Newbie - Part 6
Disclaimer: Hasbro owns G.I. Joe. I don't. Please don't sue. I do own Cricket, however.
I want to thank everyone for their feedback. It really helps.
As I write this, Cartoon Network is taking G.I. Joe off its schedule next week. Write 'em a letter and see if we can't keep it on the air.
*****
Mae went back up to her apartment. She'd had nothing to eat except for a mouthful of pork cake, or whatever the hell that was, all day, and she didn't feel like she'd be able to come up with a truly diabolical plan to bend Duke to her will on an empty stomach.
A few hours later, she'd managed to put away half a box of Ring Dings, change from the rather uncomfortable hospital top into her Dropkick Murphys shirt, put her bathrobe on over her clothes, play a buttload of video games, and lose one of her socks.
Days off were glorious.
Mae put the controller down and went to the minifridge. She found half a box of baking soda, something sealed in some Tupperware that looked like a giant caterpillar, and three cans of YoJoe. She wished that Courtney would have thought to refill the fridge before she so thoughtlessly got herself hospitalized. Mae wasn't even sure where to go to get anything.
She began to wonder if it was possible to die from a lack of junk food when there was a knock at her door. Mae looked at her watch; it was almost four.
She opened the door. Shana stood and smiled at her. "Ready to go?" she asked. Mae looked at her; she had washed her face, but Shana had obviously been crying. Her eyes were red and puffy.
"Are you all right?" asked Mae. "What's the matter?"
Shana waved her off. "I'm fine. Don't worry about it."
"Really? Seriously, what's going on?"
"Can I come in?"
"Oh! Of course. I'm sorry." Mae stood aside to allow Shana enough room to enter. "Have you been outside? Do I need a jacket?"
"I don't know," Shana replied. "I doubt it, though." She looked down. "You do, on the other hand, probably need your other sock."
"Yeah, it's around here somewhere." Mae looked hard at Shana. She was blinking a lot. "Do you want something to eat? I have, um, baking soda. And some kind of Doodlebug science experiment."
"I'll pass. I was thinking we'd eat when we went out. There's a diner that serves this amazing cherry pie I was kinda in the mood for."
Mae smiled. "Pie's good."
"No one doesn't like pie."
Shana kept blinking. Her party smile was in full force. "Shana, if you want to take a rain check, we can do this another time."
"Don't be silly. This'll be fun."
Mae suddenly walked up to Shana and held her tight. Shana instantly collapsed, crying so hard Mae thought she was going to hyperventilate.
"I love him so much," she sobbed into Mae's shoulder.
"I know, honey. I know."
*****
Lady Jaye sat at a terminal in the control room, slogging her way through a mountain of paperwork she'd been putting off for the better part of a month.
"I swear to God, for every day that goes by without anything happening," she complained to Flint, "you have to write a full page on everything that didn't happen. Page Thirteen: An In-Depth Analysis of the MOBAT Theft and Recovery That Never Actually Happened But Could Have." She rubbed her face. "Followed by an exciting tale of the watch command that went smoothly and entirely without incident."
"Except you get to do five of them," Flint pointed out unhelpfully. Jaye groaned. "Well, this is what happens when you put off your work."
Jaye just stared at him. "You? You actually just said that?" She shuffled her chair away from him. "I'm just going to move over here so I don't accidentally get hit by the lightning. I've seen the archive boxes in your room, me bucko. Hawk'll have a complete flying shitfit if he ever catches wind of that. That's three months of undone paperwork, easy."
"All right, all right. I'll lay off. I'm gonna go watch Ace test pilot one of the new Skystrikers."
"Do you really have that little to do?"
"Actually, yes. When are you off?"
"About another hour or so. Stop by the apartment around eight."
"Sounds good." He gave her a quick kiss. "See you then." He left her to her work.
Jaye stared at the screen, willing the work to just go away.
"Jaye?" called Breaker from the other side of the room. "I got Cricket on the phone for you."
Relief! "I'll get it over here," she called back. Picking up the handset, she said, "Cricket?"
