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“Emmy, what do you do when you aren’t helping out the Professor?”
Luke is leafing through a book that seems far too dense for a boy of his age — but who’s Emmy to judge, when she’d been reading tomes just as dense since she was a girl?
“Well, I do a lot of things,” she answers.
(She sends progress reports to Uncle Leon. She does more research into the other great Azran sites. She keeps an ear tuned to news in the archaeological world.)
“Like what?”
She tries to think about the kinds of things she does for fun that are also appropriate for a child to do.
She remembers days from the Nest — among one of the most dangerous ‘skate parks’, yet she and some of the younger agents had conquered it nonetheless. It’d been one of the only sources of entertainment on the base, but there was always a little inherent risk about it — any injuries incurred would set agents back, and risk some kind of punishment for setting back the cause.
She has no doubt there are safer establishments in London. She’s never gone looking for them — her rollerblades never fit into her bag for boarding school, and she couldn’t pack them without breaking her image of being another ordinary girl anyways. She still owns a pair in the right size. She’d moved out of the Nest for this long-term mission, and as such all her belongings are in her flat, including her rollerblades.
“I enjoy skating!”
Luke gasps. His eyes practically sparkle. “You do? Whoa…I don’t know how to do anything like that.”
“I think you can do plenty of things that are ‘cool’,” Emmy answers. “I think talking to animals is pretty cool. I can’t do that.”
“Yeah, but…I want to be cool like you,” he says.
Emmy doesn’t let her heartbreak show on her face. She’s too experienced masking her feelings to be affected now.
“I can take you sometime,” she says. “We just have to make sure you have the right equipment.”
Luke nods. “Okay!”
In the end, she decides to take him to a roller skating rink instead. It’s easier to get equipment there than at a normal skate park, and she doesn’t know if Luke will really like it, so she doesn’t want to impose upon the Tritons too much to buy a pair of skates and some protective gear on his behalf.
Besides, the rink is less dangerous, even if she can’t really demonstrate any tricks on it. It’s a good starting place for Luke to develop his balance, even if he can’t do anything cool like he’ll probably want to. She remembers what being eleven was like.
(Eleven was before everything changed. It’s not as though Luke hasn’t been through tough times, but…he wouldn’t be able to take what she had.)
(And maybe that’s a dangerous thing to think about a child she’s bound to betray someday, but she can’t help wanting to make sure he’s safe. He’s a child.)
Emmy laces up her rollerblades. It’s been a long time since she last stood on them. She hopes it’s like riding a bike, and it will come back to her easily.
She stands up. Not too bad. She walks over to where Luke is sitting.
“You ready?” she says, offering him a hand. “Let’s get on the rink.”
Luke nods firmly, taking her hand and getting off the bench. They walk slowly over to the rink.
As soon as she lets go, Luke wobbles a bit. She feels a little unsteady herself. Balancing on rollerblades without moving is hard. She starts slowly, herding Luke over to the wall. But he doesn't hang onto the little ledge, even as he trembles. There’s a fierce look of determination on his face: one she recognises as Luke trying to control his own fear.
Emmy purposefully tries to turn around and start skating backwards, but falls in the process.
Luke approaches her, skating tentatively, but definitely skating.
“Are you okay?” he asks.
“No big deal,” she answers. “Told you I was rusty, didn’t I?”
Luke smiles.
“Now, get back out there, and stop worrying about little old me! It’s okay to fall sometimes. You’re not gonna get seriously hurt.”
He nods, looking a little too serious for a kid like him, and goes back to skating. But the fierce look on his face has softened. Mission accomplished.
Emmy pushes herself back up and gets back to skating. The more laps she does, the more muscle memory kicks in.
She spots him slip and fall a couple times, too. She keeps an eye on him, but he gets up and gets going like nothing happened. Attaboy.
She turns back around and starts skating backwards again. She’s so focused on maintaining her balance and not bumping into anyone else that she hardly notices Luke getting off the rink until she looks around at everyone and sees him resting on a bench.
She cuts across the rink over to the exit to meet him.
“You good?”
“Just tired.” Luke looks up from untying his skates. “But that was fun!”
“Not gonna get back out there?” she asks. Now that she’s stopped, fatigue is catching up with her, too, but if Luke keeps going she’ll stay out there as long as he does.
“I think I’m done for today,” Luke admits. “It was fun, though! Can I learn some tricks next time?”
“Sure thing,” Emmy answers. “We’ll pick up some gear for you and find a skatepark around here. Not today, though. You’re gonna have to ask your parents about that first.”
“I will.” Luke turns back to untying his skates. Emmy sits down beside him and takes off her rollerblades, putting her boots back on.
A pretty good outing, she’d say. Maybe these rollerblades will get her some better memories.
“How was your weekend?” the Professor asks.
“Good,” she answers. She hangs up her coat and her camera case in the office. “I took Luke out rollerskating.”
“Oh,” he says. “I didn’t know you knew how.”
“It was something I did a lot when I was younger,” she admits. “Do you know how to skate, Professor?”
He chuckles. “I was quite the ice skater in my youth, I would say.”
“Really? You’ll have to show me sometime.”