AN: Another challenge piece, this time from kiwikatzkatz. Challenge requirements: Drabble, J/I, "Dammit, this is not a good time to die!"
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"Dammit, this is not a good time to die!"
"Only from your perspective," Sydney hissed. "I'm beginning to think this is a fine time to die."
Her mother shot her a look that was guaranteed to take her attitude down a few notches.
It worked. Sydney smiled nervously. "But I defer to your better judgment."
Jack looked up from the security panel in front of him, a slight expression of annoyance on his face. "We aren't going to die," he stated with finality, as if there was still any question of the possibility after Irina's impressive glare, and went back to examining the wires in front of him.
Irina shifted her weight from foot to foot, looking faintly disapproving. "You're cutting the wrong one," she told him bluntly, watching intently as he moved to sever a navy wire. "The green is the key."
"Irina, aside from the fact that you never made mention of this before, there are approximately five green wires on the panel, all in varying shades, and I would appreciate both an explanation and a more accurate term than the word 'green'."
She returned his stern look nuance by nuance. "Are you quibbling with me over particulars?" she asked, a small smile suddenly appearing on her face. "How characteristic."
Jack looked vaguely amused. "Only you would dare argue with me over minutiae."
She crouched beside him and pointed to a mint green wire, and without further questions he cut it in two.
No alarms, no disastrous explosions.
Sydney let out a breath, relieved.
Her parents stood, and Sydney noted that they did not make their customary side step away from the other. It was going to be one of those rare hours, she decided, the kind when they seemed to retreat in time and regard each other as equal partners. It was the kind of hour that led to comfortable silences and affectionate, brief quips.
It was the kind of hour that required carefulness on her part- once they retreated back into the Traitor/Whore/Bastard cycle she would have to keep clear, because as soon as that reached its end they would surely end up in a closet or a corner, and she had no intention of stumbling upon them again in that kind of situation.
She sighed silently and turned away, as if watching for an approaching guard. There was the slight brush of skin against skin behind her: the brief near joining of hands.
They walked past her, mere inches apart, and she followed warily, knowing that the cycle they lived through was just their relationship on repeat, and again she watched the blooming of affection, and the synchronicity of two minds, and the slow deconstruction of two lives that had been one, the bitter anger that followed and the passion that they couldn't seem to get away from. Nuclear cold and disillusionment, and back to the beginning again.
Sydney would sigh, and think: I have lived a thousand lives, and none have been my own.