From: Sarah Albertini-Bond (serendipity77_at_gmail.com)
Date: Thu Aug 23 2007 - 21:12:36 PDT
=/\= "Black Eye" <continued from Kenneth's "What Is 3000 Politicians Under The Sea?"> =/\= Location: GATEWAY STATION – 2 Scene: High School – Cafeteria Peyton Svenson was pretty lucky in some respects, and he knew it. His father was a high ranking Starfleet officer, and for the most part was able to provide a pretty nice life for him and his brother. Living on the GATEWAY ensured that he was exposed to a wide arrange of cultural and social experiences, and since it was (or at least had been) a Starfleet station, that meant he and Mikey weren't the only sons of officers here. Living with Xana wasn't anticipated. Peyton still remembered the day he met her – it was over 3 years ago. She showed up at their house in Paris to talk to his father but somewhere along the way she charmed a cookie from Mikey's grubby hands and tossed a ball around with him. Then they showed up at the GATEWAY (back when it was undergoing the transition from GS-1 to GS-2) and she hired them to be her dog-sitters. He remembered asking his dad if she was just being nice to him and Mikey because of his father being a Commodore. He could still see his father smirking as he said, "Peyton, out of all the reasons why Command Bonviva is asking you be her dog-sitter, I can assure you that's the last of her reasons." No, Xana had always cared for him because of him – not because he was Troy Svenson's son. It meant something to the young man. Still no matter how much he cared for Xana, and now for Mac and their little girl, Peyton thought to himself, it didn't mean he wanted to still be here. Maybe it was just the excitement of everything that had happened but he couldn't let himself believe that they'd still be here. Soon the wormhole would reopen and they'd be with their father again. But it had been over six weeks and the wormhole hadn't reopened. Now the station was in chaos. They had separated from the Federation. Xana was now running for office to be the civilian leader of the GATEWAY. Her Security goons followed him and Mikey everywhere. He knew he wasn't supposed to know about it but Xana was getting death threats, and some of them involved him, Mikey and Dahlia. He overheard Mac and Xana talking about it one night after they thought he went to bed. So for now they had Security goons following them all but he remembered what Xana said, "I don't care Gene – let the station go to hell in a handbasket. But I'll be damned before someone hurts *my* family. They touch the boys or Dahlia and I'll personally stick my hand down their throats and rip out their hearts with my bear hands." He had wondered what Mac would say to that but the normally affable Bajoran simply shook his head and replied, "Not if I beat you to it." Peyton wondered if he was supposed to find that comforting. He supposed a better person would have. But he didn't. He wasn't Xana's family – she wasn't his mother. No, Peyton's family (except for Mikey) was in the Alpha Quadrant and it was grating on him that they were there and he was here. "Dude, you even listening to me?" Peyton shook his head and cleared his thoughts. Leaning in to face his friends, he said, "Sorry, man, I was zoning out." "No shit, Sherlock," Bobby Adams grinned. Peyton made a face at that. "Frack you, Watson," he smirked while grabbing his soda. Bobby grinned at that. "So look, Jimbo and I were talking about this dumbass dance they've got coming up. You gonna ask anyone?" "Hadn't thought about it," Peyton lied. "You guys?" "I dunno," Jimbo replied. "Dora, maybe." Before Jimbo or Bobby could respond O'kar, another guy in their year, came over and joined their table. O'kar was a bit of an ass, in Peyton's mind, but up until now he had no beef with the guy so he kept his opinions to himself. "Dora would say yes to a doorknob," O'kar replied taking a chair and swiveling it around. "But evidently she's not as easy as Peyton's mom." Leaning over to the other guys he said, "My parents were watching her this morning on the holovid talking about the rumors that she got her promotions from less than…we'll say than honorable ways." Peyton counted to three before responding. "Shut up, O'kar," he muttered while shoving some French fries in his mouth. "Besides she's not my mom." "Well there went the MILF thing," O'kar grinned. Punching Peyton on the arm he said, "But we all know Svenson here couldn't get a date on his own. Hey I got an idea – go ask your not-mom MILF. She might not be the first letter but from what I'd hear she's had no problem with the last letter." "Shut up," Peyton growled, this time meaning it. O'kar leaned back and looked over at Svenson. Scrawny kid, he figured. Not really a threat. "You gonna make me, Svenson?" That was invitation enough as Peyton pushed back his chair and took at swing at O'kar. Yeah he was scrawny but he wasn't a stranger to hand-to-hand fighting. Mac had tried to teach him some. His dad had tried to do the same when he had the chance. So with every ounce of his strength he took a swing at the obnoxious teen next to him. He knew he was gonna grief later for starting the fight, he would hurt from the punches that O'kar was about to land on