Jade cooks... she said she could y'all didn't believe her did you? Enjoy. ~S.K.


Fifteen


The dream was warm and sunny, and Jade stretched into it, reveling in the feel of the sun against her skin as the boat rocked beneath her. Her eyes were closed, but she could hear the strains of a popular tune from behind her, and smell the tang of the salt air as it brushed over her.

Her body was pleasantly tired, and she was content to rest in the sun, turning her head slightly as she heard a gull land on the boat. It's claws made soft, ticking sounds as it moved closer and she kept very still to see how close it would dare to come.

She could almost feel the warmth of its body as it pattered nearer and nearer, and she resisted the urge to open her eyes and look.

Then it blew in her ear.

Jade's eyes popped wide open as her dream world rapidly merged into her waking one, and the gentle waves and warm sun became the rocking of the bed under Tori's laughing form, and the startling reality of true sunlight gilding both of them.

"Holy shit." Jade's eyes found the clock, which was displaying a cheerful 7:40 to her. "Jesus. Did we forget to set the alarm?"

"I think so." Tori propped her head up on one hand and let her chuckles wind down.

"Damn." Jade sighed, her brain still a little fuzzy from sleep. "How could I have done that? I haven't forgotten to set that damn alarm in… in… "

"Honey." Tori leaned over and rubbed Jade's bare belly. "You forgot because you fell asleep with your clothes half on. I had to pull them off. I was the one who forgot to check the clock, okay?"

"I did?" Jade tried to remember the previous night in the fog of exhaustion she'd been walking through. "Um… I think I remember a strawberry… and you kissing me."

Tori smiled, her fingers tracing a light pattern over Jade's skin. They'd both been far too tired to eat when they'd gotten home, and had settled for a shared bowl of freshly washed strawberries and two large glasses of milk. She'd put her things upstairs, and come down to find Jade sprawled over the bed, already well on her way to sleep.

"I remember that too." She looked up, and almost laughed when she saw Jade's expression relaxed back into slumber. "Hey… Gigi." She gave her lover a tiny poke.

"Eh?" Jade's eyes opened again. "Oh. Damn. " She complained, rolling over and capturing Tori in a tangle of warm arms and smooth skin. "Why can't it be Saturday? I don't wanna get up."

That was okay. Tori didn't want to either. She tried an experiment, making her little patterns again and was rewarded by hearing Jade's breathing even out almost immediately, and feeling her body go limp and relaxed. She closed her own eyes, and reviewed her schedule, thinking about what her morning was like.

Hm. It was Thursday. That meant her staff meeting at ten, nothing after that until lunch, then network strategy sessions from two to five. She liked those, actually, when her operations team would test different scenarios, to see how they could reshape the network to better suit their customer's needs.

So. She didn't need to be in until ten. Jade wasn't supposed to be in the office at all, since she was heading back down to the base. They could actually sleep in a little, if they skipped their morning run. Could they afford it?

One brown eye appeared, and regarded their intertwined bodies critically. Then it closed in contentment. Yep, they could afford it. Tori decided, squirming a little closer and settling down with a silent sigh. She let herself relax into a light doze for another half-hour, then nudged herself awake again.

For a few minutes, all she did was just look at Jade. The sun was spilling in the window through the blinds and painting gold stripes across the bed and one stripe had captured most of Jade's face. Tori could see the tiny motes of dust in it, and watched the faint flickers as some dream stirred her wife's eyelids.

She is so beautiful. Tori let out a breath, resisting the impulse to run a finger down one of Jade's planed cheekbones. She did move a lock of light brown hair back, though, biting her lip when even this slight motion brought a flutter of eyelids and a pair of sleepy blue eyes into view. "Ooops. Sorry."

Jade blinked. "Did you let me go back to sleep?" She asked, incredulously. "Tor, we're going to be late as hell."

"Yes, I did." Tori replied in an unperturbed tone. "My first thing's at ten, and you're OCB today, so take a chill gelcap and relax, okay?" She slid a hand over Jade's hip and lightly scratched her back. "How's this doing?"