"Allie, I need help," Mae replied. She spoke very quickly. "Shana's here with me and she's wicked upset because she thought Duke was gonna say something but he didn't and now she has to go to Georgia and spend her birthday getting wedgied by her brothers and she never really wanted to go but now she has to so Duke won't find out and -"
"Wait, wait. Slow down. Can I talk to her?"
"Um -" Allie could hear Shana in the background, forming half words that sounded like a dolphin squeaking. "She's not really making much sense right now."
"All right. Go to our apartment. There's half a bottle of Stoli in the freezer. Get that and her bear. Also, in your utensil drawer, underneath the tray, is a big ass hunk of Toblerone Courtney's got hidden away that we're not supposed to know about. Grab that, too."
"Will do."
"Okay. Don't say it now, but when she calms down a little tell her to stop playing mind games with Duke. They don't help. I'll be up there as soon as I can."
*****
Over the next hour, Shana let everything pour out. The years of wondering. Her CO had become her best friend, and as she felt her feelings for him grow, she felt like he might be looking at her the same way. Or maybe she was just hoping. She could never be sure. And then today, she was sure she saw something, and she let herself get her hopes up. Despite all the consequences that a relationship with her commanding officer would rain down, she allowed herself to think that she could have him.
But he never said anything.
Shana was slumped on the couch, her face smeared with dried tears and chocolate, clutching her bear like it was her child. Her drink sat on the table, untouched.
"I'm really sorry," Shana said. "I'm so embarrassed."
"Why? You don't have to be." Mae smiled. "Well, actually, you do seem to have chocolate in your hair somehow. That's a little embarrassing."
Shana gave a sad little smile. "Am I fooling myself? Am i just seeing something that isn't there?"
"I don't think so." Mae took another bite of chocolate. "Why don't you just talk to him?"
"Because... I dunno. Everything goes away. If he feels the same way, he still isn't going to want to do anything because it puts his career in jeopardy. I don't especially want to flush my own career, either. And if he doesn't feel like I do... well, that's not something I want to have to deal with. Either way, we couldn't work together after that."
"So you'd rather just fume inwardly and have the occasional meltdown?"
"Is that so wrong?"
"But Shana, if you don't deal with it, you're just going to make yourself miserable. Courtney's making herself sick worrying." She smiled. "Hell, I've only been here a few days and you're already depressing the shit outta me."
Shana chuckled at that. "Sorry." Then she became a little more alert, thinking about what was just said. "I AM sorry. You barely know me, and here I am blubbering all over you. You must think I'm a lunatic."
"No more so than anyone else I've met this week. Besides, don't feel too bad; after that fight with Cobra I just started crying all over one of Doc's assistants for no reason. He thought he hurt me. Made him panic. It was actually kind of cute."
"That had to have been Edwin. He's sweet." She smiled. "It doesn't really take a lot of imagination to get him flustered." She started laughing. "One time, Courtney and I were passing by the infirmary and she noticed him in the window. She flashed him and he passed out."
"You're kidding!"
"He's a preacher's boy."
"And look at how skillfully we've managed to stray from the topic of you talking to Duke."
"Yeah, I noticed that, too. You're far too clever for me."
In the thickest South Boston accent she could muster, Mae said, "I'm wicked smaht!"
*****
Duke sat in his office, picking up the potato chips that had gone flying all over his desk when the bag popped. He was not having a banner day. That day failed to get any better when Lady Jaye marched into his office, slammed the door behind her, and said, "You chickenshit."
He was so stunned that he actually heard himself meekly say, "Come in?"
"What the hell is wrong with you?"
"Er... in what sense?"
"I don't know what it was you said, or did, or whatever, but Shana's up in Mary's room bawling her eyes out."
"What? I didn't do anything. Why do you -"
"Shut up. Look, Duke, you NEED to talk to her. Until you do, she's going to sit around and wait for you to decide what you want. And she's going to get her hopes up. And then those hopes are going to come around and bite her in the ass. Again. And then I, or Courtney, or Mae, whoever's around, will have to hold her hand and tell her it's going to be okay when we all know it's not. And I can't speak for the others, but I, for one, am becoming very, very tired of watching my friend cry."
