Title: Through the Years, chapter 3
Author: SabaceanBabe
Rating: PG-13 (this chapter)
Word count: 1,155
Focus: Margaret "Maggie" Edmondson, pre-series
Author's note: This is a work in progress written for
poisontaster as part of
Sweet Charity. Thank you,
grammarwoman for the beta.
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Maggie tuned Eric out as he spoke. All he did lately was talk, but never anything of substance. As much as she loved him, he drove her crazy with the lectures on what she should do with her life and how things were going to change once they were married. He was forever making plans for her, and forever forgetting to mention those plans to her.
Her attention drifted over to Leonidas, the band’s keyboardist. He looked pointedly at Eric, who didn’t notice, then crossed his eyes at Maggie, letting them roll up into his head as he leaned back in his chair. Maggie burst out laughing. Eric stopped talking mid-sentence, looking offended. Still snickering at Leo’s goofing, Maggie laid a hand on Eric’s wrist.
“Eric, I’m so sorry. I got distracted.” She made a face at Leo then turned back to her fiancé. “What were you saying?”
Eric shifted his chair, putting himself more fully into her line of sight and intentionally blocking Leo. She tried to focus on him. She really did. But with the new positioning, she could see the bar’s manager gesture at her and Leo and Trin. Maggie forced her attention to what Eric was saying.
“Once we’re married, Meg,” - Gods, she hated it when he called her that - “you won’t have to play these gigs anymore.” He smiled and for a moment Maggie just stared at him. Not play?
Trin touched Maggie lightly on the shoulder. “Time to work, Mags,” she said as she and Leo walked past, headed for the stage.
“I’ve gotta go.” Maggie stood, but she didn’t follow them right away. Instead she looked down at Eric. She’d let him talk her out of joining the Colonial Fleet, but she’d be damned if she was going to let him take her music from her, too. She didn’t know what he saw in her face, her eyes, but color crept up his cheeks as she spoke. “I like these gigs, Eric.” Not giving him a chance to say anything more, Maggie strode away from him.
“Meg, I’m sorry!” he called after her. She ignored him, taking the steps up the stage in two leaps. She took her place at the drums and waited for Trin to call the beat, keeping her mind a blank as she waited for the music to take over.
***
She was still in a kind of mental fog driving home after the bar closed. She and Trin had stayed on after the third set, talking about nothing and playing Triad - no mean feat, considering it was just the two of them. But Maggie hadn’t mentioned Eric, or why he had left before the final set was finished, and Trin hadn’t pressed. But then she wouldn’t. Not her style.
Maybe Maggie should have said something, though. This crap with Eric was becoming more and more common and she didn’t know how much more she could take. She wanted him to be happy, but shouldn’t she be happy, too? It didn’t used to be this way. There was a time when he’d been more relaxed, willing to let things happen as the gods willed instead of trying to force everyone and everything into a certain path, a certain mold. A time when he’d laughed easily and often. In fact, his ready laugh was one of the things that had drawn her to him in the first place. But over the years, he laughed less and less. Had she done something to cause that?
Without making a conscious decision, she sailed right past her exit and continued on, heading north, toward her grandmother’s place. She needed to talk to someone and there wasn’t anyone better than Gran. Besides, if she went home now, she’d only be irritated further by the light on her phone, blinking incessantly for her attention. Look at me. Listen to me. Talk to me. Cater to me. There was no way there weren’t at least half a dozen messages from Eric waiting for her.
But when she pulled into Gran’s complex half an hour later and put the car into park, she just sat there, engine idling and music playing softly on the radio. The building was dark, no lights lit in Gran’s apartment, none in the apartment that shared the driveway with Gran’s.
“What did you expect, genius?” Maggie asked herself. “It’s three in the frakking morning.” She couldn’t just go knock on Gran’s door. Waking her up in the middle of the night like that? She’d probably give the old woman a heart attack. At the very least, she’d cause unnecessary worry.
Shutting off the engine, Maggie leaned her head back into the headrest and stared out her car’s moon roof, which was open to the sparkling night sky. It was clear and a little chilly; no streetlights or shuttle traffic overhead interfered with the beauty of the night.
That was one of the reasons Gran had chosen this place, that clear and unobstructed view of the night sky. She said she was too old to camp out under those stars as she and Maggie had done when Maggie was a little girl, but she could sit out on her deck in a comfortable chair and still immerse herself in the night, safe at home. Gemma Edmondson had never stopped being a Priestess of Artemis, even if she was officially retired and had been for the last eight years.
***
A persistent tapping woke Maggie. She blinked, trying to reconcile the sound and the faint but definite scent of coffee with her current surroundings. Her neck hurt and her ass was numb. She blinked again.
“Maggie?” This accompanied the sharper sound of metal on glass.
Maggie turned her head toward the rapping and winced. Was she in her car?
Gran’s face outside the closed window was the picture of amused concern as Maggie jerked upright. Behind her grandmother, the sun was just breaking the tops of the distant trees. Maggie shivered and grabbed her backpack from the passenger seat, then swiveled back to open her door, but she pulled up short when she tried to get out.
“Your seatbelt.” Gran gestured with a spoon - no doubt what she’d used to finally wake her granddaughter - toward Maggie’s waist. The older woman stepped back from the now-open door, a steaming cup of coffee in her hand, a bright red robe wrapped around her body. Maggie must have just stared at her, because she clarified, laughter in her voice, “You have to unfasten your seatbelt.”
Looking down, feeling a little stupid, Maggie released the small maglock. Even with the moon roof open, the outside air was a good deal cooler than that in her car, but the coffee scent was more intense, so that almost made up for it.
“Is everything okay, dear?” Gran held out the steaming cup for Maggie, who gratefully accepted it with a grin.
“It is now, Gran.”
Through the Years, Chapter 4