[Personal Log] For Annie.

[meimeimechanic]

Kaylee loved coming to sit and eat in ten forward. She could people watch there. People meant stories and she loved those. On top of that she could see the stars. Back on Serenity she used to wait til the others had gone to sleep sometimes grab a couple of blankets, make herself a hot drink and go sit up in the cockpit. Just watching the stars. Seeing the steam trail away from her mug as the rest of the ship cooled off during the night cycle while all the sleeping quarters were kept warm still.

But this wasn't her girl, somehow this ship didn't seem to sleep. Nightmares and sleeping at all sorts of odd times meant that she'd learned more about the ship. She still missed her girl. The engine room, hammock, and the fairy lights. As well as the books she'd bought for Simon she'd got a few for herself, the serious technical ones were still on the shelf, she was reading something a little more questionable and giggling as she did.

Comments

[treadswater]

No one knows her here. No one except for Finnick, Peeta, Hamitch, Katniss and her sister Prim. No one double-takes at her. No one watches her and waits for her to do something odd.

No one even knows her country, which is upsetting in other ways, but there is a heady freedom to being anonymous that Annie hasn't had since she was eighteen.

She doesn't have to be mad, here.

She is, she knows. Just a little bit. But she doesn't have to play at making it worse, or keep to herself. She's hated having to do that, no matter how often she can't cope with talking or even being around people. But it's a little easier here, and so she's been talking to people, a little.

It helps when Finnick's in the room with her, even if sometimes her dependence annoys her. Then again, while they aren't in Panem, she doesn't quite trust this place, either, and doesn't want him out of her sight for that long.

Currently, her fiancé - and no, she's not used to that, being able to think her fiancé - is sitting at another table, writing. Annie got up to get another glass of iced tea before going back to looking at the library on the PADD the Enterprise has given her, and she's on her way back to her and Finnick's table, when she hears the giggle.

The young, brown-haired woman had caught her eye earlier. For one thing, she's one of the few people Annie has seen dressed in vaguely familiarly. Secondly, she's not afraid to laugh at something.

Annie's look is wistful, briefly, and then the woman looks up.

"Um, good book?" Annie manages, fingers tightening around the glass.

[meimeimechanic]

Kaylee looks up, she was completely lost to the silly book and forgot all about the folk around her that she came there to watch in the first place.

She blinks.

Then nods.

"Well kinda, it's kinda bad too, no way some of this would ever go happenin' in real life like. Well maybe if someone got a companion to act it out like but still that ain't real." She stops talking. "If you wanting you can borrow it after I'm done. Which..." She flicks through the small paperback, "Ain't gonna be all that long." Because that was Kaylee, always happy to share even if she just met the girl. Though there was a little something familiar about her, she just can't put her finger on what makes her feel that way. Ain't a bad thing by a long way. Kaylee would treat her just the same.

[treadswater]

She doesn't know the term 'companion', given the cover of the book (which she can see when Kaylee flicks through it), she's going to go with 'fancy prostitute'.

"Oh, like a, uh, romance novel?"

At least, that's what she's assuming is going on, from the cover. She doesn't mind them, sometimes. Candy floss books.

[meimeimechanic]

"Yeah." Kaylee nods. "That's exactly it. Ain't realistic, but sometimes that's not what's needed." That's why Kaylee liked 'em. She knew they were kinda trashy and just fluff but she's a little bit hopeless romantic so it's inevitable.

"I'm Kaylee by the way, goin' on without introducin' myself. You been on board long?"

[treadswater]

"Sometimes," Annie echoes, both in agreement and in faint emphasis. Sometimes. Not to the extent that the Capitol hides from reality, but then, the couple times she was there, they all seemed to scared.

But no, there's a person here, she's talking to someone, she can keep herself there no matter if she's nervous. So she smiles, a little, and goes, "Oh, no. I mean, I started talking. Um. I'm Annie."

If the woman - Kaylee - hasn't offered a surname, then Annie's not going to, either.

"And been here a few weeks? A few weeks, maybe three."

