Single White Farmer
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Summary: As her first season in Flowerbud Village winds down, Gina is about to learn that the most gruelling part of working at the Clinic has nothing to do with the job, and everything to do with that pretty brown-haired farmer just down the way...
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Disclaimer: I don't own 'em, they don't like me. Marvelous Interactive, or something like that, does own them, and I'm pretty sure they wouldn't like me either. But hey, at least I'm not making any money for this. Because seriously; even if you could sell fanfiction, I'm pretty sure it would have to be good. XD
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The lake, it was generally agreed among the townsfolk, was the most beautiful place in all of Flowerbud Village.
A large body of crystal-clear water as yet untouched by pollution (and particularly so since an unsuspecting visitor had thrown a gum wrapper into the lake and promptly been chased out of town by pitchfork-and-torch-wielding villagers), over-fishing (although, one young man named Ray was working his darnedest to end this), or tourism (by far the most chilling option), the lake was surrounded on all sides by trees growing just thickly enough to give the impression of a forested area, but not so thickly that the sunlight was blotted out.
On a day that found the sun inclined to shine, such as this one, the sunlight would dance through the leaves and spill in warmly golden pools on the forest floor.
This was just such a day; the birds sang in the trees, the small woodland animals frolicked in the grass, Eve wandered randomly about and thought her thoughts, Ray celebrated the day's catch, Terry lectured him soundly on the proper conduct of an environmentally aware young person, and Gina stared in abject bewilderment.
This was not, by any means, the mild bewilderment, better described as a good-natured sort of confusion, like the time that she had found Dia in her room, in bitter tears, because she had heard from a friend of a friend of an acquaintance's brother that Gina was engaged to their third-grade science teacher, and he was planning to whisk her away to the farthest reaches of the earth and leave her, Dia, all alone. It had taken several minutes of warm hugs and kisses to assure Dia that she had absolutely no intention of running off with anyone, even if Mr. Lowry was very nice, and they did have some terribly interesting discussions on how to keep one's glasses clear in the rain, but eventually the clouds had cleared and all had been sunshine again, with two little girls scurrying outside to play with the cats.
Or the time in fifth grade that she had snuck into the classroom after school to steal Dia's favourite book of fairytales back from the teacher's desk, and found it – directly next to something that looked suspiciously like a riding crop. She had been so delighted by the notion that strict, composed Miss Deerling might have a soft spot for horses that she had confessed her attempted thievery and mentioned the crop, before rambling at great, starry-eyed length about all the beautiful horses at Dia's father's country estate. The ending result of this had been a red-faced Miss Deerling returning Dia's book on the strict understanding that Gina was to relate the results of her sleuthing to no one. To this day, she could never understand why Miss Deerling was so angry over a student finding out that she loved animals, but suspected that it had something to do with the need to maintain her stony exterior, lest her students cease to be afraid of her and discipline go directly down the drain.
Or even like the time that she had attempted to hurl a snowball fiercely back at the runny-nosed, pimply-faced boy who had pelted one at Dia and left her soggy and shivering; somehow, she had not only entirely missed the boy, but had hit Dia's father, who had been standing behind the girls. This had puzzled Gina greatly until she had recalled her terrible sense of direction, and theorized that it only made sense, then, that it affected everything she touched. The snowball, she told herself with a tiny sigh at failing to defend her best friend, had simply lost its way.
Rather, this was an all-consuming abject bewilderment well tinged with terror, the sort that any sane person might feel at being jarred from their own peaceful reverie while on a nice early-morning stroll by the lake, by a pigtailed, angrily shouting mass hurtling towards them and waving a hoe.
As this was, indeed, the first time this particular situation had occurred in Gina's life, it was correspondingly the only time she could remember being this bewildered.
"Jill," she finally managed as the irate farmer blazed through the landscape. "Is—is something wrong?"
The aforementioned stopped dead in her tracks, thus managing by pure luck to not end up in the lake, and stared incredulously.
"Is something wrong?" she repeated, equally incredulous. "Of course something's wrong! I don't know what you think you're playing at, little missy, but if you know what's good for you, you'll stay away from my boyfriend!"
The bewilderment, sadly, did not seem to be destined to end any time soon.
"Your boyfriend?" Gina repeated slowly. "Um, I'm sorry to ask, because it really isn't any of my business, but…um, who is your boyfriend? Just so I know who to stay away from, you know."
"Don't play innocent with me, you shameless hussy! You know exactly who I'm talking about – you've only spent the last month trying to steal him from me!"
