From julifolo@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu Tue Dec 24 17:52:25 1996
Date: Wed, 9 Oct 1996 06:11:01 -0500 (CDT)
From: watkins julia k <julifolo@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu>
To: b5-creative@lists.best.com
Subject: "Ten Days Only" (complete) (a what-if)

Hello all!

I have been working hard on chapter 7 of "War Bride" (picking
ship and character names, and figureing details) and the first
part of the chapter is out to beta, checking my logic, and
after so much angst and certain death I needed a romance break.

:)

This story is a "what-if" sidebar to "War Bride". In chapter six 
of WB there are some comments about John's mom; here I expand 
the idea quite a bit, because moms, when they can, are like that.
   When I started writing "War Bride", I made a mistake in the
calendar and thought John and Anna had married during the war.
It didn't make much sense, but that's how I was writing the
story. Then I got my calendar error fixed. But by tht time I 
had a lot of text written about Anna marrying John when he was
an anonymous pilot not a War Hero, and she didn't know if he 
was going to live or not.

The ending "War Bride" is heading for (no surprise) is a big
wedding reception where many threads are tidily tied up. Yet
this earlier version also has it's positive aspects, and
I've decided to finish it up as a story on it's own. It should 
have an epilog--a happy reunion at the end of the war--but there 
are only small difference between that scene and what happens in 
"War Bride" chapter ten so, for now, this story ends before 
the end of the war.
   Anything in this story not directly related to the "early
marriage" is accurate backstory for "War Bride": Patrick Small,
for instance, and what John keeps in his kit are both the same.
I just didn't have the appropriate place to put those scenes 
into the main story.

Julie
taking a detour to a partially alternate past

=============

Standard disclaimers

=============
                      "Ten Days Only"                         
  [if John and Anna had married during the war, not after]

				by Julie Watkins
				   julifolo@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu

Anna hugged the message case to her chest. The papers had been
delivered, in person, to the proper office, and no problem and
no suspicion. There were always blind, selfish people who
would use any means possible to further their agendas. EarthForce
couldn't afford the trouble if it came to ordering an evacuation
and was intervening to keep the peace.
   It was slightly dicey, and better to have a civilian sneak
the stuff in. David Sheridan had gotten the job to carry the
papers assigned to his "only daughter-in-law" because Carol had
wanted the quotes removed from that description and wanted her
son safely married, even if the rest of Earth Alliance was lost
in the turmoil of an escalating and incomprehensible war with
a race called Minbari. Once John and Anna had, in their letters,
come to the agreement that they intended to marry it seemed they
had no choice in the matter. Carol researched the legalities and
told David what strings he had to pull and Anna was on a military
transport not knowing what her destination would be and John didn't
hear until she was in transit. His letter caught her at Io. "That's
Mom for you. Welcome to the family." They were both shy and
nervous ... and both more grateful than either could say that Mom
had stepped in and made the universe do her bidding on their behalf.
   Mom would see them married. Or have the certificate framed and
on the wall, at the least. That was now also in the message
case, the marriage license and certificate. All the necessary
paperwork. All they needed was a judge and it would be done and legal
in ten minutes. The present was in there also, wrapped and the
ribbons getting crushed.
   A last minute hitch had almost caused her to miss her connection
with John, but she had confessed her other mission to Governor
Lennod's aide and he had called in some favors, he had told her,
because it felt good to do something just for the satisfaction
of knowing something would come out right for a change. She
had the address to send the fax of the "You done good" certificate
she was to have the judge sign, and that would be payment for the
transport ticket.
   So she was waiting in the lounge on the military wing of the
transfer station at Proxima. And she saw him before he saw her,
walking in the gate. She waved and he waved back. And he smiled,
and she wanted to melt into the floor.
+++

It seemed to take forever for him to get through processing, and
then they were in each other's arms, oblivious to the ribald
comments of the military walking by. "I love you", "I want you",
"I can't believe you're here"--all the words were there tangled
up in the need just to touch. No two words were in the right
order, but it all made sense.
   After a long while the kiss broke and then he just held her
to his chest. There had been a tremble in his kisses, a shudder of
remembered pain, it must have been. It was true, she didn't want to
think it, he had nearly died. He had never thought to feel this again.
   "I brought a present," she admitted. The framed photo in the
message box. The photo was her and Liz and Mom and Dad. She was dressed
in the white suit and skirt she had brought to be her wedding dress,
the bow that would later be on the package acting as a corsage. The
others were dressed up as well. They couldn't come to the wedding, but
they were going to pretend that they were here with them, and the photo 
was a wedding picture. She was to put it on a ledge or table in the 
Judge's office during the ceremony so they could watch, and then John 
would have the photo to remember them by.
   "I told you --" he began.
   "But I'd already picked it out," she defended himself. "Don't
be mad."
   "I'm not mad," he said, defeated, readjusting his shoulder strap.
"What is it?"
   Anna looked at his bag. It was tan and she didn't recognize it.
She looked down to see blue socks and shiny shoes. "That would be
telling," she said hastily, clutching the box to her.
+++

