milliways_bar | (no subject)

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So often back in her world, Rae is already at work when the sun rises in the morning. Dawn is her favorite time of day, and yet she so rarely gets to see it - really see it - to take in the ending of darkness and bask in the beginning of light. To witness the daily reminder that no darkness lasts forever.

But today she gets to, thanks to Milliways. She is seated on the picnic table near the back door of the bar, with her hands wrapped around a faintly steaming mug of tea, looking out towards the lake and the mountain beyond it, and the brilliantly-colored sky above them. The surface of the lake reflects the brilliant, fiery oranges and reds of the sky in each glimmering wavelet, and the snow-covered peak of the mountain glows golden where the early light touches it.

The early December chill feels good against Rae's skin, still warm from her pre-dawn run around the lake. She is relatively well-rested, her muscles warmed but not wearied by her run, and - almost startlingly - she feels at peace.

Sunshine knows better than to question peace when it comes. So she sits, basking in the sunrise and her own peace while they last.

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"It's been... well," she takes a slow breath, and sighs, rubbing the cat's ears. She doesn't know exactly how to put it. 'Difficult,' as he said, covers so much of it. "It's both dangerous and frustrating to face up to the fact that everyone who should be on the same side either isn't on the same side or are being prevented from working together as they ideally would. Not knowing how far one can trust one's allies... frays my nerves like little else can."

Matt nods, understanding her frustration even he doesn't share it. Matt tends to just not trust anyone, and does everything alone. The select few who he's made the exception for have earned his trust; as far as Matt is capable of extending that, at least.

"The people who went in with you before, they're still standing beside you?" he asks, referring to those who she said were going to be there in her defense against the Goddess.

The cat butts his head against her hands, then rises up on his hind legs and tries to climb into Rae's arms.

Rae lets the cat up onto her lap, cradling its head lightly in her hands as she scritches along behind its ears and along its chin and neck.

"They are," she nods slightly. And their secrets are still safe. And at least some of hers. "And... Director Misra, too, I think. To a point. He's aware that Special Other Forces as an entity is... resistant to change, but that there is a need for it to change in how it addresses Others and Part-Blood Others. And he's willing to push for that change, despite being reluctant and not sure it'll do any good. He's willing to try."

Matt is ready to pull the cat back, but Rae doesn't seem to mind. As long as the claws don't come out Matt will let the feline be.

"Willing to try is a start, and more than you get from some people," he says.

"I hope you both do some good." She is trying to make changes, too. "I believe you will."

"That's the hope. It helps that he's also not pushing to try and hire me officially, despite it being the by-the-book thing to do," she murmurs. Rae keeps an idle eye on the cat's reactions to the ear-rubs and chin-scritches, and stops with the attention when the reaction becomes less positive, letting the cat stay or go as it wishes.

The cat may be done with pets, but he's certainly not done with Rae. With a whole lot of fuss and shifting around, he settles on Rae's lap.

Rubbing his bare forearm with his palm (it's a bit chilly for t-shirts, but Matt hadn't exactly planned a morning jaunt to Milliways' Scottish backyard), Matt nods.

"He sounds like a rather understanding person."

Sunshine nods, considering what she'd been able to glean of the man the few times they had spoken.

"I think he is," she replies, eventually. "He's been dealing with SOF's shortcomings in its way of going about things for a long time, and he's gotten used to putting up with them rather than trying to fix them. But he recognizes them as problems, at least, and... is willing to take the risk for the chance to fix them."

Risk everything for the sake of everything - isn't that what they all do, in their own way?

"He also... seemed to suggest he knew my father," Rae adds, slightly quieter, after a moment. "I'm not sure I even want to ask about him." Or what to ask.

There's a small shift in Matt's expression, reaction to her bringing up her father again. By everything she's said so far there's a lot to the loss of her father; something Matt can relate to, although his instinct is to pull back away from it.

