Meeting the Fiancee

[dr_s_calvin]

Dr. Calvin is not overly dressed up as she stands outside the estate, waiting for Karr. For Karr and his fiancée, which is a strange idea... but one she finds herself liking more and more as she mulls it over.

Karr is driving up the road toward the estate, quiet and a little nervous, mostly mulling over Aly's presence in his driver's seat, but excited too. He points Dr. Calvin out to Aly. "There..."

Aly looks up when car sees Dr. Calvin, straightening her sweater again. Karr wasn't the only one who was nervous. She takes a deep breath. "She doesn't really look what I was expecting," she says quietly. "Then again, I'm not sure what I was expecting." She waits until Karr has pulled even with the waiting woman before she undoes her seatbelt.

"Karr," Calvin says by way of greeting, and "You must be Alyson. I've heard something about you, though not your last name." She offers a hand to the younger woman.

Karr waits in vehicle form as Aly gets out and greets Calvin, still silent, but listening closely

Aly takes the other woman's hand, smiling. "I am -- Alyson Rush -- Dr. Calvin, and it's a great pleasure to meet you." She gestures toward the driver's seat. "Would you like to sit in the captain's chair?"

A tight smile and a rather evaluating look as Calvin presses Alyson's hand briefly. "I'd think that's up to Karr," she says. She has no real preference-- and no real experience sitting behind a wheel without having to drive.

Karr's scanner speeds up a bit, he's a little torn over the decision, but familiarity wins out over maternity. "I'd prefer Aly sit there... Are you both ready to go?"

Aly shrugs a little and gives Dr. Calvin a smile as she slides into the driver's seat. "I'll admit, I was pretty blown away when Karr had told me he'd met you," she says as the other woman gets in.

Ducking down into the passenger seat-- lord, this was lower than she remembered-- Calvin comments, "I was fairly 'blown away' myself, when I met him."

Closing both doors after the women are settled in, Karr backs up and heads down the road to town. "Oh you were?"

"Just because I don't look surprised doesn't mean I'm not," she tells him. "Actually, I was half convinced I'd suddenly developed Alzheimer's."

"Who's to say you're not? Just because I'm real doesn't mean that you're not suffering from memory loss."

Aly can't help the small chuckle that escapes as the two, well, banter wasn't exactly the right word, but whatever it is, she's finding it amusing. She's had similar conversations after all.

Calvin arches an eyebrow at Alyson's chuckle-- but tells Karr, "A little memory loss I could understand, but hearing a dead car's voice come out of a living man's mouth was... well, it took me a moment to get used to it."

Karr navigates traffic in town and pulls into the parking lot of a little Italian place, pulls up to the door and opens his doors to let them out. "We'll continue this argument once we're inside, shall we?"

Aly gets out, waiting for Dr. Calvin to join her and Karr to transform. She watches as he does so with a fond smile on her face.

Calvin's expression, meanwhile, is studious. There's a bit of n-dimensional math running through her head.

Karr, once switched, opens the door for them, taking Aly's hand as she goes through. "Don't think too hard, Susan."

"There's a way to explain it," she tells him. There's a way to explain everything-- pity she's not a physicist.

Aly squeezes Karr's hand as they wait to be seated, looking over at the other woman. "You mean aside from a coding error?" she asks.

"Coding error or not, it violates known laws of physics-- which means it's time to rewrite a few of them, as they're obviously inaccurate," Calvin replies, not quite sharply, but in a rather professorial tone.

Karr smiles lazily to himself, looks over at Calvin. "What about Conservation of Energy and Mass? Or Mass Defect?"

"It's conceivable that some is... dissipated... in the switch," she says. "Anything I said would be wildly hypothetical at this point-- I don't have any hard data besides 'Hey Ma, watch this!'"

That causes Aly to laugh again. Oh it's going to be a fun dinner. She's content to just watch the two of them go at each other. She can learn a lot from it.

Karr slips his arm around Aly's waist and discreetly tickles her. "Aren't you supposed to be getting to know Susan instead of me arguing with her?"

"Oh, I'm learning plenty about both of you!" she says, her tone light and teasing. She follows the hostess to their table.

Well. They're certainly affectionate. The smile is a little more genuine now. "She's getting to know that I'm an opinionated old woman," Calvin tells Karr. "That's a good first step."

Karr pulls out the chairs for both of them, then sits himself. "She already knew you were opinionated. I had to warn her."

"Conscientious of you," Calvin says simply, settling into her chair and accepting a menu.

"Did he warn you I was stubborn?" Aly asks curiously, looking over at the other woman over her menu, smiling.

Karr stays silent this time...he didn't tell Susan that part.

"He told me he thought you could hold your own against me, more or less," Calvin tells Alyson. "I assumed that either stubbornness or determination had to enter the equation somewhere."