She got her bag out of the locker first, and then excused herself
to go back to the restroom they had passed moments before. She brought
the bag and box with her, and crowded all of into a stall that was 
too small. Shaking, she unbuttoned her blouse and pulled it out of
her skirt. She took the package out of its hiding place, and pulled the
the ribbon off. Luckily the bow was complicated with curling ends
and all one piece of ribbon. Unknotted it was long enough to reach
around her waist. She tied it in a simple bow in front and then put
the blouse back in order.
   She stood for a long moment looking at the small bare package,
then ripped off the blue foil wrapping. She stuffed the foil and
the frame into her bag, but hid the photo under the marriage
papers envelope in the message box. She was breathing ragged when
she went back out to John, hoping he wouldn't ask why she took so long.
   Evidently he thought it was nerves, or was having some of that
himself. "Everything OK?" he asked.
   She nodded.
+++

The immediate question was did they get a room first or go find
the judge. They decided on the room, so they could be rid of the
bags. It was a short walk to that section of the ring, and a short
wait as the room was assigned. "So what's the present?" he asked
again.
   "Wouldn't you like to know?"
   "Yes." He was beginning to, finally, enjoy the game.
   Anna looked shocked. "You want to open it in public?"
   "Why not?" he groused.
   She laughed seductively.
   His eyes widened. "What kind of--" Her hands and arms lifted
outwards as if pushing curtains aside. Suddenly suspicious he put
his hands around her middle, searching this time, feeling under the
cloth, and he found the bow. "Oh, God, Anna--" he laughed.
   "Are you sure you don't want a present, John?" She asked
innocently. "I could take it back."
   "No, no. Don't do that." The clerk was trying to get his 
attention to give him the pass key, and John's face was turning red.
+++

He put the bags inside the door, then stood outside as she changed
into her wedding outfit. He smiled and shook his head when she
tried to pull him inside. "Let's square it with the bureaucrats
first. I'd rather take my time unwrapping my present anyway."
   "Don't play prude with me," she muttered and he looked shocked
at the accusation.

He waited prim and proper at the door, and when she came back out
in her white outfit he escorted her like a gentleman. But she
could feel his hand on her back searching to feel the ribbon.
+++

There was a stall as they stood outside the judge's office. John
looked at the papers she handed to him. "Anna Sheridan." Part of
him liked that, but another thought it was too much, that they were
going too far, too fast.
   "You don't have to take my name."
   "I want to." She didn't say it aloud: one day it might be all I
have left of you. "Your mom changed her name."
   "Your mom didn't."
   "It's OK."
   The papers were ready, the judge was waiting, and still John was
trying to make sure. "You didn't have to come here, you don't have to
do this."
   "I want to."
   He looked away.
   Again, she was scared. "John--"
   "No, love," he could tell what she was thinking. "It's not that.
It's -- I feel selfish. There's so many others who aren't going to get
the chance."
   "You're here, I'm here--"
   He looked ashamed. "And Dad pulled strings."
   "I'm glad he did," she said honestly.
   "So am I," he admitted.
   "So what is it?"
   "Patrick Small."
   Anna shook her head. She didn't recognize the name.
   "He was a mechanic," John explained. "He was overhauling my fighter
and I was handing him the tools so he could work faster, and we talked.
His leave had been canceled--the war--and he was upset. He hadn't seen
his wife and kids in over two years, and now he's dead. I didn't know it
was him--didn't recognize the name--until I saw the picture in the obit.
I wrote a letter to his wife, but it was mostly to his kids." His eyes
got blurry. "It's not fair."
   Anna took a long time to answer. "At least he knew his heart," she
said quietly. "At least he was able to do some part of what he needed to
do, to say some part of what he needed to say. We-- we might have had
none. We're stubborn people. The universe was kind, to give us a second
chance. I won't say we don't deserve it."
   He smiled. With Anna in front of him it was hard to stay sad. "I
love you."
   "I love you," she answer in the same low voice. She pulled on his
arm. "Come on, let's get married."
+++

