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prficathons2010-07-27 01:30 am
defeatedbyabridge) wrote in prficathons2010-07-27 01:30 am
The Duality of Happiness (You'll Get There in the End Remix) (by Quesera_fics for Mariko Azrael)
Title: The Duality of Happiness (You'll Get There in the End Remix)
Remixing: The Duality of Happiness
Recipient:gingayellow
Rating: PG
Pairing: Katie/Trip
Summary: Returning to 3001 is more difficult for some of the Rangers than others. Luckily, Katie and Trip are not about to leave them alone. Post series, so spoilers for all of Time Force.
After the week of rest necessitated by three 1000-year time jumps in less than 48 hours, Jen and her team return to their everyday jobs within Time Force, and Alex is fine with that.
He attends every meeting Captain Logan manages to pull together while Jen's team recovers in the medical ward and signs every form shoved in front of him, rushing through the paperwork designed to excuse, ignore, and hide away any and all faults. By the time the team awakes, their crimes that should have resulted in considerable jail time - stealing a Timeship, stealing the Chronomorphers, disobeying direct orders, refusing memory adaption - have been quietly filed away and forgotten. Alex does not begrudge them this. These Rangers’ actions have saved their own time and another, and Alex has always believed that such bravery should be rewarded rather than punished.
Jen wakes up and immediately requests a transfer.
Because she is Jen, she does not do so by any of the automated routes available to her, but walks directly into Alex's office to make her case. "It would be better for the both of us," she says, and "I've the experience now to make an excellent field officer." Alex nods, asks all the right questions, and then sends her off with the correct paperwork to approve her transfer from city security to timeline protection. He spends the rest of the afternoon staring at the wall in front of his desk that forms the rear of Captain Logan's office, where Jen will make all her reports from now on. He is still there when the cleaning staff arrives the next morning.
Alex is fine. His work remains perfect, efficient, flawless. With Ransik gone he has only minor crime to deal with, and even without his morpher (lost to time now, buried with the man who bears his face) he has no problem apprehending the small time crooks and petty thieves that cross his path. His unit has never received more glowing performance evaluations.
Occasionally he sees the other Rangers, who have returned to their own specialties in the absence of Jen. Trip always smiles at him, wide grin lighting up his face as he stops to talk. Lucas specializes in cool looks. Katie tends towards quick, uncertain smiles and slightly awkward conversation. And Jen -
Alex and Jen are professionals. They greet each other appropriately.
Today he sees Katie walking towards him from down the hall, and her tentative smile hurts something deep in his chest. He nods to her in greeting and picks up the pace a bit, suddenly unwilling to stop and say hello. Of all the Rangers, Katie seems the most at home back at Time Force. Where Lucas glides through the workplace without leaving any mark of his passing, and Jen nearly vibrates with the repressed energy that carries her farther from Time Force on each new mission, Katie smiles and laughs and greets her coworkers and cheerfully takes lunch with her new team. Her entire self seems present in a way that both Jen and Lucas manifestly are not. If he were a less observant man, he might wonder why she has adjusted so well to her abrupt displacement in time, but as it is, her reasons are obvious for anyone who cares to look.
Just before he turns the corner, a new voice rings out in the hallway, and no matter how much he might wish to, he can’t stop himself from turning around to see.
Trip’s vibrant green hair loses some of its brilliance under the harsh institutional light, but nothing can dim the force of his smile as he beams up at Katie. “Katie! I finally fixed all the bugs in the new programming Captain Logan wants for the security systems!” Alex listens, rooted to the floor, as Trip stammers through an invitation to dinner and Katie rewards him with an acceptance and a smile that speaks of so much affection he can hardly bear to see it. He doesn’t watch them go.
Alex’s chest aches as his fingers clench around the ring he'd rather die than admit to anyone he still carries in his pocket, just as he had on the day of Ransik's trial when he had seen his future shining in Jen’s eyes, bright and free and glorious.
***
Back in 3001, Lucas drifts.
