him to catch the hint. And waited.
"Reid," he spoke the name uncertainly, unsure that he remembered right. When the younger man turned his head in his direction, he said, "You're blocking the only doorway. I'm not going to sleep in the cockpit."
"Oh," Reid shifted uncomfortably, "I'm sorry, I didn't realize..."
"S'all right," Morgan said with a chuckle, "no harm done. You should try and catch some Zs too. Innit past your bedtime by now?"
Reid gave him an awkward half-shrug. Morgan walked closer and the kid turned and started heading down the hallway. Morgan's room was the one closest to the cockpit and he flicked his fingers over the panel that would open his door. Just as it slid open, he heard a soft, "Good night, ah..."
"Morgan," he replied, turning to find Reid in front of his own quarters, looking at something in the general vicinity of his shoes. "Name's Morgan."
"I know," Reid said, "I just wasn't sure which name you felt more comfortable using. Some people view the use of first names as entirely too personal for new acquaintances, while others find the use of family names to be voluntarily distancing themselves from people they would rather just not know better. I just wanted to be certain not to offend you. Good night, Morgan." With that, he opened his own door and disappeared inside his room. Morgan stared after him for a moment, then shook his head. Okay, Rothschild might be a total creep but this Reid kid? He was just weird. Like, wacko weird, only in a totally harmless way.
The nap was most welcome, and he woke up feeling refreshed. He hit the exercise room first, then the shower. Next stop was the lounge and kitchen area where he had coffee and breakfast. Professor Creep came in as Morgan was leaving and he nodded in greeting but didn't initiate a conversation. He much preferred to be left alone in his control room. Hopefully the kid wouldn't try to come back in. Just to make sure, he locked the door. That done, he went to sit at the controls, put on his favourite musical playlist and checked their positions. Well, they ought to be far enough from anyone to speed things up a bit. He set it up so the speed would be gradual, so that the effect of the increased speed wouldn't be detectable by the passengers. He didn't want the guests he had aboard to know the inner workings of his ship. He wasn't usually so cautious, but if someone like Rothschild had heard of the Aurora because of his carelessness, it was a mistake he wasn't going to repeat. By mid-morning, he awakened the Sleeping Beauty and pushed his baby beyond the laws of physics. And it felt good. A bit like shutting up the kid who had that protested this speed would be completely impossible. Okay, so he wouldn't actually know that Morgan and the Aurora had proven him wrong, but it was the principle of the thing.
It was smooth flying. Around noon, he started getting hungry so he gradually slowed the ship down to the speed he reserved for when he wasn't sitting at the controls. Nothing in space ever stayed in place, so it was just a matter of going slow enough that you had time to react to things coming your way. Things that, generally speaking, would also be moving slowly. He checked their coordinates, flicked the quick menu option that said he was stepping away from the controls, and went in search of sustenance.
He strode into the kitchen and walked over his cooler, wondering what he was going to eat for lunch. A quick survey of the contents and he selected one of the many pre-packaged full meals, which he brought over to his oven. He'd just placed the package inside, when a shuffling sound behind him made him turn around. His young passenger was walking into the room, dressed in a long-sleeved shirt, loose sleeping pants and mismatched socks. His wavy hair was sticking in every direction and his eyes were barely even open. He had clearly just rolled out of bed. At lunchtime.
"Werza coffee?" the kid mumbled.
The one word that Morgan did understand was enough, and he pointed towards the coffee machine. "You could've just set it up from the hand-held in your room, you know."
"Dunno how i'works," was his reply, and he had to blink a few times, certain he had heard that one wrong. Kid was a genius and didn't know how to use a hand-held?! Who didn't use those anymore? Even his grandmother swore by hers, and she was 93.
The kid was at the coffee machine, but he was just staring at it from the one eye he had half-open. Morgan observed him for a bit, then he finally moved closer. "Just go sit at the table, I'll start it up for you. How many sugars?"
"Two," the kid began, making his way to the table, but then he changed his mind, "No, wait. Six."
Morgan lifted an eyebrow but selected the six teaspoons of sugar. "Cream?"
"Three," came the muffled response. The kid was sitting across from Morgan's preferred seat, his head on the table, pillowed on one elbow while his other arm was stretched out before him. Across the table. Over to Derek's usual spot.
Morgan selected the right amount of cream, then moved over to the oven to finally start heating up his meal. While it cooked, he leaned against the counter, observing the younger man. Odd didn't even begin to describe him. Morgan hadn't met many of those from more privileged backgrounds who could afford a higher education, but he was pretty sure that even for them, this kid was just weird. A soft beep, and he turned back to the oven to retrieve his food. He carried it over to the table and stood awkwardly, kind of wanting to ask the boy to move so he could sit at his usual place.
"Uh, Kid..." he said tentatively, but that elicited no response whatsoever. He felt kind of silly and childish, wanting his personal spot, so after a moment, he moved one chair over and sat down. The boy didn't stir. It wasn't until the smell of coffee started permeating the air, that the kid finally came alive. There was no other word for it. He suddenly jerked and straightened up in his seat, blinking blearily around until his gaze zeroed in on the coffee machine.
Morgan couldn't stifle an amused snort as Reid got up and went to collect his mug from the machine, a desperate look in his eyes. He didn't even wait to get back to the table to take his first sip, but took it standing up right where he was. He inhaled first and gave a satisfied sigh, then brought the mug to his lips. A moment later, he jerked. "Ow, ah, ow! Burned my tongue!"
