Chapter Text
The early morning sunlight broke through the trees in the little country lane, setting patches of orange aglow. The autumn wind rustled the leaves, sending them drifting down to the ground like embers from a hearth. The bike wheels whistled as it sped down the track. Lena smiled and stood on the pedals, hair flowing out behind her. She sat and leaned slightly as she rounded the corner, pedalling again between fields, sheep dotted across the green like cotton.
Lena swung a leg over so she was standing on one pedal as she came up a gravel driveway and jumped down as she slowed.
She unclipped her helmet as she leant her bike against the wall. Entering the passcode for the door, Lena pushed inside, pulling off her helmet and running a hand through her hair.
“Lena!” Jack smiled at her from across the lab.
“Alright, Jack?” She pulled a tupperware container from her rucksack and waved it at him. “Me mam made you some cookies. I swear, at this point it’s like she loves you more than me.”
Jack bounced over and clapped his hands, taking the container from Lena and peeking inside. “Aw, don’t say that.” He grinned at her mischievously. “She always loved me more than you.”
“You little shit!” Lena laughed and grabbed for the cookies. Jack pulled them out of her reach and ran through the lab as she chased him.
“Whoa! Careful around the tech!” Sam appeared from the office with a tablet in hand, frowning at Lena and Jack. She shook her head in exasperation. “Honestly, it’s like working with children.”
“She started it,” Jack said from where Lena had him in a headlock.
“I did not!”
Sam rolled her eyes. “Lena, let go of him. Jack, stop being an ass.”
Lena let go grumpily and Jack poked his tongue out at her. She shoved him and he gasped.
“Sam! She pushed me!”
Sam looked up from her tablet again and glared at them both. “Seriously?”
Jack jumped up to sit on a lab table, swinging his legs and grinning at Lena. “She’s just jealous because her mum loves me more than her and gave me cookies.”
Sam raised an eyebrow at Lena. “Really, Lena? You spent the whole weekend with her. I bet she cooked you loads of food.”
Lena pouted and grumbled. “Yeah but he’s not even her son.”
Sam rolled her eyes and decided to ignore them both. “Alright, so I’ve made a checklist of everything we need for tomorrow. All the tech is packed up ready to be loaded into the van first thing in the morning, everything for our booth is with it as well, and business cards and leaflets are in the office.”
Jack leaned back on his hands. “Well if you’ve got everything sorted, what are we supposed to do today?”
Lena grinned manically and put her fingers together in front of her like an evil mastermind. “Science!”
Sam huffed. “Well you two can have fun and mess around; I have to check all our bookings and things for tomorrow.”
Lena frowned. “It’s not messing around if it’s our job.”
Sam laughed and disappeared back into the office. “Whatever you say, Lena.”
The door clicked shut behind her and Jack jumped off the table. He rubbed his hands together and did an evil laugh. “What mayhem shall we create today?”
———
Kara peered out the small window at the miles and miles of blue below. She’d been too excited to sleep on the flight but hoped if she slept the night when she landed in Dublin, the jetlag wouldn’t be as bad. This was the first proper convention Snapper had assigned to her as a recently promoted science journalist. She adjusted her headphones and looked at the flight course on the screen in front of her. They would be close to land soon. Kara smiled and looked back out the window for the rest of the flight.
The sun was just setting when the plane touched down in Dublin. Kara pulled on her jacket to ward off the cooler weather as she made her way to the terminal. She grabbed her suitcase and made her way out the airport to the taxi point.
The taxi into the city took about 20 minutes but she was exhausted by the time she checked into the hotel. As soon as she got into her room she dropped her suitcase and rucksack, put the key on the table but the door and flopped down on the bed. She fell asleep with her clothes still on, teeth unbrushed, and shoes hanging off the end of the bed.
———
As the sun shone through the unclosed curtains, Kara blinked slowly awake. Her mouth felt weird and she ached from sleeping in a strange position. She looked down at the white sheets she was lying on that were definitely not her ones with little cartoon dogs on. Suddenly remembering where she was, she jumped up and searched for her phone. She found it on the floor by the bed and breathed a sigh of relief at the time. Snapper would never give her another good article in her life if she was late.
She showered and dressed in her best professional-reporter-sweater, shirt and slacks. She got out her notebook that Alex had given her when she got promoted and a pen (then two more in case she lost the first), and put them in her satchel.
Double checking she had everything, she made her way out to her pre-booked taxi that would take her to the convention center.
———
Kara clutched her notebook to her chest and looked up at the large building with windows all along the front. The Dublin Science Expo. She had arrived fairly early and there were people still bringing in tech for their stalls. She looked around and smiled, taking a deep breath and making her way inside.
She spent the morning marvelling at all the incredible tech being displayed and getting a few quotes.
