chiron_survivor | Entries tagged with writing

Bucky Bird was in a bind.

For months, he had worked tirelessly to protect his friend and caretaker, Adia. She was a gentle human with a big heart, but these traits made her vulnerable. He needed to remain ever vigilant if he was going to keep her safe.

On his days with Candela, he trained as hard as he could to improve his abilities. Otherwise, he’d take to the skies, building up his wing strength and endurance. But it was not enough. He was still too small and too weak, and he felt no closer to evolving.

Sarah and Ethel recommended that he relax a little. The anti-violence field was back in place, the bad man who had injured Steve was gone. But Bucky knew better. The Nexus was full of bad humans who would hurt someone as sweet as Adia if given a chance.

He wouldn’t let them get that chance.

Things came to a head one day when a strange man tried to enter Steve’s apartment. Bucky was able to shoo him back out, but the episode left him rattled. He needed to be stronger in case the intruder returned!

It was time to take matters into his own wings if he was ever going to evolve. He had failed to keep Steve safe, he wasn’t going to let the same thing happen to Adia.

He was going to become the protector she deserved.
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((tl;dr -- Adia assists with a disease outbreak aboard Galactica and meets Captain Agathon and his daughter, Hera, the only Cylon-human hybrid. This story is heavily based on the Season 3 episode The Woman King, and the characters and medical terms contained within are canon.))

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Spending as much time as she does in the Nexus, Adia often has to play catch-up when she returns to her ship. Where are they in space? Are the Cylons any closer to the Fleet?

How much progress have they made towards finding Earth?

She usually asks one of the ship’s crew. They are always so engrossed with their duties that they never notice her absence or wonder at her obvious questions. But this afternoon, it is the crew who is absent, and Adia walks the halls alone, fretting over where everyone has gotten to.

Her search leads her to the entertainment room, where she finds not only the crew, but everyone else on board, including her friends Maggie and Seth. They wave her over, Maggie rising from her seat despite the awkwardness of her pregnant belly. “Girl, where have you been? Captain Sousa called an all-hands over an hour ago so we could watch President Roslin’s address on the vid comm.”

Adia laughs nervously, fingers twisting into the ends of her scarf. “I, um… I was really wrapped up in my work?” Maggie gives her a skeptical look, but otherwise doesn’t comment, much to her relief. “What’d I miss?”
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Once Khan is defeated and the anti-violence field snaps back into place, Adia hurries to Steve’s apartment to check on the three pokemon who live there. They would have had an excellent view of the destruction, even though the neighborhood is thankfully undamaged. Adia can only imagine how anxious they are, cooped up all day with no way to check on Steve.

She wishes that she had better news to bring them.

The superintendent is in his office — a small blessing. He gives Adia a spare key, and she uses it to unlock Steve’s door. She barely has it open before Sarah comes barreling through, knocking her over and barking excitedly in greeting.

“H-hey!” Adia laughs despite herself and half-pets, half-pushes at the growlithe who is now whining and licking her face. “Easy, Sarah. It’s good to see you, too.”

Ethel plods into view and lets out a sharp, metallic bark of annoyance at Sarah, nudging the dog-like creature off so that Adia can get back on her feet. Undeterred, Sarah trots down the hallway, looking for Steve and whining when she doesn’t see him.

Adia thanks Ethel quietly and dusts herself off. “Sarah, come back into the apartment with us, okay? I have something to tell you.” She steps inside and looks around; someone has knocked the pillows off the couch and there is a chewed-up drawing pad on the floor, but no fires or holes in the wall. That’s good. She spots Bucky perched at his usual spot on top of the bookshelves and gives him a whistle, but he makes no move to fly to her, his gaze wary.

Sarah bustles pasts her and sits down next to Ethel. Adia shuts the door and takes a moment to breathe slowly before facing three sets of attentive, worried eyes.
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Adia had originally bought the green dress to wear at her college graduation. Or rather, her mother had bought it, concerned that her daughter would grab the first drab thing hanging in the store and call it a day. The dress was long-sleeved and without adornment, but the bodice fit her nicely and the satin material added a bit of flair to the A-line hem.

“You look beautiful,” She told her in the dressing room. “Emerald green is a lovely color on you.”

Adia examined herself in the mirror, turning this way and that, the fabric swishing pleasantly against her legs. It did look lovely on her, which was part of the problem. “I don’t know… it’s awfully pricey, Mom, and I’m only going to wear it once.”

