If Misery Loves Company

Chapter 12

Agenda

By Kristen Gupton-Williams

So… things just stayed the same. Shera worked the books, and I flew. I flew and she worked the books. We'd have dinner at night, watch television, and then retire to our rooms.

Our respective rooms.

Sounds simple, don't it?

Nothin' is ever fuckin' simple, don't you know that by now?

It was sinking in, thanks.

The more I was around Shera, the more I wished I had the nerve to really have a relationship with her. She looked at me a certain way that just got right to me. Honestly? Yeah, I really knew that she was into me. I mean, I was pretty sure she was.

Honestly, Cid, you never had a fuckin' clue.

In any case, my birthday ended up rolling around. Now, I didn't even know that Shera was privy to the date of my birth, but I'll be damned if she didn't know. I came home from my flights that day to a full spread on the table of prime rib, and to have Shera plant a bottle of beer right in my hand. Again, she'd bothered to notice what my favorite brand was.

Nothing escaped this woman's notice. Not a Goddamned thing!

I was starving and absolutely gorged myself on what she'd made. It was the best damn dinner I'd just about ever had, and I drank more than my fair share, too. Mind you, I watched Shera toss back a few beers as well, enough to make a nice red glow come to her cheeks and get her to relax a bit.

I even got a chocolate cake for dessert. She hadn't missed a thing when it came to catering to me.

Once the mere thought of being around the food anymore started to make me sick, I managed to make my way out to the couch where I continued to work on another beer.

Shera handed me a box in short order. I ripped it right open, to find a new pair of work gloves inside. I immediately put them on. "Well hey, lookie there."

"Do they fit all right?" she asked, sitting beside me on the couch.

"Just dandy." I took them off and put them on the coffee table. "That was all real nice of ya."

She seemed a little embarrassed, her reply coming back breathless. "You deserve it, Captain."

Shit, if that didn't somehow get the better of me and I felt…

Stand at attention, soldier!

Crap. I picked my beer up and just gunned down the remaining half of it, trying to use the moment to clear my head(s) of whatever improper thoughts had just coalesced. When the bottle was empty, I was still feeling rather… constricted by certain parts of my clothing so I didn't try to set the bottle on the coffee table. I just dropped it to the floor next to the couch. I also suddenly had the overwhelming urge to have a cigarette and although it took me a few tries, I got it done. "Naw… you know what? I don't deserve shit…"

"I think you do," Shera replied, sounding Goddamned mother fucking sexy as hell.

Oh, you ain't standing up for a long, long time, Captain. There's a plane on the flight deck for sure right now. He's taxied and ready for take off.

I was drunk. I was drunk, drunk, drunk, and I reached out and pulled her right to me without really giving it any thought. To my inward relief, she made no attempt to get away, instead, she seemed to nuzzle into me a little.

Mind you, that didn't help the situation in my boxers any, but where she was, she wasn't really in danger of accidentally noticing it. When I burned my cigarette all the way down, I put it out and then looked down at Shera. Her eyes were closed, the faintest smile still evident on her lips. "Shera…"

She blinked up at me, looking a bit dazed.

How can you resist? She's right fuckn' there!

I was absolutely on fire for her. "You… you know, you've sure put up with a lot from me…"

She licked her lips before responding. "You've been nothing but wonderful, Captain."

This chick is DRUNK!

That was the farthest thing from the truth and I knew it. I wanted to kiss her. "You have…"

Shera looked a little bit frightened and I wondered if she really knew what was on my mind. I couldn't stop myself, though, and I reached up and touched her cheek, noticing that she was shaking a bit.

Inexperienced as though I may have been, I knew that she was shaking either because she wanted me to do something, or she was afraid I was going to do something. There was just enough alcohol in my system to have me throw caution to the wind and I closed my eyes, leaning toward her.

My lips met hers and she didn't shy away.

You're drunk, and the only times you've ever tried to get laid you BEEN drunk! It's never worked for you! What in the FUCK are you DOING??? This is SHERA, Cid!! Pull up, Highwind!!!

That inner voice, as much as I hated it in that moment, was absolutely right. I couldn't do this with her, not like this… not six sheets to the wind. She wasn't exactly sober, either. If I did something that ended up compromising what we did actually have, I wouldn't have been able to live with myself.

I moved away from her lips, and placed my head on her shoulder. Part of me still ached to at least tell her how I felt. "Shera, I…"

"Yes, Captain?" she asked quietly, her arms around me lightly.