The smooth surface under her hand tensed, then moved as Jade stretched, the muscles under her skin shifting under Tori's fingers.

"A little stiff, but not bad." Jade admitted. "Maybe we can do some swimming this weekend… that should fix it up."

Tori wriggled over and pinned her lover down, receiving a startled, widened eyed look in return. "Maybe we can take you over to Dr. Dodie's, and have him look at it."

"Aw… Torrriii…." Jade whined.

"Pick one. Dr. Dodie, or the ophthalmologist." Tori replied kindly, ignoring the endearing pout that faced her. "Sweetheart, I'm not going to sit by and watch you either hurting, or hurting yourself, so you'd better just get used to it, okay?"

"I hate doctors." Jade said. "You know I hate doctors."

Tori sighed. "Yes, I know you do… but I have to take very good care of you, Jade. especially if you're going to be the mother of my children someday." She put a fingertip on Jade's nose. "Humor me? Please?"

Jade thought about it, her eyes moving slightly, regarding the eggshell colored ceiling. Then they focused on Tori's face, and softened. "All right." She agreed quietly. "But you have to go with me."

"Of course I will." Tori smiled in relief. "In fact, I'm embarrassed to admit it, but I haven't had my eyes checked in a few years either. We'll both go, okay?"

Jade nodded. "Okay." She rubbed a thumb over Tori's ribs, which expanded under her touch. "I think it's time we got our lazy butts out of bed, don't you?"

"Do you really want to?" Tori laid an arm down on Jade's chest, and rested her chin on it. "You know what I'd like?" She added suddenly.

"What?"

"Someday. I'd like us to just… " Tori nibbled her lower lip. "Get a camper, or something. and travel all over the place, just seeing new things." A half smile appeared. "Does that sound strange to you? There are so many places I haven't seen, and I'd like to - together."

Jade cocked her head slightly to one side. She took a breath to answer, then released it when her phone, dropped haphazardly on the bedside table, buzzed. "Hold that thought." She told Tori as she fumbled one-handedly with the instrument. "Because I really like it."

Tori grinned wholeheartedly and gave Jade a pat on the side. "I'll get coffee started." She lowered her voice as Jade answered the phone, then took the opportunity to suckle Jade's navel gently, chuckling as she heard her wife's voice break slightly. "Tell Sinjin I said hi." She gave Jade a nip, then rolled out of bed and made her way out into the living room, where Chino was already waiting impatiently to be let out.

She opened the back door for the Lab, then clicked the coffee on before she trotted upstairs and into her own bedroom. "Two bathrooms, no waiting." She told her reflection, as she entered hers, splashing water on her face more to wake her up than anything else, and scrubbing her teeth industriously.

One of the nicer things about the condo was the amount of space they both had, she reflected. She'd grown up in such a big house, with a lot of people around, and Jade had grown up just the opposite, but they both needed and appreciated the room to get away a little, and be alone sometimes.

Which made her comment to Jade seem really odd, if you thought about it. But Jade had liked the idea of traveling around together, so maybe it wasn't so weird after all.

Of course, showers, now… Tori grinned at the rumpled, rakish looking figure gazing back at her. Showers they liked to take together. "Hey, scruffy… time for a haircut." She pointed at her reflection, before she turned and went to her closet, bound on selecting her clothing for the day.


Jade settled her sunglasses more firmly as she headed from the parking lot into the staff building. She was dressed in her favorite pair of worn jeans, and a Navy sweatshirt, in deference to the cooler weather that had rolled in overnight.

The Marine at the door gave her a friendly nod, and opened the portal for her. "Good morning, ma'am."

"Morning." Jade replied politely. She took the stairs two at a time, and ducked around the upper hall doors, glancing around for any sign of her glowering nemesis. "Eh.. maybe I will get lucky for a change."

She made it into the network hardware room, and put her case down, then glanced around at the walls full of telecommunications punch downs. With a sigh, she pulled out her Phone and checking the circuit ID Sinjin had given her, and comparing it to the rows of tags hanging from the blocks.

