Title: Recovery
Rating: M
Length: 390
Competitor: Alanna
Round/Fight: 1/H
Summary: This is part 3 of a 3 story arc I'm writing to help myself process the death of a friend. The first, entitled Grief, and the second, entitled Mourning are available on the site. You'll probably want to read those first to understand how we got here to this one, but they should all stand alone either way.


This was originally written for SMACKDOWN over on the Goldenlake forum. My author's note here is that sometimes the only way to process grief is to remind ourselves in the simplest of ways that we are still alive. Femmeslash. Femmeslash like whoa, in fact we may as well just call it femmesmut. If you're not interested, stop now.


Alanna still had Kel's hand as she led her back to her quarters, her thumb lightly rubbing over Kel's wrist. She brought Kel inside, closed the door and turned towards her as if to ask something. Whatever she was going to say was lost as Kel slammed her against the inside of the door and kissed her savagely.

They drew back, both gasping for air, considering one another warily. Kel had enough time to wonder if she had done something terribly foolish, then Alanna was extinguishing the lanterns in Kel's quarters with one flick of her gift. She shoved Kel backwards onto her bed and lay on top of her, their breasts and bellies pressed together, hands yanking tunics off and grazing the skin underneath.

It was all contradictions and haze after that, the mead making them both flushed and clumsy. Impressions lingered. A calloused hand sliding up Kel's side as she arched and moaned. Her hands clenching the pillows behind her head. The way Alanna moved when Kel kissed down her abdomen. Hardened muscles tensing underneath her as she made the older woman cry out. Kel couldn't make sense of the images and sensations – memories would need to be pieced together in the morning.

The contact made her feel real again and whole. There was nothing Kel could find that compared to tasting herself on a lover's tongue, warm in the bubble of heat their bodies made while moving together. The way that the night air chilled drops of sweat on bare flesh drove her back from the shadows she had been facing. Nails gouging lines down her shoulders told her she was alive, and the woman writhing underneath her and whispering her name reminded her that it was worth it to be.

She had been lost for a week now, wandering in the haze of grief. Now there was only this awareness of her own skin, and the knowledge that in this moment nothing else existed. This was all that mattered.

Dawn broke slowly, bringing the two lovers back into the present. They stood and dressed in a deeply personal, if amicable silence. Each woman with her own thoughts.

Later still the two women clasped forearms, and Alanna reached up to pull Kel's forehead down to hers. They stood like that for a moment and then Alanna left, bound for Fort Mastiff with Lord Wyldon. She smiled at Kel as she rode past her and looked as if she wanted to speak, but there was nothing for either to say. Instead she waved and rode through the gates, somehow managing to chat amiably with Lord Wyldon. Kel watched her go for a long moment, and then turned back to the villagers who had arrived for more weapons training.

"So" she murmured to them, "shall we begin?"