Here's another oldie that I wrote a couple of years ago. My home at Da House is at an end and therefore I need to upload it somewhere else so that I won't lose it when I next crash my computer ... (which I do more often than not) Bloody windows I tell ya.
This particular fic is probably as AU as I'll ever get. I found something I wanted to explore and ... well ... explored it. It starts off kind of slow, as there were certain things I had to get out there before I could actually get on with the story. I ask that you bear with the first couple of chapters with the promise that it will get better ... And it does. Mark might seem like a douche initially, but I put it down to him just not having a clue about relationships ... Once it snaps out of him, he does fall back in to the man of our dreams...
I am doing a read through and fixing up a few spots to attempt to get Mark back into character, so while it may seem as though I am slow in posting because it's not finished, rest assured it is complete ... I estimate a couple of days to get it all together.
I'm rating it mature as there are some particularly racy sections. The smut bit I initially wrote will be chopped out completely (yeah, you think chapter three is naughty, the scene toward the end was reaaaaally good! it goes buh-bye, though in this release). I hope it has cleaned up enough not to violate any rules on ... I have read far far far worse than anything I've ever written, let alone posted here, so I figure I can get away with it so long as I slap a warning on it.
If you don't like it, I apologise ... I don't know where else to post ...
But anyhow ... on to the story. As usual the disclaimer stands as: I don't own them ... I make no claim to any character that wears wings or purple suits...
I hope you enjoy....
GK
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It's War
Centre Neptune's man-made reef structure had recently had modifications that allowed the uppermost section to become an island paradise. Built for covert surveillance and satellite link-ups, the island had been meticulously designed to appear no more than a few thousand square feet of sand and grasses. It drew no attention from potential land buyers or new millionaires, and certainly did not offer the camouflage that interested drug traffickers might seek. What it did attract, however, were Federation employees and the occasional G-Force member looking to spend some time alone.
…Princess being the main intruder.
She spent many an afternoon or early morning stretching her bare toes in the sand and spending quiet time doing tai chi or simply laying on the beach in a vain attempt to burn some colour into her ivory skin.
It was a contemplative moment for her each time she broke to the surface. It didn't matter if she was in the midst of a heavy set of yoga or Pilates, the blissful silence and solitude broken only by the gentle crash of waves, or the whoosh of a Whale taking a breath, was golden. She could solve the world's problems and daydream about life away from combat without ever having to worry about the appearance of the guys to harass and annoy her.
As much as she loved being around them … sometimes she needed to be away from them.
Even Mark.
Especially Mark.
While that might have surprised anyone with the ability to read her thoughts and emotions, she had to be honest and admit that at times he was the one thing she felt she really needed to just escape from to make her existence complete.
Or not so much him, but the lies and deceit that had become normal in their as yet undefined relationship. It was becoming so emotionally exhausting living to pretend they weren't together that she began to wonder if they even were together anymore.
She once asked him for a definition of their relationship. He responded by drawing her into his arms as he kissed her softly on the mouth and took her to his bed.
When all was done and they lay in the afterglow she pressed him further. He offered her a deep sigh and suggested that putting an official stamp on their relationship could ruin things if Anderson ever found out. If, when asked, they said they weren't in a "relationship", then there could be no real repercussions from the hierarchy of the G-Force project. This way they could continue to be together and not lie when questioned.
His reasoning was something she didn't openly question – however nonsensical it was. She let the confusion and wonder simply swirl unanswered in her mind trusting that Mark knew what was best for them. She tried not to react or feel hurt when in the course of their deceit against the Federation she had to watch as he flirted with other girls and joked with other pilots, and even Jason, about their own virility.
Tabloid reports didn't help her any. Report after report had Mark linked with more than one famous starlet or a bevy of beautiful girls that weren't her. He dismissed them quick enough. He would expel a long huff and toss it angrily into the nearest waste receptacle as he tried to assure her it was all false. He implored her to ignore the gossip and innuendo in each manipulated photograph.
Princess didn't really know how not to feel hurt by the reports. Even after she scraped away the bullshit gossip headlines and lies of infidelity and breakups, she found hurt in the stories. She was being presented as the weakest link on the team with doe-eyes for a man who simply was not interested in her. Her figure was put to question and over analyzed, as were her skills, and she was finding the whole thing to be absolutely humiliating.
On more than one occasion Mark had found her quietly, tearfully, contemplating the reports in a darkened room. Each time he had assured her that his heart was hers, and that she shouldn't concern herself with mindless trash. All that really mattered were he and she, and what they knew to be the truth. In those moments, when he would hold her close and talk of his love for her, she could care less about everything else. Confusion was shattered, insecurity dissipated, doubts were erased, all with three words from her Commander: I, love, and you.