Duke stiffened. "I'm really sorry. But she knows how I feel."
"No, Conrad! She doesn't! That's just the point! YOU know how SHE feels, because she doesn't have it in her to be subtle about things like this. But she has no idea how you feel, because you've totally shut her out! All she has are the straws you occasionally throw at her to grasp at!"
Duke felt his neck hairs raise. "Listen, Corporal, I don't -"
"Don't you dare! Don't you DARE try to weasel out of this by pulling rank! That's cheap, and you're NOT going to hide behind it!" Jaye regarded him sadly. "You know I love you, Conrad. You're one of the best friends I've ever had. And I know you're better than this. You don't love her. Or you do, but you don't want to endanger your career."
"Or hers," Duke said softly.
"Or hers. But you have to have this conversation with her. Either way, yeah, it'll be hard for her, and it'll probably hurt her. And either way, the two of you might not be able to work together anymore. That would be awful.
"But this is killing her."
After a few moments, Conrad quietly asked, "What am I supposed to say?"
"Do you love her?"
After a long pause, he answered "Yes."
Alison smiled. "I'd probably start with that."
Conrad rubbed his eyes, then blinked furiously when he realized that his fingers had salt and grease from the potato chips all over them.
"Look. I know intellectually this is a monumentally bad idea. But you deserve to be happy, too, you know."
Conrad got up and embraced her. "Thanks, Alison."
"You're welcome. Jerk."
"You're right. I know you're right. I'll talk to her, I promise. But don't say anything to her yet, okay? I'm not really sure how I'm gonna do this." He crossed the office, moving to the door to let her out. "I need to think about -" He opened the door, to find fifteen Joes who had been pressed up against it falling into his office.
After a second or two to process this, Duke exploded. "What the hemoraging FUCK are you people doing?" There was a mad scramble on everybody's part to get the hell out of Duke's way. "Christ almighty, if you've all got that little to do, there are all kinds of things I could - Stalker? The hell are you doing here? I expect this crap from enough of these people!" He kept shouting long after everyone had run out of sight. "Ace, you better hope that isn't money in your hand! You ALL better hope I don't see any of you the rest of the day!" He closed the door and looked forlornly at Alison.
"Well, at least the whole base is gonna know," said Allie. "Does that help?"
"Not really."
"Don't worry. No one's going to say anything to Hawk."
"What makes you so sure?" He thought about it. "Oh. Right."
*****
Allie poked her head in the apartment. "Hey, your door's open."
"Shhhhh. C'mon in." Mae waved her in. "Shana wore herself out. She's sleeping in Courtney's room."
Allie went to the bedroom door and opened it slightly. Sure enough, there was Shana, flayed on the bed, snoring softly, clutching her bear, and looking for all the world like she was seven years old.
"How's she doing?" She asked when she got back to the common room.
"I think she'll be all right. It was bad, though."
"It's been building and building for a while now." She noticed Shana's untouched glass. "Did she drink anything?"
Mae shook her head no. "She didn't want any. It was probably a good thing, too; she got herself so worked up that she got pretty sick."
Allie took the glass. "In that case, she won't mind if I have this." She knocked it back in one gulp. "Jesus, my heart's going a mile a minute."
"What happened?"
"I either made things a lot better or much, much worse." She poured herself another glass. "I talked to Duke."
"Really? How did that go?"
"Surprisingly well."
At that moment there was a chirp from the phone. Mae hit the speaker button. "Hello?"
"Hey kiddo!" came Courtney's voice from the speaker. "Miss me yet?"
"Always. I haven't seen you in almost five hours."
"Aren't you cute. Hey, Allie's not there with you, is she?"
"I'm here," Allie said.
"Lady Jaye, you are my new personal hero."
"Oh, it wasn't that big a deal."
