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An Halloween story BY SAGE HARPER Melody Angel’s first conscious thought as she woke in an anonymous Las Vegas hotel room after foiling the latest Mysteron threat to Nevada, followed by painting the town several coats of red, was that she would never drink again. The second was an awareness that there was someone laid beside her, on top of the coverlet, of the king-size bed. She rolled onto her side,
and carefully opened her eyes against the sunlight which seemed set on frying
her retinas. “Hey, good morning,” Ochre
greeted her. “Got much of a hangover?” “I’ll live.” “Good.” Ochre smiled.
“After all, we wouldn’t want anything to ruin our first day of matrimony.” “That’s sweet of you …”
Melody’s eye widened, the full meaning of his statement sinking in. And sinking
was the right word, if the feeling in her stomach was anything to go by. “Whoa,
wait, back up. We’re married!?” “You don’t remember, last
night?” Ochre shrugged. “Well I guess a night of drinking might do that. I do
hope it comes back to you, though. I mean, it is an important occasion. We
should maybe send out wedding announcements or something; are you keeping your
last name or hyphenate it?” Melody leapt out of bed,
realised that was a bad move, then moved more tentatively toward the desk.
“Uh, Mag, what are you
doing?” he asked, as she powered up her laptop. “I’m gonna find out how to
get an annulment.” “Why’d you want one of
them?” “Because I figure that’s
what any sane person would do, in my position,” she retorted. Then she made an
effort to soften her expression, because after all, Rick was a friend. She might
even concede under Chinese water torture that he was her best friend; and he was
being quite understanding about her inexplicable amnesia. Perhaps if she’d been
more herself, Melody might have said ‘a little too understanding’. “I’ll have you know there
are many women out there who would be honoured to …” “Yeah, well, I ain’t one
of them.” “Really,” he sat on the
edge of the bed and looked at her curiously. “I always kinda figured, y’know,
that we were friends …” She sighed. “Sure we are, and I know all those
relationship articles say it’s good to marry your best friend. But that doesn’t
mean that taking it literally is a good idea, for a whole heap of reasons.” She
paused, trying to find a way to express her point without making things even
more awkward and complicated. “I mean, you wouldn’t marry Pat ...” “What’s wrong with Pat?”
Ochre exclaimed, offended on his field partner’s behalf. “You’re totally missing my
point. Besides, since when have you been so keen on being hitched? It doesn’t
exactly fit your image.” Ochre gave it some
thought. “Yeah, the whole ‘forsaking all others’ is a pretty big deal. But I’d
totally be cool with this being an open marriage. If that’s what you want.” Melody turned around to
glare at him. “We are not having an open
marriage, because we are not gonna be married,” she stated firmly. “You got
that?”
“Thanks,” she said, as he
placed a mug of coffee on the desk for her. “Least I can do.” He
smiled. “In the grand scheme of husband sort of things.” “Y’know,” she began, “if
anyone told me ‘guess what, one of your co-workers got married in a drunken whim
in Vegas, and didn’t even goddamn remember it’, I’d totally guess it was you…” “That’s unnecessarily
harsh.” “But me! Ah Hell, why does
it have to be me?” “Hey, don’t you dare go
making out you’re the wronged party here. Last I checked, it takes two to get
into this. I’m not exactly crazy about it myself. But we’re here now, in this…
situation. I just want to do the right thing.
And don’t know why you’re freaking out so much. Am I really such a total bastard
that having any kind of relationship with me doesn’t bear thinking about?” “I’m sorry, that was real
mean.” She smiled. “Honestly, it’s nothing personal. It’s just, I never even
wanted to get married. Never figured you did either.” “Hmm, guess so, but I also
have a fear of dying alone. So maybe at some point those are balancing each
other out and I’ll manage to have a healthy long term relationship.” “Just not with me, and not
like this.” “Oh, I don’t know, we
could have done a whole lot worse.” “I don’t think you quite
realise how serious this is.” Melody looked him in the eye. “Spectrum’s rules on
fraternisation are pretty clear. And they aren’t going to take kindly to anyone
just happening to break them. Not to mention if a couple were to marry, the
policy is that they can’t serve on the same base together…” “That’s stupid, what’s the
point of even getting married then?” “Rick, I am not going to
lose my job over some night of drunken stupidity.” “This really is your worst
nightmare, isn’t it?” he said, as if merely thinking aloud. “Pretty much, yeah.”
Melody rolled her eyes, typed a little, then pointed to the screen. “OK, I found
the site, and it’s a really simple process. Soon, it’ll be like this never
happened.” Ochre gave a deep sigh.
