Re: Kitchen: Hugh & Hannah
Hannah had learned. While she'd been here, she'd learned that people didn't want to hear all her thoughts or answer all of her questions. It would be easy to say that lack of socialization was something related to the AI being an AI, but not really. She'd always said the things people didn't want to hear, but she'd learned to be better about it here. Except it was dark and late, and she wasn't as careful or as clear, and so she cocked her head to the side curiously as he talked about Zee. He talked about the sweets then, the coffee, but she was still ear-to-shoulder and curious blinking. "Is she a lover?" she asked of Zee. There wasn't any jealousy in her tone; there was just curiosity.
She was a little bit worried at his certainty about Zee staying, about how he said that things were okay now that Zee was here. People left. People came in and out like things carried and forgotten on a tide. Sometimes they washed up on the beach again, but not always, and she blinked herself back to clarity. "Where is he when he doesn't housesit?" she asked of Dietre. It felt like an important question, and then there was Theodore.
Hannah didn't hold her breath, but almost and almost, because this was the most that Hugh had said about Theodore, really. And it was like she'd just been thinking, like the reality that Zee might leave, because people did. People went. "I'm sorry he's gone. Maybe he'll come back one day, or maybe you'll be out his way someday, and people don't need to be strangers." She squeezed his fingers again. "You're really, really nice to be worried about his opportunity, thinking about how good it would be for him, while trying to ignore that you're hurting."