him, but somewhere in the back of Peyton's mind he had to admit it felt good to land that punch on that smug pain-in-the-ass' mouth. =/\= Scene: Bonviva/McInnis Quarters "I said 'no comment'!" Xana yelled as she ducked out of the press' way as she made her way back into the quarters. The school, as well as her own Security team, had contacted her and Gene about Peyton's fight. Since she was giving a speech at the time, Gene ducked out to go to the school to get the boys. Xana wound up having to cancel an "impromptu" stop by some businesses on the Promenade to come back here. Turning to the Security personnel there, Xana lashed out. "What the hell happened? I thought you were supposed to protect Peyton and Mikey – not let them get hurt!" "Hey hold on there," Eilean Peri responded. "We protect you and your family from outside harm. I've told you before; we cannot be expected to protect you all from your own instincts." Another one of the Security guards, a young Betazoid man, cleared his throat before speaking up, "Ma'am, with all due respect, Peyton started the fight. We did our best to get through the crowd as quickly as possible but…look we tried to do what you asked. Give the boys as much room as possible to be boys while keeping them safe. But we can't be everywhere at every moment – especially if they're the ones instigating the trouble." Xana sat down on one of the kitchen stools, dumbfounded. "Peyton started the fight?" Gene sighed as he sat down next to Xana. "Yeah. I spoke with the principal and everyone agrees that Peyton hit the other kid first." "What was the fight about?" Xana asked. Gene paused a moment before saying, "You." When his wife looked at him he said, "Evidently another kid mentioned your interview this morning." *That* interview. Less than 24 hours after Kat Gorman found out that people were whispering about Xana's past, the media had picked up on it. Kat was back out trying to find the source of the rumors, but that still meant Xana had to deal with them. "I'm sorry," Xana said quietly to the Security personnel. "I should have known better than to accuse you all of not doing your job." Eilean shrugged it off. "It's understandable. Now we're going to go back to work outside and chase away the media. Come on, boys, let's go earn our paychecks," she said to her team. On the way out, she patted her friend on the shoulder before diving out into the chaos outside the quarters. "What do you want to do?" Gene asked. When Xana said nothing he tried, "Look you know, fights come with being a teenage male." "This one didn't have to," she whispered. Standing up she said, "I'm going to talk to Peyton. You and Mikey…I'd say stir up trouble but we've had enough of that for one day." Gene knew what his wife was like. She appeared to be impetuous – making decisions on a whim. It really wasn't that. She just moved with her heart – she was loyal to what she felt and went with that. He figured her heart was urging her to reach out to Peyton, to smooth things over and he wasn't going to fight that. "Okay," he nodded. They went to the boys' room and knocked. [[Come in,]] Mikey called out cheerfully. They walked in and saw Peyton lying down on his bed with an ice pack on his face and Mikey sitting on the edge of Peyton's bed. "Mikey," Gene said, "come on with me. I think I want a rematch of that game." "You just want Xana alone with Peyt so she can yell at him," the younger Svenson announced. Standing at the doorway of the room Mikey paused. "But I don't get something." "What?" Gene asked as he shared a glance with Xana. "What's the big deal? I mean I hear people whispering about Xana sleeping with people. But it's just sleeping. It's not like she was awake or something. You can't help where you sleep sometimes if you're real tired," Mikey argued. "I onetime fell asleep when we went rock climbing cause I was really tired and I couldn't help it even though the rocks were really hard." Xana tried very hard not to laugh. "Mikey, Peyton and I need to have a discussion," she said. "You and Gene can talk in another room." Gene gave Xana a look before shepherding out the inquisitive boy. "But Mac, I don't get it…" they heard Mikey say as they left. "Someday Mikey is gonna kick himself for saying that," Peyton muttered from under the ice pack. Taking a seat on one of the desk chairs in the room, Xana smiled, "He'll get over it, I'm sure." For a while neither one of them said anything. Finally it was Peyton who broke the silence. "If you're gonna yell, can you just get it over with?" Xana shook her head at that. "No, I won't yell. I'm not happy with what you did but yelling won't help things, will it?" Peyton didn't respond to that which made her sigh. "Why did you do it, Peyton?" "Cause I felt like it," he responded from under the ice pack. "I figured that out," the Bolian/Human responded. "Why did you feel like it?" "Cause…cause…I dunno," Peyton muttered. "Yeah you do," Xana replied. Shaking her head she said, "Don't give me that." Taking a stab at things she started off with, "I know this campaign has been hard on all of you." "I didn't think it would be like this!" Peyton yelled as he sat up. Glaring at Xana with his one good eye he kept yelling, "I didn't think