Fic: Look What You Do
Title: Look What You Do
Fandom: Stargate
Rating: K+
Genres: gen
Recipient: mackenziesmomma
Prompt: Stargate, Thomas Moore and Laura Greenspan, Come on you're my best friend what was I supposed to do lock you away in the tallest room of the highest tower and beset you with a dragon?
Summary: Major Thomas Moore needs a medic. Captain Laura Greenspan is one. Only problem? She's not talking to him. Well, yet.
A/N: Holiday Fic Request Meme. So I know I usually post those very early. It just didn't work last night because I was working keylafirefly's prompt for Dec 22 and also trying to make my damn Windows Media Player work again (we don't know what's wrong with it. No one does. It's a mystery). But it's still today here. So. Uh. Oh, right. I think this is kind of an addendum to my introduction fics for the Minor Characters ( Brothers in Arms, All the Great Things, Both Sides and A Push, takes place between Brothers in Arms and All the Great Things). I actually like this fic very, very much because, you know, I love Thomas Moore and Laura Greenspan together. It's probably the only ever true friendship between an man and a woman I ever wrote, free of any other connotations and they work so well together. They're so much fun and I just hope those of you who got to know them through my Minor Characters fics love them just as much ;)
PS.: All of the German speaking friends (and those who just want to show their appreciation for German soldiers on deployment), maybe have a look at this Christmas greetings page and leave a shout out for all the German soldiers out there who can't be at home on Christmas?
Look What You Do
“Nobody cares anyway
If you play the painted lady
Four and more
Five and six
Who would have believed
It would come to this
Look what you do
Oh, Ruby Blue.”
Roisin Murphy, “Ruby Blue”
I think that’s enough now. I think Captain Laura Greenspan gave me the silent treatment for long enough now. Two weeks of telling me without a word that she’s pissed are really enough. I do get why she’d do that - after all, we didn’t talk to each other for over a year - but honestly, that wasn’t my fault?
Oh, okay, it kind of was. But not… really? Anyway, that’s splitting hairs and I don’t have time for that now. I’m supposed to find members for the off-world team I’m finally supposed to lead in another week. Two months here and all they had me and Dee do was tag along with other teams or serving as advisors to ops that aren’t exactly of the standard SGC variety. It’s damn well time I get my own team and I want Laura as my medic. Seriously, Laura and no one else. And before Lorne gets to her… I need to get her to talk to me again.
I know he has set his eyes on her and that he’d love to get his grubby little hands on a first rate doctor like Laura. Like hell I’m gonna give him the satisfaction of getting to her before I do. So… where’s that brownstone… ah. I think that should be the one. Checking street number… yes, that’s it. Thank God for senior rank and access to personnel files when you’re looking for potential new team members. At least everything I had to do to get promoted to Major was worth it.
Alright. Let’s bypass things that won’t get me anywhere, namely ringing her bell. That woman promptly leaves every room I step in at the SGC so she sure as hell won’t open her door if she so much as expects me to be the one standing in front of the door. Cute little Swiss Army knife meet lock of front door… okay, that was almost too easy. Couldn’t they at least have installed a code lock or something?
Anyway… oh, of course Captain Laura Greenspan would choose an apartment right beneath the roof. But at least that gives me an excuse for not ringing her bell right after finding her apartment’s door. Let’s pretend I didn’t because I need to catch my breath, not because I have no idea what to say to her.
Unfortunately, one can only keep up that kind of pretense for so long. So I buckle up and finally press that damn bell. For a moment, nothing happens and I’m afraid I gathered the wrong intel when I overheard her telling the nurses over lunch that she wouldn’t attend tonight’s private medical personnel shindig before she realized I just entered the room and left herself. But then I hear something rustling behind the door and someone scratching at the door… and that’s it. Okay, except another set of footsteps… leading away from the door. Fuck.
But I wouldn’t be where I am today if I’d given up at the first sign of trouble. I ring again. Harder now. Okay, and longer. Again rustling and footsteps and if I’m not mistaken, they sound… angrier now? Mh… “Leave me alone, Tom.” It speaks!
