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S3: Glory Aside; Two Ladies Chatting: Syl and Beth
Topic Started: Jan 6 2015, 12:24 PM (920 Views)
MacTrom
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Sylandra followed Beth to her cabin, feeling a soft burn sensation in her chest. She watched the gentle sway of the smaller woman's hips as she walked, and smiled at the memory of another. There were good times as well as bad on the Arc.

"Do you keep in shape on these long journeys?" she inquired, hoping the answer would open up more opportunities for them to share time together. It hurt to be alone; friends either lost or moved along. Time had not been so kind, and the thought of a new friendship blooming brought a lightness to her step.
But my heart is not weary, it's light and it's free I've got nothing but affection for all those who sailed with me
Stick with me baby, stick with me anyhow. Things should start to get interestin' right about now

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Clare
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In the psychological safety of Beth's cabin with the door closed against interruptions, Beth relaxed again, only then realising how much Jasper's arrival on the bridge had disturbed her.

"Would you believe I don't?" Beth asked. "But then, this is only the second space ship I have been on and the first time as crew."

There was something in the tone of Sylandra's question that suggested that wasn't quite what she had been hoping for and of course, as a doctor, she new the value of regular exercise. "I should though. When I was working at the clinic .... " There was a pause as she fought back the memories and the pain that came with them. "I used to walk quite a bit. My friend Apr... " Again there was a pause as she struggled to keep her emotions under control. "My friend April and I used to go on little walking expeditions when we had a bit of free time."

They were good times and Beth forced herself to focus on them rather than the manner of April's passing and what had precipitated it. They had talked a lot on those walks, setting the 'Verse to rights or discussing something that had come up in one of the medical journals or comparing notes on patients symptoms. Very little had been off limits, the notable exception being how they had felt towards each other.

Beth sat down on the bunk and patted it, inviting Sylandra to sit down beside her.

"I miss her," Beth said, her voice choking up a little. "And the walks with her. Exercise is more fun when one has someone to do it with."

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Dr. Beth Williams
Pixie Brannigan
Felicity Mendelssohn
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MacTrom
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Sylandra took the offered seat and leaned back slightly, bracing herself with her left arm behind her. Staterooms tended to remain spartan and standardized. Beth's showed little personality, and as Syl took in the details, she realized how closed off the woman was.

"Raised on a tramp freighter. Flew in several ships ov'r time 'n' always felt just right t' home. I gets my exercise by workin' out, sports games wit' the other crew, 'n' other forms o' exhaustion. Been a bit a while since I had a good team mate t' work out wit'. My last buddy, well, we ended up goin' our separate ways. Tried t' contact her once but no answer. No idea where any o' them went."

She leaned her head back, shaking her long braid out against her back.

"There was a time, long time back. Spent more time ground side. Back then, younger, mind you, I was more o' the sprinter. Ran, tumbled, scalawag kind of gal. Got plenty o' exercise then, I did."

The smile came again, briefly, but lingered longer than before. Her eyes closed briefly as the memories came flooding back.
But my heart is not weary, it's light and it's free I've got nothing but affection for all those who sailed with me
Stick with me baby, stick with me anyhow. Things should start to get interestin' right about now

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Clare
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Looking at Sylandra, Beth noted her eyes roving the room and looked afresh at her cabin through someone else's eyes. It was a revelation; apart from the two pictures, there was nothing that said 'Beth lives here'. She couldn't blame it on having just arrived, having occupied the cabin for more than two weeks. If it ended there, it could perhaps be blamed on her recent trauma but even Beth, so good at hiding the truth from herself, had to admit that thirty one years had amounted to little in the way of truly personal memories or mementos.

"Pathetic, Bethany," she told herself. "Or perhaps an accurate reflection of yourself," she added, because that was nearer the mark. She had helped people, saved lives, made life more tolerable for people but she had touched no one in any meaningful way with the possible exception of a certain tutor whom she never contacted since leaving Medical School and April, who hadn't survived.

She might have carried that thought further if not for Sylandra's timely intervention.

Sylandra said: "Raised on a tramp ..... Ran, tumbled, scalawag kind of gal. Got plenty o' exercise then, I did."

Beth had never run wild, never got into a bad or even mischievous crowd; she had been too withdrawn, too controlled by her mother to get into trouble and even after her mother's death, she had been too emotionally entangled with her father's wishes for her life to deviate. The closest she had got to rebelling had been to suffer from depression and running away from the class bullies.