"Oh, dear," the bespectacled little nurse noted sadly, rubbing her temples. "I assure you, Jill, I haven't been trying to steal anyone from you. To be honest, even if I wanted to, I just don't have the time, with all the extra help the Doctor's needed lately."
Jill's already red face went purple. So, the—the—the little scarlet woman was going to make fun of her, was she?
"Where the hell is he?!"
Gina sighed. She was hardly one to believe in the concept of good luck and bad luck, and talismans and charms to affect which one found its way into a situation, but it was certainly a little uncanny. Things like this always happened when she wore her lacy yellow panties. But wear them she would; they were her favourite, after all. So pretty and comfy, the soft silky light lemon yellow lace just like a fairy's gossamer tablecloth; and didn't Dia always say that nothing flattered her fair skin and the icy tones of her hair quite like delicate pastels?
Unfortunately, in this case, a little bit of attention to style would necessitate talking Jill out of whatever inexplicable snit she had worked herself into, and so, drawing a deep breath, Gina prepared herself to do just that.
"Honestly, Jill, I sympathize with your plight. I've been working at the Clinic long enough to see how easy it is to misplace something. But if you've misplaced your boyfriend, I think you could spend your time far more productively retracing your steps to see where you might have left him, than asking people who know nothing about it. Even if you had asked me a little more politely if I had seen him, I might have offered to help you look, but when you just come charging in and accusing me of stealing and hiding him myself, it doesn't exactly fill me with the desire to help you."
"So, you did hide him!" Jill exclaimed, grabbing the startled young woman by the collar and giving her several rough shakes. "Where is he?! What did you do with him!?"
"I say, my dear girl, I have done absolutely nothing untoward with your gentleman friend," Gina tried to say, in spirit, if not in exact phrasing, as she had not previously hit her head and turned into a cliché.
Instead, due to the shaking and the mild strangulation, it was an effort to choke out even the incoherent squeaks she was uttering.
Releasing her victim, Jill scratched her head in befuddlement.
"Sorry, what was that?"
"I don't know where your boyfriend is, Jill!" Gina choked out, gasping for air. "I don't even know who he is! Now, if you're quite finished, I have to hurry back to the Clinic – the doctor wanted to get started reorganizing the supply cupboards today."
"Grr!" Jill noted pleasantly, lunging again. "In one breath, you claim that you don't know where he is, and in the next, you reveal his location and your evil plot to cuddle up close in a dark, confined space, under the guise of reorganization!"
Gina blinked big, sweet honeybrown eyes behind her glasses.
"Oh! The doctor is your boyfriend? That's sweet! He needs a nice girl to look after him. Well, in that case, I suppose I do know where he is." She giggled. "Honestly, Jill, you know as well as I do that he hardly ever leaves the Clinic – how did you not think to look for him there before losing your head?"
"Never mind that!" Jill snapped, seizing Gina's arm and dragging her toward the path away from the lake. "Let's just get back there so you can get your supply closet reorganization over with, and I can remind him who the most important woman in his life is!"
"Oh, dear," Gina lamented with a sigh as she struggled to regain her footing. "I should have listened to Dia and just spent today in bed."
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An hour later had done little to change Gina's assessment of the situation.
Ordinarily, she had no end of fun with Reorganization Day: pulling everything from the closet, polishing the sturdy pine shelves until they gleamed, and then the delight of deciding how to put everything back! Not to mention, the opportunity for a little light teasing at some of the things Alex chose to hang onto.
An old lollipop container with a few wrappers and a stick floating in the bottom; really!
But today was a different matter entirely. True to her word, Jill had been hanging about all morning, enthroned in the regrettably absent Martha's rocking chair in the corner and formulating excuses to drag the doctor off outside for something whenever he happened to accidentally brush his nurse's hand with his own, or bump her shoulder a little.
The farmer had also entertained herself by halting each of Gina's three attempts to strike up some pleasant conversation with vicious glares, and completely hijacking the doctor's several more attempts, turning them toward her own doings on the farm, those of their various neighbours, or some inside joke that he seemed to understand scarcely more than Gina, if his blank, confused expressions were any indication.
Not that it wasn't nice to spend some quality time with Jill – Gina was always thrilled at the chance to make friends with one of the local girls. But for some reason, Jill seemed so angry with her!
Sighing, she took another swipe at a smudge of dust on the highest shelf, wobbling slightly on her step stool and straining to extend her reach just a little more.
"Excuse me, Doctor," she mumbled absently as her elbow bumped his head lightly.
He sent her a brief, absent smile before returning to the pots he was arranging on the third shelf down, and all was sunshine again.
