Any mistakes that you will find are all mine, as I had no beta for this one. If anybody finds any mistakes, please message me and let me know. I probably fudged a bit with the dates and might have gotten them wrong.
This is supposed to take place after the Factory Attack and Rick and Lisa's second kiss. I think it should also take place before Star Mission (because things kind of fell apart at that point) but it is in a time when Rick and Lisa are not actively fighting and Minmay is not in the picture, so probably right before the ill-fated picnic would have happened.
Enjoy!
Chapter 01 - The Setup
It was Friday night and The Setup was packed. Rick sighed as he wondered why he had agreed to come here on the first place. He had to admit, he was not a big drinker, so the appeal of a night out drinking and dancing did not call out to him. To be honest, the only reason he had agreed is because he had overheard that the Trio had roped the rest of his friends into going. It was not all the time when their schedules permitted for them to all go out at the same time. He thought that if even even Lisa, as reserved as she normally was, had permitted herself the rare treat, then he could do it too. Even though Rick was not a huge drinker, and certainly not a dancer, he did enjoy a social drink here and there. He especially enjoyed seeing his friends outside of their regular setting when they were more relaxed, in particular, a certain green eyed captain.
Rick was daydreaming about that particular person as he was waiting by the bar. It was his turn to buy a round for everybody. Unfortunately he had been waiting for a while, which lead him to the daydreaming. He had been using that method to pass the time until he realized how long it had actually been. He had tried be patient but he was starting to get annoyed. He could understand the fact that The Setup was a bit crowded tonight but if there was only one bartender for the whole crowd…
He kept trying to sneak glances back to the table his friends were in but he couldn't see past the wall of dancing people. He sighted dejectedly, with his luck, he would spend the whole night away from all of them. How was it that the girls had gotten their drinks much faster? Finally the bartender came back with a tray of drinks for him.
"Ok Captain, here are the drinks for your table. Sorry for taking so long." The guy apologized.
"No problem. Just make sure that you add it to my tab, this is my round."
"Sure thing Cap! By the way, I added a couple of shots as a thank you for your patience."
Rick looked at the tray, just then noticing the extra drinks. He instantly felt bad and demurred, "There's no need for that!"
"Really Cap, take them." He leaned over conspiratorially "We are allowed a couple of freebies every once in awhile and I want to give them to you for being so nice."
Rick decided not to fight with the man again and thanked him. He was sure the Trio would appreciate the free drinks. Claudia could outdrink a sailor, it probably came from the time when she was dating Roy. That left the Sterlings, Lisa and him who were not big drinkers. He wove his way past the dance floor and approached their table just to come to an abrupt stop. Where all his friends had been sitting, the only thing left was a cluster of empty chairs and in the middle of it all was a lonely figure, holding down the fort.
"What happened?" Rick asked a distracted Lisa who seemed to have been staring longingly at the dance floor.
Lisa straightened to attention and looked at him. "There you are! What happened to you Hunter? Did you go and distill the alcohol yourself?" She asked in an abrasive way. Rick just rolled his eyes and smiled at her as he put the drinks down. A long time ago he would have been furious at that comment and would have started a fight with her but after knowing Lisa's sarcastic and caustic humor he knew there was no bite to her bark, at least not unless he had given her an actual reason to get mad at him.
"They only have one bartender for this crowd, can you believe that? Anyway what happened to everybody?"
"Claudia decided it was time to go home and have her last drink with her man so she could go to sleep," Rick and Lisa looked at each other in understanding. Claudia was missing Roy so she probably wanted to reminisce about him. "Max and Miriya decided that they wanted to take advantage of Dana's sleepover at the Grant's so they went home and practice some 'strategic fighting'" Lisa said and Rick winced at the uninvited image that came to his head.
"Really Lisa? TMI."
"Heck if I had to live with the mental image, you might as well too. They are your subordinates after all." She said dryly but Rick could see the little smirk that indicated she was having fun with their banter. Rick really enjoyed this facet of Lisa now that he had discovered it. She had a dry wit that made her seem abrasive and cold but if it was not truly directed to you, it was quite enjoyable and refreshing. Who knew that his CO could be so entertaining!
"How about the girls then?"
"They already hooked up with some guys they had met last week. You can see Sammy there dancing."
