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It’s a lovely Edenian day. It’s only mostly humid, and it’s not raining for the first time in a week. So, predictably, Wainwright Jakobs is in the gardens of the manor, pruning his roses, enjoying the quiet.
The quiet, of course, does not last. There’s a loud, echoing FWOOM to Wainwright’s left, and then a figure falls to the ground.
It takes him a moment for the reality of the situation to set in – oh, shit, that’s a human being that just fell outta God knows what kinda portal – and then he’s got his shotgun in hand and he’s running over.
By the time he gets there, to the bridge that leads off to the place he’s been told to never go, the figure has gathered themself onto their knees.
“Uh,” says the figure, straightening their hat. “What the fuck?”
“I’d ask the same of you, miss,” he says, releasing the grip on his shotgun somewhat. She seems far too well-dressed to have just popped out of a mysterious portal, but she also looks beat to hell, hair in disarray and clothing dirty.
“If I knew, I’d tell you,” she says, a little brusque, as she continues to straighten herself out. There’s a big, awful bruise blooming across her forearm, with a matching one developing on her neck. It doesn’t look like any injury Wainwright has ever seen. “Listen, where the hell is this?”
“Eden-6.”
She pauses for a long moment. “You’re kidding me.”
“No, ma’am.”
She pushes herself up to her feet with considerable effort. “Great, just fucking great.” She starts wandering towards the bridge to nowhere. “I walk into this vault and end up four systems away.”
That catches Wainwright’s attention, and he stands to follow her. “’Scuse me, vault ? The hell you been doin’?”
She spins on a heel to face him. “Went into this vault on Pandora, fought a big nasty thing, got a bunch of cool shit, then stepped into a weird portal and I guess… fell out here.” She shrugs. “Y’know, normal Tuesday.”
Wainwright’s eyebrows shoot up. “Well. I suppose that explains it. You got a plan to get back to Pandora, or…?”
“No clue.”
“Well,” he says, holstering his shotgun, as if this is indeed a completely normal Tuesday and he’s just making rounds about the manor. “Why don’t you come inside and clean up? You look a little worse for wear.”
She stares at him for a moment, considering. “Alright. Thanks.” Another considering pause. “I’m Fiona, by the way.”
He smiles. “Wainwright Jakobs. Pleasure to meet you.”
Fiona blinks at him. “No fucking way. Jakobs Jakobs?”
He chuckles just a bit as he motions for her to follow him through the gardens. “Yes ma’am. You just-so-happened to land yourself in Jakobs Manor, in fact. Right by my begonias. Count your lucky stars you didn’t land on ‘em, or you’d be payin’ for them.”
Fiona’s eyes go wide. “Uh-huh. And you’re… the CEO?”
He shakes his head, holding a back door open for her. “No, that would be my father, Montgomery. Hopefully you won’t run into him. He can be about as agreeable as a saurian during a thunderstorm, if you catch my meaning.”
She makes a face at him that says not really, but okay as he leads her into the kitchen.
Fiona’s injuries from her… whatever she went through only amount to a few bruises and scrapes, which seems like a small miracle, considering. Once she’s more or less tidied up, she makes for the door, announcing her intent to find a fast-travel.
“Wait,” says Wainwright. “Why don’t you sit a while? You must be exhausted. I’ll put some coffee on.”
Fiona turns around, pauses, and then shrugs. “Alright.”
As it turns out, they get along like a house on fire. Fiona is an absolute riot as far as Wainwright is concerned, dry and sarcastic with a wealth of stories to share. She seems to enjoy Wainwright’s presence as well, and by the time they’re done talking it’s dark out, crickets chirping in the bushes outside the kitchen window.
They agree to not tell Montgomery exactly how she got here. The vault on Eden-6 is somewhat of a Jakobs family secret, and it’s better that it stay that way. It seems almost second-nature, the way she concocts a story as to why she’s here. Wainwright would be terrified of her ability to lie if it wasn’t so damn amusing.
There’s plenty of guest rooms in the manor, and they shuffle Fiona into one once she starts yawning. The exhaustion of whatever she’s been up to, it seems, has caught up with her, and she flops down onto the bed in her clothes.
“Thanks,” she says, face muffled in the pillows.
“Get some rest,” says Wainwright, softly, as he shuts the door behind him.
After a few days, Fiona perks up. She’s quite a character, a smooth-talker with an unimaginable number of stories to tell. Wainwright isn’t entirely sure how many of them are true, but he figures that’s not his business.
