Written by Shelonei and Alison Sky
In a Marine Blue Speedo, Hobbie sits on the bottom of the base pool with
some weights in his lap to hold himself down. It's roughly midnight,
and he's just thinking to himself while wearing one of those fish breathers
so he won't have to go up and breathe
Siee walked into the deserted pool and sighed. She had been alone in
the barracks for a long time. Pushing papers was NOT what she had signed
onto the NRi for. And now with Fel playing keep away and Mike disappeared...
she was lonely.
*Maybe a long night swim will work out some of that fustration* she
thought as she hung her towel on a peg beside the starting block. She
got onto the block, checked her hair under her swim cap, then dove into the
pool to start doing some laps.
Hobbie heard a splash of someone entering the water, and looked up to see
a shapely female form, wearing a camoflague two-piece, darting overhead.
He raised his eyebrows. *Who'd be here this time of night?*
Siee kept kicking, then did a quick flip turn at the end of the pool, starting
on her first pass back. She moved with grace, swimming the one way
she kept in shape best.
He watched the figure pass overhead a second time before grabbing the weights
and gathering his feet beneath him to swim to the surface. Soon, he
broke to air and moved to the edge of the pool to put the weights up.
Siee sensed the movement in the water but paid it no mind. After all,
it was a public pool.
Hobbie turned and dove back beneath the water to swim beneath the surface.
Anyone who came to the pool at this hour would be here for the same reason
as he... to be alone, in thought.
Siee closed her eyes and spin turned at the wall on the deep end, but instead
of going across, she went straight down... testing her lung capasity betweem
each lap. She was maybe 5 feet down when her head bashed agsint someone
else's. She opened her eyes in shock.
*thud* Hobbie fell back in surprise as he collided with an unexpected
obstacle. Seeing it was the pool's other occupant, but not quite who,
he grabbed her and pulled her up to the surface. She, unlike he, had
no breathing device on, and the last thing that needed to happen was surprise
filling her lungs with water.
Siee broke the surface and took in deep lungfulls of air. "Hobbie?"
she cried in shook, treading water. "What are you doing here?"
He pulled off the breathing fish and looked incredulous. "Swimming,
thinking..." he shrugged, "you alright?"
"Shocked but fine." She kicked herself to the side wall and pulled
herself up until she was on the side wall. There she pulled her cap
off, her hair falling limpy around her bare shoulders. "What were you
thinking about?"
He stayed in the pool, lightly treading water. "Lots of things.
Mostly how strange this year's been... and the people who've died since I
took command," he visibly shuddered.
"You know... just thinking."
Siee pulled her legs up to her chest and hugged them. "I know what
you mean. A lot has changed in the past year. She looked at her
body, which had faded scars all along them from a torture session long ago.
"A lot."
He swam over and hauled himself to sit beside her, then rested a hand on
her shoulder. "You wanna talk about it?"
"I dunno... it just seems that once i start talking to someone here... they
shy away from me. It's like once they find out about me, they freak
out and leave."
He folded his hands, then gestured a shrug. "I don't freak out easily...
if I did, I'd have found another roomate than your brother long ago."
He gave her a smile, something that rarely happened much anymore. "Go
ahead, but don't say anything you don't want to."
Siee sighed. "I'm a freak now... just look at this body!" She
stood up and rotated around, her scars standing out.
He leaned back and looked... and was surprised at what he saw. Siee
really was growing up, into quite the fine looking young woman. "I
see nothing wrong. You know what I see?"
"What?"
"I see a young woman, who's got a strength of character most would kill for.
A survivor who gets up and keeps going at times when many would have just
given up. I see... a beautiful girl whose independance may frighten
men because they don't know how to handle that. That is what I see."
Siee lifted the side of her lip in a half smile. "Really?"
He nodded, "Yes, Siee. Really."
Siee dropped to her knees and hugged Hobbie around his neck. "Thanks
Hobbie," she said softly, crying a bit.
He hugged her gently, "Anytime, Sweeting."
Siee leaned back and smiled. She then did something she never thought
she would do. She leaned over and kissed Hobbie gently on the lips.
He blinked in surprise, but in stead of pulling back, raised a hand to brush
the tears from her cheek.
Siee smiled and deepened the kiss, lost in the world of Hobbie's lips.
He allowed himself to kiss her back... until his brain caught up to him.
He pulled back, "Siee...."
Siee blinked and leaned back. "I'm sorry," she whispered and quickly
dove into the water away from him.
He looked after her, at a loss for words, utterly bewildered. *What
the Sith just happened here?*
After a brief moment, he jumped into the water and swam after her.
Sure, he was dead, but something just happened in his heart, and he had to
figure out why.
Siee kept swimming and wasn't pay attention and banged her head right into
the wall. She go to her knees in the water and rubbed the scrape on
her forehead. "Dumb one, dork," she muttered under her breath.
