*gives into IM badgering*

All right, sign me up.

Okay, I am now officially thinking about secrets. Of course the one that leaps immediately to mind is Narvi's secret, but no one would know what I was talking about.

As a complete aside, one of the things that bugs me most about some crossovers is the tendency of the characters in them to blather their most cherished secrets to complete strangers--the characters from the other show--after five minutes' introduction.

500 on the button, TWW.

[the conspiracy of women]

You stare at your firstborn and see a baby. A downy blonde baby crying herself purple, hiccupping toward calm when you scoop her up. Tiny fingers tangling in your hair.

You see a beauty in her twenties, or thirties, thinner around the cheekbones, the first traces of laugh lines framing her eyes.

And: you see your daughter, almost-but-not-quite eighteen, your hair and her father's eyes and skin that just lets out light. Sitting on her feet, right hand squeezing the left until her fingertips are bone-white. She's waiting for you to say something.

"Oh," you breathe, "oh." Your clinical training kicks in, like a plane's backup engine. "How many weeks?"

"Nine," and she actually holds up nine fingers to show you.

"Have you seen a doctor?"

She shakes her head. "I just did the, you know. At Janice's house, when--Mom?"

"Yeah?"

"Could you--could you please not be staring at me?"

You *are* staring. Because this isn't a patient, it's your Elizabeth beside you on the sofa, blue water welling in her eyes. Almost grown, but not quite, so how can this be happening, how can she--

Something in you that isn't a doctor, something inherited from your own mother, stirs. You don't mean to move your hand, don't know it's moving, until you hear it connect and see the red rising in her cheek.

Her chin drops. The tears spill down her nose. Your hand is stinging; your stomach turns. "I guess I deserved that," she says.

"No." You swallow hard. Too late: you're crying, too. "No, sweetie, you didn't. I'm sorry. You must--" You press your fingers gently to the hot place where you hit her. "You must be so scared."

"He's going to marry me." Her voice rattles, but she sets her jaw, looks up. Her father's eyes. "We were talking about maybe getting engaged after graduation, already. We're going to get married."

You've met the boy; you believe this. But in college she might have met other boys--she wanted to teach--all these choices that have suddenly moved light-years away. She's already terrified, and she has no idea what it is to bear and raise a child. No idea what she's put you through.

You say none of this. Just pull your baby close, hold her until the shaking crying stops. Eventually, you murmur, "I made it tough to tell me, huh?"

She manages a wet laugh. "Not as tough as it'll be to tell Dad."

Oh, God. Oh, God, she's right.

You pull back to look at your firstborn, remember her trembling before her First Confession. The puffy red face of a baby, but she *is* a woman now, a smart woman facing the hardest thing in this world. It doesn't need to be any harder.

You take one of her hands in one of yours, squeeze it. You're a smart woman, too.

"We're not going to tell him," you say. Your fingers tangle in her hair. "We can keep a secret."

500 Words. The West Wing

one room's the same as another

She snaps the cell phone shut, still writing notes to herself in cramped script on a curling scrap of paper - something she'd tugged out of her diary when the phone rang - and as she flips it over she discovers it's a receipt for a hotel somewhere in Arkansas she doesn't remember staying.

She barely remembers Arkansas.

Toby answers on the first ring, but he won't say to her that he's pissed she slid out of bed first this morning. That he had to shave and fix his tie in a fogged-up mirror, that he knows she left her towel in a wet heap on the floor just to irritate him. She tells him about Nightline before he has the chance to disappoint her and disconnects the call as she strides through the hotel lobby.

The elevator doors slide closed. She's confronted with a gold-tinted reflection of herself and the distortion does her no favors as she runs her hand helplessly through dry hair. Hotel shampoo, she thinks, attempting to smooth the creases out of her skirt. On a par with dishwashing liquid.

In the main room of the suite someone has set up a whiteboard and a map, and there are volunteers standing in front of them, clutching endless piles of paper and arguing over numbers.

"If Josh Lyman catches any one of you near that with a pen..." she jokes as she dumps her bag in an armchair and grabs a bottle of water from the mini-bar. They look at her, startled. She sighs. Her sense of humor's probably gone the way of her hair.

The door to the main bedroom is closed.

She calls over her shoulder for someone to find the address for the local ABC affiliate. They have about an hour and a half, but Toby and Sam will be pulling together remarks that the Governor will need to read (and hate, and change) and they have to get moving soon. She's still thinking about the risk she will wind up with an address in New York, instead of Kansas, as she dials Leo's number and leaves him a message about the interview. She downs two aspirin and rubs at her temples. She doesn't want to disturb the Governor, but they really do have to get moving.

She wonders if Toby even noticed that she took her toothbrush with her this morning. As if it mattered, given that her tampons are in the glove box of his rental car, and she's currently wearing a pair of his socks. It seemed important to her at the time.

It's the socks she's thinking about as she turns the doorknob, scrunching her toes up inside her boots. Mentally taking an inventory of her possessions, his obsessions, and wondering how she came to be tangled up in this mess.

The apology dies on her tongue, tastes acidic.

Abbey's black leather bag sits by her ankle. It has a silver buckle.

CJ backs away silently, and closes the door.

ooh. I have an idea. your drabbles always make me write something insane, J honey.

I found this challange from musesfool's LJ, and figured I'd give it a try.
500 words, on the nose, X-Men Movieverse.

[like calls to like]

He tells himself it’s just a crush. Nothing to worry about, nothing to get worked up over. He doesn’t need to beat himself up over something so small—even though she is only nineteen.

Some small part of his brain tells him that she is legal, after all.

When he returned, he started noticing her in ways he never had before. She was spunky, tireless, and her body was most definitely female. He never been attracted to dark hair before, preferring blondes and, of course, redheads, but something about her drew him in. Was it her eyes, eyes much too mature for her young face, that made him feel like less of an old man, a lecher, and more of a young, desirable stud?

Or was it her just that her entire being screamed wild sexuality, and like called to like?

Once, he caught himself staring at her during dinner. His senses were attuned to her, listening to her breath, her heartbeat, her voice, watching the way she ate. He quickly averted his eyes, focusing on his food instead. It was too bad that beef stir-fry was no substitute for the sight of her.

Is the mighty, fearless Wolverine in love with a girl young enough to be his daughter? Or, he concedes, to be his granddaughter?

