S1:Ep4 (YNTSLY) - No Tea No Shade

[Lomari]

Recap from S1:Ep4 - You're NoBody 'Till SomeBody Loves You

"Raise a glass, if you don't mind. To all of us and all of you and maybe one for me too! Cheers!" their Captain said, and Tabby sat, her hands coiling around her own teacup as she lifted it in turn. Once the toast was over, she took a tender sip, careful not to burn her tongue.

"Ya'll know what goes good with tea? ... Singin'. Tabby, do us the pleasure wouldja?"

"Yeah! Raise our spirits in the timeless art of song, good doctor," Rian added.

The teacup returned to the table and the doctor cleared her throat as she stood, a hand lifting to smooth back the curls with varying levels of success. She didn't ask what their next plan was, where they were headed, what exactly had happened, or whether they should worry about that suave fellow coming back to haunt them. That wasn't her way. She looked around at the table and began her singing, tips of her fingers settled against the edge of the table.

We circle around, we circle around
The boundaries of the earth

We circle around, we circle around
The boundaries of the Earth

Wearing our long wing feathers as we fly
Wearing our long wing feathers as we fly

We circle around, we circle around
The boundaries of the sky

[Barnaby Goodweather]

"That was a damn peach, Tab." Barnaby beamed, gobsmacked at the medic's talent. "Real pretty." He sipped his tea and let everybody settle in, wondering how long it was until the cake was ready. Truth be told Barnaby had a bit of a sweet tooth and something as decadent as cake was a rarity for most ships. But the Darling's larder almost always had the makings for it or some other analogous dessert. Sugar was always in the budget.

Budget. There was no getting around it. They hadn't gotten paid for all the toil and trouble they'd been through for them accursed canine chronographs. Barnaby tried not to let that sour his mood but it was difficult. Not to worry, you got a job lined up, he reminded himself. Not like that one could go any worse that the previous. Right?

He hopped out of his seat, his pants full of anxiety, and popped over to a cortex terminal and copped a peak at the new message he'd received from Chris Lee Kayne. He listed a Merchant vessel Barnaby wasn't familiar with as a reference, but also mentioned he'd been raised in a salvage yard. Being short on endorsements didn't bother Barnaby all that much. Being able to turn a wrench was the important bit, and he never met nobody from a salvage yard who couldn't at least do that. He'd give Mr. Kayne a shot. Mr. Lee Kayne? Barnaby wondered which it was. He addressed the message to Chris and figured that was good enough.

Barnaby returned, hoping the length of time he'd been gone would see him a finished cake. But it had barely been four minutes. Well, probably now was the time to say something Captainly. Something inspiring. Get everyone's hopes up and welcome their newcomers Mattie and Arlo. Barnaby resolved to have a talk with the both of them about staying on and such. Barnaby opened his mouth to speak words of wisdom and soaring parable, but they all got stuck and he wound up with "Sooooooooo...."

[Rian Carpenter]

Rian smirked at the moment of dead air after Barnaby tried to initiate conversation. It was rare that they got everybody in the same room family style. It was a welcome moment of normalcy, but it was a moment he probably should ruin. Things were coming to a head with his dual identities, and hell the crew-members in the dark probably had him half figured out already.

Standing up, the deadly chef cleared his throat.

"Hey guys, I got something I need to -"

His previously relaxed demeanor started to lock up. How the hell was he supposed to spill something like this?

Clearing his throat again, though mostly just to cover for the pause in his speech, he continued.

"I didn't tell y'all everything about me, less than I should have. I was born Rian Carpenter. Barnaby didn't tell you any lies, but he left out details I asked him to. Ain't none of you should resent him an ounce over what I gotta admit to though..."

Rian's gaze had drifted slowly to the floor. He couldn't look any of the Darling's compliment in the eye when he got to this part.

"I only spent a small part of my life being the sort of man my mother meant. Being Rian Carpenter. At least that's what I think... Jimmy Russo pulled me from my mother's arms before I could get to know much about her. You don't know my pa, consider yourself lucky. I killed a man before I'd shaved, I stole for him, and I didn't just pull a trigger for him. I planned jobs. He bought a mine, I ran the prod gang, security we called it. The rocks just became a wash for the blood on his coin. I smacked away the hand of those looking to feed their kin..."

He was having a hard time restraining the welling of emotions bottled up inside. Rian didn't like the taste of all this guilt in his mouth, and he'd felt it for too long.

"So I uhh... I tried to fix things. It did not work out... so I ran. I ran some more, then while I was running I bumped into this old fool..."

