Fic: "In Circles" (PG-13) Amelia Peabody Novels, Sophia/Beatrice
Title: In Circles
Author: Tiamat’s Child
Rating: PG
Fandom: The Amelia Peabody novels
Pairing: Dr. Sophia/Dr. Beatrice Ferguson
Summary: There’s privacy, and there’s intimacy, and Sophia’s really quite good at holding them in tension.
Disclaimers: Sophia and Beatrice belong to Elizabeth Peters, not me, but as she’s not really doing anything with them at present I’m sure she won’t mind if I let them take a little comfort in each other.
Notes: A pentadrabble written in thirty minutes for the Hospital challenge at Contralemontre. Sophia and Beatrice are extremely minor characters who run a woman’s hospital in the red light district of early 20th century Cairo.
In Circles
Sophia finds more and more that her world consists of circles, nestled inside each other like the lacquer boxes Beatrice loves so much. There are big circles, and little circles, and circles that fit two together. Sophia has begun to track them, under all the rest of the rapidly running thoughts that fill her mind at any given moment.
Her middle circle is the hospital. It’s the thin box slipped in with an even number of boxes on each side, a smoothly equal expanse of the personal and the impersonal. From the hospital the circles go in, and the circles go out.
When they go out they expand, and get thinner and larger, having to contain more and more space with just the same amount of material. It might be dangerous to let them encompass too much. She tries to keep them close. The one closest to the hospital contains Cairo, and the one next to that Egypt, and then there’s one that holds England, and after that they spiral out in ways she’s sure they didn’t before Beatrice.
The ones that circle in from the hospital are different. Sturdier and smaller and more important than the ones that circle out and out and out. One is the room that she shares with Beatrice. One is their bed. One is the two of them, curled close together, almost like kittens at peace. From there, the pair they make together, the boxes curl at the same level, but in different circles. Sophia’s settle into her flesh and her mind and her memories and all the things that are solely her and can never be part of Sophia and Beatrice, at least not wholly. Beatrice’s do the same, and Sophia does not really know what they are.
This is as it should be. To be lovers, you must be people. To be people you must have selves of your own. Sophia has always known this.
Beatrice is a wonderful person. Brisk and blunt and a trifle bad tempered, with no patience for men at all. Sophia doesn’t much trust men, she’s seen too much of what their tempers and lusts can do to have too high an opinion of them, but she doesn’t think they’re a complete waste of space the way Beatrice does.
Somehow, Beatrice makes the sentiment sound charming. That’s how Sophia knows that they really are lovers, and not merely convenient companions. They find each other’s eccentricities far too delightful and understandable to be anything other than in love.
Sophia is glad of it. It’s nice to have a circle nestled so close to the private ones that make you up. Before Beatrice came, no other people were close enough to really be a part of her circles. Girls came and went through the hospital, staying long enough to take a chunk of Sophia’s soul with them, but no one knew her.
Beatrice knows her. Beatrice loves. She loves Beatrice.
They share as many circles as two people can.
Author: Tiamat’s Child
Rating: PG
Fandom: The Amelia Peabody novels
Pairing: Dr. Sophia/Dr. Beatrice Ferguson
Summary: There’s privacy, and there’s intimacy, and Sophia’s really quite good at holding them in tension.
Disclaimers: Sophia and Beatrice belong to Elizabeth Peters, not me, but as she’s not really doing anything with them at present I’m sure she won’t mind if I let them take a little comfort in each other.
Notes: A pentadrabble written in thirty minutes for the Hospital challenge at Contralemontre. Sophia and Beatrice are extremely minor characters who run a woman’s hospital in the red light district of early 20th century Cairo.
In Circles
Sophia finds more and more that her world consists of circles, nestled inside each other like the lacquer boxes Beatrice loves so much. There are big circles, and little circles, and circles that fit two together. Sophia has begun to track them, under all the rest of the rapidly running thoughts that fill her mind at any given moment.
Her middle circle is the hospital. It’s the thin box slipped in with an even number of boxes on each side, a smoothly equal expanse of the personal and the impersonal. From the hospital the circles go in, and the circles go out.
When they go out they expand, and get thinner and larger, having to contain more and more space with just the same amount of material. It might be dangerous to let them encompass too much. She tries to keep them close. The one closest to the hospital contains Cairo, and the one next to that Egypt, and then there’s one that holds England, and after that they spiral out in ways she’s sure they didn’t before Beatrice.
The ones that circle in from the hospital are different. Sturdier and smaller and more important than the ones that circle out and out and out. One is the room that she shares with Beatrice. One is their bed. One is the two of them, curled close together, almost like kittens at peace. From there, the pair they make together, the boxes curl at the same level, but in different circles. Sophia’s settle into her flesh and her mind and her memories and all the things that are solely her and can never be part of Sophia and Beatrice, at least not wholly. Beatrice’s do the same, and Sophia does not really know what they are.
This is as it should be. To be lovers, you must be people. To be people you must have selves of your own. Sophia has always known this.
Beatrice is a wonderful person. Brisk and blunt and a trifle bad tempered, with no patience for men at all. Sophia doesn’t much trust men, she’s seen too much of what their tempers and lusts can do to have too high an opinion of them, but she doesn’t think they’re a complete waste of space the way Beatrice does.
Somehow, Beatrice makes the sentiment sound charming. That’s how Sophia knows that they really are lovers, and not merely convenient companions. They find each other’s eccentricities far too delightful and understandable to be anything other than in love.
Sophia is glad of it. It’s nice to have a circle nestled so close to the private ones that make you up. Before Beatrice came, no other people were close enough to really be a part of her circles. Girls came and went through the hospital, staying long enough to take a chunk of Sophia’s soul with them, but no one knew her.
Beatrice knows her. Beatrice loves. She loves Beatrice.
They share as many circles as two people can.