for Morgan
The facts were these. In the five years leading up to my arrival on the island, my romantic interactions included a single kiss with a woman hundreds of years old who was trying out her shiny new body, Thomas' sex vampire sister trying to eat me, and a demon in my head basically getting to second base. In my head. And after the island, zip. Which means that, yes, it had been six years since I had had sex, and very little of anything else besides. How did I feel about this? Well, back home, I hadn't had a lot of time to think about it since I spent most of it trying not to die. And here? Well, just the fact that my absence of a love life was felt more viscerally didn't make me any better with women.
Which brings us to (A) that recent kiss with Morgan, (B) her personality-switch confessions which, though taken with a grain of salt, I can at least admit probably indicate that the kiss wasn't some kind of fluke, and (C) my not knowing what the hell I was supposed to do next. I did at least figure out that just because her first name is the same as the guy who made my life hell and her last name is the same as my mother's, that was probably not a good reason to write her off.
I tried to remember how Susan and I had first gotten together. We'd had a real date, right? A proper, planned date. Of course, it had been interrupted by a giant frog demon trying to kill me. And I'd ended up naked in the rain and she'd ended up accidentally downing a love potion and trying to jump my bones during a life-or-death situation.
Right, did I mention I've had some back luck in this area?
Maybe I should just go see Morgan, lay my cards out on the table, and say - okay, there's my damage, if you still want any part of this I want to get to know you better.
I still wasn't sure if that was the best plan as I made my way to her place. Maybe I should have brought flowers. No, she'd probably be deathly allergic to them or something.
As the days grew hotter, Morgan had taken to spending more of the sunlit time in her hut. She found she preferred the evenings and mornings when the air felt crisper, a small reminder of the cold reaches of space, to the hot afternoons when the sun might burn her skin. If she did go out, it was to swim, and enjoy the calm quiet of the river.
It so happened that early afternoon that Morgan had only just returned from a swim and had retired to her shaded back porch to read. Her hair, unruly with the heat and damp and grown long, hung in ringlets over her shoulders, and she sat with her bare feet tucked comfortably beneath her. The clothing box had ended its long campaign of white, many months earlier, but she still preferred it from time to time, and wore it now, a loose, flowing lightweight dress that Dick and Bill both had proclaimed 'sexy' but with different intonations.
The knock at the door took her somewhat by surprise, but not so much as to startle her, simply to make her lips purse in quiet thought. She set the book down on her lap and called to her visitor, "I am in the back. You may come." The formal invitation she supposed necessary since if it had been Dick he would be teasing her already, Timothy already sitting at her feet in lotus, and Teal'c or Daniel would have announced their presence.
I ran a hand pointlessly through my hair as if that would make me more presentable somehow, and then walked around to the back of the hut where she was sitting on the porch. "Hi Morgan," I said, probably sounding just as awkward as I felt. "I hope you don't mind my just stopping by. I wanted to... uh. See you."
At the unfamiliar to her home but familiar to her and welcome sight of Harry's slightly stooped shoulders coming around the back, Morgan's expression warmed from curious to truly pleased. She closed the book and set it aside, then glanced to the space on the woven divan beside her. "Of course I don't mind. Please, come sit. I'm pleased to see you."
I'm tall in an awkward sort of way, and whenever I sit down, especially on something low, I sort of look like I'm folding in on myself like a geeky preying mantis. Not one of my best looks.
But I sat down beside her anyway, giving her a sort of sideways grin. "Thanks. So... how have you been?"
Hell's bells, Harry, why don't you just ask her how she's enjoying the weather?
Head tilted slightly, Morgan watched Harry fold himself down to the divan, her expression fond for the way he made himself more awkward than he truly was by being so terribly aware of it. And as soon as he'd done so, she reached out a hand to rest on his forearm. "I've been well. Not inconvenienced overmuch by the blizzard."
He seemed a trifle more nervous than usual, but not in the way he had been with her in the past. Not leery, but genuinely nervous. "You look well." And then to set him at ease, offered another smile, warmer. "Is everything all right?"