The younger man looked over to his brother in law and smirked slightly for a split second. The kindness he'd showed him hadn't yet been repaid and he knew it. He owed him and he owed this crew. At least the truth was part of that debt.

"So here I am... 'the cook' if you still believe it. But Abernathy sure didn't. I am pretty sure he recognized me at the Baron's. If he hasn't told my dad and his crew that he's seen me here, he will soon. Prison doesn't silence anybody."

This was it. This was the part where they were going to throw him off the ship. Right? Maybe the prospect of cake, now filling the room with an enticing aroma might help?

"I'm sorry..."

[Barnaby Goodweather]

Mouth agape, Barnaby wasn't quite sure what words could possibly fill the space between his teeth. He had not expected Rian to go all in on his past, in fact they had once upon a time discussed keeping the exact opposite as a matter of policy. When the two of them had first met, years ago, there had been an understanding of the man that Rian had been and the man he was going to be with Barnaby's sister-in-law. The marriage wouldn't have been allowed otherwise. Since Anna-Maria and Jorge's untimely deaths, Barnaby had taken more than a passing interest in the remaining Iglesias sisters and their mother, seeing after them when he could. He sent them money out of every paycheck. And so when this young buck named Rian Russo came waltzing in to court the youngest girl, Maya, well Barnaby was justifiably protective.

But Rian proved that his love outweighed any past entanglements and Barnaby eventually gave his blessing to the two of them. By the time that Maya died, Barnaby had already lost his first wife to death, his second to divorce, a third to trickery, his folks both died and his brother, Nate, was lost to the war and Barnaby just knew that no one could possibly understand the loss of an Iglesias woman like he could, and provided solace as best as he could to his young new brother-in-law. They were bonded after that though it took a few years for Rian to come to his senses and come work on the Darling.

And it was then that they'd decided to keep his past a secret, both for his protection and for that of the crew. Barnaby tried not to think too deep on his record of keeping the crew safe. He'd had a bad run of luck was all.

"Ain't nothing to be sorry for, Ri'. Everybody at this table is family." He stopped his eyes flickering in the direction of either Arlo or Mattie. They weren't excluded just because they were new. A stranger was just a friend you ain't made yet. Seemed like something that his Pappy would have said, but Barnaby couldn't exactly recall the words coming out of Jerry Goodweather's mouth. He briefly wondered if maybe he in fact had the ability to spout wisdom afterall. Made him feel good to think so, if even for just a moment. "We all know you a little better now, and that's a good thing. Everybody, let's tell something we all don't know about each other. I'll go first."

Barnaby paused for just a moment while thinking. "Hm, oh okay, I know! Tabby, you remember Tricky, right? He was a piece of work, wad'n'e?" It felt good to spin yarns for a bit and not worry about their current state of affairs. Barnaby felt like he was on to something here. "He was hired by my pappy and, well, I don't wanna speak ill of my pappy but he was gettin' on in years by that point and he hired all manner of folks right 'fore he passed." That made him think for a moment. "Tabby. I don't think I realized 'till just now you were my first real hire. Huh." That made him feel good that she was still around after all they'd been through.

"At the time he was XO but that was more process of elimination than it was meritorious. He hired on as crew hand, but I never seen him lift anything heavier than a beer. Anyhoo, so you think Rian sounds like a crook - no offense - this guy puts that to shame. He was always trying to get us to run schemes and scams and whatnot. This one time, Tricky he comes up to me and he says, you know what he says, he says -" Barnaby dropped into a voice approximating that of Tricky O'Doyle, which only worked for anyone who knows the man. "-Hey, Barney. What say you we head to Pelorum? I knows a man who knows a man who's got a casino and they've got this can't miss game. Double the money in your pocket, guaranteed." Barnaby chuckled to think of it. "Well, he convinced me somehow I'm sorry to say. But, that's how I met Gerry, you see, because Tricky O'Doyle had himself a list of warrants long as my arm. She tracked him to Darling, and Darling to Pelorum and while Tricky and Hardy and me - Hardy was our mechanic at the time - was hammered drunk, she snuck in close to me and we, erm, made friends."

Barnaby blushed. "She said she liked me. I think that part was true. One thing led t'other and we's married in one of those twenty-minute deals. Preacher, if you can call'm that, was dressed like a teddy bear. Dangedest thing. Tricky couldn't stop laughing about it. Joke was on him, though, with Gerrie being a Federal and all. She put him in cuffs back at the ship and took him away." He stopped for a moment, as if coming to the point of this whole story, which he presented thusly. "Now, you might think that story makes me seem foolhardy. I did for a time. Felt like I'd been hoodwinked twice over. But if I'm a dunderhead for trusting people well then I guess that's fine. Folks deserve the chance to prove'emselves to ya. That I do believe." The story, which inadvertently became a sermon, was done and Barnaby sat. "Who's next?"

