Aberrant: Stargate Universe - Happy Birthday [Complete]

[z-Olivia Jenings-Izumi]

[set before Vinny's party, between the first and second missions]

The SGU cafeteria had official hours, but there were always treats available. That policy became more important with the massive appetites of the new Specialists, and there was always something yummy to eat.

Tonight, or rather this morning, the cafeteria had an unusual visitor. Olivia was usually sleeping at this time, but tonight she couldn't rest. She'd been flopping in her bed when she realized why: she'd forgotten their birthdays.

She'd instantly hated herself. How could she forget? Never mind that she'd just gotten out of a pain-filled coma brought on by the Artifact; she'd sworn to never forget. So she threw on her robe and came here, looking for some kind of suitable medium on which to commemorate the big day. Frosted cupcakes were perfect, and Olivia felt a stab of relief as she scooped three of them up and dropped them on a tray.

As she carried the tray to a table in the back of the room, she dug the slim, colorful candles out of her pocket. A birthday candle was carefully placed in each cupcake. Olivia paused and then reverently lit each one. Happy birthday... I'm so sorry, little ones. I can't ever fix it... but I am so sorry.

[Forge]

Vinny walked into the dining room, having just finished a rather strong attempt at wearing himself out on the treadmill, but instead giving himself a massive appetite. He was dressed in the usual sweats and t-shirt, his mp3 player still plugged into his head.

The tray held a pile of fruit and a mound of mixed nut packets, damn the grill for being closed!

Olivia? Middle of the night? Cupcakes? What the fuck.

"What's this, fuckin' birthday party for your invisible friend?" Vinny said walking up and setting his tray down as he sat.

[z-Olivia Jenings-Izumi]

Olivia sighed as Vinny interrupted her vigil. "Hey, Vinny. How are you? Why don't you have a seat?" He just looked at her and she realized he wasn't leaving. "It's marking the birthdays of three people who aren't here anymore," she said, wondering if he'd let it go at that or insist on knowing more. "I like to remember them, and usually do it at the same time of year. This year, I was too busy becoming a specialist, and I forgot. So... here I am."

She glanced at him, wondering if he'd get bored and leave now. Or somehow sense that it was private and leave. Next time, she'd just go back to her room and do it there.

[Forge]

Vinny's eyes glazed over as the joy dropped away and the unintended reminder of the loss of his team stung across his face. He couldn't help but glance back at their table before turning back to the weary girl.

"My bad Olivia." Vinny said quietly, grabbing his tray and standing up, "Have a nice evening."

[z-Olivia Jenings-Izumi]

"Wait." The word popped out before she'd considered it. Vinny turned to eye her as she collected herself and said, "You... can stay if you want."

Why had she offered that? She'd never had company for this before. Maybe she was just tired of doing this alone. Even Sean, possibly the most patient and understanding man ever, had never gotten an invite to her annual phantom party. "I don't usually do this around other people. It's... difficult."

[Forge]

Click to reveal.. (Smoke Break)

The still evening air of the Rockies found Lieutenant Wright sitting atop a moss-covered rock, just off the beaten path, taking in the first sunset since before the Ambush. He was nursing half a bottle of Jameson, the other half sitting in a thermos in the guard station at the entrance to Cheyenne Mountain.

The shrill notes of his harmonica cutting the crisp air with, "I am so lonesome I could cry." A lit Vegas Robaina hung from the corner of his mouth, its aroma settling about the rock, hugging its toker in a hazy embrace.

Vinny nodded solemnly in agreement as he sat back down quietly and continued eating, if at a decidely slower and thoughtful pace. He was content to give her silence if she wanted, the pile of food would be more than enough of an excuse for him not to talk while she honored the dead.

The flicker of the candles caught his eye and held him.

Click to reveal.. (Sins of the Tool)

Dana sighed. "If it twist this just right and hit the sweet spot then I'll-" With a click, the lock released and the door to their tiny cage fell open. Caught by surprise, Dana fell forward, instinctively rolling to free her hands, which had been twisted through the bars.