I’m this close to throwing up my arms in happiness, and believe me, I’m probably the one who’s most surprised by that. Okay. Careful approach now. “Hey, I’m so glad you haven’t forgotten my name after all…”
“Fuck off.” No?
Wait… is she leaving her door again? No way. Another ring, followed by knocking. There. That should tell her I’m being serious about… “I said, you should leave me the hell alone.” Wow, that was… clear. I swallow.
Only one way to save this now. “I’m sorry, Laura.”
Silence. For… a few minutes. Then, suddenly… the door is open and she’s standing there, her arms crossed in front of her chest, leaning against the doorframe. “So. You’re sorry. Uh-huh.”
Damn, I hate that look. It always makes me feel like I did something horribly, horribly wrong. Not even my mother could ever make me feel like that. Damn, I can’t even look her in the eye. “Yeah, I’m… look, I’m sorry I didn’t talk to you last year.”
She shakes her head. “You didn’t talk to me for an entire year. Actually, you didn’t talk to anyone.” Then she looks at me again and the disappointment and hurt I can see in her eyes are exactly what I was afraid of when I came here tonight. And I didn’t even know I was afraid of something. “Actually, you just vanished without a word and then suddenly, I get an e-mail with a simple “Hey, I got transferred to Colorado Springs, beer next week?” as if you expect everything to be shiny between us?”
Hey, that e-mail meant that the first thing I did when being assigned my new duty station and being back in the US permanently was hand in a request for some leave I could get to San Antonio to celebrate her being back from her last deployment! And what’s so bad about expecting things to be shiny between us? We’re best friends, for Heaven’s sake! How was I to know that something as insignificant as a year under the radar for me could change that? “Look, I just wanted to…”
“No, Tom. I’m not going to listen to any flimsy excuses or foggy explanations that don’t tell me anything. I heard that for a couple of years already and I’m done with this. I think I’m done with you.” What, no! Okay, so I couldn’t talk much about what I’d been doing for AFSOC during my training there and the missions I went on but she knew that? The moment I told her Special Operations Command pulled me off flight school, she knew there’d be prolonged periods of not talking to each other and most of all she knew I wasn’t allowed to talk about what I was doing there. She never said anything about this before!
And most of all, that’s no reason to blow off our friendship, just like that. “I’m not here for explanations, Laura. I’m just here because I want to talk to a friend.” She’s about to say something but I’m pretty sure I don’t want to hear it. Hearing her say she’s through with me once was enough, thank you very much. “Can we please not do this out here? If you’re about to end this friendship, at least let’s do it in private?”
For a moment, it looks as if she’ll just shut the door in my face but then she nods and steps aside. Trying not to hesitate, I enter the apartment. I think I heard she say to someone in the infirmary that she’s sharing it with some civilian or other. There are only few signs of her having moved in and I guess that’s because she didn’t have much to move, anyway. For some reason, Laura never was a person to accumulate much beside the bare necessities of life.
So we’re in the living room now. And she’s glaring at me again. At this rate, I’ll never get my team medic. Okay, so, um… “Look, Laura, I get that you’re a little… miffed…”
“A little miffed? Are you even listening to yourself, you moron? I’m not miffed, I’m pissed off, and I have every right to be!” Oh come on. But she let me in. That has to count for something.
I also think that this is a good time for this diplomacy thing. “Hey, uh, I know that I probably didn’t… depart under the best of circumstances,” spare me the snorting if you want me to try and keep this diplomacy thing up, okay? “But… it was part of the job. And… I didn’t do it because I wanted to?” That… was not supposed to sound like a question.
“Oh right, and you couldn’t even have sent me a birthday card? Holiday greetings? Sent Charlie and Anna congratulations for their second kid? Anything? To anyone?” No. No, I couldn’t. I wasn’t allowed to, okay?