He misses Wes, but he doesn’t feel the loss as deeply as Trip and Katie and Jen do. His own family remains distant, and he acknowledges that if their actions in the past have changed his family history in small ways then he will probably never notice the difference. The people who he had called friends greet him on his return with the same casual indifference he had felt in their absence. No one has missed him, and he has missed no one in return. The first night back in his own apartment, he switches on the cleaning programs and watches the bots scurry through his empty rooms for nearly an hour before going out to get drunk with the men and women from his shift whose names he will never remember.
The first time Lucas visits Nadira in prison, it's an accident.
He's covering a shift for a prison guard who eloped last weekend, and the hours pass slowly until he takes to patrolling the halls instead of continually manning the front desk. It’s strange working in a place with cells rather than cryo units, but Time Force reserves the deep freeze for criminals condemned for years rather than weeks or months. It comes as an utter shock when he turns a corner and spots an all too familiar head of pink hair.
Lucas has known, in the vague office gossip sort of way, that both Nadira and her father are being held without bail until their trials are completed, but he has never connected that knowledge with the prison he is currently patrolling. He walks to the cell door before he really thinks about it.
“Nadira.”
She looks strangely smaller than usual, curled up on the tiny bed. The awful orange prison uniform clashes terribly with her hair. For a moment he thinks she won’t answer him, but then she looks up.
“Blue Ranger.” She sits up straight, tosses her hair and makes a valiant effort to look intimidating. “Come to gloat?”
“Ah, no,” he says, a bit startled, and also rather annoyed with himself. What in the world is he trying to accomplish? Still, he answers her, “I’m working here today.”
She looks at him haughtily for another moment before dropping the act completely, throwing herself dramatically back on the bed with a heartfelt groan. “Good. Because it would be simply too cruel, for a Ranger to come torment me when I have already suffered so much and am paying back everything I owe.”
He almost laughs, especially when she peeks over at him to see how he’s reacting, then immediately falls back into her swoon. Then he shakes his head at his own foolishness. “No worries here, then. Goodbye, Nadira.”
She launches into an epic performance of tormented innocence as he turns away, increasingly colored by indignation as he keeps walking. The sound follows him down the hallway, and by the time he gets back to the desk he’s smiling.
He doesn’t mean to, but somehow he keeps finding himself back on shift at the prison. He might possibly have put his name down as someone to call for emergency shifts, but still, that shouldn’t happen all that often. Every time it does, though, at some point he inevitably walks down to check on Nadira. She never drops the dramatics, but slowly he begins to piece together something of fact behind the hysterics – the story of a birth, a baby boy, and a curiosity about life untainted by hatred. She seems almost harmless here, even though he knows from countless battles how much a mistake that is. Her sincerity never wavers, however, and almost against his will he begins to wonder if prison really is the best place for her.
One day, while talking to Nadira, he hears footsteps coming down the hall and stops talking immediately. He’s not quite sure how long he’s been standing here, but he knows it’s longer than any cell patrol should take. He turns, excuses ready on his lips, to meet Trip’s surprised face.
“Lucas! What are you doing here?”
“I work here,” Lucas answers automatically, glad for the easy answer. He heads off more questions with a question of his own. “What are you doing here?”
“Oh, I’m visiting Nadira,” Trip says easily. He turns his huge grin on the occupant of the cell. “How are you doing today?”
“Quite well, until this blue moron decided to come invade my privacy,” Nadira huffs. Lucas sputters a protest, but Trip just laughs.
“I didn’t know you came to talk to Nadira, too. That’s great!”
“I don’t really-” Lucas can’t think of a way to explain what he’s actually doing, so he’s relieved when Trip completely ignores him in favor of Nadira. The two launch into a conversation so easily that it’s very clear they’ve done this many times before. Lucas shifts awkwardly for a few endless minutes. Neither of them notice, and suddenly it’s very important that he be somewhere else.
“Later.” He raises his hand casually, aiming for his least interested expression and not looking at Nadira. “Duty calls.”
“Oh, I have to go, too,” Trip says immediately. “I’m sorry, Nadira, but I don’t have much time today. See you next week, though?”