"Ah. There you are." Jade pulled a tool from her briefcase and studied the network bridges, consulting her phone for the network node the base had assigned her to. Her brow creased, and she ran a finger lightly down the massive hub, curious about the design. An entire segment was bridged off to a completely different hub, for no reason she could readily identify.

One dark eyebrow lifted. "Hm." Jade followed the cables to the other hub, and peeked in back of it. "Ethernet..Ethernet.. Fast Ethernet… T3?" Jade looked closer. "Twelve network nodes sharing a T3? What the hell is running on them?"

Really curious now, Jade pulled the network schematic she'd been given out of her briefcase, and spread it out, running an experienced eye over the layout. After a few minutes, she folded the paper up and tucked it away, letting out a careful breath as she considered her options.

Then she walked over and copied down the circuit id on the mysterious hub and pulled out her phone again.


Tori took her seat in the operations meeting, setting down her cup of tea and glancing around the table. No one met her eyes, and she let a wry grin touch her lips as she settled back in the leather conference chair, extending her legs and crossing them, while she rested her folded hands on the table surface.

Sinjin was the last to arrive, and he closed the door behind him before he took his own seat, the one directly across from hers. There was none of the usual bantering, everyone just sat quietly, eyes on their agendas, and waited.

"So." Tori broke the silence. "Heard any good rumors lately?" She waited for the embarrassed shuffling to quiet down. "That was pretty counterproductive, wasn't it? I'm used to people having nothing better to do than speculate about my private life, but tying up the resources of the entire department for an entire morning was going a little overboard, don't you think?"

Nobody knew what to say. They all just stared miserably at the table.

"I'm not sure what's more disappointing." Tori went on quietly. "The fact that people who know me personally participated in it, and thought so little of my integrity that they'd think I'd do something like that to Jade in front of the entire company…" She paused. "Or the fact that in a department full of intelligent people, only Jade's admin had the sense to check the visitor's log."

Sinjin finally looked up, his jaw muscles visibly clenching as he met her gaze squarely. "I didn't bother checking." He stated. "I knew it was bullshit. The only thing I wanted to do is find out where it started, and stop it." He reflected. "I did. But that flew out so fast it went through my fingers."

Tori nodded. "I know. Thank you, Sinjin." She saw some of the rigid tension in his shoulders relax a little. "Jade and I make a point of keeping our personal lives out of this building. I'd appreciate it if you all would do the same. Find something else to speculate about."

Nods and murmurs of agreement went around the table.

"Okay." Tori was satisfied that she'd scared, embarrassed, and intimidated the entire room to the best of her capability. Jade, of course, would have done a much scarier job of it, but she felt she'd gotten her point across, and predicted her people would be having little meetings of their own in their areas as soon as the current session was over. "Next item on the agenda. Enid, what's the status of the new accounts in Northwest games?"

Never had there been so many people in one room so glad of a subject change. Enid eagerly sifted through her papers, and started into her report.


The small office was very quiet. Only the faint sound of the laptop's hard drive, and the occasionally soft click broke the silence. Jade had her head propped up on one fist as she reviewed the data flicking across the display.

"What in the hell are they doing?" The CIO asked her computer, which morosely refused to answer. She scanned the datastream for the nth time, trying to figure out the pattern in the weird anomalies she'd been seeing for the last couple of hours.

The cell phone resting on the desk buzzed, and Jade answered it. "Yeah?"

"Hey, Jade." Sinjin's voice sounded unusually quiet. "I tracked down that T3 ID for you. It's a private subscriber circuit. Not Verizon."

"Huh." Jade's brow creased. "That's even stranger. I could understand having a… "A thought occurred to her. "Hang on.. I'll call you back." She hung up and searched her contacts, then pressed call.

It rang twice, then was answered. "Gerry?"

"Ah.. Jade!" Gerald Oliver's voice sounded cheerful. "I was just thinking of you."

"Someone send you a memo?" Jade hazarded a guess.

The military man chuckled. "Eh.. heard from old Jeff, as a matter of fact. He's thrilled to have you down there, Jade."

Jade felt a half grin forming. "He's the only one, Gerry. I'm not a popular person down here. Listen.. is there anything black here?"

