View source for Endgame-Part II

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<h2>Interlude</h2>
<h3>by LJC</h3> 
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<p>Niko threw on an embroidered Japanese robe when the `com buzzed, tossing her wet<br />hair over her shoulder as she dashed for the terminal.<br /> "Hi. Briefing is over. Want to catch some dinner before I'm confined to<br />quarters for the rest of my life?" Karen's smiling face filled the tiny screen.<br /> "I think I'll have to pass." She fought to keep her face calm and betray<br />nothing. "Lunch tomorrow though?"<br /> "Sounds fine."<br /> "Is Goose still in with the Commander?" She tried to sound uninterested<br />and nonchalant, and if Karen noticed any spark in her eye, she certainly didn't<br />comment on it.<br /> "He was when I left, but he might be out by now." Just then the door<br />chimed, and she had to bid Karen goodnight, perhaps a bit too hastily, but then,<br />it had been a long day....<br /> She fastened the robe a bit more securely around her, and then keyed the<br />door. Shane was in his black civies, hat and all, looking the proper cowboy. <br />She was feeling terribly self-conscious in the robe, and knew she was blushing<br />again. He presented her a single half open rose, and she worried at her bottom<br />lip, eyes shining as she took it carefully from his hands.<br /> "If you wait a minute, I'll just change. I'm afraid I just got out of the<br />bath-" He ignored her protests, advancing until she was backed against the wall. <br />"Shane please-" She was blushing furiously, but he kissed her anyway. She<br />stiffened as his arms went around her, catching a sigh before it could pass her<br />lips. "It will just take me a minute, really...Shane..." she murmured against<br />his mouth, knowing if she didn't get dressed right away, pretty soon she wasn't<br />going to care... If it is always this way... The robe began to slip a bit, and<br />she managed to untangle herself from his embrace, ducking under his arm, color<br />high, clutching at the garment and laughing. "You stay here," she warned.<br /> "Aye-aye ma'am." He saluted, still eyeing her hungrily, and she laughed<br />as she disappeared into the next room. Shane flopped down on her coach, smiling<br />to himself. Her hair had smelled of roses.<br /> As she went through her closet, alternately considering and rejecting<br />objects from her scant off-duty wardrobe, Niko thought back to the last twenty<br />minutes of the journey back to BETA, the two of them sitting cross-legged in the<br />tiny cabin of the freighter, her head on his shoulder and they talked softly<br />about it all, from waking up together to how each had responded to the computer's<br />tests, and all the memories the past two years had given them.<br /> "I though Supertroopers only got angry, and got mad." She emerged in<br />leggings and an oversized green sweater. "Since when do they give flowers?"<br /> "When they are visiting the most beautiful woman alive," he pronounced,<br />leaning back on her couch to survey the final effect as she towelled dry her long<br />reddish-brown hair.<br /> "Aren't you the silver-tongued devil all of a sudden. I bet you say that<br />to all the girls."<br /> "You've been listening to Flynn's harem jokes?"<br /> "The entire mountain has heard Flynn's harem jokes."<br /> "I was framed, see-" She cut him off with her mouth, a very effective way<br />of shutting Shane Gooseman up, she mused as he ran his fingers through her damp<br />hair. I could get used to this... His hand slipped beneath her sweater, to<br />caress her back, trace her ribs with one finger. All too quickly, I'm afraid.<br /> "Shane." She pulled back of her own accord, reluctantly. "As much as I<br />want to, hell, two years I've wanted to... But we can't do this."<br /> "Why?" He continued to kiss her neck, nibble her ear.<br /> "Can't we just take this slowly?" She gasped as he found the tender spot<br />where her neck joined her shoulder.<br /> "It took us almost two years to get this far." He rested his forehead<br />against hers, smiling crookedly, lips mere inches from hers.<br /> "Gooseman, please. Humor me in this one small thing. It's been less than<br />twenty-four hours." Her arms were still around his neck, and she toyed absently<br />with the fine hair at the base of his skull while he thought it through.<br /> "Your wish is my desire, fair lady." He laughed, catching her hand and<br />pressing a kiss into her palm. "You hungry?"</p>
