(The lunch took place on June 18, 2009)

Mira had slept in and even after getting up took her time about getting dressed. Everything hurt again, not as bad as the previous day, but still noticeable, and today she lacked a large chunk of her motivation. As it was, she found just enough energy to make coffee and to pick up a dust rag. It was amazing how much dust could build up in only two weeks. Aja wandered up to Mira's apartment with a bouquet of daisies. She had opted for daisies because nothing says "Hey I was a giant crab and I'm sorry" like daisies. She gave a rap to the door. Mira went to check that rapping with a dust rag in her hand. "Who's there?" She asked through the closed door. "Mira, luv. It's Aja." Aja stood and waited, knowing Mira might not want to open that door. "I promise I have no silly string!" Mira unlocked the door, reached down to grab up Bear before she could escape, and then opened it wide and stepped aside so Aja could enter. Aja's words had put a little grin on her lips. "Hello Aja. Do come in." "See?" Aja held up her hands, showing the no silly string but hanging onto the daises as she stepped in. She gave Mira a grin and stepped over so Mira could close the door before Bear got any notions about the outside world and the birds chirping. "I believe you, Aja. Is it lunch time already?" Mira set Bear down again once the door was locked. She had not been sure if she had understood Aja correctly about her coming to lunch today. "Yeah. And I kinda figured you wouldn't want to leave the house, so I am having it brought here, if that's all right with you." Aja offered the daisies to Mira. "Thank you, Aja. They are beautiful. Let me set the little thirsty things into some water." Mira accepted the daisies with a smile and then led the way to the kitchen. "Having something delivered is very much all right with me. I've not yet had a chance to go shopping." Mira would likely put the shopping of for a while longer, too. She wasn't starving yet, Bear's supplies were far from running out, and there still were a few cans of vegetables in the shelf. Aja watched Mira for a moment. Mira looked to be moving around with less difficulty today. She rubbed at her head. "Ya know I'm completely nutty, right' And sometimes....I just go trip crazy. So....uh....listen....I'm sorry about last night." Aja fidgeted. "You didn't deserve that." "It's okay, Aja. You shouldn't have to apologize just for being yourself." Mira folded up the dust rag and returned it to its place under the sink before she found a glass the right size for the daisies. She thoroughly agreed with Aja that she had not deserved 'that', though what exactly 'that' all encompassed they likely had different ideas of. Anyway, Aja already had apologized the previous night. Once should be enough, Mira thought. "Yeah...well..." Aja nodded a bit and leaned down to pet Bear as she did the kitty figure eight. "Ya can still whack me if ya want to." She grinned then. "I wouldn't blame ya a bit." "Thanks for the offer, but I really would rather not. How about I just don't whine instead?" The daisies now sitting in water, Mira gestured Aja through the arch way into the living room. To have had her attempt to start sharing anything of what was going on inside her termed 'whining', and that Sivanna, Anya and Neo all seemed to agree with Aja's view, still smarted. Her accepting the general apology from Aja did not mean that she would forget that. "Fair enough." Aja snickered at that. Then she checked her watch and glanced to the door. With a nod she headed into the living room. "The lunch guys will be here in five." The furniture, wallpaper and carpet looked as new here as the kitchen did. The wood carvings displayed in the bookshelves looked older though. Only one book stood there, though. "That's not all that long to wait. Please have a seat." Mira set the daises on the low table by the couch. "I didn't want you to have to wait to eat. Because if you don't eat right, the docs might toss ya right back in the hospital." She said with a soft smile. "So is anyone coming by to help you with stuff" Errands and that sort of thing?" "I've been eating vegetables like Sivanna said I should, Skid took me out for ice cream and the errands can wait until I feel up to them." Mira picked up one of the burgundy pillows from the soft blue couch and sat down in its spot, keeping the pillow on her lap. She smiled to Aja. "Maranya suggested that I make use of a delivery service." She wouldn't, of course, but that was beside the point. "Ya you don't want Sivanna on your butt for not eating right. She's a little scary when she gets going. Aja grinned and settled into the armchair, keeping an ear tuned to the door. "If ya don't want to bother the delivery people, you tell me, I'll go. Shopping for other people not as bad as shopping for me." "I would rather not provoke her." Mira nodded to Aja with a smile that hid more than it revealed, hugging the couch pillow to her. "Thanks, it's sweet of you to offer. I'm fine, though, really. There are other people to shop for. Taneth's and Tormay's wedding is just about a week away and there's Padriq. Did he get moved in all right?" "Yes. Shopping for Taneth and Tormay....oy. I have no idea what to get them." Aja nodded to Mira's next question with a little grin. "Padriq is happily settled. He's different that one. He found the ice cream stash last night. It looked like he might swoon." "I ordered them a tower of various sweets. I know they both like cakes and candy. I don't really know what else they may need or like. Tormay having a castle and a house, they'll likely already have everything they could possibly need. Did you happen to have his favorite flavor or is it being