There was a momentary silence. "Eh." Oliver grunted. "Odd question."

"Odd because it's yes, or because it's no?" Jade was conscious of the cellular connection, which could be monitored. "I don't want details, Gerry, just if there is or isn't."

"Hold on a minute." Oliver's voice had become crisp. It was replaced with hold music, which Jade suffered through, having an innate dislike for the song Sleigh Ride. It cut off thankfully on the third go round, replaced by a rustle, and a clearing of Gerry's throat. "Ah Jade?"

"Mm.. still here." Jade sketched a squirrel on her pad.

"I just checked, and no, we've got nothing dark there." Gerry paused. "Nothing even remotely gray, as a matter of fact."

Jade scowled, and put fangs on the squirrel. "Damn." She exhaled. "Okay, thanks Gerry. I've got to hunt somewhere else for answers."

"Problems?" The cautious question came back.

"Things that aren't making sense." Jade replied. "I hate that."

A chuckle. " As well I remember. If you need any more information, Jade, get in touch, eh?"

"I will." Jade hung up the phone, and reviewed the data she had on her screen. "Okay." She called up a new email, cut and pasted from the analyzer program into it, added notes, and sent it on it's way. "Let's see what Sinjin can dig up about who bought that nice, big hub that mysteriously connects to someone else's network from inside a supposedly secure building."

Then she set up her transfer program, and tapped into the base's network, parsing all of its traffic and sending a running dump to her ops center in San Francisco. The big boxes there would digest the information, and run her custom designed systems analysis programs on it. That code would tell her if her gut instinct was right, and there was something weird going on, or if she was just seeing spiders in the shadows.

Jade leaned back in her wooden chair, and folded her arms as the data transfer kicked in. She looked up as a light knock came at the door. "Yes?"

Chuckie stuck his head inside the room. "Hey there, old buddy. Can I interest you in some lunch?"

Jade smiled easily. "Sure." She set her passwords and locked the laptop down, then stood up and joined Chuckie at the door. "You want to go downstairs, or offbase?" She asked. "I kind of have an itch for conch fritters."

"You're on." Chuckie agreed happily. "I've been buried up to my butt in status reports all day. I've got ten new recruits coming from this class, and boy howdy, I hope those little suckers don't sink the boat before we clear international waters." He put a hand on Jade's back and guided her down the hall. "Dad says you plan on doing a checkout on the training process here, that right?"

"Right." Jade answered. "That's what Gerry was griping about from here mostly - results on the folks they kick out of here being substandard." She dropped down the stairs with Chuckie at her side. "He wants to know why, and frankly, so do I."

"For real?" Chuckie held the door at the bottom of the hall open for her, then followed her out and into the cool, somewhat damp air.

"Yeah." Jade pulled her keys out of her pocket and headed for the Volvo. "From a management perspective, bad performance usually only has one of a couple sources." She opened the doors and they got in, then she continued her lecture, which Chuckie listened to with interest. "Either your talent pool is empty, your processes are defective, or there's a motivation structure in place that doesn't match what your performance objectives are."

Chuckie folded his arms over his chest and eyed her. "Can we talk about football or something? I didn't get three words out of five in that last paragraph."

Jade chuckled, as she pulled out of the base parking lot and sent the Volvo in search of a scrunchy crab shack. "Sorry." She recomposed her thoughts. "Your recruits suck, the instructors don't know what the hell they're doing, or someone's being paid to just churn out bodies regardless if they know what end of a broom to grab hold of."

"Ah." Chuckie considered this thoughtfully. "How are you going to figure out which one it is?"

How indeed? Jade pulled into an unpaved parking lot and stopped the Volvo. "I'm not sure yet." She admitted. "I've got a program sucking everything down into one of our big processors, and it's going to sort the data out for me. I'll review it, and make a plan based on what I find."

"Okay." Chuckie opened the door to the crab shack and they entered, going from the bright light outside into a somewhat dim, weathered, wooden interior graced with trestle tables, benches, and several neon bar signs on the wall. "Howdy, Red."

