Down time. The others on the base lived for this.
Why did it hold a vague dread for her?
Of course, she knew very well the reason this unstructured time - for her, time that would be spent alone - seemed such a spectre.
The thoughts and feelings she normally held at bay to get the job done would come knocking on the door in "down time".
Thoughts and feelings that would be mired together in a heavy, jumbled swirl.
Never enough time to straighten them out; never a resolution for the utter confusion they brought to bear.
Because of her focus and ability to block out emotional responses to the stressful events that often went hand-in-hand with her job, many of the base personnel had the impression she was something of a super-computer or an ice queen. It's not that she wasn't a passionate person though, as some of these co-workers thought; she really was. She was just so busy and focused in the day-to-day grind; she pushed those things out of her mind, out of her way to get things accomplished. As they crept back to the fore in her thoughts on her way home each night, she had just enough time to recognize they were there before she hit the pillow for another exhausted night of dreamless, or dream-amnesiac, sleep.
Then, on these days off, they came crashing back in. Long-ignored emotions. Good, bad, all of she rushed around trying to do those little chores to maintain her "home" ('God, it was amazing that this place still felt like home given how little time she spent here' she mused), she had compressed bursts of thoughts about so many people. Her team, her family...thoughts about everything were sharper, heightened. Happiness, sadness, love. A week's worth of these thoughts, brought into focus for a couple moments at a time before being chased off by the next subject she'd been ignoring. They were distilled, concentrated; their impact more potent this way. More than she could deal with, sometimes.
Dad, Mark, Cass, Janet...
Her breath caught in her throat as she thought that name. While she was on base, she still couldn't afford to let herself deal with memories of her friend, though it had been a long time since Stargate Command's CMO had been killed in the line of duty. Sometimes it still felt too raw, and she was afraid of the paralyzing sadness that she had felt right after that mission. She couldn't let herself be that distant mentally with so much potentially riding on the line every time she was there. She ran through the excuses in her mind again, 'I can't allow that; I have to be sharp. I have to be ready,' and then she felt another hitch in her chest as she thought of the suddenness of her friend's death.
Repressed feelings crashed down on her for the first time in days, and she felt crushed by the rockslide of loss. The thought that was a mantra every time she thought of her petite friend started its roiling curl through her consciousness, 'God, I miss Janet. Why couldn't I save her?'
She sank down on the edge of the couch. As she leaned forward, elbows on her knees and head bent forward into her hands, she shot her fingers through the front of her hair. Her eyes ran wet and her breath came in uneven gasps. The shadows cast by the sunlight streaming through the windows stretched across the floor as the sun fell further from its zenith. She didn't notice she was gripping her hair till she pulled too hard at the roots and the sting roused her from her dismal thoughts. Startled, she ran her hands across her moist, hot cheeks and sat up, 'How long was I sitting there like that? I have got to get a hold of myself and get out of here for awhile.'
She willed her breath to a more regular rhythm and felt the heat begin to leave her cheeks as she tried to get the memory under wraps again. When she felt the cool air drying her face, she got up and crossed the room over to the broom and dustpan. As the solid feel of the handle in her grip registered in her mind, she felt more of her regular mask settle back in place. She could hold it together awhile longer. She had work to do. She sniffled and ran a shaky hand by her moist eyes once more, and got back to her sweeping.
She finished up a bit more of her routine housework. The minutes turned into an hour and she'd managed to get through without any more emotional landslides. Her meanderings, tidying up the last little bit of leftover cleaning supplies, took her past the bathroom. She stopped and walked in, and as she looked in the mirror she sized up her reflection. Her eyelids, previously puffy and red, were back to normal. The rest of her face, though, flushed as she had an errant and dangerous thought. Damn spring anyway, she mused.
There wasn't enough time to dwell on the subject of that little thought tonight.
No, not enough time left in her life to sort that one out.
All the more reason for her outing (or should I call it 'escape'? she thought with a sneer) tonight.
She shook her head a little and splashed some water on her face, physically trying to brush off the lingering sensation of need. Bracing her hands on the counter, she took a couple deep breaths to calm herself. She felt herself relaxing again, and breathed a sigh. She glanced in the mirror again, this time eyes locking on reproving eyes. Her reflection stared back at her, shaking its head a little sadly and clearly disapproving of her avoiding the issue again.
She walked over to the closet and retrieved the dark jacket to match the leggings she'd already slid into, darted a sidelong glance at the recreant in the glass, and tried to banish her for the time being by turning off the bathroom light. As she walked through the house, trying to turn her thoughts away from the past and future and just be for awhile, she continued to feel a small tug from the inner voice. She locked the front door and stood on her porch for a moment, adjusting to the night air. She shrugged into the short heavy leather coat. The cold air held a bracing, biting chill, but it was mixed with a little extra humidity, a little hint that winter was losing its hold and spring was around the corner. 'That's part of my problem,' she thought. 'Spring always does this to me.' Looking toward the street, she finally felt the last vestiges of her inner critic dissipate like a fog as she spied her companion for the night. With a happy thought, she walked down the steps toward the gate, and freedom.
She tucked her precisely-mussed hair under her helmet, feeling a little silly that she'd taken the time in the first place, and climbed onto her motorcycle, her leathers creaking a little as she settled into the seat. Feeling the cerebral take a back seat to the primal as the vibrations from revving the engine reverberated through her chest and seemed to race through her limbs, she popped up the kickstand, pulled away from the curb, and took off down the twilit street.
She rode with a sense of liberation; she wasn't thinking, but neither was she repressing.
Living in the moment, she just was. The growl of the powerful motor effectively drowned out any higher thought. She was feeling the wind, the vibrations of the bike, the fluid motion and shifts in balance as she wove through the streets on her way out of town.
She didn't know where she was going, but she would know when to stop when she got there.