The lieutenant landed on top of her, just barely able to catch himself with his hands to keep his whole weight off her. "Hit the sweet spot and?" he prompted.

"All your dreams come true," she quipped, holding the tiny lock pick tool up triumphantly.

[z-Olivia Jenings-Izumi]

Honoring Baby wasn't so bad. She'd had six years of practice to get through the grief; now it was mostly regret that she hadn't done better by him. She still wasn't sure why she thought of Baby as a him, but she did. The process had long since been detached from the pain of losing his father, too; that pain was buried and largely forgotten. This was all about the lost child. The progressive part of her thought that she should be able to get through this without this kind of grief; it was just a medical procedure to remove a cluster of cells. Her body, her choice. But it wasn't, not to her. The enormity of her actions still left her sure she'd made a bad choice.

But Matsu and her brother was another story. This was the first year she'd marked their loss, and she felt the sting of tears as she felt their loss. It'd only been a few months ago, and while she managed to not think about it sometimes, it was still a new pain. This is a bad idea to do this in front of Vinny. He's just going to laugh at me for this.

She looked at him and was surprised to see a echo of her own emotions in him. She reached out and put her hand on his still arm, letting him know that she was here for him, too, if that's what he needed. His pain would be a nice distraction from her own. But she wouldn't push. He wasn't the kind of guy you pried personal anguish from; either he gave it or you never heard about it.

[Forge]

The show of emotion made him uncomfortable and he had to stop himself from pulling his arm away when she touched it.

He let out a deep breath and pushed back his tray a a little, his appetite having disappeared in the depths of his despair. "Dana would shit herself to see me refuse food...Rea would try to impose fuckin' guilt about the third world...Hadley...heh...Hadley would just fuckin' get that look." It felt like what he said could be directed at the tray of food as far as Olivia was concerned, he seemed to be have been lost in memory as the words slowly came out.

"Better blow those candles out darlin'," Vinny said softly, coming back to reality as he nodded at the cupcakes, "Bout ready to give a waxy sheen to the frosting."

[z-Olivia Jenings-Izumi]

Olivia looked at the cupcakes, uncertain. She usually didn't blow out the candles; they usually guttered out against the frosting eventually. They weren't there to eat; they weren't hers. It wouldn't hurt to try something else, this year. Maybe it will be a better tradition. "Make a wish," she murmured, and it was debatable whom she was talking to. She blew out the candles, watched the little flames die and the smoke rise. Like souls to Heaven. Does it still count if they never existed?

Something about what Vinny had said was bugging her. "Hadley?" she murmured. "I've heard that name before. And Rea's familiar too. Who a- were they?" They had the definite air of past tense when he spoke of them. "You don't have to tell me," she added, aware that his pain wasn't empathic. "I can look them up and you won't have to talk about it." She had suspicions already, but assumptions were dangerous.

[Forge]

"They were my team." He stated.

Before the fucking NID butchered them.

"Wait a minute...where did you hear of them?" It wasn't meant to be accusatory, but it certainly seemed to come out that way.

[z-Olivia Jenings-Izumi]

Olivia pulled back from him just a little, her expression becoming cautious in the face of his tone. "Eckhart... and Wright. Sorry, my memory for names before the Artifact is hazy. Your team saved me... well, I guess that's you and your team saved me. An alien tried to kidnap me, and your team was given the task of keeping me here." She struggled to remember, not the event, but the people there. "Dana was pretty... and Hadley blushed when I hugged him." She looked at him closely. "And you got hurt. I sent you a card. Did you get it?"

[Forge]

It didn't take long before it dawned on him who she was.

No shit!

"You're Phone-Home Olivia?!" Vinny said in disbelief already starting to laugh. "No fucking way!"

The laugh escalated to full-on hilarity for a moment before he settled down. "Yeah, still got it darlin'."

[z-Olivia Jenings-Izumi]

She was glad that had lightened the mood. "Good," she said softly, her own tone slightly bogged down by melancholy still. "Phone-Home Olivia, huh?" She chuckled softly. "Guess that fits. I almost was an alien among aliens."

