| Untangling Two Lives |
| Summary: | Kincaid and Sawyer attempt to figure out how to disentangle their personal and professional lives. |
| Date: | 23 May 2042 AE |
| Related Logs: | None. |
| Players: |
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| Ship's Library — Deck 9 — Battlestar Cerberus |
| Racks of books extend deep into this room, nearly darkening the overhead lights towards the back. The shelves are neatly labeled to each category with nearly everything represented here. Fiction, Sci-Fi, Romance, and everything down to comic books has been loaded up onto the shelves. A smaller research area at the back has a large table for maps to be opened-up. Nearer the door is a small library of movies that covers some of the most recent blockbusters and flows through some of the more campy movies from about two decades before. Next to the door, a Petty Officer can usually be found at a desk to help someone checkout their selections. |
| Condition Level: 3 - All Clear |
| Post-Holocaust Day: #451 |
Unlike her counterpart of the Gemenon Experience, Sawyer's actually been keeping her head down following the ordeal, neither publishing her own account or speaking publically in regard to Tyr's. She's burrowed down in a chair in the library currently, glasses sliding down the bridge of her nose that she pushes up with an impatient crook of one finger. There is solace that she's finding in reading, in fact, one could even say she's hiding in her books.
Daniel Kincaid is quite the sleuth; after all, he closed the case of Admiral Abbot's rigged trial. But he's had a Hades of a time finding his best friend slash love of his life. Finally, though, he has her cornered: "Sawyer Averies. You go to Gemenon. You get released from the Brig. But do I get a call? A note? Anything?" His voice is trying for cross, but ends up somewhere near ironic and slightly wounded.
"Well well well. Danny Kincaid." Sawyer starts off, as if he's been the one doing the avoiding. She even has a smile ready made for him by the time she raises her eyes from the page. "Or should I say Corporal Daniel Kincaid. Yes I heard, but then again, good news travels fast. How are you?"
Kincaid touches his hand to the label of his duty khaki uniform where the new, shiny corporal pins sit. "They made me a noncommissioned officer and everything. And here they said that I wouldn't amount to anything as a Marine. I even got a medal. With valor. Me, Sawyer. Valorous." Despite their time apart, he can still banter like it was just yesterday. But then, more serious: "How are you? Okay?"
"With my new Marine shadow, it's hard to be anything but okay. I swear, I stubbed my toe yesterday, and he came in with gun drawn because he heard me cuss too loudly." Which is to say: Sawyer is okay. "You were always valorous. It's about time somebody sat up and took notice." The blonde sets her book aside. "How are you?"
Kincaid shrugs his shoulders, a broad gesture. "Not too much. Gemenon's kept people's minds on things. We're trying to sort out the details of how one has a civilian justice system with so few trained lawyers in the Fleet. Caught a new case; an assault on a doctor and vandalism of a lab area. But I doubt you care about any of that." He goes to crash on a chair next to her. "But I'm good. I — you know. I'm making a difference here. Whether the rest of the Marine Corps cares about it or not."
"The assault on Doctor Adair you mean. When I'm not busy not caring about that, we'll have to talk about it. Too early for theories, but I have a bit of an inside angle on that one." Sawyer leans forward, about to say something but she stops herself and motions for a chair. "I know you're making a difference, Danny." Uh-oh. This can't be good if she's making him sit down first.
"Oh? I haven't even gotten started on it yet. But yeah. We'll talk." Kincaid's voice trails off, his brows furrow. He takes that indicated seat, tilts his head slightly. "What's going on, Sawyer? Everything's good you said, right?"
Sawyer presses her lips together, and then, "You know what? It's nothing. Just forget I said anything, alright? But look, a lot has happened to me in the past months. First Areion and then Gemenon. I'm not…I'm not the same woman I was. And I'm slowly coming to terms with it. I just think…I just think our personal and professional lives shouldn't cross as much as they do, anymore."
There's a long pause from Kincaid. A very long pause. Finally, he says, directly: "You know, Sawyer, I thought if you had things going on in your life, if you needed to work it through, I thought you'd come to the person you considered your best friend. But — if that's not me, then, well —" He purses his lips together. "Then I can't help that. It is what it is." It's said with a note of defeat; perhaps it's even worse than hurt. "So where does that leave us?"
"Oh no! Oh, gods no." Sawyer reaches out to put her hand on Danny's knee, fingers curling in to squeeze slightly. "No, Danny. You misunderstand me. My career…it's no longer the most important part of my life. It no longer defines who I am, so in that same thread I can't keep doing what I used to do. I'm finally learning the lesson I should have learned before I even came aboard the Cerberus."
"Yeah? Well, you figure, back in the professional world, our jobs defined us. What we did. Who we are." Kincaid smiles at that, perhaps relieved. "But what do you mean, then? I mean — how do you think our professional and person lives should cross, then?"
"You can't keep slipping me classified information." Sawyer practically blurts out, her hand retracting from his knee but that's only so she can fidget her fingers together. They knot within each other, twisting and untwisting of knuckles and phalanges, "I'll figure out some other way to get those leads, but I won't have you risk your shiny new Corporal pins. Not on me."