"Oh, well, I think that's a great compliment!" Aly exclaims, nudging Karr a little with her elbow.

Karr peeks around his menu at her. "Did you need something?"

How may I serve you? runs through Calvin's head, but she dismisses it, watching the couple.

"No, no, just nudging you," Aly says. "I'm allowed to you know, it's in the rules." She goes back to her menu. "I think I'm going to go with the lasagna again, it was delicious last time."

Karr rumbles under his breath, then looks back at his menu. "I'm still waiting for delivery of my rulebook, you know. Did my edition get lost in the mail?"

"I think only the woman gets one," Calvin says, debating between fettuccini and shrimp scampi.

Karr decides to try chicken scampi, sets his menu aside. "That would explain a lot. At least she informs me of the guidelines before I break them."

Aly looks over at the other woman and winks. "Well, sometimes, anyway."

Calvin raises her eyebrows at Alyson. "Can't keep up, or just saving some rules as surprises?"

Karr smirks. "I think it's both."

"It probably is," Aly agrees easily, smiling as the waiter approaches.

Karr hands over their menus as orders are placed and snatches a breadstick out of the basket in the middle of the table.

Having decided on the shrimp, Calvin takes a breadstick. "How did you meet?" she asks. It is, she feels, a fairly standard meet-the-fiancée question.

Karr grins a little. "I almost ran over her..."

"I see you missed." She wonders if he ever has run anyone else down.

"I called him a robot," Aly admits. "That didn't really put me in his good graces."

"There's some margin between the two concepts," Calvin admits. Whether 'some margin' is a great or small one isn't terrifically clear-- deliberately.

"I didn't try to run you down because you called me a robot-- that just pissed me off. It didn't help that you were all of a sudden just there without warning."

Aly glances at Susan. "I uh... had been in Colorado, and then, the next thing I knew, I was in California."

"That's a hell of a leap. Is this related to... well, my next physics problem, once I work out the code? KRO mentioned alternate universes colliding; he wasn't terribly precise."

Karr nods. "It seems so."

"It was very disconcerting," Aly says. "I'm afraid I didn't make a very good first impression."

"Hah! Nor did Karr and I, on each other, this time around. First impressions aren't all they're cracked up to be," Calvin tells her. "I wouldn't worry about it."

Karr leans back in his chair. "She made up for the bad first impression with the stubbornness and lack of fear. She never even flinched even when I really wanted to just strike her to give me enough time to run... she put a lot of effort into me."

"Strike her?" Calvin asks, purely curious.

"I was pressing him to talk about his past," Aly says as the waiter delivers their appetizers.

"I meant more with what than why, but I can see why that would be... stressful." Hell, discussing Karr's past was hard on Calvin, sometimes. "Why press?"

"With my hand," Karr makes a face at Calvin. "I didn't have anything else to reach, and to be honest, I didn't want to hurt her...I just wanted it to stop."

Aly nods in agreement. "And I wouldn't -- that would be where the stubbornness first reared its head."

"I see. Why did you want to know so badly?" Calvin asks her.

She looks down at her plate. "I ... there was something about him that ... I ... thought he had something worth ... saving. That's not the right word, but ..." she trails off.

Calvin folds her hands. "I'm willing to wait until you find the right one."

Karr looks over at Aly, lays his hand on the table, palm up, if she wants to take it.

She does take it, with a grateful smile at him. "I didn't want to see him give up on life when he had a chance to live it again."

Calvin glances from one to the other. "I see."

Karr scrutinizes Calvin's face. "What's on your mind?"

"On mine? I'm getting to know your fiancée, Karr."

"You just looked as though you had something running through your brain."

"Almost constantly," she admits. "I'm certainly starting to understand what you see in Alyson."

She blushes, not sure how to take that. "So, um, what about you, Dr. Calvin? I'd love to hear more about when you and Karr were first working together."

"You just want baby stories. By the way, your mother never did show me those baby pictures of yours..."

Saved by distraction. Calvin isn't sure if she'd call it 'working together' in any case; Karr was her project. The department's project, really, but she pulled a lot of hours in those days... "So you've met her parents?"

Karr is pretty sure Aly won't let that question go, but answers Calvin. "Yes, we went and visited them for Thanksgiving."

"It went well?"

Aly smiles. "It was quite an experience for him, that's for sure. He's got a new fangirl though -- my niece."

Karr puts his face in his hands.

Calvin raises an inquisitive eyebrow.

"She's six. She thinks he's the best thing since she learned to ride sidesaddle." She grins at the other woman. "What was Karr like as a 'kid'?"

"He was never really a child," Calvin says. "I'm afraid it doesn't work that way."

"Okay, how 'bout when he was first ... activated?" She hesitates at the word.

Karr settles on listening, not willing to voluntarily share goofy stories.

