Ficlet:: Cleaning [Deep Space Nine]
A snapshot for jacinthsong, who wanted something with Garak and Mila.
(Garak and Mila. Seriously. There's Garak, who is a spy, interrogator, assassin, and occasionally described as "a heartless, cold-blooded killer", and all of his secrets - and Mila, who is his father's housekeeper, and who raised him. ("I wasn't much of a cook, but I knew how to keep a secret.") Laura and I were both charmed by the fact that one of Garak's many, jealously-guarded, life-as-a-spy secrets is that he has a mum who loves him dearly.)
Ficlet:: Cleaning
by Raven
PG, Deep Space Nine, gen, 700 words. The three-person resistance is still in the basement.
"You missed a bit," Mila says, from her perch on the top of the stairs. Kira glances up, sharply, then realises Mila is smiling at her with something approaching affection. "There are more cloths in the box by the banister."
"Thank you, ma'am," Kira says, and is rewarded with another smile. Mila turns to go and Kira gets back to work.
She picks up the cloth, wrings it into the bucket, starts polishing the edge of the table, concentrating on a spot of grease that must have been there since before the Bajoran occupation; with a particularly energetic twist of the wrist it comes clean, and she's pleased, drops the cloth back into the bucket, and she's thirty-two years old and she's never done this before.
Garak raises his eyebrows. "Excuse me, Colonel, but I was under the impression we brought you on this fool's errand precisely because of your relevant experience."
Kira, who didn't mean to say it aloud, says: "Not resistance. Cleaning."
"You've never cleaned before." Garak is quietly disbelieving.
Kira takes a deep breath before she speaks; she used to try counting to ten before shouting at Cardassians, and then for a while she stopped doing that and just went straight for explosions; now she remembers war, and how it gives you strange bedfellows, and takes that deep breath. She says, stiffly, "I grew up in a refugee camp, Garak. I never had furniture to clean or a home to keep neat. When I was with the Bajoran resistance I lived in shuttles and caves. Now I live on a Federation space station."
"Which is kept clean by the twin forces of automation and self-righteousness," Garak notes, and turns away, back to his own bucket and cloth.
And, she doesn't tell him, there's nothing in her quarters to attract dust. Living as though you might be turfed out into space any moment is a habit that's hard to break. She's thinking of her own childhood, of her mother. Kira's mother was a collaborator, and she was her mother, and there's no more to be said on it - but in another life she might have shouted at her only daughter to keep her room clean.
The door opens above them. "Lunch," Mila calls, and starts to make slow progress down the stairs. With no self-consciousness, Garak leaps nimbly up and helps her down, giving her a shoulder to lean on as she goes heavily from step to step.
"It's nothing special," Mila says, inclining her head towards the basket on her arm. "Bread, some yamok sauce, some fresh vegetables, some water. Elim, you'll give the colonel first choice of what she would like, I trust."
"Yes, Mila," Garak murmurs, and gives her a hand with the basket.
"Thank you, ma'am," Damar says, formally, but he's lost in thought again in a moment, forgetting the food; the rhythm of the cleaning gives him something to do while the world breaks into cells, divided and ruled, in his head. Kira remembers the feeling.
She isn't looking, not really, as they reach the bottom of the steps and Mila reaches out, murmurs something lost in the short space of chilly air, places a hand on Garak's shoulder, and then turns to make the slow climb upwards.
Garak offers Kira the basket first, and says, "She slapped me a great deal as a child, for my lack of politeness."
"And I'll come down there and slap you again, if need be, even if it takes me a week to get down," says Mila darkly, just before she vanishes through the archway into the house.
"It was as though," Garak continues, with an odd aspect to his voice, a strained ease, "she didn't know who I was, or who I would be."
"Spying, interrogation and murder are not notably polite occupations," Damar says, waking up for a moment.
"No," says Garak, looking up towards the door of the cellar.