He begins to spend more and more time in the Danger Room, beating the hell out of imaginary bad guys to keep his mind off of her body. The worst days are the ones when she insists on accompanying him. He can barely keep his hands off her as they spar, he in loose sweats and she in spandex, which he thinks shouldn’t even be considered clothing. Instead of critiquing her after each session, as he does with the other students, he rushes to the showers, dousing himself—and his lecherous libido—in cold water. And sometimes, not even that helps.

He knows he needs to tell someone, to get this off his chest so he can get some sleep. Jeannie seemed like the logical choice, but she still thinks he’s in love with her, and he hates to burst her bubble. She’s a sweetheart, but a bit dense for a telepath. The Professor, he is sure, already knows, as he has given him more than one disapproving look. But can’t he see that Logan doesn’t want to want her? That he agonizes day and night—especially night—about it? He tries to get her out of his head, but she’s not leaving.

So he goes to the one person that knows him better than he knows himself to confess what even he doesn’t understand. Marie listens as he spills his secret, as he reveals the desires he’s kept hidden for months. She doesn’t judge him when he tells her he’s in love with her best friend, that he craves the touch of a woman many years younger, that he doesn’t want Marie. “Well,” she murmurs, finally, “Jubilee is a beautiful young woman.”

**I reserve the right to alter this when I'm back from vacation. :)

500 words, West Wing


The Power of Ideas

Will Bailey did not consider himself a man prone to hero worship. After all, growing up the youngest son of the Supreme Commander of NATO forces instilled in Will the kind of hero worship that centered almost exclusively on his father.

At age seven, Will learned that men are just men, and fallible. He learned that he had a sister whose mother wasn't his, which he didn't quite understand. But he understood his mother's tears, and so Will realigned his universe with no compelling, commanding figure at the center. People could disappoint you, but the ideals his father taught him -- those couldn't let you down.

Will considered himself an American, but casually, the way kids from Iowa who go to college in California still consider themselves Iowans. He attended the international school in Brussels, and disagreed with American foreign policy on any number of issues.

Will followed American politics and voted by absentee ballot when he was overseas, but he never got past his cynicism to really support a candidate. The United States was led by men and men are fallible. Somehow, Will still expected America to live up to its ideals, or at least to live up to its promise.

When he was 27, he watched the genocide in Rwanda spool out on CNN, unanswered by the U.N., by the U.S., by his father's troops, and his belief in the system faltered. But it's hard not to believe in anything. Will chalked up the inaction to the fallible men in charge and decided to believe in the power of ideas.

When he was 29, he told himself he was excited for a Bartlet presidency not because of the man, but because of his ideas.

And then he woke up one morning in Shimla, the heat pressing in on him like a physical force and his sister's voice echoing down the hallway. Will squinted out the screened windows. Their audience with the Dalai Lama was still hours away, judging by the sunlight, and there was a monkey perched on the balcony, grooming its fur.

Will rolled out of bed, told the monkey to go away (it fixed an unimpressed gaze on him, then went back to its task), and opened his door as Elsie started pounding on it.

"What time--?"

She was in a loose sundress with lemon-colored flowers on it, and she was holding a printout from the New York Times site. The headline stopped him midsentence: "BARTLET ILL."

"Elsie--?"

"He has M.S.," she explained, thrusting the paper at him. "Read it."

Will shook his head, as if that would make it not true. "M.S.?"

Elsie, who didn't bother to hide her emotions, raised her voice in bitter emphasis. "Diagnosed *seven years ago*."

He couldn't think of anything to say, so he smoothed the papers and started to read as Elsie stomped off.

He learned at age 32 that maybe he was prone to hero worship, and the taste of betrayal is never less than bitter.

THE END

Title: Amal
Authors: Jae Gecko and Minna Leigh
Notes: West Wing, PG, Josh and Sam but *not* Turningverse. Read as gen or slash as you wish. Thanks to Luna for beta.

"Can I see you for a minute?"

Josh looked up from his computer screen. Sam was standing in the doorway. "Sure."

Sam closed the door, his face grim. "The Israeli Foreign Minister's plane is missing. Over Lebanon."

"You think it was shot down?" Josh raised an eyebrow.

"I don't know what I think." Sam sat down across from Josh. "Yes. I think it was."

Josh felt his forehead crease. "Lebanon?" He leaned back in his chair, his eyes widening. "Qumar."

Sam pressed his lips together.

"Wow." Josh nodded slowly. "They think Israel was responsible for what happened to Shareef."

"Here's the thing, though. They weren't."

"They weren't what?"

"Responsible. We were."

Josh blinked. "Okay, I'm assuming you don't mean in some weird-ass mystical karmic sense." Sam didn't laugh. Josh's stomach twisted. He leaned forward. "How do you know?"

"I was talking to Leo--"

"Leo told you the President arranged for Shareef's plane to disappear over the Bermuda Triangle?"

"He didn't have to. He said Shareef was behind a terrorist plot to blow up the Golden Gate Bridge. When I asked him about it, he pretended he didn't hear me."

Josh swallowed. A political assassination. This would make the MS look like that joke about Texans and funny hats.

"So now another plane has disappeared. Next comes the retaliation. We've got to do something." Sam's eyes were blazing.

"Well, we can make sure not one word of this conversation leaves this office."

Sam's hand smacked against Josh's desk. "I mean we've got to *do* something, Josh. There has to be some way of fixing this without killing more people."

Josh cracked a smile. He was focused on damage control while Sam was resolving the whole Middle Eastern conflict from the extra chair in Josh's office. "If this gets out, we won't have the power to fix a parking ticket," Josh reminded him.

"When did things get so bad that pre-meditated murder became the only viable option?"

Josh shifted in his chair. If the President was a murderer, then so was Leo. There was no way the idea hadn't come from the Chief of Staff. Josh wondered if he could have made that recommendation. And if Sam could have followed it.

"Leo says it could take the U.S. flag flying over Mecca to finally straighten this out." Sam gripped the arm of the chair. "That can't be the solution."

"We'll come up with something." As he said the words, he realized they were true. Neither of them could go this road alone.

Sam shook his head. "We've been at this for four years now, and this is the best the President has managed."

"I mean you and me." Josh rolled his chair closer. "We'll come up with something."

Sam's gaze swept over Josh, a quick once-over. Realization flickered across his eyes.

"I mean, it might take another twenty years." Josh's tone was light, but his expression was serious.