So that's what she had been looking at so longingly! Rick thought with understanding. Every once in awhile Rick would catch Lisa in one of those moods in which she missed Karl and that's when her comments turned more acerbic. He should have known something had triggered it but since her comments had been pretty mild, he realized she was not as affected as she usually was by the memories. In any case, it bothered him to see her so sad, even if she was trying to mask it, and so he tried to get her out of that funk by joking with her.
"It seems you are stuck with me then." Rick said with a lopsided smile.
At that moment Lisa looked at the tray he had been carrying. "Hunter, what did you do? Rob the bar? Why did you order so many drinks?"
Rick proceeded to tell her what had happened. After he was done, she said, "Well, what do you want to do with the drinks?"
"Well, here's yours and I have mine." He said, giving her a glass and taking his, which they clinched with a conspiratorial smile. "We'll see what happens with the rest."
"Rick! We can't drink all of this!" Lisa said with a laugh, now truly distracted from her dark thoughts by his playful attitude.
"What? You a lightweight?"
"No you crazy man! There is no way that we can drink it all. I already had a couple of drinks before this. They'll have to cart me out of here if I try to drink all this."
"You are right." Rick said with an exaggerated sigh that proved to her that he was joking.
"For a second there I thought you were trying to get me drunk." Lisa teased him back, the warm glow of the alcohol loosening her tongue a bit.
Rick gulped a bit too much of the drink, not because of the teasing comment but because of the way that she looked at him. Everytime she gave him one of those glances where she looked at him through her eyelashes and wore that little devilish smirk, his insides turned to jelly and a different type of heat than the one from the alcohol infused his insides.
He coughed a little bit, in part from the surprised gulp he had taken from the alcohol and in part from the embarrassment to the reaction her look was giving to him.
"Come on Hunter it was a joke!" She said as she slapped him lightly on his back.
"I know that! It just went the wrong way. Geez, they made this one strong." He said to cover up his embarrassment. She had yet to remove her hand from his back and it was causing quite a tingling on his body. 'What is up with you Hunter?!' Rick thought to himself. This was not the first time that her looks or her innocent touch had caused his body to short circuit as if he had touched a live wire. He wanted to attribute it to the alcohol but he knew he had felt the same even when he had been sober.
Lisa was confused at the intense look that Rick was giving her. Sometimes she felt as if there was something more happening between them but she was not confident enough to address it. So instead she did as she always did and decided to change the conversation.
"Look, there is Kim." She pointed out the spry figure shimmying around the dance floor.
Rick spied the black haired sprite dancing with a guy they did not recognize.
"Well I guess Kim found a new guy for the month." Rick said.
More like the week, Lisa thought but she didn't say anything. Instead she replied, "I don't know how she can just go out with somebody she has just met."
"I know, it sometimes gives me the creeps to think of somebody like that. What kind of person we can meet."
"I know! What if they turn out to be a creep?" Lisa said with a shudder and a slight haunted look on her eyes. Rick decided not to ask any further as he could tell it would lead her in a darker path so instead he decided to distract her.
They spent quite a while talking and teasing each other since the music was buffered by the sound barrier that surrounded the dance floor. It was a great invention, it allowed music to filter through but it was dampened enough that they did not need to scream at each other to make themselves heard. Without them noticing, the tray of drinks was shrinking and their tongues and inhibitions had gotten looser.
"Well, I think the girls are not returning to the table any more." Rick said a bit forlorn.
"They probably retired with their new friends." Lisa said delicately but Rick knew what that implied.
Probably because of the easy camaraderie between the two and the fact that they had drunk quite a bit, Rick felt the need to confess, "Lucky them." He mumbled. At Lisa's look of surprise, he blurted out an explanation. "I have not gotten laid in such a long time!"
Rick was shocked to hear himself say that and Lisa looked at him surprised at his candid admission. He seemed self-conscious about his admission so Lisa decided to be as frank as he had been.
"You think you have it bad? I have not been kissed in exactly 4 months and two weeks." The alcohol had done a good job of removing her reservation.
"Why that is very precise."
"That's because the last time was when you kissed me in the Satellite Factory." She replied glumly.
"I left that much of an impression, huh?"
Lisa looked at him bleary eyed and snorted.