"Oh... sure, yeah, everything's fine. I'm fine. I guess I'd just been thinking - " It was here that I made the conscious decision not mention that whole personality-switch thing, because it was likely that Morgan didn't want to talk about it anymore than I did. I got a little embarrassed just thinking about it. For her and for me. I cleared my throat. "See, the thing is, I don't really go around kissing girls that much." Okay, now I sounded like a ten-year-old boy. "What I mean to say is, these things aren't just random for me. I'm not a drive-by lip-lock kind of guy." Right, that was much better.
Morgan laughed, soft and silvery, like windchimes on a breeze. "Oh, Harry. It has been many thousands of years since anyone has called me a girl. For that alone, I think you deserve another kiss." Expression shifting, finding a more suitable warm serenity with which to meet his obvious distress, she took his hand and held it in hers. "You may rest assured I never imagined you to be a drive-by lip-lock kind of guy, if I'm to assume by that you mean someone who kisses and runs or runs and kisses." Hm. Her eyes and her lips tilted curiously while her mind tracked the verbal expression, tracking it. "Or that kissing me was simply a whim," she said with the satisfaction of one learning a new language and being nearly certain she was correct. "I assumed, as it was for me, that a nascent interest elided into action owing to the intimacy of the moment."
I wouldn't have put it that way myself - hell, I didn't have the vocabulary to put it that way myself - but I was pretty sure that she'd summed up the gist of it. "Uh, yeah. Exactly. So the thing is..." Right, out with it. She was obviously interested, it was pretty stupid that I was nervous at all. But it's not like being stupid was a foreign concept for me. "I was thinking maybe we should go out. Like on a real date. Maybe..." I hesitated. "Maybe that big party that's coming up? The midsummer thing?"
Bill had taken her on a date for Valentine's Day, or rather, it had been supposed to be a date, but neither of them had possessed the requisite anxiety and insecurity that seemed to accompany 'dates' as the term seemed to be used in contemporary English parlance. Yet Harry, at least, seemed to have the nervousness aspect of dating covered, although she couldn't imagine why. "Are you sure you wish to go, Harry? I would be pleased to accompany you, but you have never seemed to me particularly fond of parties. I suppose we might go for a time and then leave to take a quiet walk on the beach if the sociality of it became imposing."
"Well, it's not that I'm unfond of parties," I offered. "And okay, so maybe fairies aren't exactly my favorite thing, but at least I know now that there aren't any real ones." I smirked and added, "Not even you. So... yeah. I can make an effort. It might be fun. Right?"
"To borrow a phrase from a friend, what I know about fun would fit in a very small - " She glanced at him, lips quirking into a sharp smirk, humor wicked. "Even pixie-sized thimble. But spending an evening with you will be enjoyable, whether or not I can speak to it being fun. And perhaps - " Amused, Morgan tapped her fingers against the back of his hand. "You might even be inspired by yet another moment to kiss me again, or permit me to kiss you."
"Maybe I should just tell you right now, you've pretty much got a blanket invitation," I said seriously. "A beautiful woman wants to kiss me, I'm not going to complain. Well." I considered that for a moment. "Unless she's a white court vampire. Or any kind of vampire, actually. Or one of a number of other things that only kiss you because they want to eat you."
"Shall I extend you the same invitation, Harry?" Morgan teased, voice light and warm with the pleasure of his regard and his interest. "You do have it, you know. I quite enjoy kissing you." In fact, she'd rather enjoy it right now. "I shan't drink your blood or your life force any more than I should kidnap your children or enchant you."
"I'm just glad I didn't forget how," I said sheepishly, and then on impulse, slipped an arm around her waist and leaned in to brush her lips with mine, just for a moment. Then I pulled away and stood up. "But I'm going to be a gentleman and wait until our date."
"In which case, I believe the proper form for taking your leave is to kiss my hand." It amused her quite thoroughly that Harry would insist upon playing the gentleman with her, and more that she would permit it, when she had begun with Bill because he had found her naked in the rain. But with each being there were patterns and she would observe those Harry wished for them and appreciate them as part of Harry. So she extended her hand in offer.
"Uh, right." I tried to think if I'd ever kissed someone's hand before. I cleared my throat and took her hand, brought it to my lips. "I'll come pick you up, then," I said.
And so I left her, thinking of the last time I'd had a real first date. Giant frog demons, love potions, and nudity. Let's hope this goes a little better.