Secret Santa Ficlet: Retirement Benefits (Samantha) FRT/PG
This story is for the Secret Santa exchange and my recipient is the ever so splendid m_ravensblood. Gosh I hope you like your prezzie. I did my level best.
Gabrielle
Title: Retirement Benefits
Author: Gabrielle
Fandom: Profiler
Rating: FRT/PG
Characters: Samantha Waters
Word Count: 681
Summary: She's 55 now and she's saying goodbye to the VCTF.
Feedback: Please
Distribution: skewedbelievers, profiler_fans, my LJ, and my site only.
Disclaimer: I own nothing. It all belongs to Sanders/Moses, NBC, and a bunch of other people who are not now and have never been me.
Author's Notes: Written for the marvelous and inspiring m_ravensblood for the Secret Santa 2012 Exchange. I hope with all my heart that she enjoys it and that the rest of you do as well.
Retirement Benefits
There’s a brand new Rolex, bulky and cumbersome, on her wrist and it catches in the strands of graying hair she brushes away from her face. She winces at the pain as she accidentally pulls out one or two in the attempt to free herself.
And if that isn’t a perfect metaphor for the mixed blessing that her lengthy career with the VCTF has been, then a perfect metaphor doesn’t exist.
Tonight was her retirement party. New faces, old faces, a few earlier retirees showing up to welcome her to the long, slow slide into lying about golf scores and comparing liver spots. Not Bailey, though. She still remembers his funeral. Janet still hating her - seeing her as a threat even with the husband she never understood in a coffin. Frannie… She’d hoped, but no, Frannie hadn’t shown up. There’d been flowers and later there were excuses, but Frannie was Frannie… right up to the car accident that took her off to wherever her father was six months later. She thinks that, wherever they are, they’re still loving and hating and forgiving each other in turn just as they did in life. Whether there’s a God or not.
John - he hadn’t shown up at her party tonight either. His wife was the likely culprit there. She’s not any bigger a fan of Sam’s than Janet. Why do all these women think she wants their men? She should be flattered… or something, though, shouldn’t she? Here she is, 55 years old, and she’s still the siren of the VCTF. Still a woman who can threaten John’s 35 year old trophy wife with her hair extensions and breasts at such odds with nature that Samantha truly hopes John got some sort of discount when he bought them for her.
She laughs softly to herself as she pulls into the driveway of her house. Her ‘just-a-house’, as it’s been for many years. What with her not having needed protection since Jack was no longer…
“Hello, Samantha.” It’s the same voice. The one she last heard when they made their pact… when Grace called in a favour for her… when Albert Newquay died…
Not Jack, though.
“Hey, stranger,” she says, keeping it light.
Leave it to Jack to turn serious right away. “Whose fault is that?”
She goes to him, wrapping her arms around him, sliding into his embrace like she belongs there… like she never left it. This is home. “You agreed,” she counters softly, not wanting to argue but not willing to back down.
“Did I have a choice?”
Normally she’d have a comeback, but it’s been so many years since she last saw the man she loves and she’ll be damned if she wastes one more minute. There are better things to do with tongues than sharpen them on each other… a second later she proves it as she pulls Jack to her and kisses him with all the passion she’s been saving for years and years.
He kisses her back.
“Mmmm…,” she sighs, “this is so much better than golf.”
“Golf?”
“It’s what everyone expects me to do now that I’m retired,” she responds with a low chuckle.
“Well you’ve never been the kind of girl who does what’s expected of her.” His hand moves down to cup her ass and she doesn’t point out that she’s long past being a girl.
“No, I never have,” she agrees.
“Are you packed?”
“My bags are in the entry, right by the front door.”
“Good. Might as well get on the road then. Start our future.”
“Our future." The words ring on her tongue.
He stares at the shiny watch almost dangling from her wrist. “What is that gauche monstrosity?”
“Retirement gift,” she shrugs.
Undoing the clasp in a second, he flings it into the bushes. “You’re not retiring. You’re beginning a brand new life.”
