The Picture/The Fight

These are a couple of drabbles I wrote for Land of the Giants.
Rated K+ for action violence and mild language.
The Picture: In what I've watched of this show so far, it hasn't actually been stated that everyone aboard Spindrift is single or without family back home. This very short story portrays how one character might deal with having left someone important on Earth.
The Fight: This story explores the conflict that inevitably develops between two natural leaders. One, seven years younger, officially in charge, and a rational decision maker; the other, older, used to getting his own way, and prone to emotional choices; both of them risible in temper…

The Picture


Steve sat by the campfire, turning the small photograph over and over in his hands. It had lived in the pocket of his flight jacket for so many months that the edges had softened and frayed, and there was a light crease or two across it, which he smoothed with his finger. On other flights he had never worried about keeping the picture in his pocket; if it were to become damaged, he could always get another. But now-it was very possible he might never see the subject of the photograph again.

"Hey, Steve."

His reverie was broken by his stewardess, Betty Hamilton, who sat down next to him before noticing what he was doing. "Oh, I'm sorry. I'm disturbing you," she said quickly and moved to get up.

"No, you aren't," he said, raising a hand in reassurance. "At least-I don't know, maybe it would be good to talk about it."

"Okay, Steve," Betty said, simply, always so ready and willing to do her job as the member of Spindrift's original crew most responsible for the morale of others, including him. He supposed she saw it.

He handed the small photograph to her, and she took it gently, studying it. "She was lovely," she said, after a minute. "You must miss her very much."

Steve bowed his head into his hands silently for a moment. "So very, very much," he said, finally. "We only had two and a half years together; today would have been three."

Betty's eyes were shining with sympathetic tears. "I'm so sorry, Steve." She handed the small picture back to him, and he took it and tucked it back in the breast pocket of his red flight jacket.

They had all left behind people and things that mattered; perhaps he made his burden harder by treating the acknowledgement of it as a privilege ill-afforded by the stranded Spindrift's leader. He looked up at Betty. "Her name is Maria," he said, his own eyes wide and serious, "and she's why I have to get home."