She's smiling and joking and waving her hand and he simply isn't sure how he's supposed to deal with that. Luther can placidly rebuff any end of flirtation from interviewers, reporters, those hyperventilating members of the fan club, the scheduled meet'n'greets, but he is wholly, vastly, unprepared and unarmed for Allison Hargreeves being so winsome and, frankly, cute. Something in his chest seizes, unclenches, at her playful lilt.
But in the end Luther laughs at her joke and the flourish. He takes it entirely seriously and earnestly when he responds: "I was talking to the curator earlier and he told me a bit about it, but then I got stuck out here. Was waiting for the right tour guide, I guess."
They're not touching on any of it: how precious these minutes have suddenly become, how long it's been, how wide that continent-sized space between them has become. Pretending that this is something they do all the time, because that carefully-practiced nonchalance is the only way to get out of this intact.
Let's go, Rumor; he almost echoes, except that isn't her name anymore, she left that behind, so he just starts walking instead. And they swan their way through the now-thinning crowd together, through the doorway into the new wing. And... Well. No wonder that other astronaut from the Canadian Space Agency was invited. Luther pauses in the doorway for a second, struck, before he starts moving again and they make their way further in.
It really is everything. Replicas of older shuttles, spacesuit designs past and present and speculative future, charting the path of mankind working and reworking those specs, iterating, learning, getting better. There is even one corner of a placard dedicated to Spaceboy, with a photo of a younger Luther grinning and giving a thumbsup from the training cockpit, and he stops in front of the poster. A photographer's clamouring and he has to politely excuse himself from Allison's side for a moment — those blue eyes locked on hers, a silent mouthing It'll just be a second — and then he has to go pose in front of himself. Luther's still wearing a winning smile, but only she can detect the faint embarrassment underneath it, like anyone gets when being compared to their childhood photos, except the whole world's seen theirs.
He's back quickly enough, not lingering for questions, and exhaling when he reaches her side again. "You know, Dad was originally the one invited to this?" Luther says, blurting it out suddenly before he can think any better of it. "I'm glad I came instead."
It's still not fully addressing it, everything, all of it, but it's the first hint. A barely-glancing blow.
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But in the end Luther laughs at her joke and the flourish. He takes it entirely seriously and earnestly when he responds: "I was talking to the curator earlier and he told me a bit about it, but then I got stuck out here. Was waiting for the right tour guide, I guess."
They're not touching on any of it: how precious these minutes have suddenly become, how long it's been, how wide that continent-sized space between them has become. Pretending that this is something they do all the time, because that carefully-practiced nonchalance is the only way to get out of this intact.
Let's go, Rumor; he almost echoes, except that isn't her name anymore, she left that behind, so he just starts walking instead. And they swan their way through the now-thinning crowd together, through the doorway into the new wing. And... Well. No wonder that other astronaut from the Canadian Space Agency was invited. Luther pauses in the doorway for a second, struck, before he starts moving again and they make their way further in.
It really is everything. Replicas of older shuttles, spacesuit designs past and present and speculative future, charting the path of mankind working and reworking those specs, iterating, learning, getting better. There is even one corner of a placard dedicated to Spaceboy, with a photo of a younger Luther grinning and giving a thumbsup from the training cockpit, and he stops in front of the poster. A photographer's clamouring and he has to politely excuse himself from Allison's side for a moment — those blue eyes locked on hers, a silent mouthing It'll just be a second — and then he has to go pose in front of himself. Luther's still wearing a winning smile, but only she can detect the faint embarrassment underneath it, like anyone gets when being compared to their childhood photos, except the whole world's seen theirs.
He's back quickly enough, not lingering for questions, and exhaling when he reaches her side again. "You know, Dad was originally the one invited to this?" Luther says, blurting it out suddenly before he can think any better of it. "I'm glad I came instead."
It's still not fully addressing it, everything, all of it, but it's the first hint. A barely-glancing blow.