So the other three were gone, presumably dead. The thought made her sadder still. She hadn't known, but she should have looked them up again. They'd saved her life, no her soul. Wasn't that worth the occasional candy bouquet? We never say thank you enough, or often enough. "Thank you."

[Forge]

"T'was nothin'," Vinny said, waving it off. Nevermind that he had been plagued with shoulder problems and couldn't fire a weapon comfortably pretty much until he was forced to touch the artifact. "Part of the job saving hot damsels in distress."

Shit, I miss those guys.

"Card'll go up in my office if you feel like stopping by sometime to take a look."

[z-Olivia Jenings-Izumi]

"It wasn't nothing," Olivia said firmly, almost fiercely. "It was everything to me." She looked up at him, her eyes a strange mixture of determination and pain as she said, "Look, aside from my brother and father, I haven't had a lot of guys running to defend me. Most of them do the opposite. I've had three serious boyfriends, and two of them abandoned me. The third couldn't handle my issues and left, though he at least told me why he left. You don't know what being protected by someone means because you don't need to be protected by anyone else, even if it was just a stranger doing a job. You don't know what it means to me." She thumped her hand to her chest, over her heart. Do not cry. You've already weirded him out enough, by now. You're going to scare him away.

That might be for the best, you know.

"It may have been nothing to you, but don't say that to me, ok?" she finished, dropping her eyes to the cold candles. "Sorry. Didn't mean to go on like that." She rubbed her face. "Bad night."

[Forge]

Holy fuck, touched a raw damn nerve. Bad night is right.

Vinny got a confused look on his face as she ranted at him, clearly a little confused as to what he said that was so offensive. "O-kay, no hurt feelin's here," Bitch has got serious baggage. "Try to look at yer shit like this; even with all your ass-tard ex's, the stud that saved yer life is still around, and he ain't got no plans ta fuckin' abandon anything."

She was obviously stressed about whatever her ceremony was about. Her raw emotion had pushed Vinny's distraught feelings away as he saught to bring her out of her funk in a rare occurence of self-explanation.

"'Sides, never said it didn't mean nothin' to me, fuckin' opposite. Why else would I keep the damn card?"

[z-Olivia Jenings-Izumi]

Oh, Jesus, Livy, there you went and put your foot, no entire leg in it, Olivia groaned as she dropped her head to the table. Why don't you complete the night and tell him about Hatchins why you're at it? 'Oh, and while I'm emotionally vomiting all over the table, the reason I'm so gun-shy about you is because you remind me of one of the guys who attacked me six years ago.' Oh, he'd love that. She tried to imagine how he'd take that, couldn't figure out what he'd do beside look awkward and dropped the perverse desire to shock him again.

"I don't know," Olivia said without lifting her head. "Maybe you have a secret thing for Hallmark sentiments. And I wasn't trying to attack, I just got... upset. I felt like I needed you to know it meant something. Which, clearly, you did. Sorry. I'm sorry about and to a lot of people tonight, I guess."

[Forge]

"No need to apologize, really darlin', we all have our ghosts. However, fuckin' card fluff is not one of my fetishes...ribs are though..." He lead on, glancing at her to see if that perked her up as he dug back into his pile of fruit.

She was interested, let's see how much.

[z-Olivia Jenings-Izumi]

He was trying to distract her, to cheer her up. She debated about whether she was up to it, then gave up. Easier to pretend things were ok than to get into why they weren't. She turned her head so that her cheek rested on the table, which gave her an odd, plate-level view of him consuming his food.

"Ribs are good," she said, realized she sounded like she'd just said her kitten was dead instead and tried again. "I'm just not getting worked up about something that's in the bag, ya know?"

It felt wrong to sit here and joke with him, while she was supposed to be mourning the lost. But it was Vinny here, and she owed him something, now. The idea should have upset her; he was something of an ass and owing him anything should have been awful. But she was too tired to care right now; it was easier to go with the flow than resist it. Story of my life.

[Forge]

She sounds fuckin' excited. Guess whatever the cakes are for is serious.