It was about midday when she found a booth with a sign that declared them as KAS industries. There was a friendly looking man with a neatly trimmed beard and slicked back hair talking to someone and giving them a leaflet, and another woman sitting further along the table. She had dark silky hair up in a ponytail and beautiful green eyes behind a pair of black framed reading glasses. She was wearing dark grey skinny jeans, a deep green blouse, and a brown leather jacket with a floral print scarf and big black boots. She smiled at Kara and stood up when she saw her looking over.
Kara made her way up to her but just as she got to the stall, a man in a business suit came up and looked down his nose at the display.
“Don’t mind me,” he said with a clearly fake smile. “I just came to see what little projects had been brought in this year.”
The woman at the booth gave him a tight smile and turned to Kara but apparently he wasn’t done.
“Morgan Edge.” He stuck his hand out and the woman shook it politely. “CEO of Edge Global.” He gestured over his shoulder to a huge, expensive-looking booth. “I like to come and support the little companies though. Keeps you humble, you know?” He laughed conceitedly.
“Lena Kieran,” the woman introduced herself with a thick Irish accent. “Feel free to look at the state of the art nanotechnology our ‘little company’ has engineered.”
Kara lit up. “Nanotechnology?”
Lena turned to her with a smile and nodded. “We’re producing a new type of nanotech that could revolutionise the medical industry. The nanobots enter the body, find the issue and send a signal to the rest of the bots. They can then repair tissue, administer medicine directly to the problem or perform multiple other tasks more precisely than even the best medical professionals. We’re currently working on using them to treat cancer by being able to find and target only the cancerous cells.”
Kara bounces on her toes excitedly. “Like ants!”
Lena tilted her head in curiosity and Edge raised an eyebrow.
“They use pheromones or this noise they make where they scrape their back leg along this spikey bit of their body to signal to the other ants to come and get food they’ve found or help them.”
Edge laughed and Kara looked away, adjusting her glasses self consciously.
Lena glared at him and smiled at Kara. “That’s really cool - I have to say I didn’t know that.” She walked around the table to stand beside Kara. She turned to Edge with a sweet smile. “Well it was lovely to meet you, Maureen, but we were just about to go look around. I hope everything goes well for your little company.”
Lena took Kara’s arm and turned them to walk away, both holding in a laugh at the look of pure fury on Edge’s face.
Lena let go of her arm and grinned at her once they were out of sight. “Sorry, I just can’t stand people like him.”
Kara laughed lightly. “No, it’s fine. He was awful. I would love to talk to you more about your tech though?”
Lena smiled. “Well I’m always happy to talk about science.” She nodded to Kara’s notebook. “Are you a reporter?”
Kara nodded. “I work for CatCo Worldwide Media back in California as a science journalist. This is actually my first expo.”
“Oh wow. Congratulations.” She frowned. “That’s a long way to come just for two days though, isn’t it?”
Kara stopped by a stall to watch something that looked like a lava lamp for a moment. “I actually saved up loads of vacation days so I have an extra two weeks here.”
They continued walking and looking at the different displays. “You should come down to our lab. We’re about an hour south of here. I could give you a tour.”
Kara lit up. “Really?”
Lena laughed. “Sure.”
They ended up sitting in a little cafe in one of the corners of the convention center, talking about Lena’s tech, Ireland and everything in between.
That night Kara booked a room at a small bed and breakfast in the town Lena had told her about and went to bed unable to keep the smile off her face.
———
Lena and Jack were in the back of the van with Sam driving on the way back that night.
Jack turned to Lena with a grin. “So.” Lena narrowed her eyes at him suspiciously. “Who was the cute blonde I saw you talking to earlier.”
Sam gasped and looked at them in the mirror. “What? Why am I only hearing about this now? Jack, I trusted you to keep me updated on this kind of thing.”
“I’m telling you now.” Jack waved his hand at her to shush and continued staring at Lena. “So who is this new crush?”
Lena hit him over the head. “It’s not a crush!” She slumped back in her seat and crossed her arms. “She was a reporter. I was just talking to her about our tech.”
Jack raised an eyebrow. “Mhm. So that’s why you had a three hour coffee break?”
Sam glanced over the back of her seat at Lena. “What! Is that why you weren’t there when I got back?”
Lena rolled her eyes and looked out the window. “It wasn’t three hours.”
Jack huffed and sat back in his seat. “So no fun gossip for us then?”
Lena glanced over and the tips of her ears tinged pink.
Jack sat up and looked over at her again. “Hold on - that’s not a ‘nothing happened’ look!” He excitedly tapped the back of Sam’s seat.
Sam kept her eyes on the road but turned her head slightly towards them. “What is it? What happened?”
Lena grumbled and looked out the window again.
Jack smirked. “What was that, Lena?”
Lena huffed. “I may have invited her down to the lab for a tour.”
Jack burst out laughing and Sam screeched incredulously.
“Lena Nobody-Touches-My-Lab Kieran invited a reporter to KAS industries?” Jack was wheezing.
Lena sank lower in her seat. It was going to be a long drive.