"Much as he is now," Calvin says, "or largely so, at the core. Perhaps not as..." nasty as I am... "snappish, but not unwilling to spar with words. Considerably more... carefree, I think is the word I'd choose." She smiles a little and adds, "And shorter. Considerably shorter."

Karr grumbles. "I was a box the size of a VHS tape...of course I was shorter..."

Aly stares at them, then bursts out laughing, throwing her head back and just full out laughing. 'Oh god, do you have pictures? We could put them in a family album!"

Karr blinks at Aly, then narrows an eye. "In a minute you'll be more concerned with the breadstick sprouting form your ear..."

"They're not particularly incriminating," Calvin says, ignoring the threat of baked-goods violence in favor of a little female solidarity, "But I'm sure I could find one or two."

Karr sighs.

"Oh please," Aly reaches across the table to her. "I'd love that." At the same time she was carefully edging her fingers toward her own breadstick.

"I'll have to see what I can do. Besides, Karr might like to see them. My hair's the color he remembers, in those old photos."

"You cause snow blindness when you walk under bright lights now, you know."

"And you should shave; you look like a damned pirate."

"And which pirate might that be, exactly?"

Aly bites her lip to stop from laughing again but she can't help but tell the other woman: "I suggested he go as one for Halloween."

Calvin shakes her head. "Just a general air of looting and pillaging," she tells Karr. To Aly, "He'd have worn it well. Did you talk him into anything?"

"Almost, but then we got the chance to go to a swanky hotel instead."

Karr grins in spite of himself.

"So is his interest in holidays due to your influence?" Calvin asks Alyson.

"I'm not sure, actually," Aly admits, looking over at Karr. "I know he's said he never expected anything like this to happen." She smiles at him again, reaching over for his hand.

Calvin looks to Karr for an answer, instead.

Karr takes her hand as she reaches out, looking a little sheepish. "It does help to have somebody to spend the holidays with, instead of being buried in a pile of sand somewhere, or being a nomad."

"You have a family now, Karr," and her glance includes Calvin in that statement. "That makes all the difference."

Calvin says nothing, merely keeps her mouth shut and looks wise. So Karr, too, was hungry for company. It made sense... and at least he was choosy about it, now.

Karr decides he's saved from further comment when their meals arrive.

"We never did... settle on a term," Calvin says after a moment.

Karr gives her a funny look. "A term?"

"Settle on a term?" Aly asks, confusion on her face.

She nods. "We didn't finish discussing it, before you started worrying over my safety," she reminds. "Unless, of course, you'd already decided and were just hoping for my approval."

Karr turns a little red, doesn't say anything.

The blonde feels like she's at a tennis match, swiveling her head back and forth between the two. "Karr?" she asks, her question implied.

Karr runs his fingers through his hair. "The Mother - Son terms."

"He seemed uncharacteristically noncommittal," Calvin tells Alyson.

"What, him?" she replied with a little twinkle in her eye. "He tackled me when he came home the other night," she says. "He was so excited to tell me about you!"

"Was he now?" and she turns an amused look on Karr.

Karr looks back at her. "What?"

"Perhaps I should have held out for more than a brief hug." Never mind that she hadn't really been ready for more than that at the time.

"Oooh, you hugged her?" Aly's in full tease mode now. "Wow, you really have opened up!"

"Yes, go on, it's your own grave you're digging, Miss Priss."

"What did he tell you, after he pounced you?" Calvin asks Alyson, partially to rescue her from gravedigging.

She grins over at the other woman. "Oh, he went on and on about you! I don't think I've ever... you know what, he was just like a kid! He was bouncing off the walls with excitement!"

Karr concentrates on his chicken.

Calvin looks speculatively over at Karr. "I really am trying to picture that..."

"Mmph..."

Aly decides to lay off for the time being. "Dr. Calvin, has Karr asked you to come up to other house for Christmas?"

"He has," she replies, nodding.

Karr peers out from under his eyebrows at Calvin. "And I'm still waiting for an answer."

"And I'm still thinking about it," she informs him-- both of them, really.

"Why is it such a difficult decision?"

Aly reaches across the table again. "We'd love it if you could come up, even for just a little bit."

"I'm considering it. It... sounds like it's going to be a larger gathering than I'm accustomed to." Or ready for. One or the other or both.

"Trek and Plato won't be there...he visits his family... And I promise Rusti will have manners instead of swearing at you..."

She looks at him. "She'll owe me money if she does," Aly says.

"Well, the last incident was sort of extenuating circumstances... She wasn't in a great mood already and I spent a while talking to Susan. She didn't know where I was, and Susan was unfortunate enough to get the phone shoved into her hand by a fleeing technician."