"That's not what Steeler said. Mae, this woman in front of you got in Top's face and shouted him down until he crumbled."
Mae was impressed. That was an approach that would never have occurred to her. Of course, she always tended to overthink things, and the ideas she'd been having all tended to involve huge Wile E. Coyote style blueprints. She began to wonder when she turned into such a dork.
Cover Girl was still talking. "So what's the next step? No way is it going to be this easy, and why the hell does EVERYTHING happen when I'm not in the room? Save something for - goddammit, Clutch, get the hell away from the window!"
"Huh?" asked Mae.
"Oh, I'm just taking my IV for a walk, get my legs moving, and Dipshit over here is trying to get a look at my ass in the back of my hospital johnny."
"You sound better."
"I feel better. Doc says two, maybe three days, and I can get out of here. I'm off active duty for a month, though. Motor pool'll go to hell way before - was that a flashbulb? Dammit, Steinberg, that's it! When I get out of here, I'm gonna make you beg for death! I'm gonna drink beer out of your skull! That's right, you better run!!!"
Allie smirked. "She's feeling lots better." She sipped at her drink. "Are you having any?"
"No. I don't really do alcohol very well. Look at me; I'm a gnome. One drink is usually more than enough to set me off."
"I'll have some!" Courtney chimed in.
"You can't have any. It'll interfere with your painkillers."
A pronounced raspberry was heard. "So what did Duke say?"
"Steeler didn't say?" Allie asked.
"I wanna hear it from you."
"He said he loves her."
"I knew it!" Courtney shouted triumphantly.
Mae squealed and did a happyclap. "She'll be so happy!"
"Well, hold off. He made me promise not to say anything to her."
"Got it." She finished off Courtney's Toblerone. "You've been pretty busy."
"Not really. It was a ten minute conversation, tops. The hard part's going to be making sure he actually does it."
"Nothing better happen before I get out of here!" demanded Courtney. "I am NOT missing anything else!"
"if this gets resolved in the next forty-eight hours," said Allie, "I'd be very surprised."
Disclaimer: Hasbro owns G.I. Joe. I don't. Please don't sue. I do own Cricket, however.
I want to thank everyone for their feedback. It really helps.
As I write this, Cartoon Network is taking G.I. Joe off its schedule next week. Write 'em a letter and see if we can't keep it on the air.
*****
Mae went back up to her apartment. She'd had nothing to eat except for a mouthful of pork cake, or whatever the hell that was, all day, and she didn't feel like she'd be able to come up with a truly diabolical plan to bend Duke to her will on an empty stomach.
A few hours later, she'd managed to put away half a box of Ring Dings, change from the rather uncomfortable hospital top into her Dropkick Murphys shirt, put her bathrobe on over her clothes, play a buttload of video games, and lose one of her socks.
Days off were glorious.
Mae put the controller down and went to the minifridge. She found half a box of baking soda, something sealed in some Tupperware that looked like a giant caterpillar, and three cans of YoJoe. She wished that Courtney would have thought to refill the fridge before she so thoughtlessly got herself hospitalized. Mae wasn't even sure where to go to get anything.
She began to wonder if it was possible to die from a lack of junk food when there was a knock at her door. Mae looked at her watch; it was almost four.
She opened the door. Shana stood and smiled at her. "Ready to go?" she asked. Mae looked at her; she had washed her face, but Shana had obviously been crying. Her eyes were red and puffy.
"Are you all right?" asked Mae. "What's the matter?"
Shana waved her off. "I'm fine. Don't worry about it."
"Really? Seriously, what's going on?"
"Can I come in?"
"Oh! Of course. I'm sorry." Mae stood aside to allow Shana enough room to enter. "Have you been outside? Do I need a jacket?"
"I don't know," Shana replied. "I doubt it, though." She looked down. "You do, on the other hand, probably need your other sock."
"Yeah, it's around here somewhere." Mae looked hard at Shana. She was blinking a lot. "Do you want something to eat? I have, um, baking soda. And some kind of Doodlebug science experiment."