Sam smiled. "Well, they've waited about six thousand, so I guess there's no rush."

The West Wing. 500 words.

[cloudy]

Every movie Sam's seen, every paperback he's read has told him that hysteria always ebbs to calm. So he tightens his hand around the phone and waits for his mother to stop sobbing.

He isn't troubled by the tears or their duration. She's cried from Election Day through Inauguration Day, at three graduation ceremonies, at Hallmark cards and sand tracked over a clean-swept floor. It's the hitches between sobs, ugly inward gasps that seem to clot in her throat.

And it's that she started crying by laughing. Laughter as cold and sour as milk forgotten in the back of the fridge. Not at all his mother's laugh.

"Mom," he says, for the twentieth time in ten minutes. "Maybe try and... tell me what's going on? Or, at least, try to breathe?"

He isn't sure she hears him. He spins his chair toward the window. Even the White House landscapers can't produce a green lawn in midwinter. A patchwork of brown grass and brown mud, a sky bricked up by clouds. Nothing moves but dead leaves rolling over in the wind. He wishes it would break into a snowfall. His mother is still crying.

"Whatever it is," he says, "it can't be that bad. It'll be okay. I promise." He bites his lip. Of course he can't promise. His fingers on the receiver freeze.

Nightmares flurry through his mind. There's been an accident. There's been a fire. Maybe she's sick--that thought seizes him and then lets go. She'd never cry this hard about herself. He thinks of his grandmother, nearly eighty, but still sharp. Last he knew.

His mother's coughing, spluttering because she can't possibly get enough oxygen through her tears. Drowning. He has to pull her through to the other side of this, calm her, save her.

"Are you by yourself? Is anyone else--"

His father.

His blood stops moving, and he sees nothing but white. His father. It must be. A February fog; a car crash between the house and his office? A heart attack. A stroke. Are there strokes in his family? Do strokes run in a family?

The back of his chair hits the rim of his desk, snaps his focus away from the solid white of the sky. The phone cord has snared his elbow. The coughs on the other end of the line break like waves of static.

"Mom?" He sounds hoarse. He frees his arm, keeping one hand clenched, white-knuckled, around the receiver. "Mom. Where's Dad?"

The sound she makes wants to be a sob but twists, twists on the line and turns into that rancid laugh. "He's in Santa Monica. With a--with another--" Finally, her breath catches up with her. It's his mother's voice after all. "Oh, Sam," she says. "It's been going on for years."

This is how he learns that the books have it half right. Calm comes from hysteria. But he never knew that shame, shame flows from one sick split-second of perfect, perfectly calm, relief.

Oh wow. All of these are great. It's nice to see the different styles of writing on the same page. And willfic! The world needs more willfic! :)

All so lovely...jealous of the skill of the beautiful authors.

Title: All The Sounds of Fear
Author: Priya Deonarain
Rated: PG
Spoilers: Specifically, the second season finale "The Hunger Artist"
Disclaimer: Totally not mine. CBS owns CSI, Catherine Willows, and Gil Grissom. Title cribbed from Harlan Ellison.
Summary: Catherine figures something out.

[-----]

She's a crime scene investigator, you know. She notices things – she didn't get this job for her looks. And she's noticing things about Gil, now.

There was that one day they were in the lab, Gil was talking to Greg, Greg was talking to Sarah, Sarah said something – and Catherine can't remember what it was she'd said, one case out of hundreds, many months ago – but Sara said something important. Greg backed Sarah up, and she said there were possibilities there, glancing at Gil to see if he was agreeing too. Gil was staring at the rotting remains of some poor bastard or another.

As if he hadn't heard a thing.

There are some nights, some nights where they're working late as usual but decide to catch dinner at a local greasy spoon, and Gil has always been the quiet, introspective sort, so she never questioned it or got offended or did anything out of the ordinary when he didn't talk alot at the table – but there are some nights, anyway, when they go to dinner. And they'd been doing it for what seems like a comfortable eternity, going to the same place, eating pretty much the same foods. Human beings thrive on pattern and order, Gil would say. Human beings like structure. They might spontaneously order the salad one night, but they'll go back to the hamburger medium-rare extra tomatoes American cheese hold the pickles the very next day.

But one particular night: waitress came by, Catherine placed the order she almost always places, and Gil? Gil was examining the menu. Not the way people do when they're contemplating jumping off that cliff into the exotic world of food that's eaten using actual utensils, not the way people examine menus even though they know they'll be ordering the same hamburger as yesterday. No, Gil was staring at it like he was waiting for something. Calculated; breathing overly regulated, eyes overly focused, hands overly still. It took a good long moment for Catherine to realize Gil couldn't understand a damn thing the waitress is saying. It's only through body language – facial expression, body bent slightly at the waist, hand poised over her notepad – that Gil knew to place his order. It hit Catherine like a siren going off at midnight.

So yeah, she notices, and she thinks. Every time another CSI says something, and Gil just thoughtfully stares off into space, every time he asks someone to repeat what they just said, she wonders how much of that is introspection and analysis, and how much of that is because he just can't hear. Well, it's his secret to keep, she figures, and she's his friend so she'll pretend she doesn't notice, but she wonders how long it'll be before his missteps reveal themselves to the others. He's already reinventing himself, she's sure, acclimating himself to what seems to be a slow loss. Structured, hiding it all the better.

She wonders how long before his structure of secrecy melts into chaos.

-end-

I saw the challenge, and decided to write a scene that wouldn't quite fit into the post-"Dirty Girls" story I've been working on tonight.

500 words on the nose, by my count.

Summary: A shared moment in a hospital ward leads to a revealed secret.

Disclaimer: I don’t own any of the characters portrayed here, they remain the property of their respective owners/creators.

Rating: PG-13, for themes.

Time Frame: Just after the end of “Dirty Girls.” (spoilers)

Archiving: Be my guest, but e-mail me (eilandesq@hotmail.com) and let me know. . .I like to know where stuff I write ends up and I might want to see what else you’ve got.

Author’s Comment: This is written in response to Therealjae’s Secrets Challenge, which I spotted on Victoria P.’s LJ. Lot of Xanderish themes to work through right now, and this one came to mind.