“This is my treat, sweetie.” Her mother stood behind her, putting her hands on her shoulders and smiling at her daughter’s reflection. “Besides, you can wear it to parties.”

Adia met her mother’s encouraging gaze in the mirror and smiled weakly. “Sure, Mom… parties.”

~*~
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Adia returns to work the next day, her head heavy with the hangover she thoroughly earned from all her drinking in the Nexus. There is no nausea, thankfully, just a dull throbbing that doesn’t ease up no matter how much water she drinks.

Julia greets her as soon as she walks in. “I missed you yesterday.” Her mouth puckers in concern. “Were you ill? You look washed out.”

“I was at the detention center.” Adia is unable to hide the incredulity from her voice. “Didn’t you know that?”

“No,” Julia replies in surprise. She frowns and looks over at Four working at his desk in the back of the lab. “Four didn’t tell me…”

“I was there for hours, Julia. You didn’t think to ask anyone what had happened to me?” Something close to shame crosses the pretty blonde’s features, and Adia sighs. Julia is one of the more sympathetic Cylons, but she’s still a Cylon. Adia shouldn’t expect that much from her. “Look, it doesn’t matter anyway. A Five stopped the interrogation and led me out. I didn’t have to spend the night or anything.”

“A Five?” Now it is Julia’s turn to look incredulous. “Are you sure that was the model who took you out of the detention center?”

Adia frowns defensively. “I know what a Five looks like,” she says, but Julia shakes her head.

“Fives don’t end interrogations, Adia. They start them. They escalate them. The only time a Five lets someone go is if he’s recruiting for the New Caprica Police.” She peers at Adia curiously, as if seeing her in an entirely new light. “So why would he make an exception for you?”

Adia doesn’t know what to say. Was she wrong about Caspar’s motivation? Did he really go against his model’s programming on her behalf?

The sound of an explosion outside the lab abruptly ends their conversation. Adia rushes out, along with everyone else, to find the source of the commotion.

Battlestar Galactica is falling from the sky.
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((tl;dr -- Battlestar Galactica came back and rescued the humans from New Caprica! Hooray! Adia is back in space where she belongs.))

It is the smallest of blessings that they don’t come for her in the night like the others.

Instead, she’s greeted in the morning by a masked police officer and an armed Centurion. The police officer is polite, informs her that the Cylons only want to ask her a few questions about her neighbor, a suspect in the most recent Resistance bombing. He waits for her to get her coat and gently herds her towards the detention center.

She thinks about running. She thinks about the PINpoint hidden under her mattress.

She thinks about the shiny metal robot with machine guns for arms following a pace behind her and she lets herself be guided without protest.

By the time she is led into an interrogation room and told to have a seat, her heart is ready to hammer out of her chest. Nobody has threatened her yet. Nobody needs to. This is already her worst nightmare.

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((tl;dr -- Adia is unjustly questioned until a Five comes to her rescue. Adia works up the nerve to talk to him, thinking that it's Caspar. It doesn't go well.))

After the fiasco with the love-cursed candy, Adia is, for once, eager to return to New Caprica and leave the Nexus and its Valentine’s Day nonsense behind.

Reaching inside her coat pocket for her PINpoint, her fingers brush against the heart-shaped chocolate she took from Nekomata’s stand, before she knew about its curse. She pulls it out and looks over the shiny red foil. Thank goodness she hadn’t given it to her boyfriend like she had originally planned. The last thing her relationship needed was cursed chocolate.

Then again… it might not have been so bad, so long as she was the first person that Will saw after eating it. It would have been nice to hear some flowery declarations of love from her boyfriend, even if it wore off with a kiss. The only thing Will expresses passion for these days is the Resistance.

She tests the weight of the chocolate in her palm. It feels solid. It probably tastes good, too. Such a waste that she can’t give it to someone.

What if she gives it to Caspar.

The thought pops into her head before she can censor herself. What if she finds Caspar and gets him to eat the chocolate. He’d fall in love with her all over again. He’d do anything for her, like follow her to the Nexus, or turn his back on the Cylons. So long as they never kissed, he’d belong to her forever.

She looks at the candy for a moment or two. Then, disgusted with herself, she hurls it into the nearest trashcan and teleports home.