[Tabitha Haemish]

"That was a damn peach, Tab. Real pretty," her Captain complimented once she'd finished the song, and with a pleased blush, Tabitha sat back down, her hands wrapping around the warm cup of tea she'd set for herself on the table. Either not sensing or not minding the thick air and the unspoken words hanging in between them all, the doctor offered everyone gathered a bright and genuine smile before sipping happily at her drink, continuing to watch the crew over the brim of her cup. She was always happy to have a full crew and seeing most of the seats at the table taken up by one person or another set her at ease. It didn't matter to her that two of their members had seemingly shown up out of nowhere and hadn't been there the day before, because to her they were crew now and that made them family. 

"Sooooooooo...." Barnaby began, followed by Rian's well timed. "Hey guys, I got something I need to -"

Tabby listened to Rian's story about being Carpenter and then Russo and now being Carpenter again. He said he'd killed and stolen and did 'jobs', which really to Tabby was a little vague. What kind of jobs? Carpentry? Oh, he did mine work? Was he a miner, then? Were they mining jobs? She set the teacup back down and splayed her hands out on the table's surface, looking between Rian, her hands, and the rest of the crew at the table.

"I'm sorry..." Rian finished and Taby's attention returned to his face. Standing up, the backs of her knees pushing her chair away from her, the doctor began walking away from the table. She stopped in front of the little pantry cabinet and opened it up, taking out one of the quilted monstrosities she'd let Abe's goons borrow once upon a time and returned to the table. With a smile, she began settling the blanked across Rian's shoulders before pointing at his tea as though to remind him that it was there to help warm him up. With that, she returned to her seat and fidgeted around until she was able to sit cross-legged atop its surface.

"Everybody, let's tell something we all don't know about each other. I'll go first," Barn proposed, seeming like he was trying to catch up to a train of thought, one that wasn't his, before it went off the rails. But he was gaining ground rather quickly.

"...Tabby, you remember Tricky, right? He was a piece of work, wad'n'e?" he asked. Tabitha tilted her head to the side and blinked innocently. She did remember Tricky, but she'd seen him as a sweet member of their innocent crew and hadn't noticed or understood the many attempts he'd made to get her into a bed with him. Misinterpreting his meaning on every occasion, she'd assumed that he thought his bed wasn't comfortable enough and had endeavored to make him more blankets and decorate it to an excruciating extent. This might have explained the bundle of handmade blankets in their linen closet.

"Tabby. I don't think I realized 'till just now you were my first real hire. Huh." At this, Tabitha did smile. She could remember the first time they'd met when he'd been on her home planet. The apples, the nice mechanic and his secret room, the tough lady Trick had been dating, and Barnaby asking her to pretend to be crew while his friends attended to a shipment that he'd brought them. It was the first time she'd ever used a scan gun and it had been thrilling! From there, she stood again, moving to the kitchen and opening the cabinets to fetch everyone some of her reserve of tea cookies. It seemed like they might be needing them today. As Barnaby finished his story about the lovely Gerry and the sweet Tricky, she put the cookies in the center of the table and nabbed one for herself, nibbling on it thoughtfully.

"Who's next?"

Mmm! Tabitha raised her hand and lowered the cookie. She looked pensive, thinking on what she could tell them but wanting to participate so Rian didn't feel so exposed. She could tell them about that time she tried to get apples out of a tree and fell straight through Farmer Johnson's roof. Or perhaps they'd be interested to hear the time she'd been learning medicine and had tried to cure someone's upset stomach and had instead managed to give them food poisoning. She was still pretty surprised about that one. Finally, she figured out what she'd need to tell them.

"I don't have good dreams anymore," she told them, nodding a little and pressing the cookie against her lower lip as she pondered how to say what she wanted to say. "When I close my eyes, I see Mama and Papa Goodweather, and the Hattington boy, and Jeremy Ruthers, and Ezekiel Masters," she began listing, looking around the table and smiling a little, although it was an uncertain smile. "I'm the reason they died, you see. I wasn't good enough at what I was doing and they didn't get better." She told them, her tone matter of fact. Nodding once, she took another bite of her cookie and sat down, body still as a statue as she waiting for the next person to go.

[Viktor Söderberg]

""So here I am... 'the cook' if you still believe it. But Abernathy sure didn't. I am pretty sure he recognized me at the Baron's. If he hasn't told my dad and his crew that he's seen me here, he will soon. Prison doesn't silence anybody."