THREE HOURS


Faith nodded as Willow, visibly exhausted, moved past her and walked out into the corridor, heading back to her car and towards the illusory safety of the Summers house. They had agreed that one of them would stand watch in the hospital ward until the wounded were well enough to be moved back to Slayer Central. Not that one of them alone would stand much chance against Caleb and a swarm of Bringers, but Willow had erected a warding spell that would take some mild efforts for hostiles to penetrate, and it was hoped that the distraction would delay matters enough for the cavalry to arrive. . .for whatever good it would do.

Faith glanced at the beds containing the Slayers-in-training—all were out for the count—but her attention was focused on the dark-haired patient with the bandage over his left eye. His intact eye was closed, and Faith quietly pulled up a chair and sat next to the bed. She looked carefully at him, ignoring the obscenity lurking beneath the bandage in evaluating the changes since she had last seen him. He had put on some weight, and there were care lines on his face that looked as if they belonged on a man ten years older, but on the whole he looked pretty damned good for a man who had lived through what he had. Faith forced down her raw anger over what had been done to him, and the guilt of knowing what she had done to him in days past, before sighing and starting to get up—she could watch the ward from near the door, and she was sure that her face was not what Xander wanted to see when he woke up.

Xander’s left hand moved quickly and snagged her wrist, and Faith flinched as Xander’s one good eye focused on her. She forced a smile and whispered, “Hey. Glad you’re awake: I was just checking up on you. I was just going over by the door—figured you’d want some time to yourself.” She pulled gently, but Xander did not let go. She tensed inwardly and asked, “Xander, is there something you want to say to me?” She looked at his single eye and vowed to accept whatever he had to say—she owed it to him, for all he had been through. . .for everything he had tried to do for her.

Xander looked at her silently for a moment, then whispered in a rasp: “I came to see you once—drove three hours on an August afternoon after finishing a job out of town. I parked and walked to the fence. It was exercise hour: I watched you for forty minutes. . .I couldn’t work up the nerve to go in and ask to visit. I wish I had.” Xander smiled as Faith looked down, her eyes shining with unshed tears, and added, “You look good, Faith.”

Faith blinked, and a tear fell free as she whispered, “So do you.”


As always, comments are welcomed and desired.

I got forwarded this challenge and really wanted to try it, I'm pretty new to the whole fandom and lj scene but here goes

500 words about Giles, season 3 Buffyverse

[Librarian scorned]

Tea offered no solace. Still he sipped at it’s bitter murk, as unclear and odoriferous as the matters of his mind and heart.

Lifting his glasses aside, he rubbed wearily at the swollen sting of his eyes. Eyes that never knew rest. Eyes that had broiled forth rare tears as he’d collapsed in Buffy’s arms, collapsed within himself, loss overwhelming the rage. Raging that somewhere He…It, was laughing. Laughing as they wept.

And now It was back, though now it was Him. Beast of beauty, saint in a devil’s shoes or a devil in a saint’s, the fallen Angel. The pretty irony mattered not. He was cloaked now in that tortuous shroud of a soul, his own personal, perpetual crucifixion. A soul tenuously nailed to him by the one thing that he should never have been able to experience, the one thing that Buffy was and would forever be to him

But somewhere in there, behind the brooding, sombre liquid of those eyes, It lurked. The thing that had taken Jenny from him, the thing that had tortured him physically and emotionally to the brink of madness. It had forever wounded his spirit, forever wounded them all. A great blood-black shadow over all their lives he hoped had past.

And Buffy had not told him. Had not trusted him. Had not even thought of him. It burned in his veins like a fire without home, the hearth of his innards utterly vacuous. The fire of a spurned family, a spurned father. The fire that would gladly rent a hole in that bastard heart and consume the wave of ash. And all this after trying to help Buffy with his passing, after it making the cold of Jenny’s that little semblance of bearable.

But the piety was not his. He would have Jennifer back in an instant, the world be damned. It was what had finally broken him, what had played its part in forcing Buffy’s hand, literally and figuratively. That promise of Jenny, alive, living, loving…lost. A Twinge of jealousy added fuel to the fire, she had her Angel back, his was gone forever.

Selfishness would be quashed however, he must be selfless, stalwart, the rock for his battered little brood to break upon. Children. They were only children, children who never should be in these places. Children who had enough of their own home grown horrors without those of the underworld. His world. The world that had become there’s by harrowing necessity and not by choice.

He set aside his tea, chill now and stagnant. He exhaled a long, exhausted sigh. The dereliction of the bruise that was his heart resounded like a metronome in the silence of the room. The inner fire was running its course as it always did and always would, it cooling now into a glacial flow of glass and razors. From feeling all at once he knew he would soon feel nothing at all. Nothing but the numb envelopment. The silent dark of emptiness.

500 words, exactly.

Fandom: Star Wars

Rating: PG

********************************************************************************


Sixteen-year-old, Jaina Solo rummaged through the cargo container she had found in the storage area of her parent’s apartment. She had come in looking for her father’s old copies of Flyboy, featuring scandalous pictures of young ladies of all different varieties. To say the least, growing up had awakened some new feelings within Jaina.

What she found instead was far more intriguing. It was a datacard containing holonet transmissions hidden within her mother’s old things. Upon review, Jaina discovered most of the files were corrupted. Finally, after hours of trying, she was able to restore some data.

Static filled the screen before a beautiful face appeared, framed by long white hair. “Winter,” Jaina whispered, recognizing her mother’s best friend. “This is from the Rebellion,” she guessed by Winter’s youthful features.

The young Jedi listened for several minutes as Winter discussed details of her “Targeter” missions. But then, the conversation took an unexpected turn.

“My Princess,” Winter began. “I know we had vowed to keep this to ourselves…” Static interrupted her for a moment before the picture returned.

“The night we shared upon our arrival at Imperial Center, the first night we made love, has dominated my thoughts since I left you to see to my duties for the Rebellion. I long for a time we can be together again, to feel your caress and the tenderness of your kiss.” Jaina paused the recording and stared at it in shock.

“Make love?” Jaina muttered as she shook her head confusedly. “Tenderness of your kiss?” After a moment, she keyed the recording to continue.

“Leia,” Winter continued. “I care for you, even more than I admitted and far more than is appropriate for my position as your advisor.” Winter’s eyes widened with an expression of adoration. “I love you. I want nothing more than to be with you…” The recording broke into static again and resisted all further attempts to be restored.

After a little more tinkering, Jaina was able to recover one last snippet of a different recording. This time, her mother’s visage appeared. It was obvious to Jaina it was from the same time period as Winter’s message.

