Team Building with Jack Landors (SPD, A Squad, #24, T)
characters: SPD’s A Squad (Rose/Charlie)
prompt #24: air
word count: 1800
rating: T
summary: "Am I keeping you here? Would you leave if it wasn't for me?"
Team Building with Jack Landors (air)
by *Andrea
Her parents had never actually met Charlie. They hadn’t even been friends until A Squad, and after that things had happened so fast that there hadn’t been a good moment to mention it, let alone introduce them. At the time, Charlie’s rollercoaster “courtship” hadn’t given Rose any reason to believe they’d be together a month, let alone a year, and keeping her mouth shut until it all blew over seemed safest.
Okay, it had seemed easiest. She had wanted to believe, and she hadn’t been ready to hear any of the reasons it would never work. Her parents were two of those reasons--so she hadn’t told them. New team leader, she’d said. Charlie Carrera. Strict, loud, SPD through and through... pisses everyone off. Can’t listen her way out of a paper bag. I’ll let you know how it works out.
And then they’d been deployed. Too fast, too long, everything went wrong at once and all she’d been able to do was leave a message at her parents’ home letting them know that she’d be in touch as soon as she could. There had been so many things she wanted to say, including I think I’m falling in love, but she knew better than to frighten them with the thought that it might be the last time they heard from her.
She didn’t think she was falling for Charlie anymore. It was ancient history, a crush so old after weeks of fighting and fucking and what felt like an entire lifetime spent subsisting side by side in the middle of an untamed jungle that she could no longer remember what it felt like not to know. Not to know that Charlie was a part of her, that she would always be Rose’s champion. That there was nothing she said that she wouldn’t take back if Rose asked.
Unfortunately, her parents didn’t have that perspective, and they certainly hadn’t had a year to get used to it. Which meant, practically speaking, that when they begged her to come home--just for a little while, they insisted, unless it wasn’t--her explanation that Charlie wasn’t ready to leave made no sense to them. She tried anyway, because she might have considered breaking the news about a new relationship over the phone, but she wasn’t going to tell her family that she might as well be married without seeing them in person first.
“We’re not confined, Mama,” she said, for what could have been the dozenth time. “Commander Cruger approved our return to duty; that’s the problem. We’re too busy. We can’t get away right now.”
Except, her mother pointed out, the holiday season surely deserved some recognition. Couldn’t she travel? Couldn’t she take a long weekend, at least? Her family wanted to see her, to know she was okay--didn’t that take precedence over work?
“Charlie’s family too,” she said with a sigh. It was like trying to weigh the wind, to hold air in her hands: balancing one love with the other. “I can’t leave her right now, not with the rest of the team gone.”
This went over about as well today as it had every other time she had explained, and finally she couldn’t take the guilt anymore. “Mama,” she interrupted. “I want you to meet her when I come visit.”
This prompted a moment of silence, and she was pretty sure that was the sound of her mother figuring it out. It was followed by the sound of reluctant acceptance, a little more guilt for good measure, and then her father’s voice. He had obviously been listening, because he asked all the questions they had to have already asked about Charlie... more seriously this time. It made her smile.
Could be worse, she decided, leaning back against one of the lounge couches as she started to relax. More respectable to do it in person, yes. But breaking news over the phone did have its advantages.
Rose had long since closed her eyes, a good sixteen hours behind the time zone she was talking to now, when the cushion behind her head moved. She broke off in the middle of a sentence, opening her eyes, and there was the subject of conversation. “Hi, Charlie,” she said, mostly for her father’s benefit.
Charlie lifted one hand from the back of the couch to wiggle her fingers in reply. Lifting her hand to her ear in a phone gesture, she raised her eyebrows. Who?
“My dad,” Rose told her. “He says hello.”
“Hello back,” Charlie murmured, maybe not loud enough to be heard over the phone. Thinking, then. Serious. Not chatty. She came around the couch anyway and flopped down beside Rose, but Rose knew better than to offer her the phone.
“I’m gonna go,” she told her father. “I’ll call again soon.”
This didn’t seem to upset him, but that was thing about her family: they were unfailingly polite. If there was someone in the room with her, they wouldn’t expect her to keep talking on the phone. Even if that someone was the one teammate they were currently most curious about.
She really was going to find a way to get both of them to Japan. Soon.
“Hi,” Charlie said, the moment she hung up. “So.”
Rose smiled a little, letting the hand with the phone drop over the side of the couch. “So,” she agreed.
“Am I keeping you here?” Charlie wanted to know. “Would you leave if it wasn’t for me? Like the others?”