“Hmph. See if I care.” In the next moment, though, her face changes. “Trip, did you ever find…”
“No. I didn’t find anything,” Trip says softly. Nadira’s face falls. “I’ll keep looking, though. The birth records from a millennia ago aren’t very thorough, but I’ll try.”
She nods, and Trip hurries to catch up with Lucas. Lucas burns to know what Trip means by that, what he is researching for Nadira, but somehow the idea of asking makes his stomach churn. “You seem close,” he says instead, and nearly flinches at the inanity of that statement.
“Close? Not really, I don’t think. But Katie and I come in when we can. I think she likes having someone to talk to.” Lucas’ stomach eases at the mention of Katie. He deliberately doesn’t think about what that means.
“In fact, speaking of Katie – would you like to come over to her apartment on Saturday? Katie wants to get everyone together sometime, and I know she’s asking Jen later today. Alex too, if she can manage it.” Trip’s face glows with hope and that special happiness that always comes over him when he mentions Katie. Lucas doesn’t know that he wants to go, but only a monster could say no to Trip when he looks like that.
“Sure,” he says, and only half-listens to Trip’s exclamations of joy and predictions of what a wonderful time they will all have together. Instead, he looks back over his shoulder, and sees that Nadira has come to the front of her cell to watch them go. Caught by a sudden impulse, he waves. Something leaps in his chest when she waves back.
***
Jen takes to her new position on Captain Logan’s timeline protection squad with a fierce and competent intensity that quickly catapults her to the position of first in line for every difficult mission, anything accompanied by more than the ordinary sort of danger. After that first disastrous return to 3001, no one has ever bothered her with talk of memory adaption, and she’s glad. She would hate to have to explain after every mission that she will never enter one of those chambers again.
She spends every moment in the field that Captain Logan will allow her, but even then there are days that she must remain in the Time Force offices. On one of those days in which Logan forces her back into the office, Jen meets Alex by chance in a hallway. They conduct a perfectly civil conversation for nearly ten minutes, in the manner of casual office acquaintances, before she goes home and closes the door and attacks her punching bag until she can’t tell whether the water dripping from her face is sweat or tears.
Katie worries about her, she knows. She’s quite sure that’s why Katie went out of her way to ask her to lunch today. Jen makes an effort, truly she does, but Katie talks about Trip’s latest project with the kind of smile it’s honestly painful to look at, and then Jen can’t take it any more.
“I’m sorry,” she interrupts. “I have a meeting to get to. Thanks for the lunch, though,” she adds, because it isn’t Katie’s fault that she has what Jen never will.
Katie stops her with a hand on her wrist, just strong enough to let Jen know she won’t get away so easily. “I heard you’re going on another mission this weekend.” Jen nods.
“Captain Logan says he needs someone experienced with blending into the populace, and of course, there isn’t anyone with more experience than me,” she says. Katie just looks at her, and Jen knows it won’t be enough. Still, she tries. “I’m really a second choice, but Lieutenant Anderson has his anniversary this weekend, so I volunteered in his place.”
“Jen. It’s going to be dangerous.” Katie stares her down. “Like the last one was dangerous, and the one before that.”
“I’m more than capable of handling a little danger.” Jen’s voice is too sharp, and she tugs at her wrist hard enough to force Katie to either let go or employ her enhanced strength to keep her there. Katie releases her, then sighs.
“Just – be careful out there, okay? We want you back in one piece.” Jen nods again, and then her stomach sinks as Katie’s expression grows determined. “And come by my place on Saturday, before you leave. Trip’s already invited Lucas, and it’s been too long since we’ve been together as a team.”
But we’re not a team, Jen thinks with a sudden burst of furious pain. She almost wants to say it, but she knows too well it won’t fix anything, and Katie’s expression won’t take no for an answer. “Okay,” she says shortly. “Saturday.” She gets up from the table then, her posture daring Katie to stop her. This time, Katie lets her go.
Jen keeps her back straight and her face controlled as she walks back to her office, even as she sees nothing before her eyes but the worry in Katie’s expression. Despite her best control, she begins walking faster. She knows what Katie did not say to her, the fear she did not express. Jen doesn’t know what to say to put her mind at ease.