NOT DRUNK, you RETARD!

I chickened out. "…I'm really fucked up… I need to get to bed…"

She sighed, maybe out of relief, maybe out of frustration. "Then let's get you to bed."

We got up and she helped me back to my room. It's not that I really needed help so much as I was just unwilling to let her go for a few more minutes.

Once in my room, she turned on the light, and after having been in the relatively dark living room for so long, it was like looking into the sun. I shielded my eyes and let her guide me over to the bed where I sat as she got the bedside lamp on and the main light out.

I kept my gaze on the ground and just pulled off my shirt, chucking it to the floor.

Shera, ever mindful, turned around. Drunk or not, she obviously didn't want to see me strip for bed. "That's quite a weapon."

Oh, turn around and I'll show you one hell of a weapon!!!

Hey, I was still drunk, but I had the good sense to filter that one out before I said it aloud.

I knew that she was talking about the spear over my dresser, and I answered without looking up from trying to untie my boots. "My granddaddy's…"

"Is that so?"

"Yeah…" I was drunk enough that I was having an issue with the laces. "Goddamned boots won't fuckin'… He was a dragoon. Rode dragons, all that shit." I got the boots off and quickly shed my fatigues before sitting on the edge of the bed again. "I ain't naked, for the record, you can look."

She giggled and spun to face me. Whether she was aware of it or not, she actually gave me quite a checking out. "Is there anything that I can get you?"

Yeah, you, naked.

I needed to stop looking at her before I got all flustered again. I threw myself flat on my back so I was just looking up at the ceiling. Before closing my eyes, I made a request. "Yeah… how 'bout a glass've water and some aspirin? I don't need no fuckin' hangover tomorrow. In the medicine cabinet over my sink…"

I could hear her shuffle off to retrieve it, returning to my bedside a few moments later. I reached out my hand. "Gimme three of 'em…"

She complied and gave over the pills, as well as the glass of water. I sat up, tossed them down my throat, and then gave Shera the glass back again. I looked at her for a moment, not able to keep from noticing how the first several buttons on her blouse had come undone.

"Is there anything else, Captain?"

Through the power of telepathy, I wish you were NAKED!!!

I snapped out of my state, realizing that I was once again springing to life in that damn place and I rolled onto my side, to face away from her. She didn't need to see that, I figured. "Naw… I'm good."

She's leavin'…

She turned off the light for me and retreated. "Goodnight, Captain."

"G'night, Shera," I said back, fighting the urge to run after her. "And, uh, thanks for all this tonight…"

Although it really would be nice if you stayed with me tonight.

"No problem, Sir."

The door closed.

I wanted to scream.

There was no way my body was going to back down from what it was demanding. I slid from my bed and went into the bathroom to do what needed to be done.

And fess up, it wasn't lingerie models you thought about, either!

No, it wasn't.

It was Shera. It was Shera, and in your mind she wasn't doing anythin' more exotic than cookin' that dinner.

Yeah, but it had been a pretty fuckin' great dinner.

Most men do not fantasize about cooking, Cid.

And to that I say most men do not have Shera cooking for them!

You are a sick son of a bitch.

Touché. It's better than polishing it off to the thoughts of engines and planes, though.

Admittedly, it is a step up from that. At least Shera is animated.

Look here, aw… hell. Yeah, I thought about 'er. Enough said.

In any event, the routine continued. I'm sure I felt a little awkward the day after my birthday toward Shera, but I had to fly, so I got a reprieve and was out of the house for the rest of the day.

Eventually, the anniversary of the rocket's failure rolled around. That was a hard day for me. I'd gotten up as I normally did, and Shera fed me breakfast. I didn't really say anything, since the entire launch was just replaying in my mind over and over again.

After eating, I found myself sitting on the launch pad, leaning against one of the rocket's supports, staring at it.

And there I sat.

For hours.

I let that day, a year past, run its course in my mind. I didn't fight it at all. The reason being is that I was searching for an answer. At the time, I'd been pissed and had claimed that all my anger over it was because I hadn't gotten into space. The truth of it was, though, that the thought that Shera had damn near died was what had upset me the most. That I could have, potentially, killed her that day.

Shera's endangerment is what had pissed me off so fuckin' bad.

To hell with the launch and space.