"What would knowing mean for you?" he asks. For her, it could mean a lot, and perhaps depending on what she learned it could be good for her.

For him, finding out about what happened to his father pushed him the closest to the line he's ever been, and destroyed something as a result.

"I'm... not really sure," she murmurs, at a loss. She knows it would be a lot, even if she doesn't know what exactly it would mean. Her mother had taken her and left her husband when Rae was six, and neither of them ever saw him again. Even as a child, Sunshine could tell there was enough going on that she didn't dare ask her mother about it all; her mother who never spoke of him, who was upset when Rae was too like him. Rae's father had sent her postcards, though, after the concealment wards had lapsed and he found them again: two or three a week, sometimes. Then when she was ten, he and the rest of his family disappeared. "I hadn't even considered there would've had to have been an investigation, though I guess I should have known."

She had spent a good deal of her life Not Thinking About It. But, like her magic, her forgetting about it didn't mean it had forgotten about her.

Rae glances at Matt, than frowns slightly. "We should go in - you've got to be freezing out here."

She can only hope he forgives the unsubtle subject-change.

For a moment Matt lapses into thought, caught up in what's said, and possibly not said, in her murmured words.

The abrupt shift from the subject brings him back, and Matt lifts his head, jarred by it.

Hoping she'll forgive him for not having any words for the heavy subject that is weighing on her, Matt nods to the suggestion and brings out a smile to finalize the topic being left behind.

"Yeah, I didn't really get a chance to get properly dressed for the weather out here." Thanks to the cat. Speaking of which...

"I uh, I'll take the cat," he says, holding his hands out. He's found it's much easier to have the cat given back over, than to try and take it away. That particular lesson is marked by the scratches on his neck and jaw, and others down his shoulder and back.

"We'll get something hot to drink when we get inside," she says, though the subject of her father and the scope of what she doesn't know about her own family, her own history - that she had thought buried and gone and so in the past as not to matter any more - still weighs on her.

Rae gives the cat's ears a rub, just warning it its napping spot will soon be disappearing. "Hey-o, kitty. Hope you had a nice nap, but it's time to get up." Quite gently, she scoops her arms underneath the form of the lounging feline, gathering it up to hand back over.

The cat makes a 'prrt?' noise, blinking at Rae as she picks him up.

Matt steps forward, still holding the leash (because he doesn't trust the cat at all), his hands out to take it and the box ready for the cat to go into.

"Let me just drop him back through the door and then I'll join you," he replies.

Rae smiles down at the cat, slightly, as she hands it over. "Probably easiest to deal with when it's still mostly asleep," she remarks, wry.

"No problem. I'll order us something hot to drink at the bar in the meantime - you prefer coffee over tea, if I recall?"

"Or all the way asleep," he says, wry.

The cat goes into the box easy enough and Matt hefts it with a nod to Rae.

"Coffee would be great."

Sunshine holds the door open for them to pass through into the warmth of the bar room, and lets Matt take the becatted box back towards the front door.

By the time Matt comes back, there'll be a generously-sized mug of coffee ("Bar, a mug of citrus-lavender tea for me, and a cup of coffee fixed how Matt likes it, please,") for him, and a small plate with a couple of layered mocha brownies on it, smelling of dark chocolate, coffee, and irish cream icing.

Because she is who she is, even if she's also sometimes something else.

"...I figured one can't just have coffee with nothing to go with it," Sunshine says by way of greeting as he returns. Her almost apologetic tone holds a wry smile.

Matt takes the time to unhook the leash from the harness before unceremoniously letting the cat out of the box. The cat bounds off, probably to return to nesting in Claire's laundry basket.

(Something Claire will no doubt be thrilled about when she gets out of the shower.)

Grabbing his dress shirt from the chair he'd left it on when the cat's emergency sprung up, Matt tugs off his t-shirt and pulls on the other, fastening the buttons as he heads out the door once more and back into Milliways.

