[Author's Note: After finishing two other stories that were strictly in canon, I'm taking a break from a longer AU novel I'm writing to perform a series of writing exercises. I'll throw out a few of "The Black Maneuvers" to see if you like them, and whichever one gets the best response will get fleshed out into a fuller story. This one is based on a simple premise: What if Bo and Lauren met again long after one had left the other, and set in the AU scifi genre?
Comments and reviews strongly encouraged! It's the only way I'll know what to write next. ~VB517]
XX – XX – XX – XX – XX
The rain had been fairly steady for most of the morning, but for the last five minutes it had pounded the pavement so hard, the backsplash reached as high as the shins of the pedestrians on the sidewalk. Warm and dry inside a café, Lauren watched people hurry down the street, some with umbrellas, one or two without.
She'd been in the city – hell, on the planet itself – for less than a month, but was still trying to figure out what to do next. Still trying to find a place for herself in this new life. A life of solitude on good days, complete loneliness on bad.
The morning's interview had gone well, she thought. The pay wasn't what she was used to, but the small clinic was willing to overlook her lack of credentials and invited her to meet with the head administrator based on her experience alone.
If she didn't get the job, she'd have to consider other, possibly unsavory, options.
Lauren glanced back at the small café's tiny counter as she took another sip from her coffee – or what passed for what she knew as coffee back home. It tasted the same and different all at once, and was one more thing she was trying to get used to.
The proprietor glanced at her a little too long before looking away. Most of the people she'd come across over the last few weeks marked her immediately as an offworlder. No one had been unkind, but the distance was starting to get to her. She looked back out the window.
It was a busy street. Across from the café, there was a lane dedicated to commuter traffic. Automatic vehicles pulled in and stopped to expel their occupants, pick up new ones and continue down the avenue. She'd watched the traffic pile up as the occupants took longer to get out, fumbling with their umbrellas and trying to protect their clothing and valuables.
After a while the lane cleared as the rush passed, and then a single vehicle pulled in. Lauren watched a lone occupant climb from the rear passenger compartment, and then turn around to face in Lauren's direction. The woman's face, highlighted by brilliant blue eyes with an almost electronic shine, was clearly visible despite the downpour and the shadow of her umbrella.
Lauren froze, cup half raised to her lips.
Isabeau.
There was no mistaking those eyes or the delicate curve of the woman's face. Her dark hair was pulled away from her face, tied up in some fashion on the back of her head, but Lauren remembered how it would fall in long waves and spill over her forehead from time to time.
Five years. It had been five years since she'd seen Isabeau. Five years since Lauren had walked out of their upscale metropolitan apartment in Seattle, Washington back on Earth.
She watched Isabeau wrestle with her umbrella, her hair and clothes getting wet in the rain.
Five years since Lauren had left Isabeau behind.
Lauren couldn't believe Isabeau was here. What were the chances?
Just when Lauren was about to leap up, fight or flight, to run out the door, Isabeau saw her sitting in the café, and stopped all movement.
Her bright, Verran eyes – florescent, like all the people of her native world – flashed in recognition, and for a minute or two, they stared at each other through the window's glass and the rain.
Lauren was afraid that Isabeau would walk away, pretend she hadn't seen her, and deny this moment of possibility. For a moment, Isabeau looked wary, but then, to Lauren's surprise, she took a step towards the street between them, checked briefly for oncoming traffic, and walked directly to the café.
Now Lauren was scared of what Isabeau might say. And she had no idea at all what she would say herself.
Moments later, and too quickly for her thoughts to catch up to her racing heart, Lauren looked up into Isabeau's guarded face.
She looks the same. Hasn't changed one bit.
Isabeau looked young enough to be fresh out of university, but Lauren knew she was at least a decade older than that. Her pale skin and dark hair were in perfect contrast, and were complemented by the dark shades of her long jacket and black pants and boots. Though she looked almost classically feminine – as if sculpted by some long forgotten artist – she also appeared strong and sure.
"Hello, Lauren," Isabeau said.
Her low, musical voice had a slight vibration as all Verrans did. Lauren remembered how it sounded to her ears – she still heard that voice in her dreams sometimes - but had forgotten the effect it had on her spine. A shiver rolled through her shoulders.
"Hello, Isabeau." She stared, at a loss for more words, until she realized Isabeau hadn't said anything either. "May I get you a cup of coffee?"
Isabeau sat sideways in the empty chair across from Lauren at the tiny table, her wet umbrella clasped in wet hands between equally wet knees, everything dripping on the floor.
"No, thank you." Isabeau said. "I'm on my way to work."
