Wren

She turned the key over in the lock, then tested the door again. This time it actually stayed shut. Jiggling the darn thing back out took longer. Crown glanced up and down the little glass foyer as the key ring gnashed and jangled against her attempt to leave. It wasn't early, she finished her work. Nobody was around. She wasn't leaving early.

"Do you want some company?" A very polite, carefully sterile voice said behind her. Heartfully, in the name of the once-beloved Kindly Prince Who Watches Over Some, Crown thought, people who deliberately sneak up on unsuspecting people should get introduced to the Cohort. Unarmed. Maybe with a little ribbon on top? Anyway, Crown wasn't going to give her a greeting without making her work for it. She made sure to keep an easy line to her shoulders as she tilted her head towards the other woman and said nothing.

"Do you want some company, Coronabeth?" Melrose asked again, in the exact same inflection. She walked forward and set a single delicate hand on Crown's exposed shoulder. "Since you're off duty, and I'm off duty...why don't we adjourn to the mess hall together?" Despite the whole interaction being about as warm as any cold and abandoned room, there wasn't any actual reason for Crown to refuse. What a great metaphor for this whole darn base.

---

"Is it possible you were thinking of sharing ---"

"I was thinking of some little things we used to share. Shared for the times after. For the days in-between." Crown shrugged as she talked. She was sprawled out in the plastic chair the other woman gestured her into. Crown was determined to be comfortable despite the darn thing being designed, she thought, specifically to test her personal lounging skills. It felt almost like home. "You know, that sort of thought."

"Is it possible you were looking to share what you were thinking about?"

"No."

The woman frowned. That was a really generous word for the slightest downturn at the corner of her mouth, but Crown did love to exaggerate. She was taking what she could get here. "Coronabeth, you know that sharing these sorts of things will keep them from looping in your head. Over and over and over and over. You'll just feel more anxious if you keep it trapped." The plastic veneer of concern only made the information digging more offputting.

"All due respect, Melrose, I was thinking, specifically," as Crown spoke, the other woman leaned forward imperceptibly, "of a scrap of red fabric. Nice weave. Military grade, but the fancy kind. Dress reds, not the battle dress uniform." Crown waved one hand in the air. An absentminded dismissal. "I usually keep it with me - on me. It's weird not feeling it around. I keep checking my pockets in case I happened to put it in one of those."

At the 'reveal' of some very known information, the woman sat back to neutral. That's it, little automaton, go on back to your rest mode, Crown thought. She'd call Mel a construct but even in her mind that felt disrespectful to the theorems involved. At least they took some time to figure out. In the meantime, she kept up some running chatter about her jacket scrap. By now anyone working with her would have seen, asked, and been summarily bored to uninterest again about it.

That's the use of a public fascination, she thought. It was something she could easily return to, 'over and over and over and over', without thinking. She resisted the urge to roll her eyes at Melrose's nagging 'therapy' in her mind again. Crown was convinced the woman went out of her way to avoid triad phrases around her. What a bint. Even duos would've been nicer than the quads she'd been subjected to the past month. Melrose deserved the runaround Crown was giving her today.

Let Melrose, once again, get bored to tears being told the textural joys of a Cohort jacket. She was trying to fill out an open, friendly, information-sieving sponge position in Crown's social circle. Let her suffer through the same thing anyone else stupid enough to pry got out of it.

The other woman wasn't even allowed to roll her eyes or scoff at anything. Not for a lack of encouragement on Crown's part. At least Crown knew how to make her own fun out of a captive listener. If Melrose's lacquer ever cracked, it would be because of her, she was sure. Until then, she'd keep getting the heebie-jeebies after every second or fourth work shift.