500 words. Not a happy one...don't know where it came from.
Jennifer walked towards her quarters still smiling at the joke Captain Hunter told her a few minutes earlier. She always enjoyed talking to Henry Hunter, partly because he was a funny man but mostly because he hailed from the city of Eau Claire, Wisconsin, near her beloved Chippewa Falls.
She palmed the door to her quarters open and walked inside. It was late and she fully expected Rodney to be in bed considering he'd had an early morning and would have another early rise the next day.
He wasn't.
He was standing by the couch, a pronounced scowl upon his face and his arms crossed across his chest. "Where were you?"
She ignored the accusatory tone of his voice and answered the question as she walked past him. "I was in the Mess," she said as she removed her uniform jacket. She tossed it onto the back of the couch and then reached for her tablet resting on the coffee table. "Having a late dinner."
She sat down on the couch and brought her tablet to life.
"In the company of Captain Dimples, I bet."
Jennifer sighed as she tried to quell the frustration threatening to bubble up from the pit of her stomach. They'd had this conversation before and she'd told him time and again that Henry was nothing but a friend. "Please, Rodney, I don't wanna fight tonight."
She heard a noise behind her and realized his arms had slid down his stomach and dropped to his sides. "Neither do I," he whispered.
Jennifer kept her eyes on her tablet though she couldn't focus on it. She dearly hoped Rodney would come to her and give her one of his famous massages as a token of his repentance. He'd become a master of discerning just what muscles were bothering her, then hitting just the right spots with the perfect amount of force.
Of course, it didn't help that she knew she'd been spending a lot of time with Henry, allowing her time with Rodney to suffer for it. She powered down the tablet and placed it on the couch. She turned her head so that she could see him, but she only managed to catch a glimpse of his back as he walked through the door.
Jennifer spun around and watched the door close. "Rodney?"
She rushed to the door, opened it and leaned out into the corridor, turning left to peer down the corridor and then doing the same to the right. There was no sign of Rodney.
Perplexed she walked back into her quarters and her attention was drawn to a flickering light coming from the kitchen. Her brow creased as she walked towards the kitchen, and when she saw what the source of the light was she gasped and felt ill.
On the small table were two place settings, separated by an arrangement of her favorite flowers and three candles. Her mind began to shut down as she collapsed into the nearest chair. "Oh Rodney."
A/N: "I Don't Wanna Fight" was written by Lulu, Billy Lawrie and Steve DuBerry. It was recorded by the ageless and incredible Tina Turner for the soundtrack of her 1993 biopic, What's Love Got To Do With It.