Ideally, at any rate.
Before she had time to blink in bewilderment at the streak of brown and faded pink denim shooting towards her, the step stool began to wobble precariously from the sudden jarring impact of Jill shoving roughly past to haul the doctor away.
"Ack!" Gina observed sadly, attempting to reassert her sense of balance over the stool.
Despite her greatest efforts, however, the unfortunate little blue-haired maiden succeeded only in kicking the stool over entirely, and grabbed instinctively at the top shelf amid a series of frightened squeaks.
She sighed, dangling rather foolishly from the shelf.
"I think I will listen to Dia next time."
Then, as her fingers began to slip free of the smooth, varnished wood, she gave a pained groan of one who knows her own fate very well, and then a dismayed little shriek.
Alex, in the process of attempting to extricate himself from a clinging farmer – he had nothing against displays of affection, but this was a workplace, for heaven's sakes – looked up in alarm at the thud and clatter of several tins of ointment following his little nurse down from her perch, but was quickly dragged back for another kiss.
The little blue-haired former windsock, now a disheveled heap on the ground, sighed again as a length of narrow white of bandage fluttered down to settle gently over her like a flag of surrender.
"For that matter, perhaps it's not too late to take today off."
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Nevertheless, despite her decided misgivings with the concept of leaving her room, there was plenty of work to be done, and with poor Martha spending most of her time in the past few weeks at the Workshop until Woody's broken ankle healed sufficiently to hobble around on his own, the doctor would certainly be swamped if he were left to carry the responsibilities of the Clinic alone.
Therefore, Gina had finished her Monday, as well as her usual two hours of overtime, and shown up bright and early Tuesday morning.
Perhaps a little too bright and early – the main room was empty, and she could hear the faint sound of a snore drifting down from the upper level.
Oh, well, she thought with a philosophical little shrug, gathering up an armload of files and heading toward the cabinets. It'll give me a chance to get some work done now, just in case Jill shows up again later.
Lost in the peaceful rhythms of familiar little tasks, Gina hummed contentedly as she filed, and completely missed the footsteps at the stairs and the jaw-popping yawn from behind her.
"Er, good morning, Gina."
She jumped slightly, and yelped in surprise, wheeling about.
"Oh! Good morning, Doctor. I'm sorry to just let myself in like this, but I didn't get through everything I'd planned to finish yesterday, so I wanted to get a head start today."
"It's no problem," he laughed good-naturedly, and then shook his head. "Yesterday was certainly a little…odd, wasn't it?"
"I just hope I didn't do something to upset Jill," Gina confessed, the little bow tying her bangs firmly back from her eyes nearly drooping.
"No, no, don't worry about that," Alex said hurriedly, hands moving rapidly as though in attempt to wave off her concerns. "Jill is a sweet girl, but sometimes she gets some strange ideas. In fact, when she first moved here," he chuckled a little guiltily, "she spent the first three months of our friendship absolutely certain that Martha and I were involved. If you've ever noticed that Martha seems a little afraid of her, that would be why. I think it was the third death threat that did it."
"Oh, my," Gina lamented, eyes wide with dismayed disbelief.
He nodded his emphatic agreement with her implied assessment of the possibility of a streak of insanity running right down the middle of the little farmer's mind, and then smiled.
"Look, I'm going to make some coffee. Would you like a cup?"
Gina's eyes lit up at the mention of the blessed life-giving beverage, along with the recollection that, in her efforts to be extra-specially early today, she had completely forgotten to fix her morning travel mug.
"Yes, please."
"Cream and sugar, right?"
"Yes, a little."
"Which, in Gina-speak, means 'I like a healthy dollop or two of cream, and four teaspoons of sugar, but I'm too shy to ask for it,'" he added teasingly.
She blushed.
"I like sugar."
He laughed, and gave her a swift, brotherly kiss on the forehead.
"I'll make sure to put lots in, then."
Once he had disappeared into the Clinic's little kitchenette, Gina returned to her filing, humming and filing, and humming and filing, until the door flew open with a vicious bang.
"I might have known I'd find you here," Jill spat loathingly, eyes narrowed in pure hate.
"Um…I work here," Gina informed her hesitantly, wondering in the back of her mind why she'd been foolish enough to believe whoever it was that had filled her head with silly thoughts about country life being relaxing and peaceful.
Jill gave a sarcastic laugh.
"There's always an excuse, isn't there?"
"It's more of a job, actually…"
"Oh, I don't doubt that you'll go to any lengths, looking for a reason to be near Alex, searching for a way to take him from me! You're obsessed!"