Adia was dreaming about bees when the sound of a distant explosion woke her up.

She thought it was fireworks at first, or thunder, but New Caprica had never seen either. She threw on her coat and wandered out of her housing unit, her roommates not far behind. Word spread quickly through the settlement — a bomb had been detonated at a Cylon armory, blowing up several dozen Centurions and a few human models as well. A symbolic gesture at best, but one that met with murmured approval. Finally, the Resistance was showing those frakking toasters that humanity wouldn’t take this Occupation lying down.

Adia returned to bed with a heavy heart. This must have been what Will was alluding to when they last spoke. It was a shame that it had to come to violence, and try as she might, she couldn’t fall back asleep.

~*~

The mood in the lab the next day was somber. Four said nothing to Adia the entire day. He most definitely did not compliment her on her work.

Julia was unusually quiet, as well. It wasn’t until mid-morning that the pretty blonde Cylon spoke to Adia at all, sidling up to her workstation and murmuring, “You heard about the bombing, I assume?”

Adia nodded, not trusting her voice. There were Centurions patrolling the settlement, looking for suspects. Or scapegoats.

“Some of us died, you know.” Julia’s eyes looked sad. “I don’t understand why the humans keep rejecting God’s will. We’re trying so hard to keep things peaceful.”

It’s only the fact that Julia sounded so sincere that Adia didn’t roll her eyes. Well, that and her inherent fear of all Cylons. How could she be so clueless about the realities of New Caprica? Even Adia wasn’t that naive. “I’m sorry for your loss,” she said finally, before remembering a Cylon’s ability to resurrect. “Are they okay now?”

Julia sighed heavily. “More or less. Resurrection isn’t easy. You carry everything with you, including your death. It’s like experiencing it twice.”

Adia paled at the frank admission, a cold feeling settling in her gut. It wasn’t for the Cylons who died in the explosion, although that sounded terrible. It was for Caspar, and what he must have felt when he resurrected. “That… that sounds awful. I’m sorry they went through that.” She looked down, not knowing what to do with this painful knowledge. “I don’t like the fighting, either.”

Julia’s expression softened, a small smile tugging on her lips. “I know, Adia. You’re always so good about getting along with others. I wish more humans felt the way you did.”

Adia would normally have appreciated the compliment, but in this context it rubbed her the wrong way. It made her feel like a coward. “I should get back to work,” she murmured, hoping that Julia would take the hint.

“Of course.” Julia patted her arm affectionately before walking away. Adia tried not to bristle at the touch.

After the Nexus Halloween party, Adia returned her wig to the costume shop, washed off her make-up, and used her PINpoint to go home. She slept little that night, still keyed up from the festivities. It had been like a fairy tale, an enchanted evening, even with the troubling news of Reynard’s behavior last winter.

But like all fairy tales, she had to return to reality. And the worst part was that she couldn’t talk about what happened with anyone.

Not with Maggie and Seth, her closest friends. She gave them wrapped candies from the party, lied and said that they were from an old stash in the ship’s commissary. Not with the elderly couple from Picon who reminded Adia so much of her parents that her heart hurt. Not with her fellow co-workers, or the people who came to the health clinic.

Certainly not with Julia or any other Cylon whose paths she crossed.

William was unusually quiet, pacing back and forth when Adia joined him in his tent. He paused to greet her, but didn’t say much aside from idle pleasantries. She felt guilty over how much she enjoyed the silence as they simply held one another on his makeshift bed, nothing more than a rag-stuffed mattress that caved into their combined weight.

“Hey,” he said finally, turning to look at her. “Sorry I don’t have anything to say. Things are moving forward with… you know. Big plans.” He didn’t seem excited or smug about it. There was nothing but worry in his green eyes. “I can’t talk about it.”

Adia nodded and ran a hand through his hair. “I understand.”

“It’s not that I don’t trust you,” he said hurriedly. He smiled wryly. “Even if I know you’d argue with me about it. But it’s not safe for you to know.” He took her hand in his and brought it to his chest. “I feel like I can tell you anything, y’know? You always listen to me.”

She smiled softly. It had been a while since William had something that tender to her. The Occupation had not been good for their relationship.

“And if there’s anything you want to talk about,” he continued earnestly. “I’m here for you. You know that, right?”