At least if Kaylee is asking, she's not one of the people who saw her and Finnick throw themselves at each other. Hopefully. Maybe Annie just looks too different now, with her hair down and clothes back to 'loose jacket and loose pants'.

"Y-you?"

[meimeimechanic]

It becomes apparent to Kaylee why she feels familiar with Annie, she reminds her in a way of River. Not that she's going to ever let that stop her. If anything it just makes her want to be her friend more. Kaylee saw River as a friend, not just some crazy girl or something that needed to be eliminated.

"Months by my reckoning. But we've stopped on dirt a couple of times. Not as often as I've been used to, but this girl can go lot longer between stops than mine." Kaylee had the habit of talking like Serenity was her's when she wasn't.

"Can sit if you like or you got someone waitin' for ya?"

[treadswater]

"Oh, I, uh." Annie stops. "My fiancé." There's a quick, happy grin at that - it's still such a new word - and then Annie shrugs. "But, he's doing things, so I can, I can sit. For a little bit."

She has been very, very lonely for a very, very long time, and it's enough to get over her shyness. At least, for the moment.

Annie pulls out a chair, trying not to make too much noise, and sits down.

"Stopped on dirt? You mean, like going to port? Um. Or, planet?"

[meimeimechanic]

Kaylee's grinning too, because that is just adorable and special. Kaylee doesn't really know her but is thrilled for her all the same.

"Oh! Congratulations! Have you planned anythin' yet?"

She nods. "Yeah, exactly like that. Gonna say you don't have ships like this where you're from. Noticed that about lot of folk here. Lot talk about Earth too, never been there."

[treadswater]

For a moment, Annie just looks startled. Someone is...happy for her? A stranger? But the woman seems sincere, and...happy. For her.

Shyly, Annie grins back. "Um, no, we ain't. Not yet, anyway."

Then she blinks.

"Never been...oh. I can't even imagine that. I'm from Earth, but we only ever heard of the Solar System."

[meimeimechanic]

"You should, it's a big day. I remember my brothers gettin' married, all kinds a'chaos. Best day, wi' the dancin' an' cake. Everyone all happy." She explains in her own way. Her family were chaos, both of them were. Her shipboard family and her biological ones. Kaylee was not going to think of what was going on with Simon then. It was confusing and she didn't want to go there.

"My home is Zephyr, out in the Kalidasa system. Folk left Earth-that-was and settled in a new place. So many of us, we're spread out over five systems. Red Sun, Blue Sun, White Sun, Kalidasa, Georgia. I've traveled a lot of places now. Never thought I would, but you get an offer t'go be mechanic on a startship that clearly needs ya, can't say no now."

[treadswater]

Annie smiles at that, at all the images Kaylee's words conjure. "Maybe if we got to know some folk here. Be a pretty quiet party elsewise."

Still, she's happy to move on - if not else because the brother she's closest to is dead, and for their own safety, she doesn't know her half-siblings.

And it's not as if Kaylee isn't offering her other things.

The look on Annie's face is one of genuine wonder. "So, so many systems," she whispers. Then she laughs, a little. "Yep, I would. Have an excuse to go places, and get paid, certainly go and sign up."

[meimeimechanic]

"I like you already, so I'm sure other folk will." Kaylee is a very good judge of character.

Paid, huh now that was something else, didn't always work out and they got themselves just enough to get by. Once or twice they got more than they could ever go imagining but then they had to sort out things like fixing up Serenity and buying a new mule, which still needed a few tweaks to the engine as far as Kaylee was concerned. She would never be satisfied with it.

"Don't always get paid. Still, they're family an' you make do t'get by and keep flyin'."

[treadswater]

This is because you don't think I'm mad so far, Annie thinks a second after she grins at Kaylee, bright and startled and delighted. It's a thought that makes her smile falter, although she tries to hide it by ignoring, by moving onto the rest of what the woman is talking about.

"Well, 'not always' ain't exactly the same thing as 'never'," she says, but with the kind of smile which suggests she's familiar with inconsistent wages. "And, yeah. Family. My momma's shrimp boat sometimes ran just on that, and nothin' else."