Okay. Diplomacy. Diplomacy’s the word. Yes. “Look, I wanted to, okay, but…”
“I was deployed, Tom!” Oh. Yes. Yes, she was. And… I think… I think I’m starting to get what this is about. Dimly. “Afghanistan, for Heaven’s sake! I never pulled 72 hour shifts before, dammit! I could have used your fucking support!” This is a bad moment to tell her that I was in Afghanistan around the same time for a couple OEF ops, right? And it’s an even worse moment to tell her that I saw her during one of those 72 hour shifts in Camp Warehouse, isn’t it?
But I wish I could tell her. I wish I could tell her I was there because one of my team members needed emergency surgery in a field hospital as well equipped as the Germans’ one and I wish I could tell her that I wasn’t allowed to talk to her because my commanding officer knew I knew one of the doctors serving there. I wish I could tell her I tried to find a way to lock her up in her quarters so she’d sleep off the horrible way she looked when I saw her coming out of the hospital building to sit down in front of it, her crumpled scrub cap in her hand and her head on her drawn up knees and I’m pretty sure she was crying with exhaustion. Dee said as much when he came back from the tentative Laura scouting mission I sent him on.
I take a deep breath. “I’m sorry, Laura.” It came out quieter than intended.
She shakes her head again… but somehow, she sounds… different now, when she says, “You said that before.”
Mh. I think I can allow myself a little lopsided grin now. “It’s still true.” Aw, don’t try to give me that glare again. I am sorry. I can’t help adding, “Come on, you’re my best friend. Did you really think you could lock me away in the tallest room of the highest tower and beset me with a dragon?”
I can see very well that her first reaction is to want to shout at me again for the quip but she has known me for practically all her life. She knows no one can keep me from going somewhere if I want to. Or if my duty demands it from me. It’s still not nice to hear the weariness in her voice when she asks instead of shouting, “Where were you, Tom?”
“In Narnia.” It comes out so fast that it nearly shocks me. But that’s what months of conditioning do to you. And besides, telling her where I really spent almost all of last year would put her in danger. I’m not going to do that.
Not even if it makes her shout at me again. “Goddammit, Tom, not even your mother knew where you were!”
Oh, come on. “When did my mother ever know where I was?”
“Tom! Stop being a fucking idiot!” Could she please stop insulting me?
“I’m not being…”
“Yes, you are.” I just said I’m not being an idiot. I’m protecting her and my mother and… “Look, even if you didn’t want to tell your mother… you could have told your friends. Not even Evan and Charlie knew where you were.” Actually… That’s not quite true. Williamson knew. Or at least… at least Williamson knew I wanted to get out of there. It’s why I’m at the SGC now. But I guess it’s not a good idea to tell her that now.
So instead I tell her the other truth. “I couldn’t, Laura.”
Again, she’s silent for a while. Instead of saying anything, she sits down on the couch and hides her face in her hands. Damn, I should have never come here. I shouldn’t have come here to harass her after a day of weird medical issues and… “I never told you before… but I hated the job they gave you.”
Oh. Well. She never… said anything about that before. But then again… I never told her I didn’t like that she chose a field as unpredictable and dangerous as virology as her specialty. I just figured she’d do it anyway. And I guess that’s what she thought when I wordlessly accepted the transfer to AFSOC.
However… unlike Laura, who loves all the research stuff she’s doing… I never wanted to be drafted by AFSOC. I just figured it was the only thing I actually excelled at. I sigh. “It wasn’t just you.”
Mh. That seemed to have surprised her, since she actually looks at me again, frowning. “Tom, why didn’t you…”
“I did. I quit the job.” Or I asked Williamson if he couldn’t find at least some unit that could use someone like me and wouldn’t put me behind a desk immediately. And he did. “Why do you think I’m in The Springs now?”
“Yeah, well… That’s probably the one thing that saved you, Tom.” In more way than one, actually. But let’s not tell her that.
Also… did she just tell me she has sort of forgiven me? Does that mean it’s a good idea to ask her this now, “So… would you… would you do me the honor and be my new team medic?”
