Sallie Abigail Reynolds

"Sallie?"

Skouris rarely - very rarely indeed - calls Sallie by her first name. This is enough to get Sallie's attention, so she looks up from her latest project on the kitchen counter with a quizzical expression.

"I don't know where you've been off to lately," Peter starts, "and frankly, I don't give a good gorram. You come back happy, and that's enough for me."

Damn, I've not been watching how much time I spend away in Milliways, Sallie notices with a frown. She nods, though, and waits for the end of Peter's thought.

"But...try to keep an eye on the newer folk around here, alright?" Trying to play it off as something more minor than it is, "Don't want them thinkin' you went crazy like Old Lady Gaetano."

This gets a rubber band snapped with precision aim in Peter's direction - Sallie doesn't appreciate the joke.

---

The project turns into a pie, some two hours later.

Sallie will leave it for Charlie.

---

Ringing the doorbell at the main house of the Reynolds Ranch is always just the tiniest bit unusual. Sallie was packing some clothing into a satchel to take back to Milliways with her (she always feels better to do her own laundry at home) and when she hears the noise and convinces herself that burglars do not ring doorbells, she goes to answer it.

The man at the door is...dashing. Dressed well, dark blue suit. Too nice for Jefferson District.

"Hello, Sallie."

"Beau?"

Charlie:

If you've got time, I've got the inclination. Stables? Noon?

Sallie

By 'inclination', here, she means 'supervisory duties'. Something she's taken upon herself since becoming Barman is turning an eye to the stables whenever she gets a chance. Or whenever she thinks Mal isn't paying enough attention to his charges. Whichever. This is currently leading to Sallie walking to the stables with a bag full of apples for stablehands and residents alike.

Sallie, if nothing else that she's learned in her professional or personal life, knows how to take advantage of opportunities within her grasp.

Namely, knowing the next time John is on a Happy Hour shift.

Since she's still not supposed to be lifting all that much, Sallie takes a barstool and waits for the tender to do his job.

Politely.

Sallie left a note for Inara to invite herself and Malcolm over for dinner the next day. Inara, in her usual grace about things, noted that Mal has developed a new affinity for something called Southern Comfort, and perhaps she might bring a bottle to make the evening a bit more affable?

Daughters-in-law are so useful.

She hears the knock at the door while trying to turn the steaks over in the oven and opens it with her casted hand to buy herself a moment's peace.

"Hello you two."

Mike gets a late-night visit (if one can tell time at the end of the universe) that Sallie expects to be away from the bar for the following three days Shadow-time to take care of some business for the ranch. Mike says he'll keep the light on or some such nonsense - he's got enough going on at the moment that he's not likely to need to leave the bar right this second.

Whenever Sallie has to travel to the City, she always takes one day for travel going in and one going out, plus whatever time she has to spend there for official business. The morning's business itself brings Sallie leaving the bed-and-breakfast Skouris found for her in a pressed pantsuit that feels too tight and too...not her. She arrives at the bank a half-hour early so Sallie ducks into a nearby bookstore to purchase a book on bioluminescent bodies of water for Charlie to kill time.

"I'd hate to see you break up your land like this, Mrs. Reynolds," the bank manager offered in Sallie is sure what was meant to be a sympathetic or endearing tone. He is out of practice with the sentiment and it makes Sallie sit up straighter. "That's not what I'm doing," she says. "Sellin' off a bit of outskirts what I don't need - " or can't keep up with anyway, " - puts money back into property I've got going strong still."

The manager looks highly disinterested in her explanations, and the rest of the bill of sale on five prime acres of real estate takes half an hour to process. She won't miss it, Sallie tells herself. She's a good liar.

---

Lunch is a burrito from a corner shop; the meat is dry and Sallie's fingers itch to suggest a few rubs to intensify the flavor of the meat. The impulse is not enough for Sallie's fingers to force themselves into a fist even if they wanted to. They drum on the countertop instead until the doctor's office opens. Always early to everything, Sallie thinks to herself. It doesn't sound complimentary even in her head.

She is made to wait in the rows of sterile chairs in an antechamber to the surgery wing for a solid forty-five minutes until the doctor comes out to see her and bows formally.