I had told her to get the fuck away from me afterward, not because of her actions, but because I had honestly put her in danger. I hadn't felt that she was safe around me if she was willing to throw herself into the proverbial fire over me.

When… I, quite frankly, didn't deserve such loyalty. Not by a long shot.

It got to be afternoon and Shera emerged from the house, looking for me. I'd waved her over and motioned for her to sit beside me. "It's been a year already."

She nodded a bit, looking up at the rocket. "That is has."

I wanted her take on the whole event and I turned to her. "Why?"

Her eyebrows rose and she blinked. "Why what, Sir?"

"What was it? Tell me, tell me what it was that you were so fuckin' obsessed with… What was it that kept you in that engine room, ready to die?" I asked, point blank.

Shera's eyes narrowed just a bit. Obviously, she'd programmed herself to never broach that subject with me and had to fight it. "Do you remember when I told you that I thought there was something wrong with those oxygen tanks?"
I nodded.

Her eyes darted away from me, absolutely no hint of any smile upon her face. "On the launch day, I went into the engine room, to check those tanks again. It turns out that the plans were wrong. The number eight tank was over pressurized. The plans had stated for all the tanks to be built to hold 1500psi, but the eight tank, the one for the environmental systems… it was filled to the standard 2100."

As if 600psi would have meant that it would blow the fuck up. C'mon! It would've fuckin' held! Of all the stupid…

I silenced my inner dialogue before I ended up saying what I was thinking.

She went on. "I decided that I would open the valve on that tank and drain it down to under 1500, so that it wouldn't explode. If it had blown up, it would have severely damaged the rocket and caused it to fail structurally, or, you simply would have suffocated once out of the atmosphere without it to keep pushing oxygen into the flight capsule."

I couldn't help but notice that she had gone red, and looked to be in danger of crying. "You were ready to let yourself be killed?"

"It was either my life or yours, I felt. I knew it was too late for me to get out by the time I figured out what was really wrong with the tanks, so what else was there for me to do other than to at least make sure that the rocket was going to work for you?" Shera met my gaze again, her expression absolutely tortured.

Who else on the planet has ever been that devoted to you, Cid? Who?

But, could she have really thought, back then, that I was such a monster that I would have gone? "And you thought that even with you in there, doomed to death, that I would launch anyway?"

"I wanted you to go anyway. It was your dream, and I'm the one that had failed to make sure that the rocket was perfect for you, just like you'd asked me to," she said back quietly, on the verge of losing her composure.

That hurt something inside me terribly, and I pried for more clarification. "You had to know that I wouldn't have launched, though, with you in there."

"Perhaps, but if I'd tried to just tell you what was wrong with the tank without staying to just try and correct the problem, Captain, you know very well that you would have blown me off and launched." Shera took a deep breath, fighting something within. "As such, you would have died, and I would have carried the burden of your death."

I may not have been such a monster as to willing kill her, but I had felt, back then, that I had nothing else to live for other than that trip to space. Even though I had already fallen in love with her, even though I had already bought those rings, I had, almost in a way, expected to die in that rocket all along. I had tried to delude myself that if I lived, I would have sacked up and actually proposed to the girl next to me. It had all been just a smokescreen to myself. "You're right."

Shera leaned a little closer, I guess trying to understand.

"I would have gone. I wouldn't have heeded your warnin' about the damn tank, and I would have launched." I finished my cigarette and got rid of it. "I'd be dead."

Only if it actually blew up, though, and all because the thought of death was more appealing that possibly never actually changing your life and not being alone. You're that afraid of anymore rejection.

…and you still are.

"I wouldn't have been able to live with that," she said quietly.

I couldn't bring myself to look at her. Even now, this much later, I was still an utter coward, but I was an utter coward that still had Shera devoted to me for some inconceivable reason. "That day, a year ago, I would have told ya that havin' died in that rocket would've been better'n livin' with the shame or disappointment that I ended up facin', Shera."

"…and what would you say now?"

I looked her dead in the eye and made a confession. "I'd say I was a Goddamned fool then."

Finally, that smile that I loved so much cropped back up. "I'm glad you've found something worth living for, then."

…and she's sittin' right next to you, Cid. She's right there. She's still right, fuckin', there.

I still didn't have the nerve to break our friendship with the risk of admitting my real feelings, so I did what I always did. I got up and strolled away.

You fuckin' ran. You ran because you're a Goddamned coward. Maybe you deserve to be alone.

Maybe I did.