"Sounds like it was fun," Beth said, a touch of envy in her voice.

She looked at Sylandra shyly, her expression morphing into a smile because she wasn't so naive as to miss the clue as to why Sylandra had been running and tumbling and then her expression turned wistful as she imagined Sylandra running from her, but not too fast because she knew Beth wasn't as fast as her.

"And why would Sylandra want you, of all people, to catch her, Bethany?" she demanded of herself.

"I bet you didn't get caught all that often," she said to distract both herself from her thoughts and Sylandra from the expressions she was sure had been playing across her own face. She knew she should have said something about her early life too but she wasn't quite ready.

"Don't wait too long, like you did with April," she reminded herself.


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Edited by Clare, Jan 11 2015, 08:41 PM.
Dr. Beth Williams
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Sylandra looked into Beth's face and that enigmatic smile touched her lips again.

"Not caught half as much as I should'a been. Ah, it was fun 'n' exhilaratin' bein' all dangerous and such. Back then, I ran with a gang. We were all anti-Alliance fools. End of the War 'n' all tryin' to make our mark 'gainst the Victors. Wasn't all that smart o' us, but it got me lots o' trainin' that came in handy after. Jason, he was my first, " her face colored slightly, " a former Browncoat. Taught me so much ... 'bout life. Weapons, demo, traps, stealth. I'd pull a job 'r two 'n' then hustle back t' him. Got all crazy about it. Got the fever, guess you'd say. "

Syl sat in thought for a moment. Why am I opening up so easily? Not like me, this is. Too easy, too soon? But I feel so close and need the companionship. Since Iyoko, Siobhan, Cypher... He face flashed dark for a moment, and she rolled her head to one side, breaking eye contact and looking back toward the passage door.
But my heart is not weary, it's light and it's free I've got nothing but affection for all those who sailed with me
Stick with me baby, stick with me anyhow. Things should start to get interestin' right about now

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Clare
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"Bisexual?" Beth asked herself. "Or have I got the wrong end of the stick, as usual, and it is just friendship she's looking for." The former she felt she could handle, just, being somewhat confused about her own sexuality, the latter was more of an unknown quantity.

"Perhaps getting ahead of yourself, Bethany?" she accused herself. "Isn't friendship good enough for you? Start there and work the rest out later, silly, girl!"

"I have to confess to a fairly boring upbringing. School, the flute, reading books and embroidery were the wildest things I got up to. My parents wrapped me in cotton wool, or at least, my mother did, my father was usually on assignment somewhere else in the 'Verse."

Beth though about adding the caveat that wrapping her in cotton wool did not equate to her mother taking an interest but decided that was something that perhaps should remain unspoken, at least until she knew Sylandra a lot better.

" I don't know if that was the way she was naturally or whether it was the result of all the miscarriages she had before she had me and then the doctors telling her that trying for another would likely kill her. As it happens they were right, fifteen years later."

Beth stopped suddenly, fearful that she had perhaps gone just a little too far, both in honour of her mother's memory and pushing into the realm of too much information. Again trying to distract, she picked up on another of Sylandra's comments.

"I nearly had a 'first'", Beth said and then paused because what she was about to say was rather close to home. She gathered her courage and continued, "Four years ago. On Glory, as it happens. I panicked and ran and yet here I am and that person is still aboard."

That was as far as her courage could take her, for the time-being, at least. She blushed, the colour rising to her cheeks and staying there.


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Sylandra smiled at Beth's embarrassments. She reached out and touched the other woman's shoulder. "We all have our moments, don't we. Here, I wanted to show you some of my toys."

Using it as a distraction from their obviously sexual conversation, Syl pulled over her shoulder bag and dug around in it. When her hand came out, it held an odd, cylindrical object, mostly round but with an indentation on one side and a twist button on the opposite. She checked the button first and then tossed the object to Beth. As Beth caught it, she realized the object had a slimy, sticky consistency. She gingerly handed the object back.

"The indent is a shape charge. The button a trigger/timer. Goes great as a mini-bomb. I hand make them a few at a time. Maybe someday, you can see one in action."


