T'Vara set her glass down and looked at him with the direct quality she brought to most things. She did not look away and she did not perform any of the social responses that the comment typically produced in people, the deflection or the reciprocal flattery or the careful pivot to safer conversational ground.
"I know" she said simply. "I noticed it in sickbay." She picked up her utensil and cut another piece of the lamb. "I do not think attraction is a useful thing to pretend not to have noticed. It wastes time and produces unnecessary conversational complexity." She looked at him. "What I think is more relevant at this point is that this is the second time we have spoken and the first time we have sat across a table from each other. That is not a great deal of information to work with in either direction."
She took another sip of ale. "The food is good" she said. "The ale is good. The conversation has been worth having. That is where I am at the end of a second interaction." She looked at him with the measured quality she brought to most assessments. "I am not opposed to a third."
For a moment, Morgan felt like a fool for professing his attraction to her this quickly. He was, however, fully cognizant of the fact that she did enjoy his company. “That’s good to know. I must be doing something right. I….will do my utmost to slow things down a bit. I just wanted to be honest. Friendships and, well, all relationships, are built on honesty. Thank you for being honest with me. For humans, the ‘conversational complexities’ to which you refer are what make encounters like this one….fun.”
“You’re absolutely correct in your assessment regarding the food and ale. Very good. The conversation is equally as good. Very good indeed,” Morgan said as he leaned back in his seat. He smiled and took a deep breath.
“Tell me, T’Vara, of Verath IV, what do you do for fun? What things or activities make you happy? What brings you joy? Romulans may not express it the way humans or other species do, but you must feel it.”
"Joy is not a word I use often" she said. "Not because I do not experience something that functions like it but because the word implies a particular quality of expression that I do not generally produce." She picked up her glass. "What I can tell you is what I return to when I have the choice."
She set the glass down. "I cook. Not because I have to, I have a replicator, but because there is something about working with actual ingredients and actual heat and a process that requires attention that I find useful in a way I cannot entirely explain. On Verath IV it was necessity. Now it is a choice and the fact that it is a choice makes it different."
"I read" she said. "Whatever I can find. I do not have a particular system for it. I finished a xenobiology text last week and before that something on early Romulan cartography that had nothing to do with medicine or anything else practically relevant to my current situation. I find that the less relevant something is to my immediate work the more I want to read it." She paused. "I am not sure what that says about me."
She looked at the viewport for a moment. "And I find quiet corners" she said. "Every ship I have been on I locate them within the first few days. Places where the crew does not generally go at certain hours. I sit in them." She looked back at him. "I do not meditate in any formal sense. I simply sit somewhere that is not demanding anything from me and I find that restorative in a way that most other things are not."
She picked up her utensil again. "Those are not exciting answers" she said. "But they are accurate ones. What brings you joy, Avery?"
“Ok….we discussed my interest in 20th century automobiles. I’m also a history buff, Earth history to be precise. I read about it, study it. Indulged in some Holodeck programs. I read quite a bit as well. Cultural archaeology and anthropology.”
Avery took a sip of his drink and continued. “I’ve been known to dabble in the culinary arts. Learned and practiced with my mom and my sister. I know I said I would cook for you next time, but….I just had an idea. Why don’t we cook together? Your quarters or mine. I understand Mei-Lin is your roommate. She could join us. Unless you preferred something a little more….intimate. Just the two of us. There’s time enough for that discussion later.”
There was still quite a bit of food remaining on his plate. He took a forkful of vegetables and put it in his mouth. “I’ve been talking so much, I neglected my dinner. You should finish before it gets cold. After dinner, would you like to take a walk with me? Doesn’t matter where. There’s still a good part of the ship I haven’t seen. Perhaps we could explore, just the two of us?”
T'Vara set her utensil down and looked at him. "You have mentioned spending time in quarters twice this evening" she said. "I redirected the first suggestion to the mess hall for a reason. I would like to be clear that I am not opposed to that at some point but some point is not the second time we have spoken." She said it without any particular edge, just the clean delivery of an accurate observation.
She picked up her glass and looked at it for a moment. "The walk I will also decline. Not because the evening has not been worth having but because extending it further than the meal feels like more than the second interaction warrants." She looked at him. "I am comfortable here for a while longer if you are."