She thought of the PINpoint in her inner pocket, and the Nexus. She thought of the food, and the dancing, and the talk of not one Earth, but many.

“I know,” she lied, closing her eyes.

It has been three months since the Cylons arrived on New Caprica.

Superficially, not much has changed for Adia. She still works on infectious disease control in her lab. She still lives with her friend Maggie, and Maggie’s boyfriend, Seth. They are the closest thing to family that she has.

There is talk of resistance. Her boyfriend, Will, actively participates in their clandestine meetings. It terrifies Adia — she doesn’t want to see him get hurt. But she has an even deeper fear that a resistance movement will make everything worse. But if not a resistance movement, then what? What will free the humans from the Cylon occupiers?

People have started to go missing.

~*~

There are seven Cylon models, and sometimes they visit the human settlement.

The Sixes and Eights do not scare her, she sees them the most, and they seem the most willing to work with humans. There is a Six in her lab named Julia, and she will not shut up about her God. Sometimes Adia hates her, and imagines slapping her sanctimonious smile right off her beautiful face. But then she remembers the vision that her friend April had shared with her — a Six tortured to suicide by her human captors — and then she just feels bad.

A Four is officially in charge of Adia’s lab, and he treats her with distant politeness, occasionally complimenting her on her work the way someone might give a dog on the street a friendly pat or a child a lollipop. Otherwise, he ignores her.

She rarely sees a Three, or a One. The Ones terrify her in a way she can’t explain.

The Twos keep to themselves, although one smiled at her once, like they were sharing an inside joke. She just looked away and kept walking.

The Fives — Caspar’s model — all look through her. If the Fours act distant, the Fives might as well be pretending that they are on another planet. It reminds Adia of when Caspar would be so wrapped up in his work that she’d have to call his name at least twice to get his attention.

He’d always smile sheepishly at her and say he was sorry.

She doesn’t dare call his name. Not here.

It had been over a year since the last of humanity landed on a barely habitable planet and named it New Caprica. 379 days since President Baltar led his people in a hope for a new beginning, a place to start over, free from the terror of the cylons.

379 days since Adia gave up on the hope of reaching Earth.

It hadn't been all bad. President Baltar was not the amazing visionary he had made himself out to be, but people were getting stuff done. Adia's research was proving useful, and she had found someone to care about again. She very rarely had bad dreams about Caspar anymore, and she couldn't remember the last time she had a good dream about him (which in some ways were the worst dreams of all).

The Nexus was still her personal outlet, and she had visited not one, but two different Earths. It satisfied her wanderlust and her desire for home all at once.

379 days, and she was finally moving on.

On the 380th day, the cylons landed.

They hadn't stopped looking for the Fleet, Adia later learned, and Cloud 9's nuclear explosion gave away their last location. So they arrived. Thousands upon thousands of shiny Centurions, guns at the ready. And the human-looking ones. All seven models.

The few ships that were orbiting New Caprica, including Battlestar Galactica, immediately jumped into hyperspace and disappeared. Adia understood why later -- stay and be destroyed or escape and hope to come back for a rescue -- but at the time she felt utterly abandoned.

Adia was in her lab when the colony went into emergency lock-down. If she had been in her quarters, she could have PINpointed to the Nexus. Instead, she waited anxiously by the wireless for news. It was just like when the war started. Except this time, there was no Caspar to comfort her.

Now, Caspar was the enemy.

Finally, news arrived. The humans and cylons were going to try out a coalition government and attempt peaceful relations.

Nobody cheered.

President Baltar called a general assembly. Some colonists attended in person, but Adia stayed in her lab and watched on a computer screen. The camera panned along the stage and --

She hadn't meant to cry out, but there he was. Two of him, in fact.

Almost two years without him, and just one day to undo everything.

On Election Day, Adia places her vote and then goes to work, but no one in her lab gets much done. They're all too busy listening to the wireless. Both candidates give last minute speeches, and reporters comment on the results as the votes are tabulated.

When Doctor Baltar wins, reaction is mixed. Some of Adia's colleagues are pleased that such an esteemed scientist won, others are disappointed in President Roslin's loss. Adia keeps her thoughts to herself. It wasn't too long ago that she thought Earth was a pipe dream, too. But settling on New Caprica seems too much liking giving up, and she's already given up so much.

