"Gifts"
Flowers were inappropriate. They were supposed to evoke her sensuality, after all, with their softness and their sweetness, but her hands were rough from the trigger's scrape, and she smelled always of gunpowder and ink. And there was always that bit of uneasiness in the back of his mind, his scientist's mind – he could never look at a flower without thinking of what its purpose was. And that was an uncomfortable thought, when applied to her. She was above such crude symbolism.
And she'd never had a sweet tooth, for him to bring her chocolates. A bit of sugar to chase away her tea's bitterness, perhaps, but that filled up the quotient for the day. And what else could he give her? A wine would go undrunk; caviar uneaten; beef stew was hardly romantic.
She'd laugh at him, and rightly so, if he brought her a teddy bear. She would say that he was too stuck in tradition, in clichés – it was cute, yes, but she didn't need cute from him, not at this point. She didn't need clichés.
So, for lack of anything else, Roy brought her a five-pointed leaf, reddened in autumn's first bite. It seemed appropriate, somehow, smelling as it did of blue-edged days.