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Chapter 4: Soft Kitty, Warm Kitty...
"Why don't you just accept my help?" She says under her breath. They are sitting at the kitchen table, the cat circling around Saren's feet.
"I believe it is apparent that I am doing so" he says calmly. She crosses her arms.
"That's not what I mean exactly."
"What do you mean?" He looks at her, a slightly bored expression on his face. She closes her eyes slowly and breathes in deeply.
"I mean" she pauses and tries to figure out how to say what she needs to say. "You act like I'm only helping you because it fits some sort of logic. I help you, you help me. I scratch your back you scratch my back." He raises an eyebrow at the expression. "Have you thought for maybe one second that I'm helping you because I want to?"
"What do you mean?" He tilts his head slightly.
"Don't you think maybe I just like having you here?" He doesn't answer that. She closes her mouth and looks down. She stands up and makes her way to the chicken coup. He takes a second longer than he usually does to head over to the barn.
She finds him unconscious in the snow. A broken potted plant is shattered around him. The pale orange a contrast in the snow. She doesn't know how long he had been there but when she kneels down next to him to check his breathing under the thick sweater, he is frozen under the palm of her hand. A large part of his forehead is turning green and swelling. She looks up to the second story window and sees her orange tabby, napping away where her cyclamens once where. She looks at the man and noticed that his breathing was slower than usual, his heartbeat the same speed as her own, well not her heartbeat now. Her heartbeat now is the same speed as his usually is.
She somehow manages to shake him slightly awake. His mind is slow and blurry. "I can't get you inside by myself" she says and somehow manages to pull him to his feet. He towers over her own tall frame, but she supports him all the same and slowly walks the man into his room. He falls unconscious almost immediately after she has deposited him under the covers. She drops her jacket on the floor and plugs the heating blanket into the wall before draping it over him.
He is still so cold under her fingers. She pulls the sweater from his body so the warmth will arrive at his skin faster. She half wishes that she could take him to a hospital, wondering if she should wake him up. But then she thinks hypothermia right now is more of a danger than a concussion. She takes off his snow boot, tucking the blanket under his feet. She sits on the bed and kicks her shoes off and climbs under the covers next to him. She wraps herself over his icicle body like a serpent. She holds onto him tightly and falls asleep after his temperature had risen just enough for her anxiety to drop just the slightest.
His eyes move behind his eyelids.
On Vulcan he had the equivalent of a fiance. She was logical, intelligent, and aesthetically pleasing. He was bonded to her when they were both six years old, which is customary. It was a customary relationship. They talked customarily, they touched fingers customarily, they promised to bond with one another as was according to custom. It was all very logical.
He explained the logic of learning to pilot a small spacecraft after they both became scientists. She had a challenging job on Vulcan and it would be illogical, she explained, for her to join him in his career choice. But she agreed with his logic that he should fly away on his ship and study the stars. In a few years, he thinks, it will be logical for her to assume his death and bond with another, as was customary.
There was no way for him to return to Vulcan, so it was logical to accept this. It was illogical to think about her, to think about Vulcan, he is here now. When did he stop thinking about her? He is uncertain to the next logical step. Her arm stretch in her sleep and her hand lands over the back of his wrist.
He is suddenly overcome with a sense of loneliness. An image of a little girl dressed in white with her face buried into her hands popped into his head. He didn't understand why.
When Abigail was nine years old she was this tiny little thing. Her curly blonde hair framed her pale face. Her cheeks were always red when she smiled and laughed. When Abigail was nine years old she always smiled.
One night she was half falling asleep in the back seat of the car. The radio was low and she glanced from the window to the book sitting open in her lap. Charlotte's Web by E.B. White. When she was nine years old she read books about pigs and magical spiders.
Her windows were down halfway and the cold night air felt good on her tired skin. Her mother looked back from her seat and smiled at her, Abigail smiled back and giggled as her mother made a silly face. She was a small girl so when she was nine years old she sat in a car seat in the middle of the back seat.
Her father was driving the car that night. Maybe he was tired that night, maybe he was distracted as his favorite song came on the radio, maybe... But whatever it was his reaction was far too slow when a large black truck veered out of its lane. The light was almost blinding and then everything was black for only a moment.
When she was older they told her that they died instantly. She didn't tell them that she still remembers the sound of her mom weeping, crying out her fathers name. "Mommy" she finally said but she didn't hear a response. It was all so quiet, all except for the song still playing very low in the background.
