Log [Alison, Haroun] The little (and not so little) things...

[x-dazzler.livejournal.com]

Wednesday evening. In which Alison drops by to visit Haroun in his office, bearing a small gift. The talk goes over a few things, including Important Days and Miles.



Haroun sank into his desk chair with a sigh. Classes today did not go well at all - he sprang a quiz on his Arabic students, making his beginners do very elementary word-matching and his advanced ones got a poem to translate.

Judging by his first five or so responses in each category, he'd managed to blow it. Again. None of the little rotters seemed to be absorbing the material. None of them.

If he were not an abstaining man, they'd have driven him to drink by now. But as he was an abstaining man, he settled for a large bottle of Gatorade. He contemplated going back to his room to do the grading, but that would require Effort, and he couldn't be arsed right now. Besides, he was on Comm duty this evening, and there was nothing more thrilling then Comm duty.

He'd better bring a book to read.

A flash of color, and then a head leaned into view from the half-opened door of the office, Alison peeking inside with a small smile that said 'I'm up to something and aren't you just dying to know what!' and then some. She had a Plan to make up for the Mexico trip going sideways, for one thing. This was a very worthy Plan and one that was much overdue anyway. But today was a Day of sorts and Alison felt it was right to commemorate it. "Hey there."

Haroun looked up mid-Gatorade-gulp. As such, he needed to swallow and put the bottle down before greeting Alison. "Hey." he told her, and then gestured to the papers on his desk. "Remind me to make my pop quizzes easier. I think I had to fail about half the class, and that's not right on Mr Bell Curve." he groused. "Is it time for me to go on-duty already?" he said, glancing at the clock.

She opened the door a bit further and casually leaned on the frame, one hand still held carefully behind her back. "Nope." It was a cheerful sort of answer, mostly due to Alison being relieved she'd managed to finally get to his office with a bit of time to spare before he had to go to comm duty, but also due to the fact that just seeing him was brightening her day further. She'd have gone straight for a hug were it not for the Thing and the fact that she wanted to drag this out a little bit longer. So she kept the maddeningly knowing grin going, adding a tinge of smug to it for good measure.

Haroun hrmmed at Alison. Something was Up, and it was looking like he was on the business end this time. "You're planning something." he said with a sudden grin. She was grinning at him. That was usually either a Danger sign or a "You're going to like this!" sign. He'd learned his lesson about confusing them, so now he just let them happen as they happened.

Her smile widened just a bit and she pushed away from the doorframe, using one heel to close the door slowly before stepping forward, one slow step at a time. "Weeell..." Both hands were behind her back now, holding the somewhat heavy package carefully. "Could be I am, at that. Course, that'd mean I have something to plan for. Now what could that something be?" She was willing to bet he'd totally forgotten, by now. Silly man.

Haroun blinked. "They gave you back your command tabs?" he said with a grin. "Hey, that's fantastic news!" he told her, standing up to move around his desk to where she stood. "I'd suggest we go celebrate, but I have duty tonight. Unless a certain CO pulled a string and got somebody to cover for me?"

Ack. "No. No command tabs." She kept the smile up though, despite the faint 'augh' going on in the back of her mind, which she firmly set aside with all the current things going on she wasn't paying attention to right now. "It's something else." She glanced at the calendar on the wall, then back at him with a meaningful expression.

Haroun stopped dead before he could really embarrass himself any further. "Oh." he said, stopping to think for a moment. "Can't be about the Columbia stuff." he mused out loud. "Miles doesn't have a birthday, I don't really care about mine - is it your birthday? God in Heaven, please tell me I didn't miss your birthday." he said with a worried look on his face.


Time to let him off the hook, most definitely, she decided. "No! No, my birthday's end of July." She blinked a bit, then shook her head. "Forgot all about it last year. It was during the Iceland thing," she added, realizing abruptly that it had been right after everything that happened at Columbia as well. Her expression wavered a bit, but she shook off the mood. Again. "No, this is about you." She handed him the package, heavier than it looked for its size, and smiled. "Six months since you've been here, on the dot."

Haroun looked baffled for a few moments, looking at the package in his hands. "Ookay." he said, unwrapping the gift carefully and precisely. "Heeeey." he said with a grin as the model Blackbird was revealed. "This is really nice. Thank you!" he told Alison. Why she was giving him gifts was still a mystery, but he wasn't going to quibble. It was a really nice sculpt of a stock Blackbird. He peered at it intently, checking it for detailed accuracy. "Where'd you get this? Someone knows their planes. They got the little details right."

"Scott gave me a number and a name. I asked no questions," she explained solemnly, before allowing herself a small bounce. Yes, very much well chosen. "I just thought it would be a nice way to make note of the six months since you've been here," Alison continued, reaching out to almost but not quite touch one of the small wings of the model, before looking up to see his reaction.