Later that day, the Fleet makes a sudden jump through space, but Adia doesn't notice. The FTL drives are designed for seamless travel. It's the klaxons and sudden Emergency Lockdown that gets her attention. She's been through several before; some real, some just drills.

For whatever reason, this doesn't feel like a drill.

Lockdown does not last long, not even long enough for Adia to contemplate getting out her PINpoint. She convenes with others on her ship in the mess hall to learn what happened.

A nuclear warhead was detonated on Cloud Nine. The ship was obliterated. No survivors. The fleet made an emergency jump to escape further damage.

Suddenly, the election doesn't seem so significant.

A week after Adia's birthday, the colonies' defenses fell and the cylons destroyed everything.

A week before Adia's birthday, Maggie asked her over breakfast, "What kind of cake do you want for your birthday?"

"Chocolate," she replied, pouring milk into her cereal. "Wait, what? Maggie, you don't have to get me a cake."

Maggie laughed. "I'm not going to get you a cake, I'm going to bake you one."

"She does it on everyone's birthday," Maggie's boyfriend Seth added.

Maggie stuck out her tongue. "Not everyone. Just people I like. We can have a little party after dinner, like we did for Julia and Mark last month."

Adia was not sure she wanted a party for her birthday, and confided as much to Caspar while they shared their workstation later that day. "Yeah, it's a lot of attention," he agreed. "But people on this ship are always looking for an excuse to party. Maybe you'll get a present or two out of it."

"Oh, I don't want presents," Adia said, rather firmly, and Caspar looked a little worried.

On the day of her birthday, Adia checked her email before she went to breakfast. There were several emails wishing her a happy birthday, along with an e-card from her parents. She went to the mess hall and received a few more well wishes. Halfway through her meal, she remembered that she had left a couple journal articles in her quarters, and headed back there once she was done.

Sitting on her desk was a bouquet of orange tulips. Tulips were her favorite flower -- they reminded her of home, the vast fields of tulips she and her parents would drive past on the way to Nana's. She ran her fingers gently along the petals before opening the little card tucked among them.

Have a great birthday. I'm really glad you're on this ship with me.

They were from Caspar. Color her surprised. They were friends -- very close friends -- but she didn't think he'd go to such trouble to have flowers delivered.

She didn't see him until right before lunch, in the hall outside their lab. "Happy birthday," he said quietly, and maybe it was just her imagination, but he looked nervous.

For some reason, she felt nervous too. "I got the tulips you sent me." She wanted to tell him how wonderful he was for getting them for her, but instead, she self-consciously stuttered, "They were really pretty, thank you."

He smiled, and she closed the distance between them, intending to give him a hug, but he wasn't much taller than her and their lips weren't all that far apart, and he sure was cute when he smiled, and somehow her mouth found his and she kissed him.

His lips parted, just enough to catch hers, and tiny shivers traveled down her spine. She pulled away after a second or two. Caspar had a grin on his face that Adia would have called downright goofy if it didn't just make her want to kiss him again, over and over. Besides, she was pretty sure she had the same goofy grin on her own face.

This was the best birthday ever.

On Adia's first day of work aboard the Chiron, Dr. Yaslow, her supervisor, held a lab meeting. "This is Ms. Costas, she'll be working on the Orchis study," He announced, then immediately went on to other business. Adia offered her new co-workers a shy smile, but their attention had returned to their notepads and laptops.

Maggie was the first friend Adia made. She was in another department but their quarters were across the hall from one another. Maggie was from Leonis, just like her. But more importantly, Maggie was friendly and outgoing, eager to take Adia under her wing.

There was a lot to learn those first couple of weeks before Adia could really get into her research. One afternoon, she found herself stuck on how to complete a particular assay. Not many people were in the lab at the moment and she debated who to ask. Cynthia was around, but she had been kind of bitchy when Adia asked her where the agar plates were kept and she didn't want to bother her again.

Caspar was at his workstation. Adia had never talked to him before, at least not one-on-one. He was soft-spoken at lab meetings, but always the first to turn the conversation back to the topic at hand if it strayed too far. He seemed pretty serious, even severe, but Adia needed to ask someone for help.

It didn't hurt that he was kind of cute, too.

He was staring into his microscope when she walked over, and she had to say his name to get his attention. "Hi... Adia, right?" He seemed distracted. "Did you need something?"

"I did. I'm stuck on an assay. Do you mind walking me through it?"

