Even Stars Go Cold

Chapter 5 - Relationships

Farm Life, A Different Kind Of Love

Sam was enduring her first hangover.

As a result, breakfast was strained; both women were lost, for the most part, inside their own thoughts. For Elissa, it was seeing another facet of Sam. Though less tolerable, it was not immediately bad enough to discourage her.

For Sam, it was more a case of selfishness. In addition to the effects of the alcohol intake, she had rolled over several times during the night to be awoken by the pain associated with her new body-mods. She had managed to avoid making too much noise but, after the second time, she found her bra and put it on. It helped... somewhat.

So did the morning shower and the healing cream, which she achieved this time without any assistance. Elissa had already showered after her jacuzzi session, all without disturbing her room-mate laying in an alcohol-induced semi-coma throughout.

Breakfast consisted of bread, protein steaks, scrambled... something yellow, coffee for Elissa and an unidentifiable red smoothie for Sam from the buffet. None of it had been near a real animal during its creation; which suited Sam, as a vegetarian. For her part, Elissa knew little else: her colony was not yet self-sufficient, and meat was only the province of the corporate rich elite.

It was passable fair for the level of hotel they had chosen and it seemed to help them both recover a little, but the dining room was noisy. The pair had grabbed a table by the window as far from the entrance as they could and it helped dull some of the hubbub of later arrivals.

Many of the diners were Marines and, while not shouting, their banter felt loud enough to carry over mortar fire. Elissa spotted Matt and his team amongst the customers, and hoped she and Sam had a profile small enough to avoid detection.

"Do you mind if I just take it easy today?" Sam finally asked, half-way through her second smoothie. "I don't know where the hell my head is at."

"Actually, that's fine by me," Elissa gratefully responded. "Yesterday was a bit fully loaded for me."

That managed to penetrate the fog in Sam's head. "Really? I'd have thought that was an easy day."

"Buffer overrun, I guess." Elissa excused herself, explaining her case of information overload. "Plus, I got a little carried away in the pool: it was like being back on Cordoba."

"But did you enjoy it?" Sam asked, eyes closed and rubbing the bridge of her nose. She missed Elissa's hesitation.

"It was... a lot of fun. Definitely want to do more of that again." Sam seemed oblivious to her searching gaze. Do you really see me? Elissa wondered.

"Was there anything you wanted to do today?" Sam asked. "I could manage something, I guess, otherwise I'm gonna end up in bed all day shouting at the holovids."

"Shouting at what?" Elissa was intrigued.

"Back episodes of All of My Days."

Elissa's jaw dropped. "You have got to be fucking kidding me!"

Sam shook her head - slowly, as if afraid something might break loose within. "Nope. I used to watch it with my mom, back in the day, listening to her tear it apart." A smile crept onto her face, but Elissa noticed it was steeped in sadness and loss. "She used to explain to me how people aren't like that in the real."

"Do you watch them all? I mean, it's a daily show..."

"There's a weekly digest version, where they cut out all the repetition from the week. If you watch one of those from a month, every month, it's pretty easy to keep up," Sam explained. "For me, it's more about the writing psychology, and why they do it. I think it has viewers in the millions still; which, for a Terran show that's been going a couple of centuries, that's pretty fucking amazing, right?"