"I'll pass. I was thinking we'd eat when we went out. There's a diner that serves this amazing cherry pie I was kinda in the mood for."
Mae smiled. "Pie's good."
"No one doesn't like pie."
Shana kept blinking. Her party smile was in full force. "Shana, if you want to take a rain check, we can do this another time."
"Don't be silly. This'll be fun."
Mae suddenly walked up to Shana and held her tight. Shana instantly collapsed, crying so hard Mae thought she was going to hyperventilate.
"I love him so much," she sobbed into Mae's shoulder.
"I know, honey. I know."
*****
Lady Jaye sat at a terminal in the control room, slogging her way through a mountain of paperwork she'd been putting off for the better part of a month.
"I swear to God, for every day that goes by without anything happening," she complained to Flint, "you have to write a full page on everything that didn't happen. Page Thirteen: An In-Depth Analysis of the MOBAT Theft and Recovery That Never Actually Happened But Could Have." She rubbed her face. "Followed by an exciting tale of the watch command that went smoothly and entirely without incident."
"Except you get to do five of them," Flint pointed out unhelpfully. Jaye groaned. "Well, this is what happens when you put off your work."
Jaye just stared at him. "You? You actually just said that?" She shuffled her chair away from him. "I'm just going to move over here so I don't accidentally get hit by the lightning. I've seen the archive boxes in your room, me bucko. Hawk'll have a complete flying shitfit if he ever catches wind of that. That's three months of undone paperwork, easy."
"All right, all right. I'll lay off. I'm gonna go watch Ace test pilot one of the new Skystrikers."
"Do you really have that little to do?"
"Actually, yes. When are you off?"
"About another hour or so. Stop by the apartment around eight."
"Sounds good." He gave her a quick kiss. "See you then." He left her to her work.
Jaye stared at the screen, willing the work to just go away.
"Jaye?" called Breaker from the other side of the room. "I got Cricket on the phone for you."
Relief! "I'll get it over here," she called back. Picking up the handset, she said, "Cricket?"
"Allie, I need help," Mae replied. She spoke very quickly. "Shana's here with me and she's wicked upset because she thought Duke was gonna say something but he didn't and now she has to go to Georgia and spend her birthday getting wedgied by her brothers and she never really wanted to go but now she has to so Duke won't find out and -"
"Wait, wait. Slow down. Can I talk to her?"
"Um -" Allie could hear Shana in the background, forming half words that sounded like a dolphin squeaking. "She's not really making much sense right now."
"All right. Go to our apartment. There's half a bottle of Stoli in the freezer. Get that and her bear. Also, in your utensil drawer, underneath the tray, is a big ass hunk of Toblerone Courtney's got hidden away that we're not supposed to know about. Grab that, too."
"Will do."
"Okay. Don't say it now, but when she calms down a little tell her to stop playing mind games with Duke. They don't help. I'll be up there as soon as I can."
*****
Over the next hour, Shana let everything pour out. The years of wondering. Her CO had become her best friend, and as she felt her feelings for him grow, she felt like he might be looking at her the same way. Or maybe she was just hoping. She could never be sure. And then today, she was sure she saw something, and she let herself get her hopes up. Despite all the consequences that a relationship with her commanding officer would rain down, she allowed herself to think that she could have him.
But he never said anything.
Shana was slumped on the couch, her face smeared with dried tears and chocolate, clutching her bear like it was her child. Her drink sat on the table, untouched.
"I'm really sorry," Shana said. "I'm so embarrassed."
"Why? You don't have to be." Mae smiled. "Well, actually, you do seem to have chocolate in your hair somehow. That's a little embarrassing."
Shana gave a sad little smile. "Am I fooling myself? Am i just seeing something that isn't there?"
"I don't think so." Mae took another bite of chocolate. "Why don't you just talk to him?"
"Because... I dunno. Everything goes away. If he feels the same way, he still isn't going to want to do anything because it puts his career in jeopardy. I don't especially want to flush my own career, either. And if he doesn't feel like I do... well, that's not something I want to have to deal with. Either way, we couldn't work together after that."
