Company & Gossip

Posted on Wed Aug 28th, 2019 @ 7:07pm by Commander Hades,MD & Lieutenant Commander Carolyn Corrigan MD

1,090 words; about a 5 minute read

Mission: Episode 99 - Exordium / Epilogue
Location: Kitty O'Shea's restaurant
Timeline: MD02 Early Morning

ON:

Breakfast was a usually a very busy time for Kitty O’Shea. In the few years since they had established their little taste of Ireland right here on the station, Kitty’s cooking had become a popular staple for those beginning their day.

For the woman herself, her kitchen was her sanctuary. She found it calming, a blessing when she always seemed at loggerheads with her husband. And by now her kitchen operated like a well-oiled machine. Her other love, however was gossip.

Which perhaps sounded worse than it was. Stories was perhaps a better word. She was, despite her occasional harsh word if someone crossed a line, a people person. And so when not cooking she was a constant presence in the bar itself. Not serving drinks but just talking away to anyone and everyone.

This morning she saw a familiar order come in. With nothing else to busy herself with, she delivered it personally. “Well good morning Doctor Hades! It is lovely to see you back again. I hope you have more of an appetite today,” she gently scolded, her Dublin accent thick. “Just yourself today? I’ll keep you company if you’d like.”

Without waiting for an answer she sat down, sending him a kind smile. “How are you dear?”

He studied the woman. He almost smiled at her forcefulness and her inability to listen to a response before plunging forward. Truth was he wanted to be alone but he should have known better then to just come to a place where the owner took a microscopic interest in her clients. The odd thing was that it wasn't as busy as usual.

Kalani was being released today. They'd spent all night talking and she'd come to him with a story that...although hard to believe had intrigued him. He wondered about it.

The question 'How are you dear?' was a loaded one. He was fine, and not fine, tired, and energized, and he had so much on his plate that there were days he felt as if a he had to lift weights to just get up. Today was one of those days and yet here he was talking to a woman who seemed to know all about the goings on of the station. "I am fine." He simply said.

“Well now, fine one of those words that often mean the opposite,” Kitty observed. “My cousin Leila was fine until she shaved off her hair and ran half naked down Grafton Street, bless!” At the memory the woman chuckled. “You aren’t that kind of fine, are ya?”

Hades smiled a little. "Madam I assure you I will not be shaving my head nor running naked around the station....yet."

She laughed, and it seemed to come from all the way down at her toes. “I’ll tell the girls in my book club to keep an eye out just in case,” she chuckled.

“You should drop by here an evening. Even if you aren’t fond of a drink, nothing quite like some actual music to lift the spirits. I promise you’ll be smiling! Bring your lovely wife to be when she’s up to it. Dancing optional!”

He smiled. This woman was a bundle of energy. She was genuine and he liked that. "So...you know Carolyn well?"

“Before she came here, the last time I ever saw her ... mmm... must have must have been when she was a baby. Now I am showing my age, aren’t I?!” Kitty laughed again. “I know her grandmother, Sharon, well and we kept in touch. And I know people who know people.”

The last part she said in a whisper as if revealing a criminal network or spies. “Between you and me, I see so much of her mother and grandmother in her. Liam brought her here the other night and when I got her she was as sitting right over there, playing that old piano of ours. She can play any instrument on that stage there, I can tell you that. And I know my Liam is rather taken with her.”

"I see. Tell me about your Liam." He said his brotherly tags showing.

“Right mischief that one, from the day he was born!” Kitty exclaimed. “My sister said she needed eyes in the back of her head. If there was trouble to be had, he’d find it! I couldn’t tell you the amount of fights he got into. Don’t get me wrong, he’s not a bad soul really. He just needed some direction and to stop associating with the wrong sort. And thankfully he stopped marrying them too.”

Marines set him on straight and narrow while he was with them. Now he’s out here, putting up with us!”

Hades was silent for a while. "He was married?"

“Uh huh,” Kitty nodded, holding up a hand with two fingers held up, “two times! We didn’t even meet the last one. A week that one lasted. He was engaged a while back but that didn’t last.”

"And now he's intent on Carolyn?"

“Oh, now don’t get me wrong, he isn’t the same man he was then,” Kitty said, coming to her nephews defence. “And I don’t know if intent is the right word but it’s certainly something. And she’s a lovely girl. Just like her mammy. Liam will behave, I’ll make sure of it.”

That didn't mean he wouldn't watch the man like a hawk. "I shall keep an eye on him as well. I do not want Carolyn injured."

Kitty regarded him thoughtfully, if she felt the need to further defend her nephew she said nothing of it. “You two are good friends,” she said it as an observation rather than a question.

"We are. I see her as part of my family."

Kitty patted his arm, “as the old saying goes, friends are the family we pick ourselves. She’s a very lucky girl if you ask me.”

"She doesn't feel that way. She sees me as a meddler." He said honestly.

“That’s what families do, dear,” Kitty told him. “The good ones anyway. And she never has a bad word to say about you, I swear. And we all need someone to meddle, or else how’d we know anybody cared?”

He smiled a little. He decided he liked this woman even though he wanted to knock her nephew into the next century.

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