Ivory Hill had spent the majority of her adult life running. Throughout her twenties and the first part of her thirties it was from bombs and bullets. Now, at thirty six years old Ivory was running from something that she could never truly escape fr...
It had been a week since Ivory had been in the storage hut with Grace, Norm and Jake and Grace hadn't taken them back since. She'd gotten out of bed early as usual and pulled on her oldest clothes to go for a run around Hell's Gate. Back on Earth she'd gone to the army base gym whenever she could. There was something about the pain of pushing yourself to your limits and beyond that she found strangely addictive. Ivory had started running when she was sixteen and decided that she wanted to join the army to make sure that she'd pass the fitness test and it was a habit that she'd never been able to bring herself to abandon. Running in Pandora didn't feel the same as it had back on Earth. It wasn't just the low gravity, it was the lack of Olivia, the absence of the sound of the other forty nine pairs of feet that belonged to the rest of her troop.
"What the hell are you doing?" Grace asked as Ivory ran past her, dragging the younger woman out of her thoughts.
Ivory stopped, gasping for breath. "On a run." She explained, pressing her hands against her knees.
"At four in the morning?"
"I couldn't sleep." The dark haired woman tightened the red bandana that she was using to stop the sweat from dripping into her eyes. "What are you doing up?"
"I couldn't sleep either so I thought I'd get some work done."
Ivory breathed out slowly, pulling the bandana off of her head and crushing it in her fist. She'd had enough for one morning. "You never do any but work do you?"
"My work doesn't ask questions or get in my way." Grace said carelessly. She paused then looked at Ivory properly, grimacing at the sweat that had seeped through her old grey sports bra. "Jesus, Hill. Hit the shower."
"You're acting like you've never sweated before." Ivory shoved her bandana into the pocket of her shorts and turned away, heading in the direction of the shower.
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Ivory was slumped over one of the lab tables, flipping through a mound of notes. She'd been in the Medical Bay since seven as there had been a stingbat attack attack which had meant that a whole horde of grunts had gotten injured. She was sick and tired of work but she had to get through the last of the notes on stingbats to ensure that there weren't going to be any further effects from the attack other than the deep slashes that the creatures had left on the hands and faces of the people.
Norm walked in, his arms full of test tubes. He dumped them on one of the desks and pulled a microscope towards him, setting up some slides with the samples that he'd brought. Norm seemed to be one the very few people that didn't irritate Grace beyond belief. Although Grace did her best to hide it Ivory had caught her looking at Norm with a tiny smile on her face. Ivory wondered if Grace saw herself in Norm, the man was intelligent and dedicated to his job, forever desperate to go out with Grace and examine more of the plant life. The only thing that really differed between himself and Grace was their personalities.
Norm began to hum the Pocahontas soundtrack as loudly as he could, squinting down the microscope. Ivory sighed heavily, squinting at Grace's cramped writing. She could barely hear herself think over Norm humming Just Around The River Bend. The woman could already feel her short temper beginning to fray. It had been hard enough keeping it all day whilst treating ungrateful grunts who did nothing but complain about how long it was taking for her to get around them all. "Norm?" Ivory asked, struggling to keep her voice even.
"What?" Norm looked up at her, his green eyes bright. "Just around the riverbend," he sang as he changed his slide.
Ivory couldn't hold it in any longer. "For the love of god, shut the fuck up."
Norm gave her a look that people usually reserved for child stranglers.
"What's got your cargos in a twist?" Grace asked, tearing her eyes away from her data pad.
"You say that like you're not constantly stroppy Grace." Ivory slammed her folder shut and left it on the desk, stalking out of the lab with her cat at her heels. She'd had enough for the day.
"Well..." Grace took her glasses off and raised her eyebrows. "At least she can't go far."
Jake, who was sat in the corner, shrugged his shoulders. "Temper is all part of being in the army."
"Even more reasons that I didn't want more jarheads here."
"Aw, c'mon Grace, you know you love me deep down." Jake gave her a shit eating grin.