"Now, you might think that story makes me seem foolhardy. I did for a time. Felt like I'd been hoodwinked twice over. But if I'm a dunderhead for trusting people well then I guess that's fine. Folks deserve the chance to prove'emselves to ya. That I do believe"

"I'm the reason they died, you see. I wasn't good enough at what I was doing and they didn't get better."

Preacher listened to their stories one after the other, his heart getting heavier and heavier after each one. As a man of the cloth, he was no stranger to personal confessions but hearing such heartbreak from those he considered family was a difficult burden to bear. He knew that getting these things out into the open could be therapeutic if handled correctly and he also knew that that's just what Barnaby was trying to do.

As much of an open book as Viktor was, he did have a few things which he did not speak of much. Not that he was hiding them. Someone who was looking would probably find them, he just didn't care to elaborate on them often. What should he share with his family? His biggest struggled he did not think he could yet divulge. How could he explain something to them, which he did not even understand himself. Not to mention that he believed one's journey with God was solely between the man and the deity.

What else then?

He stood, pushed his chair in under the table and stood behind it like a pulpit.

He took a deep breath, raised his eyes from the table to his crewmates and spoke. "Friends, family. I think all of you who have already spoken and even those who have still to speak should know this one thing. We, all of us, have our baggage and burdens to carry." He looked at each person in turn a light in his eyes and a sad smile on his face. "These do not make us any lesser, but only serve to add to our persons as a whole. We would not be who or where we are today with out these experiences. Please know that these things we share today are merely a single stitch in the cloth of our being. The stitch may be unsightly but the cloth as a whole is beautiful and so are each and every one of you." He swept his arm in the direction of each in the group to further his point. He did not want a single person here to think they were not included in what he was saying.
He pulled his arm back in and interlocked his hands in front of his chest in a pleading gesture. "Please disencumber yourselves of these weights and know that if you ask of your friends and of your higher power then all is to be forgiven. You needn't carry this load alone. Should anyone here want to avail themselves of my counselling services please know I am always available to you." That order included himself, to relieve his burden in the company of his brethren and perhaps make himself a little lighter in turn.
"As to my own burden, you may already know that I served in the war, mostly as chaplain, but one does what one must in war-time. I will not deign to bore you with war stories especially those as trivial as my own, but I did not come away from those times unscathed. I was luckier than some. I came home where many did not. My body remained, whole - aside from a few dings here and there." Viktor blew a hard long line of air out his nose. He was uncomfortably warm and fidgeted where he stood.
"My mind, however, was broken by the stress. I had joined the fight to get away from my small mining town but I paid a price. The counselor's training that I'm sure you have all seen on my schedule - that is a deception." His eyes fixed on the table again in shame. A lie. He was a liar. It was a lie he thought he had comes to terms with, one he believed necessary, but it clearly still preyed on his heart and mind.
"Those sessions are not training but are, in fact, my own therapy for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. I was worried that if my clients or flock knew I was in my own therapy that they would not trust me to manage theirs. It is a struggle I deal with daily. And, in times of stress my symptoms worsen." His gaze lifted again to the group.
"I should take my own advice I do so often not listen to my own wise words. I offer this burden of myself to all of you in the hopes that you will help me lift the weight."

He gave a final loving smile to them and returned to his chair, folding his hands on the table and hoping they didn't notice the mist gathering in his eyes.

[Mattie Rooney]

Mattie wanted the floor of the dining area to open up and swallow her whole. The captain's initial suggestion that they all share something about themselves that the others didn't know wasn't so bad -- after all, she was a newcomer to the ship, so pretty much everything about her was something the others didn't know. But then the confessions kept getting more intimate. Rian's revelation about his past didn't pack much of a punch to Mattie, who was more surprised by his shady background being a secret than the shadiness of the background itself, but Tabby's nightmares and Father Viktor's war wounds rattled the lid she kept on her well of bad memories.

Her crying herself to sleep every night for a week after her father went to war. Her mother crying in the kitchen after he came back a broken husk of the man she'd once loved enough to want to spend her whole life with. The look on Georgie's face when he'd realized she never had and never would love him the way he loved her. The nightmares she sometimes had about being back on Lilac, married to Jedediah, suckling his ugly beady-eyed baby while a litter of screaming toddlers tugged at the hem of her dress with their sticky hands. The even worse nightmares that involved her finally returning home, only to discover the mutilated bodies of her parents and siblings strung up after a reaver attack.

What good would knowing about any of that do to these people? It didn't even do her any good.

