002 [VISUAL; LOCATION: BURNT TOAST DINER, OSTEN; LOCKED TO: DEAN]
No one's come to the Burnt Toast Diner yet, but Charlie doesn't give up hope. She walks here every other day, opens it, takes the chairs down and then puts them back up again. The replicator hatch in the storage room provides her with everything she needs: cookbooks full of new recipes and all the ingredients for them. There's power - she puts on the radio while she cooks. She'll make herself lunch and a few desserts, because they're meant to be cold and if no one eats them she can simply take them back home and give them to neighbours.
And the friendlier she is, the fewer secrets people assume she has.
There's a pie in the oven and one on the counter, currently. The synthetic sun has started to wane; she'll go home soon. Having stacked all the chairs onto their table, leaving the stools at the counter to sit on, she sweeps up her own footprints but leaves the blinds open. She likes to wait to the last possible second, convinced someone will come eventually and she wants to be here when they do. But even if she's alone, she doesn't mind. Solitude has never bothered her, and she can't be wandering Taxon every hour of every day. She's more willing to have close relationships than before she met Hiro, but there's still a distance she must maintain. She still has to protect them.
And the friendlier she is, the fewer secrets people assume she has.
There's a pie in the oven and one on the counter, currently. The synthetic sun has started to wane; she'll go home soon. Having stacked all the chairs onto their table, leaving the stools at the counter to sit on, she sweeps up her own footprints but leaves the blinds open. She likes to wait to the last possible second, convinced someone will come eventually and she wants to be here when they do. But even if she's alone, she doesn't mind. Solitude has never bothered her, and she can't be wandering Taxon every hour of every day. She's more willing to have close relationships than before she met Hiro, but there's still a distance she must maintain. She still has to protect them.