The burly, bearded man with more tattoos than it seemed safe waved at him. "Hey Chuck.. whoa, you moved up in the world, didn't cha?" His eyes flicked over Jade with genial approval. "C'mon in, sweet thing."

Chuckie, to give him credit, winced.

Jade dropped her jacket onto the nearest trestle table and sauntered over to the man, leaning on the counter across from him and tipping her sunglasses down to give him a better look. After a moment, she sighed. "You are still as butt ugly as you were in high school, you know that, August?"

The man's eyes widened. "Who the fuck are you?"

"Someone you ain't seen in fifteen years." Jade drawled back. "You want to put us up two baskets of fritters and burgers, so at least we'll get something out of this conversation?"

The man scratched his jaw and tilted his head, then reach over and pulled Jade's sunglasses all the way off. He leaned closer. "Oh shit." He started laughing. "It's Jade." He let the glasses drop to the counter. "I'll be a son of a bitch."

Jade scooped up her shades. "You're damn lucky I'm not nearly as much of a hardass as I used to be, Augie… that crack would have gotten you a broken nose once upon a time." She relaxed into a smile, as Chuckie decided it was safe to approach and came up next to her.

"Yeah.. you're so mellow now." Chuckie commented. "Remind me of that again when I bitch about how sore I am from that little stunt we pulled the other night."

"Mary!" August hollered behind him. "Two burgers, two fritters, okay?" He faced forward again. "Jade, man, its such a trip to see you. It has been forever and gone, ain't it?" He pointed to the table. "Siddown.. I was just gonna have some lunch myself. We were busier than all get out before, but it slowed down some."

Jade took a seat on the worn wooden bench as her two friends did the same. She rested her elbows on the surface and exhaled, allowing a bittersweet sense of familiarity to wash over her. August's father had owned the shack during her younger years, and she'd spent many hours hunched over the uneven tables, talking crap and swallowing enough fried fish and greasy burgers to have easily killed off anyone with a more sensitive digestive system.

Her nose twitched as she detected the scent of the spicy fritter batter cooking, and she smiled, glad for the moment to know that not everything had changed.

"Still workin with that computer shit, huh Jade?" Augie asked.

Oh yeah. "Yep. " Jade admitted. "Same shit."


"Ms Tori?" Mayte's voice crackled through the intercom. "Senor Sinjin is here."

Tori finished typing her last sentence, and flexed her hands, making the joints crack slightly. "Great. Send him this way, Mayte." She sat back and waited, as her door opened and Sinjin entered. "Hi."

"Hi." Sinjin closed the door and crossed the carpeted floor, taking a seat in one of Tori's visitor's chairs. "Listen, I... um... "

"Sinjin -it's okay." Tori interrupted him gently. "I'm over it."

The MISchief blinked. "Oh." He sat back and let his hands rest on his thighs "You know the whole staff's been walking around in a blue funk since the meeting, right?"

"I heard." Tori ran her fingers through her hair and rifled it, stifling a yawn as she did so. "Jesus, its not like I was that wacko, was I? I've heard Jade go off.. I know I'm not in her league."

"Nah." Sinjin agreed. "It's worse with you, though, because you're always so nice, when you get postal, it makes everyone's hair stand on end." He gave Tori an apologetic look. "No offense."

"None taken." Tori smiled. "I talked to Cat." She shifted the topic neatly. "She's agreed to let me handle whatever we decide to do with Brent."

"Urm." Sinjin rubbed his jaw, darkened with stubble now that the day was almost ended. "I talked to him a little - he's way out there, Tori." He shook his head. "I can't figure out if it's just that he had a…uh, I mean, if.."

Tori leaned forward. "I didn't think he was serious, until Jade told me after I met you both in the ops center that time that he'd just finished asking her if I was seeing anyone." She propped her head up on one fist. "I thought that was pretty darn oblivious of him, you know?"

Sinjin waggled his hand. "He's pretty focused."

"So, is his problem that I'm not interested, or is his problem why I'm not interested?"

"Why." Sinjin said bluntly. "His dad's a Southern Baptist minister who was tossed out of the local group for advocating the castration of gay guys, and the incarceration of anyone who didn't think we should swap the bill of rights for the bible."

