"Francis and I have at least tried to keep it from eating away at us like we knew it might," Rosemary said quietly, looking down into her tea. "We've commiserated."
Lamont and Rosemary exchanged quiet greetings with Lazarus and Abigail, who were stationed at the central console, and Arthur, who was leaning over some computer printouts on the situation table attached to it. He regarded the two like a suspicious schoolmaster as they made their way toward the drink dispenser on the starboard wall. The captain, they had been informed, was in his office on the port side of the deck.
"Don't think you're getting off that easily, Townsend," Rosemary admonished in a near whisper. "You're keeping something close to your chest. I can tell."
"I'm a newspaperman," Lamont rebutted. "I know lots of things, and I don't say half of them. It comes with the profession."
He let Rosemary get to the dispenser first. She pulled a tea packet and a cube of sweetener from the drawer beneath the dispenser. Pulling a cup from the cabinet, she placed it under the dispenser nozzle and pressed the key for hot water.
"It's more than that," Rosemary insisted. Her tone was serious again, and her eyes met his searchingly. "You were there in the cave when—when Francis tried to get Rex back. You saw what happened. We shared that experience."
She withdrew the cup from the dispenser, dropping the tea packet and sweetener into the steaming water.
"What's your point?" Lamont asked. Stepping around her, he pulled a cup from the cabinet and placed it beneath the nozzle. On reflex, his fingers began to punch in the code for the executive coffee reserve, but that reserve had been unavailable since the starboard hydroponics bay was decimated by the power surge. It was certain to still be unavailable now. Perhaps it would never return, he thought with something akin to horror. Besides, did Rosemary know the code? He glanced at her surreptitiously and quickly canceled the code entry, punching the button for instant coffee instead.
"My point is that you can't just go through something like that and then just bottle it up," Rosemary insisted. "It ain't healthy."
"What is there to do?" Lamont asked rhetorically, watching his cup fill with steaming black liquid. "The situation was a travesty from beginning to end. There's nothing that can change it."
"Francis and I have at least tried to keep it from eating away at us like we knew it might," Rosemary said quietly, looking down into her tea. "We've commiserated."
"Is that what you two have been doing?" Lamont asked. "Commiserating?" He picked up his cup and sipped from it, wincing as the bitter liquid burned his upper lip. Then he sipped again.
Rosemary's round face reddened visibly. "What else would we be doing?" She asked.
"As a newspaperman," Lamont said, "I couldn't help but wonder."
Her embarrassment at Lamont's suggestion quickly turned to annoyance, her green eyes flashing at him. "We've recognized that we shared an experience that no one else can relate to. Except for you. You should join us, but you've kept it to yourself. Which means…" She hesitated.
"What does it mean?" Lamont asked, gripping his cup a little too tightly.
Rosemary's eyes searched his, glistening with emotion. "It either means that you're in the habit of bottling everything up—which, for you, would be terrifying. Or it means that there's something you saw, something you know…" She paused again, biting her lip, before forging ahead. "Something you're afraid to tell us."
Lamont felt his mouth twitch into an involuntary, ironic smile. "Why not both?"
Lots of these little bit of stort you manage to end with a nice cliffhanger, but this one has nice omen of revelation and progression of the underlying world-story to it. I couldn't help but smile and wonder: what if it really is both and when will he ever tell us.
Very nicely done Elliot!