"Bag my ass..." Vinny said, pausing long enough to get a good look at her. "Let's fuckin' bury the cupcakes and get you back to bed." you look like shit

He started stuffing some nut packets in his sweat pockets before he stood up and dumped the tray and quickly came back to the table. "C'mon." he said, offering out a hand.

[z-Olivia Jenings-Izumi]

Olivia stood slowly, her fingers wrapping around his larger hand. She didn't have the heart to argue. She wasn't sure she'd paid proper homage, but she was willing to let it go. If she didn't feel good about it tomorrow, she could try again - alone. She picked up the tray and started to dump it, but he stopped her. Tired and numb, she let him lead her through the base.

"I thought you were taking me to my bed?" she asked, catching the entendre too late to stop that. "Where are we going?"

[Forge]

Vinny smirked at the unintended verbal innuendo, "Told ya, gotta bury the cakes first."

Fuckin' wonder how much of that was an accident.

Wishing it were under different circumstances and with a less apathetic companion, he held her hand as he took her outside.

A not-so-short walk later, they were out on the large expanse of territory that was still the base, but not mountain. The chill air of fall in the Rockies doing nothing to make it comfortable for Olivia, though Vinny seemed not to be affected.

[z-Olivia Jenings-Izumi]

Olivia was damned glad for her robe. It was all that was keeping her from freezing as they walked outside in the night air. She found herself walking closer and closer to him, just for his warmth. She wasn't wearing enough under the robe to be comfortable. He's literally going to bury them. Like the funeral they didn't have.

The thought brought tears, which brought a quick mantra.

Don't.

Don't.

Don't.

Don't.

Don't.

Don't.

Keeping up that steady mental whisper, she regained some composure and kept pace with him. "You don't have a shovel," she pointed out, her teeth almost chattering.

[Forge]

"Can handle a small hole." he said, picking an arbitrary spot in the thatchy grass and stopping.

"This work darlin'?" he asked putting his arm around her to give her some more heat.

She quickly nodded assent and Vinny started kicking at the dormant sod with his shoe to break into the soil underneath. Making quick work on the soil with a piece of rock, soon he had a hole big enough to accommodate the three cupcakes with room to spare.

He stood up brushing his hands off on his pants and stood back.

[z-Olivia Jenings-Izumi]

Swallowing hard, Olivia knelt and put the first cupcake in the hole. Baby. That wasn't so hard, but the next one made her hands shake a little. Nephew. The last was the hardest.

Click to reveal..

"Aunt Livia!" Matsu threw herself into her aunt's arms, clinging.

"She's always happy to see you," Jolena laughed.

"I don't have candy this time," Olivia told the child with a smile.

"Don' care!" the child said and put her arms around her neck. And in the arms of another child, Olivia felt some of the forgiveness she'd denied herself. "Kiss!"

Olivia kissed her niece, feeling maternal love rise, hot and fierce, and wash over her heart.

She was weeping as the last cupcake went into the hole, despite her orders to herself to not cry. She stood and moved back, letting Vinny cover the hole. She wasn't sure she could.

[Forge]

Watching her set the three cupcakes in the hole one by one, he felt part of himself letting each of his teammates lay to rest. It had been hard on him not to be able to attend the funeral, (one more thing to hate the NID for), so this was much like a service by proxy.

He gently laid a hand on her back for a moment as he stepped forward and proceeded to bury the dead. Glancing around, he found a larger rock and placed it over the hole to keep scavengers out.

Finally finished, he stood up, brushing off again and approached Olivia once more, it nothing else than to offer his body heat. "Ready?"

[z-Olivia Jenings-Izumi]

Watching him finish was hard; it was letting go all over again, but in a worse way. It was her fault, and she couldn't do a thing to fix it. Olivia turned to him when he came near, but it wasn't just for heat. She leaned against him and pressed her face into her hands and her hands into his shoulder. "I'm sorry," he heard her whisper, "I'm sorry." It was only another few moments before she pulled herself together a little, enough to step back and stop sobbing. "Yeah," she said, sounding really tired now.

At least she didn't notice how cold she felt anymore.

[Forge]

Vin held her when she leaned in, consoling her as she was overcome with emotion. When she pulled away, he let her go, but only just far enough that he could keep a hand on her, it was pretty dark after all, even with the base lights.

