A/N: beware, teeny ickle bits of shmexy ahead!
The noodle place was on the level just below the Archives. According to Gen, he came down there often to eat after spending some time reading or talking with Master Rahool. Min had never seen it before but then, she was starting to suspect there were Guardians many decades older who still had not seen everything the Tower had to offer.
Gen lingered at the archives, wanting to talk more with Ikora and Rahool, but the way he kept looking at both of them Min got the feeling he was trying to give them some time alone.
She didn't say much until they were seated at the table with bowls in front of them (Kalina didn't have styur again but what looked like a semi-congealed soup that looked even less appetizing than the gelatin cubes). Looking at the noodles in front of her, the Titan was reminded again of the half-finished bowl of stew the redhead had been eating at the bar.
It had all seemed so real and vivid. The smells, sounds- Ikora was definitely right. It was nothing like having a dream, even more sharp and realistic than experiencing a normal memory. She'd been there. She'd felt the stinging cold on her cheeks, in her lungs. The rush of warmth just stepping into the pub, and riding along with that warmth the smell of beer, bready yeast, sizzling meat, and grease.
Looking over her bowl at Kalina she realized the Hunter was poking at her food a bit too, looking glum. Min's brows wrinkled in hesitant concern.
"Are you very angry with me?" she asked.
Kalina looked a little startled at first, then sat back. "No, I'm not angry with you," she said. "I mean, you shocked me a little. I wish you could have warned me but…was it like the first one? The one that Morn triggered, I mean?"
"Yes. I just- I felt cold, and I just kept thinking that if I took a breath I was going to die. My ears were ringing and it felt like the world was going away, and then I thought about our conversation last night. I figured it was worth a shot-"
Kalina's concerned look broke a little, a wry and amused smile coming out, and Min broke off with a faint laugh. "Sorry. Pun not intended."
"I get it," Kalina said. "It was smart to do, but also kind of strange. I mean, not that it worked but- but how it worked."
"What do you mean?"
"Well, the memory you saw, what you described- it wasn't really unpleasant, was it? I would have thought if you were having a panic attack about something then offed yourself to go Thanatonauting through your own mind, the memory that you'd experience would be the one that was literally causing the panic attack- wouldn't it? I mean, is my logic off?"
"I don't know," Min said. "I don't think it is. It makes sense, yes."
"So why wasn't it? The flashbacks may not be, but I would think the panic attacks like that one surround some really traumatic memories, most likely memories of dying the first time. But there wasn't any of that. Instead you went to what sounds like a fairly pleasant evening at a pub."
"You definitely didn't die in a pub," Lev said. "And if that pub was in St. Petersburg, you didn't die there, either. Not unless after you died someone piled your body into a car and drove with it halfway across Russia to the Cosmodrome."
Min stirred her noodles again, chewing this over in her mind a moment. "It was cold," she said at last. "Outside the pub, I mean. That's the only thing that matches. I keep getting so cold during these memories and it was cold that night. Nothing else matches."
"Mike matches," Kalina pointed out. Min gave a commiserating gesture.
"Yes, but I don't even know if it's the same Mike. All I know is there was a Mike there, and it was cold."
Reaching out, Kalina put her hand over Minerva's. "We'll figure it out. Now that poor Lev and I know what to expect we won't be taken off guard when you decide to shatter that pretty head of yours and go waltzing through your past history."
"While I have to clean up the mess, I might add," Lev said. "I know it's my function, but mopping up your brains is not exactly my favorite activity. I'd rather do it as little as possible."
"I will try and be more considerate when I kill myself in the future," Min told him, and Kalina laughed. They turned back to their food, but when Minerva looked back up at Kalina again a moment later, that sullen, brooding expression was back on her face, and she was more stirring her food than eating it.
"Kalina, are you ok?" Min asked. "Are you sure you're not angry?"
"I'm not angry, Min," she said, then sighed. "But no, I'm not exactly ok, it's-…complicated."
"I don't mind complicated," Min told her.