Jen doesn’t want to die. Her missions, each one more dangerous than the next, have nothing to do with that. She doesn’t feel more alive when in the field, and even the simple satisfaction of doing her job better than anyone else seems to elude her these days. Katie fears the first reason, and would understand the second. But could Jen really bear to admit to herself that each time she takes on a new mission, her heart rises and then falls when she sees that once again, the dates involved fail to fall within the lifetime of one man?
Jen does her job and does it well. She takes no unnecessary risks. Katie has no reason to worry.
She just wants to see Wes again. Is that really so hard to understand?
***
Dinner at Katie’s Saturday night starts out as a disaster. Trip is trying once again to recreate pizza with 31st century ingredients, and this particular attempt meets with almost ludicrous failure and more smoke than Jen feels comfortable with. Alex arrives forty-five minutes late and proceeds to perch on a chair right next to the door and say nothing to anyone. Lucas alternates sarcastic comments with staring into space.
Somehow, though, while Jen isn’t watching, the night relaxes into something bearable. Trip and Katie manage to get everyone, even Alex, involved in the massive argument about where to get takeout, and somewhere between defending her choice and arguing over who has to pay the bill, Jen feels something too tight within her unwind, just enough.
Then the food fight starts (she’ll never know quite how, but the satisfied gleam in Katie’s eyes gives rise to certain suspicions), and she’s so startled that the tightness within her chest lets go of her completely.
By the time it’s over the apartment is a sticky, smelly mess, and Katie is swearing revenge for the juice Trip poured over her hair. She watches Katie chase Trip around the table, both laughing too hard to maintain even the slightest pretense of anger. Lucas is calling out advice to both of them in turns, his voice lightly sardonic as usual but with something genuinely amused turned up in the corners of his mouth. Out of the corner of her eye, she can see Alex shift a little from his place of refuge by the door to a position that almost, but not quite, suggests that he is not looking for the first opportunity to escape.
Jen leaves tomorrow for her most dangerous mission yet, and for the first time since returning to her own present (because this isn't the future, not for her, and she must remember that), it occurs to her to stay.
Remixing: The Duality of Happiness
Recipient:
gingayellowRating: PG
Pairing: Katie/Trip
Summary: Returning to 3001 is more difficult for some of the Rangers than others. Luckily, Katie and Trip are not about to leave them alone. Post series, so spoilers for all of Time Force.
After the week of rest necessitated by three 1000-year time jumps in less than 48 hours, Jen and her team return to their everyday jobs within Time Force, and Alex is fine with that.
He attends every meeting Captain Logan manages to pull together while Jen's team recovers in the medical ward and signs every form shoved in front of him, rushing through the paperwork designed to excuse, ignore, and hide away any and all faults. By the time the team awakes, their crimes that should have resulted in considerable jail time - stealing a Timeship, stealing the Chronomorphers, disobeying direct orders, refusing memory adaption - have been quietly filed away and forgotten. Alex does not begrudge them this. These Rangers’ actions have saved their own time and another, and Alex has always believed that such bravery should be rewarded rather than punished.
Jen wakes up and immediately requests a transfer.
Because she is Jen, she does not do so by any of the automated routes available to her, but walks directly into Alex's office to make her case. "It would be better for the both of us," she says, and "I've the experience now to make an excellent field officer." Alex nods, asks all the right questions, and then sends her off with the correct paperwork to approve her transfer from city security to timeline protection. He spends the rest of the afternoon staring at the wall in front of his desk that forms the rear of Captain Logan's office, where Jen will make all her reports from now on. He is still there when the cleaning staff arrives the next morning.
Alex is fine. His work remains perfect, efficient, flawless. With Ransik gone he has only minor crime to deal with, and even without his morpher (lost to time now, buried with the man who bears his face) he has no problem apprehending the small time crooks and petty thieves that cross his path. His unit has never received more glowing performance evaluations.