ice cream enough for it to be his favorite?" It's hard to shop for someone who has everything already." Aja nodded and then grinned at the ice cream reference and her face turned a bit dreamy for a second. "He found the mint first, but then I showed him where Maria puts the good stuff. He seemed to favor the cookie dough. He's surprising." "I'm happy for you both. I like that he has eyes only for you." Mira smiled back. "I wasn't sure I was okay with that ....till the other night ....and thanks for that by the way....If ya all hadn't come out there, I would've likely worn a path in the porch pacing." A knock at the door had Aja glance at her watch. "Ah, lunch" Aja got up and headed to the door. Mindful of Bear's location as she let the catering guys in. Mira had followed part way to direct the delivery person to set the food on the dining room table. "Yer gonna have leftovers, cause I didn't know what you liked, so I got a bit of everything." Aja explained the amount of dishes to Mira, and then grinned. "I always go overboard, except on my ship." "Leftovers are a good thing." Mira giggled at Aja's joke. "There that would be bad." "Yes. My crew would go nutty without me to keep them in line." Aja laughed. Then she looked at the food spread with a grin. "Choices. Lots of choices. Beef, chicken, that's pasta something....I honestly don't remember what the man called it. Lasagna there, little side dishes, potato salad and green beans, I think some baked beans, and dessert is Angel Food cake with strawberries." "That's enough to feed an army, and it al looks and smells delicious. Let me get some plates out." Mira didn't allow any reaction other than delight at the spread into her features and firmly kept her thoughts off anything that she associated with Tru. She went to lock the door behind the catering people first before she stopped in the kitchen to get eating utensils and plates. Her steps were still slow and careful. "Here we go." She set out the plates and utensils as she sat down. "Well, you're getting better with that walking thing." Aja accepted a plate and utensils and took a seat, then looked over at Mira. "Does it hurt terribly much?" "I just need to keep doing it and everything should be just fine in no time at all." Mira had nearly nodded at first, but stopped herself in time. She reached for some food. The chicken, desert and baked beans she ignored. There were plenty of other things to pick from for that to perhaps go unnoticed. "If it hurts, Mira, you can say so." Aja readied a plate while she listened to Mira. "I can't imagine what the whole thing was like for you. I mean, I've been on death?s doorstep. It's not a fun place to be no matter how you get there." "Something to be avoided." Mira nodded in agreement. What exactly she agreed with was left open to interpretation, though. "This pasta something is yummy." Aja looked at Mira curiously as she chewed and swallowed. "Think Alec's going to find the little bastards?" "I didn't know Alec was looking for anyone." Mira gave Aja a somewhat confused look. Why would Aja sound angry at Alec for him having illegitimate children or that he was looking for them. Then again, she'd never have guessed Alec to have any to be searching for to begin with. "Um ....yeah ....well." Aja pondered Mira's response and considered that Mira may not have seen Alec's notice on the hospital board. "He mentioned wanting to hunt them down ....guess I took it as he was hunting them down." "Hunt?" Mira blinked with genuine surprise. Aja was making less and less sense to her. "Where did I lose you?" Aja looked curiously at Mira. "I'm not sure. But there has to be something very wrong when it ends up sounding like Alec is hunting down little children, much less his own. There's no way he'd do that." Mira temporarily forgot about that next fork full of pasta. "No no." Aja shook her head with a grin and half laughed. "He wants to hunt down who did this to ya. You really are sort of innocent aren't ya" I thought perhaps your time in the inn with all those rough customers ya'd have picked up the lingo." "I try not to pick up the rougher parts of language some people are so fond of using. But the patrons at the inn are in general a less rough crowd than can be found in some of the other bars in town." Mira saw and heard a lot while working, but that didn't mean that she had to let it touch her. "I can get that. Lot of shady characters in the inn sometimes." Aja shrugged lightly. "Just thought while ya might not use the words, ya'd know what they meant." She took another bite of her lunch, thinking about that. "Of course I know what they mean, most of them anyway. It means people are angry and frustrated, and a lot of times itching for a fight, and some are just mean and enjoy hurting other people's feelings. A few are scared and use the words like armor to keep anyone from getting close. Poor things. The entry in the dictionary says that bastard a derogative term for a child born out of wedlock, illegitimate child or grown offspring." With that Mira returned to enjoying the delicacies Aja had ordered for them. "Yer a little different, sweets." Aja smiled at Mira and leaned back in her chair. "I don't think I've ever met anyone who looks at things the way you do, which is probably true of most people. They don't know quite what to make of you." "Different' How so' What's there to see different?" She gave Aja a curious look. "Just seeing how people react to things, knowing the words, not using them." Aja gave a little shrug. "Most people just adapt them into their speech, as the others do. Or at the very least, don't think the literal terms of the words used." "Mom and Dad always said manners, the words one uses and how one