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[takingthechance]

(OOM: In which Sam gets a boyfriend. Sort of.)

When Sam walks in tonight, for once she isn't in uniform. She doesn't really have anywhere to where her dress to tonight, but she couldn't bear to wear her uniform a moment longer and it really was too early in the day for anything else.

Besides, she likes it. It's a pretty blue, and frankly, the world needs a little bit more pretty at the moment.

Comments

[will_scarlett]

Will's been having a proper Milliways' dinner after working in the fields and a good swim in the lake.

When Sam enters, he's at a table, stretched out with a sipping glass of whiskey and some chocolate cookies in his loose linen shirt that still has hay in the folds, "Good eve, miss, ye look lovely."

[takingthechance]

Will earns a few distracted seconds of blinking as Sam battles a sense of deja vu - she's seen this man before, but she's pretty sure she hasn't. Pretty much everyone she's met here is German, and that's an English accent.

"What? Oh, sorry, thank you, I mean. It isn't much, but I was able to get the piecing right." It might be the last bit of new fabric she'll see in a while, so she's rather pleased she didn't make an utter hash of it.

[will_scarlett]

Piecing takes him a moment, he knows how to do some mending but he hasn't made that many clothes, "Oh aye, ye did."

His accent is definitely English, full of Nottingham and other older sounds.

[takingthechance]

It almost sounds Scottish to her ears, but that isn't right - not any more than the nagging sense that she's seen him before.

"I was just going to get an ale - did you want me to bring you anything?"

[will_scarlett]

He lifts his small plate of delicious chocolate cookies,

"Nay, but thank ye, I'm doin' well. Lady Bar's been feedin' me up after a day o'mowin' 'ay."

[takingthechance]

"Oh, you must be in from a different time than me - harvest isn't for months where I'm from." She's still a little hazy on this 'people from very different times' thing - the Germans she can accept that from, but... well. It's easy to forget when hearing a familiar accent.

[will_scarlett]

"Aye, aye, I'm from earlier than most folks 'ere as I'm from the reign o'King Richard the Lion'eart. Will Scarlett o'Nottingham,"

As he's sitting he can't manage a proper bow but ends up with half of one.

[takingthechance]

"..." It's all well and good to deal with people a few decades off your time, but meeting someone who's basically a national folk hero is something else entirely.

"Err."

It's very rare that anyone can strike Sam speechless. Will should feel proud.

"Really?"

[will_scarlett]

"Aye, sit down an I'll get ye that drink,"

She looks slightly poleaxed and he offers her his hand to help her find the seat.

[takingthechance]

She allows him to usher her into a seat, and blinks at him owlishly as he fetches the offered drink.

"And you know Robin Hood?" Look, she's found her questions again - if Foyle couldn't break her of the habit, Milliways doesn't stand a chance.

[will_scarlett]

"Oh aye, served as 'is squire since I was a boy. Though 'asna meant much while we've been in Sherwood, now though Richard's returned an 'e's a Lord again, learnin' what it all means once more. When are ye from?"

Will's never minded questions and pushes the cookies over her way. Also he sits up, since he was swimming so he knows he's not at his neatest. There's hay in his hair and shirt and his wrist scars are just visible in his loose shirt.

[takingthechance]

"Nineteen-forty - I'm from a bit south of you as well, in Hastings." She explains, as if the centuries between them wasn't enough.

[will_scarlett]

"Dinna know 'astings that well. What's it like?"

Her drink arrives and the rat squeaks at her to get her attention.

[i_am_your_host]

Settled at the bar, the Emcee's attention is drawn to a flash of blue in his peripheral vision, and he turns toward the door and the patron it had just allowed in.

"Do mine eyes deceive me?" he says, his tone playing up his genuine surprise. "Or have you shed your cocoon of a uniform and emerged as the marvelous butterfly that you are?"

[takingthechance]

She blushes, absent-mindedly straitening her skirt and generally becoming the most flustered thing you've ever seen.

"I don't know about marvelous butterfly..." Sam had just been glad all of the seams matched up in the end.

[i_am_your_host]

He hops off his stool and takes her hand to give her a twirl.

"Excessive flattery never hurt anyone, darling -- especially the kind that's well-deserved," he confides in her with a gentle wink.

"Is this for a special occasion, or...?"

[takingthechance]

Her skirt flares with the twirl (something she's ever so proud of making it do, it almost looks like someone who knew what they were doing was sewing).

"People can be quite horrid." Her chin goes up, completing the study of 'Defiance in Blue'. "I haven't anywhere to go tonight, but... well. It seems I do after all."

She needed some distance between all that'd gone on in the last couple days and now - the dress was the start of it.

[i_am_your_host]

He grins appreciatively, at her figure and her attitude. Butterfly or not, she is her own kind of enchanting creature.

"You are here, and here should do in short notice, no?"

Her hand still in his, he brings her to an empty bar stool beside his own.

"Although surely you would want to show off your dress other than at the end of the universe. Perhaps somewhere more local. A dance, I'm thinking."

[takingthechance]

"There aren't likely to be any of those any time soon." She tries for a wry note, and almost hits it. A for effort, anyhow. "Should I be worried that you're trying to send me away already? What have you been up to?"

[i_am_your_host]

"Send you away? Darling, I only want you to get out there, be free, have fun! --And then come back and tell me all about it."

He smirks, and settles onto his stool, leaning back against the bar.

"But what's this about no more dances?"

[takingthechance]

"Well, you see..." Her tone is suddenly very measured, and she straightens the nearest stack of coasters since there's a lack of anything else to do with her hands. "Italy's thrown in with Germany and declared war on us, and... well. There have been riots."

Her uniform still reeks of smoke. She rather hopes she can get it out before tomorrow.

[i_am_your_host]

He frowns, almost startled, and not sure how to respond to this unsettling information.

"Oh. Well. That certainly puts a damper on the whole being free, having fun bit," he murmurs.

He looks at her, brows still drawn.

"Have you been all right?"

[takingthechance]

There's many answers to that - an entire multitude for Sam to choose from.

There's the blatantly obvious lie - 'Of course I have, whatever are you worrying about me for?'

There's the misdirection - 'Well, it's ever so much worse for other people.'

There's the ugly truth - 'You didn't see them, piles of coffins stacked right up to the ceiling, and the crowd burned a perfectly lovely man yesterday for no other crime than being Italian, and that judge...'

"Dance with me." Because she has a wealth of answers, and a dearth of any she likes.

[i_am_your_host]

That is the best possible answer she could have ever given him, for in it he manages to hear nearly everything she didn't say.

"I would be delighted to, darling."

This time, he sheds his coat and leaves it draped over a stool. His white tuxedo shirt is neat and new (thanks to Eric), though with loose cuffs and halfway unbuttoned like a bohemian, true to his own style.

After offering his hand to her, they approach the jukebox.

"Your choice."

[takingthechance]

She sifts through the list, most of the entries entirely unfamiliar to her (and what kind of song is 'Sk8ter Boi'? Honestly?) and thus discarded. She's about to settle for a waltz (hurrah for not tripping on her own feet) when she finds something better.

She gives Emcee a sidelong (and rather challenging, actually) look.

"Do you know the jitterbug?"