"Maybe we should hook up." Rick said.
Lisa felt as if she had been doused with cold water. "What did you say?"
"Well think about it, we both are single, we know each other so we are not creepy strangers… Heck, we are best friends!" Rick said, getting excited about the idea.
"I don't think…" Lisa started to say but Rick cut her off.
"But think about it," Rick said, warming even more to the idea, "You like my kisses, " Lisa gave him a killer look. "Well, at least they are not bad."
"If you are fishing for a compliment, they are quite tolerable." Rick gave her a blinding smile.
"Come on, I'm just better than tolerable."
"Really…"
"Yes, and I can prove it." Rick said enthusiastically as he got closer.
"What are you thinking?!" Lisa hissed. "Not here! I'm not about to give a public performance." Lisa might be slightly tipsy and potentially rather drunk to be having that conversation with Rick but she still retained a bit of her lucidity.
"You are right." Rick said, thinking about it for a second. With a snap, he got up and told her. "Drink up, we are leaving." He said as he downed his drink in one gulp.
"What?" Lisa asked him surprised. She had never seen Rick doing shots or gulping down drinks in that manner before.
"Drink up, drink up!" Rick encouraged and she took a little sip. Or at least she tried to make it little and it ended up being much more than what she usually would have drunk. She was just too distracted by the fanatical gleam she saw in his eye.
As soon as she put the drink down, Rick dragged her out of her seat and started walking away with her.
"Where are we going?" Lisa said as he kept on dragging her along. They had reached a darkened area of the club before he stopped to face her.
"I'm going to prove to you that it's worth it."
"What?!" Her poor alcohol fogged brain could not keep up with the conversation. Who knew that Rick was so hyper with alcohol… Her thoughts were suddenly stopped because he was kissing her, really kissing her and not like the previous two times, where there was minimal body contact, this time he had grabbed her hips and set her flush to his own body. Lisa had never been this close to Rick before and she could feel his hard body against her and it was making her crazy.
'Oh my, he was really good.' Was the only thing that Lisa could think as she melted against him. Just as things would have gotten more heated, he raised his lips from her, leaving her even more disoriented than before.
"So what do you think?" Rick asked, just as annoyingly cheerful, even if he sounded much more breathless than before.
"Well that was…" Lisa could barely string two words together.
"I know! Wow, you are like fire. So do you agree?"
'He thinks I'm like fire? That's good right?' It had felt like fire… "Yes." She breathed, not really remembering what she was agreeing to.
"Let's go and talk about it." He said, dragging her again to parts unknown.
They made it to his house in record time and while the walk did sober them up a bit, the whole night was still fuzzy arounds the edges. 'Had he really kissed her like that?' Lisa asked herself, still in a daze.
The walk had been short, short enough to clear their minds a bit but not enough to erase the effects of the alcohol completely. Rick did not really want to think about what he had done. Or truly he didn't want to analyze what it meant. It had felt so good to have her on his arms, it felt so right, like she really belonged there… So logically, at least for his fogged up mind it was logical, he decided to do just that. Also if there was one thing about Rick, it was that when he got an idea through his head, it was really tough to remove it. And right now the only thing he could think about was tasting her lips again.
He pulled a surprised Lisa to him and her body naturally molded to his. The alcohol and the surprise had made her malleable to his demands. That's how Lisa found herself in Rick's arms again in a heated embrace. He kissed her again, his lips hungry and demanding. Her response was slow at first but then she gave in.
The kisses and the alcohol were making their minds fuzzy and removed their inhibitions. Their pent-up passion, the one that they worked so hard to deny everyday, finally exploded and its flames consumed them. Lisa thought that they should really stop and talk about it but just being in Rick's arms finally was her wish come true. She knew there would be consequences but right now she really did not care.
