No additional warnings for this scene.
Nicholas never got it. Gardening, getting muddy, dirt under your fingernails…made no sense, when you can buy flowers at the florist and vegetables at the grocery. His parents were accountants and always busy and they did not keep plants about the house or spend any more time in the garden out back of their townhouse than absolutely necessary. He appreciated the beauty of plants, and admired the biological miracle of photosynthesis, and there was one tree at the park that he used to climb and study under on weekends which he truly adored. It was a fantastic tree to visit, alive and strong and (Nicholas believed whenever he sat against its trunk) a breathing thing.
Not like he could take it with him to work, though.
As a PC in the Met he did not spend a lot of time at his desk, and so was unruffled when organizational changes moved him around from one place to another. Desks are desks and interchangeable and as long as he could do his job, he accepted the shuffling.
One move happened quickly when two departments three floors up were merged and the resulting renovation and personnel changes caused a cascading flow of office alterations in six unrelated departments. Nicholas packed up his desk quickly, not one for keeping knick knacks around, and followed the office planning chart to his new location. He stood at the desk, staring the tenant of said desk with disdain. He did not know who the desk belonged to previously and all of his neighbors were new arrivals to that floor and they did not know either so he stared malevolently at the small bamboo plant in the blue and white ceramic bowl, but it did not go anywhere.
He carefully worked around the plant for the following week, assuming its errant and clearly irresponsible owner would return to take it away. It was a peculiar thing, about a foot tall, consisting of four bamboo sprouts braided together as they grew into small trunks. A clever idea that surely took time and patience and Nicholas admired that much, but otherwise it was just green and kind of plain bamboo. He pushed it next to his monitor so it was not sitting on the edge of the desk, where it was too prone to being knocked off by careless co-workers, because Nicholas was not so heartless as to allow senseless property destruction on his watch.
By the third week, it was apparent that the owner was not coming back for the plant. Nicholas decided to ignore it, unable to simply throw it away. He considered giving it to the pretty blond three desks over, but she ignored him and a plant was not going to change that. Anyway, he realized he had grown accustomed to seeing the plant on his desk. It was a quick way to spot his desk, in any case, and he liked the convenience of telling people who were trying to find him to look for the pretty bamboo plant.
He was not sure when it went from being ‘the plant’ to ‘the pretty bamboo plant.' It happened about the same time that he began looking forward to seeing the plant, which was also about the time he realized he was killing it. He sat at his desk doing paperwork, clicking from screen to screen and he looked up to give his eyes a break, and more often than not these days that meant looking at the pretty bamboo plant. For the first time, he thought about watering it, and as he studied it, he realized that the leaves were all very droopy. Too droopy. Panicking, he poured half his lukewarm tea into the base, then panicked again when he thought that Earl Grey might not be healthy for plants. Maybe Green Tea, decaffeinated, but certainly not Earl Grey. He spent the next twenty four hours in guilt ridden agony, until he saw that the leaves had perked up, all by themselves, because it was a living thing which could recover from his thoughtless dehydration of it. He carefully poured four tablespoons of bottled spring water into the base the next day, and the leaves came alive, curving up elegantly. He smiled in happiness at his success in not murdering the pretty bamboo plant, and then saw how dusty it was. He never knew a plant could get dusty. He studied it for a few minutes, but it made sense, after all it did not move around and it never got rained on and…
He panicked again, thinking about how important rain is to plants. Maybe they need to absorb water through their leaves? Don’t plants breath through their leaves? So dusty leaves were, essentially, asphyxiating the pretty bamboo plant.
He ran to the break room and wet down a handful of paper towels and ran back, almost knocking down his sergeant. Apologizing on the run, he made it back to his desk and carefully, gently, wiped down all the leaves. They now looked glossy and perky and Nicholas stared happily at his beautiful bamboo plant. He decided to get a spray bottle that night so he could mist the leaves the next day. He took one leaf between his forefinger and thumb and rubbed it gently, pleased to have made the beautiful bamboo plant so happy. It was not that hard to do, really, although he knew it was foolish to feel like this about a plant.
His plant – his beautiful, elegant, graceful bamboo plant, his precious pretty Bambii.