"I'm obsessed?" Gina murmured, rubbing her eyes behind her glasses. "I'm not the one who's had to hire Jamie to do my job because I'm busy stalking the neighbours."
"Don't change the subject!" Jill ordered hotly.
Gina sighed.
"Jill, you are the subject! I don't know why you don't believe me when I say I'm not trying to lure the doctor away from you, but this continued suspicion of yours is quite insulting. Not to mention, a little creepy."
"Oh, sure, twist the situation to be my fault," Jill scoffed, arms folded, surveying the distraught young lady scornfully. "You've always been twisted as a corkscrew."
"You've only known me a month!" Gina protested.
"Oh, my; what's all the shouting about in here?" a voice called from the doorway a split second before a coffee laden, boxer-clad Alex happened upon the scene.
Jill's eyes widened, and her lip curled back into a snarl.
"So, that's why you came over early! To sneak a peek at my sweetie in a state of undress! C'mon, Alex, we have to get some clothes on you!"
"Jill, this really isn't necessary," Alex said pleadingly as she caught him by the arm and dragged him towards the stairs. "I can usually dress myself without a problem."
But words were of no avail, conquered by young Jill's lather of rage as swiftly as fire conquers butter.
I should never write novels, Gina thought sadly as this last simile floated through her mind.
Shaking her head, she went back to the filing cabinet, and was in moments absorbed once again in the task at hand, humming contentedly, the pigtailed psychotic just a staircase away in body, but miles from Gina's mind.
If only for a moment, all was peace, perfect peace.
And for only a moment it was, as Alex was generally a fairly quick dresser.
Soon enough, the couple had emerged from the second floor.
Soon enough, the little farmer was ensconced once again in Martha's rocking chair, while Gina longed piteously for the day that might see the kindly old woman returning to the Clinic to put a stop to this silliness.
Soon enough, the glower once again blazed forth from Jill's face, fixed once again on Gina.
Soon enough, the latter found herself longing, for the second day in a row, that she had taken Dia's advice more seriously.
Or at least, that Jill and the doctor could go back to evening dates, instead of doing all their visiting during work hours.
Not that she begrudged them a little bit of time together whenever they could find it, but her arms were getting awfully sore.
The least they could do was have their conversation somewhere that wasn't directly in front of the doctor's desk, where he had just asked her to bring the big, heavy box of marble mixing dishes that was currently testing all the endurance of her scrawny little arms.
Not that the doctor seemed to have much say in the matter; she strongly suspected that genuinely expecting a man to notice anything going on around him, with a cute little brunette wound tightly around him, would lead inevitably to disappointment.
Fingers beginning to cramp slightly, Gina attempted to inch around the couple, first one way, and then the other. No use. There just wasn't a big enough gap to fit both her and the box.
Particularly when talking turned to kissing, and slow-dancing for some reason, and the couple swayed slowly back and forth, nevertheless moving quickly enough to block off each new possible way through to the desk before Gina could take advantage of it.
Unwilling to completely disrupt the lovers' tryst, Gina waited, desperation and shooting pains eventually leading her to clear her throat softly in the hopes that someone might notice, take pity on her, and relocate to let her put down her giant cardboard burden.
No such luck.
"Um, excuse me," she called hesitantly. "Can I just put this down, please?"
Jill's arms tightened around the doctor's neck, but he nevertheless managed to look in the direction of his nurse's plaintive request.
"Oh, sorry, Gina," he laughed sheepishly, detatching Jill's clinging arms and stepping back.
"Thank-you, doctor," she muttered as she slid the box onto the desk and hurried away, trying to rub the feeling back into her arms. She felt her cheeks growing red, both with embarrassment at catching her boss in the middle of a reasonably intimate display, and with anger at Jill's fiery glare once again fixed on her.
"You'll just take any excuse to come between us, won't you?" the brunette demanded, cheeks similarly red with the outrage of her alone-time with her sweetie being interrupted by the utterly unreasonable needs of his employees to get some work done. "Don't you ever get tired of this?"
"Yes," Gina sighed, rubbing her eyes behind her glasses, all the more wearily at the knowledge that she was being completely ignored by Jill, who was already dragging the doctor outside for a little privacy. "I am getting very, very tired of this."
But at least tomorrow was Wednesday, and Wednesday was a day off; surely Jill would leave her alone then.
Wouldn't she?
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End Notes: Right; this was originally a one-shot that got chopped into bits because it sort of snowballed, and ended up hitting six thousand words before I was anywhere near finished. It's either going to be two or three parts. More likely three.