Title: Gifts to be Given
E-mail: eli @ popullus.net
Rating: PG
Spoilers: S2 The Passage
Disclaimer: I hardly know what I'm doing, much less who owns them. Read.
Posted: Aug. 24, 2003
Notes: A drabble for Jo for her birthday. And for being sneaky enough to come up with something that sparked my first non-Farscape fic. Thanks to Anna for a quick beta and back-pat ("it's not crap," says she, as the patting hand pushes me into a new fandom).

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The briefing. Wouldn't. End.

Sydney tried concentrating on the intricacies of coding the program, un-coding, de-coding, whatever. Download and send. That's all she needed to do, right? They'd handle the techno-magic here.

Feeling herself slump, she yanked her attention back to the room. She tried concentrating so hard she felt her lids catch against her eyes when she finally blinked. And nails in the thigh, usually a surefire back-straightener, did nothing more than create patterns through her nylons. She absently inched her skirt up just enough that she could keep trying and trying without needing to explain the marks later.

How could anyone listen to this for more than five minutes and not find themselves wishing for a quick ice pick through the ear? With no guarantees on whose ear it would be.

Good, keep your mind off your gun and on the ice pick; a weapon you don't happen to have handy.

She jerked when a hand covered hers, and attempted to take Sark's head off with a glare since she couldn't very well bite it off without being guaranteed a lecture of her very own. But... Her hand that high on her thigh wasn't a problem. His? Something had to be done.

The corner of his mouth kicked up -- the bastard knew damn well what she was thinking -- and she yanked her hand away, knocking his wrist against the table edge.

"Now, now, Sydney," the murmur barely reached her; he was far too good to let it get any further, "no bloodshed."

"If you don't want to bleed, keep your hands occupied elsewhere," she hissed.

He shifted as if crossing his legs were the only purpose, certainly not getting close enough to purr, "Oddly, I believe we're all safer with your hand not headed for your weapon."

After a quick check -- yep, Sloane still engrossed; her father, attentive, as far as anyone could tell; Marshall, basking in the glow of a fellow geek -- she chanced another look at that face, with its talent for smug. He rewarded her raised eyebrow with, "I would rather the reason I'm not around to collect my retirement gift not be that I did nothing to keep this lovely carpet from being ruined by the blood of an uninspiring tech."

"You lusting after that gold watch?" She let her lip curl on the last consonant, just enough to hide her amusement.

"Oh, no. That's for the previous generation." The serious tone was what made her tilt her head, she told herself, not gratitude for a distraction. "No, now it's all about the toaster."

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