Most of the message was corrupted; likely it was more Rebellion related issues. The message then began to play:

“Winter, I have always known you love me. And, I love you. I wish we could be together. But we cannot,” Leia said, sadness evident in her expression. “My position has requirements of me. Heirs… a proper husband… An “appropriate relationship”. And, while I respect your courage to share our love with the Galaxy. I cannot do that.”

Tears came to Jaina’s eyes. Many things now made much more sense after hearing her mother’s admission.

Jaina’s feelings, especially towards other girls, were not as odd as she feared. Her mother had not only entertained similar thoughts, but had seen them through.

Jaina pondered this for a long time. Then she heard her mother’s voice call, “Jaina? What are you up to in there?”

Brotherly Love

The friends of Amnon, eldest son of the king, were an unobservant group. They liked to laugh, to drink, to chase pretty girls, and they liked Amnon to do the same. When he stopped laughing, when he stopped drinking wine and could muster no energy even to look a pretty girl’s way his friends never thought to ask why. They accepted his excuses: that he was ill, that he was simply bored of them. His friends simply forsook him and went to wait for him to start acting more like his old self.

One of them turned back, however, his cousin Jonadab, famed for his subtle mind. He knew the value of seeming simply one of the crowd. None of the friends would remember him staying behind, acting as if he had special privileges. He had privileges, of course. He walked past Amnon’s servants, into the private chamber and looked at his cousin lying in bed, his face to the wall. Amnon looked not ill, but guilty.

“My friend,” Jonadab said. “Burdens are eased when two men share them.”

Amnon made an indistinct sound. Jonadab sat on the edge of his bed and put a hand on his shoulder.

“What is wrong, cousin? You know you can tell me.”

“I am in love,” Amnon whined. “I am in love and I can see no respite.”

Jonadab smiled and fetched a cup of water.

“Can you not speak to the girl?”

“She is of good family,” Amnon said dully. “She is beautiful and carefully chaperoned. She is a virgin, and I can see no way to change that.”

“Servants can be distracted or bribed. Virgin girls can be flattered. Families will accept much after the fact. Who is this girl, cousin?”

Amnon groaned and turned his face to the wall again.

“She is my sister Tamar.”

Jonadab sat thinking. What an interesting situation. He shook Amnon’s shoulder and offered the water.

“Drink, cousin. There is no need to make yourself ill in truth. I know how to solve your problem.”

Amnon sat up.

“How? Speak, Jonadab!”

“Send word to the king your father that you are too ill to eat, and can only face freshly made little cakes. Ask for Tamar to come make them for you. Then you can do as you please. She’ll hardly bring a chaperone into her own brother’s house.”

“What if she refuses me?” Amnon whined.

Jonadab looked at him in surprise.

“What if she does? You are a man with a man’s strength. She is little more than a child. I shouldn’t worry about it.”

Amnon smiled and thanked him. Jonadab accepted his thanks graciously and begged leave to go. He felt it was time to leave Jerusalem, to go and visit his parents out on the country estate. It wasn’t that he feared the plan would fail and Amnon would be angry. He knew it would work, and he wanted all Jerusalem to remember that he hadn’t been in the city at the time.

501, CSI
No Admittance

Shock is a very versatile word, Nick thought, staring at the medical test results in front of him, a feeling he couldn't name crawling down his spine to settle in a curl at the bottom of his stomach. Electric shock--gotten his share of those in his life, jumping over barbed wire fences in his teenage days. Good shock, like a surprise birthday party with people you haven't seen in years there. Bad shock--getting walked in on by your girlfriend when you're cheating on her, yeah, that was a bad shock. But this shock...he couldn't find a name for it. Just raw surprise, and maybe a little anger. Okay, a lot of anger, and a big huge WHY reverberating inside his head.

Whoda thunk it, Nick thought wonderingly. Gil Grissom, going deaf.

But when he thought about it, it finally started to add up. Cell phone always on vibrate. Others having to repeat questions. Not answering when spoken to. Keeping music on loud to cover.

He wouldn't have opened the envelope if he'd known it wasn't his, he told himself guiltily, and not entirely honestly. It was in front of his locker, so he'd automatically figured in that bull-headed way of his that it was meant for him and hadn't bothered to check the address. Stupid, he thought. Stupid and ignorant and now you know something the boss certainly didn't want you to know.

WHY was echoing inside his head, still. WHY didn't he tell us, WHY couldn't he trust us, trust me, ME. Catherine probably knew, Nick ticked off inside his head. Warrick would've figured it out sooner or later. Sara--nah, too self-absorbed. Why couldn't he tell ME, a little entitled voice inside Nick wailed.

That probably hurt the worst. This person, this man that Nick hero-worshipped, flat out worshipped if he were to be honest, had a crush on if he were to be brutally honest, couldn't trust Nick to tell him that no, he wasn't really ignoring you, Nick, he just couldn't hear a word you said.

And there it was. Gil didn't have to be deaf to not listen to Nick. Ah, no, it's just Nick, just the good ol' boy with his easy going drawl. Nick won't care if you ignore him, go over his head, walk all over him like he's a fucking doormat, for chrissake.

It's just Nick.

And there was that, too, Nick realized. Grissom couldn't trust Nick enough to tell him about his hearing loss, and Nick certainly, certainly couldn't trust Grissom enough to tell him about this, this, say it asshole, this CRUSH he had on Gil like a fourteen year old girl on her favorite teacher.

Sonofabitch, Nick muttered, and tucked the results back into the envelope, and the envelope into the pocket of his jacket. Son of a bitch, he said louder, because it felt good to finally acknowledge that yeah, Gil sure was, and slammed his hand onto the door frame. Gil couldn't hear him, anyway.

Everwood vignette, 500 words exactly.

The Man Who Knew Too Much

“Dad, did you ever know a secret? And you were the only one who knew, and if you don’t say anything, someone’s gonna get hurt, but if you do, someone’s definitely gonna get hurt.”

His father frowned. ”Bright, if it's something dangerous or illegal—“

“No, Dad, nothing like that.” He rolled his shoulders, trying to work out the stiffness. He’d had a headache for days.

“Is this about your sister and Ephram Brown?”

His head jerked up. “What?”

“I know Amy was getting close to him while Colin was… in the hospital. But I thought that ended when Colin woke up.”

“No. I mean yes, but it’s not that. I mean, sort of.” He shook his head. “You know what? Never mind.”