"Careful," Morgan couldn't help but tease him a little. "It's hot. It's, you know, coffee."
Reid sent him a look over the rim of his mug. He kept it in front of him, like the very scent of it would be enough to wake him up, but he didn't attempt to drink it again just yet. Morgan stole glances at him while he ate, unsure what to think of his younger customer. On the one hand, he was travelling with Mister Oily, so he didn't really trust him. But there was something strangely endearing about the guy. He couldn't quite put his finger on it, but there was something about him.
Reid finally came back to sit at the table and placed his mug down carefully. Then he just sort of sat there like a zombie. Soon afterwards, Rothschild came in. Morgan went back to his food. He suddenly didn't feel like talking much, anymore. The Professor started preparing a meal for himself, and Derek just finished his before the man could sit at the table. He cleaned up quickly and retreated back to his cockpit. He didn't lock the door this time.
After that, it became a sort of routine between them. Around noon, Morgan would go to the kitchen to prepare lunch and make coffee for Reid. He set the machine so the kid could just flick one button and he'd have a cup prepared exactly as he liked it. It was clear pretty soon that just one mugful wasn't enough to wake him up, so by setting it up this way, he was sure the kid could have however many cups he required without having to fight with the machine. Around five minutes after Derek, Reid would wander into the main room, grab his mug and drink it at the table as Morgan ate. Then, a half hour later, Rothschild would come in and Morgan would leave. They didn't talk much, but when he was with Reid, the silence was comfortable, somehow. Reid didn't come into the cockpit again.
Nearly a week into their travel, Morgan went to get lunch and was surprised to find Reid already at the table, awake and alert. He had a cup of coffee in his hand, but it was clear that it wasn't his first. "Good morning, Morgan," the younger man said in greeting.
"Mornin', sleepyhead," Morgan replied with a grin. "You know it's not exactly morning anymore, right?"
Reid shrugged, "I tend to be more nocturnal than the majority of people."
"Yeah, I noticed," Morgan said. He didn't know why, but he kind of felt like ruffling the kid's unruly hair. He didn't. "And you sure love your coffee."
That seemed to be the right thing to say, because Reid's face lit up. "Did you know that coffee was first discovered on the African continent of Earth and has been used as a stimulating beverage as early as the 9th century PSA? Which was then called AD, that is Anno Domini, meaning 'the year of our Lord' in medieval Latin. You see, at the time, most of the European continent followed a religion that followed the teaching of a man that they believed was an incarnation of their god, whom they called simply their Lord, and the era that we now refer as Pre-Space Age was calculated from the approximate year of his birth. Actually, some denomination of the religion banned coffee because it was originally used in religious ceremonies of different local religions. The first reliable mention of coffee dates from the 15th century however and the first coffee house opened in 1554 PSA, in the city of Constantinople."
When he paused for breath, Morgan said, "You do know I won't remember any of this tomorrow, right?"
Reid blinked at him and opened his mouth to say something, but right then, Professor Rothschild walked in and Morgan quickly made his exit, his head swimming with thoughts of old cities he had previously never even heard of, coffee, and some weird Pre-Space Age religion. He remembered Rossi telling him the kid was some sort of genius and he couldn't help but wonder how he could retain all of this information in the first place.
He had just started increasing the speed of their craft, when the door behind slid open. He half turned, though he was pretty sure the person behind him would be Reid. He gave him a slight wave, then pointed to the seat next to him. That earned him a closed-mouth smile, something that looked both happy and embarrassed at the same time. Reid slid into the seat and peered curiously at all the controls. "I'm sorry about earlier," he said after a moment. "I know I tend to ramble a lot. I just get a little excited about things."
"It's all right, Kid," Morgan said, sending him a smile to show he meant it, before returning to his control panel. After a moment, he added, "I don't mind the whole speech thing, I just know I won't remember any of it. I'm amazed you can even know all that stuff."
"It's called eidetic memory," Reid replied. "For me, it applies to things I read. It basically means that whatever I read is imprinted in my brain forever."
Morgan threw him a look. "That sounds like something that'd be really useful to a scholar."
Reid nodded, but he didn't say anything for a long time, merely looking forward at the wide empty space in front of them. Once it was clear to him that Morgan didn't mind his presence, he excused himself for a moment and went to get a bag from his room, and slid down into the co-pilot's chair once more. From his bag, he took out an old-type reading pad, the kind that was rigid and didn't roll in on itself like the newer ones. It probably didn't even feature eye-tracking technology. He started reading. Morgan couldn't keep up with the words flying on the screen, but Reid seemed to be able to, his lips moving silently as he read. The afternoon passed quietly.
This was added to their routine. For the second week of the trip, they'd meet in the kitchen area, have lunch and coffee together, then Reid would sit next to him in the cockpit and read. Morgan found that he didn't mind his presence at all. It was rather nice, really. He had no idea what Rothschild was doing, and frankly, he didn't care. Sometimes, the younger man would tell him about the things he read, and Morgan's mind was nearly spinning from all the information. He ended up learning about tons of things he had never thought he would care to know about. It should have made him feel kind of stupid, but Reid was so unassuming in his manners and didn't treat him like an idiot, so he was somehow fine with it.
At the end of the second week, they were nearing a supply space station and Morgan knew he'd have to stop by to buy food and fuel to last until the next one. When they got there, however, they had to wait to dock, which was unusual in this out of the way station that was never near capacity. But unusual or not, he needed to refuel, and he wasn't carrying anything illegal, so everything was under control. Or so he thought.