Kincaid just frowns at Sawyer. "But why?" he asks. Quite the journalist in him; why wouldn't she need inside information? "I don't — I mean. You help me with my cases. You help me talk them through. I would have never gotten to the bottom of the Rene-Marie stuff without you. Did Constin get to you?"
Her top row of teeth slide back and forth over her bottom lip, the pause in Sawyer's voice is only momentary. "I'm slipping up and I can't protect you any more. That's what a good reporter should do, isn't it? Protect her sources? But I'm making simple mistakes and my judgment is clouded by my personal feelings. I don't want anything to happen to you, Danny, and it will if things keep going the way they are going. Like Doctor Adair. And I couldn't bear it."
Kincaid furrows his brow. Confused Danny is confused; but at least he got to the bottom of this particular request from his friend. "What does Doctor Adair have to do with this?" asks Kincaid. "I — what's going on, Sawyer?" Though his words might seem like a rebuke, his voice is more concern, confusion.
Sawyer isn't really making herself clear, and that knowledge has her tocuhing her forehead with a steeple of fingers. "Nothing beyond the fact that I liked the guy and he got injured. You know the term don't get to close to the story? Well, I'm close as close can be to you, Danny. So I'm taking the story out of the equation."
A long pause. "Okay." Danny nods, finally, as if he gets that much at least. "I understand. I mean — I'm not scared, Sawyer. I am actually a Marine. I can take care of myself. And Constin doesn't scare me. I'm not impressed by his oorah antics. But if you — you know, if that's what you want, I can understand that."
"I don't want you to get Court Martialed and end up serving brig time, just because of some stupid thing I've done. I won't have the marines thinking that I'm using you." Sawyer either has gotten to the crux of the matter or she's run out of steam because her fidgeting stops and she deflates back against the chair cushion as if the wind has gone out of her sails.
"All right, Sawyer. Thank you. I get that. But you're still my best friend and you're still welcome to know everything I do. I tried keeping a secret from you once; it sucked." That would be the legendary Gun incident. And we all know how that turned out. Kincaid quirks a smile.
"I don't know how to draw this line, I just know that if I don't draw it…some pretty severe things are being threatened. I may be smart, and in most cases, I may be smarter than the rest of your MP's. But that being said, they still have a few tricks up their sleeves and the one thing they can squeeze me on is our friendship. And I found out I'll buckle everytime." Sawyer's voice remains soft, because she knows better than anyone that there are eyes and ears everywhere.
"Yeah. But you know I'll pick you over my job every time, right, Sawyer? I'll go back to — I don't know. Swabbing decks or something on Elpis. I'll stand up for you every time." Kincaid reaches out to offer Sawyer his hand, offer it to squeeze. "You know that, right?"
"I don't want you to have to, Daniel. Don't you see that? You're good at your job. Damn good. And it's where you need to be. Not…screwed up because of the likes of me. Don't you get that?" Sawyer slips her hand into his, fingers curling against his.
"You think way too highly of yourself if you think a little thing like a woman could screw up my life. Now, the bullets I got to my arm on Areion? That was a pretty good candidate. But I got over them, and I can handle you, too." Danny squeezes Sawyer's hand hard. "But I get it. I'll back off. We'll talk about the weather and philosophy and stuff. I'll go find a new partner to solve cases with; maybe it'll actually be a MP. We'll see about that, though." He winks at her. "Sound good?"
Sawyer gives the 'mmm' of an unbeliever. "Maybe if we just limit it to topics of conversation that won't lead to you getting introduced to a firing squad for charges of treason." Because this can't end in any way that's productive, Sawyer is slipping to her feet and leaning over Kincaid to deposit a kiss to his forehead. "Sounds good."
Kincaid smiles up at Sawyer, accepting the kiss to the forehead graciously. "Sounds good," he echoes back to her. "Love you, Sawyer. Always have; always will."
This isn't the first time he's said those words, but it once more gives Sawyer pause. Her hand lifts to graze fingertips along his hair, following the curve of his ear. "Daniel…" She starts off in that tone. That tone that means nothing she says following his name could possibly be good. "I'm sort of seeing someone. It's frakked up and awkward and at times…" Her voice trails off. "I love him, Daniel. I'm in love with Captain Trask, for better or for worse. I don't have any right or claim to your feelings, and I won't tell you how or what to feel. But all I can give you is my friendship. I hope that's enough."
"Yeah. Well." Kincaid offers a faint, faint smile. "It'll have to be, huh?" He leans slightly into the touch of her hand, as if an involuntary gesture. "Just — make sure he's right for you. And if he is, then that's what I want for you, too." He takes her hand in his and then kisses the back of it. "Take care of yourself, huh, Sawyer?"
"Don't say it like that. That has such a tone of finality…" Sawyer steps back, because regardless, they probably both need a little space right not. "I'll see you soon, okay? To talk about the weather and definitely /not/ what I know about Doctor Adair." She musters a smile more for his benefit than hers.
Kincaid rises to his feet as well. "See you soon," he echoes it back. "But we're going to talk about Adair, Sawyer. I'm going to close that case." He points over at her. Because while he may be heart-broken, well, he's also on the case.
"You always do." Sawyer lobs back, well on her way to the door before she has the inclination to stay.