They don't make jukeboxes like they used to...

[rememory]

To dream the impossible dream
To fight the unbeatable foe
To bear with unbearable sorrow
To reach the unreachable staaaaaaaaaar....

From the kitchen that she'd designated as the focal point for de and reconstruction, Sabine barked, "Mimi!" and then choked out a laugh that was half a sob. Man of La Mancha had always been one of Byron's favorite musicals.

"What? You can't build without music and you don't have a boombox!"

"No one has a boombox anymore. Don't make me regret manifesting you." She shook a finger at the showgirl ghost who was lounging on the back of the couch like it was a baby grand.

Unrepentant, Mimi went on singing,

To right the unrightable wrong
To love pure and chaste from afar
To try when your arms are too weary
To reach the unreachable star.

"I love that line, don't you?" Mimi teased not just Sabine but Scott, even though he was out of earshot.

"Zip it, or it's Tsura's turn," Sabine snapped, cringing at the reference to their chaste, but far less than pure love.

"What was that?" Scott emerged from the next-door apartment through the hole he'd put between them to make testing the walls for support beams easier. There were two more like it in the filthy foursquare they'd chosen to turn into a community area -- for the time being.

"Nothing. Mimi was just asking your favorite musical so she could sing for you. Isn't that right, Mimi?" Mind-to-ghost she sent #Don't even contradict me.# Forbidding it with power was the simplest of her abilities, but Sabine didn't abridge her free will.

Mimi just laughed and laughed, sticking to Impossible Dream until the next person joined them Then she started in on songs from Annie:

It's a hard knock life for us!
It's a hard knock life for us!

Sighing, Sabine shot Scott and the newcomer an apologetic look then shrugged helplessly. "It's not like she's wrong."

[ooc: Gathering post! Sabine and Scott are clearing out a group of four apartments to start with to make a communal kitchen, dining, sitting area on level D. Mimi is audible and vaguely visible as a holographic figure of a showgirl with an indistinct face. She won't interact unless you ping me and ask for her. Will, Molly, Marie, Jack, Sebastian, Nick, Porthos, Maggie, all got a message inviting them for potluck and construction. Anyone else can have heard from them or have seen the 'excuse our dust' sign and stop by. Feel free; all are welcome. Tag Sabine with a note in the subject line; all other tags are top levels.]

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[rememory]

Startling Sabine tended to be the next closest thing to impossible, since Tsura had appointed herself a scout, and insisted that someone else take over if she wanted to do something else. From the other psis at the castle, however, she had learned to consider it courteous to wait until someone acknowledged her.

So when Will spoke, Sabine had already been listening for him, and when she answered, it was in a similarly low tone, but warm with welcome to offer him a respite from the noise and human presences. "I do. At home, Em, Dani, and Sarah and I are often in the kitchen when anything has gone wrong. I stress cook less than they, but enjoy cooking for friends." It didn't seem strange to speak of people and situations he didn't and couldn't know. She didn't really think of him as new to her life, not in the ways that mattered.

[wgraham]

Will nodded, and an image came to mind, Sabine and three other women cooking together, laughing and enjoying each other's company, finding comfort in sharing in the others' presence.

"I fish," Will told Sabine, thinking of his own escape, the place he would go when he needed clarity. "Or I used to," he amended with a soft laugh. There had been a river in Darrow, but somehow Will had never gotten there, and of course there wasn't a way to indulge in that particular hobby here on Sanctuary, at least not outside the meditative kind he engaged in mentally.

"I guess I still do, but only in my head," he said, and he knew, despite how strange it sounded, Sabine would understand.

He cleared his throat. "What did you cook today?" he asked, turning his attention to the spread Sabine was adding finishing touches to.

[rememory]

"All three of us, Dani, Sarah, Em, what we do, we do with our minds. You'll never catch me saying 'only' about anything in the brain." She put out her hand for him, to take or not, his choosing, but if he did, she would only lead him as far as the counter anyhow.