Occasionally he sees the other Rangers, who have returned to their own specialties in the absence of Jen. Trip always smiles at him, wide grin lighting up his face as he stops to talk. Lucas specializes in cool looks. Katie tends towards quick, uncertain smiles and slightly awkward conversation. And Jen -
Alex and Jen are professionals. They greet each other appropriately.
Today he sees Katie walking towards him from down the hall, and her tentative smile hurts something deep in his chest. He nods to her in greeting and picks up the pace a bit, suddenly unwilling to stop and say hello. Of all the Rangers, Katie seems the most at home back at Time Force. Where Lucas glides through the workplace without leaving any mark of his passing, and Jen nearly vibrates with the repressed energy that carries her farther from Time Force on each new mission, Katie smiles and laughs and greets her coworkers and cheerfully takes lunch with her new team. Her entire self seems present in a way that both Jen and Lucas manifestly are not. If he were a less observant man, he might wonder why she has adjusted so well to her abrupt displacement in time, but as it is, her reasons are obvious for anyone who cares to look.
Just before he turns the corner, a new voice rings out in the hallway, and no matter how much he might wish to, he can’t stop himself from turning around to see.
Trip’s vibrant green hair loses some of its brilliance under the harsh institutional light, but nothing can dim the force of his smile as he beams up at Katie. “Katie! I finally fixed all the bugs in the new programming Captain Logan wants for the security systems!” Alex listens, rooted to the floor, as Trip stammers through an invitation to dinner and Katie rewards him with an acceptance and a smile that speaks of so much affection he can hardly bear to see it. He doesn’t watch them go.
Alex’s chest aches as his fingers clench around the ring he'd rather die than admit to anyone he still carries in his pocket, just as he had on the day of Ransik's trial when he had seen his future shining in Jen’s eyes, bright and free and glorious.
***
Back in 3001, Lucas drifts.
He misses Wes, but he doesn’t feel the loss as deeply as Trip and Katie and Jen do. His own family remains distant, and he acknowledges that if their actions in the past have changed his family history in small ways then he will probably never notice the difference. The people who he had called friends greet him on his return with the same casual indifference he had felt in their absence. No one has missed him, and he has missed no one in return. The first night back in his own apartment, he switches on the cleaning programs and watches the bots scurry through his empty rooms for nearly an hour before going out to get drunk with the men and women from his shift whose names he will never remember.
The first time Lucas visits Nadira in prison, it's an accident.
He's covering a shift for a prison guard who eloped last weekend, and the hours pass slowly until he takes to patrolling the halls instead of continually manning the front desk. It’s strange working in a place with cells rather than cryo units, but Time Force reserves the deep freeze for criminals condemned for years rather than weeks or months. It comes as an utter shock when he turns a corner and spots an all too familiar head of pink hair.
Lucas has known, in the vague office gossip sort of way, that both Nadira and her father are being held without bail until their trials are completed, but he has never connected that knowledge with the prison he is currently patrolling. He walks to the cell door before he really thinks about it.
“Nadira.”
She looks strangely smaller than usual, curled up on the tiny bed. The awful orange prison uniform clashes terribly with her hair. For a moment he thinks she won’t answer him, but then she looks up.
“Blue Ranger.” She sits up straight, tosses her hair and makes a valiant effort to look intimidating. “Come to gloat?”
“Ah, no,” he says, a bit startled, and also rather annoyed with himself. What in the world is he trying to accomplish? Still, he answers her, “I’m working here today.”
She looks at him haughtily for another moment before dropping the act completely, throwing herself dramatically back on the bed with a heartfelt groan. “Good. Because it would be simply too cruel, for a Ranger to come torment me when I have already suffered so much and am paying back everything I owe.”
He almost laughs, especially when she peeks over at him to see how he’s reacting, then immediately falls back into her swoon. Then he shakes his head at his own foolishness. “No worries here, then. Goodbye, Nadira.”
She launches into an epic performance of tormented innocence as he turns away, increasingly colored by indignation as he keeps walking. The sound follows him down the hallway, and by the time he gets back to the desk he’s smiling.
