Title: Eloquent Elysian Silhouettes
Chapter Two: Make Amends
Chapter Summary: Sonja comes to work early, a chemical is drunk, and door is opened to mirrors.
A week ago Sonja came for a job, although it was more of an interview then anything else, she did make a lasting impression on the Doctor. I think he wants her to stay, not for good, but at least long enough for a relationship of some sorts. I hear her though, when he's not around, and I know that she'll never like him on a level any more then professional, not even as a friend.
"Hello Star, how are you this morning?" She asked as I flipped pancakes over, the Doctor never ate them, but I made it none of the less, at least Sonja would have one, she liked my cooking, she appreciated it.
"Good morning, would you care for some breakfast?" I think she caught onto the fact that I didn't smile, but she still tried to joke around me for some reason. I think she was trying to get a laugh out of me, or at least a smile. I don't know what laughing feels like, not real laughing anyway.
"That'd be wonderful." She placed the briefcase down beside her and pulled out the chair before sitting down upon it. She always came here an hour early to talk to the Doctor, but he never really talked to her until he was ready, this was around nine, and she always came at seven. For the past week she had spoken to me in the morning until he called for her.
"Toppings?" Lately I've taken care of the garden as a hobby. The flowers are beautiful and though I'm not sure I fully appreciate them, as I should, I know at least in a small way I do. I picked strawberries this morning before the sun rose so the dew was still moist on them. I didn't tell anyone, not yet, but looking after the garden made me feel closer to earth, I liked that feeling so I didn't wear shoes in the garden, I liked to experience the feeling of the mud and dirt under me as I should.
"Strawberries and cream please?" She changed her mind every day about what she wanted on top. It was like she wanted to experience everything but in moderation. She'd had to, to keep looking the way she did, so trim and tight. A lot of girls would be jealous; I wonder what jealously feels like.
"What are you and the Doctor working on today?" I asked, not because I cared, I didn't seem to care much for anything but the garden lately, but because I knew she wanted me to ask her.
"Just some things for Baltar." I nodded slightly as if I knew and cared what she was talking about. I think she knew though. She seemed to have a look in her eye as I sat down in front of her and cut my pancake into smaller pieces. She seemed to read me. Just like how I read her. I'm not sure if that is a good or a bad thing. I'll have to process my thoughts to find out.
"Have you met Baltar?" I was curious, I new nothing except was the media told us of him and even then that its self was as most media is, shielded for the public to make them believe what they want them to.
"No, but from what I hear he's an interesting person to talk to." I left it at that, the conversation needed not to continue and there was nothing more to be said.
I packed up the dishes once she'd finished, the Doctors remained where it was as it was, untouched and plain. Eventually I would scrap it into the bin, but until then I went back into the garden. The house was clean for the week; I could spend more time there now. I heard Sonja follow me, it was only seven forty so she had twenty minutes before she was suppose to be here and an hour before the Doctor called her after that.
"So what do you do out here?" She asked sitting on a bench as I trimmed the roses back. I paused for a moment to think of how to answer the question. I could tell her everything I'm doing, but I think she meant generally speaking, or how I was emotionally attached.
"I look after the garden, the earth is very beautiful if you look care of it properly." She smiled at me as she walked around to look at what I've done to care for the garden. I found my muscles in my face twisting; it wasn't a smile I'd try to put on, but a reflex. Should this be natural? Are these the feelings that follow with it? The feeling of fullness in my soul that hurts inside of me, and I also felt the feeling of… joy? No, Pride. I felt pride over the garden.
"Did you grow this garden from scratch?" She asked me as she played with a rose's petal, one from the yellow roses; it had a red edge that curled slightly over.
"No, they were here before I was." I looked up at Sonja and met her eyes, she was smiling and I knew it wasn't a fake one, I could feel the sincerity in the smile as she looked away a song on her lips that she hummed.
"What are you singing?" I asked as I dropped what I was holding to stand near her and listen to the song so it was louder. It sounded familiar but I don't know why, it was so close to me that it felt like it was a snake wrapping around my body. I wanted to feel it all around me. So I closed my eyes and listened.
"It's just a lullaby I've always known."
"Can you sing it?" From the short time I've been out of the tank, I've never felt this want. It was like a terrible lust of music that I should not listen to. I wanted as Sonja too closed her eyes, only this time she parted her lips slowly and tried to find the notes in her voice hushed before she finally sang.