"It's nothing fancy. Corn and black bean salad, enchiladas, and Southwestern style Monte Cristos. Everything's replicated except the vegetables and the spices. Sal always says that fresh veg and good spice can cover a multitude of sins." She flashed Will a quick grin. "Let's hope he's right."

Because it was Will, she decided to add, "I usually trend toward French, Creole and Chinese, but Southwestern is Scott's favorite."

[wgraham]

Will's eyes fell to Sabine's hand, but he only hesitated for a moment before he took it, allowing her to lead him toward the spread of food she'd prepared. His gaze moved over the items she'd set out, and his stomach growled immediately. "Well, it smells amazing," he told Sabine, turning to her with a smile.

"It's been so long since I've eaten good, fresh food like this," he said, inhaling the scent of the spices deeply. "I was good at catching fish, but not great at preparing it," he admitted with a soft chuckle. "I've always relied on friends who can cook to do something good with it." Of course he couldn't help the way his thoughts went to Hannibal, and he was surprised, after all this time, that the memories were more fond than they probably should have been.

"If I could catch fish here, I'd be on your doorstep immediately, seeing about one of your Creole dishes," he said. "I haven't eaten Creole food since I was a kid."

[rememory]

A slow smile warmed Sabine's features as she offered him a quarter of a Southwestern Monte Cristo to try. "Now I know what to make for dinner for you and Molly. Or at least where to start."

The menu began shaping itself in her mind, along with a list of ingredients she could replicate and those she'd need to buy--plus the awareness she'd need to find some paying work or an income of some kind soon to keep the kitchen stocked.

"Gumbo, red beans and rice, blackened trout...beignets and coffee," she murmured, less of a recitation and more of an incantation, like she proposed to make it appear from thin air.

[wgraham]

Will accepted the sandwich and lifted it to his mouth to try a bite immediately, the flavor exploding across his tongue and make him hum pleasantly as he chewed. He made the sound again as Sabine began listing the items on her theoretical menu, and Will lamented the lack of a real river here in this place. Fishing had always been one of those things he relied on when he needed to clear his mind, a task he could set himself to and lose himself in. Bringing home fresh caught fish was the satisfying result of that time, something tangible he could show for his solitude.

"That sounds incredible," Will said once he'd swallowed, licking his lips. "Like a dream come true," he added with a smile. "Though you could make just about anything for Molly and me and we'd be beyond grateful."

He paused then, setting down his sandwich and wiping his hands and his mouth on a napkin. "We could even make it a little dinner party. Molly and me, you and Scott." The way he said it he hoped he left it open for Sabine to tell Will more about this mystery man, not the love of Sabine's life but certainly someone she was very fond of.

[rememory]

"Subtle, caro," Sabine replied but the smile in her eyes assured she had no issues with the opening or the curiosity.

She glanced around to see who was about--and what was left of the beer. One, as chance would have it, and she snared the longneck between her fingers. "You won't mind sharing, will you?"

But she didn't wait for an answer, and rather tipped her head toward the hall and made to go out. She suspected Will could use the downtime away from the rest of the people and Scott would respect her privacy if she'd moved to take it. Nothing she had to say would be a surprise to him, but her feelings on the matter were...very unsettled. Having someone else to talk to about it would do her some good.

[wgraham]

Will shared Sabine's smile, and shook his head softly. "Not at all," he said as he followed Sabine out of the room. It was easy enough to see that she was seeking privacy for the rest of their conversation, more even than she could get sequestered at the far end of the room. As they left he found Molly's eyes across the space, sent comforting feelings of security and understanding across their connection, letting her know he was okay, and that she had nothing to worry about.

He wasn't sure where Sabine was taking him, but he followed her silently, unhurried and not at all nervous about where they might end up going for their talk.

