FanFic100: #098 Pride (Writer's Choice)
“So… heard you’re going back to school?” He raises his eyebrow, tries to look casual while going through the armory’s inventory.
She nods and shrugs, trying to appear as casual as him… and to keep from fiddling around with her jacket. “Yeah, gotta do something with my life.”
Still with the eyebrow raised he marks something on his clipboard, doesn’t look at her when he replies, “And the Corps is nothing?” That… was a low blow. And what surprises her even more is the slightly… reproachful undertone he has to his voice. It wasn’t supposed to go like this. None of this had been supposed to go like it did.
“Oh, I never said I’d be leaving the Corps,” she gives back, with a cheerful grin on her face… one where even she realizes that it’s too bright to look honest.
Still ticking off his list. “Right. You’re just leaving Atlantis.” So? she wants to shoot back, what’s it to you? You haven’t been talking to me for four weeks straight. Not even on duty-related matters. You always delegated that to someone else.
She resists a sigh. What did she expect? Of course there would be something different after that stupid… thing. Not even he could be that professional that he wouldn’t have to react to it somehow. And well… better not talk about her professionalism. “Yeah, well, correspondence courses at that distance would be a bitch.”
He nods, makes a face, briefly looks at her and then continues with his list. “Everything would be a bitch at that distance.”
She will not waste a deeper thought on that. She will also not waste another moment in this conversation. In fact… she should just have stayed away from him until the Daedalus got here in two days.
No, scratch that.
She should have stayed away from him four fucking weeks ago. But she didn’t. Instead she made the mistake of drinking alcohol in his presence and kept on flirting with him even though they both knew that heavy flirting and alcohol just don’t mix for some people.
Realizing the scratching and ticking on the clipboard has stopped she looks up again, berating herself for zoning out. It’s been happening a little too often since… her last physical. “Anything else you wanted to say, Lieutenant?”
Actually… yeah. But none of it is really fit for the casual “Hey, see you around, huh?” talk she’d prepared in her head. Why she had wanted to say good bye to him specifically, she suddenly can’t fathom anymore. She just… she’d just wanted to see him one last time, to reassure herself that she’d done the right thing. But that had just been stupid. She sees that now.
Trying to cover up all that’s inside of her with a non-committal smile that doesn’t reach her eyes, she simply says, “No, sir. Sorry… sorry to bother you.”
With that, she turns around again, is almost at the exit of the armory… when she suddenly hears him clearing his throat behind her. “Lieutenant… Laura. If this is about… you know… that party…”
Before she knows it, she has turned around. It nearly breaks her heart. For the first time in four weeks… she doesn’t have the feeling that Major Evan Lorne wears a mask when he’s around her. Instead there’s regret on his face, mixed with genuine worry… all things she just can’t take at the moment. For a moment, the urge to just spill it - everything that happened in the last four weeks, everything that went through her head, everything that went on with her heart - is almost overwhelming.
But then rationality wins again and she simply replies, “No, it’s not.” Dammit, that was almost too hurried and that shows in his face. For about a second, that is. “It’s just about getting a PhD, sir.” At that… the mask is firmly back in place, giving her a stab.
“Yeah, right. Well then… good luck with that, Lieutenant.” When he says that last sentence, he doesn’t even look at her anymore. At least… at least that gives her back the resolve that had started to crumble in those few moments she could see him without his cover.
“Right. Thank you, sir.” At that last sentence, she has already turned around, walked out the door, trying to wipe away the tears she blames on hormones… and so she never sees him standing there, staring at her back, clipboard and pen forgotten in his hand, only inches away from calling out to her but giving in to rationality… a rationality that tastes very much like wounded pride and the overwhelming feeling of being powerless in the face of a huge mistake.
~*~
TBC in Touchy Subject