Lisa's bladder woke her up the next morning. Knowing she had the day off, she tried to will it away but the need was strong. Without opening her eyes, she tried to make her way to the bathroom. Unfortunately her forward process was hampered by the minefield of littered shoes and clothing on the floor. She found such a mess odd but she was in too much hurry to go to really analyze it. For some reason she missed the opening to her bathroom, which was strange because she was so familiar with the layout of her house, she could go to and from her bathroom without opening her eyes by now. When she finally found the door, which seemed to have shifted positions for some weird reason, she ended up stubbing her toe. She cursed quite fluently while the pain of her toe mixed with that of her bladder as she tried to find the light switch. Everything seemed out of place and her muddled brain tried to make sense of it. She finally cracked her eyes half open and she looked around bleary eyed. Her confused brain finally realized where she was and she groaned. She fell asleep at Rick's? Not an unusual occurrence since they had sometimes crashed at each other's houses. But as her brain finally woke up, she realized she was not wearing a stitch of clothing. What the heck had she been thinking? Did she sleep naked? At Rick's? What if he would have walked in on her for some reason? Well, that explained the explosion of clothing and shoes that were strewn about on the floor.
Snippets of last night finally started to filter through her abused brain and she remembered Rick's kiss in the bar and the conversation that had sparked it…
"Oh no!" Lisa whispered. 'What had they done?' She thought in a panic. 'Did they really…' She didn't even want to finish that thought in her head.
Lisa frantically grabbed a towel and wrapped it around herself as she suddenly had to find out if her suspicions were correct.
Rick felt the bed dip and some noises followed by a thump. It was the inventive cursing though that finally woke him up. While still in that state of half awake, Rick snorted as he heard a woman, he assumed it was Lisa, after all, who else would have slept in his bed… 'Wait a minute!' Rick suddenly opened his eyes fully and sat up in bed. 'Did that mean that she slept next to him in his bed? And was he… naked?'
Fearfully, Rick peeked under the covers and as his eyes confirmed what his brain already had informed him, he broke in a cold sweat. 'Holy cow! What had happened?'
He looked around for some clues and saw the strewn about clothing, the mussed up covers and his brain finally started to provide the missing pieces to this puzzle. Had he really proposed THAT to his CO?
All of the sudden he heard the sound of the toilet flushing and his eyes flew towards the bathroom door where he saw an equally confused Lisa peek out the door. She was only wrapped in a towel, further supporting the suspicion that had been forming in his brain.
As their eyes met, they both groaned out loud. In that instant, both of them knew that what they had feared had actually happened. With a little scream, Lisa hid back in the bathroom and closed the door with a thump.
Rick groaned again. Great! With one night they had managed to screw up their friendship. Also if he was not mistaken, based on what he could remember it had been his idea on the first place. Lisa was going to kill him, if he didn't die from embarrassment first! Rick went on panic mode and decided to try to make things right again.
He reached over and grabbed some clothing from his dresser to get dressed. After covering himself up, he grabbed Lisa's clothing, with the intention of presenting it to her as a peace offering. As he gathered it in his hands though, he realized it smelled stale from last night's club. So he looked for a clean shirt and a clean pair of pants for her to wear, even if they would be too big for her. Understanding how embarrassed she must feel, being such a private person, he approached the door cautiously and said, "Lisa I'm leaving some clean clothing for you. Why don't you get dressed and then we can talk?" Hearing a sound that was a cross between a groan and a whimper, Rick said, "Don't worry, I know what it looks like but we will talk about it, together. Just freshen up and come out when you are ready."
He was about to leave the room when he came across Lisa's undergarments by the bed. Cautiously, he grabbed them, but the thought of handling them made him break out in a cold sweat and he decided to leave them where he found them. He then rushed out of the room as if he could run away from the mess they had created.
After seeing Rick shirtless and potentially nude as her under those covers, Lisa hid inside of the bathroom. Leaning against the door, Lisa felt like hyperventilating. 'Oh my God! What have I done?' She couldn't believe that she had thrown all sensibility out of the window after a couple of drinks. Oh why couldn't she had gotten sick instead of just plain out drunk? At least that humiliation would have paled in comparison to this one. How could she face Rick now? Had she said some things last night? Had she confessed how she felt about him? Oh why couldn't her stupid brain remember?
All of the sudden, a knock startled her out of her thoughts. "Lisa I'm leaving some clean clothing for you. Why don't you get dressed and then we can talk?" She whimpered in distress. Rick continued, "Don't worry, I know what it looks like but we will talk about it, together. Just freshen up and come out when you are ready."