“I don’t believe this.” Mh, maybe not. “Here I thought you came to me to talk about…”
Hey, we did talk! I even apologized! I’ve had it now. “Laura! I was just handing you the damn hatchet to bury it! I want you on my team because you’re my friend, okay?”
And because I can’t bear the thought of anyone else putting you in danger other than me. Because there’s no one who can protect you better from your stupid workaholic self than me. I hope my very pissed off glare can communicate that.
Mh. Wow. Yes, it actually looks as if it did. Who’s looking contrite now, missy? “Okay, yes, I will.”
Oh, Wait. She just said yes. I… uh… have a new team medic. Yes. That totally warrants a grin and a lot of smugness. “Lorne’s going to be so sad.”
“You’re such an asshole.” Of course I am. What did you think?
Besides… “It’s what you love about me, isn’t it?”
I take that rolling her eyes think as a yes and… “Shut the fuck up and sit your ass down.”
Uh, what? “Excuse me?”
“Full Metal Jacket’s on tonight and my roomie’s out of town for the rest of the week.” Oh. Right. She wants us to spend the rest of the evening lounging around on her couch, watching war movies. Actually, that sounds like a really good idea.
So I flop down on the couch next to her with the words, “Why didn’t you say that earlier? Got popcorn?”
There’s a trademark “why do I even bear with you” sigh and then she gets up and comes back with a bowl that she pushes against my chest - ow! - with the words, “Knock yourself out,” sits down next to me and switches on the TV, just in time for the opening credits.
We both slide down the couch and put our feet up on the coffee table and I keep punching her for making all the wrong quips in all the wrong places and she keeps kicking me for trying to keep all the popcorn to myself and suddenly… suddenly it feels as if I was never gone. So much that I can’t help saying, “I missed you, Laura.”
I’m waiting for her to snort and laugh at such an admission or giving me a lecture on never having had to take that assignment in the first place but all I get is, “I missed you, too, Tom,” and a grin while she steals some more of my popcorn. Just like in the old days. Maybe I didn’t ruin our friendship, after all. Maybe, just for once in my life, I had a good idea. There’s a first time for everything.
Fandom: Stargate
Rating: K+
Genres: gen
Recipient: mackenziesmomma
Prompt: Stargate, Thomas Moore and Laura Greenspan, Come on you're my best friend what was I supposed to do lock you away in the tallest room of the highest tower and beset you with a dragon?
Summary: Major Thomas Moore needs a medic. Captain Laura Greenspan is one. Only problem? She's not talking to him. Well, yet.
A/N: Holiday Fic Request Meme. So I know I usually post those very early. It just didn't work last night because I was working keylafirefly's prompt for Dec 22 and also trying to make my damn Windows Media Player work again (we don't know what's wrong with it. No one does. It's a mystery). But it's still today here. So. Uh. Oh, right. I think this is kind of an addendum to my introduction fics for the Minor Characters ( Brothers in Arms, All the Great Things, Both Sides and A Push, takes place between Brothers in Arms and All the Great Things). I actually like this fic very, very much because, you know, I love Thomas Moore and Laura Greenspan together. It's probably the only ever true friendship between an man and a woman I ever wrote, free of any other connotations and they work so well together. They're so much fun and I just hope those of you who got to know them through my Minor Characters fics love them just as much ;)
PS.: All of the German speaking friends (and those who just want to show their appreciation for German soldiers on deployment), maybe have a look at this Christmas greetings page and leave a shout out for all the German soldiers out there who can't be at home on Christmas?
Look What You Do
“Nobody cares anyway
If you play the painted lady
Four and more
Five and six
Who would have believed
It would come to this
Look what you do
Oh, Ruby Blue.”
Roisin Murphy, “Ruby Blue”
I think that’s enough now. I think Captain Laura Greenspan gave me the silent treatment for long enough now. Two weeks of telling me without a word that she’s pissed are really enough. I do get why she’d do that - after all, we didn’t talk to each other for over a year - but honestly, that wasn’t my fault?