His father laid his hand on Bright’s shoulder. “Secrets are dangerous, son. Be careful which ones you agree to keep.”

***
Two days before

Bright drummed his thumbs on the steering wheel. “What’s taking her so long?”

“She’s right there. Talking to Ephram.” Colin stared out the window, eyes narrowed.

He spotted them on the front steps of the school. “Oh.”

His gaze returned to Colin. He kept drumming the steering wheel until Colin sat straighter. Amy was running to the truck, but Colin hardly seemed to notice. His eyes were still locked on Ephram.

When had Bright become the guy who knew everything? He’d trade for Colin’s amnesia in a second. He’d trade for Colin’s sister even faster. Then none of this would be his problem.

“Hey,” Amy said, opening the passenger door with a set smile. Bright looked past her. Her eyes flickered over Colin, annoyed like she always looked when Colin caught her with Ephram. But Colin just returned her plastic smile and let her get in.

Bright had confessed everything about the accident. All but one thing that was nobody’s business. Especially his.

***
Six months before

His hands clenched on the steering wheel; the alcohol oozed through him. He shouldn’t be driving, he told Colin he shouldn't—

“Dude, I know this probably wasn’t the best time. It's the booze talking. But you're my best friend, and who else am I going to tell?”

Colin needed to shut up; he needed to let Bright think. And drive.

“I mean, I can’t tell Amy, right?” Colin’s nervous laughter twanged Bright’s nerves.

“Look, maybe you shouldn’t be talking about my sister, your girlfriend, in the same breath you tell me you think you’re gay.”

Colin flinched. “Hey, sorry. Forget it, okay? Like I said, I don’t even know if it means anything yet.”

“Yeah. Maybe it doesn’t.” He should say something nicer, but what the hell did Colin expect, springing this on him when his head was so muddled, when he was driving this damn truck.

“Let’s just have fun, okay?” Colin’s foot slammed down over his on the gas pedal, and then his heart was in his throat, and all he could hear were Colin’s whoops, and then the world shattered into sparkling glass.

Good Omens fic, 500 words on the nosey. If this doesn't shake up your fandom participation I'm not sure what will. ^_^
[Holiday in Spain]
She’s trying - really, she is - but she just feels too empty to get any real work done. Sure, there’s chaos everywhere, but the last thing she feels like doing is enjoying a job well done.

Which is why she’s sitting outside at a hotel in Guernica on a deck chair, with a bottle of wine (red, of course) that isn’t enough to erase the emptiness.

She feels his presence before she sees him, or even hears the planes that herald his appearance today. He’s leaning in the doorway behind her. He has to be; there’s a concentration of messiness back there. Most people never notice it, but War is not most people.

“Thought you’d be around here,” he says, needlessly announcing his presence. “You’re really doing a number on this place.”

“That’s what happens when you get civil wars going,” she replies halfheartedly, taking another swig of the wine. Pollution sits down on the deck chair next to hers, concern flickering through his dull gray eyes.

“You all right?”

“Yes. No. Hell, I don’t know. Nothing’s really helping - the chaos, the wine, any of it. Don’t know how much more talking could do.” It’s meant to be a dismissal, but like most things she’s done lately, it lacks punch.

“Then look at it as the concern of a coworker.”

She raises an eyebrow, hands him a fresh bottle of wine (white, in this case), and starts her story as the first of the planes arrives. “Someone told me to choose my battles once, a few centuries ago. Good advice for anyone else, I guess, except all the battles are mine. If I decide I want someone else to win, all I have to do is shift my support. I’ve never had anything at stake, until...”

He can guess, and attempts to while she gets her nerve up. He only met Pestilence the one time, shortly before all that fuss with the penicillin and the retirement. He was a nice enough fellow, if a bit too certain of his job security, and it had never occurred to Pollution that those two were... together, so to speak. Though looking back on it, it certainly made sense.

“Until the retirement incident,” she continues, confirming his thought process. “I mean, nothing personal, you’re incredibly good at this line of work-” a bomb landing on the previously peaceful town punctuates that statement “-but it’s just not the same, you know?”

“You’re coping with a loss, then. And since you’ve never had to before, you’ve been in a slump since 1936 and you don’t know how to break out.”

“That about sums it up.”

“Tell you what,” he says after a moment. “You seem to have a nice racket going over in Germany. I’m sure if given enough of a push, that Hitler fellow could give you another world war.”

A smile lights up War’s face for the first time in quite a while. “Thanks for the suggestion. If you’ll excuse me, I’ll invesigate the possibilities.”

He'd done it so casually, she might have missed it completely if she hadn't already suspected. He didn't know she'd heard him. He didn't even know she was there. If he had, a ready lie would have sprung to his lips, just like every other time. For years, they'd danced around each other, testing one another. She sometimes wondered if he'd dropped clues like breadcrumbs, just to see if she'd follow the trail. Call him on it, because he wanted her to know but he didn't want to have to tell her.

She didn't make a sound--just crept back out into the hallway, letting the door swish softly closed behind her. She walked, heart hammering in her ears, down the hall. Waited for his footsteps behind her, the hand on her shoulder, the smile and the lie in his eyes that he so obviously wanted her to see through.

Her shoes squeaked on the linoleum, rubber soles quiet enough except when she turned a corner. The bell rang, and students spilled out into the hallway--chattering, laughing, slamming lockers to get their books before the next block of classes. She navigated the sea of bodies like a pro, barely noticing the jocks and the geeks and teeming teenaged masses she elbows her way past on her way to the parking lot.

She glanced back over her shoulder, to see if he was there. Caught between relief and sadness that he wasn't. She rummaged through her purse, digging for her keys as the gravel crunched beneath her feet. She had history next--she'd get detention for sure if she cut. She'd been lucky--too lucky, lately. No one had questioned her when she'd slipped off on her little fact-finding missions, and she'd always gotten the notes and made up all the quizzes. Turned her homework in on time--even if that meant slipping it into the teacher's boxes after hours, using the key no one knew she had to the teacher's lounge.

She turned the key in the lock of the little red Volkswagen convertible, and threw her bag on the passenger seat as she slid in. her radio blared to life as she keyed the ignition, and she snapped it off two notes into an Evanescence song. She just sat in the sun-warmed driver's seat, staring at the campus without really seeing.

She hadn't imagined it. She hadn't put the words in his mouth. He'd had his back to her, bent over her desk, staring at the little green alien doll that usually sat on top of her iMac like a mascot. His voice had been low--he'd been talking to himself. Not to her.