Rheumatoid arthritis, which is a pair of words Sallie's gotten used to by now. Pill regimen stops the tough bits of it in the newcomer spots - hips and ankles, but wrists - it all started in the right one - are too far gone at this point, and so she gets to learn about something called wrist arthroplasty now too. The procedure gets scheduled for a hospital in a western district in two weeks and Sallie schools her expression to silent comprehension throughout a heavy, droning explanation of recovery time and limitations on activity which will now become part of her life.

She'll have to tell her staff.

She'll have to tell Mike.

(In the back of her mind, Sallie figures she'll have to tell Malcolm, but that seems to be the hardest horse to ride at the moment.)

Sallie hands over the money order from the bank made out that morning to the receptionist on her way out to pay the deposit on the surgery.

"This won't be so bad at all, Mrs. Reynolds," the receptionist offers in a wheezy kind of coddling tone. "I've seen folks come in here on walkers and the like with this stuff. We do these things all the time."

"Just so long as it works," Sallie replies sedately, and she wonders if she will still be able to pour flour with a steady hand after it's all over.

Sallie doesn't need a huge room to herself in Milliways. Mike's suite is a suite because he lives with Mel and it is his permanent residence; Sallie's permanent home is on Shadow.

But there will be nights spent in Milliways, and there's no way Sallie is crashing on a couch. (Or Mike's enormous bean bag chair. Duibuqi, Mike.)

There's a room an appropriate size a couple of doors down from Mike's suite that Sallie ends up taking a liking to - there is a window with a decent view of greenery that doesn't make sense to Sallie since she thought she was on the opposite side from the forest, and room enough for a sleeping area and office area, with a separate kitchen and bath.

At least there is no furniture to clear out, but by the time her invited guest (slash hired consultant) arrives, Sallie has acquired a pair of rubber gloves, a bucket and a mop. The floor is almost done.

Even though Sallie was the first to walk back from the lakeside to the bar after her conversation with Mike, she knows to take a step back and let Mike start the...conversation? discussion? declarations? fireballs?

This is going to be different.

Between Joy of Cooking and a deal made with a sabretooth tiger, Sallie has a lot of work cut out for her. Beyond the turkey, she tries to stay as much as possible with ingredients that she has access to on Shadow - Sallie is too well known for her hospitality in her kitchen to not require contingencies if an employee walks in to find her with a bird far bigger than any chicken to grace the district.

What bothers Sallie as she is rolling out the pie crust -- pumpkin is a thing she's never thought to try as a pie -- is the utter lack of appropriate holiday decoration for this...Thanksgiving. Every decent holiday in the 'verse had decorations. Maybe Thanksgiving got ignored with it being so close to Christmas? Hmm. Something to ponder.

The main problem Sallie has with the experience of cooking dinner like this is the pre-planning: nearly four hours for the turkey, the time for the pie crust, then the pie, stuffing...Sallie cheats on the rolls, acquiring some from the bar.

That, and the cranberry sauce. I. Hate. Cranberry Sauce, Sallie decides, chucking the half-gelled attempt at making some fresh.

When Sallie finally looks up at the clock, she realizes how late it has gotten and sets to making up the (new-ish) dining table. Food set out (and rolls warmed in the oven), Sallie changes into a skirt that doesn't look like she had been hauling ass all day. Bounding as only sixty-something ladies do down the stairs from her room, Sallie climbs into her own pantry, leaning into the door to Milliways and calling out, "Winchesters! If you want cranberry sauce, ask for it from the bar!"

Sallie leads Athos through the door to Shadow, which ends abruptly at the back end of her walk-in pantry.

"You'll have to excuse me," Sallie explains, maneuvering around potato sacks. "I would make my pantry more suitable to visitors, but I am sure that you can imagine the silliness in that particular notion."

Sallie turns sixty-three in a little under two months. With the legal new year at August 1st, Sallie turns sixty-three in 2522. Her son, Malcolm Beauregard, turns thirty-six on August 30th, 2522.

---

Forty Years Ago

"And I, Sallie Abigail Macmillan, do solemnly swear to love, honor and obey my chosen husband, Beauregard Matthew Reynolds, all the days of my life."