“Well, if that’s what you want…” “It is.” She took his
hand. “Nothing personal, but it’s just the best thing.” “Yeah, OK, I’m on board.”
“Great.” Melody grinned,
relieved. “First thing, we’re gonna need the marriage certificate…” “We don’t have one.” “What? How the Hell is that possible? You damn
well better not have lost it!” “Nope, I can assure you
that would be impossible.” Ochre couldn’t keep from grinning. “Check the date,
on the computer.” “Halloween, so?” she said,
then she realised, clocking that oh so familiar expression of his. “Trick or
treat.” “Yup.” Then he dissolved
into laughter. “Wow, you really did fall for that one. Ha, the look on your
face. So, so funny!”
Ochre got up, backing away
carefully from her indignant advance. “Come on, Mag, it was a
joke,” he attempted to pacify her. “y’know, funny, ha ha …” “You bastard!” she spat.
“You total bastard, I can’t believe you would stoop so low!” “Well, you did say Halloween was dumb. And that
my, what was it, ‘infantile sense of humour’ and ‘lack of imagination’ couldn’t
possibly dupe or scare you.” He smirked. “Now, hey, you gonna admit, that sounds
a whole lot like you threw down the gauntlet. So what was I supposed to do?” She swept the room with a
glance that could have crumbled stone, searching for something with which she
could inflict damage on her now ex-best friend. “OK, I’m gone.”
Ochre ran back to the
hotel room he was meant to be sharing with Magenta, with Melody in pursuit. He
slammed the door behind him. As Melody began to hammer on the door with her
fists he locked the door, leaving his hand resting on the handle and looking up
thoughtfully, he considered what he’d done, that maybe this time he really had
crossed the line. He didn’t know what would
happen then; maybe he’d get a disciplinary, which didn’t sound promising. Yeah,
he could just see it now: wasting away in a dingy basement cubby-hole of the
Spectrum Headquarters in Azerbaijan or somewhere equally godforsaken, custodian
of mountains of mind numbing red tape that even the ingrating protocol obsessed
Agent Conners would find soul destroying. Not to mention getting emails from Pat
about his latest adventures with a new field partner who naturally would be
younger, better looking, and considerably less annoying. And Mag … Well that was the real
crux of it. He’d thought, apparently erroneously, that as they were friends and
that she knew how much he liked her, she might get a bit mad at first but soon
see the funny side of all this. But so far she’d only been really hurt and
angry. And what if that didn’t change, if she never forgave him? It wasn’t so
much that he’d be losing his best friend (well, one of them, much as he liked
the guy Magenta wasn’t exactly his first pick to discuss 1940s aircraft with),
he’d have deserved it. But it didn’t take his police training to see that there
wasn’t really anyone else on base Melody was as close to. So if she didn’t have
someone to lean on and hang out with, well then what would she do. No joke was
worth hurting someone that much. This probably wasn’t the
smartest idea he’d ever had. “Mag
sounds really pissed,” Magenta noted, not looking up from the paper. “I might have gone a bit
far,” Ochre answered musingly. “You
don’t think she will kill me, really? It was just a joke; I didn’t mean to piss
her off that much.” “If she does kill you, I
sure as Hell am not cleaning up the mess.” “Wouldn’t expect you to,”
Ochre said, leaving the door and sniggering as he searched for something to eat.
Worst case scenario aside it was still pretty funny, especially how horrified
Melody had been at the thought of ‘til death do them part’. “You gonna tell me what
you did, exactly?” “Maybe later…
incidentally, you owe me fifty bucks.” “I wasn’t serious about
that. Either way the bet was only to scare the self proclaimed unscareable Mag
for a while, by whatever means your devious little mind could devise. Nothing
about making her mad enough to pummel the door to woodchips, let alone whatever
she’ll do once she’s through.” “You should have seen it. The whole thing was so funny, I nearly blew it telling her too soon because she totally bought it, worst nightmare for sure. Good thing it was just a joke because I was starting to feel so bad for her. I really have no idea how I’ll beat it next year.” “Assuming you live that long ... It better have been worth it,” Magenta said, as Melody began shouting in addition to hammering on the door. Ochre squared his
shoulders, then walked to the door. Intent on opening it and facing whatever
came of that. “We’ll see.”
The End
Thanks
to Chris for beta-reading, creating the ever endearing Mr Conners, and all her
other services to the fandom. Happy
Halloween everyone.
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