"So, Chloe--what if I told you Cyrus wasn't an alien--but I was? Would you freak? Because Lana would..." he'd trailed off, shook his head, and set the doll back on top of her desk where it slumped against the pencil cup. "But you wouldn't."

Finally, she had something up on Lana Lang.

Harry Potter fic, gen. Let's call it "Seven ways to kill a wizard," just for fun.

She knows seven ways to kill another wizard, and she learned them all in the library. It's only shocking for a moment, she thinks, gazing into the greenish fire. She likes the greenness of it, wants to reach out and touch it because it's so strange. It should be orange, but here, in this new part of her life, fires can be green and even blue, they can burn cool even when they look hot. She loves this new alien world, but it's still that exactly. It's alien. It's something she's discovered in a book.

A letter came in the middle of the summer, just after she finished all of the recommended reading that her teachers for the next year could possibly suggest. She read through the classics by mid-June and started trudging through the soft covers on the wall at the library just after, desperate for something to fill the days. Other girls went to the swimming pools and ate sugar candies and learned silly little games, but other girls didn't know all of the answers in class. Hermione couldn't understand them. How could they sit in silence? How could they just not know? Didn't it keep them up at nights, sometimes? Ever?

She read Island of the Blue Dolphins last. When it was finished and stacked neatly with the other books she had read since the end of term, she cried for an hour. It was a happy ending, the librarian had promised, but Hermione couldn't see it. The girl character had been isolated but happy, and then they'd tried to rescue her. What seemed like good had just been more bad.

Two days later, a piece of parchment came through the mail slot. In green ink, it said, You are special and we will save you. She slept with it under her pillow for the rest of the summer and read nothing but books of magic. She didn't cry once.

Now, she sits outside looking at her lovely fire, a fire that no other first-year has cared to learn how to make, and she's crying like it's the end of her own book. It doesn't seem to matter that she's been discovered and her oddities explained. Even in a world of magic, everyone is just as incurious as before. There are still cliquish girls who worry about hair ribbons and shoe-buckles, still horrible boys who make fun of anything that can read. Even Harry, who should be the smartest, who should have the greatest thirst for knowledge of them all, seems happy to blunder along without every pushing the boundaries of what they are handed in class.

The bell rings, meaning everyone will be out in the hallway again soon. She sniffles at the thought of running into Harry and that horrible Ron Weasley and snuffs out the fire. She knows seven ways to kill a wizard already, she thinks, staggering back inside to hide in the lavatory, and she's not going to tell them even one.

Found your challenge via friendsfriends, and I couldn't resist. I know you don't know me, but I thought I'd post it for you anyway. :)

Harry Potter, 500 words on the nose.

Ginny is going to Hogwarts this year.

She's so excited she can barely breathe, and it makes it hard to keep up with Mum, who keeps dragging her to and fro, muttering about money and books and school and Lockhart. Ginny doesn't mind; she's starting at Hogwarts, just like all her brothers, and she's going to make so many new friends and it'll be so exciting, and Harry Potter is staying at her very own house because he's friends with her very own brother, and Ginny has never been so excited in her life.

Harry is exactly everything she's ever dreamed, willing to stand up to that horrid Malfoy in the shop, and to his father too. He's even given her his Lockhart books, that Lockhart gave him free, so Mum has to buy one less set. Ginny admires him more than anything, she thinks he's more handsome than Lockhart, even if Ron thinks she's stupid. Ginny thinks Ron is stupid, but she gets in trouble if Mum catches her calling names, so she keeps it to herself, even when he's a great big git and makes fun of her because she likes Harry. She can't help liking Harry, can she? He's so wonderful, and brave, and brilliant, and it makes Ginny happy to have him here in her very own house. He's friends with her brother, so in a way that makes him friends with her too. Sort of.

It's much later that evening, when Ginny is alone with her new things and her happy memories of Harry being brilliant and Dad being pretty brilliant too, that she finds the book in her cauldron. It's an old book, used like everything else, but Ginny doesn't really mind. She's not sure what it's for, but she doesn't mind that either. She examines it carefully, stares curiously at the name stamped in elegant gold type across the back. Tom Marvolo Riddle. She doesn't know what sort of name Marvolo is, but she sort of likes it, the way it rolls off her tongue when she says it under her breath. She feels a bit sorry for Tom Marvolo, who's lost his book.

Ginny opens it, and the book is blank from start to finish. She's partly disappointed, and partly glad. It might have been Tom's once, but it's hers now, to do with as she pleases. And it's blank, a whole book full of empty pages that Ginny can fill with whatever she wants. She scrabbles for her quill, and for the brand-new bottle of scarlet ink Mum bought her for school, and burrows back under her covers. She uncorks the ink, dips in the quill, and sets it to the very first page.

My name is Ginny Weasley, she writes, and I am eleven years old.

There is a pause, and then with a silence like a whisper, the words disappear. Ginny stares in shock, running her finger over the empty page. And then....

Hello, Ginny. My name is Tom.

with all respect for Victor Hugo.

Vous Rappelez-vous Notre Douce Vie?
Do You Remember Our Sweet Life?

“Ah, le grand R,” Enjolras says, soft-voiced among the sirens and the clamour of window irons and wheels being slammed into place. And while it is true that brandy and absinthe together create a terrible lethargy, Grantaire blinks awake.

Enjolras lifts his voice from the barricade.

“Friends. Mortal men and women all. Citizens! It is a dark night and I promise only darker for day. I call you mortal, and men. So you are. For tomorrow you and I shall bleed the blood of mortal men. We shall bleed for our fair Mother, the Republic, for our great Father, truth, and for our children, the days to come. Still we shall not die. Death will flee before us until our work is complete. And then, when mighty France stands, robed in white, that day we shall be undying heroes and every tomorrow ours.”

There is a break in the sirens’ wail.

“Hear, hear,” voices come quietly from the tables. “Vive la Republique.”

“Sleep, if you can, friends,” says Enjolras, and crouches high on the mighty barricade to keep watch once more. He is brave and young and he is beautiful.

Grantaire, too, climbs the barricade. At the last he loses his footing and falls against a barrel at Enjolras’ feet.

Breathless he starts, “If you- had come for me, Enjolras, if you had come to Corinth-“

“-I would have found you drunk,” says Enjolras coolly.