The young woman is grinning at her groom as she slides the ring on his finger, even more so than when he nervously did the same not two minutes ago. The service is a small one; family only -- not that anyone else would have attended. Jefferson District may not be known for its shotguns, but there are certainly enough small arms within arm's length of any male Macmillan to be...influential.

Sallie didn't care. She couldn't care less if she tried.

She had her husband, and soon she will have her child.

She knows she shouldn't, but Sallie has already started to hope her child is a girl.

---

Thirty-Nine Years, 6 Months Ago

It had been a girl.

Even if she'd lived, Beau would've been disappointed.

The land Beau's family bequeathed him at marriage for he and Sallie requires nearly around-the-clock work and supervision, especially since they are far too young to be taken seriously as employers by many of those even desperate for work.

"What can I do to help?" Sallie called from the kitchen toward the front hall where Beau was speaking with two men in crisp suits the young Mrs. Reynolds didn't recognize.

Through strained teeth: "Just the coffee, thank you, dear."

---

August 30th, 2486

Sallie had a hard-ass gorram time believing this young snaptwig of a man could have ever rutting finished medical school. He's practically her age.

"Push," Dr. Gaetano ordered firmly. "Sallie, you can do this, but you need to do it now, dong ma?"

She could hear Dorothy behind and above her, brushing her hair out of her face, and whispering something Sallie didn't put enough effort into deciphering. The doctor's hushed reply of "[Someone should go find that idiot]" suggests a meaning that the woman in labor chooses to ignore.

"Push" the doctor ordered, and Sallie obeyed.

---

Summer, 2489

"He's at the bar and you know it, if you don't mind my sayin', ma'am."

"He and I are your employers and I rutting well do mind, Skouris." The scolding is halfhearted as a scolding can only be when there's a possibility of truth to the accusation.

Immediately: "My apologies. Sallie."

The familiarity throws her off, and Peter Skouris, at 22 years old and with three months' tenure at the Reynolds Ranch, strode forward and kissed Sallie Reynolds on the mouth. It's a long and shocked second before Sallie shoves Skouris away at the ribcage. Peter bites his lower lip and storms out the front door. At least he didn't wake Malcolm.

---

November, 2493

"What. Is This."

Malcolm is with the Shens at the other end of the District; he doesn't need to be here for this, though Sallie knows her son is far more aware of the situation than she would like. Beau slams the front door closed, paper waving in his hand as he points at the suitcases in the dining room. "Are you trying to leave me?" Angry and burning.

"No." Cold, to kill the flames. "The suitcases are yours; I've filed for a divorce."

"chúfēi wŏ sĭ le. Under what goddamn grounds?"

"Property theft, rustling and denial of land ownership." Some of the strictest law in farming country is law of the land, and Sallie's done her homework. "You thought you could sell the ranch without me? You could take my name off the property without me finding out?"

There's only a flicker of distress in Beau's eyes. One step closer. "It's my land."

"Our land. We been married 11 years, Beau -- it's our land."

"You gorram whore -- "

Sallie steps out in front of Beau, taking a risk with her penknife still just in her pocket. "Do it again." Almost a toothy smile, with the hinge of her jaw still sore from last week. "Do. It. Again."

---

April 16, 2506: 11th North Shadow Battalion Deployment + 4 Days

"You can't listen to the newsfeeds every damn second of the day, Sallie."

Sallie clicks off the feed, crawling back into bed and rolling away from the man laying next to her. He doesn't let her get away with it;  he pulls himself flush against her back. Sallie can't tell if it's out of consideration for her or just to make himself more comfortable on her bed. It doesn't matter one way or the other; he'll leave next week or next month. With Jefferson District an outlying department of the City, day workers can find labor where they need to.

Even at night.

---

Today

The tulips Sallie'd received from Joe are in a discreet vase on her nightstand; away from people who would question how she managed to get real ones. Alongside the vase is a handkerchief Sallie hadn't realized she'd held onto until arriving at home, and she very well wasn't going to turn around and go back, after her display.

Joe was...a comfort. Which was appreciated. Sallie exhales smoothly, sitting up out of bed and sliding on a pair of slippers before going down to the kitchen for tea and paperwork.

It is what it is. It's time to get back to work.