The judge was a kind old man, and he had been expecting them. Mom,
being Mom and being sure, had managed to send word ahead, though she
couldn't know with planet or judge. The cover letters had all been
apologetic, since she didn't know names. "Could you please forward
this to the right person?"
   The judge greeted them by name, and constructed a quick but
comforting feeling of ritual, even though there were only the three 
of them in the room. Anna thought an apology to Liz and Mom and Dad 
as she put the message box, photo still hidden inside, on the rail 
that separated the public area from the offices. She felt guilty as 
she did that, because she still wasn't sure she was right.
   The Judge spoke the standard civil ceremony, but at the end,
ad-libbing, he put in a wish and hope for a safe end to the war.
+++

In the hotel room they took off each other's clothes. He left the
ribbon for last, and when he carefully rolled it up and put the coil
on her clothing instead of his, she knew she had been right about the
present.
   She reached up to pull him into a deep kiss and then they sank
down to the bed.
+++

Dad had pulled strings again. The first leg of her trip homewards
was on John's new ship. For the next several days she was actually
traveling away from Earth until she hooked up with the diplomatic
shuttle heading back. So she learned John's new crewmates along
with him, and she wooed all of them, feeling the jealousies against
wealth and privilege just under the surface. No one wanted to be
mean, but they all had family and loved ones they missed.
   So, laying side by side, naked, in his quarters, drinking the
feeling of flesh on flesh, John would help her as she keyed in
information into her notebook: three wives, a husband, numerous
girlfriends and boyfriends and sisters and brothers and moms and
dads that she was to carry greetings to, trying to write down
enough of the personality so she had enough to say when there was
so much she wouldn't be able to talk about.
+++

Everyone was sad to see her go. They told her, over and over again,
"Be careful," and she was careful never to repeat that back to any
one of them. That would have been bad luck.
   And then they were standing outside the transfer shuttle, saying
goodbye. The last time they would feel each other's touch until the
war was over. Maybe the last time ever.
   He crushed her to him, the kiss was long and deep. And then,
quietly, the pressure began to lessen. Slowly he drew back until
they were barely touching, his hands, her hands only touching cloth
and not feeling the skin beneath. They breathed into each others
mouths. And then he stepped away. She closed her eyes a moment and
she could still feel the almost touch on her lips and back: that is
how he meant the kiss, a memory easy to fall into, a defense against
the dark. He was fearful of what the war would bring.
   "I love you," they both said. She turned and went through the
door.
+++

Liz was trying not to show how upset she was. "You didn't give him
the photo."
   "No," Anna explained again. "He didn't want presents. I don't
want presents. We don't want anything until we can share them
together."
   "But--"
   "You can send a scan of the photo in your next letter. If we've 
got presents at home you can tell Mom to hide them. People who want 
to can write us letters about what they bought for us."
   "I wanted him to have the photo," Liz pouted.
   "No. You don't." Anna's voice was ice.
   Liz blinked, and her face went pale. "What aren't you telling me?"
   "It's a luck thing. He doesn't want *things*. Anything important
is here." She touched the side of her head.
   "I don't understand."
   Anna breathed deeply. "He had a new bag. Tan synth, not blue. He
had new shoes. His pants weren't new, but they were an inch short."
   Liz thought for a minute. "He lost his kit." Her voice was small.
   Anna nodded. "He didn't tell me how, but he couldn't hide it. I
made a joke about 'can't trust the baggage handlers' and we talked
as if that's what happened. I didn't ask him because I knew he
couldn't tell me. People back home, we're not supposed to hear
the bad news. His stuff--it's gone, not 'lost'. On the second day
I got a look inside. He'd lost everything. There was nothing there
that wasn't new or hand-me-down. There was no souvenirs from his
ship--nothing precious except for letters, and he knows we keep
copies."
   "What happened?"  Liz whispered.
   Anna shook her head. "There must have been a battle." It was
very difficult for her to speak. "He lost his ship. Everyone must
have died. He only told me one name, someone he didn't know well,
but it must have been all of them. They all died, but he's alive.
He must have been outside--he was rescued. They sent him to another
ship. I don't know how many he's been on. I don't know how many
battles he's survived. I don't know what more battles there will be
to come. He almost died, and that's when he decided he wanted to
marry me. He wrote me the letter after he was rescued."
   She held her hands before her. Fingers  outstretched, she knew
the number. "So few days--  And is that all the time we will have?
I'm married to the soldier's life. That life is living on stolen
moments. We've had our moment, and times before. Maybe more. Letters.
And then, one day, someone will come to tell me, 'I'm sorry Ma'am.
Your husband was  killed'--space will be his grave--and I'll never
see him again."
   "You don't know that," Liz tried to give her hope. "Johnny
gets in trouble, yes. But his luck always holds."
   They locked together in a tight embrace. "Oh, God, Liz. How will
I go on if he dies?"

===end===