Team Building with Jack Landors (SPD, A Squad, #9, T)
characters: SPD's A Squad (Kat, Jack/Sky)
prompt #9: not enough
word count: 900
rating: T (for language)
summary: Kat overhears some of what she missed in the mess hall. Among other things.
Team Building with Jack Landors (not enough)
by *Andrea
At a hundred and forty-eight years old, Kat really thought she should be past behaving like a teenager. On the other hand, one benefit of the years was that she could at least recognize it when it was happening. Last night, she might plausibly have claimed that she was working in the lab because it was the only time she had between back-to-back shifts and returning to duty in the morning. This afternoon, though, they were off with explicit orders to rest.
She knew perfectly well that the rest of Jack’s team wasn’t resting. But they were young and didn’t know any better. She of all people should understand that you took the time when you could get it, and that just because they weren’t scheduled to be on call tonight didn’t mean they would actually be able to sleep.
Especially if the fight going on in B Wing was any indication of where squad relations were going. She’d truly believed Jack was going to get himself fired yesterday. When he walked into A Wing after his confrontation with Cruger, still wearing a morpher on his hip, she’d been more surprised than anyone. So now, listening to him and Sky shout at each other directly above her lab, she tried not to wonder if their breakup would lead to one or both of them quitting.
Sky was too professional for that, she told herself. And if Jack hadn’t quit by now...
She couldn’t help overhearing. She knew it drove everyone in B Wing crazy when Cruger stormed in there over some conversation he’d caught from her lab, but such was the disadvantage of human hearing. They just forgot how much farther her own could go--and his, too.
She liked to think she was discreet. The more time the base commander spent in her lab, though, the bigger the problem had become. Because no matter what one could say about Commander Cruger, he certainly didn’t know how to stay out of other people’s business. She didn’t know whether it was because he didn’t trust anyone else to work things out for themselves, or if he just liked meddling because it distracted him from his own problems.
Behaving like a teenager, she reminded herself with a sigh. Never try to assign motivation to someone else’s actions when you’re angry with them. Similarly, never try to assign meaning to conversations heard out of context, which was yet another reason she was trying to ignore the current commotion upstairs.
She couldn’t. Especially when her name suddenly became part of the exchange.
“Well, I didn’t find it funny!” Sky’s voice probably would have been audible even to her human lab assistants, though none were present right now to confirm that. “Between Cruger and your mysteriously disappearing parents, you have zero good role models for marriage in your life, and nothing about today makes me think differently!”
“Don’t talk to me about Cruger’s fucked-up worldview!” Jack was only slightly less voluble. “I know you don’t like it, but at the end of the day, he’s gonna do whatever he wants and you can’t hold me responsible for that! I told him to work things out with Isinia!”
“Kat isn’t Ally--”
“Oh, well, thank you for noticing!”
“--and this isn’t about loyalty!” Sky sounded like he couldn’t even figure out how they’d gotten on this topic, and Kat might had have more sympathy if the topic in question hadn’t been her. “This is about you and the games you play to keep people hanging on your every word! I’m not going to be part of your stupid show! The Jack and Sky Show, today at eleven--”
“Too late.” Jack wasn’t yelling anymore, but he still had to talk loudly enough to make himself heard over Sky. “We’re already on display; that’s the price of being a Ranger. You know that better than I do. But if you want to talk about ego, take a look in the mirror and tell me what you see.”
“My ego isn’t offering to marry yours, Jack.”
“Well, that’s too bad, because I’m sure they’d be very happy together. But my ego wasn’t the one proposing today.”
And that must have gone well. Kat was almost sorry she’d missed it.
“Good, because it wasn’t my ego telling you to fuck off!”
Okay. She hated to admit it, even in the privacy of her own mind, but she was sorry she’d missed it. Maybe Sophie had seen it.
“I think it was,” Jack was saying. “But if you say it wasn’t, it wasn’t. Offer’s open, either way.”
There was no answer to this other than stony silence.
“Come by tonight,” Jack’s voice added after a moment. “If you still want to.”
A few minutes later, Kat could only assume that that had been the end of the discussion. She didn’t know if one or both of them were still in B Wing, but if they were, they weren’t talking. She wondered if Cruger knew what had gone down between them yet--and what he would say when he found out.