Smooth sailing, really, for the most part. Mark was an attentive and caring "unofficial" lover. He made sure to have time to see her regularly outside of G-Force duties. He gave her small gifts. He made incredible passionate love with her at least two to three times a week.
At least until recently. Mark's priorities were changing, and unfortunately, she seemed to be as low on his list as the filling out of mission reports was to Jason.
It began with the introduction of a young, pretty woman into the technical team. She'd been assigned to the hangars, where the Sonic Jet and the Phoenix were maintained. Her intimate knowledge of Mark's #1 love in life, and her unashamedly flirtatious and tom-boyish behaviour ensured the two of them forged an almost instant connection.
She was an avionics specialist from the Rigan Aviation Institute. Her father was a retired Rigan pilot who'd flown alongside the great Colonel Cronus, which meant she'd grown up around the fly-boys and knew exactly how to swish her hips and talk her way into any pilot's cock-pit – metaphorically and literally.
Mark began spending less time with Princess and the guys, and more with Melissa and the jets. He insisted it was to make sure she was orientated into the Facility properly, and that she knew her way around all aircraft within the Neptune compound.
In her most jealous moment, Princess had snarled something along the lines of there being plenty of people within the unit that could give her the appropriate orientation, unless his idea of orientation into the G-Force project had come from his lower brain instead of his head and involved a hazing of the …
Sigh…
The rest really shouldn't be repeated by a lady.
She'd never have entertained the notion if she hadn't heard the whispers from the other techs. Their obvious clamming up into total silence as she entered the room only served to embarrass her further.
Jason had tried to convince her that it was purely innocent. He insisted that Mark didn't like bleach-blonde tramps and that he was only being a helpful workmate. She and he had too much invested in their dysfunctional romance for him to toss it all away over a pretty girl.
She had to give Jason credit. He'd tried hard to convince her that all was well and that the Status Quo would remain firmly in place. But he seemed more to be trying to assure himself that Mark wasn't suddenly a hound dog who was racing out of the Phoenix pretty much the moment they landed after a mission to give his jet to the new technician.
Her insecurity in her own attractiveness and appeal had returned in full-force. Too many times she found herself standing sideways in the mirror scrutinizing her shape and the lack of fullness in her bust. Compared to Mark's new friend, Melissa, Princess had a girlish figure. Her tiny b-cup breasts were no match to Melissa's proud double-d's. Her hips might have had a generous, feminine curve, but she wished for nothing more than the stunningly athletic build of a military fighter pilot.
She knew little about avionics. She tried to be attentive and do extra study to be able to keep up and know as much as possible about the aircraft and Mark's world. But, sadly, she simply couldn't get the new information to stick. She'd even managed to embarrass herself in front of the Rangers and Mark by trying to take part in a conversation about the latest NTSB findings in the deadly crash of a Boeing 737 outside of Vancouver. They'd been discussing the rudder-hard-over problems and the continuing problems of that particular jetliner. Princess had misread something said by one of the Rangers and offered a response that simply made her look like a fan-girl trying to fit in.
They'd all laughed, including Melissa, at her faux pas. Mark just tilted his head at her and smiled, not mockingly, but in a way to suggest he found her completely adorable. She'd immediately reddened and made a quick exit, only to be found about fifteen minutes later by Melissa, who handed her an aircraft manual for a Cessna and sniper-challenged her to study up before trying to talk boy talk.
It was obvious to anyone who took notice that there was definite female territorialism going on. The two girls really didn't like each other, for one very attractive reason:
Mark.
Melissa wanted him, Princess had him, and there was about to be a war within the project to see who could permanently land him.
Princess didn't know if she had the stamina to wage an all out war with a woman who was most definitely sexually superior to herself. She already felt she was losing the battle.
How could she compete?
These were the thoughts that drew and exhausted Swan up onto the surface this morning. She'd had yet another lonely, sleepless night worrying over her relationship with Mark. Melissa's presence had made it into the tabloids, with Princess, yet again, being portrayed as the jilted ex-lover. She needed escape and solitude to ponder the issue.
She just needed time away from all of them. A vacation. A month in total seclusion. A full month of meditation and enlightenment.
She inhaled a slow breath and raised her eyes to the skies as she stretched her arms over her head and slowly raised herself on her toes as if making a reach for the cloud above her head.
"Give me the strength, Buddha," she called on a soft whisper to the sky as she held on to her stretch. "I'm not prepared for the fight, and I don't want to lose the battle. "
"What are you fighting for, Princess?" a question whispered over her shoulder.