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But my heart is not weary, it's light and it's free I've got nothing but affection for all those who sailed with me
Stick with me baby, stick with me anyhow. Things should start to get interestin' right about now

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Clare
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The touch on the shoulder was very welcome but Beth wasn't quite sure she wanted to know what Sylandra meant by "toys" so it was something of relief when Sylandra pulled out something that was quite clearly military related. She was somewhat startled when she found herself having to catch the small cylindrical device and found herself fumbling to hold on it. The device felt odd in her hand and that was without taking the stickiness of it into account.

"Bomb?" Beth exclaimed, glad that she had already handed the device back to Sylandra.

"Action?" There was a definite raising of the pitch of her already high voice.

"Get a grip Bethany," she told herself. "Did you really think you were joining a peaceful tramp freighter?"

"Sorry," Beth apologised, "It's one thing to change from quietly minding my own business and toeing the line to getting involved in ....." She stopped, not sure quite how to categorise it. Beth gave a little self-deprecating laugh and continued, her nervousness evident in her voice. "I guess I had some naive notion that I would quietly hide away on the ship, keeping the crew healthy and patching them up when they needed it, not going out there and getting involved."

She thought again why she was here, why she had chosen Ian and Glory when she could have, if she had put her mind to it, secured a more conventional job. There was the lure of Ian but seeing him again and now, sitting here, in this cabin, with a woman who had caught her attention in a way that Ian never had, she doubted that was the reason. "April, and the clinic" she realised, understanding consciously for the first time her real reason; revenge on those who had taken away April and the clinic. Her prime suspect was an Alliance-sponsored health service that had sprung up before the fire. In Beth's view it was state-sponsored terrorism against its own citizens, the sort of thing that it should be protecting them from, not subjecting them to. Joining Glory was her own little way at getting back; or at least, that is what she hoped.

For now, though, she wanted Sylandra to be the centre of her attention and, perhaps more importantly, herself to be the centre of Sylandra's.

"So, the shaping focuses the blast in the direction you want it to go?" she asked, hoping her question wasn't too silly or sounded too contrived.


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Sylandra smiled at Beth's understanding.

"Yes, it focuses the explosion to increase its penetration. Otherwise, the bomb would just blow itself off of the target. " She dropped the sphere back into her bag. "It's safe; there is a secured lock on it so it won't go off by itself in the bag. THAT would be ... unfortunate."

She looked down for a moment before continuing.

"I've been in quite a few ... hostile situations. It's part of the game I play. There is too much danger out there. Too much not to be able to take care of yourself and others that are close to you. I've lost so many. It's hard to open up. With you, for some reason, I feel free to talk. To be vulnerable again. "

She looked back at Beth.

"If ... no, when, we get into a situation that seems deadly, stay close to me. Don't get seperated if you can help it. Got it? I will take care of you, as best as I can."


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But my heart is not weary, it's light and it's free I've got nothing but affection for all those who sailed with me
Stick with me baby, stick with me anyhow. Things should start to get interestin' right about now

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Clare
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Sylandra said: "With you, for some reason, I feel free to talk. To be vulnerable again."

Beth's eyes opened wide at Sylandra's statement while her face went through a range of emotions, the last being a degree of panic as she realised that Sylandra had laid a significant responsibility on Beth's shoulders. "The last person who got to close to me died," Beth thought, taking the blame on herself for April's actions.

Sylandra said: "....... Got it? I will take care of you, as best as I can."

"I will," Beth replied

"But promise me one thing, Sylandra" she said and tool Sylandra's hands in hers, her eyes looking into Sylandra's and an earnest expression on her face. "Don't take foolish risks to keep me safe. Too many around me have died and I don't think I could stand another person I care deeply about dying, especially if they did so just to save me."

She looked down at their joined hands for a little moment, rubbing Sylandra's with her fingers and then looked back up. "I lost someone recently, she... she... " Beth again was having a hard time keeping it together despite but she succeeded enough to continue, even though the words came out in a bit of a rush. "She took her own life because she thought I had rejected her when really it was because I was too scared to admit to myself that I could have feelings for another woman, that I had feelings for her."

Beth's eyes studied Sylandra's for a few more moments. "I am not going to make that mistake again," she affirmed and then, her nervous noticeable in the trembling of her hands, she leaned forward to plant a soft kiss on Sylandra's lips. She didn't know if Sylandra would reject her advance by turning her head away but she hoped she wouldn't, as she hoped that Sylandra would understand what she meant by the kiss.


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