At first she lived in a small foster home, the family as small as the house. The father worked long hours and the mother baked apple pie on Sundays. When Abigail was ten years old she didn't smile.
After three years she was sent to live with a family a few counties away. The father worked late and the mother drank late. The brother was odd and the sister pulled her hair. When Abigail was thirteen years old she didn't read books about pigs and magical spiders. She stayed with them for two years. The mother, in a drunken rage, slapped her hard across the face and threw her into the glass case of good china. When Abigail was fifteen years old she didn't fight back. When the father came home he dropped her off at the hospital with a note pinned to her shirt and an "I'm sorry." When Abigail was fifteen years old she had no one.
She knew from early childhood memories that she had grandparents a few states over. When the social worker walked into her hospital room she asked him about them. When Abigail was fifteen years old someone listened, someone looked into it.
About a month later she was moving into her grandparents ranch. Her grandmother cried and her grandfather enveloped her into a burly hug. He smelled like mint soap.
She loved her grandparents very much and lived in the room that belongs to Saren now. One day she emerged from the room and found her grandmother coughing up blood into the kitchen sink, she asked her not to tell her grandfather "he worries too much." It took her too long to convince her to see a doctor. She had cancer and soon she was in the same wheelchair that is now sitting in the basement.
Surprisingly the person who died from cancer first was her grandfather. Her grandmother passed away within a year. Abigail thought it was almost poetic. When Abigail was twenty-six years old she always smiled.
Saren wakes up first. His head was turned so when he opens his eyes he is looking out the window. The sky is dark and cloudy, but the clouds have cleared up enough for him to see a sliver of a silver moon hanging low in the sky. He doesn't understand why he is feeling anxiety rising up into his chest until he looks over and finds Abigail face nuzzled into his neck. She is warm over his skin and he doesn't search for the logic in moving. He is uncertain to how long he lays there. But the anxiety is growing as she starts to move and her breathing becomes less deep.
His body stiffens when she finally opens her eyes. She sits up slowly and looks over him. Her cheeks are flushed from the heat and she frowns as she moves her fingers over his head. She leans over and her hair tickles his face as she inspects the bump on his head. His skin is hot under her fingers. He is unaware that he is holding his breathe.
The anxiety starts to leave his chest as she pats his cheek and takes her body away from his. "That was a close call" she says and looks over him once more before standing up. She grabs her boots from the floor and drapes her jacket over her shoulder. Saren watches every movement.
She walks out of his room and pretty soon he can make out the sound of her walking up the stairs. He sits up in the bed and lets out an unsteady breath. He spends the rest of the night meditating.
Abigail spends the night reading an old torn up book, suddenly unable to sleep.
The next day Abigail gets a call from her guy's guy. He tells her how to pay the bill and when to expect her package. She logs onto her computer and wires the money.
Saren walks into the kitchen with a basket full of chicken eggs. "Good morning" he says in greeting and places the eggs into a carton. She watches him before closing her laptop and declaring breakfast ready. He stacks the dishes on the table as she places the food in the center on a mat. "Thank you" he says as he stacks his plate full of food. Abigail smiles at the portion.
She stabs an egg with her fork and looks down at her plate. "Everything will arrive in two month."
Saren pauses his fork in mid air and looks at her. "Okay" he says before returning his attention to his food. He slices a piece of toast into small pieces before picking up a piece with his fork and sticking it in his mouth. He looks up and finds her staring out the window. "I'm sorry."
She looks at him "what?"
"I apologize." His voice is quiet but still loud enough for her to hear.
"Why?"
"Yesterday I was not careful. It is illogical to stand too long under a windowsill that contains a potted plant and that an animal occasionally visits."
"It's okay, I wouldn't expect you to think about it. It's not your fault."
"I caused you worry."
She turns her gaze back to the window. She doesn't speak for a long time. When she does she is looking down at her plate, scooping an egg onto her fork. "It's okay" she says softly before placing the food into her mouth. She says it so quietly that she doubts that he would have been able to hear her if he was human. He nods his head once, finishing his food at an "appropriate speed" before clearing his dishes from the table and heading to the bright red barn.
She lets out a long breath and watches him struggle to walk in the snow. When he almost falls a small smile forms at her lips, when he does fall the smile grows and when he stands up and brushes himself off she laughs unashamedly. An orange ball of fur jumps onto her lap and with his front paws on the table, licks at her scrambled eggs.
Disclaimer: Thank you for reading this far. Please leave a little comment with what you thought about the chapter and what you want to see next. And also what would you like Saren's fake identity name to be?