Yuletide Meta (New Process, We Regret To Inform You, Sunny Side)

[kittydesade]

He tasted salt from the sweat at the curve of her shoulder. He felt her body slip and slide against his, and it was good. It felt pleasurable.

Pleasure was a slow lesson. It took until they landed on their new home planet for him to learn that it was acceptable for him to take pleasure in something for its own sake, without it being a means to an end. This lesson had to be repeated for many emotions and sensations. And again for every form of pleasure, a well-cooked meal or a gift given to him, and now this.

He learned that in this circumstance, different from any other he'd experienced, it was encouraged to both give pleasure and demonstrate that pleasure was received. The rest seemed to be a matter of finding the correct stimuli to provoke responses. He even learned to find all parts of it good, the build up to the forceful conclusion.

After which he fell back against the bed again, and she stretched out on top of him, and his fingers curled through her hair and he thought that this was a luxury he had not been permitted. But it was for this that he was created and sent to fight.

[this didn't actually go anywhere, so I didn't use it, but I thought it was pretty nifty regardless.]

She put her arms around him; for a moment all he felt was the constriction around his upper arms, restricting his maneuverability, and he reacted.

The sound of her impact against the wall brought him up short. Back to the present. He dropped to his knees beside her, going over her with a quick scan and a dozen years' worth of practical experience doing emergency corpsman duties.




"Don't call me that."

They didn't stare at each other so much as watch each other. It wasn't staring, it wasn't so forceful an expression but they kept an eye on each other in case either one of them made so much as a move to shoot, to throw something, throw a punch, kick a vulnerable spot. Him more than her. She'd already kneed him in the balls more times than he cared to remember.

She had her head thrown back in that half-cocky, half-tired look. The one that challenged him to do something to piss her off again and she'd kick his ass so hard he'd be wearing it as a hat.

"Sorry." He wasn't sorry at all, he didn't know what she had against nicknames, but he spread his hands anyway and he was a little sorry that he'd pissed her off.



Dearest Myka,

By the time you read this, I will be gone. Not dead, but in a place where I can no longer cause any harm to anyone, and though you may not believe it is the best solution or that the Regents have my best interests at heart, please believe me when I say it is what I want. From the look of your modern doctors, no doubt they would have many long and complicated words to describe what they feel is wrong with me, and some of them might even be correct. I feel there is something broken inside of me, something the ancient philosophers would have a word for, that we lacked the vocabulary to describe even in my time.

By now you will be questioning at least some of what we have achieved together in the last year. If I may be permitted a moment of ego, you might be questioning a great deal of what we shared. It was not false. Except for the parts where I mis-represented my ultimate intentions I did believe and truly felt what I said and what we shared. And you should know, although you probably wouldn't believe it even if I were standing in front of you telling you right now, that you came very close to changing my mind. Closer than I think anyone else could have.

I know there is nothing I can do to restore your faith in me, so let me help restore some of your faith in yourself. You did nothing wrong. You were a bastion of faith and hope when I needed one, and you were a welcome voice of reason when I needed both an advocate and a good slap upside the head. You fought harder for me than I certainly ever fought for myself, and that is a great blessing, and a comfort.

Please, Myka, if you have any regard for me at all after what I've become, don't let this destroy your faith in the world, and in people. I'm not worth it, certainly, and the world needs more people of faith to fight for what is worthy. And if not for the world, than for your friends, for Claudia and Pete, who do love you and need you as much as I ever have, just as you are. Keep hope, and keep fighting the good fight. You are brilliant, and better at it I think than you give yourself credit for.

Love,

Helen




"Artie?"

"Hm?"

"What are you doing?"

A graying, balding scruffy head popped up from behind the extended file cabinet drawer. "Filing."

Claudia's streak was green today. Her arms were folded over her chest and she had her feet planted on the floor as though nails had been driven into her boots. She was not a young woman to be moved, clearly.

Just as clearly, this flew over Artie's head on Concorde wings. Whatever point she was trying to make was lost as he bent back over his file cabinet and muttered to himself.

"Artie!"

He straightened so fast that he banged his head into the corner of the file cabinet and then, falling back, clocked his knee as well. Claudia stared at him until he was done swearing. Then she glared at him as he rubbed his knee.

"What??"

"Have you talked to Pete yet?"

Artie blinked. "About... what? He's on three day leave, I don't have any cases for him, there's no, no fires to put out. I don't have any use for him ..."

"Oh my god, Artie, he's a human being, not a... a toaster!" Claudia advanced on him as she started to rant. "God, what is wrong with you? I thought it was just Pete and Myka at first, but you, you, you haven't even said a word about Myka leaving since she... well, left! Which means either I'm completely wrong about you and you really as much of a cold-hearted bastard as you pretend to be..."

"Hey," Artie growled, edging around the still-open drawer and limping on his bad knee.

"... or you have learned absolutely nothing from this whole last year."

Artie blinked.

Claudia took advantage of his confusion to press the point. "Look at you, okay? Myka's been gone for two weeks, Pete's hardly said more than two sentences to anyone, and this is Pete, for crying out loud! And you, you're in here filing? When we've got a perfectly adequate computer system okay!" The last part had just been grumbling anyway, until Claudia caught wind of his glare turning less confused and more serious. "You haven't said a thing to him. You haven't even tried to contact Myka. You haven't talked to Leena about any of it, I know because she came to me worrying about you, and do you know how sad that is, Artie? She came to me. Because out of all of us..." And now her shoulders slumped, arms falling back to her sides, because she was out of reasons or excuses or other forms of ammunition to throw at him. "I'm the only one you talk to anymore. And that's not right, Artie. That's just not right."

She couldn't tell if Artie didn't get it or just was refusing to respond in any meaningful way. All he did was blink at her; she could see the buffering pinwheels spinning in his eyeballs.

"Never mind, bad idea. Forget I blurted out anything." Claudia flapped her hand at him and stalked off, picking up a chess piece and slamming it back down on the board as she left the room. Checkmate in three moves, at least she could beat his ass into the ground on something.

Somehow, it wasn't as satisfying.




Leena knew her own mind. She had to, to do what she did. She learned long ago about dusting out the corners every now and again, turning things over, making sure nothing was going to come up from beneath a rock or out from around a bend to ambush her at a crucial point. It was part of what made her such a good confidante and counselor.

What had made her. She didn't know what to call herself, now, not with this ghost in her head.

"A ghost of a ghost," she muttered to herself, taking up the teacup to see if it was done steeping yet. Maybe not as done as she would like, but she was impatient and it would do for right now.

The afghan was warm, hand spun and crocheted by a friend and wrapped in affection and comfort. She'd have to remember to visit the next time she was in the Rockies.

Leena curled up in the chair and pulled the blanket tighter around her, wrapping her fingers around the warmth of her tea cup and letting her mind drift. She needed to put this away for good, and the meditation was helping to an extent.

"Breathe deep..." In and out, and a long slow sip of tea. And another breath. "Arms weightless... legs weightless. Floating... floating..."

"Floating away, on the sound of your lovely voice."

Dammit. Leena's eyes snapped open, then snapped open again. Like flicking down increasingly strong lenses over a pair of glasses, the world focused to a near-painful degree and all the sounds muted. She closed her eyes to shut out the thin lines that had started to form around everything and her heartbeat started to pound in her ears.

"Stop that," she snapped. Not too much anger but the definite sounds of authority, and maternal authority at that. She didn't tolerate this kind of misbehavior from guests or Warehouse agents, and certainly not from her own mind.

MacPherson's chuckle crawled across her skin. "Sorry."

// something something