Her eyes flared in shock at the sound and feeling of her boyfriend's voice over her shoulder. His fingers lightly took hold of her waist and pulled her backward against his chest.
"Mark? What are you…?"
His nose nuzzled against her hair. "I just needed to see you. I searched the whole base and was told you were up here."
She turned in his hold and cocked her head to one side in askance. "Is everything okay? Do you need me back inside?"
He let his fingernails lightly graze at her waist underneath her shirt. "No," he smiled, his eyes glistening in a manner she simply couldn't decode. "I just haven't seen you in a while."
She couldn't help but frown in puzzlement. "But you see me every day."
His eyes darkened and his lip curled aggressively as he shifted one hand behind her head and pulled her mouth to his. "Not in the way I want to." He punctuated the snarled answer with a hard, and passionate kiss. His hold was tight and possessive enough to lift her feet off the ground.
She sighed into the kiss as he pulled her legs up and around his hips and slowly dropped to his knees in the sand.
"God," he hissed into her mouth as he laid her back in the sand and hovered above her body dangerously close to her. "I haven't made love to you in over two weeks. If I don't have you soon, it'll kill me."
Out in the open, with no trees for coverage, and a security camera pointed voyeuristically at them, Princess wasn't sure if it was such a good idea to let him do this. When she felt his arousal press heavily against her, finding just the right position to let her gasp, her inhibitions flew out into the ocean.
He was right, they hadn't done this in a while, and she needed this kind of reassurance from him right now.
She arched her back in the sand and gripped tightly at the soft material of his famed #1 shirt as he fumbled impatiently with her belt buckle.
She half breathed, half moaned his name as he dropped his head to her mid-drift and dipped the tip of his tongue into her navel to draw it up along the center of her abdomen toward the under wire of her Federation-issue cotton bra. As his tongue pathed it's way up her body, his hands drew her shirt upwards and over her head.
He let out a snarl as he claimed her right breast in his mouth. Her shirt was aggressively discarded behind him as he buried his face into her chest and snarled his need for her.
She groaned high, her voice pleading without words for him to keep going, and not to stop.
He unbuckled his jeans and freed himself from his denim prison.
And then ….
Mark's beeper went off.
"Ignore it, Mark. Please," she begged, taking hold of his wrist as he dropped his hand to retrieve it.
"I wish I could, Princess," he sighed dejectedly as he shook his wrist free of her hold.
"It's not your communicator, Mark. You don't have to answer it."
He exhaled as he unclipped it from his belt and kissed her lightly on the side of her mouth. "It could be important." He glanced at the small display and pursed his lips as he read. "Melissa…" he said softly on an exhale.
Princess rolled her eyes and immediately pulled herself out from underneath him. "Then you'd better go."
He tilted his head apologetically at her. "I'm sorry, Princess. It could be the jet."
She stood and flashed him an irritated look. "It always is." She leaned over him and snatched her shirt off the sand. "And then it never is."
He could sense her irritation, frustration and disappointment – Hell he was feeling it as much as she was. "Honey, if something's wrong with the jet, we could be in trouble next time out. I can't ignore it."
She pulled the shirt over her head and gave him a dismissive wave. "Just go, Mark. Don't keep her waiting."
The manner with which she spoke gave the young Commander a start. He tilted his head at her, stunned that she was being almost … jealous?
Why the Hell should she be jealous? She knew she was the only woman he would ever… even consider…
"Princess," he said carefully, wanting to get to the bottom of her problem. "I'm not leaving you now because I want to. I am only doing it because…"
"Mark," she interrupted sharply. "Just go, okay? The tide's coming in anyway."
He touched his fingers to her wrist and dipped his head to look at her face. "I love you, you know that, right?"
She gave him a weak smile and nodded. "Yes, I know that."
"Promise?"
She closed her eyes and nodded. "Go, Mark."
"We're okay, right?"
She nodded. "Yes."
He gave her a smile and kissed her gently on the cheek. "We'll continue this later." He gave her a wink, and then bounded off to answer the call of the jet's technician.
Princess watched him jog down the beach and let out a long huff as she contemplated the timing of Melissa's call.
"How did she know?" She questioned softly. The question was quickly answered as the camera's red light suddenly clicked off.
"Oh, that's low," she growled as she tucked her finger into her pocket to retrieve her weapon. "That's just low."
She stalked toward the doors to the underbase and pretty much distractedly flicked her yo-yo at it, precision striking the lens and shattering it into a handful of pieces.
"You can play your little game, Melissa. I'm not interested."
She slammed the door behind her and slowly made her way down the stairs.
"You can have him."