Oh, okay, it kind of was. But not… really? Anyway, that’s splitting hairs and I don’t have time for that now. I’m supposed to find members for the off-world team I’m finally supposed to lead in another week. Two months here and all they had me and Dee do was tag along with other teams or serving as advisors to ops that aren’t exactly of the standard SGC variety. It’s damn well time I get my own team and I want Laura as my medic. Seriously, Laura and no one else. And before Lorne gets to her… I need to get her to talk to me again.
I know he has set his eyes on her and that he’d love to get his grubby little hands on a first rate doctor like Laura. Like hell I’m gonna give him the satisfaction of getting to her before I do. So… where’s that brownstone… ah. I think that should be the one. Checking street number… yes, that’s it. Thank God for senior rank and access to personnel files when you’re looking for potential new team members. At least everything I had to do to get promoted to Major was worth it.
Alright. Let’s bypass things that won’t get me anywhere, namely ringing her bell. That woman promptly leaves every room I step in at the SGC so she sure as hell won’t open her door if she so much as expects me to be the one standing in front of the door. Cute little Swiss Army knife meet lock of front door… okay, that was almost too easy. Couldn’t they at least have installed a code lock or something?
Anyway… oh, of course Captain Laura Greenspan would choose an apartment right beneath the roof. But at least that gives me an excuse for not ringing her bell right after finding her apartment’s door. Let’s pretend I didn’t because I need to catch my breath, not because I have no idea what to say to her.
Unfortunately, one can only keep up that kind of pretense for so long. So I buckle up and finally press that damn bell. For a moment, nothing happens and I’m afraid I gathered the wrong intel when I overheard her telling the nurses over lunch that she wouldn’t attend tonight’s private medical personnel shindig before she realized I just entered the room and left herself. But then I hear something rustling behind the door and someone scratching at the door… and that’s it. Okay, except another set of footsteps… leading away from the door. Fuck.
But I wouldn’t be where I am today if I’d given up at the first sign of trouble. I ring again. Harder now. Okay, and longer. Again rustling and footsteps and if I’m not mistaken, they sound… angrier now? Mh… “Leave me alone, Tom.” It speaks!
I’m this close to throwing up my arms in happiness, and believe me, I’m probably the one who’s most surprised by that. Okay. Careful approach now. “Hey, I’m so glad you haven’t forgotten my name after all…”
“Fuck off.” No?
Wait… is she leaving her door again? No way. Another ring, followed by knocking. There. That should tell her I’m being serious about… “I said, you should leave me the hell alone.” Wow, that was… clear. I swallow.
Only one way to save this now. “I’m sorry, Laura.”
Silence. For… a few minutes. Then, suddenly… the door is open and she’s standing there, her arms crossed in front of her chest, leaning against the doorframe. “So. You’re sorry. Uh-huh.”
Damn, I hate that look. It always makes me feel like I did something horribly, horribly wrong. Not even my mother could ever make me feel like that. Damn, I can’t even look her in the eye. “Yeah, I’m… look, I’m sorry I didn’t talk to you last year.”
She shakes her head. “You didn’t talk to me for an entire year. Actually, you didn’t talk to anyone.” Then she looks at me again and the disappointment and hurt I can see in her eyes are exactly what I was afraid of when I came here tonight. And I didn’t even know I was afraid of something. “Actually, you just vanished without a word and then suddenly, I get an e-mail with a simple “Hey, I got transferred to Colorado Springs, beer next week?” as if you expect everything to be shiny between us?”
Hey, that e-mail meant that the first thing I did when being assigned my new duty station and being back in the US permanently was hand in a request for some leave I could get to San Antonio to celebrate her being back from her last deployment! And what’s so bad about expecting things to be shiny between us? We’re best friends, for Heaven’s sake! How was I to know that something as insignificant as a year under the radar for me could change that? “Look, I just wanted to…”
“No, Tom. I’m not going to listen to any flimsy excuses or foggy explanations that don’t tell me anything. I heard that for a couple of years already and I’m done with this. I think I’m done with you.” What, no! Okay, so I couldn’t talk much about what I’d been doing for AFSOC during my training there and the missions I went on but she knew that? The moment I told her Special Operations Command pulled me off flight school, she knew there’d be prolonged periods of not talking to each other and most of all she knew I wasn’t allowed to talk about what I was doing there. She never said anything about this before!