She couldn't believe how calmly Rick was handling the whole thing when she was a nervous wreck. But of course Rick had no problem in having sex with her, he wasn't secretly in love with her. She on the other hand…
It seemed like hours but she knew it must have been only five minutes since Rick left the room before she felt enough courage to peek outside to make sure she was by herself. She saw a pile of clothing by her that looked like Rick's and she was confused as to why he would have left that there. Ignoring it, she went for her clothing but as she got to her shirt, she understood the reason why Rick had done that. The clothing stank so bad it almost made her gag. Leaving it on the floor for later, she rushed to put a T-shirt which was obviously baggy and a pair of sweatpants that she had to hem it a couple of times before she could walk without tripping. Even after getting dressed, she hesitated before going out to confront Rick.
As Rick was preparing breakfast, his mind started to provide all the information that had been previously missing. And as many holes as his memory had, he definitely remembered all the key parts, even if they were a bit blurry. He remembered his proposition to Lisa and his decision to prove he was "worthy" by kissing her. What had started as a crazy idea turned into a real possibility after that kiss. Even though he had kissed Lisa a couple of times in the past, he had to admit that he had always been distracted from what they were doing because of the groaning sounds of the aliens, to Ben's gasp, to thoughts of betraying Minmay… he had never given Lisa, or their kisses, the time of day. But last night it had all been about them, and only them.
When he had decided to prove himself to her last night, he had been the one to be taken aback by their powerful reaction to each other. After the initial surprise, Lisa had finally kissed him back and her kisses turned on something in him that he had not felt in a long while. For a moment he had forgotten where he had been and the only thing that he could think about was the woman that he held in his arms. He couldn't believe he had been so comfortable with her! He also couldn't believe how unbelievably passionate Lisa could actually be. He didn't think anymore that she was the cold fish that he had initially called her in many occasions but last night had opened his eyes to a whole new side of her. Granted he couldn't remember all the details but damn, the things that he could remember! He was really looking forward to redoing them all over again.
Wait… did he really want to? Did he really want to repeat that crazy night again with Lisa Hayes? Minus the drinks of course. The next time he wanted to remember everything. Did he really want to go down that road? The more that he thought about it, the more that he thought that yes. He did want to repeat that night with her and only with her. He wanted to explore that luscious body that he could only remember glimpses of. As he was recalling these images, he heard the bedroom door creak open and he turned to face his CO, best friend now turned lover.
Lisa was having the same tumultuous thoughts as Rick was. She could hear him bustling about in the little kitchen but she just couldn't find the courage to get up from the bed and face him. After she had gotten dressed, she had gathered last night's clothing and had been ready to walk out, of the room, potentially walk out of his house, when her courage deserted her and she had sat down heavily in bed.
She had had a one night stand with the man she was secretly in love with. Or at least it was a secret to him. Everybody else pretty much knew or assumed it was so. They were practically attached at the hip in some cases. When they were not working together in harmony, they were fighting like cats and dogs. In her case, most of her fighting was now caused by the frustration of having him so close and not being able to reveal her real feelings to him. The fact that she had fulfilled one of her dreams, to be with him, and not being able to remember the whole thing was, like the rest of her life, one of the biggest ironies on par with the rest of her rotten luck. The alcohol had only helped her to lose her reservations and inhibitions and she had been able to demonstrate to him how much she cared for him.
Unfortunately that same liquid courage had wiped away most of her memory, making it fuzzy and rendering it useless as a keepsake. She wondered if Rick remembered any of it. She couldn't remember any conversation from them after the first initial one. From what she could remember, the only conversation that they'd had after they came back had mostly taken place with their bodies. Lisa was still terrified though that, while letting go, and in an already uninhibited state, she had somehow revealed her deepest secret. She heard a lull on the noise and she panicked, thinking that he would come over and look for her.
She decided that she had hidden long enough and that it would be better to go out on her own terms. She left her clothing on the bed where she had been sitting and went to face him.
The door creaked open and Rick turned to face her. He looked just as apprehensive as she felt. They looked at each other for a while, neither knowing what to say. Finally Rick was the first one to speak.
"Are you mad?"
"Mad? No.. I'm not! " She said in a rush and Rick believed her. "We are consenting adults and what we did was consensual… I mean we both agreed to it."