Her smile faded, but she gave this the consideration it was due. She knew Charlie was going through some things, things she hadn’t wanted to talk about--until now, apparently. She knew crying, painkillers, and alcohol had all been involved. Thankfully at different times. She knew that Charlie had gone to Sky when she thought Rose was overwhelmed.
“I’m not sure the others are going to leave,” Rose said at last. Because that seemed like the biggest part of whatever this was, and she figured they might as well address it first.
“Whatever.” Charlie dismissed this without a second thought. “Do you want to leave?”
Or not. “SPD?” she asked. “Would I quit SPD if it weren’t for you?”
“Yeah.” Charlie put her feet up on the table and stared at them, ignoring the fact that Rose was watching her. “Sky says I’m trying to push you away, by the way. Tell me if it’s working. I’ll stop trying so hard.”
“I didn’t notice,” Rose said. “Unless you being you counts as trying to push me away, which I guess is an argument some people might make.”
That made Charlie smile. Of course. She probably took it as a compliment.
“I don’t know,” Rose added after a moment. “Who cares? You’re here. I’m not quitting. End of story.”
Charlie still didn’t look at her. “What about your family?”
“They want to meet you,” Rose said bluntly. “Still pushing for a vacation. Not that I think it’ll be the most relaxing thing in the world, especially for you, but I have to see them and you might as well get it over with.”
“They’re okay with you staying in?” Charlie managed to ignore everything that had to do with meeting the parents, as she had for weeks. “You were taken prisoner, tortured, marooned, and then imprisoned by our own people, and they’re fine with that?”
“I wouldn’t say they’re fine with it.” Rose lifted her bare feet up onto the couch and pressed them against Charlie’s leg. “I’m okay with it.”
Charlie reached for her feet absently, fingers ghosting across her ankles. “Yeah?”
“Yeah.” She wiggled her toes, and Charlie squeezed her ankle in return. “What about you?”
“I’m okay with you staying in,” Charlie told her.
Rose kicked her. Now she was just being a smart-ass.
“I dunno,” Charlie said, patting her ankles as she got up. Dragging a chair across to the end of the couch, she scooped all the pillows off of it and used them to cushion the arm. It gave her something to lean back against when she sat down again, swinging her legs up onto the couch alongside Rose’s. “Cruger offered to promote us. All of us. To officer.”
Dropping the phone on the floor and pushing it under the couch, she put her hands behind her head. She didn’t know how she felt about that. The base commander hadn’t exactly led the charge to keep them out of confinement, and if Jack hadn’t told her about Isinia, she would have thought he was holding a grudge.
“You always said you didn’t want to go farther than Ranger,” Charlie said after a moment. She was clearly waiting for Rose’s response.
“I don’t--” She hesitated, but Charlie wanted to know. “I don’t really think I’m officer material. And, to be honest...? I’m not sure you are either.”
Charlie snorted. “Please. I could kick officer butt.”
“Yeah, that’s kind of the problem,” Rose said, smiling a little. “What would you do when you were done?”
Charlie raised an eyebrow at her.
“Once you’re better than all the officers,” Rose said, “what do you do then? There’s always another challenge when you’re a Ranger. Civilian law enforcement isn’t quite so... competitive.”
Charlie didn’t answer. Rose tangled their legs together, adjusting the pillow behind her head so she had one hand free to tickle Charlie’s feet. She didn’t say anything either. If there was one thing she knew about Charlie, other than everything, it was that she didn’t need anyone trying to fix her. She would work it out in her own time, and heaven help anyone who told her more than she wanted to hear.
“You’re saying you want to stay a Ranger,” Charlie said at last.
Rose considered that. “No,” she said, slowly. “I’m saying... if we stay in SPD, which I’m absolutely willing to do... I want to work with Rangers. As a Ranger, training Rangers, reinforcing Rangers; I don’t care.
“I’m fine if you don’t,” she added, just in case that wasn’t clear. “I promise to only say ‘I told you so’ a hundred times when you decide that being an officer isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.”
It was Charlie’s turn to kick her.
“Also--” Rose couldn’t resist. “We’ll mock you until the end of time the first day you complain about illegal immigration.” Civvie work, according to Charlie. Rangers didn’t check papers. You did right or you didn’t, and procedure had never been her favorite part of the academy.
“You’re assuming you’ll have company for the mocking,” Charlie muttered.
Rose’s smile faded. The bigger issue, after all.
“Don’t write the team off yet,” she said quietly. “Sometimes we just need something to come back to.”
Charlie let her head fall back against the chair, and there was a bone-deep fatigue in her voice that no amount of sleep would fix. “We kept the faith for two hundred sixty-one days, Rose.” It could have been a promise to continue or a warning that she wasn’t sure she could.