And what beauty came from it. An Angels voice, a sirens.
The music makes me sway and her voice carried up higher into the heavens of this planet. This colony. I memorised each and every note and word she sang before I caught onto the rhythm and beat and joined in, our voice so different but creating this harmonious song that we ceased as soon as we heard the Doctor coming.
Jealously reaved in my possession, I don't want him to hear this beauty; he's done nothing to deserve it. Nothing.
No, that's wrong. Everyone should hear it, what jealously spikes my being? May it stop? I am not human so I do not crave the body like they do, or do I feel the wrath pulse through my being over simple matters. I do not know sin nor should I have to. He may listen when he wishes to.
~X~
Sonja left after dinner; she only came out for lunch, in which the Doctor did not eat once again. I know that he does come out to see if the lunch is there when I am not looking, but he does not ever eat it. I wonder why. It is not poison, because Sonja and myself eat it fine. But maybe he does not like the taste of the food I prepare; maybe Sonja and myself have a warped taste.
Maybe he doesn't care.
"I'll see you tomorrow Star." I smiled at her, I like Sonja, she was nice and the intensity I felt near never changed, she still had her thoughts on the plan, she kept to the plan, but she appreciated me, she did something the Doctor did not.
When I slid beneath the covers of my bed, and looked up at the stars that shone above this planet I sighed in wonder. The Doctor had books on astrology and astronomy, they were both very beautiful to read and the more I read, the more I believed that this world was far too small. I wanted to be in sky and look at all the constellations the book talks about, and see the wonders and horrors of the universe.
I wanted to experience real life.
"Star, are you still up?" I slipped out of the bed and opened the door to the Doctor. "Ah Star, come with me, I need you test something for me in my office." I nodded and followed him through the hallway and down the stairs, as I passed the kitchen I saw his untouched food and sighed, a small sigh that the Doctor would not hear with deficient hearing.
"What do you wish me to test?" As I entered the room, a sudden feeling became over me. Was it fear? I didn't feel safe here, something in this room had my nerves on the edge and I not know what it is.
"Just a simple drink, it shouldn't have any lasting side effects if it doesn't work as it should." Suspicion rose inside of me. What did he mean by those words? No. I definitely did not feel safe. "Don't look at me like that, it's only suppose to improve your metabolism and immune system." I sensed no lie beneath that, so when he handed me the beaker filled with a red translucent drink like cellophane I took a sip.
It tasted like chemicals and my body rejected it but I forced it and the rest of the drink down.
"Now go off to bed Star, I'll see you in the morning and see how the effects go." I nodded slowly, my thoughts drifting elsewhere as I stumbled back into bed. The world has gone topsy-turvy and I felt suddenly exhausted like I had been running on full throttle with all of my adrenaline all at once.
My body collapsed on the bed at an angle that was slowly falling off the bed. I couldn't move, and once I fought to move my weight to keep on, my eyes closed and all of my energy drained away from myself.
Sleep. That's all that echoed in my thoughts. I need sleep.
~X~
When I awoke again, the area was still dark and somebody was in the room. Blinking, I adjusted my eye vision and sat up suddenly, causing a migraine to roll around like spikes on wheels, digging into my brain near the cerebral cortex.
"Hello Star, it's good to see you awake again." I breathed out slowly as the pain slowly softened to thin humming feeling from my natural body sway. Was I off balance? "How are you feeling?" I blinked; someone was talking to me, but why? I recognised the voice, was it the Doctor?
"My… head… hurts."
"I see." I heard a scribble, was it on paper? Was he taking down notes of what has happened to me? "Can you stand?" He asked and I slowly slid off the bed. My body felt weird, different somehow, was I balanced more so? Or less? I stood up like he asked and my body moved a bit once I tried to stand still, before it relaxed in a straight posture. No my balance had improved. More scribbling.
"Where…what… happened?"
"You've been asleep for a few days, Sonja was very worried." Sonja, I remember, she had the beautiful song. I wonder if she'll sing it again for me.
"Ok, go back to sleep Star, when you're better you can come down the stairs." I nodded, I felt so tired again. I moved back into the bed and crawled under the covers. Once I heard the door click behind him as he closed it I fell asleep again. When I awoke next, it was morning. Sitting up I looked into the mirror that was left to my bed. Physically there looked to be no difference, I felt different and I don't know to explain it. It was like there was something added onto you, somewhere, but you didn't know where, you just knew you were feeling like you were before.