Rick let out a breath. That question had been weighing on his mind. The last thing he wanted to do was to lose her friendship over a casual one night stand. He was glad that their relationship was more solid than that. Looking at her, and the way that she was avoiding his gaze, he could tell that she was still nervous and ashamed about what had happened. There were still stigmas about a woman doing this kind of casual thing and he knew Lisa's dad was very conservative so he understood her hesitation. Also Lisa was not the kind to sleep around. This was the woman that was still hung up over her dead fiance 8 years later. So he decided to make her feel more at ease before they tackled their important conversation.
"Come on, we should eat first. I don't know about you but I have a pounding headache and my stomach feels like it wants to crawl out of my throat any minute now."
Lisa had to smile a bit at his description and tone. Trust Rick to make her feel somewhat at ease after all that had happened. She did feel indeed a bit sick and still apprehensive so she needed a bit more time to compose herself.
Her smile wobbled a bit as she approached him on the table. The both sat down quietly and started drinking some very strong coffee and some toast. Rick had put together some other things that he had found on his cupboards and fridge but they were too nervous and hungover to really eat anything more. At the end, they barely made a dent on their food. Normally Rick would have wolfed down half of the table, he still was a growing boy he claimed and he had quite a healthy appetite. As for Lisa, although she didn't eat that much, she normally ate a hearty breakfast to start her day, so for them both this was nothing. But the hangover and all the unanswered questions made them both too apprehensive to eat and they finally stopped.
"I guess you are not too hungry either, huh?" Rick asked with a lopsided smile.
Lisa just shook her head, her eyes big as saucers, knowing that the time had come for them both to talk.
"Why don't we go to the couch where we will be more comfortable? Just leave the dishes, this is more important." Rick said and offered his hand to her. Lisa nodded in agreement and took his hand, letting herself be lead just like she had done last night.
After they both sat down, Rick asked her, "What do you remember?" Rick said softly.
"I remember us talking about..."
"Us not getting laid…" He supplied, as she almost choked on what she was saying before.
"Yes, then you took me to the back and we kissed…" Rick raised his eyebrows expectantly, waiting for her to talk even more. He was fascinated by rosy blush that was climbing over her cheeks. He knew that he should save her from all the embarrassment but she needed to confront what they had done. If she retreated now, then the conversation would shut down before it was even started. He needed her to face what they had done, just like he had done it already so that they could move on.
"And…"
"Don't you remember what happened? Or are you asking me to fill in all the blanks?" Lisa asked in a peevish tone. She was getting more embarrassed by the minute, and his open gaze and mischievous blue eyes were not helping her be more at ease. On the contrary, it seemed like he was enjoying hearing her say it. So she retreated to her usual Commanding Officer mask as a refuge. Unfortunately, Rick knew her too well.
"Oh I remember! I remember quite a bit. I don't know how we coordinated as much as we finally did but I do remember where it all lead us, to that bed over there," he said, nodding towards the open door. "And to a rather surprising night." Lisa was as red as a tomato by now and she was avoiding his gaze.
"Hey, look at me." He said gently, shaking her hands gently, hands that he had never let go since they had both sat down. "Look, I know it was not the ideal situation. To be honest the only thing that I regret is that I don't remember if I treated you right. I'm hoping I did. Do you feel ok?"
Lisa looked at him wide eyed. She was floored at the concern that she heard on his voice. She was also scared that he thought he had hurt her in any way. "No, I am fine. From what I remember, what little I remember, it felt good."
"Here I was hoping it was more than good." Rick said, still teasing her.
"Well, you know… Rick! Stop teasing me!" Lisa said, catching up to his little game. It was the same line of conversation that had brought them into this mess on the first place.
"Ok, ok! What else worries you then?... " Suddenly an idea popped into his head. "Oh, I guess… I've had all my shots, even the contraceptive ones, recently in my last checkup. So even if you didn't have yours…"
"No, God no! I hadn't even thought of that! Yes, I've had my shots recently too. Remember? We both met at the clinic."
"So then, that's settled. There's nothing to worry in that regard." He replied, strangely out of breath. For some reason the inkling of the idea of her getting pregnant was strangely disturbing and appealing at the same time. Rick decided to shove that idea to the back of his head and deal with it later. Now he still had a proposition to get to.