Mattie kept quiet, willing herself smaller, hoping that the stealth skills that served her so well in her job as a sniper somehow made everyone at the table forget she was there too.

[Thackery Arlington III]

Lured in by cake and then entrapped by the enthusiastic doctor, Arlo could only pour himself a glass of water (more to give his hands something to do than out of any real thirst, if he were being honest with himself) and then lurk at the back of the kitchen as the familial atmosphere stuttered into awkward silence and then was overtaken by the cook's... confession? Of sorts?

Arlo supposed that's what he'd call it. It was truly interesting stuff, either way. He wasn't certain he'd followed it all, but it seemed as though it could serve as a rather exciting backstory for one of his characters. If his hands weren't already occupied by the glass, he might have attempted slip out his pen and start taking discreet notes.

Perhaps this disruption to his plans wasn't so bad, after all. He'd certainly learn much more of the 'Verse this way than he would on the Baron's tacky little moon. He might even enjoy—

"Everybody, let's tell something we all don't know about each other. I'll go first."

He was in hell. Actual, literal hell. He had died back in the shootout and everything since then had been an odd fever dream upon perishing and now he was being punished for all eternity in hell.

Arlo took a shuffling little step sideways, trying to position himself behind the nearest person, who happened to be Tabitha. Never mind that she was at least a head shorter than he was, even if she weren't sitting down; it was the best hiding place he could manage at such short notice.

Nevertheless, it seemed to work – or perhaps she simply noticed his pathetic attempt and took pity on him – because Tabitha herself volunteered to go next. And then of course, her story ended up being sadder than Barnaby's and Carpenter's, and then the preacher's only added to the misery.

The pressure mounted as the tragic stories piled on, leaving the remaining volunteers in the room dwindling at a terrifying rate. No longer did Arlo simply want to avoid the spotlight on general principle now – he felt that it would be the absolute height of poor taste to attempt to follow any of their vulnerable expressions of loss and shame. Nothing in his privileged life came even close.

He cast about, first in his mind for anything he might share (the time Bing surpassed him in maths in spite of their several years' age difference? the time Gloriana Thunsbury broke up with him at a party he hadn't even wanted to attend?), and then about the room for anyone he might throw to the wolves in his place. That guard from the Baron's, perhaps – she looked about as small as Arlo felt right now. Surely if he called attention to her, he might buy himself enough time to...

To what, precisely? It was only delaying the inevitable, and he wasn't sure he could bring himself to be so heartless at any rate. No, there was nothing for it – open retreat was the only option.

"Pardon me," Arlo said, setting his water down. He meant to do it softly, subtly, murmur an excuse and slip out, but nerves made the motion more abrupt than he intended, and the glass rattled loudly against counter. "I have to..." But now the sudden sound and the attention it drew caused whatever excuse he'd had in mind to completely fly from his thoughts. He mentally flailed around in a panic, searching for something, anything he had to go do that made any amount of sense, and came up absolutely blank.  "...Leave."

With that finally managed, Arlo gulped, turned heel, and fled as quickly-yet-casually as he could.

[Barnaby Goodweather]

DING

The cake was done. But Barnaby wasn't sure anyone would be up for some sweets after all that. His attempt at bringing everyone on even footing had perhaps been successful, but down on a low that no one could have prepared for. Had he known that's the direction his story would have taken everyone, he might have told a story with a little more comedic panache, which, to be fair, he thought he had done. But his crew absolving themselves of their sins, so to speak, wasn't necessarily a bad thing, was it? Maybe his plan had worked! "Welp..." He trailed off, finding words difficult to come by. So he laughed. "We's all just a buncha sad sack screw ups, ain't we? But that's how just how it is. If we wasn't, then we all wouldn't be here, one way or t'other. So I say, cheers to that."

He raised his tea cup to his lips and found it empty. "Tabby, how's 'bout we get some more of that tea. I'll take mine with a splash of bourbon, hold the tea, extra bourbon." He waited for the joke to land, and hoped to hell it did. While Tabby fussed with the tea, Barnaby reached under the bench he sat upon and knocked on a secret compartment where sat a bottle of bourbon whiskey. "Rian, why doncha pull that cake 'fore it get crispy-like? Ya'll want a story, I got a humdinger of one. Let me tell you 'bout the missing graveyard. One time, back in '94 or '95 we was workin'..." His story (and the one after that) lasted well into the night, longer than the bourbon, and as the crew filtered out as it got later, Barnaby began to feel at ease about everything. And though change was coming, he felt more sure than ever as other shared their tales and jokes that things were going to be better. He could just feel it.