treats people one meets, are not only for showing respect to others but also show self respect. Using derogative words and being mean also makes oneself less worthy of being treated right." Mira gave a little shrug, wondering if any of the people using such language would dare to use any of it around their moms' or grandmom's. And what made Aja think that most people copied negative examples rather than positive ones. "So that's what parents do." Aja grinned to Mira. "Didn't grow up with mine. And the world out there," she motioned a hand towards the wall, "doesn't always follow the path of manners so much. I think we just grew up differently. Doesn't mean I can't try and figure you out a little." She gave Mira a wink. "My new puzzle." "Puzzle away." Mira chuckled. She definitely didn't think of herself as complicated. "Though it's probably a beginner's puzzle and takes no time at all." "All my friends are complex people, didn't you know?" Aja chuckled and toyed with her fork for a moment. "It's why I find them interesting. I mean. I never knew that you just never bothered to pick up things you heard cause of your parents....I thought perhaps you were focused on your work and just let it fly by." "I'd not sell much candy or make any tips if I reacted to everything that happens while I work." Mira grinned a little. It wasn't because of her parents that she didn't make use of the nastier parts of the language. "And it does take focus to add up numbers sometimes." Then she giggled as a thought occurred to her. "Can you picture just for a minute Baker selling candy and cigars?" "He'd be 'Yo! Buy some gosh darn candy' only far more colorful." Aja laughed loudly at that. "Way more colorful." Mira giggled a little more. "Poor guy would starve if he had to depend on making a livelihood of the tips." "Yes he would. I think he might have been raised in a barn or something." Aja chuckled. "Perhaps he's just acting out." Mira shrugged again. "I don't know. Swear him and Reap are on a mission to be slapped by every woman in Rhydin." Aja chuckled again. "But darned if I don't find them amusing sometimes." "I'm sure their parents would be embarrassed rather than amused." "If they haven't eaten them." Aja grinned. "One never knows what the story is on the patrons in the inn." "Eew." "Oops....Perhaps wrong thing to say during dinner." Aja grinned at Mira sheepish. "Never think about those things when I hang with the crew. They get a little rowdy." "I was getting stuffed anyway. You picked all good dishes." Mira smiled to Aja. "Thank you for lunch." "Least I could do." Aja nodded and gave Mira another sheepish grin. "Mouth spews ahead of the brain sometimes....Never considered the way you saw things. So this lunch was a total plea for forgiveness. Maybe learn a bit more about our shy Mirabelle." "I wasn't mad about the sticky string to begin with." Mira smiled a bit embarrassed. "Anyway, you already said sorry yesterday and I said it was okay. So you don't worry about it any more, okay' Please." "Want to tell me what was bothering you? Looking like ya got a lot on yer mind these days ....and not just your hospital stay." Aja leaned back. "I on occasion pay attention ....can see things people think I miss." A cloud seemed to shadow Mira's face while she pondered the question. No, she didn't want to tell what was bothering her. She didn't know what was bothering her, and she didn't want to figure out what was bothering her either. Finally she shrugged. "I don't know. I don't think it's that anything was bothering me per se. I was glad to be among people." "Well, you know if you want....On occasion, my mouth closes ....and I listen pretty well." Aja nodded with a bit of a grin. "Don't promise I'll remember it all ....but hey ....then it doesn't go anywhere." "I know it does. I've seen you go all quiet. Thank you for the offer." Mira grinned a little. The offer being repeated wasn't lost on Mira, but neither did she want to be accused of whining again. Still, the repeated offer required some kind of confidence, she thought. "There really isn't anything to tell that you don't already know. Of course I'm not some cold fish. The way things went with Tru bothers me." "Yeah, it got a little awkward there at the arena that night. It's puzzling, because he was at the hospital with you....I don't know why he didn't come see you." A shrugged just a bit. "Some things are over my head I think." "He was" I never saw him." Then she shrugged. "It doesn't really matter anymore. I'll get over it eventually. Anyway, there were lots of friends visiting." She smiled again thinking of all the wonderful visits from Icer in front of the door to Skid fetching her for ice cream and all the beloved faces visiting or taking her out to see everyone in-between. "Yeah ....maybe it's for the best. You two had been tense with each other for weeks. So maybe this is a small blessing?" Aja looked to Mira with a hopeful smile that she'd said the right thing. "His manner toward me had changed somewhat from the initial enthusiasm over time." Mira didn't correct Aja. If Aja wanted to think there was any tenseness, so be it. There certainly had not been any for Mira to notice. They had been too excited about the idea of the shop and looked forward to the dinner cruise. "Sometimes can't outlast the spark." Aja sighed. "Happens." "I should put up the leftovers." Mira glanced at the table. "There is so much left. You should take some of it with you. Pad might appreciate the cake and berries. We'd not want any of it going to waist, and it would with just me here to pick at it." "The crew will make short work of the leftovers I take." Aja smiled softly. "I think Padriq's getting used to having Maria as a cook."