And most of all, that’s no reason to blow off our friendship, just like that. “I’m not here for explanations, Laura. I’m just here because I want to talk to a friend.” She’s about to say something but I’m pretty sure I don’t want to hear it. Hearing her say she’s through with me once was enough, thank you very much. “Can we please not do this out here? If you’re about to end this friendship, at least let’s do it in private?”
For a moment, it looks as if she’ll just shut the door in my face but then she nods and steps aside. Trying not to hesitate, I enter the apartment. I think I heard she say to someone in the infirmary that she’s sharing it with some civilian or other. There are only few signs of her having moved in and I guess that’s because she didn’t have much to move, anyway. For some reason, Laura never was a person to accumulate much beside the bare necessities of life.
So we’re in the living room now. And she’s glaring at me again. At this rate, I’ll never get my team medic. Okay, so, um… “Look, Laura, I get that you’re a little… miffed…”
“A little miffed? Are you even listening to yourself, you moron? I’m not miffed, I’m pissed off, and I have every right to be!” Oh come on. But she let me in. That has to count for something.
I also think that this is a good time for this diplomacy thing. “Hey, uh, I know that I probably didn’t… depart under the best of circumstances,” spare me the snorting if you want me to try and keep this diplomacy thing up, okay? “But… it was part of the job. And… I didn’t do it because I wanted to?” That… was not supposed to sound like a question.
“Oh right, and you couldn’t even have sent me a birthday card? Holiday greetings? Sent Charlie and Anna congratulations for their second kid? Anything? To anyone?” No. No, I couldn’t. I wasn’t allowed to, okay?
Okay. Diplomacy. Diplomacy’s the word. Yes. “Look, I wanted to, okay, but…”
“I was deployed, Tom!” Oh. Yes. Yes, she was. And… I think… I think I’m starting to get what this is about. Dimly. “Afghanistan, for Heaven’s sake! I never pulled 72 hour shifts before, dammit! I could have used your fucking support!” This is a bad moment to tell her that I was in Afghanistan around the same time for a couple OEF ops, right? And it’s an even worse moment to tell her that I saw her during one of those 72 hour shifts in Camp Warehouse, isn’t it?
But I wish I could tell her. I wish I could tell her I was there because one of my team members needed emergency surgery in a field hospital as well equipped as the Germans’ one and I wish I could tell her that I wasn’t allowed to talk to her because my commanding officer knew I knew one of the doctors serving there. I wish I could tell her I tried to find a way to lock her up in her quarters so she’d sleep off the horrible way she looked when I saw her coming out of the hospital building to sit down in front of it, her crumpled scrub cap in her hand and her head on her drawn up knees and I’m pretty sure she was crying with exhaustion. Dee said as much when he came back from the tentative Laura scouting mission I sent him on.
I take a deep breath. “I’m sorry, Laura.” It came out quieter than intended.
She shakes her head again… but somehow, she sounds… different now, when she says, “You said that before.”
Mh. I think I can allow myself a little lopsided grin now. “It’s still true.” Aw, don’t try to give me that glare again. I am sorry. I can’t help adding, “Come on, you’re my best friend. Did you really think you could lock me away in the tallest room of the highest tower and beset me with a dragon?”
I can see very well that her first reaction is to want to shout at me again for the quip but she has known me for practically all her life. She knows no one can keep me from going somewhere if I want to. Or if my duty demands it from me. It’s still not nice to hear the weariness in her voice when she asks instead of shouting, “Where were you, Tom?”
“In Narnia.” It comes out so fast that it nearly shocks me. But that’s what months of conditioning do to you. And besides, telling her where I really spent almost all of last year would put her in danger. I’m not going to do that.
Not even if it makes her shout at me again. “Goddammit, Tom, not even your mother knew where you were!”
