Bobby and Lorna, Coms

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After Sangue Puro, Lorna stops in to get coffee from the coms station and runs into Bobby. They chat about the mission and Lorna's upcoming departure.



Bobby kicked back in the com chair, pulling one ear of the headset off with a contented sigh. The bird had made it back safe and sound, Moira was still working on getting the baby out, and he had the coms room pretty much to himself. Life was good.

Lorna was tired but restless and knew that whoever was on coms would have coffee ready that she could steal. Without doing more than stripping off her gloves and unsealing the zipper at her throat, she wandered over to the com station and rapped perfunctorily on the door before easing it open. "Hey, is there any...oh." She paused and grinned at Bobby, "Hi, I didn't know you were on coms tonight."

Bobby quickly moved his eyes from Lorna's throat to her face, grinning right back. "Took over from Storm just before you guys hit the mainland again," he replied, tugging the headset down to hang around his neck. "Coffee's a bit old, but it's hers, so it's probably good, too."

Lorna noticed the eye movement but misinterpreted it. She smiled wryly at him, "You like the new leathers? I redesigned them a while back. You should see what I can do in them." She executed a little model turn then snagged the coffee and a new mug. She downed half a cup black then winced and added cream and sugar to cover the stale taste. She flopped into the other chair and leaned back, "God, what a day."

Bobby quickly smothered a blush, absently brushing a bit of the resulting frost from his chin. "Yeah, they're nice." He regarded her for a long moment before asking, "Wanna talk about it? Or should I just wait and read the report?"

She lifted her head, "Nah, I'll talk. It wasn't traumatic, just long. I got to rip the roof off a school." She stretched and unzipped her uniform a bit more, preferring to be comfortable now that she was technically off duty. The synthsilk underneath was vastly more breathable than the leather and metal.

Bobby kept his eyes on Lorna's face, grinning. "So I heard. You and Nathan. Scott seemed pretty pleased with how it went." In typical Scott-fashion, he meant, of course. Entailing visualizing everything that could have gone wrong and didn't. "That man needs to learn to focus on the positive before he starts going grey," he muttered under his breath.

"He should be. It was textbook. Cable and I drew all the fire, I collected the bullets. Made myself a nifty headband...piece...holder...thing." She touched the metal netting her hair back. "The hostiles had kids in the library with guns trained on them." She shook her head, remembering how it had struck her, "How old were you for Columbine?"

"Fourteen," Bobby answered, almost immediately.

"I was fifteen. And it was...kids, in a library. I don't know. It just kinda hit me, you know?" She shrugged, "But it went perfectly. Kylun caught a couple on his own. We even put the roof back on afterward. It was a good day's work. Makes this thing worthwhile. They'd have killed them if we hadn't been there."

Bobby nodded, frowning. He wasn't sure what it said about him that hearing Lorna talk about it like this made him long even more for his own spot back. Probably that he liked being a hero, if he thought about it. Liked helping people, saving people. "Good job," he said softly, staring at the boards for a minute, even though there was really not a lot to monitor, with the team safely back home.

"Thanks. The team did really well. Scott's going to pick us apart at the debrief and tell us all the things we did wrong but whatever. Right now, I'm content." She finished her coffee and stretched again. "This was a good one to go out on."

"Of course he is. That's what gives him joy in life," Bobby kidded, and then sat forward. "It's not going to be the same without you around." He'd done his best to not think about this, since he'd heard, but it was getting harder, with Lorna and Alex's departure growing ever closer.

Lorna gave him a half-smile, "I should certainly hope not. I wouldn't like to think that I could be that easily replaced." She set her mug aside and dragged a foot up onto the chair, wrapping her arms around her knee. "It's weird. I'm going to have my own apartment. Alex has to live in the dorms so basically, I'm living alone. I've never done that before."

"Living in the dorms sucks," Bobby muttered, snorting and flopping back in his chair. "...I'm sure you'll be okay, though."

She grinned, "That I have done and I agree, dorm life sucks. But they make all freshman live in the dorms so I have to be without Alex. My life is such woe." She pressed the back of her hand to her forehead to show exactly how great was her sorrow.

"Okay, so how much time do you really think he'll log in his dorm bed. Honestly." Bobby smirked and pulled off the headphones, tossing them onto the nearby desk. "His roommate won't even know what he looks like."

"Well, yeah, okay, you have a point. It's not like he doesn't already have a key to the apartment. His roommate's going to think he's the luckiest guy ever. A single dorm when he expected a double." Resting her chin on her knee, she chuckled quietly. "It'll still be weird. Just the two of us."

"Yeah. Well, I'm sure you'll get used to it," Bobby said, stretching and crossing his ankles as he lounged in the chair. "You'll probably be glad you left, a week or two after you get settled in."

"Or I'll be on the phone with my mother crying about how I don't like being a grown up and I want to come home now and have cookies and milk." Lorna smiled but still looked slightly worried.

"I'll express ship you ice cream if you need a taste of home," Bobby said solemnly, nodding.

"Oooh, ice cream." Lorna glanced at the time, "Are you about done with your shift?"

Bobby looked at the clock and nodded. "Yeah, as I'm pretty much just finishing up Ororo's shift for her, to get back into the swing of things. Why?"

Lorna grinned at him, "I'll love you forever if you give the coffee an honourable afterlife."

Bobby laughed and stood, stretching as he eyed the remaining coffee. "I think that can be arranged," he replied, crossing to the carafe and looking around the area near it for a clean thermos.

She uncurled from the chair and stood as well, "I need to get out of this uniform and get cleaned up. Meet you upstairs in fifteen?"

"Deal." Bobby nodded over his shoulder and turned his attention back to the coffee.