~Here's #4 of my challenge. I'm so glad I might actually finish it :) I hope you like.

::A dedication to Piper.

Ode

July 08, 2010

by: Her Head in the Clouds

Piper heaved a deep breath and exhaled. She then pulled her head back from the proximity she kept her face at with the energizer crystal and her couple samples of raw crystal.

"Ugh… this is taking so much longer than I'd hoped it would," she whispered harshly to herself. After expelling another deep breath, she reached up a hand to rub the back of her neck and swipe the cool thin laer of sweat that began to perspire. She had been bent over her little work station for nearly two hours and had soon realised just how silent the bridge was from her room. She didn't even want to look at the clock behind her on the high shelf. She was sure it was way past midnight.

All week having been the young girl was aggravated by a mini-project she hoped to have been finished by now and at this point, she wasn't sure if she would get it done in the next few days.

'At this rate, it looks like I won't even be done by next week!' The very thought made her head spin.

"Arrrgh!" she groaned heavily before she realised that she must have been too loud. 'It's past bedtime, Piper! Remember!' she reminded herself frantically.

Piper sat frozen in her chair and listened for sounds beyond the metal comfort of her door. She hoped she hadn't disturbed Finn whose room was beside her on her left because he always became annoyed when having been woken up in the middle of the night. And she hoped she hadn't disturbed Stork whose mysterious bedroom lay across the hall. He always worked so hard behind the helm and she hoped not to cut into the sleeping time he rightfully deserved. The seconds ticked by and nothing stirred outside.

Piper sighed and ran a hand slowly through her wispy hair that sat high on her head. A feeling of uneassiness came over her; taking that moment to sit still and listen made her realise just how late it was. The boys were all asleep, and while she appreciated how they left her to her work and peacefulness, she felt a sudden wave of concern for herself.

Equality on this ship meant everything to a team, but it somehow bit her in a way that she felt she didn't deserve to. They worked all really hard, granted that Finn could maybe do a little more around the flying vessel, but irregardless. Here she was thinking about how they all did the sustainable amounts of labour and yet she was pushing herself to work harder into the night. It still made her woozy. She envied them. They were catching up on sleep she desperately needed too. She looked back down to the contents of work scattered around her desk. The amethyst hue of the raw crystals pulsated with a slow hum of energy. To her, they also seemed to be sleeping.

Piper tensed her body and rolled her shoulders trying to shake the sleepiness off herself.

"I can't sleep yet…" she mumbled determinedly to herself. "I should at least try to finish writing up the composition on you," She glared at the chalky energizer crystal. "...Yeah, just one more crystal and then I can stop for tonight."

She gave herself a quick nod and leaned back down to catch the cyan-coloured crystal in one hand. This was one of the things Piper credited and praised herself for – she didn't give up, and even if she couldn't do it all in one day, she'd get one portion done no matter what time the clock read.

Tick tock..

Forty minutes past. Piper wouldn't know that. To her, it felt like another two hours. She was afraid of turning to check. Keeping track of the time would only make her more stressed than she was.

"Nearly done…" she whispered. "Just this one final charge and then... sleep."

A small smile appeared on her face. As she continued on with her tinkering, Piper thought of how this new information would not only help her advance her skills in crystal refinement, but how it would also be of benefit to the team. She thought of how an energy transfer from this crystal might help Stork convert to their engine crystals easier. Or, how Junko might make good use of them with this turkey burps. The explosion might rival a proximity charger if she gave him the right voltage. Maybe Aerrow might want to look at them for weapon enhancements. She could only wonder what Finn or Radarr might want to use them for.

She shook her head amusingly. Then there was the matter of daily chores tomorrow. She remembered earlier how she walked past the radiator and it made a clank clank sound. Even though Junko said he'd fixed it, she forgot to tell him it was acting up again. 'I'll tell him in the morning.' She hadn't been out of her lab in hours and she was sure Finn and Aerrow had eaten again before they went to sleep. That meant there were dishes left unwashed in the sink that she had to look forward to in the morning if Aerrow wasn't too tired to remember. Aaannd, the crack in the bathroom mirror that Radarr made needed to be fixed. How he'd managed to do it was beyond her. Then she remembered that they were low on food again. Not to mention they ran out of paper towels yesterday and the laundry detergent was also out thanks to Stork's excessive germaphobe washing habits.

And as she kept thinking about all the things on their list of things-to-do, Piper suddenly lost interest altogether in working with the crystals beneath her. She pulled away slowly and rested her hands on the tabletop. The crystals were still humming warmly in her hands. She moaned queitly.

"Unnn... now I can't concentrate. Thinking about all those things to do tomorrow… man."

She suddenly felt guilty and shut her mouth to keep from complaining.