"That's lucky," Kalina said softly, her face warming a little before her brows knit again. "I don't really want to talk about it here. Let's finish eating and go to the Den, ok?"
"Sure."
They fell into silence again as they finished their meal. Min, who had been pretty hungry when they'd sat down, suddenly found her appetite seemed to have deserted her. Filing through everything that could be bothering the Hunter she found herself thinking again about the night before. Was that the source of Kalina's upset? Min didn't think so, everything had been mutual and enthusiastic, but some small lingering doubt would not be banished.
She managed to finish the noodles and as they headed for the lift to the Den Kalina reached out and took Minerva's hand. Min held hers back with some relief, as that niggling little doubt loosened its grip.
If not that, then what?
They stepped into the Den, and Kalina dropped Min's hand, going over to the ramshackle bar and starting to dig out some beers. "Binky, sweetie, would you mind going incognito?" Kalina asked. As the Ghost shimmered and vanished into her tag, Lev turned to Min, who gave him a nod.
As he vanished as well Min went over and accepted one of the beers.
"I'm not angry at you, Mini," Kalina said, opening her beer but not taking a drink. "I'm not…well, I guess I am a bit angry but there's more to it than that. I mean, we went to the moon once, and I don't know about you but it seems to me we came back again on the wings of sheer dumb luck. Tychon died on that moon. Died, Min, for well and good. That's not supposed to happen."
She touched the wolf brooch at her neck a moment, and noticing the gesture Min said, "And SIVA."
"Yes! Those damned Fallen with SIVA! Don't get me wrong, I think being asked to be an Iron Wolf is amazing and I would accept again a thousand times over, but the only reason that Saladin needs Iron Wolves is because pretty much all the original Iron Lords are dead. Just as dead and just as permanently as Tychon. We barely have time to catch our breath and then we're getting called back here to find out that they're just going to send you to the moon again? A place we barely got away from, only this time they want us to tackle a fucking god in some kind of alternate dimension where paracausal abilities don't work? Oh, and to even get to him we have to kill some bitch who can kill us in an instant just by singing a song?"
Minerva shook her head firmly. "No, not we-"
Kalina's hand slapped down on the bar-top so hard the whole thing shook and nearly went over. "Don't! Don't start with that! Don't you see I'm not afraid that we will die, I'm afraid that you will!"
Minerva blinked at her, more for the show of temper than anything else. Warmth filled her chest that Kalina was so concerned for her well-being, but it was almost lost in a far more bitter emotion that threatened to choke her. She'd felt this way back on the moon when Kalina had kept trying to go first. She'd felt it again when she'd looked down at Kalina dead on the steps of the Temple just yesterday afternoon.
Perhaps misreading the surprise on Minerva's face Kalina pressed her hand to her forehead, then over her mouth. "Mini, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to shout, I just-…I'm trying to tell you that I care about you, you big galoot! I don't see how it's possible for you to go back up to that moon to kill this Crota and not end up like Tychon, or the Iron Lords. Even the Vanguard don't believe it! You heard Zavala's voice when he asked us to go to the moon the first time. He didn't think we'd make it out. I don't- I don't think we can pull that off again and- stop looking at me like that! Yes, we. We. We're a fireteam, and where you go, Gen and I go."
She lifted the beer and drained half of it in one go, then set it down again with a careful decorum. "We're going with you," she said, softly. "But I know that we can't go with you all the way. I know that, Min. So does Gen. There's something special about you. No one understands what it is- even you don't, I know that- but it's there. It's what let you survive the Deathsong down in that pit. I know the Vanguard and Morn are right; that this invasion needs to be stopped and to do that, Crota needs to be killed. And I know that you are the only one who has a chance can get past that Choir Mistress alive to take him out. That's what's killing me, Minerva. I can go with you but I can't go with you all the way. If we're lucky enough to get that far, there's going to be a point where I'm…we're going to have to stop and watch as you go on without us, and there's nothing we can do."
Min stepped around the bar and as she put her hand on Kalina's shoulder the Hunter turned into her and hugged her tightly. Almost immediately she let her go again, grabbing Min's hand and leading her over to the old squashy sofas.