Haroun still looked confused, but his inner Aero nerd was very, very pleased indeed. "Remind me to talk to Scott, then." he said with a small laugh before putting the plane on his desk. "And to be honest I hadn't even noticed that it'd been six months already." he confessed. "I'm not big on anniversaries like this." he admitted. No bullshit, he had once promised her, and that's what she was getting.

"Well, as long as you don't mind putting up with me when I get it into my head that some day or other is Important?" She trailed off on the question, feeling suddenly a touch self-conscious about making a fuss about things and hoping it wasn't something he'd find annoying in the long run. She leaned on the corner of his desk, glancing down at the small model, unable to keep from looking pleased with herself at his reaction to the gift specifically, at least.

Haroun grinned at Alison. "Be my guest. But then just keep in mind that I am terrible with dates, so you take it into your head that one of them is important you have to TELL ME so that I can do what I need to do to keep it important as well." he said reasonably. "Only ones I really care about are religious holidays and your birthday, really." he said. "Any others that I need to track?" he asked. He also made a mental note - learn the Blackberry's calendaring function. Mark important dates with reminders. At least a week in advance.

"Miles' birthday," was the first thing that came to mind, really. And if he was okay with it, she didn't mind reminding. So long as he didn't forget once that had been done... "First date, too." Chuckling a bit, she wrinkled her nose at him. "Yearly would be fine for that." It was both odd yet oddly liberating to be able to do something like this. Stole some of the surprise away, perhaps, but added a certain stability.

"Why Miles's birthday?" he asked, but nodded as he said it. "Just shoot me a note and let me know when it is - I'll add him to the calendar." The first date prospect he let pass uncommented-on - she had the oddest ideas as to what needed to be celebrated and what did not.

"Because he's my son," she reminded him softly, the fact that Miles was a large part of her life and not something to be kept separate from the part of her life that encompassed Haroun important to her. She went on, not sure how to be clearer on the point for now and instead smiled crookedly at him. "Any dates I should remember for you, other than Ramadan for example?"

Haroun made the very bad mistake of making a face at that. "OK. I've got a birthday in August." he said. "And - April 12th. Remember that date." he added softly. "I don't want to talk about why right now, but it's important to me. I'm likely to get quite ... difficult ... around then."

For a brief moment, Alison stared at him, unsure how to read his reaction to why she wanted him to remember Miles' birthday. But maybe, she reminded herself, it had been for another reason - jumping to the worst possible conclusion wouldn't do anyone any good at all. And he was telling her something clearly important to him, so she focused on that, instead. "April 12th." A small nod. "I'll remember that." She'd already know his birthday, of course.

Haroun stared back at her. He was going to have to get used to the Muppet, and he was going to have to do it soon. Avoidance was not going to cut it any more. "OK. Guess I need to spend more time with the Muppet." he groused, half-out-loud.

Oh god, she was stuck in the Land With No Words again. So she reached out, fingers snagging the edge of his shirt lightly. He'd known Miles was an important part of her life, right from the start. She'd never hidden that at any time. Therefore, he meant what he said. Grumbling and all. "You're uneasy around kids," she finally murmured, no condemnation in her voice.

"Kids and I don't usually get along." he confessed. Inside his mind, he was watching his relationship with Alison get torpedoed right out of the water. Sam, his brain reminded him nastily, loved kids. Was fantastic with kids. "I don't relate to them well."

"Miles isn't exactly your run of the mill kid," she offered after a moment's silence, not letting go of his shirt. "And I wasn't exactly the ideal mom when I adopted him, y'know. Even if everyone keeps going on and on about it." The pressure was still somewhat mindbending, when she stopped to think about it, which was thankfully less often these days. "A willingness to try can go a long way. On both sides."

"I'll try. Your ways are very ... American." he said lamely. "I grew up in a different time, in a different way. I can't guarantee that they will mesh well." Spare the rod and spoil the child and all that. He expected children to behave like miniature adults, and so many people failed in this ideal. At the very least in public. Children could be children in the privacy of their own homes, not out where they could embarrass everyone.

"The way Miles and I worked out things isn't conventional even by general American standards," Alison laughed a little helplessly. "There's just so much he's not innocent about, how can I-" She
stopped, taking a slow breath. It was hard, sometimes, trying to sort out what was right for Miles, or not. "He lets me know when he doesn't understand something. And we sort things out. Goes both ways. And sometimes he's very much an adult when we talk, and sometimes he's nothing but a kid because he had so few chances to be before and he gets to make up for it now."

"To give you an example, I don't think that I spoke more than a few dozen words that weren't "Yes, Sir." or "No, Sir" to my parents from the time I was Miles' age to the year after that. We knew they loved us, and we them, but we were children and not to interfere in adult lives." he said. "I like to think that despite everything I did just fine."

