Harriet Bazley wrote:
Without knowing the context, this is incredibly difficult, and I'll inevitably make the wrong assumptions about the surrounding plot... but here's my attempt at a more plausible re-rendering, from Vila's point of view.
Now, *this* is good writing! Or at least, much, much more to my tastes. (Btw, Harriet, I loved "Not to Know." First really understandable and satisfying excuse I've seen for why Blake never contacted Avon after Star One!) The characters don't blither on, they don't get what Avon would call "sentimental," they don't make long-winded speeches. And what they *don't* say is as important -- more important -- than what they *do* say. *That's* B7, the way I see it.
There are lots of ways, actually, to write the characters talking about emotional issues without going into long passages of amateur psychoanalysis or discussions of the "let me tell you what I'm feeling" type. As a good canonical example, there's the scene between Avon and Cally at the beginning of "Sarcophagus." They only exchange a few sentences, but there's a vast wealth of characterization behind them. The simple fact that they're talking about emotional issues at *all* is significant all by itself, in fact. We *know* they're both suffering from recent events; it doesn't *need* to be made any more overt.