She half-expected him to say he was busy, or sigh in annoyance, but he simply shrugged and stood up. "Sure. Walk me through what you've done so far."

Caspar was slow and methodical in his explanation without sounding patronizing, and by the time they were done, Adia was confident she could do the assay again without trouble. "Thank you so much, Caspar," She beamed, but he just looked away and said it wasn't a big deal before returning to his workstation.

When she left later, for dinner, she told him to have a good night, and he smiled a little and said you, too.

They didn't really talk again until a couple of days later, when Caspar came over to her lab bench and asked if she had seen the lab's screwdriver. She joked that she was the wrong person to ask, and by the way, the lab had a screwdriver? They both shared a chuckle. He found it the next day and told her where to find it, in case she needed it, and then asked how her research was going. He dropped by a few more times that week, with a question or just a friendly observation, and she reciprocated in kind.

One evening, Adia sat in the cafeteria with her dinner and felt sorry for herself. Nothing had gone right in the lab, and then she found out that Maggie was running late and wouldn't be able to eat with her. Adia hated eating alone -- it reminded her of junior high, when she sat at a table all by herself with only a book for company.

She heard someone say her name and looked up. It was Caspar. "Can I join you?" He asked.

"Of course!" Adia slid her tray towards her to make some room on the table for Caspar's. He sat across from her and matched her smile with one of his own.

That's when Adia knew she had made another friend.

She never liked the chairs in the conference room. Stiff-backed and difficult to adjust, they always made her uncomfortable. Cas used to joke that it was to keep the meetings short--

No. Don't think of him. Stop thinking about him. She took a sip from the cup of tea in her hands. Someone had put a blanket around her shoulders, but she couldn't remember who or when.

The man who walked in was light-haired and wiry. He was one of the military personnel that had boarded the Chiron only an hour ago. He took a seat across from her and set a folder on the table. He was armed. She couldn't stop staring at the gun. She'd seen more guns in the past hour than in her entire life. She was afraid of them before. Now they made her sick.

"Ms. Costas." The soldier's voice was polite. Not cold, but not warm, either. She looked up at him. "I'm Lieutenant Ridley. I need to ask you a few questions about what happened to Mr. Millen, for our records. I'll try to keep things brief. I know this couldn't have been easy for you."

She nodded and waited for him to continue. He opened the folder in front of him and rifled through its contents. "How long had you known Mr. Millen?"

"Three months." It didn't sound so long, in retrospect.

Lt. Ridley made a note somewhere with his pen. "You met him on the Chiron, correct?" Adia nodded. "Some of your colleagues said you two were romantically involved."

Her face flushed, an involuntary burst of giddiness that made her want to puke. "Just since my birthday, a week ago. We were only friends before that." Only friends. He was her best friend. Stop thinking about him. She took another sip of tea, let the hot liquid burn her tongue.

"Did he act strange at all before today? Do anything out of the ordinary?"

She thought of the bouquet of tulips on her desk in her quarters. "No."

"Did he say anything to you before he shot himself?"

"Just... just that he was sorry." One last kiss, and then the gun was to his head before she could stop him and a loud bang and blood and his body on the ground.

"And he never said anything about being a cylon? Not even at the end?"

She wanted to scream. "No. I told you people that already. He was so scared that you thought he was a cylon--"

"Ms. Costas, he was a cylon." Lt. Ridley opened the folder and pulled out a photograph. She recognized the man in the photo even before Ridley turned it around and slid it towards her. It was a black and white image, taken by a security camera.

"That's Caspar," she said numbly. Her hands felt like ice.

"That's Aaron Doral," Ridley corrected. "A PR agent on Battlestar Galactica. There are more of them. We're trying to weed them all out."

She blinked back tears. That was Caspar, wearing a suit she didn't recognize. No, not Caspar. Another name, another body. A cylon.

"He most likely was a sleeper agent, Ms. Costas." Ridley's voice was gentle, as if talking to a scared child. "He might have been programmed to take his own life if caught. You shouldn't blame yourself for anything that happened." He stood up and collected his paperwork, including the photograph. "Is there anything else I can get you?"

For a brief moment, she remembered the devastation of the twelve colonies, how much bigger that was than the both of them. "No, thank you." He nodded and left her alone in the conference room, with her tea and blanket.

Stop thinking about him. But she couldn't.