That vaguely reminded Alison of her father's policy that children were allowed to speak only when spoken to first. But she knew what Haroun was getting at, the cultural differences he was trying to
explain and it wasn't the same. "That certainty of being loved is all I want for Miles, really. The rest - it'll come as it happens. It's new ground for both of us, still now. I mean - up until a year ago, I
wasn't even thinking children. Up until the day we found Miles, even. And he'd never had a parent before, that he could remember. We're just... working it out as we go along," she repeated, then smiled tentatively. "Kinda means you get to be on even footing there too, you know."

Haroun hrmmed. "True, I suppose." he said, leaning back against his desk. "I can't say that I'm very comfortable with the idea, but I'm willing to make the effort." he said after a short delay to think it through. "Perhaps a short outing first, just the two of us, to see how things might go?"

Alison decided that one day, he'd get to see her private notes to herself, during the first months she'd adopted Miles. She leaned against his side, feeling the tension ebb slowly. So much had depended on his words, she realized, and they should have talked about this ages ago - that he make the effort was non-negotiable, really. She slid a look at him, pensively, knowing that Haroun was only too aware of this. "That would be a good idea," she said softly, stamping down firmly on the 'keep Miles in sight at all times when not at the mansion' reflex that still very much ruled.

Haroun nodded. He knew he had just set himself up for a massive fall, but for her he'd take it. "So - six months already? Where does the time go? Although that reminds me - there's something I'd like to do sometime soon, and I might need your help with it. Up for it?" he asked with a small grin.

Six months since he'd been back here, and of course less since he'd taken her to that club and she'd finally understood that maybe there was more to things than she'd thought. "Time flies," she murmured, then grinned a bit at the unintentional pun. "Hrm. Anything I can do to help." She looked at him curiously, waiting for an explanation.

"I may need you to play bus driver for a day." he said cryptically. "I'm thinking about volunteering for a day at a hospital recovery ward. Your basic Good Deed, that sort of thing." He didn't elaborate any further than that, preferring instead to grin at Alison.

"This means a lot to you." Alison contemplated the notion for a few seconds. "Okay. Just let me know when so I can work out my schedule to be sure to fit it in." She took a deep breath and took the leap before her mind could talk her out of it. "Would you like for me to stick around for the day and volunteer as well, instead of just play bus driver, while I'm at it?"

"That's entirely up to you." he said with a modicum of surprise. "If you'd like to volunteer, another set of matched hands will probably be greeted with relief. And you could always sling a guitar, maybe do some music for them. Have to check with the hospital." he mused. "But it's up to you, basically."

She perked up at that, straightening up a bit. "I can do that." Music, she could handle. Always. "Could probably even contact the people at the ward and see about requests maybe? With a little time, I can pretty much pull off anything. Well, s'long as they don't mind a one woman acoustic guitar version of it," she grinned cheerfully. "Classical's good too."

Haroun had to laugh at that. "Junkie." he teased. "And hey, I want to grab a bite to eat before Monitor Duty tonight. Up for a stroll down to the Kitchen to see what's cooking? Or maybe whipping up a little something for a starving Moor?" He grinned in a distinctly adult way at Alison as he spoke.

The last line earned him a raised eyebrow and a decidedly wicked grin in return, even as Alison pushed away from the desk, walking backwards slowly towards the door. "Whipping up a little something, mm?" It was such a good thing Lorna believed in keeping the refrigerator well stocked in all sorts of 'yank it out and heat it up' things, really. "I think between the two of us we might figure something out to satisfy you."

"I don't know. I'm a hard man to satisfy." he said with a laugh, continuing the teasing. "But that doesn't mean that the problem is insurmountable."

She crooked a finger at him invitingly while leaning on the door, giving him a Significant Look. "Well, why don't we think on that a bit before heading downstairs? I'd say the topic should get all the attention it deserves, don't you?"

"Indeed." he said with a laugh, returning her Significant Look with a Smouldering One of his own. "The topic's been feeling somewhat neglected so far, and deserves some careful consideration." He added.

Alison laughed at that, still keeping the door very much closed. "So less talking and more considering! C'mere, mmm?" They had a little leeway to indulge in a moment or two for themselves, at least, and she intended to make the most of it.

Haroun walked over to where Alison was draping herself against the wall, and kissed her. Hard. With one hand he ran his fingers through her golden hair, and the other one placed itself on her collarbone.

Hands drifting to rest against him, tangling in his shirt and drawing him closer, Alison responded with a passion of her own. Needing to let him know somehow how much she appreciated what he was doing, the relief that flowed from that driving her on and a host of other things she couldn't even put words or coherent thought to, for now. But she would later, somehow.