[rememory]

Sabine wasn't going far, just down the hall, away from the noise, but still within shouting range of the door to the soon-to-be kitchen in case of unforeseen danger. Not danger from Will--that was ludicrous, but ceiling cave-ins or black market thug incursions or sudden malice from the station.

Once she'd found a spot along the wall that was relatively clean, she leaned against it and took a sip of the beer. When Will joined her, she handed the bottle to him and began, "Scott's married," and let the full complications of that with what he'd definitely observed settle in.

[wgraham]

Will took the beer from Sabine and lifted it to his lips without hesitation, taking a swallow. It didn't taste familiar exactly, but it was pleasant and beer-like enough that Will could appreciate it. His eyes went a little wide at Sabine's admission, quick and straight to the point.

"I take it his wife isn't on the station?" he replied, knowing Sabine well enough that he didn't think she would even broach the subject of a relationship with a man whose spouse was a local presence.

[rememory]

"No. But on some levels, it wouldn't make a difference," Sabine admitted after a moment. "Two years ago, I'd been captured a couple of times and really needed to learn to fight. Scott had recently been through a harrowing experience that left him unwilling to trust himself in a fight. He was trying to get himself back together, when we met in the gym one night. After a while, I asked him if maybe getting back to sparring with someone who was absolutely no threat to him physically might be a way of regaining his footing. That's how he ended up teaching me to fight. And because he was my teacher, and I was his completely non-threatening therapy partner, we ended up very close--at a time when he and his wife were being very distant with each other emotionally."

She took the bottle from Will, took a sip to wet her mouth and regroup, then said, "Before you lose all faith in me, nothing ever happened. I drunkenly confessed to loving him one night two years ago, and then I went and got engaged to my then-lover. His father kidnapped me and sold me to our enemies--" Her expression turned bitterly wry. "I only wish I was kidding. I'm not. But anyway, Scott came to rescue me. At the same time, Shola was rescued and we were getting to know each other again." She decided to pause and see if Will had questions, since it was a beast of a story and... well, the next part was the hard part.

[wgraham]

Sabine's reply implied that the situation with Scott (and his wife) was even more complicated than Will had originally thought. And though the story she told wasn't as typical as it could have been (considering the people involved and what they could do), the end result was a tale as old as time.

Some of Will's studies in forensics had included anthropology and human behavior, so hearing Sabine's story didn't make him think less of her in any way. Many studies he'd read had reported that human beings, biologically, weren't programmed for monogamy; the concept was wholly created as a social construct, either to foster familiar stability or support the concept of ownership. Of course Will hadn't had much experience with interpersonal relationships until he'd met Molly, and his connection with her had solidified one of the indisputable emotional components: jealousy. As open as a human being might be to having multiple partners for themselves, it was a much more difficult thing to see someone you loved finding a deep connection with someone else.

"For the record, I wouldn't have looked down on you if something had happened," he told Sabine. "Human emotion is tangled and unpredictable at the best of times, and there are many things that go through people's heads that are much worse than falling in love."

He took a moment then, considering the rest of Sabine's story, how wild her life had been compared to the relative calm of his own world. Of course he'd had his own traumas, but they sounded almost conventional compared to Sabine's.

"Shola, was that your lover at the time, or are those two separate people?" he queried, parsing the list of people involved. "Is that who your engagement was to?"

[rememory]

"No. Shola is an entirely different complicated story." She recalled that she'd told him a bit of it that first day and smiled warmly, grateful that they'd become so close so quickly. It made this much simpler. "The engagement was to Shinobi. A man I'd met some years before I ended up in Scotland. We had a brief fling and then he found me again, entirely accidentally, because his stepmother was living at the castle."

It was difficult, even now, to sum Shinobi up in so few words, but he wasn't really relevant to the story except, "He loved me in his way, but he couldn't say it, even after he proposed. I think the only way I made it through that engagement as long as I did, was because I had Scott, whose love was clear and strong, even if it had to be platonic."