Tori sighed.

"It sucks, you know? He's a good tech, and not half bad a guy if you don't mind the freaking nerdiness." Sinjin shook his head. "I talked to him just before I came in here, and he just can't see why everyone doesn't feel the same way he does.I mean this is San Francisco man…"

"Okay." Tori scrubbed her face. "I'd like to talk to him." She said. "Can you set up a time tomorrow morning? Make it early, preferably before I have to sit in on the marketing projection session."

"Sure you want to do that?" Sinjin queried.

"Yes."

"Okay." Sinjin stood up. "Did you hear from the boss? Her data dump finally finished... the processors are chewing on it."

Tori leaned back. "Yep. She's home, actually." She propped a knee up against the desk and folded her hands around it. Hearing from Jade had been a surprise, especially when her wife had told her she was comfortably seated on their leather couch watching a special on China. "She's .. um.. cooking dinner."

Sinjin stopped in mid motion and stared at her, his jaw dropping in mild shock. "Uh?"

"Yeah." Tori scratched her nose. "My curiosity is starting to give me wedgies." She admitted, with a grin. "I mean, it could be that we'll end up eating ice cream sundaes for dinner, those are well inside Jade's ability, or maybe she'll do eggs, which I know are safe. Though she told me once that she could cook… she has yet to really do it, she says I'm better."

"Now you've got me curious." Sinjin chuckled. "She once told me flipping the power switch in the coffee machine was the limit of her cooking skills." He folded his arms. "You gotta let me know what happens."

Tori stood up and stretched, wincing as her back popped from the long hours she'd been seated at her desk trying to clear her inbox. She'd even had Mayte bring her up lunch so she could spend the extra time catching up. "Okay." She viewed the outbox with a sense of satisfaction. "I think I'm going to pack it in."

"Walk you downstairs?" Sinjin offered. "I was just on my way out myself."

They joined a group of fellow employees who were also leaving, including Jose and Elle, and the elevator was fairly crowded. Tori pressed back against the mirrored wall, not really uncomfortable but conscious of the air's stuffiness and the clashing scents of Elle's aggressive rose perfume and Jose's vaguely coconutty smelling after-shave.

Ick. Tori eyed the ceiling; it was also unfortunate that some people seemed to have a curious absentmindedness when it came to things like deodorant and reasonably frequent showering. She considered holding her breath, wondering if the elevator was being perversely slow just to piss her off.

Oh. Tori almost hopped up and down to force the car to move faster. What if it gets stuck? Her eyes widened a little. How would it look for the VP Ops to chuck up all over half the executive staff in an elevator?

"Tori!"

She jerked, and sucked in a breath, then glanced at Sinjin. "What?"

Sinjin leaned closer. "You looked like you were freaking out."

She sighed, and leaned back. "Overactive imagination." The car reached the bottom and bounced a little, then, finally, blissfully, the doors slid open and allowed the people to exit and the cold air to enter. "Jesus." She pushed off from the mirrored wall and left the elevator, glancing up into the vast vault of the atrium lobby.

A faint smile crossed her face as she remembered the first time she'd seen this place, a very late, rainy night that had started in despair and ended…ended up being a crossroads in her life she wasn't even aware of until long after she'd passed through it.

She followed Sinjin out the front doors into the daylight and headed for her car, her mind making the mental jog when it first tried to find her Mustang, then shifted and searched for the new profile.

"Hey.. did you get a new set of wheels?" Sinjin asked, as he ambled alongside her. "Ain't that cute.. a baby JadeCar."

"A wh… oh." Tori laughed. "Yeah, I guess you could call it that." She patted her new blue Volvo on the side. "I like it… I can actually see things now. See you tomorrow, Sinjin."

"Yeah." Sinjin unstrapped his motorcycle helmet and put his briefcase in the saddlebag of the big Harley. "Drop me an email when you figure out what Big J is feeding you, huh? I'm dying to know."

"Hm." Tori got into the SUV and rolled the window down. "Dying.. not a good word there, Sinjin." She gave him a wave and started the car, then pulled out of the parking lot and headed home.