"It's nice getting to sit a table without having to stand in the kitchen first." Mira started to pack up the leftovers, making a nice stack for Aja to take with her and a smaller one to go into her fridge.

"Maria won't let me in her kitchen. Says I'm a menace." Aja watched Mira putter around. "Make sure you have plenty for yourself."

"I did." She smiled to Aja and indicated the smaller stack. "Thank you again for bringing all that food." "Mira, honey," Aja stood up slowly. "It was the least I could do. I should've known you better ....just....I guess....I know now....and we'll work on it....if ya know....it gets hard again." Aja knew that she sounded all shades of convoluted and hoped that Mira understood her.

Not so oddly perhaps, those sentence fragments made perfect sense to Mira. A lot of the things she formulated started out like that before she translated them to speak her thoughts out loud, if they were ever to be spoken. Her smile that until then had remained captured on her lips changed into one that included her entire face.

"I'm goofy and moody and a little nutty but I love ya, walk fire for you....ya know that right?" She smiled to Mira.

"I think so." Mira took a deep breath and let it out slowly before she quietly added; hoping Aja wouldn't poke at the words. "It wasn't stains on the silk I was afraid of." "Then why the fit about the dress?" Aja looked confused and thoughtful.

So much for hoping. Mira gave a helpless little shrug. There had been no fit. That was as far as she had allowed herself to follow that train of thought "Mira," Aja sighed softly, "I've seen my share of things....And some of them were not....Not so good. I can't imagine. You....you're....innocent and I am not." She held out a hand. "I'm not coming at ya here a little naive, just a bit....I can't imagine what or how you're dealing with what happened. So," Aja tried for a comforting smile, "if you want to talk I'm here. No judgments. And no silly string." She had to leave it with a joke because joking was her comfort zone.

"I was trying to talk." Mira had nodded a few times during Aja's long speech and now nodded again. "It's difficult. More so when I don't really know what about. Not all humor comes out or goes in right either." "Yeah, I think we established yer sense of humor and mine are a little different." Aja settled back in the chair and looked at Mira. "I can shut up though. Maybe if you say what you can remember out loud the rest will come ....and I'm here to catch you." Aja looked at the silent Mira carefully and watched Mira wage her internal battle. This could go wrong, too. Mire's face was interesting to watch, though, or more correctly so, the mirror of the inner battle she fought in those silent moments reflected in her features. Temptation, horror, gratitude, neutrality, and a few things less namable in-between, all could be seen there. At length Mira slowly shook her head in defeat.

Mira stood motionless for a moment longer. Then she looked to Aja again with a hopeful little smile. "I can't. Now. Yet."

"Okay." Aja nodded with a soft smile. "It was a no pressure thing. You got to heal at your pace not at my breakneck speeds, or at anyone else's."

"I'm walking." Mira offered with an uplifted note, firmly putting that latest battle behind her. "Yes. Yes you are." Aja replied with a bright smile. "Alright. ya dealt with me and my nuttiness long enough. "Rico is making a mess out of your office." Mira nodded with a bit of a grin. It was the middle of the week and, of course, Aja couldn't be gone from the ship yard all afternoon. "Yes! Filing his lunch again." Aja sighed and shook her head. "Never seen anything so bizarre in my life."

"Labels." Mira blurted out with a grin. "We'll label an empty drawer 'lunch', and the other's 'files'."

"Now there's an idea I can use." Aja laughed, welcoming the suggestion.

"I shouldn't keep you from your duties any longer. They must be wondering already what for you took such a very long lunch break." Mira smiled, happy that she was able to come with some small way of repaying Aja's efforts. "I'm the boss." Aja grinned, "But fair point. Alright. Off I go. You, no overdoing it." Aja stood and took a step toward Mira with her arms out. "Hugs?"

Mira stepped right into those arms, hugging Aja, with Aja's leftovers already in her hands. "Thank you again, Aja, for everything." Then she handed Aja the containers as the walked down the hallway.

"What else is family for?" Aja took the containers with a smile to Mira.

"Have a good afternoon at the dock and safe travels, Aja." Mira smiled back and opened the door for Aja. "I will." Aja headed out, mindful of Mira's cat. "See you soon, Mira Sweets."

"Until soon." Mira waved to Aja and when she could no longer see her, closed the door softly and locked it.