Hi everyone. The sad truth is, university is really eating me. I try to write every day, but sometimes the words just don't come, especially when writing in a language that is not your first language. So please don't worry: I will update eventually. If I ever chose to drop the story, I will certainly let you know. In order to not let you wait longer, I decided to split the chapter. Here is part 1 - part 2 is extremely difficult to write and I'm a bit stuck. But don't worry: my ever-vigilant beta will force me into completing this. :) Just bear with me. And - have fun...

Chapter 6

A promise to keep… Part 1

The pillow crashed against the wall and fell down on the floor. It was followed by another one and then a datapad and some other items of everyday use.

"That bastard! That son of a bitch!"

Grace panted and sweat ran down her forehead, but she didn't mind. Instead she picked up one of the pillows and hit the wall with it repeatedly. She knew that she was behaving childishly, but she saw no other alternative to vent her aggressions.

She didn't want to attack her fellow scientists or treat them badly for something that wasn't their fault and she couldn't turn on the one source of her grievance without losing everything she had suffered for. Thus she released her anger on the inventory of her quarters in the hope that it helped her regain her composure.

She was positively surprised how robust these things were. Despite the fact that they had suffered several crashes with the wall, they still seemed to be in working order. Only one of her datapads had received a small crack on its display, but she didn't care, especially since it was still functional.

She let out several cries while hitting the wall with the pillow, repeating the exercise until she was totally exhausted. When she had enough she leaned against the wall and let herself sink to the floor, the pillow on her lap. She moved her arms around her legs and put her head on her knees. Then she closed her eyes.

It was no use! She didn't feel better.

Although nothing had happened so far, she felt that her situation with Quaritch hadn't improved. He had mostly left her alone for the last couple of days, but that did nothing to put her at ease. With each day she didn't hear from him, the likelihood of fulfilling one of his sick demands increased. There was no way in hell that he would leave her alone. Not after what had happened.

She suspected that his strange absence had to with the fact that today was the monthly RDA meeting. Normally these meetings served as an opportunity to exchange status reports on the mining operations and discuss their further course of action. But the fact that she and her scientists couldn't present any real success with the Na'Vi natives for months now, seemed to make Selfridge nervous. That was nothing new, of course, since this fact gave Quaritch the means to blackmail her in the first place. However, with this meeting, Grace would find out, if he intended to keep his end of the bargain.

As he could be very erratic in his actions there was no way to be sure beforehand. And this made her worry, although she very well knew that this probably was exactly what he wanted to achieve.

Bastard!

If he didn't keep his word, she would be free from him, but only at the cost of probably hundreds of innocent lives. There was no way for her to anticipate how he would react in the meeting today, let alone prevent him from convincing Selfridge to try a military solution, if he chose to do so. The best she could do was to prepare herself accordingly. She needed to appear as sincere as possible, presenting her arguments in a well-structured way, just in case. This meant that she would put a bit more emphasis on her outward appearance than usually. The last decision lay with Selfridge and if that were a good thing was pretty uncertain, but whatever happened, she had to behave like a professional.

Slowly she got up. It was time to get dressed and she didn't want to be late, especially since she wasn't used to putting on makeup anymore.

In midst of her preparations the bell on her door rang. She sighed and put down the eyeliner she was using right now. She really didn't want to open, especially since she could only imagine one person standing outside. He hadn't shown up the whole week. Why did he need to bother her now of all times? But then she reminded herself of what was at stake and she went to the door.

The more surprised she was when she saw Dr. Anna Jameson, one of her teams' xenolinguists standing outside. The woman seemed rather nervous and in a great hurry. Grace shook her head in an amused fashion and secretly scolded herself for her paranoia. Not behind every corner lurked a certain colonel determined to molest her.

"What can I do for you?"

"Sorry to bother you a few hours before the meeting, Doctor, but I wanted to ask you some final questions about my part of the presentation. You made it rather clear, that we probably have to fight for our cause and I don't want to screw it in any way." She smiled weakly and added, "Especially since it is my first time to take part in one of those meetings and you seem to have a great deal of experience."

Jameson was one of the newer scientists to have started work in Hell's Gate, although she already was with them for a year or so. She had worked with the Na'Vi language since university and recently had found out some rather interesting things that were worth mentioning. Grace had decided to bring her along even before the whole trouble with Quaritch had started. Even if he tried to break his word, Jameson's findings probably could turn the tide anyway. No wonder she was nervous.

Grace gave her colleague a reassuring nod. It was good to see how she and her team stuck together. Maybe not everything was lost.

"I find your results most impressive and I am glad that you could come up with them when you did. Maybe you should especially focus on the fact that there might have been some communicational differences based on a deeply rooted misunderstanding, because this shows that there is a very real prospect of a peaceful solution. And please don't hide anything important in order to throw it in later. This makes you look like a liar. Tell them everything in a very basic fashion, but don't hesitate to add some bits and pieces later on in order to make your argument more convincing. Basically, don't do anything that goes against common sense, but I guess you remember this from university."

The linguist nodded. "That's true, although my last presentation was a little while back. And then nothing was at stake."

"Don't worry, it will be alright." That probably was a lie, but Grace saw no need to increase the nervousness the woman already had.

"Thank you."

Since there were no other questions the two women parted to reconvene later and Grace returned to the bathroom. She was almost finished when the doorbell rang again.

What a busy morning!

Her colleagues were probably as nervous as she were and she was wondering what the question would be this time.

When she opened the door it took her several milliseconds to realize what was happening. Apparently she wasn't as paranoid as she had thought to be. Although she hadn't expected him this time, it made sense that he would turn up sooner or later. Obviously later…

"What's the matter, Doctor? Unhappy to see me?"

"I can't say I'm particularly happy. What do you want?"

"I thought we could walk to the conference together. As it happens, we have the same way. But I can see you aren't finished. You scientists somehow seem to fail the concept of punctuality!"

"The last time I checked, there was still plenty of time. Why don't you go ahead and let me finish?"

"If you don't mind, I'd like to stay and watch you."

"Let me guess, even if I did mind, you'd stay anyway."

He walked to the couch and sat down, without answering to her comment. However several seconds later he added as nonchalantly as possible: "If I were you, I'd watch my tongue. You don't know what could happen on a day like this."

"Oh, I know."

"Good."

A quick look in the mirror told Grace that she was looking decent enough, although she was interrupted without having finished. She couldn't bring herself to continue applying makeup when Quaritch was watching her, thus she decided to leave it at that.

"You should do this more often, you know. It's a nice change from your ragged scientist look."

"I do it more often, on each of these meetings to be precise. As you choose to wear your dress uniform. I guess we both know when to dress up a little."

"My uniform however cannot compete with your female charms."

She snorted. "I want to know when they have ever helped me. Certainly not here and certainly not with Selfridge."

"Don't be so sure about that…"

"Believe me; right now I'm not sure about anything."

He stood up and went for the door.

"Good. Then it is as it should be." He turned to her. "We should go, if we don't want to be late."

Reluctantly and a bit confused she followed him.