Trooper Station, Friday

[firstofitskind]

Do you know what was super helpful when you were fighting off a lingering migraine?

Carol of the Bells playing nearly goddamn everywhere, that's what.

The Troopers had decided to combat this by singing any other Christmas carol that involved the word "bell" or "bells".

"I hate all of this," Liam decided with a sigh.

Comments

[okteiviakom]

"On the Cape Rouge, with Duke."

Which Octavia had some complicated feelings about, but no one needed to know that.

[firstofitskind]

"Well," Liam said slowly. "At least she's got a roof over her head. That's good." Having no idea, of course, that the woman in question would much rather have an ocean than a roof, and not the one they had access to here. And he didn't know Duke particularly well, but he'd assume the woman was free to come and go from the boat as she pleased. Otherwise it'd just be creepy.

[okteiviakom]

"Yeah," Octavia replied, succinctly. "And she's apparently learned English, so that's good too."

And very weird.

[firstofitskind]

"That was fast."

Said the person who'd said his first words within seconds of being born.

[okteiviakom]

"Think you're the least qualified person here to be saying that," Octavia replied, in agreement with his narrative. "But, yeah. I think Duke said it happened overnight."

[firstofitskind]

"But even then, she either won't- or can't- tell you where she's from," Liam said thoughtfully. If she'd been able to provide satisfactory answers, after all, Octavia probably wouldn't have come looking for him.

[okteiviakom]

"I don't think so, no," Octavia replied with a brief shake of her head. "But at least it's progress from when we found her in the aquarium."

[firstofitskind]

"When you say 'in'..." Liam said slowly.

At the aquarium made a certain amount of sense. In made less sense.

(Unless you knew what she actually was, of course.)

[okteiviakom]

"Well," Octavia replied, after a beat, "at the aquarium. But in a tank."

So... Yeah.

[firstofitskind]

"How'd she get in there without anyone noticing?" Liam had to ask.

Assuming, perhaps naively, that everything had gone down during normal operating hours where a woman swimming in a tank might have garnered no small amount of attention.

[okteiviakom]

Octavia was about to help him shake off some of that naivete! "I don't know how long she'd been there, but apparently the guard doesn't go in the exhibit rooms much, so..."

She shrugged.

[firstofitskind]

"The gua- " and that's when the impact of that particular statement hit. Because while he knew Octavia was any number of things, being around large groups of people, like the kind you'd find at a tourist attraction, didn't seem to be one of them. So yeah, he laughed.

"You broke into the aquarium after-hours," he realized.

Again, terrible at being a cop, because that was also trespassing. Deliberate, calculated trespassing, in fact.

[okteiviakom]

Octavia shrugged again. "Well, technically Duke did."

For her.

[firstofitskind]

"With you along," Liam pointed out. A beat. "Was this a date?"

[okteiviakom]

Octavia looked like she wanted to roll her eyes. "Why does everyone keep asking that?"

'Everyone' being him and Magnus.

[firstofitskind]

"Probably because it sounds like a date," Liam pointed out.

[okteiviakom]

"I don't do dates."

No, she just did some extremely date-like things with people (well, a person) she also kissed and on occasion cuddled with.

[firstofitskind]

That's... that's pretty date-y.

Liam didn't say anything, just bit his lip like he was trying to hide a smile.

(He wasn't terribly successful. But then, he wasn't really trying all that hard to begin with.)

[okteiviakom]

"I can see you're smiling," Octavia drawled, unimpressed.

Well, she could see he was trying not to, anyway.

"Knock it off."

[firstofitskind]

“This is just how my face is naturally,” Liam tried to protest.

It was not. He kind of had resting scowl face actually.

[okteiviakom]

"It's not." Come on, Liam. Octavia had spent too much time around him to buy that. "So knock it off."

[firstofitskind]

Okay, okay, and now Liam really was making an effort to stop smiling. "Does implying it's a date really bother you?"

[okteiviakom]

"I don't do dates," Octavia repeated, shrugging. That wasn't really an actual answer to his question, though, except perhaps between the lines. "That wasn't a thing where I came from."

[firstofitskind]

"Neither were pumpkin spice lattes," Liam pointed out. "Yet you still do those when the season comes around."

[okteiviakom]

Octavia snorted. Quietly. "How's that comparable?"