He caught up to her in the shallow end, then, but hesitated to reach out
to her, unsure how she'd react. "If you're not careful you're going
to really hurt yourself," he said before thinking.... *in more ways than
one*
"Not like I haven't been already." She rubbed the scrape again and
pulled back and hand with some blood on it. "Great, another scar."
"Not if I can help it," he quickly moved to exit the pool. "Come on."
"Why?"
"It's not deep, if we get that treated right away it won't scar at
all," he explained while going to the side of the large pool room where the
first aid cabinet was.
"No, i mean why bother. I'm already covered in scars as it is.
One more isn't going to kill me."
"It won't, but if they bother you, why not at least give it a shot?" he pulled
out a bacta patch and some neobactin. "Plus, Wes'd kill me if I didn't
at least try," he smiled again. Twice in one night, that had
to be some sort of record.
"Let me try?
Siee shrugged. She was reverting into a Janson stubborness right before
Hobbie's eyes.
And he knew that look all too well. It was the one Wes gave whenever
he'd rather just shrug off something than get it fixed properly. He
sighed. "Stay still," he told her as he arrived to her side with the
stuff.
"I'll do it myself," she snapped, grabbing the first aid kit and opening
it.
He sighed, on the verge of exasperation. "You can't even see it."
"I'll guess then," she snapped. She looked up at Hobbie with pain filled
eyes. ~Go away, just please go away.~ she thought
He misread her look, but her tone was more than evident. Fine, if she
was going to act like a child, he was going to treat her like one.
He spoke using a tone Wedge often used to chastise her elder brother.
"Give me that," he took the cleaner from the kit and started cleaning the
scrape with his left hand, gently, while pulling out the neobactin with his
other.
He dropped the cleaner pad into the lid of the box, and then squeezed some
of the neobactin onto a finger before gently smoothing it into the area to
prevent infection. Finally, he opened up a small flesh-coloured bacta-patch
and placed it on her forehead. "There, done." He sighed.
"Why do you have to be so difficult?"
"I'm a Janson," she stated. "Aren't we all?"
He nodded, his expression unreadable. He'd only wanted to help her,
and he had somehow ended up making her angry. "Indubitably."
She stood up and made her way towards her towel, not saying a word and trying
hard to fight back the tears in her eyes.
He closed up the medpack and sighed as he watched her walk away. He'd
made her angry, somehow. But something else was happening too...
and he wasn't sure if he should do anything about the feeling, rushing through
him, that just didn't seem right for him to have when around Siee.
Siee grabbed her towel and wrapped it around her. She then ran into
the first doorway she came to... the men's shower.
*Oh sith,* He jogged over to the room, hoping there was nobody
else in there and that he could inform her of her mistake before she made
a worse one.
However, once he reached the door and called for her, "Siee, you're in the
Men's lockerroom!" he promptly slipped and fell down, hard.
Siee blinked. *Sith!* she thought and turned to run back out,
only to trip over Hobbie.
"Oof!" he grunted as she fell atop him, and the two lay there sprawled and
out of breath. "You okay?" he grit out painfully.
as he looked at her, noticing then that her face was not only mere inches
from his own... but that she'd been crying. His eyebrows immediately
drew together and upward in worry.
"Yeah," Siee said, her face red from crying and being embarresed. She
wrapped her towel closer around herself.
He scooted into a seated position while watching her. "Talk to me,"
he said quietly. "What's wrong?"
"You, then, everyone!" Siee stood up. "You tell me you care, but the
second I show something you push me away!"
"What the sith are you talking about?" he looked up at her dumbfounded.
"I tried to kiss you and you pushed me away! Everyone pushes me away!"
He blinked as realisation dawned on him, but he still wasn't sure what to
do about it. Finally, he asked quietly, "Why did you kiss me, Siee?"
"I dunno," she stated, playing with her towel.
Slowly he got up from where he lay on the floor, leaving behind a small
red stain where his head had been. "Siee..." he looked at her
honestly. "There must have been a reason, I know you're not the sort
of girl to go around kissing old friends."
"Oh, so now I'm not that 'sort of girl'. Well, what kind of girl do
you think I am, old friend?" she snarled.
He sighed and stepped back, his head throbbing. "The kind of girl that's
too good for any mere pilot," he responded - somewhat surprised by his words
as he turned to go.
"Never settle, Siee. Never settle," he told her quietly as he walked
out.
Siee just watched Hobbie leave in wonder. *What did you do?*
her inner mind scolded her as she walked into the girl's locker room for
a long shower.
*What the hell is going on?* he wondered to himself as he washed off
the chlorine from the pool in his quarters shower. He noted red tinting
the water, and sighed. "Just great," he muttered to himself.
"Oh well, it'll heal." With that he finished up, dressed, and went
to the deserted downtime for a good stiff drink.