Oh, come on. “When did my mother ever know where I was?”
“Tom! Stop being a fucking idiot!” Could she please stop insulting me?
“I’m not being…”
“Yes, you are.” I just said I’m not being an idiot. I’m protecting her and my mother and… “Look, even if you didn’t want to tell your mother… you could have told your friends. Not even Evan and Charlie knew where you were.” Actually… That’s not quite true. Williamson knew. Or at least… at least Williamson knew I wanted to get out of there. It’s why I’m at the SGC now. But I guess it’s not a good idea to tell her that now.
So instead I tell her the other truth. “I couldn’t, Laura.”
Again, she’s silent for a while. Instead of saying anything, she sits down on the couch and hides her face in her hands. Damn, I should have never come here. I shouldn’t have come here to harass her after a day of weird medical issues and… “I never told you before… but I hated the job they gave you.”
Oh. Well. She never… said anything about that before. But then again… I never told her I didn’t like that she chose a field as unpredictable and dangerous as virology as her specialty. I just figured she’d do it anyway. And I guess that’s what she thought when I wordlessly accepted the transfer to AFSOC.
However… unlike Laura, who loves all the research stuff she’s doing… I never wanted to be drafted by AFSOC. I just figured it was the only thing I actually excelled at. I sigh. “It wasn’t just you.”
Mh. That seemed to have surprised her, since she actually looks at me again, frowning. “Tom, why didn’t you…”
“I did. I quit the job.” Or I asked Williamson if he couldn’t find at least some unit that could use someone like me and wouldn’t put me behind a desk immediately. And he did. “Why do you think I’m in The Springs now?”
“Yeah, well… That’s probably the one thing that saved you, Tom.” In more way than one, actually. But let’s not tell her that.
Also… did she just tell me she has sort of forgiven me? Does that mean it’s a good idea to ask her this now, “So… would you… would you do me the honor and be my new team medic?”
“I don’t believe this.” Mh, maybe not. “Here I thought you came to me to talk about…”
Hey, we did talk! I even apologized! I’ve had it now. “Laura! I was just handing you the damn hatchet to bury it! I want you on my team because you’re my friend, okay?”
And because I can’t bear the thought of anyone else putting you in danger other than me. Because there’s no one who can protect you better from your stupid workaholic self than me. I hope my very pissed off glare can communicate that.
Mh. Wow. Yes, it actually looks as if it did. Who’s looking contrite now, missy? “Okay, yes, I will.”
Oh, Wait. She just said yes. I… uh… have a new team medic. Yes. That totally warrants a grin and a lot of smugness. “Lorne’s going to be so sad.”
“You’re such an asshole.” Of course I am. What did you think?
Besides… “It’s what you love about me, isn’t it?”
I take that rolling her eyes think as a yes and… “Shut the fuck up and sit your ass down.”
Uh, what? “Excuse me?”
“Full Metal Jacket’s on tonight and my roomie’s out of town for the rest of the week.” Oh. Right. She wants us to spend the rest of the evening lounging around on her couch, watching war movies. Actually, that sounds like a really good idea.
So I flop down on the couch next to her with the words, “Why didn’t you say that earlier? Got popcorn?”
There’s a trademark “why do I even bear with you” sigh and then she gets up and comes back with a bowl that she pushes against my chest - ow! - with the words, “Knock yourself out,” sits down next to me and switches on the TV, just in time for the opening credits.
We both slide down the couch and put our feet up on the coffee table and I keep punching her for making all the wrong quips in all the wrong places and she keeps kicking me for trying to keep all the popcorn to myself and suddenly… suddenly it feels as if I was never gone. So much that I can’t help saying, “I missed you, Laura.”
I’m waiting for her to snort and laugh at such an admission or giving me a lecture on never having had to take that assignment in the first place but all I get is, “I missed you, too, Tom,” and a grin while she steals some more of my popcorn. Just like in the old days. Maybe I didn’t ruin our friendship, after all. Maybe, just for once in my life, I had a good idea. There’s a first time for everything.