Wrapping her arms around him and kissing him again, she agrees. “That I am”
They get her bags and load them into Jack’s Bentley. As they drive away, she wonders what will happen when the gardener finds that Rolex.
The End.
Gabrielle
Title: Retirement Benefits
Author: Gabrielle
Fandom: Profiler
Rating: FRT/PG
Characters: Samantha Waters
Word Count: 681
Summary: She's 55 now and she's saying goodbye to the VCTF.
Feedback: Please
Distribution: skewedbelievers, profiler_fans, my LJ, and my site only.
Disclaimer: I own nothing. It all belongs to Sanders/Moses, NBC, and a bunch of other people who are not now and have never been me.
Author's Notes: Written for the marvelous and inspiring m_ravensblood for the Secret Santa 2012 Exchange. I hope with all my heart that she enjoys it and that the rest of you do as well.
Retirement Benefits
There’s a brand new Rolex, bulky and cumbersome, on her wrist and it catches in the strands of graying hair she brushes away from her face. She winces at the pain as she accidentally pulls out one or two in the attempt to free herself.
And if that isn’t a perfect metaphor for the mixed blessing that her lengthy career with the VCTF has been, then a perfect metaphor doesn’t exist.
Tonight was her retirement party. New faces, old faces, a few earlier retirees showing up to welcome her to the long, slow slide into lying about golf scores and comparing liver spots. Not Bailey, though. She still remembers his funeral. Janet still hating her - seeing her as a threat even with the husband she never understood in a coffin. Frannie… She’d hoped, but no, Frannie hadn’t shown up. There’d been flowers and later there were excuses, but Frannie was Frannie… right up to the car accident that took her off to wherever her father was six months later. She thinks that, wherever they are, they’re still loving and hating and forgiving each other in turn just as they did in life. Whether there’s a God or not.
John - he hadn’t shown up at her party tonight either. His wife was the likely culprit there. She’s not any bigger a fan of Sam’s than Janet. Why do all these women think she wants their men? She should be flattered… or something, though, shouldn’t she? Here she is, 55 years old, and she’s still the siren of the VCTF. Still a woman who can threaten John’s 35 year old trophy wife with her hair extensions and breasts at such odds with nature that Samantha truly hopes John got some sort of discount when he bought them for her.
She laughs softly to herself as she pulls into the driveway of her house. Her ‘just-a-house’, as it’s been for many years. What with her not having needed protection since Jack was no longer…
“Hello, Samantha.” It’s the same voice. The one she last heard when they made their pact… when Grace called in a favour for her… when Albert Newquay died…
Not Jack, though.
“Hey, stranger,” she says, keeping it light.
Leave it to Jack to turn serious right away. “Whose fault is that?”
She goes to him, wrapping her arms around him, sliding into his embrace like she belongs there… like she never left it. This is home. “You agreed,” she counters softly, not wanting to argue but not willing to back down.
“Did I have a choice?”
Normally she’d have a comeback, but it’s been so many years since she last saw the man she loves and she’ll be damned if she wastes one more minute. There are better things to do with tongues than sharpen them on each other… a second later she proves it as she pulls Jack to her and kisses him with all the passion she’s been saving for years and years.
He kisses her back.
“Mmmm…,” she sighs, “this is so much better than golf.”
“Golf?”
“It’s what everyone expects me to do now that I’m retired,” she responds with a low chuckle.
“Well you’ve never been the kind of girl who does what’s expected of her.” His hand moves down to cup her ass and she doesn’t point out that she’s long past being a girl.
“No, I never have,” she agrees.
“Are you packed?”
“My bags are in the entry, right by the front door.”
“Good. Might as well get on the road then. Start our future.”
“Our future." The words ring on her tongue.
He stares at the shiny watch almost dangling from her wrist. “What is that gauche monstrosity?”
“Retirement gift,” she shrugs.
Undoing the clasp in a second, he flings it into the bushes. “You’re not retiring. You’re beginning a brand new life.”
Wrapping her arms around him and kissing him again, she agrees. “That I am”
They get her bags and load them into Jack’s Bentley. As they drive away, she wonders what will happen when the gardener finds that Rolex.
The End.