everybody would be looking at all of us! And they shouldn't even be looking at us! We shouldn't even be here." Inhaling at that, Xana nodded to herself as they approached the heart of the matter. "No one thought things would be going on for this long." "I don't want to live here. I want to go home," Peyton replied. "I know you do," Xana said sadly. "Honey, I know that. But I don't know how to get you back to the Alpha Quadrant. Not anytime soon or safely at any rate." "My dad said he'd come for us. But he hasn't! And we never were supposed to be with you for this long," the teenager yelled. "And now you're running for President or Prime Minister or whatever it is and everyone is talking about you. And not just you. I hit that guy cause he said you were easy. I didn't think it would be like this!" Xana rubbed her face at that. This was harder than she thought. "Peyton, I'm making this all up as I go along. I don't know what to tell you. I had no idea people would be talking about my past like this. If I had known…shit, I don't know. I probably would have prepared all of us better for this. I don't know. Is this too hard on you?" "I can't answer that!" Peyton yelled. "Yes you can," Xana replied. "I'm not saying decide for me but I'm asking how *you* feel and only you can do that." Peyton shrugged his shoulders at that. "I don't know," he said. Looking over at Xana he began to blurt out, "Why didya…." Losing his nerve he finished off with not quite his original intention, "…ya know…giving them stuff to talk about?" Xana got up at that and began to pace. She did that for a bit – so much so that she made Peyton a bit dizzy watching her. Finally she sat down at the edge of Peyton's bed and looked at him. "I was never one of those people who aimed for public office when I was younger. Or even Command in Starfleet. I lived my life the way I wanted to with little thought to the future. And yes, I had relationships with men before I married Gene. Gene had relationships with women before he met me. We both knew that going into our relationship. And while those relationships didn't work out for us, it was serendipitous in a way, because we learned from them and we became better people because of it. And that's helped us with each other." "So it's okay to sleep around before your married?" Peyton blurted out. Xana turned a slightly deeper shade of blue but she dove into the question. "There are lots of reasons why people sleep with each other. And there are many reasons why people don't sleep with each other. But…you need to be mature about it. It's not an easy thing to do." "Xana, every idiot over a certain age knows what sex is," the teenager scoffed even as he blushed. "I don't need this talk, my dad already did it." The azure woman chuckled at that. "Well yeah but…I wasn't quite talking about that." Becoming serious she said, "I meant emotionally it's a serious thing to do." Thinking about it carefully she said, "I honestly cared very much for those men I was intimate with. And I don't regret a single thing I did. At least not when it comes to that." Peyton was glad he was holding the icepack over his face, as this was becoming a rapidly embarrassing conversation. "Are we done yet?" he asked. Laughing at that Xana nodded. "Sure, for now. But we can always come back to this." "Great," he moaned while flopping back on the bed. Xana grinned at that and pried away the ice pack. "Let me look at this, love," she murmured. Inspecting his eye she asked, "A doctor look at this yet?" "No the school nurse did," Peyton replied. "Xana…why did you agree to take us in if something happened to my dad?" Xana looked startled at that. "Because I love you, both of you. You're my family as far as I'm concerned. I couldn't conceive of not being there for you if you needed me. I thought you knew that." When Peyton said nothing she kept inspecting the eye before nodding. "Well you need to keep the ice pack off for 20 minutes then you can have it again – and keep doing that for the next day, 20 minutes on and 20 minutes off. You'll still be sore, and we can give you a small painkiller for that, but you'll live." Patting his knee, Xana got up off the bed with the ice pack in hand and walked across the room. "Xana?" she heard from behind her. Turning around she saw Peyton sitting up again. "You can…you know…keep running if you want. You know if you really want it. I mean…you should still be able to do what you want." Getting the meaning behind the offer, Xana smiled at that. "Thank you." Walking out of the room Xana went into the kitchen to get a quick bite to eat. After a few minutes she heard Mikey yelling, "Enough! TMI! Too much information!" before hearing a door slam shut. A harried-looking Gene came out of the playroom walked into the kitchen . "You owe me for that," he muttered. =/\= Sarah Albertini-Bond serendipity77_at_gmail.com Xana Bonviva Candidate GATEWAY STATION – 2 And Lieutenant Phia ILO USS STONEHENGE I know why families were created with all their imperfections. They humanize you. They are made to make you forget yourself occasionally, so that the beautiful balance of life is not destroyed. --Anais Nin From HyperNews_at_youth.net
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