He doesn’t mean to, but somehow he keeps finding himself back on shift at the prison. He might possibly have put his name down as someone to call for emergency shifts, but still, that shouldn’t happen all that often. Every time it does, though, at some point he inevitably walks down to check on Nadira. She never drops the dramatics, but slowly he begins to piece together something of fact behind the hysterics – the story of a birth, a baby boy, and a curiosity about life untainted by hatred. She seems almost harmless here, even though he knows from countless battles how much a mistake that is. Her sincerity never wavers, however, and almost against his will he begins to wonder if prison really is the best place for her.
One day, while talking to Nadira, he hears footsteps coming down the hall and stops talking immediately. He’s not quite sure how long he’s been standing here, but he knows it’s longer than any cell patrol should take. He turns, excuses ready on his lips, to meet Trip’s surprised face.
“Lucas! What are you doing here?”
“I work here,” Lucas answers automatically, glad for the easy answer. He heads off more questions with a question of his own. “What are you doing here?”
“Oh, I’m visiting Nadira,” Trip says easily. He turns his huge grin on the occupant of the cell. “How are you doing today?”
“Quite well, until this blue moron decided to come invade my privacy,” Nadira huffs. Lucas sputters a protest, but Trip just laughs.
“I didn’t know you came to talk to Nadira, too. That’s great!”
“I don’t really-” Lucas can’t think of a way to explain what he’s actually doing, so he’s relieved when Trip completely ignores him in favor of Nadira. The two launch into a conversation so easily that it’s very clear they’ve done this many times before. Lucas shifts awkwardly for a few endless minutes. Neither of them notice, and suddenly it’s very important that he be somewhere else.
“Later.” He raises his hand casually, aiming for his least interested expression and not looking at Nadira. “Duty calls.”
“Oh, I have to go, too,” Trip says immediately. “I’m sorry, Nadira, but I don’t have much time today. See you next week, though?”
“Hmph. See if I care.” In the next moment, though, her face changes. “Trip, did you ever find…”
“No. I didn’t find anything,” Trip says softly. Nadira’s face falls. “I’ll keep looking, though. The birth records from a millennia ago aren’t very thorough, but I’ll try.”
She nods, and Trip hurries to catch up with Lucas. Lucas burns to know what Trip means by that, what he is researching for Nadira, but somehow the idea of asking makes his stomach churn. “You seem close,” he says instead, and nearly flinches at the inanity of that statement.
“Close? Not really, I don’t think. But Katie and I come in when we can. I think she likes having someone to talk to.” Lucas’ stomach eases at the mention of Katie. He deliberately doesn’t think about what that means.
“In fact, speaking of Katie – would you like to come over to her apartment on Saturday? Katie wants to get everyone together sometime, and I know she’s asking Jen later today. Alex too, if she can manage it.” Trip’s face glows with hope and that special happiness that always comes over him when he mentions Katie. Lucas doesn’t know that he wants to go, but only a monster could say no to Trip when he looks like that.
“Sure,” he says, and only half-listens to Trip’s exclamations of joy and predictions of what a wonderful time they will all have together. Instead, he looks back over his shoulder, and sees that Nadira has come to the front of her cell to watch them go. Caught by a sudden impulse, he waves. Something leaps in his chest when she waves back.
***
Jen takes to her new position on Captain Logan’s timeline protection squad with a fierce and competent intensity that quickly catapults her to the position of first in line for every difficult mission, anything accompanied by more than the ordinary sort of danger. After that first disastrous return to 3001, no one has ever bothered her with talk of memory adaption, and she’s glad. She would hate to have to explain after every mission that she will never enter one of those chambers again.
She spends every moment in the field that Captain Logan will allow her, but even then there are days that she must remain in the Time Force offices. On one of those days in which Logan forces her back into the office, Jen meets Alex by chance in a hallway. They conduct a perfectly civil conversation for nearly ten minutes, in the manner of casual office acquaintances, before she goes home and closes the door and attacks her punching bag until she can’t tell whether the water dripping from her face is sweat or tears.
Katie worries about her, she knows. She’s quite sure that’s why Katie went out of her way to ask her to lunch today. Jen makes an effort, truly she does, but Katie talks about Trip’s latest project with the kind of smile it’s honestly painful to look at, and then Jen can’t take it any more.
