Title: Nothing Can Be Done
Rating: PG-13
Characters are not mine I am just borrowing.
Poetry is mine.
Shoujo-ai/Yuri Content.
There was something off putting about seeing Sally with a martini glass in her hand. Out of place, because of the staunch belief by nearly everyone at the Preventor offices that the chief medical officer didn't drink, and if she did it was probably just an occasional bottle or mug of beer. Nothing fancy looking, nothing complicated or too rough, just a simple thing, and never taken to excess because she was Sally.
Everyone thought they knew her well and that she was easy to read, but Dorothy tilted her head and watched the way the woman held the glass and took a sip from it. She watched the guarded way Sally listened as some young man tried to cajole her into dancing, the easy and apologetic smile that came with the whispered refusal, and the way that answer hit with enough force to make the "no" definite without leaving a mark on the young man.
No one knew Sally Po at all. Except-
And Dorothy looked over at where Preventor Noin and Zechs Marquis were standing, laughing at some joke made by another officer. There was definitely a connection between the two. It showed in the glances they gave each other. It showed in the way she had over heard Sally and Noin speak to each other. Whatever it had been was buried and was now something like a close friendship with bitter edges that seemed to threaten everything.
No, no one knew Sally well at all.
She wondered if anyone really could, and she huffed at the passing thought of making herself someone who knew the woman well. It was a terrible joke. She wasn't sure she could take things far enough to really mean it, and she understood that she really would have to mean it to know anything that was at all real about Sally.
Dorothy tilted her head back and smiled. She had been watching the entire party from the shadows and clutching at her champagne cocktail for support. She didn't want to be there. She hated office parties, but it was the only escape she had at the moment. And her thoughts drifted without permission to her townhouse and all the little boxes out in the hall that were filled with things that didn't belong to her, things that were to be picked up and shipped off to some retched block of government housing where Relena was going to live.
Such stupid little feelings of anger and sadness abounded at the loss of what was never really hers to begin with. Such a waste of thought, and she tried to pretend that what certain people said about their relationship was true. She tried to pretend that she was a villain leading poor innocent Relena astray, and how wonderful it was that the princess had finally broken away. Dorothy had never wanted to blow up the tabloids' headquarters so much in her life.
She looked back up and chugged down the contents of her glass. She wanted something bitter to go with her mood. A roving waiter passed by with a tray of Manhattans and she reached out for one, before pulling back and declining. She set her empty glass on a table and decided to take a seat. Seconds later the waiter returned with a slender glass filled with orange juice. She accepted it and then blinked curiously at it before taking a sip.
It was just orange juice, probably frozen from concentrate orange juice, but it hit her tongue like a revelation. She looked over at where Sally had been standing and did not see her. She looked over at the bar, but no one she knew was there. She shook her head and focused back on her drink. She savored the taste, the false nutrition, sweet with mild sour notes, and no pulp.
"Do you like it?"
Dorothy looked up, there was Sally. She grinned. "It's excellent."
"Typically, my drink of choice." The medical officer pulled out a chair and sat next to the young woman. "How are you holding up?"
"I hate office parties."
"That isn't what I asked," Sally said softly. "Want to get away?"
Dorothy grabbed her drink and gulped down the rest of the orange juice. She stood up. "Desperately."
There are a million reasons why
Someone like you finds someone like me
When the chips come down on the table
When the rumors and expectations hit our ears
We find ourselves seeking solace
We find ourselves seeking release
We want to find who we really are
Without the pain of a mirror's reflection
There are a million reasons why
Someone like you finds someone like me
And it isn't because you want to be kind
It isn't because that's what you do
It's because deep down
Under all the cool and easy drifting grins
You need release too
Sally had heard the rumors. She never listened to rumors, or, rather, she never took them all the way in at face value. People spread rumors about her too, which was why everyone kept asking if she was feeling alright as she took sips from her daiquiri. It was all quite laughable really.
She had been keeping an eye on Dorothy Catalonia for a good part of the party, and she wasn't exactly surprised that the young woman was keeping on eye on her as well. They really had nothing to offer each other, and knowing that Sally had steered her course with care.
She wasn't a saint. She wasn't a savior, though some liked to paint her that way.
Dorothy Catalonia had been skirting the edges of the party. She hid in corners, under shadows. She hadn't brought her drink to her lips more than once and clung to that champagne glass like a life preserver. And rumors, ugly and less flattering than the ones that surrounded Sally, drifted about the room in soft whispers. How sad it was that no one should know the young woman well enough? But no one knew her.
Sally didn't know her either, but that didn't stop her from taking Dorothy home. There was a blessing in the unknown. In conversation that didn't travel the way she thought it might.
They chatted on the car drive, Sally sitting in the passenger seat of Dorothy's giant Cadillac, guiding the younger woman to her flat, thinking with amusement at trying to find a parking space big enough for the car in her crowded complex, defusing unasked questions that wanted to be asked, like why Sally didn't have a house, with cool remarks. She didn't need large spaces. She was, after all, a soldier to her core.
There was hesitation at the door as Sally maneuvered her way inside, pulling, without touching, Dorothy inside. Kissing her quickly while turning on the lights and unapologetic when the young woman momentarily resisted only to dive right in. Moving in a dance to the couch, to sit, and allow Dorothy to crawl onto her lap and allow for control to slip through her hands and over to the blonde who seemed to need it so desperately.
"She broke your heart, didn't she?" Sally asked when Dorothy finally allowed a moment for speech.
"Yes." Dorothy replied and rested her head against Sally's chest. "Still going to take advantage of me?" There was something wicked in the question.
"Yes."
"Good." She shut her eyes, opening them again when she felt herself tugged up. She looked for something telling in Sally's eyes, something sure, but there was nothing. So she let herself be led, and she followed Sally to the bedroom.
"My heart," Sally said, "is a smoking gun."
Dorothy wrapped her arms around Sally's neck as the door snapped shut. "And nothing can be done, but why tell me?"
Sally kissed her, deeply. She pulled away to whisper, "So that you know something about me."
End.