<p>* * *</p>
<p>The entire mountain was aware, before long, that something had happened on<br />Rishawn that was not in the official report. And of course there was the<br />cheshire cat smile that seemed to constantly be playing about Siobhan Flynn's<br />face as she went about her duties (it apparently had something to do with a rumor<br />of someone finding a certain two someones in a supply closet near the launch bay. <br />Flynn was guarding her sources well. No one knew exactly how much had gone on,<br />and "they weren't gonna find out, neither").<br /> Walsh knew, though no one knew he knew, even Karen. Karen, who was still<br />on probation after following the S5's to Rishawn, had been questioned by every<br />curious tech, staff member, trainee and officer on the whole base. She<br />maintained she hadn't seen a thing, and was secretly thrilled beyond words that<br />she had been there when the other bloody shoe had finally, after almost two<br />years, dropped. She wished she had seen something, and asked after it, but Niko<br />was incredibly closemouthed about the whole thing. Even the official mission<br />report was vague and sketchy as to what the Rishawn "Computer" had been about.<br /> If Doc and Zach suspected their friends had become more than friends, they<br />weren't telling. However, it had become the usual topic of conversation at the<br />Foxx household dinner table. Li'l Zach, who, at the worldly age of sixteen, was<br />protesting the diminutive quite loudly recently, had been hanging around the<br />Commissary, and overheard Flynn, and was dying to know everything. Jessy was<br />afire with questions, all of which usually included the word "romantic"<br />sandwiched in there someplace.</p>
<p>* * *</p>
<p>"I just don't know." Zachary Foxx shook his head, and Doc eyed him<br />curiously. Goose and Niko were sitting at a table by the holoscreen, completely<br />absorbed in whatever they were talking about, oblivious to the close scrutiny of<br />their commanding officer.<br /> "What's not to know, Zach?" Doc was downright amused by the entire<br />situation. "Our Gooseman appears to have been bitten by the bug." Doc shrugged.<br /> "It's not that I'm not happy for them, but at the same time I have to<br />worry. We all work so closely together, and BETA usually doesn't encourage<br />two..." He fumbled, looking for a word other than lovers, then gave up "whatever<br />they are at the moment, being in the same unit."<br /> "They're professionals, Zach," Doc pointed out. "They may be acting like<br />horny teenagers at the moment," Zach chuckled at his friend's bluntness, "but<br />when it comes down to it, they're professionals through and through. And you<br />can't tell me you didn't see this one coming from a mile off."<br /> "Doc, you're incorrigible."<br /> "I do my best."<br /> "You win anything in Flynn's pool?"<br /> "Nah. Commander Walsh beat me out by two weeks. You?"<br /> "I didn't bet." He shook his head. "I just didn't think it would be<br />right."<br /> "Really?"<br /> "Well, yes. Of course, now I wish I had, because I was only two days off." <br />They laughed, and the objects of their remarks remained completely oblivious.<br /> "Do you think they know that we know?" Doc took a sip of coffee, turning<br />the holo up a little, to drown their conversation.<br /> "Probably." Zach shrugged, trying to remember if he and Eliza were as<br />blissfully unaware of life around them as Goose and Niko seemed to be.<br /> "Do you think that they know that we know that they know?"<br /> "I don't know."<br /> "Make a guess."<br /> "I'm not sure I understood the question." Zach laughed.</p>



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* [[Endgame|Endgame - Prologue]]
* [[Endgame-Part I]]
* [[Endgame-Part II]]
* [[Endgame-Part III]]
* [[Endgame-Part IV]]



[[Category:GRCD1]]
[[Category:Fanfic-Unrated]]
[[Category:Fanfic-LJC]]
[[Category:Fanfic]]