Either way, her place was here. Times like this, Rose thought maybe all she could do was fill it.
prompt #24: air
word count: 1800
rating: T
summary: "Am I keeping you here? Would you leave if it wasn't for me?"
Team Building with Jack Landors (air)
by *Andrea
Her parents had never actually met Charlie. They hadn’t even been friends until A Squad, and after that things had happened so fast that there hadn’t been a good moment to mention it, let alone introduce them. At the time, Charlie’s rollercoaster “courtship” hadn’t given Rose any reason to believe they’d be together a month, let alone a year, and keeping her mouth shut until it all blew over seemed safest.
Okay, it had seemed easiest. She had wanted to believe, and she hadn’t been ready to hear any of the reasons it would never work. Her parents were two of those reasons--so she hadn’t told them. New team leader, she’d said. Charlie Carrera. Strict, loud, SPD through and through... pisses everyone off. Can’t listen her way out of a paper bag. I’ll let you know how it works out.
And then they’d been deployed. Too fast, too long, everything went wrong at once and all she’d been able to do was leave a message at her parents’ home letting them know that she’d be in touch as soon as she could. There had been so many things she wanted to say, including I think I’m falling in love, but she knew better than to frighten them with the thought that it might be the last time they heard from her.
She didn’t think she was falling for Charlie anymore. It was ancient history, a crush so old after weeks of fighting and fucking and what felt like an entire lifetime spent subsisting side by side in the middle of an untamed jungle that she could no longer remember what it felt like not to know. Not to know that Charlie was a part of her, that she would always be Rose’s champion. That there was nothing she said that she wouldn’t take back if Rose asked.
Unfortunately, her parents didn’t have that perspective, and they certainly hadn’t had a year to get used to it. Which meant, practically speaking, that when they begged her to come home--just for a little while, they insisted, unless it wasn’t--her explanation that Charlie wasn’t ready to leave made no sense to them. She tried anyway, because she might have considered breaking the news about a new relationship over the phone, but she wasn’t going to tell her family that she might as well be married without seeing them in person first.
“We’re not confined, Mama,” she said, for what could have been the dozenth time. “Commander Cruger approved our return to duty; that’s the problem. We’re too busy. We can’t get away right now.”
Except, her mother pointed out, the holiday season surely deserved some recognition. Couldn’t she travel? Couldn’t she take a long weekend, at least? Her family wanted to see her, to know she was okay--didn’t that take precedence over work?
“Charlie’s family too,” she said with a sigh. It was like trying to weigh the wind, to hold air in her hands: balancing one love with the other. “I can’t leave her right now, not with the rest of the team gone.”
This went over about as well today as it had every other time she had explained, and finally she couldn’t take the guilt anymore. “Mama,” she interrupted. “I want you to meet her when I come visit.”
This prompted a moment of silence, and she was pretty sure that was the sound of her mother figuring it out. It was followed by the sound of reluctant acceptance, a little more guilt for good measure, and then her father’s voice. He had obviously been listening, because he asked all the questions they had to have already asked about Charlie... more seriously this time. It made her smile.
Could be worse, she decided, leaning back against one of the lounge couches as she started to relax. More respectable to do it in person, yes. But breaking news over the phone did have its advantages.
Rose had long since closed her eyes, a good sixteen hours behind the time zone she was talking to now, when the cushion behind her head moved. She broke off in the middle of a sentence, opening her eyes, and there was the subject of conversation. “Hi, Charlie,” she said, mostly for her father’s benefit.
Charlie lifted one hand from the back of the couch to wiggle her fingers in reply. Lifting her hand to her ear in a phone gesture, she raised her eyebrows. Who?
“My dad,” Rose told her. “He says hello.”
“Hello back,” Charlie murmured, maybe not loud enough to be heard over the phone. Thinking, then. Serious. Not chatty. She came around the couch anyway and flopped down beside Rose, but Rose knew better than to offer her the phone.
“I’m gonna go,” she told her father. “I’ll call again soon.”
This didn’t seem to upset him, but that was thing about her family: they were unfailingly polite. If there was someone in the room with her, they wouldn’t expect her to keep talking on the phone. Even if that someone was the one teammate they were currently most curious about.
She really was going to find a way to get both of them to Japan. Soon.
“Hi,” Charlie said, the moment she hung up. “So.”
Rose smiled a little, letting the hand with the phone drop over the side of the couch. “So,” she agreed.
“Am I keeping you here?” Charlie wanted to know. “Would you leave if it wasn’t for me? Like the others?”
Her smile faded, but she gave this the consideration it was due. She knew Charlie was going through some things, things she hadn’t wanted to talk about--until now, apparently. She knew crying, painkillers, and alcohol had all been involved. Thankfully at different times. She knew that Charlie had gone to Sky when she thought Rose was overwhelmed.