Montgomery, too, seems to take a shine to her; Wainwright catches them talking often, about Fiona’s exploits as a big game hunter and her travels around the galaxy. All of it seems a little bit off to him, but his father eats it up, and it keeps tensions low around the manor.
“So, your little lady friend,” says Mongomery, about two weeks in. “She’s nice, yeah?”
Wainwright shoots his father a puzzled look over his glass of whiskey. “Fiona?” He considers. “Yeah, I s’pose. Real firebrand, she is. Big attitude.”
“And an accomplished hunter. Might be a great ambassador.”
Wainwright stomach twists a little at that – always about the business – but he lets it slide. It wouldn’t be fair to Fiona to have a shouting match with his father while she’s six doors down and probably asleep. “Maybe. I dunno if that’s really her speed, though. Ain’t really a corporate kind of gal, y’know?”
“Yeah, your momma said that, too,” says Montgomery, a little wistful. “Folks change, when their priorities change.”
Wainwright makes a little hum of acknowledgement as he throws back another sip of whiskey. He has to bite his tongue to avoid saying something about mama didn’t change that much, you self-centered old asshole .
“Why don’t you bring Miss Fiona to that gala next week?” offers Montgomery. “You know you gotta go anyway. Might as well, right?”
Wainwright shoots his father a look.
“C’mon, give it a shot. You ain’t gettin’ any younger.”
And as much as he resents his father, that is true. It’s also true that if he doesn’t do this, rumors might start to fly. He’s been a bachelor for a long, long time.
“Okay,” he says, finally. “Fine.”
His father smiles at him. It doesn’t bring him any joy.
It’s not that Wainwright dislikes Fiona. She’s funny, charming, and objectively good-looking. She’s got a sharp wit, she’s a good shot, and she swears enough to put a sailor to shame.
It’s just that Wainwright hasn’t dated a woman since he was twenty-three, and it had ended abruptly when he’d come to the realization as to why exactly he found it difficult to be intimate with her.
He’s had this conversation with his father before, over the intervening decades. Many times. In a variety of locations and tones. But it never seems to stick, no matter how obvious Wainwright makes it. Montgomery, old and stubborn as he is, is stuck on the vision of his son marrying some beautiful woman and having children to whom they can pass on the Jakobs name.
And it seems that fantasy lives on in his father’s brain still.
So, on a whim, he brings it up to Fiona the next day. He gets halfway through proposing the idea to her before she bursts into laughter.
“What, is it that ridiculous?” he asks, smiling.
“No, holy shit, I love that. Let’s do it.”
That catches Wainwright entirely off-guard. “Really? I hope you know I’m not propositioning you or anything. I don’t… I don’t know if you could tell, but I don’t swing that way. If you catch my meaning.”
Fiona cocks her head sideways at him. “Mm, yeah, I sort of figured. Kinda clocked you as swinging that way when we met, if I’m honest.”
He makes a face like he’s about to protest, and then thinks better of it. “Yeah, okay, fair enough.”
She chuckles a little. “And, for the record, I don’t swing in any direction. So there’s no worry of, y’know, something unrequited. But that doesn’t mean I don’t think this is a hilarious idea. I wanna give your dad and his cronies something really juicy to gossip about.”
Wainwright can’t help but laugh as well. “You know you’re gonna have to wear a gown.”
“I’ve always wanted to be a princess,” says Fiona, deadpan, scratching behind her ear.
“Okay, maybe I didn’t want to be a princess this bad,” says Fiona. The dress she’s wearing is more than a little ridiculous, at least in comparison with her normal clothes – big and flouncy, with lace trim and bows more or less everywhere. It doesn’t match her at all , to the point where Wainwright has to resist laughing as she fusses with it.
The gala is in an hour, and they’re getting ready before setting off. Wainwright’s done an admirable job of trying to tame his hair, to not much avail. Fiona, despite her outfit not matching her tastes, looks lovely. In another life, perhaps they could have made a lovely couple.
Wainwright ducks his head apologetically as he straightens out his tie. “Sorry. You don’t get much, uh, sleek formalwear ‘round these parts. You’re actually wearin’ the height of Edenian fashion right now, believe it or not.”
Fiona brushes a lock of hair out of her eyes. “Uh-huh. Totally .” She levels him with a gaze. “You owe me for this.”
“I know, I know,” says Wainwright, carefully clasping his cufflinks. “Thank you, Fiona. I mean it.”
