Job Offers. (Nicole and Seether)
Quarters, Quarantine Hospital...
"...They aren't going to keep us in this status forever." Linda Sithers lay on the bunk, fully clothed and atop the covers.
"They're not." Nicole said, "Singer and Trinh already took job offers in the SLDF." she sat at the double-room's desk, a reader-terminal active and her own personal data pad (Coast Guard issue, Nashan 44a pocket-secretary).
Seether snorted, "yeah, 'job offers'...they enlisted."
"Yup. out of twenty five of us , there are fifteen who've already signed up for citizenship with the Wolverines-they're probably being held to see where the rest jump." Nicole commented, "Except, of course for the seven of us that are barred to enlistment due to medical reasons. How's the myomer hand?"
"It works, I can even play keyboard like I did as a kid." Sithers said, "So eight of us won't be getting citizenship."
"You can." Nicole said, "Heard you made an impression on that aviation officer."
"Where did you hear that?" Seether rolled over to look at her.
"I hear things." Nicole said absently, "You've got a clean record, Linda, they want you."
"but they don't want you?"
Nicole sighed and looked over at her friend, and XO. "Do you know what the psychologist here said about me? he said, and i quote: 'your broken pieces have missing pieces, Minh.'" there were other things the Wolverine medical said, but Nicole didn't want to raise the topic.
"She did offer me a job." Seether confessed, "I also got a job offer from the Colonials."
"Doing what?"
"You do remember that, in addition to being older than you are, I've also got more time-on-ground doing actual policing?" Seether asked, "I was offered a job working with the Colonials' justice department. Seems that time spent in OCB before the Blakists hit is worth something to people who don't have a lot of specialist detectives..." She rolled to a full sitting position, "...and while SLDF won't take you, Colonial Militia will."
"One, Seeth, you hated your time doing that. I remember what you said about it."
"It was better than Quarantine picket."
"Anything is better than Quarantine picket. Two, you'd have to learn that weird variant on Greek, or have a translator following you around, which won't make you that effective and you know it."
"true."
"Three, it means being stuck 'at the bottom of the well forever'. going back into space pretty much requires going SLDF at this point, we're both too old to start basic fighter training and everybody, including the Colonials, have a surplus of qualified smallcraft personnel-and they're qualled out on designs we aren't."
Seether shot her a grin, "That's why I turned them down...so why did you turn Adama down? it's not the language thing-you pick up language the way other people pick up songs."
Nicole looked at the floor. "Religion." she finally said. "You know their history, right? Polytheistic religion focused on a dozen or so indo-european gods of the mediterranean variety?" she looked up and met her friend's eyes, "The city-state's religion has a very bad history with monotheists."
"And you're still a christian."
"yeah."
Seether got to her feet, and paced the room, until she found the bible brought over from Nicole's shipboard quarters. "you know, I read this thing front to back trying to understand...I don't see it."
"see what?"
"anything that says you have to keep punishing yourself." Seether told her. "Nothing in your gospels, mind you, not the editor's notes in the parts after the crucifiction, says you have to keep abusing yourself like you do. nothing." She set the book down. "We're not pre-industrial, Nikki, and nobody here is going to care. They're not obsessed with monogamy, they're also not uptight about relationships, and we're both getting old."
"We've had this discussion before-"
"Not like now." Seether told her, "I'm tired of having to look for substitutes, and I'm tired of watching you beat yourself up because of a mistake you made when you were a kid! You changed your body, fine. we can adopt, or contract with a sperm bank. You can't change it back, I can deal with that. Nikki, we've been dealing with that for decades now."
"What are you suggesting?"
"It's even legal here." Seether told her, "I'm tired of being a spinster. We don't have rank blocking it, it's not fraternizing, you won't find a better wife and I won't find a better husband."
"I'm not sure I'm ready to be a father." Nicole joked. Seether reached down, over her shoulders, and hugged her.
"Nobody is." she said, "but face it, we're finally on equal footing here. More people are going to have issues with us not being polytheistic, than they will with the appearance of sin. Heck, the Wolvies are more tweaked out with the lot of us having so many religious people, than with whether or not the person in my bed calls themself a man or a woman-they're more worried about whether the relationship will be stable, than who is in the relationship..and we've been stable together for years under conditions most people get divorced over."
"that doesn't solve the prob-"
"It solves my problem." Seether told her, rocking them together and resting her chin on Nicole's shoulder. "Please? I don't want my Great Aunt to be right about me dying alone. besides, your Dad and your Sister liked me, are forty-something years in the future, but if somehow we end up back in that when, I don't have to worry about the in-laws hating me or accusing me of corrupting you...and you know my folks liked you."
"as your friend."
"They can deal. It's not like it's that unusual. Contract with me, Nikki. Let's build a burrow, stake that asteroid belt out, and leave a fortune for our kids, a Rockjack marriage, Partners. I love you."
"I..I love you too, but I can't give you-"
"Once we're citizens, we can apply for assistance with that." Seether told her, "They do have good doctors with the right expertise. all I ever needed was you."