“I’m not sure the others are going to leave,” Rose said at last. Because that seemed like the biggest part of whatever this was, and she figured they might as well address it first.
“Whatever.” Charlie dismissed this without a second thought. “Do you want to leave?”
Or not. “SPD?” she asked. “Would I quit SPD if it weren’t for you?”
“Yeah.” Charlie put her feet up on the table and stared at them, ignoring the fact that Rose was watching her. “Sky says I’m trying to push you away, by the way. Tell me if it’s working. I’ll stop trying so hard.”
“I didn’t notice,” Rose said. “Unless you being you counts as trying to push me away, which I guess is an argument some people might make.”
That made Charlie smile. Of course. She probably took it as a compliment.
“I don’t know,” Rose added after a moment. “Who cares? You’re here. I’m not quitting. End of story.”
Charlie still didn’t look at her. “What about your family?”
“They want to meet you,” Rose said bluntly. “Still pushing for a vacation. Not that I think it’ll be the most relaxing thing in the world, especially for you, but I have to see them and you might as well get it over with.”
“They’re okay with you staying in?” Charlie managed to ignore everything that had to do with meeting the parents, as she had for weeks. “You were taken prisoner, tortured, marooned, and then imprisoned by our own people, and they’re fine with that?”
“I wouldn’t say they’re fine with it.” Rose lifted her bare feet up onto the couch and pressed them against Charlie’s leg. “I’m okay with it.”
Charlie reached for her feet absently, fingers ghosting across her ankles. “Yeah?”
“Yeah.” She wiggled her toes, and Charlie squeezed her ankle in return. “What about you?”
“I’m okay with you staying in,” Charlie told her.
Rose kicked her. Now she was just being a smart-ass.
“I dunno,” Charlie said, patting her ankles as she got up. Dragging a chair across to the end of the couch, she scooped all the pillows off of it and used them to cushion the arm. It gave her something to lean back against when she sat down again, swinging her legs up onto the couch alongside Rose’s. “Cruger offered to promote us. All of us. To officer.”
Dropping the phone on the floor and pushing it under the couch, she put her hands behind her head. She didn’t know how she felt about that. The base commander hadn’t exactly led the charge to keep them out of confinement, and if Jack hadn’t told her about Isinia, she would have thought he was holding a grudge.
“You always said you didn’t want to go farther than Ranger,” Charlie said after a moment. She was clearly waiting for Rose’s response.
“I don’t--” She hesitated, but Charlie wanted to know. “I don’t really think I’m officer material. And, to be honest...? I’m not sure you are either.”
Charlie snorted. “Please. I could kick officer butt.”
“Yeah, that’s kind of the problem,” Rose said, smiling a little. “What would you do when you were done?”
Charlie raised an eyebrow at her.
“Once you’re better than all the officers,” Rose said, “what do you do then? There’s always another challenge when you’re a Ranger. Civilian law enforcement isn’t quite so... competitive.”
Charlie didn’t answer. Rose tangled their legs together, adjusting the pillow behind her head so she had one hand free to tickle Charlie’s feet. She didn’t say anything either. If there was one thing she knew about Charlie, other than everything, it was that she didn’t need anyone trying to fix her. She would work it out in her own time, and heaven help anyone who told her more than she wanted to hear.
“You’re saying you want to stay a Ranger,” Charlie said at last.
Rose considered that. “No,” she said, slowly. “I’m saying... if we stay in SPD, which I’m absolutely willing to do... I want to work with Rangers. As a Ranger, training Rangers, reinforcing Rangers; I don’t care.
“I’m fine if you don’t,” she added, just in case that wasn’t clear. “I promise to only say ‘I told you so’ a hundred times when you decide that being an officer isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.”
It was Charlie’s turn to kick her.
“Also--” Rose couldn’t resist. “We’ll mock you until the end of time the first day you complain about illegal immigration.” Civvie work, according to Charlie. Rangers didn’t check papers. You did right or you didn’t, and procedure had never been her favorite part of the academy.
“You’re assuming you’ll have company for the mocking,” Charlie muttered.
Rose’s smile faded. The bigger issue, after all.
“Don’t write the team off yet,” she said quietly. “Sometimes we just need something to come back to.”
Charlie let her head fall back against the chair, and there was a bone-deep fatigue in her voice that no amount of sleep would fix. “We kept the faith for two hundred sixty-one days, Rose.” It could have been a promise to continue or a warning that she wasn’t sure she could.
Either way, her place was here. Times like this, Rose thought maybe all she could do was fill it.