She wondered if Jack telling him to “work things out” with Isinia explained why she hadn’t seen him since yesterday’s disastrous A Squad release.
prompt #9: not enough
word count: 900
rating: T (for language)
summary: Kat overhears some of what she missed in the mess hall. Among other things.
Team Building with Jack Landors (not enough)
by *Andrea
At a hundred and forty-eight years old, Kat really thought she should be past behaving like a teenager. On the other hand, one benefit of the years was that she could at least recognize it when it was happening. Last night, she might plausibly have claimed that she was working in the lab because it was the only time she had between back-to-back shifts and returning to duty in the morning. This afternoon, though, they were off with explicit orders to rest.
She knew perfectly well that the rest of Jack’s team wasn’t resting. But they were young and didn’t know any better. She of all people should understand that you took the time when you could get it, and that just because they weren’t scheduled to be on call tonight didn’t mean they would actually be able to sleep.
Especially if the fight going on in B Wing was any indication of where squad relations were going. She’d truly believed Jack was going to get himself fired yesterday. When he walked into A Wing after his confrontation with Cruger, still wearing a morpher on his hip, she’d been more surprised than anyone. So now, listening to him and Sky shout at each other directly above her lab, she tried not to wonder if their breakup would lead to one or both of them quitting.
Sky was too professional for that, she told herself. And if Jack hadn’t quit by now...
She couldn’t help overhearing. She knew it drove everyone in B Wing crazy when Cruger stormed in there over some conversation he’d caught from her lab, but such was the disadvantage of human hearing. They just forgot how much farther her own could go--and his, too.
She liked to think she was discreet. The more time the base commander spent in her lab, though, the bigger the problem had become. Because no matter what one could say about Commander Cruger, he certainly didn’t know how to stay out of other people’s business. She didn’t know whether it was because he didn’t trust anyone else to work things out for themselves, or if he just liked meddling because it distracted him from his own problems.
Behaving like a teenager, she reminded herself with a sigh. Never try to assign motivation to someone else’s actions when you’re angry with them. Similarly, never try to assign meaning to conversations heard out of context, which was yet another reason she was trying to ignore the current commotion upstairs.
She couldn’t. Especially when her name suddenly became part of the exchange.
“Well, I didn’t find it funny!” Sky’s voice probably would have been audible even to her human lab assistants, though none were present right now to confirm that. “Between Cruger and your mysteriously disappearing parents, you have zero good role models for marriage in your life, and nothing about today makes me think differently!”
“Don’t talk to me about Cruger’s fucked-up worldview!” Jack was only slightly less voluble. “I know you don’t like it, but at the end of the day, he’s gonna do whatever he wants and you can’t hold me responsible for that! I told him to work things out with Isinia!”
“Kat isn’t Ally--”
“Oh, well, thank you for noticing!”
“--and this isn’t about loyalty!” Sky sounded like he couldn’t even figure out how they’d gotten on this topic, and Kat might had have more sympathy if the topic in question hadn’t been her. “This is about you and the games you play to keep people hanging on your every word! I’m not going to be part of your stupid show! The Jack and Sky Show, today at eleven--”
“Too late.” Jack wasn’t yelling anymore, but he still had to talk loudly enough to make himself heard over Sky. “We’re already on display; that’s the price of being a Ranger. You know that better than I do. But if you want to talk about ego, take a look in the mirror and tell me what you see.”
“My ego isn’t offering to marry yours, Jack.”
“Well, that’s too bad, because I’m sure they’d be very happy together. But my ego wasn’t the one proposing today.”
And that must have gone well. Kat was almost sorry she’d missed it.
“Good, because it wasn’t my ego telling you to fuck off!”
Okay. She hated to admit it, even in the privacy of her own mind, but she was sorry she’d missed it. Maybe Sophie had seen it.
“I think it was,” Jack was saying. “But if you say it wasn’t, it wasn’t. Offer’s open, either way.”
There was no answer to this other than stony silence.
“Come by tonight,” Jack’s voice added after a moment. “If you still want to.”
A few minutes later, Kat could only assume that that had been the end of the discussion. She didn’t know if one or both of them were still in B Wing, but if they were, they weren’t talking. She wondered if Cruger knew what had gone down between them yet--and what he would say when he found out.
She wondered if Jack telling him to “work things out” with Isinia explained why she hadn’t seen him since yesterday’s disastrous A Squad release.