"So you'd rather just fume inwardly and have the occasional meltdown?"
"Is that so wrong?"
"But Shana, if you don't deal with it, you're just going to make yourself miserable. Courtney's making herself sick worrying." She smiled. "Hell, I've only been here a few days and you're already depressing the shit outta me."
Shana chuckled at that. "Sorry." Then she became a little more alert, thinking about what was just said. "I AM sorry. You barely know me, and here I am blubbering all over you. You must think I'm a lunatic."
"No more so than anyone else I've met this week. Besides, don't feel too bad; after that fight with Cobra I just started crying all over one of Doc's assistants for no reason. He thought he hurt me. Made him panic. It was actually kind of cute."
"That had to have been Edwin. He's sweet." She smiled. "It doesn't really take a lot of imagination to get him flustered." She started laughing. "One time, Courtney and I were passing by the infirmary and she noticed him in the window. She flashed him and he passed out."
"You're kidding!"
"He's a preacher's boy."
"And look at how skillfully we've managed to stray from the topic of you talking to Duke."
"Yeah, I noticed that, too. You're far too clever for me."
In the thickest South Boston accent she could muster, Mae said, "I'm wicked smaht!"
*****
Duke sat in his office, picking up the potato chips that had gone flying all over his desk when the bag popped. He was not having a banner day. That day failed to get any better when Lady Jaye marched into his office, slammed the door behind her, and said, "You chickenshit."
He was so stunned that he actually heard himself meekly say, "Come in?"
"What the hell is wrong with you?"
"Er... in what sense?"
"I don't know what it was you said, or did, or whatever, but Shana's up in Mary's room bawling her eyes out."
"What? I didn't do anything. Why do you -"
"Shut up. Look, Duke, you NEED to talk to her. Until you do, she's going to sit around and wait for you to decide what you want. And she's going to get her hopes up. And then those hopes are going to come around and bite her in the ass. Again. And then I, or Courtney, or Mae, whoever's around, will have to hold her hand and tell her it's going to be okay when we all know it's not. And I can't speak for the others, but I, for one, am becoming very, very tired of watching my friend cry."
Duke stiffened. "I'm really sorry. But she knows how I feel."
"No, Conrad! She doesn't! That's just the point! YOU know how SHE feels, because she doesn't have it in her to be subtle about things like this. But she has no idea how you feel, because you've totally shut her out! All she has are the straws you occasionally throw at her to grasp at!"
Duke felt his neck hairs raise. "Listen, Corporal, I don't -"
"Don't you dare! Don't you DARE try to weasel out of this by pulling rank! That's cheap, and you're NOT going to hide behind it!" Jaye regarded him sadly. "You know I love you, Conrad. You're one of the best friends I've ever had. And I know you're better than this. You don't love her. Or you do, but you don't want to endanger your career."
"Or hers," Duke said softly.
"Or hers. But you have to have this conversation with her. Either way, yeah, it'll be hard for her, and it'll probably hurt her. And either way, the two of you might not be able to work together anymore. That would be awful.
"But this is killing her."
After a few moments, Conrad quietly asked, "What am I supposed to say?"
"Do you love her?"
After a long pause, he answered "Yes."
Alison smiled. "I'd probably start with that."
Conrad rubbed his eyes, then blinked furiously when he realized that his fingers had salt and grease from the potato chips all over them.
"Look. I know intellectually this is a monumentally bad idea. But you deserve to be happy, too, you know."
Conrad got up and embraced her. "Thanks, Alison."
"You're welcome. Jerk."
"You're right. I know you're right. I'll talk to her, I promise. But don't say anything to her yet, okay? I'm not really sure how I'm gonna do this." He crossed the office, moving to the door to let her out. "I need to think about -" He opened the door, to find fifteen Joes who had been pressed up against it falling into his office.