"We don't always grow up to be who our mothers wanted us to be," Kira says, and cleans off the rest of the grease.
end.
(Garak and Mila. Seriously. There's Garak, who is a spy, interrogator, assassin, and occasionally described as "a heartless, cold-blooded killer", and all of his secrets - and Mila, who is his father's housekeeper, and who raised him. ("I wasn't much of a cook, but I knew how to keep a secret.") Laura and I were both charmed by the fact that one of Garak's many, jealously-guarded, life-as-a-spy secrets is that he has a mum who loves him dearly.)
Ficlet:: Cleaning
by Raven
PG, Deep Space Nine, gen, 700 words. The three-person resistance is still in the basement.
"You missed a bit," Mila says, from her perch on the top of the stairs. Kira glances up, sharply, then realises Mila is smiling at her with something approaching affection. "There are more cloths in the box by the banister."
"Thank you, ma'am," Kira says, and is rewarded with another smile. Mila turns to go and Kira gets back to work.
She picks up the cloth, wrings it into the bucket, starts polishing the edge of the table, concentrating on a spot of grease that must have been there since before the Bajoran occupation; with a particularly energetic twist of the wrist it comes clean, and she's pleased, drops the cloth back into the bucket, and she's thirty-two years old and she's never done this before.
Garak raises his eyebrows. "Excuse me, Colonel, but I was under the impression we brought you on this fool's errand precisely because of your relevant experience."
Kira, who didn't mean to say it aloud, says: "Not resistance. Cleaning."
"You've never cleaned before." Garak is quietly disbelieving.
Kira takes a deep breath before she speaks; she used to try counting to ten before shouting at Cardassians, and then for a while she stopped doing that and just went straight for explosions; now she remembers war, and how it gives you strange bedfellows, and takes that deep breath. She says, stiffly, "I grew up in a refugee camp, Garak. I never had furniture to clean or a home to keep neat. When I was with the Bajoran resistance I lived in shuttles and caves. Now I live on a Federation space station."
"Which is kept clean by the twin forces of automation and self-righteousness," Garak notes, and turns away, back to his own bucket and cloth.
And, she doesn't tell him, there's nothing in her quarters to attract dust. Living as though you might be turfed out into space any moment is a habit that's hard to break. She's thinking of her own childhood, of her mother. Kira's mother was a collaborator, and she was her mother, and there's no more to be said on it - but in another life she might have shouted at her only daughter to keep her room clean.
The door opens above them. "Lunch," Mila calls, and starts to make slow progress down the stairs. With no self-consciousness, Garak leaps nimbly up and helps her down, giving her a shoulder to lean on as she goes heavily from step to step.
"It's nothing special," Mila says, inclining her head towards the basket on her arm. "Bread, some yamok sauce, some fresh vegetables, some water. Elim, you'll give the colonel first choice of what she would like, I trust."
"Yes, Mila," Garak murmurs, and gives her a hand with the basket.
"Thank you, ma'am," Damar says, formally, but he's lost in thought again in a moment, forgetting the food; the rhythm of the cleaning gives him something to do while the world breaks into cells, divided and ruled, in his head. Kira remembers the feeling.
She isn't looking, not really, as they reach the bottom of the steps and Mila reaches out, murmurs something lost in the short space of chilly air, places a hand on Garak's shoulder, and then turns to make the slow climb upwards.
Garak offers Kira the basket first, and says, "She slapped me a great deal as a child, for my lack of politeness."
"And I'll come down there and slap you again, if need be, even if it takes me a week to get down," says Mila darkly, just before she vanishes through the archway into the house.
"It was as though," Garak continues, with an odd aspect to his voice, a strained ease, "she didn't know who I was, or who I would be."
"Spying, interrogation and murder are not notably polite occupations," Damar says, waking up for a moment.
"No," says Garak, looking up towards the door of the cellar.
"We don't always grow up to be who our mothers wanted us to be," Kira says, and cleans off the rest of the grease.
end.