"You know, we never really got to the conversation part, we jumped to the deed right away." Rick said tentatively.
Lisa looked at him sharply. Was he actually trying to revive last night's drunken proposition?
"Rick, what are you trying to get to? Do you really expect us to talk about that?"
"And why not?" Rick asked blandly and Lisa almost spluttered a thousand different reasons why before she just said, "This is all a terrible idea!"
"But why?"
"Because we are friends! And this could ruin us in the long run! What happens when we stop?"
"It's already messed up! I can't stop thinking about how great you felt in my arms. I remember it as one of the best nights of my life. Wasn't it like that for you?"
It was the best night of her life! Lisa wanted to scream at him. But it was because she was in love with him and this was the fulfillment of all her fantasies. But she was not going to be that open with him.
"Who cares if it was great...!"
"It was awesome." RIck interrupted her but had to shut up when she looked at him with the patented Captain Hayes glare.
"But how can you propose something like this when you are in love with another woman?" She finished.
That statement seemed to go through him like no other. His excited face shut down and he turned his face away from her. As much as it had pained her to say it and to have this confirmation as her answer, she just wanted to get through to him and she knew that the Minmay card would be the only thing that would work. She did not expect however his next question.
"Do you still love Karl?"
"I'm sorry?"
"Karl Riber, do you still love him?"
"Rick, why are you bringing him up? Karl is dead, there is nothing I can do about it. But Minmay is still alive. There is no way I can ever be together with him."
"But you still love him."
"Of course I do! But... "Rick put a finger lightly on her lips.
"My love for Minmay is like yours for Karl. It was a long time ago and we are not the same people that we were when we both met. As much as you cannot have Karl back, I cannot have Minmay ever again. We both belong in two different worlds."
Lisa looked at him in shock. Rick seemed a bit melancholic but he was not sad or in pain from this. It wasn't the first time he had alluded at something similar but he had never really expressed it in so many words. It was also the first time where he seemed at ease with this. To be really honest, anytime that the subject of Minmay ever came up she hurriedly changed the subject so she did not know how he felt about it lately. It almost sounded as he had given up on his dream of being with the pretty little singer. Could that mean that there might be a chance for someone new to come into his heart?
That glimmer of hope made his crazy idea start sounding more appealing and for a second Lisa actually entertained the idea. It almost started to make sense until she thought about their friends. "But how are we going to get around our friends? People will start to notice."
"Let them talk, it's not like they don't do it all the time." Rick said unconcerned. Lisa was starting to get worried about this new facet of Rick Hunter that she had never met. He was sounding a little bit too much like his Big Brother, may he rest in peace. "We can always pretend we have met other people." He said with a shrug. "That will give us a little bit of time."
"That will never work! Claudia will want to meet whatever guy I have met. Also Max and Miriya will want to meet whomever you are dating."
"I can handle Max and Miriya. I'll just tell them it's casual. You on the other hand... it might be harder to cover up. We'll play it by ear. I'll come up with something. They might not even notice." Lisa gave him an exasperated look that said, 'do you really think so?'
"So what do you say? Do we do this?"
Lisa nodded in apprehension and a sense of deja vu from last night.
"How about we seal it with a kiss?" Rick said suggestively. Rick tries to get her closer to him and she stops him in a panic.
"What are you doing? You don't mean..."
"There's no time like the present..." He said as he closed the gap between them.
A/N:
Ok, Please don't kill me everybody! I know I should be finishing the LAST chapter in A Spacefold Away instead of starting a new story but the muse would not leave me alone! So, I decided to let it win and hopefully it will help me update the other two stories. Spacefold IS on the works right now and I have to go back to The Battle for Earth and really plan out what I am doing with that one so I can finally sit down to finish it. I have a better plan for this one so I am a lot more optimistic!
Please bear with me on this one! I used to watch too many Telenovelas/Soap Operas when I was a child and I am afraid some of that has leaked into this story. I will be stretching the limits of reality a bit since in some cases having a regular conversation as adults would solve some of the problems but what would be the fun in that, right? So it will be a bit melodramatic and a bit far fetched but just enough for the story to make sense. I will try to ground it in reality as much as I can because I don't believe in making it too fakey either. Hopefully you can all enjoy the story as it unfolds.