after the brig

[hallelujahpilot]

Trudy has spent two weeks surrounded by walls. One was glass, but it had a view of the rest of the brig. She kept herself occupied as best she can, but four walls. Not flying, not running, not really walking. Four walls, when she's gotten so used to being outside on the science sorties.

When she arrives at Milliways (after going to her quarters, after showering and pulling on shorts and a t-shirt and washing her hair to try and get the smell of the brig out of it) Trudy doesn't stick around inside.

She heads straight for the back door, and climbs a tree.

Not very high, but it's enough.

She's outside, she has a few, and under her bare feet, she has bark. Not silky cement, not cold metal, but living bark.

(she can breathe, now)

Comments

[one_man_army]

Some time (not too long, though) later, he's standing at the base of the tree, looking up.

He's shaved. And cut his hair, since she's last seen him.

(He doesn't look so tired, anymore.)




"Mind company?"

[hallelujahpilot]

(in contrast, she looks more tired than last time; paler, slightly drained)

"Mind climbin'?" She asks, grinning down at him.

[one_man_army]

"For you? Anythin'."

He takes a few steps back to get a head start, jogs, and jumps. His fingers curl around the lowest branch; it's not long after that until he's perched up in the tree beside her, soles of his boots scraping at the bark as he gets comfortable.

After he is:

"You alright, love?"

[hallelujahpilot]

"'m fine."

And then,

"Spent two weeks in the brig."

[one_man_army]

"Why--"

No.




"What happened?"

[hallelujahpilot]

A little (or maybe more than a little) cautiously,

"Had a godawful day. Know the kind where you are literally pickin' up the pieces? One o' those. Got angry. Got drunk. McKinley called my dead co-pilot a nigger bitch, so I smashed a bottle into his jaw. Carmichael threw me into a table, and that started a barfight."

Unsaid: she threw the first punch, with a weapon that could have killed the man.

Unsaid: two weeks is a freaking slap on the wrist for assault with a deadly weapon.

Unsaid: please understand.

[one_man_army]

"He's lucky you didn't swing a chair instead. All things considered."

Unsaid: he understands.





"Longest I ever got penned was a week."

[hallelujahpilot]

She smiles at that, more out of relief than anything else.

"Yeah?"

[one_man_army]

"Back when I was just a Ranger. Guy in my unit and I didn't really get along...that's puttin' it lightly. By the time we finally got t'go at it, we were lit up. I broke two of his fingers. I might'a made it off with just latrines and KP...but I mouthed off t'the CO when he asked me what the hell had happened. I deserved it, really."

A beat.

"Course, so did the other guy."

[hallelujahpilot]

"'Course he did." They usually do, after all. "Although, the Colonel's gonna put us all through re-trainin' - figures if we didn't notice he was there, we're gonna get killed out in the field, and if we did notice him, we deserve it."

Her voice is wry.

"I did know he was there. I just..." She gestures. "Was mad."

[one_man_army]

"You were stickin' up for your friend. If someone were t'say somethin' like that about say, Jack, I'd probably be in the same boat you were. You just don't say something like that."

And get away with it, anyway.

[hallelujahpilot]

"Yeah. Colonel knows that, too. Still." She rubs her mouth with her free hand. "One must not beat up those we are hired to protect, even they are a bunch o'ungrateful elitist bigots."

Beat.

"She ain't even been dead that long." There is something a little uneven in her voice, but mostly her tone is just tired.

It's more than physical tiredness.

[one_man_army]

"It's just been a handful of months, hasn't it?"

Kind of like how long Jack has been 'dead' out in his world. Except in Trudy's case, her co-pilot isn't faking it.

Given the fact that they're perched on different branches in the tree, the best Carl can do is reach out and touch her ankle, giving some form of support. He'd rather hug her, but again...in a tree.

[hallelujahpilot]

The touch is appreciated and, once they are down on the ground, hell yeah is Trudy hugging him.

But she needs to be perched in a tree for a little while longer, first.

"Just a bit. Um. Jack, told me about. 'Bout pretendin' to die."

[one_man_army]

"Did he."




He was overseas when it 'happened'.

It wasn't until he'd gotten back to the States and called Jack's number in Los Angeles, gotten in touch with Kim --

The funeral was two weeks ago. I tried to call you...

-- that he'd had the hardest four minute conversation of his life.

Carl nods.

"Yeah, he...I missed the...funeral."

[hallelujahpilot]

Trudy both can and can't imagine Farzan dying on her. Being killed.

She can not imagine him faking it, or the emotional whiplash of learning he was still alive.

"Okay, now being in a tree is awkward," she says, reaching down to curl her fingers around his hand.

[one_man_army]

Carl exhales a laugh, shaking his head.

"He heard it from me when he showed up in here, I promise."

He has to remind himself that Jack's not really dead, and not really buried beside his wife in that cemetery in L.A., and not yet held by the Chinese for years and tortured.

His fingers intertwine with hers.

"You look like you could use a tan."

[hallelujahpilot]

"That an offer, Benton?"

[one_man_army]

"Either here or back home. I'm looking at getting out of London, and might head somewhere warm again."

But not Cancun.

"I hear Portugal isn't that bad this time of year. Or we could tan here and then go to Norway."

[hallelujahpilot]

"Here's a sim. A damn good one, but...feels like a park. Your world's real. I like real." She ducks her head. "Portugal, and. Maybe if you ain't sick of me, Norway?"

She needs to get the fuck away from Hell's Gate for a while, if only so when she comes back she can do her job properly.

[one_man_army]

He glances up at her.

"Trudy...we can go anywhere y'want to go. I ain't gonna get sick of you."

[hallelujahpilot]

"Don't make promises y'might not be able to keep," she says, but she's smiling.

[one_man_army]

"I'm willing to bet on it. Risk taker that I am and all."

He's Army. They do take risks now and again.

[hallelujahpilot]

"Yeah-huh. Okay, well, we'll see."

Beat.

"Wanna get out of the tree?"

[one_man_army]

"Probably a good idea."

He smirks.

"'Cause I'm pretty sure my ass is fallin' asleep."