(Flashback) Everybody Loves a Hero...yeah. Right. (tag Methos)

[lambs-heroine.livejournal.com]

Clarice was nursing a slight hangover by the time she shuffled her way through the boarding tube and into Commercial Class. Last night’s would-be date had bombed--like the other two she had attempted during her trip to Sydney. It wasn’t even for a good reason; but it was the same reason every single time. Just like back home.

When they found out what she did, they were fascinated. When they found out that she took it seriously, and would never be comfortable in a non-front-lines profession, they were troubled. When they got troubled, they either ended the date early, or drank some more and asked more questions. What about when she got married? Would she give it up then? What about when kids came? What about then? When potential one-night stands turned into a Spanish Inquisition about her life and career, and then degenerated into snide and dismissive comments...it was far better to go up to her hotel room alone no matter how hard-up she was. Clarice didn’t settle. So she got to be lonely a lot.

Men outside her field couldn’t handle her career because they saw a divide between law enforcement and civilians that somehow bled over into their private lives. To them, she was a “cop” and thus “other” and probably suspect. Men inside her field were usually more conservative than their civilian counterparts, and didn’t like the idea of a teeny li’l woman competing with them. Those who tried--and there had been an obnoxious many for about her first year--seemed primarily concerned with “taming” her. Both sides wanted her to shed her degrees and her qualifications and everything she’d done to get through Quantico, and ignore her own principles, family tradition and the kind of work she’d been born for, in order to go do something “safer” and more “womanly”. You couldn’t be a lady and a cop at once, as far as men seemed to be concerned. Of course...she could have been just spectacularly unlucky. Either way, she felt kind of screwed at the moment.

The last one had ended especially badly; she had felt sorry for herself up in her room and drunk too much from the in-room wetbar. Her dreams had been full of darkness and the smell of damp earth, corpses, and tannic acid. She had woken shaking again, and held herself, and then stared at the empty patch of moonlit blankets beside her, wondering in a moment of weakness whether all this crap she went through was worth it.

Maybe she should lie about her job next vacation--or just not tell people. But in the end...that would backfire.

/At least it would have gotten me a date to the damn opera, though,/ she thought bitterly as she lugged her bag down the aisle. She had the book she had been reading--Moreno’s /Arguing Euthanasia/, nearly finished thanks to her partial insomnia, in one hand. She was almost to her seat when some beefy blond asshole came shoving past her on his way to his. The book, of course, went sailing into the air. “Dammit!” She watched in horror as it went right past the ear of a thin dark-haired man in a seat ahead of her, bouncing off the chairback and landing unceremoniously at his feet.

This was definitely not her year.

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[Methos] (tag Clarice)

[sophiedb.livejournal.com]

Methos was busily trying to distract himself from the irritating Buzz in first class when it happened, but it looked like Oceanic didn't extend to pre-flight entertainment - only mindless promotional drivel about the wonders of Los Angeles. Still, it was better than nothing and it saved him from making eye contact with passengers still boarding, just in case the mystery Immortal decided to come looking for him. Toying with prey in an unenclosed, public space would make some twisted headhunters' decade.

The swishing by his ear punctuated that thought shockingly well, but the sound did not match that of a moving sword - not even an insane hunter would be that stupid. A tease, then? Looking down the missile was clearly a book, but given the title it still gave him pause for thought.

"Arguing Euthanasia," Methos murmured as he leant down to retrieve it, still avoiding eye contact with those around him. Either the Immortal had a strange sense of humour or this was a genuine mistake. At least it wasn't Binding & Hoche's work on "life unworthy of life", he supposed. That controversial piece of work had been used to justify far too much killing already, much of which reminded him too much of the darker periods of his own life.

A small hand grasped the other half of the book and he found himself looking into a pair of very apologetic (and very mortal) blue eyes. "I am so sorry.. I was reading in the airport lounge and it didn't seem worth putting away if I was just going to take it out again -"

Methos smiled in amusement as the words spilled out, registering only that this woman was not after his head and had done a good job of bringing him back to the present. She was, however, half-knelt in the aisle with a small build-up of passengers forming behind.

"No problem at all," he interrupted her mid-flow, taking her elbow and guiding her back upwards. He squashed the urge to glare at the man behind her, just in case he was an Immortal who'd knocked her on purpose. Paranoid perhaps, but it was caution that kept him alive. "No harm done, merely a welcome distraction from the mindless boredom that awaits us all over the next 14 hours or so."