Min didn't resist when Kalina pushed her down into a sit, the Hunter straddling her lap and kissing her with almost bruising force. It never even came into her mind to resist.
Afterward, Min lounging back on the squashy old sofa with Kalina spilled over her, she tried to think of something particularly witty and romantic to say, but all that would come out was, "What is a galoot?"
Kalina lifted her head, her mussed hair hanging in her face, and gave Min such a look of adorable confusion that Minerva couldn't help but laugh. Kalina's face broke into a grin as well.
"Seriously? That's what you're thinking about right now?" she asked, and Minerva shrugged a little.
"Why, is there something more important I should be thinking of?" she asked, then squealed as Kalina half tickled, half pinched her over the ribs.
"You!" the Hunter said with mock indignation. "You are a galoot, and you've just proven it again!"
"We can't all be amazing Hunters," Min said, and Kalina let out a thoughtful tsk.
"This is true." She smiled again, more gently than before. "You think I'm amazing?"
"You? I was referring to Cayde-AH!"
Kalina pinched her again and there was a momentary struggle punctuated with laughter until Min finally caught hold of Kalina's wrists and refused to let them go.
"I do think you're amazing," Min said after Kalina had surrendered. The Hunter grinned, then gently kissed her. Min released her wrists and wound her arms back around the Hunter. When they'd caught their breath again, she brushed some of that dark blue hair back from Kalina's face.
"I think you're pretty amazing too," Kalina told her.
"Since when?" Min asked, genuinely curious.
"Since always," Kalina said, wrinkling her nose. When Min gave her a slightly skeptical look she lifted her brows. "It's true. Back in the Cosmodrome, just after you were born? You were half-frozen, more than half-dead on your feet, barely able to move, but the moment you turned around and saw me what did you do?"
"I tried to hit you," Minerva said dryly. "Wait. You're not one of those people that likes to be smacked around, are you?"
Kalina giggled again, shaking her head. "No, I don't like being smacked around, but that's beside the point. The point was, Min, you were weak, nearly dead, but you weren't going to go without a fight. That's how I knew you were a Titan, but that's also how I knew you were amazing."
"Go on now."
"It's the Traveller's own truth," Kalina said. "That, and I seem to have a thing for tall, blonde, nearly dead Russian popsicles. Who knew?"
Remembering the look that Gen had given them when they'd parted ways outside the Archive, Min's brows knit. "Gen knows, doesn't he?"
Kalina colored a little, her smile suddenly bashful. "Yyyyeah, kinda."
"Kinda?"
"Well, he…sort of noticed I was mooning over you a bit and kind of became all big brother about it. I don't know if you've noticed but he's remarkably smart and perceptive for a warlock."
"Yeah, they're real idiots, those warlocks." Min joked, winding some of Kalina's hair over her finger, then unwinding it, becoming thoughtful again. "I guess I'm really the idiot here, aren't I?"
"What on Earth do you mean?"
"I didn't notice," Minerva said. Kalina snorted.
"I didn't want you to notice," she said.
"Why not?"
"Don't you remember? We talked about this last night. Cayde's going to fire me for fraternizing with a Titan."
Min smiled, but didn't let her deflect. "C'mon, Kal. What's the real reason?"
"I don't know, I just…" she blushed again, and Min blinked.
"You were bashful?"
"Shh! I have a reputation!"
"That's it? You were just bashful?"
"Well, why didn't you say anything?" Kalina asked. "I'm amazing remember? You had to be smitten right away too. Be honest."
"Me? We've already established I'm an imperceptive galoot!"
"Oh, so you do know what galoot means!"
Kalina flipped her hair out of her face, made as if she was going to bite Minerva's nose, and they both broke down into laughter again. When it faded, however, Kalina's brows suddenly wavered, her eyes going a little gloss.
"Kal?"
"I'm ok," she said, and laid her head down on Min's chest again. "I just really hope that Morn is right. I just really hope that you truly are the only one that can kill Crota and come back alive."