Piper rarely complained about the lifestyle she chose. She had accepted it wholeheartedly when she decided to become a Storm Hawk alongside her friends. But it was perfectly normal for her to sometimes slip away from that mild comfort and cringe about the daily routines that followed her.

Some days when Piper wasn't too entranced with the work around her or when she wasn't dreaming about things to come, she let her mind drift to places of wonderment. Wonderings and what-ifs, the simple thoughts of what life would be like without all this chaos around her. She would sometimes sit or stand where she was and rest, thinking about the other lifestyles that didn't include so much metallic and protective gear. Where fabrics were soft and expensive, the air was warm and sweet with a breeze and not turbulence, and where the colours were soft pinks, oranges and yellows. She'd seen enough blues, browns, reds and greys in her life to be a part of who she was.

It wasn't that she was saying she was tired of all the rough and masculine features around her. That was who Piper was, the girl who lived a hard life surrounding by tough things and tough people. She wouldn't have it any other way. She only thought of what it would be like if she didn't have to live a life so hard.

Would her home be the ground instead of constantly travelling the skies? Would she go to school like other kids her age? Did she even need it? Would her… friends be different? Would she have more girlfriends than guy friends? Would her interests have been different? Would she have wanted to study crystallogy like she did now? …It didn't even matter at this point to her whether she had parents or not. She wasn't the only affected by Cyclonian wars. If she could handle herself now, what's to say she couldn't survive this lifetime with a different way of living her life?

Piper huffed and squeezed the crystals in her hands. They glowed brighter in her hold and she smiled fondly. She was suddenly reminded of Finn. A memory of him helping her one summer when they were kids, and she hears their voices so clearly.

'Aw, Piper! Why am I here? I don't want to do this. This is so boring!'

'Finn! You said you wanted to see what I was doing! Remember? Remember yesterday you kept asking me what I was doing and I said, Come with me tomorrow and you'll see? And then you said, Okay! I promise I'll come help you... Yeah, that's why you're here, you big dummy!'

'I'm not a dummy!'

'Yes, you are! You always forget to keep your promises. Aerrow's different. He keeps his promises!'

Finn snickers. Piper notices.

'What?'

'Aw, cool! Look Piper! Look what I can do!'

A crystal glows brightly in his hands as he squeezes his fists together. She laughs and grins.

'I told you crystals are cool!'

"There. Done that one crystal," she mumbled happily and yawned. "I'll finish the rest tomorrow."

Piper leaned her body over the desk more to reach for a small, open crate where the other raw crystals were sitting comfortably and unrefined. She moved her hands to place the energizer crystal and the raw crystal back in their respective slots. She went on to gather the writing utensils and papers around the desk and placed them in their organised, clean places.

"Finn… he's such a dork sometimes," she mumbled happily. As she closed the crate and pushed it back up against the wall, Piper giggled and sat still for a moment.

"I wonder what it would be like to play in the trees with our crystals now..."

They had so many memories back then, she, Finn, Aerrow and Radarr. They might have been orphaned and did not live the life she would've hoped. She knew for a long time that they would never live a normal, average life. She remembered the nights when they would huddle together and cry about everything they lost and feared for, and the days when they would run around and act out everything from playing house to explorers to Sky Knights. There were those days, and days she remembered better than others.

But they were happy, happy with each other and they dreamed big together. And that was one the things Piper was thankful for in the midst of the war – it brought her to the boys, and everything else that followed after as Storm Hawks. They became sky riders, fighters, heroes, scientists, peacekeepers, Sky Knights, and their ultimate dream, explorers. And it was safe to say that for her, it was just enough. Just enough. Although, she would be content with whatever else more would come along the way and turn up good for her and her friends.

Piper closed her eyes and smiled. She rubbed her eyes tiredly and yawned.

"It would be nice to start over…," she mumbled softly as she went to reach for the work lamp beside her that illuminated a painful light around her tired bedroom. "…but…"

Piper pulled away from the lamp before she had the chance to turn it out and brought her gaze to the wall. She stared at the yellow post-it note that was pinned to her bulletin board that she hadn't noticed before until now. She read Stork's angular scrawled writing.

Piper, gonna need frost crystals for freezer. Is busted again. –Stork

She smiled and quickly bent in her chair to reach for the chilly crate of icers beneath her desk in the steel crystal container. Once she'd gotten a hold of the handle, she pushed her chair back and went to stand up carrying it along with her.

Pulling into a little stretch, she yawned one more time and headed for the door.

"Guess I'll go do this now," she mumbled softly.

And with a soft swish of the metal access plate it closed behind her as she stepped quietly into the silent hallway.

~I felt like Piper in this situation as I wrote this - tired, hazy, and a bit stressed when I'm out of sleep and others are enjoying it and I bet you've been there too, no? Well, adieu until my next fic :)

Much love, Abby~