Team Building with Jack Landors (SPD, A Squad, #31, T)
characters: SPD’s A Squad (Kat)
prompt #31: broken
word count: 800
rating: T
summary: Maybe it was true what they said, that people told strangers things they didn't know how to tell their friends.
Team Building with Jack Landors (broken)
by *Andrea
She hadn’t slept. She wasn’t planning to, either. A Squad was on call tonight, and even if she suspected that Jack had some sort of arrangement with the officer patrol, she was going to stick it out. She couldn’t go home, and she didn’t want to sleep on the base right now.
Dinner had been... nice. Their sometimes-lovable base commander was actually very funny when he wasn’t trying to intimidate the hell out of the people below him. Which, on an SPD base, happened to be everyone. The Sirian martial hierarchy was inflexible and exasperating when it came to personal relationships between people in the command structure.
Kat thought the Earth influence was growing stronger with the years. She’d watched him bond with Charlie, seen him protect B Squad when the front line failed, and enjoyed the blind eye he turned to recent efforts at de-militarizing the base. She certainly hadn’t expected him to let Jack’s reorganization of squads and personnel assignments pass unchallenged.
Of course, being asked out to dinner had surpassed all previous levels of relaxation.
It was her own fault, she supposed. She had delivered an ultimatum, and he had called her bluff. She wasn’t ready to be personally involved with anyone, let alone an alien from Earth’s year 2025 who didn’t know a thing about her. What had she been thinking?
Maybe Jack was right. Maybe he was supposed to be with his wife, and she was supposed to be... well. She was lucky to be alone, if it came right down to it. She’d spent too many years under someone else’s control to find freedom lonely.
That was what she told herself, anyway.
She turned a corner and almost tripped over Isinia Cruger.
Oh, some small resigned part of her mind whispered. This is so not fair.
Funny, she thought. Even the voices in her head were starting to sound like Jack.
The subterranean arboretum beneath the base isolated and encouraged the growth of exotic species, specifically Sirian, to provide the raw materials that kept much of their extraterrestrial technology going. No one was blind to the aesthetic possibilities of such an environment, though, and gardens had sprung up along winding footpaths in the midst of this carefully controlled resource. There were even benches and signs and, perhaps one day, a tour of this space designed to simulate rotation beneath an alien star.
“Am I in your way?” Dark eyes stared up at her from beneath blue hair, and for a fleeting moment she wondered if the commander’s wife even recognized her. They had only been introduced the once.
Isinia looked much healthier now, she noted distantly. Better color. Blue where she’d been brown, and white where she’d been grey. Cool and pretty against the deep maroon silk that wrapped around her shoulders. She looked too real for the forced growth of this artificial greenhouse.
“No,” Kat assured her. “Not at all. I couldn’t sleep, I’m afraid. I’m just... out for a walk.”
Those dark eyes flicked over her, taking in her bright yellow jacket and the lab ID underneath. “I can’t tell if you’ve been promoted or demoted since I saw you last.”
It was a prickly feeling, then, to realize that the woman knew exactly who she was and what she did. Stranger than she’d expected, to be face to face and effectively alone with the commander’s wife. She wondered if Isinia had anyone like Jack: someone to meddle, to insist, to prod her out of herself. Had anyone told her that she was supposed to work things out with her husband?
“I can’t tell either,” Kat admitted at last. “That’s typical of SPD, though. Every time they tell you you’re doing a good job, you expect to see your workload double. Fortunately they’re not big on compliments around here.”
“I wouldn’t know it from the way they talk about you.” Isinia’s stare was unblinking, much like her husband’s. “Everyone tells me you keep the base going.”
Kat tried to smile. “The commander does that.”
“He’s everyone I talk to.” So different from him in tone, there was no expression there to tell Kat whether she was joking or not. Had she deliberately twisted Kat’s reply, or had she just misunderstood? “It’s difficult to be alien among so many. To have no shared experience to lessen the divide.”
“Yes,” Kat said quietly. That was a feeling she had always known.
Isinia stared at her for a long moment. “Are you not human?”
Kat shook her head. “I’m from Krshk’terii.” Which was even true, insofar as she had been there once. “It fell to the Troobian Empire years ago. My children will be of Earth.”
“Oh?” Isinia prompted. “Do you expect children soon?”
Maybe it was the softening of her voice, a sign of wistfulness or shared concern or something else that Kat didn’t understand. Maybe it was the chance to tell someone, anyone, because they’d asked instead of her having to announce it. Maybe it was just true what they said, that people told strangers things they didn’t know how to tell their friends.