Keeping an arm around her, he walked her back, keeping quiet since he didn't really know what to say that wouldn't sound inappropriate in the moment. After his father's service, he didn't talk for weeks, especially when his brother ran off.

Nodding at the strange looks from the guards that would only fuel the rumor mill, Vinny took her back into the base and warmer temperatures. This time heading for her room.

[z-Olivia Jenings-Izumi]

Olivia was blind to anything other than her own quiet guilt, and was a little surprised when Vinny opened a door and she realized it was her room. Unlike Vinny's space, it was cluttered, most surfaces piled high with books, scrolls and folders. The single bookless spot on the table held a small stack of plates, clearly a 'return to the cafeteria' pile. A couple had been there too long for Olivia to claim cleanliness. Clothes were sorted in piles, neat in their own arcane order.

She kicked off her fuzzy slippers, ignoring the dirt and twigs caught in the green fur. Her robe slithered off her shoulders and bunched on the floor, showing her pajammas to be a mismatched spagetti-strap tank top and flannel pants. She crossed to the unmade bed, and only then realized he was there.

Turning, she said awkwardly, "Thank you." An impulse rippled through her and she gave in, walking to him and pulling his head down. Her soft lips kissed his cheek before she murmured again, "Thank you, Vinny."

[Forge]

There was something sexy about a woman in pajamas that Vinny couldn't put a finger on, less was better of course, but what was it about pjs?

Even on this depressing night, something as innocent as a thank you kiss seemed to wash away Vin's troubles of the moment and his normally surly face lit up in a pleasant grin. "Welcome Olivia, ...you gonna be alright?" he asked, looking down at her.

[z-Olivia Jenings-Izumi]

"You should smile more," she told him softly, honestly. She was too tired for games or artifice, her expression soft with exhaustion. "It suits you." She gave him a pleasant smile of her own, looking happy at his somewhat happy expression. She'd seen him truly happy before, but not for a while. In her tiredness, that odd thought didn't register, but it was another clue that her voracious mind gobbled up for later usage.

Her eyes dropped for a moment, debating whether to be honest or not. "I'm going to be as alright as I get, Vinny," she finally answered. "I'm still going to be physically the weakest one around here, the one that needs others to defend her. I'm still the wor-" She stopped. "We shouldn't get into this," she said. "Just know that I'll be alright, ok? I need to sleep and calm myself, and then I'll be back to normal."

[Forge]

Will, long as yer around... Oh, that was fuckin' sappy ass-tard.

"You are a fuckin' strong woman Olivia, don't wade yerself into some self pitying bull." Vinny said, "Anyone that can hold her shit on a team like 21 deserves respect."

She was depressed undeneath the exhaustion, which was also enhancing the negative emotions.

"Sure, you'll be okay? Can stay if you would like, keep you company."

[z-Olivia Jenings-Izumi]

Olivia felt a shiver of fear. Could she trust him while she slept? If he were going to hurt you, he could do it right now. He wouldn't need to catch you asleep. He just had you outside alone in the dark.

But Carl hurt me in my room. For her, being helpless here was to be helpless like nowhere else. But she felt herself nodding anyway, to not be alone. Being alone had always been so hard; she had always been so bad at being by herself. Her personal history had shown that.

"Alright," Vinny said and pulled a chair from her table - after removing a few books. He set it near the bed as she adjusted the covers and slipped in between them. She pillowed into the bedding, then extended her hand. He took it and held it gently as she blinked wearily at him. He watched, bemused, as she struggled against sleep briefly, but she was too tired to remain awake long. Her curled fingers relaxed, and her muscles went slack quickly, and she breathed the deep breaths of slumber.

Vinny remained a few minutes, making sure she remained asleep. Then he carefully got up, left something on the chair he'd been sitting in and left, shutting the door quietly behind him. Pulling a bag of nuts from his pocket, he sauntered back to his room.

When Olivia woke in the morning, it was like the night before had been a dream. But the chair was where Vinny had left it, along with the kiwi he'd smuggled out of the cafeteria the night before.