"Oh!" Lauren said. "I –" She had no idea what to say. How could she have so much she wanted to tell Isabeau, but have nothing to say? "I just moved here – to Hermes, I mean – last month."
"And how do you like it?" Isabeau said.
Are we really going to do this? Small talk? Lauren wanted to tell her how wonderful it was to see her, how beautiful she looked, how Lauren still felt…something.
"Very well, so far," Lauren said. "I'm, um –" She offered a small smile. "I'm still looking for work, but otherwise, things are well."
Isabeau smiled back. "That's good." She looked at the street, then back at Lauren. "I've lived here in New Rome for a good while. I moved here a few years ago, after…" She paused, and looked uncomfortable.
After Lauren had left her.
Lauren knew she had so much to say, so much to apologize for, but where could she start? How could she even begin to undo all the damage done?
"I wanted to contact you, to write or – " Lauren paused. This moment was important and she didn't want to ruin this one opportunity to make things at least better, if not right. "I shouldn't have left the way I did."
For a moment, the old pain was back. The weight of her family's disapproval, the pressure from her employer, the media attention – all of it. Lauren had been weak at the time, and broken from the interminable onslaught from all sides.
But then she remembered why, eventually, none of that had really mattered.
She had loved Isabeau, and the months after Lauren had left her had been filled with regret – months that turned into years, until she'd finally left Earth and gone in search of something she couldn't quite name.
Isabeau looked down for a moment, then back up to meet Lauren's eyes. "It was over and done a long time ago, Lauren."
"Yes, that's true, but," Lauren's words faltered. But I want to take it all back.
Sitting here staring into Isabeau's wild blue eyes, eyes that so many had described as cold and unfeeling but Lauren only every saw as warm and passionate and inviting, she realized she still loved Isabeau.
"I really can't stay, but when I saw you, well," Isabeau paused and sighed. "I didn't want to walk away without at least speaking to you." She tightened her coat across her chest and shifted her weight.
This can't be the end of it, Lauren thought.
"May I see you again?" she asked.
Isabeau's eyes moved from Lauren's face to her own hands, and back.
"So much time, Lauren." Isabeau shook her head sadly. Wistfully, perhaps.
"Have dinner with me." Lauren persisted. She didn't know anything about Isabeau's life now – was scared to think about it, actually – but she couldn't let this go.
Shining blue eyes stared at Lauren, taking her measure.
"I'm not sure that's such a good idea."
Lauren didn't want to beg – it was inappropriate and desperate – but to have run into each other after all this time, here and now of all places…surely that meant something.
"Just one chance to talk together, to explain or – alright, not explain, but –"
"Lauren, what else is there to say?"
Gods, so much. But right now, she couldn't get another word to come out of her mouth.
"You look great, Lauren. I hope you find work soon and that things…" Isabeau paused. "Well, that everything works out."
She stood up and stepped closer for a moment – just close enough for Lauren to catch the scent of her mixed with the rain and the coffee. It made something inside Lauren ache.
"Take care of yourself, Lauren." Isabeau said in parting before she walked away.
Lauren didn't watch her leave, though she heard the tinny ring of the bell tied to the café's door. Her eyes itched with tears.
Goodbye.
Suddenly, Lauren realized what she'd been looking for all this time, and that now it was once again gone. She looked down at her coffee, but through the haze of blurred vision, it no longer seemed appetizing. She held in the sobs – holding on to what little of her dignity remained.
A mild shadow and the awareness of someone nearby startled Lauren and made her look up and out the window. Isabeau had stopped outside, on the sidewalk in front of the café, right outside Lauren's table, and was looking at Lauren, indecision on her face and in her eyes.
Lauren wiped her tears away, embarrassed, but didn't look away.
Isabeau stepped closer to the window, under the awning of the cafe. She switched her umbrella to her other hand, and raised her sleeve to reveal the slim silver wristband of her comm bar wrapped around her wrist.
One tear fell down her cheek, though Lauren supposed it might have been rain, but looking at Isabeau's face, she didn't think so.
They were inches apart, with only the window between. Isabeau raised her hand to press against the glass. Lauren could see a blinking green light on the comm bar, an indication that the device was in send mode.
Lauren's shoulders relaxed in relief, heartbreak pushed aside once more. She raised her wrist with her own comm bar directly across from Isabeau's, knowing it would automatically receive any information sent from Isabeau's device. This was Isabeau's way of agreeing to meet – by giving Lauren the means to contact her.
Lauren smiled in gratitude, and wiped her own tears away with her free hand. Isabeau gestured a farewell, then walked with her head bowed up the street until she was out of sight.
Lauren took a deep breath.
One more chance. Don't waste it.
FIN
TBC? Comments and reviews, suggestions or criticism! ~VB517