“Yes,” Kat told her. “I’m pregnant.”
prompt #31: broken
word count: 800
rating: T
summary: Maybe it was true what they said, that people told strangers things they didn't know how to tell their friends.
Team Building with Jack Landors (broken)
by *Andrea
She hadn’t slept. She wasn’t planning to, either. A Squad was on call tonight, and even if she suspected that Jack had some sort of arrangement with the officer patrol, she was going to stick it out. She couldn’t go home, and she didn’t want to sleep on the base right now.
Dinner had been... nice. Their sometimes-lovable base commander was actually very funny when he wasn’t trying to intimidate the hell out of the people below him. Which, on an SPD base, happened to be everyone. The Sirian martial hierarchy was inflexible and exasperating when it came to personal relationships between people in the command structure.
Kat thought the Earth influence was growing stronger with the years. She’d watched him bond with Charlie, seen him protect B Squad when the front line failed, and enjoyed the blind eye he turned to recent efforts at de-militarizing the base. She certainly hadn’t expected him to let Jack’s reorganization of squads and personnel assignments pass unchallenged.
Of course, being asked out to dinner had surpassed all previous levels of relaxation.
It was her own fault, she supposed. She had delivered an ultimatum, and he had called her bluff. She wasn’t ready to be personally involved with anyone, let alone an alien from Earth’s year 2025 who didn’t know a thing about her. What had she been thinking?
Maybe Jack was right. Maybe he was supposed to be with his wife, and she was supposed to be... well. She was lucky to be alone, if it came right down to it. She’d spent too many years under someone else’s control to find freedom lonely.
That was what she told herself, anyway.
She turned a corner and almost tripped over Isinia Cruger.
Oh, some small resigned part of her mind whispered. This is so not fair.
Funny, she thought. Even the voices in her head were starting to sound like Jack.
The subterranean arboretum beneath the base isolated and encouraged the growth of exotic species, specifically Sirian, to provide the raw materials that kept much of their extraterrestrial technology going. No one was blind to the aesthetic possibilities of such an environment, though, and gardens had sprung up along winding footpaths in the midst of this carefully controlled resource. There were even benches and signs and, perhaps one day, a tour of this space designed to simulate rotation beneath an alien star.
“Am I in your way?” Dark eyes stared up at her from beneath blue hair, and for a fleeting moment she wondered if the commander’s wife even recognized her. They had only been introduced the once.
Isinia looked much healthier now, she noted distantly. Better color. Blue where she’d been brown, and white where she’d been grey. Cool and pretty against the deep maroon silk that wrapped around her shoulders. She looked too real for the forced growth of this artificial greenhouse.
“No,” Kat assured her. “Not at all. I couldn’t sleep, I’m afraid. I’m just... out for a walk.”
Those dark eyes flicked over her, taking in her bright yellow jacket and the lab ID underneath. “I can’t tell if you’ve been promoted or demoted since I saw you last.”
It was a prickly feeling, then, to realize that the woman knew exactly who she was and what she did. Stranger than she’d expected, to be face to face and effectively alone with the commander’s wife. She wondered if Isinia had anyone like Jack: someone to meddle, to insist, to prod her out of herself. Had anyone told her that she was supposed to work things out with her husband?
“I can’t tell either,” Kat admitted at last. “That’s typical of SPD, though. Every time they tell you you’re doing a good job, you expect to see your workload double. Fortunately they’re not big on compliments around here.”
“I wouldn’t know it from the way they talk about you.” Isinia’s stare was unblinking, much like her husband’s. “Everyone tells me you keep the base going.”
Kat tried to smile. “The commander does that.”
“He’s everyone I talk to.” So different from him in tone, there was no expression there to tell Kat whether she was joking or not. Had she deliberately twisted Kat’s reply, or had she just misunderstood? “It’s difficult to be alien among so many. To have no shared experience to lessen the divide.”
“Yes,” Kat said quietly. That was a feeling she had always known.
Isinia stared at her for a long moment. “Are you not human?”
Kat shook her head. “I’m from Krshk’terii.” Which was even true, insofar as she had been there once. “It fell to the Troobian Empire years ago. My children will be of Earth.”
“Oh?” Isinia prompted. “Do you expect children soon?”
Maybe it was the softening of her voice, a sign of wistfulness or shared concern or something else that Kat didn’t understand. Maybe it was the chance to tell someone, anyone, because they’d asked instead of her having to announce it. Maybe it was just true what they said, that people told strangers things they didn’t know how to tell their friends.
“Yes,” Kat told her. “I’m pregnant.”