Calvin obviously is thinking about it-- she just hasn't reached a decision yet. For one, she's not entirely sure she wants to share... this, whatever it is. She nods as Karr explains to Alyson. "Frankly, swearing doesn't bother me in the slightest. It's more than a little unprofessional, if you've no idea who you're talking to."

Karr rolls his eyes. "Rusti never has cared... But that's another story for another time."

"Oh, it doesn't bother me much either. I'm ex-military. We just have a bet is all," Aly explains.

Karr gives Aly a look. "A bet?"

She nods, grinning yet again. "That she can't make it the whole day without swearing, even casually."

"Over Christmas, or in general?" Calvin asks.

Karr finishes the last of his pasta, sighing. "Yes, she'll owe you money by the end of the day."

Aly turns to Calvin. "Well, Christmas. But I will admit, I rigged it a little. At least one of my presents to her is guaranteed to make her go, 'What the fu ...',' She doesn't finish the expression.

"Now I'm curious. What did you get her?" Calvin asks.

"Yes, I'd like to know too..."

"Oh no! I trust you both, but as soon as I tell someone, somehow she'll find out!"

"Spies everywhere?" Calvin asks.

Karr reaches over and prods Aly in the ribs. "Then give us a clue."

"Red."

Calvin looks at Karr and shrugs.

Karr eyes Aly. "It's not underwear is it?"

That was Calvin's first thought, but she doesn't voice it.

She shakes her head. "No, it's not underwear. She'd actually get some use out of that!"

"Or rather...Beast would..."

"Oh?" She hadn't heard about that...

"Exactly!" Aly agrees. She looks at Calvin. "Her husband," she says by way of explanation.

"Good lord, Attack Beast got married?"

"I'm surprised you hadn't heard that part, Susan. It's about six years old now, that relationship... And yes, he did. To the woman you screamed at you on the phone the other day."

"Karr, I hadn't heard about the coding error until you turned up," she tells him.

"Oh..."

"But aren't you still working for them?" Aly asks innocently.

"'Them' being Knight Industries, yes. For the last thirty years."

Karr looks back at Aly. "Knight Industries is almost a separate entity from FLAG at this point. I'm not surprised she hasn't heard. FLAG doesn't like to spout the secret."

"Oh." She blushes a little again. 'I'm still learning about how that all works," she says.

"Don't worry too much about it, it gets weird."

But KRO had told a rather different history... several salient points were the same, but... No. Never mind. He's damn well her Karr now. "Weird is an understatement."

Karr pays the bill when the waiter brings it, looks back at Calvin. "I don't pretend to understand corporate politics"

"With some government politics thrown in for good measure," Calvin agrees.

"I never have," Aly adds. "The military was simple in comparison."

"What was it you did?" Calvin asks.

"I was an Air Force nurse," she says, finishing off her water before the waiter clears the table.

Karr listens quietly.

"And what do you do now, or has the Team pressed you into service?"

He grins. 'We haven't yet..."

Aly smiles. "It's been mentioned, but no ... I work at a neighborhood clinic part-time."

"I see." Nurses were patient, as a rule; it made sense that she'd be able to wait out Karr's reticence.

Karr looks around at the nearly deserted restaurant. "They probably want to close this place... Do you ladies want to go for a drive, up to the house or back to the estate?" He glances from Aly to Calvin

"As you like it," Calvin says, standing and smoothing her skirt.

"I don't have a preference, either," Aly says lightly. "Looks like you get to make the decision, Karr." She also stands, shifting her sweater and reaching for her purse.

Karr looks at Calvin. "Are you going to come up for Christmas or do you want to see the house now? Are you tired and ready for bed, or done with our company?"

"I'm not tired in the least," she tells him, "And I'm damn well still thinking about Christmas. I'd like to see the house sometime, though."

Karr looks over at Aly.

She nods. "It's not that long of a side trip, why don't we go up."

He leads them to the door and holds it open for them. "All right, we'll go up then."

Calvin nods. "Why did you decide to build your own house?"

Aly pauses, then gets in behind the driver's seat again. "We saw a plot of land that we fell in love with, and at the time, I was renting a room from some friends -- still am for a few more days."

Karr closes his doors once they're both in. "Yes. It was just a nice place for a house."

"It must be a change for you," Calvin says to Karr, "Having a physical home."

"Yes...yes it is. Though I've had a home for a few months now."

She glances briefly to Alyson.

"He lives with me," she says easily. "We've even got a cat and dog."

Karr heads up the road out of town, waiting for Calvin's response.

She's not sure what her response should be. "It sounds like you've... come a long way," she settles on.

"I have, Susan."

She's... thoughtful. "Good," she says, at length.

"What's on your mind?"

"You seem to be... leading a very human life," Calvin tells him. Them, really, but she means Karr.

Aly stays silent, waiting to here the response.

"When I come home from working with the Team, yes, I am..."

"It certainly seems to suit you."

"I suppose it does."