The gala is at Jakobs headquarters, a few miles away. It’s a pleasant drive. Wainwright feels a strange sort of nervous tension in his gut, like he’s a teenager again and they’re heading to a school dance. Not that he was particularly experienced at that, even in his younger years – for some strange reason, nobody much wanted to hang around the firebrand, awkward Jakobs kid.
The gala is a bustling affair. The moment they hop out of the car, they’re hollered at from every angle. Wainwright had warned Fiona about this, and she’s only shell-shocked for a moment before she gains her composure, looping an arm into his and smiling demurely.
“Act natural,” she whispers into his ear, so close that it almost looks like she could be kissing him on the cheek.
It takes a solid twenty minutes for them to just get in the doors. Every step they take, someone new has a question, or needs introduced to Fiona, or has some compliment to sling. It’s the normal Jakobs event bullshit dialed up to eleven, and Wainwright would be exhausted already if he wasn’t having so much fun with this strange game of pretend.
Fiona, to her credit, is doing perfectly , the spitting image of a sweet, charming young lover. It’s almost comical, the dichotomy between this Fiona, all done up and blushing, and Fiona last night, dressed in one of Wainwright’s old undershirts, shooting beer cans off the fence at the Manor and making crass jokes all the while. What a remarkable person , thinks Wainwright, as they finally cross the threshold.
They mingle for a little bit, snagging drinks and bits to eat from the passing waitstaff. Fiona talks amicably with everyone about her career as a big game hunter, about her life throughout several systems, about how she and Wainwright met. It is all, of course, complete bullshit. But she’s a terrifyingly convincing liar, and Wainwright finds it easy to follow along. She makes it easy.
“You asked me out shooting first, right sweetheart?” she beams over her champagne flute.
“Mm-hmm,” he rumbles. “Just had to see you in action, after all those stories.”
The crowd around them titters in joy. This, if nothing else, will keep the rumor mill busy for a few months.
They’re both pleasantly buzzed by the time Fiona drags him to the dance floor. It’s better that way, really – the liquor softens some of the shame as he tries to take the lead and does a frankly awful job at it. Fiona seems to take pity on him, because she subtly shifts her hands, leading him around with surprising grace.
“Thank you,” he says, softly. “Didn’t expect you to take it this seriously.”
She shrugs, an almost imperceptible gesture. “I’m having fun. It’s like a game, sorta. Your dad seems pleased, too. Couldn’t stop telling me earlier how ‘happy he is for us’ or whatever.”
Wainwright rolls his eyes. “Old bat’s so damn fixed on grandkids he hardly thinks of anything else. Guess he’s just gonna have to be heartbroken when you leave.”
Fiona looks at him, surprisingly serious. “You’re a good man, Wainwright. You’ll find somebody.”
He smiles, ducking his head, a little bashful. To the observers watching them, they’re just flirting. Two lovebirds. “Thank you. You’re too kind.”
The night winds down without incident. It’s about one in the morning when the guests clear out, leaving the waitstaff and cleaning crew there, along with Wainwright, Fiona, and Montgomery. Fiona’s taken up position sitting on a cleared-off table, bright pink high-heels kicked off.
“You two make quite the couple,” says Montgomery. He’s a little rosy-cheeked, but nothing too drastic. Wainwright knows his father has just enough control to not get completely hammered at a company function.
“Thank you,” says Wainwright, before turning to Fiona. “It’s a shame you have to be goin’, darlin’.”
Fiona does her best to look downtrodden. Wainwright’s arranged transport for her to – well, he’s not sure. Wherever she wants to go. But she’s leaving come morning. “I know, sweetheart. But I have work to do.”
“That’s a damn shame,” says Montgomery, loosening his tie. “You sure you can’t stay a little longer? Winny could sure use the company.”
“No, I’m afraid I’ve got arrangements to help train a group of hunters on Hermes next week. The work never ends.” She shrugs. “I’m sure you understand, Mister Jakobs, sir.”
Montgomery’s wearing a rare smile, genuinely warm. “Well, sweetheart, you’re always welcome here.”
Fiona leaves the next morning with a hug, a smile, and a promise to keep in touch. He doesn’t know where she’s headed – it seems a lot of folks have bad blood with her, and it’s best for her to keep a low profile for the moment. He tries to thank her again, but she cuts him off.
“Cut it out. It was fun! I got to be a princess, and I drank champagne that costs more money than I’ve ever had.” She punches his bicep gently. “Don’t get too upset that your sweetheart’s leaving, now.”
They hug, and then she’s off. Wainwright stands by the door a while, smiling wistfully, watching the breeze catch the leaves in the jungle.
What a lady.