Was this good or bad?
I walked out of the bedroom carefully; my migraine had subsided to a near nothing. And as I stepped out of the room, my senses shifted. Everything was so alive, I could hear someone moving downstairs and as I walked down the stairs, my body seemed to move more fluently and in a more graceful movement then how it was before.
When I stepped into the kitchen, I saw Sonja outside in the garden through the window. She was taking care of it. The thin material I wore blew around me once I stepped through the kitchen's back door into the garden. "Thank you." I whispered. She turned to see me as if she had already known I was here, outside.
"I couldn't let a garden like this whither without your careful hand, do you want to take over." I paused. She had been singing. I know because the flowers felt alive from the music. The music that was so full of life.
"Would you see again, the plants become more alive when you sing." She smiled, showing her teeth, and I smiled, hiding my own.
The Doctor didn't come out of his office, and when I finally questioned why Sonja smiled at me. "He doesn't need my help with that at the moment." That's all she said. Suddenly questions spiked up inside of me. But I wasn't sure that I wanted to know the answers, so instead I just relaxed and sang as I worked.
Sonja stopped singing at some point and just listened to me as she watched the birds in the garden's Holly Oak. They seemed to dance with the music as butterflies of all sorts of colours flew around the flowers. Taking care of the garden brought this beauty everyday, but singing with it filled any void that was here.
I stopped when I heard the Doctor coming, I don't know why I stopped singing, but a part of me knew that having him hear such beauty would twist his fragile thoughts.
He was only human after all.
"Good morning Star, have you cooked breakfast yet?"
"I was just finishing the garden's morning schedule before I went onto that, would you like me to begin?"
"Omelette please." He wouldn't eat it, I knew that, but I found myself craving the food that he had spoken. So in turn I stopped and I headed into the kitchen to obtain the ingredients needed for such a meal.
"I'll take some, you're cooking skills are much better then my own." Sonja whispered before she followed the Doctor. A smile crept upon my face when she said that.
And as I cracked a few eggs, pieces of bacon, and some spices into the frypan and mixed it all around is it cooked, my thoughts remained calm. The song hummed in my head as the words whispered through the darkness creating light.
It was all very poetic to myself and I wanted everyone to listen to it, but at the same time I don't think they could hear it the way I could, or feel the music wrap around them like silk. Sliding past my skin and giving a sense of soft comfort, something I wish for everyone to experience. But something I want to hold between Sonja and myself, a secret that I'm confused about.
I slipped the omelette onto three different plates. And placed the tableware down onto the clean tablecloth. Later today I would pick some flowers from the garden that is to be trimmed off, and put in them in a vase to be used as a centrepiece. As soon as I placed the last plate of breakfast onto the table, Sonja exited the lab or the Doctor's office as the Doctor calls it, and came to the breakfast table.
"Smells delicious, I should hire you as a cook so I wouldn't have to come here every morning until after dinner." I grinned at her. I couldn't help it, my muscles twitched in reaction to the chemicals in my brain that had reacted to what my brain translated to them, all in the short time of point half of a second.
"It's nice to have someone eat my meals."
"Yeah, when you were in your room sick, I had to cook my own meals at home and skip lunch, it was horrible, I burnt or under cooked everything." She was joking, and trying to be nice, but at the same time I felt the emotions and the sense of "my heart feeling full" to what she said.
Now I knew why people like compliments and become greedy for them. The feeling was intoxicating.
"It's good that you're well again." I sensed that she knew why I was sick, there was something in her body language and the way she looked at me with those grey eyes that told me something was different about her. Different to how she acted compared to the Doctor and people I've met when I was aloud on the shopping trips.
"I feel much better then I did before." Was all I said as I ate my breakfast. She smiled, and the song in my thoughts turned up louder and the feeling of silk rushed over me all over again.
I didn't even notice the knock on the front door as I listened to my song until Sonja nudged me with her heels under the table, then I heard the sound of an impatient knock on the front door.
I stood up and wiped my face on a napkin before I headed to answer the door. I didn't ask for the doctor's opinion this time, I don't know why, but I felt drawn to answer the door. Once I did I blinked.
I was looking into a mirror.