06-Dec-2002
Title: Wind Over Water
Pairing: Noin/Sally
Word Count: 694
Warnings: EW fic; angst; limish
It is that impertinent Maxwell who has kept us sane; he laughs in the face of an old man's world-destroying ambitions. We laugh at him, and the cabin of our shuttle reverberates with the rich sound that is so perfectly blended that it sounds like one person's mirth. We laugh at Death, who laughs at death, and between the bouts of laughter we are serious and focused on the mission.
The Mobile Dolls are a decoy; we realize this together and her fingers fly as she changes our course. I relay the status of our mission to the Lady as the shuttle noses around to the heading that will take us to X-18999. Our approach will take hours and our eyes meet with the ease of long practice. She rigs the autopilot and I set the comm to shrill at us for urgent communications, and we fall into the bunk together. I mouth the bowstring-taut column of her neck and palm her soft breasts and even though we have done this so many times there is still something new to discover. The way she mewls my name with hands fisting in my hair is a treasure and a joy and I store it in my cache of precious memories. Later she sleeps and I curl my body around hers and rest a palm over the slow flutter of her heart and stroke her warm silk skin and know that this is the most valuable moment of all.
I am not counting on what we find at X-18999, and something inside me breaks when I see him out there, a fallen angel fighting off demons, and I can't turn my eyes away from the view screen even when she makes that tiny broken noise. We laid this ghost to rest so many months ago, but he walks again and there is nothing I can do, nothing at all, save reaching over to squeeze her shoulder. She is marble to my touch and I can't breathe any more for the ache in my throat and jaw that comes from not screaming as she doesn't cry. I will not scream. She will not cry.
I lie. She cries. I do not scream, and eventually my hand drops from her shoulder, useless, like these past six months have been useless, even though I know what she looks like when she cries and when she laughs and when she comes and when she thinks and when she's happy and I know he will never know these things like I know them, because these blow away like ash when confronted with his sheer presence.
Still, even he cannot defeat a madman single-handed, and it falls to us to lend the helping hand, because after all what else are we but adjutants to the greater players in this game? I swallow my bitterness with my scream, for there are lives here, and the balance favors their preservation over the fragments of a dream. He runs interference as she pilots us in to a hangar, and I talk to the boys on the comm, working out the rudiments of a plan. There is no more shared laughter at Maxwell's dark humor.
She is strong, but this has shaken her, and I will not allow her to join me on this leg of the mission. My slight seniority is the edge I need when I pull rank to make her stay in the shuttle, and she is a soldier who takes her orders if not well then without complaint. I prepare to leave on my search-and-rescue, and she catches my hand. Her voice cracks when she says my name. She touches my face.
I shake my head. Go to him, I say. Go to him. It's all right. Just go.
She smiles through her tears, and whispers her thanks. Her hand is slipping through my hair and coming to rest at the nape of my neck, and her wonderful sweet mouth is descending on mine, hot and slick, and I am losing her while our teeth click together and our lips bruise from the force of our kiss. Oh God, I'm losing her.
--end
The title, in case you're wondering, is a bad pun on Sally and Zechs' Preventer code names. I'm terrible, aren't I?
--Em, likes puns and thinks you should go visit http://happyfangirl.org/snogs/ right this very instant for more snogfic goodness
(:./lys/snog17)