“If you had come for me,” Grantaire ignores him, “I would have followed.”

“And so here you are. But no use to man or gun.”

“I would have followed you anywhere,” says Grantaire again. Desperation feels like sobriety and he has lost his customary verbosity.

“For France?” asks Enjolras softly.

“For you.” Enjolras begins to speak and Grantaire raises a hand. “I- have taken every joy in your presence. In your faith I see everything that is noble in man. I admire you and I have followed you. I shall not love another.”

The sirens’ wail rises again and the gaze that holds Grantaire’s is older than Enjolras’ twenty two years. “I thank you, Grantaire, but what use is this love?” Enjolras waves a hand to indicate the barricade. “No use to me, or to France.”

“You are wrong. You are wrong. Beyond war and even your hated oppression, beyond wine and food, beyond even death, there is love. I prove this by standing here.”

“Beyond wine…” says Enjolras without smiling. He reaches out and there is a truth in Absinthe because his fingers feel like bones in Grantaire’s. “You are drunk, Grantaire. You speak of love and you prove nothing.” He drops Grantaire’s hand.

“This I will prove,” says Grantaire, low.

Enjolras turns to the street below. Night is fading. “Rouse the others and find your bottle, R.” And then gently, “We shall speak of this again.” Enjolras turns away.

Grantaire lifts the hand Enjolras held to his lips. Then he turns. He stumbles as he climbs down the barricade in the Rue Saint-Denis.

Title: Burn
Author: Priya Deonarain
Rating: PG
Spoilers: Anything up to and including Once More With Feeling
Disclaimer: Don't own BtVS. Not making money. Don't sue me.
Summary: After the song and dance, Buffy sees Giles.

[-----]

"Heaven," she had sung. "I think I was in heaven." This is what Giles remembers most from this ordeal. His own songs - the words are already fading. The same is true of the songs sung with the others, songs sung by others. Her words stick in his mind, and, really, why shouldn't they? It's his job to pay attention to her, or at least it used to be. Every syllable, every inflection, every emotion - that was, after all how the damn thing worked: everyone doing the group sing knew what their partners were feeling, and those feelings were the basis for their melodies - everything of hers were in his memory as if they were his own.

He remembers her feelings. And she remembers his.

The harmonizing across distances that happened right before they encountered Sweet - it was a complex thing. He knows from his books that the distilled empathy worked strongest between those who were already strongly bonded: couples, blood family, and, yeah, Watchers and their slayers. The others couldn't know his thoughts. Dawn might know Buffy's, but nobody but Buffy could know his. He hadn't sung them all.

So it's two hours later in the Magic Box, and here's Buffy standing in the entrance with that look on her face. Indignation, confusion, pain; he's only seen that look once before, and that time she didn't have the strength to break him in two. He absently wonders where Spike went.

He puts down the book he was about to reshelf. "Buffy," he says as warmly as he can when he knows what she knows. She takes a step inside, and her arms are crossed over her chest.

"You really can stay," she says; he cringes as he realizes that she had heard him, even if she hadn't understood until now. "I like you here."

The spell has worn off, but he doesn't need to know her thoughts to know what she's thinking. He flashes a smile and says, "But that's not all you wanted to say, is it?"

She mirrors his watery smile and says, "No." He guides her to a seat, schools his features, waits. It's nearly three minutes before she speaks again.

"In The Bronze," she begins. "I - you thought - I mean, when I was doing the big burn-up-and-die Lindy." She tries to meet his eyes, and he looks at the tabletop. "God, Giles, I can't even ask."

"Then don't," he states quietly. "Know that I'm glad Spike stepped in, whatever my thoughts were at that moment."

She hugs him. "Thanks," she says, and leaves with that - not angry or sad or anything, just content with his answer. He knows she knows he only wanted what would bring her happiness. It would've killed him if Spike hadn't done what he himself couldn't, and he knows she knows that as well. And he knows, even if he does end up leaving her, she'll never break his trust.

No one need know that he'd hoped she'd burn back to peace.

-end-

well. this is my first CSI fic. so there. before I change my mind.

[in a nanosecond]


The dim sunlight permeates into the darkened room through the blinds, softly caressing a body which not long ago was more than a corpse (more than a case to be investigated later by his fellow employees, red-eyed over the loss of someone they would later refer to as a dear friend). Tucked carefully in his bowled fist is a piece of paper with a two-word hint of an excuse for his actions. An empty bottle of sleeping pills (which will later be put inside a plastic bag and filed as evidence) is still placed on the otherwise empty coffee table.

It takes two days for the body to be found, as it often does in quiet cases of suicide, and Catherine gets the first phone call at five in the morning. Grissom is phoned immediately after that; they’re in his apartment by six o’clock. The apartment is surrounded by the familiar, tangy scent of death, and she can’t help bursting into tears all over again, even though she thinks she’s past that, the crying-over-your-colleague’s-death phase; there’s the sudden thought that maybe Grissom is past that but she isn’t, as he holds her in his arms, silently comforting her.

They bag the little evidence they have when he dares to touch the body; the touch somehow makes it feel all the more real, a shot of pain from the cold body spreads from the tip of Grissom’s fingers and into his body, like disease. What is it that caused this perfectly normal, perfectly happy man he’s known for quite a while now commit suicide? (Catherine is still trying to find evidence of murder in vain, but he’s seen too many suicides to believe it was anything but that). He usually doesn’t spend much time working on suicide cases.

He takes a while longer to examine those pale lips and the contrast of dark hair against lifeless skin, this somewhat content, somewhat agonized expression. Whatever it was, (Grissom thinks), it’s gone now.

It’s only a matter of time until he finds the note.

The feeling of finding someone’s suicide note is always awkward, because it usually means that the case is closed; the key evidence. Grissom unfolds the paper and stares at it blankly.

She notices then that he’s been in the same position way too long.

Grissom wishes she wouldn’t, but then she takes the note and reads it out loud; “Goodbye, Grissom.” Two simple words, but he really does wish she hadn’t. The words echo in his ears, first in her voice and then in his. “Wow,” is all she says, “he must’ve really liked you.”

He must’ve. Catherine is silent when she gives him back the note; he has no idea what she’s thinking.

It feels like taboo now to even glance at the body, yet he can’t take his eyes off of it. He thinks about all the things that can happen in a nanosecond.

“Goodbye, Nick.” He whispers. It’s okay to cry now.


FIN