He has every one fastened by the time he makes it to the counter, tapping his way along with the cane and smiling when he hears Sunshine speak up.

"If it's something you've baked I have no objections," he replies with a smile, locating a seat beside her and sitting down.

Sunshine's smile grows. "They are. They're a recent experiment whose recipe I'm still adjusting: layered mocha brownies, with Irish cream icing as the middle layer, and a dark chocolate coffee ganache as the top layer. I'm not really keen on coffee as a drink, but it's great as a flavoring for chocolate baked goods."

Coffee and baked goods also make great distractions from uncomfortable topics of conversation.

"If you'd be willing, I'd appreciate your opinion on them."

Matt agrees to the distraction and accepts her request.

"Absolutely," he says, senses already flooding with the scents of cocoa and coffee, and liqueur.

His fingers glide along the rim of the plate trailing to locate one of the treats, and he's mindful of his clean shirt as he lifts up the brownie.

The first bite causes an involuntary sound of appreciation. Matt doesn't eat a whole lot of sweets, but the brownie is impossible to dismiss.

It practically melts on his tongue; the bitter sweetness of the chocolate and coffee, the warmth of the Irish touch, all wrapped together in velvet textures. It is by far the best brownie he's ever had.

"I think you have a definite winner here," he notes before taking another bite.

Sunshine smiles, pleased by Matt's reaction. She has seen the tension and frustration in his shadows, and is glad to - in a small way - offer some respite from them.

Absent of other necessities, Rae would happily give the time of her life over to the creation and sharing of delicious treats, small morsels of enjoyment to brighten a person's day. It had been her intention, after all, to spend what time is hers to create bite-sized bits of unfettered joy, to bring her friends and customers wholly into the present moment, for a short while free of worry or concern from past or future.

There is pleasure and pride to be had in a thing well-made, however ephemeral.

She often wishes she could take such pride in all of her works, but she knows it will never be the case until her world no longer needs her for something more than her delicious baked goods.

"I'm glad you approve," she says, smiling quietly.

Matt so very rarely allows himself to indulge in anything, getting lost for a moment in Rae's wonderful baking is a welcome moment of letting go and just being that means more than he fully realizes.

The brownie doesn't last long and soon Matt is wiping his hands on a napkin before taking a drink of his coffee.

"I'm amazed you haven't put every other bakery in town out of business, Rae," he says, flashing her a smile that's miles more relaxed and warm than he's put on since walking in this morning.

Matt's true smile is a welcome sight, as are the warmth and lack of tension it carries with it. Her own easy smile reflects that, and some of the tension in her heart eases.

"Oh, that wouldn't be very sporting of me," she says, lightly amused. "I'm happy in my bakery at the coffeehouse, converting PrimeTime Brownies' customers one by one."

Wrapping his hands around his warm mug, Matt gives a chuckle.

"Then lucky for your neighborhood that you're theirs."

Matt understands her staying where she is very well. He could rather easily trade-in his crummy and dilapidated office in the Kitchen for a high-rise across the city, but he won't. He's exactly where belongs and wants to be.

She knows how that is. Does she ever. She wouldn't trade the coffeehouse for anything, even with its cramped spaces and less than ideal circumstances. It is greater than the sum of its parts, and it is, in that respect, perfect.

Sunshine smiles, chuckling slightly. "Isn't that the definition of life goals right there - being someone your neighborhood is lucky to have? I'd say we're both in a good position, then."

They've spoken before of the sense of belonging to their neighborhoods, and the responsibility one feels towards it. Some neighborhoods need all the luck (and help) they can get.

"By my book it is," Matt confirms with a nod. And he's been fortunate to find a few others around him who believe in that same goal.

Sunshine breathes in the fragrant steam of her tea, the dry acidity of the citrus and the cool floral scent of the lavender evoking the bright warmth of summer even amid the chill of winter.

"How is the lawyering business going, by the way?" she asks, after taking a sip. "Still fighting the good fight?"