After a second or two to process this, Duke exploded. "What the hemoraging FUCK are you people doing?" There was a mad scramble on everybody's part to get the hell out of Duke's way. "Christ almighty, if you've all got that little to do, there are all kinds of things I could - Stalker? The hell are you doing here? I expect this crap from enough of these people!" He kept shouting long after everyone had run out of sight. "Ace, you better hope that isn't money in your hand! You ALL better hope I don't see any of you the rest of the day!" He closed the door and looked forlornly at Alison.
"Well, at least the whole base is gonna know," said Allie. "Does that help?"
"Not really."
"Don't worry. No one's going to say anything to Hawk."
"What makes you so sure?" He thought about it. "Oh. Right."
*****
Allie poked her head in the apartment. "Hey, your door's open."
"Shhhhh. C'mon in." Mae waved her in. "Shana wore herself out. She's sleeping in Courtney's room."
Allie went to the bedroom door and opened it slightly. Sure enough, there was Shana, flayed on the bed, snoring softly, clutching her bear, and looking for all the world like she was seven years old.
"How's she doing?" She asked when she got back to the common room.
"I think she'll be all right. It was bad, though."
"It's been building and building for a while now." She noticed Shana's untouched glass. "Did she drink anything?"
Mae shook her head no. "She didn't want any. It was probably a good thing, too; she got herself so worked up that she got pretty sick."
Allie took the glass. "In that case, she won't mind if I have this." She knocked it back in one gulp. "Jesus, my heart's going a mile a minute."
"What happened?"
"I either made things a lot better or much, much worse." She poured herself another glass. "I talked to Duke."
"Really? How did that go?"
"Surprisingly well."
At that moment there was a chirp from the phone. Mae hit the speaker button. "Hello?"
"Hey kiddo!" came Courtney's voice from the speaker. "Miss me yet?"
"Always. I haven't seen you in almost five hours."
"Aren't you cute. Hey, Allie's not there with you, is she?"
"I'm here," Allie said.
"Lady Jaye, you are my new personal hero."
"Oh, it wasn't that big a deal."
"That's not what Steeler said. Mae, this woman in front of you got in Top's face and shouted him down until he crumbled."
Mae was impressed. That was an approach that would never have occurred to her. Of course, she always tended to overthink things, and the ideas she'd been having all tended to involve huge Wile E. Coyote style blueprints. She began to wonder when she turned into such a dork.
Cover Girl was still talking. "So what's the next step? No way is it going to be this easy, and why the hell does EVERYTHING happen when I'm not in the room? Save something for - goddammit, Clutch, get the hell away from the window!"
"Huh?" asked Mae.
"Oh, I'm just taking my IV for a walk, get my legs moving, and Dipshit over here is trying to get a look at my ass in the back of my hospital johnny."
"You sound better."
"I feel better. Doc says two, maybe three days, and I can get out of here. I'm off active duty for a month, though. Motor pool'll go to hell way before - was that a flashbulb? Dammit, Steinberg, that's it! When I get out of here, I'm gonna make you beg for death! I'm gonna drink beer out of your skull! That's right, you better run!!!"
Allie smirked. "She's feeling lots better." She sipped at her drink. "Are you having any?"
"No. I don't really do alcohol very well. Look at me; I'm a gnome. One drink is usually more than enough to set me off."
"I'll have some!" Courtney chimed in.
"You can't have any. It'll interfere with your painkillers."
A pronounced raspberry was heard. "So what did Duke say?"
"Steeler didn't say?" Allie asked.
"I wanna hear it from you."
"He said he loves her."
"I knew it!" Courtney shouted triumphantly.
Mae squealed and did a happyclap. "She'll be so happy!"
"Well, hold off. He made me promise not to say anything to her."
"Got it." She finished off Courtney's Toblerone. "You've been pretty busy."
"Not really. It was a ten minute conversation, tops. The hard part's going to be making sure he actually does it."
"Nothing better happen before I get out of here!" demanded Courtney. "I am NOT missing anything else!"
"if this gets resolved in the next forty-eight hours," said Allie, "I'd be very surprised."