SEVENTEEN: Goodbye, Mister Chips
It had taken some doing –dodging her escort and the few die-hard reporters lurking outside of the compound being the most difficult, with creeping about the city streets she used to walk without a care coming in as a close second- but Dagmar couldn't have left Earth without taking care of this one last thing. Her possessions, such as they were, were packed and ready to go, and she'd settled her remaining affairs that morning. She'd even found time to say goodbye to Zepht, if over a comm. system –who, for the record, had had the good sense to disbelieve the media frenzy but noted that even if it were true, he saw nothing wrong with the relationship.
Dagmar could have kissed him.
But there was just one last thing –something that had to be done in person before she hopped onto that transport.
Bright, intelligent green eyes stared at her, wide and curious, fringed with ginger. A paw, white-toes declawed with some advanced and painless technique of this new age, swatted ineffectually at her nose. Dagmar snorted, and received another soft swat for it.
"Goodbye, Mister Fluffles."
The other cats, all greys and tawny browns, milled about the pub, the establishment itself a long seven hours from opening. They were all good cats, Dagmar thought fondly, even if she wasn't especially wild about cats. But her favourite was the ginger of the lot –the quiet, fuzzy orange-and-white one that hung compliantly from her grasp and batted at her nose with alternating paws.
Bemused, Dagmar wondered just what the cat's issue with her nose was.
Grigor was there, too, more sombre and sober than she had ever seen the Czech as he laid out surprisingly delicate dishes of cream and kibble for his feline companions.
"Best put Fluffles down, eh?" Grigor said suddenly, and the harsh, blunt lines of his face seemed drawn and sad. "The others –they bully him and do not share."
For the life of her, Dagmar didn't know why she was so sad about it, but it was only very reluctantly that she set the ginger cat down onto the old hardwood floor and let Fluffles go about his business. She looked around the pub, with its antique but painstakingly cared for wood furnishings, its vintage posters (someone of which she remembered from her childhood) and its musty, vintage atmosphere. She imagined it as it must have been, years ago –the air thick with cigarette smoke and perchance the faint warbling voice of Edith Piaf, the lights yellow and dim and almost ineffectual against the dark and the dust and the smoke. She imagined pinstriped suits and fedoras, old-school and in their prime.
"I'm really going to miss this place." She said out loud. Her voice bounced –not quite an echo- in the wide and open room, over the mewling and the meows of the cats, over the shuffling and clinking of Grigor checking his inventory.
And she would. She had fond memories of the place; her first encounter with Grigor, the times she stuck around well into the early hours of the morning helping the burly Czech sort out his inventory and place orders for what he needed, the half-serious scoffs and snorts she'd earned for suggesting he learn to make girly drinks and broaden his horizons a bit, the trial that had been the naming of the cats...
She probably wasn't going to find a place like Grigor's pub on Andoria. Or someone like Grigor, with his gruff manners and his cats and his teddy-bear soft disposition.
Andorians didn't come in Hulk-sized packages with warm-fuzzy feelings and sympathetic natures.
"Da," Grigor grumbled from behind the counter. "And the cats."
A smile, if watery. "And the cats. Especially Mister Fluffles." She frowned then, and added, "And don't let his brothers and sisters bully him because he's ginger and little, okay?"
Grigor ducked his head and smiled a tiny, wry smile that she probably wasn't supposed to see. Dagmar pretended not to notice, because Grigor would never admit to it, to being the big softy that he was, and she would never ask anyway. Hesitantly, he reached out across the counter-top with one massive, calloused hand and pat her on the head. Just once, lightly.
"I'll come back." She said, and the Canadian wasn't entirely sure who she was reassuring.
"Ready to go?" Thelen asked her, after her escort had caught up to her, after she had explained herself awkwardly and apologetically. Sort of. She hadn't said she'd run off to say goodbye to a cat, per se –more that she'd run off to say good bye to one of her four friends on the planet.
Five, if you counted the cat.
Jesus. How sad was that? An entire planet of people, and the only ones she was actually upset about leaving were an old man and a ginger cat.
Now, moving with the Andorian delegation onto the shuttle that would take them up to the Andorian transport ship (armed, because Andorians apparently didn't believe in unarmed transport), Dagmar honestly didn't know how to answer that question. Was she ready to go? Ready to get away from the rabid press and the rumours, threats and accusations? Well, yes for the latter. The redhead couldn't get away from those fast enough –but was she really ready to leave Earth? For a year –for maybe more than a year?
Well, it was too late for cold feet now, Dagmar thought wryly as she found a seat with Shral, Ambassador Thoris, and Thelen (who, she learned rather belatedly, was his acting Chief of Security –showed how much she paid attention, huh?- as the former officer had been injured on an assignment) She and the Thelen sat side by side and the Ambassador and his aide opposite of them in a typical four-person arrangement. The surrounding seats were filled up by the remaining aides and security officers.
The seating arrangement was a bit odd, from a Human perspective, but from an Andorian's it made perfect sense. The entire species had a quad-mentality, to the point where they married in groups of four –which, contrary to some rather odd rumours, had nothing to do with their biology. It was a defensive measure against children growing up without parents (something that was extremely likely, given the harsh environment Andorians lived in.) Thus, sitting in a four-person arrangement, with pairs of seat facing each other, was perfectly normal. In fact, Andorians viewed the idea of sitting in rows to be impersonal and cold.
Someone must have altered the shuttle to cater to the Andorian passengers for this particular trip. The redheaded woman was almost certain that no other Human transport was configured that way.
"I took the liberty of procuring Andorian-made clothes for you." Thelen revealed as the shuttle took off. It was odd, the initial turbulence smoothing out into an all but indiscernible vibration. She was used to the bump and wobbly of airplanes from her time, and found the lack of motion almost disturbing.
Dagmar blinked. "...Why?"
"At last, something our translator doesn't know!" Thoris voiced with smiling eyes under the arch of his bowed antennae. Beside him, Shral offered a thin smile that revealed blue gums and sharp teeth.
Shral leaned forwards, antennae directed at her in that odd, unsettling manner that Dagmar always tried to ignore. "Andorian clothing had temperature regulators woven into the fabric; given the sensitivity of your internal systems to extreme temperatures, it seemed prudent."
"I did attempt to keep your preferences in mind," Thelen assured her with uncanny timing; she was having visions of either swimming in fabric or not having nearly enough of it. "But you will be able to choose something more to your liking later."
"Thank you, Thelen." The twenty-first century Canadian was surprised by the gesture, but it was a very logical thing to do –and for all their grievances and resentments, Andorians and Vulcans valued logic and reason equally. Then, smiling and genuinely meaning it, she added, "I'm sure whatever you picked will be fine."
