Saturn's Rings ~ f. millstone

Soup's On

The sun was slowly setting over Stellar Bay. Willow paced around her quarters in the orange light of the sunset beaming from her window. She kept twisting and untwisting strands of hair from her two braids just to keep her hands busy while she was lost in deep thought.

She felt like she had her priorities way out of line, which was likely true. Of all the things she should be thinking about, Felix was the only thing she could focus on.

He tried to kiss her... and she didn't hate it. She was honestly more upset it didn't happen than the fact that it almost did.

Oh Law, what would have happened if they actually did kiss?

Would he have pushed her away? Would he have hated her? Worse, would he have left? On the flip side of that, would he have liked it? What if the crew walked in at that moment? What would they have thought of her?

She didn't take Felix out with her today to get some jobs done. How could she? The tension between them would have been palpable. Whoever she took with them surely would have sensed something was up.

It bummed Felix out, not being picked to go out. But he guessed he understood. He was still confused about the whole situation as well.

"Hey, Captain? Can I ask you a sorta weird favor?"

Willow spun around and saw Parvati standing in her open doorway with her arms wrapped around her torso. Her hair was wet, presumably from the shower.

"Those are my favorite kind of favors. What's up?"

She hesitated. "I was just wonderin' how you get your hair to look all fancy like that?"

Willow ran her fingers over her braids. They were certainly not "fancy," in her opinion at least. Just something quick and easy to keep her hair out of her face while she was working. "Oh, the braids? It's pretty simple. You just have to follow a pattern."

"Do you think you could fix mine up like that too?"

The captain smiled. "Absolutely. Go sit down by the bed."

Willow took a seat on the bed right behind Parvati and began combing her fingers through her hair to get some of the tangles out. She had much longer hair than Willow thought. She always had it up in a bun, so she never realized.

It had been such a long time since Willow had done someone else's hair. The last time was before she left home. She would braid her sister's hair all the time since she was the only one in the house who knew how to dutch braid. She missed it. Nobody else on the ship had hair long enough to braid. Maybe Felix. That would be... adorable, Willow thought. The idea made her blush. Thankfully, Parvati wasn't facing her so she couldn't see it. However, she was sure her friend could hear her heart hammering in her chest at the mere memory of the previous night.

"Hey, Parvati, totally random question," Willow said while separating sections of her hair.

"Hm?"

"Did you ever... feel guilty for liking Junlei?"

Her eyes went wide. "I- what?"

"You don't need to deny it. We can all see how much you care for her. And you told me that one time we went to The Lost Hope for drinks."

"That was- I- I was drunk!"

"You were not drunk. I switched your drink out for water when I thought you needed to slow down. I told you it was Rizzo's new 'flavorless mix.'"

"You switched my drink?"

"Yep. You're welcome by the way. Based on how quickly you sucked down that wine, that would have been a nasty hangover." She felt around in her pants pocket for a hair tie to finish off her first braid. "But I guess that kind of answers my question."