“I’m sorry,” she interrupts. “I have a meeting to get to. Thanks for the lunch, though,” she adds, because it isn’t Katie’s fault that she has what Jen never will.
Katie stops her with a hand on her wrist, just strong enough to let Jen know she won’t get away so easily. “I heard you’re going on another mission this weekend.” Jen nods.
“Captain Logan says he needs someone experienced with blending into the populace, and of course, there isn’t anyone with more experience than me,” she says. Katie just looks at her, and Jen knows it won’t be enough. Still, she tries. “I’m really a second choice, but Lieutenant Anderson has his anniversary this weekend, so I volunteered in his place.”
“Jen. It’s going to be dangerous.” Katie stares her down. “Like the last one was dangerous, and the one before that.”
“I’m more than capable of handling a little danger.” Jen’s voice is too sharp, and she tugs at her wrist hard enough to force Katie to either let go or employ her enhanced strength to keep her there. Katie releases her, then sighs.
“Just – be careful out there, okay? We want you back in one piece.” Jen nods again, and then her stomach sinks as Katie’s expression grows determined. “And come by my place on Saturday, before you leave. Trip’s already invited Lucas, and it’s been too long since we’ve been together as a team.”
But we’re not a team, Jen thinks with a sudden burst of furious pain. She almost wants to say it, but she knows too well it won’t fix anything, and Katie’s expression won’t take no for an answer. “Okay,” she says shortly. “Saturday.” She gets up from the table then, her posture daring Katie to stop her. This time, Katie lets her go.
Jen keeps her back straight and her face controlled as she walks back to her office, even as she sees nothing before her eyes but the worry in Katie’s expression. Despite her best control, she begins walking faster. She knows what Katie did not say to her, the fear she did not express. Jen doesn’t know what to say to put her mind at ease.
Jen doesn’t want to die. Her missions, each one more dangerous than the next, have nothing to do with that. She doesn’t feel more alive when in the field, and even the simple satisfaction of doing her job better than anyone else seems to elude her these days. Katie fears the first reason, and would understand the second. But could Jen really bear to admit to herself that each time she takes on a new mission, her heart rises and then falls when she sees that once again, the dates involved fail to fall within the lifetime of one man?
Jen does her job and does it well. She takes no unnecessary risks. Katie has no reason to worry.
She just wants to see Wes again. Is that really so hard to understand?
***
Dinner at Katie’s Saturday night starts out as a disaster. Trip is trying once again to recreate pizza with 31st century ingredients, and this particular attempt meets with almost ludicrous failure and more smoke than Jen feels comfortable with. Alex arrives forty-five minutes late and proceeds to perch on a chair right next to the door and say nothing to anyone. Lucas alternates sarcastic comments with staring into space.
Somehow, though, while Jen isn’t watching, the night relaxes into something bearable. Trip and Katie manage to get everyone, even Alex, involved in the massive argument about where to get takeout, and somewhere between defending her choice and arguing over who has to pay the bill, Jen feels something too tight within her unwind, just enough.
Then the food fight starts (she’ll never know quite how, but the satisfied gleam in Katie’s eyes gives rise to certain suspicions), and she’s so startled that the tightness within her chest lets go of her completely.
By the time it’s over the apartment is a sticky, smelly mess, and Katie is swearing revenge for the juice Trip poured over her hair. She watches Katie chase Trip around the table, both laughing too hard to maintain even the slightest pretense of anger. Lucas is calling out advice to both of them in turns, his voice lightly sardonic as usual but with something genuinely amused turned up in the corners of his mouth. Out of the corner of her eye, she can see Alex shift a little from his place of refuge by the door to a position that almost, but not quite, suggests that he is not looking for the first opportunity to escape.
Jen leaves tomorrow for her most dangerous mission yet, and for the first time since returning to her own present (because this isn't the future, not for her, and she must remember that), it occurs to her to stay.
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New dreamwidth account, in case there was any confusion. =)
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/commenting three years late