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...
Grace was in a foul mood when she eventually returned to her normal body at six o'clock that night. Trudy had flown Ivory back to Hell's Gate and she had gone straight to her room, partly to check on Tigger and partly to avoid Grace's wrath. Ivory had only been back for half an hour when someone began to hammer on her door, the titanium clanging noisily.
"Hill? Come to the lab, I want to speak to you." Grace's voice leaked through the gaps around the door.
"I can't, I'm not wearing any clothes." Ivory lied.
"Lucky me. See you in two minutes."
Ivory waited until she'd heard Grace walk away from the door and back down the hallway before she got up off of her bed. "Do you want to come Tig?"
The cat raised its head from the bed then curled up once more, shutting its green eyes.
"Thanks for the backup Tigger." The woman sighed then opened the door, trailing down the hallway to the lab. Grace opened the door and let her in.
"Grace before you say anything to me-" Ivory began.
"Hill, sit down." Grace's voice was calm.
"Why aren't you yelling at me?" Ivory looked at her suspiciously.
"Why would I be yelling at you?" The redhead asked casually.
"Because you spent all afternoon and most of the morning yelling at me the entire length of the rainforest and Compound?" Ivory was beginning to wonder if a piece of lab equipment had fallen on Grace's head and somehow changed her entire personality.
Grace shrugged. "Water under the bridge. Now sit." She pushed the younger woman down onto a chair.
"Grace? You wanted to see me?" Jake wheeled himself into the lab.
"Ah, Marine, I was just wondering where you'd got to." Quick as a fox Grace darted over to the door and left the lab, shutting the door and pulling the keys from her pocket.
"What the fuck?" Ivory demanded, shoving her chair back so hard that it fell on the floor with a clatter.
Grace locked the door, snapping back to her usual brisk manner. "I'm not letting either of you out of here until you've sorted things out between you. I'm sick of you both getting in the way of my research and getting in the way of rebuilding bridges with the Omaticaya clan."
"You're joking, right?" Jake asked.
"No. Now sort things out or else. And don't try to pretend that you've made friends when you haven't, you can't fool me." Grace pushed the keys back into her pocket. "And don't try and break the door down, it's not possible." She walked away.
"I'm going to murder her when we get out of here." Ivory muttered darkly. Her hand strayed to the dog tags that permanently hung around her neck. Even though she knew that it wouldn't do anything she aimed a kick at the door then trudged back to the table, righting her chair and sitting back down.
"She's a crazy son of a bitch. But let's just get on with this so I can get out by dinner. I want a burrito. So. How'd you get that?" Jake gestured towards the thick scar on the dark haired woman's face.
"A dragon." Ivory said sarcastically, biting her nails hard.
The man snorted. "Yeah, a dragon got me too. That's the reason I'm in this." He knocked a hand against the frame of his wheelchair.
Ivory couldn't help but laugh at that.
"Seriously though, it was a spinal injury in Venezuela. Fuckin' veteran's benefits aren't enough to pay for it repairing. That's why I'm here. You served too, didn't you? What happened to you?"
"Yeah I did. And it was a landmine that did it." Ivory said shortly. She'd never told anyone else how her face had ended up looking like that but for some reason she couldn't help but tell Jake. She wondered if it was because she knew that the man had seen the same things as her.
"Are you going to tell me why you hate me so much then?" The brunette wheeled himself away from the table and reached under Grace's desk.
"What are you doing?"
"Grace keeps whiskey under here."
"She'll lose her shit if you take that without asking." Ivory pointed out.
Jake shrugged carelessly. "She locked us in here without asking, the least she could do is share her drink." He broke off and wheeled himself closer, digging around for a few moments longer. "There's no glasses. You okay with sharing from the bottle?"
"Grace is going to be pissed either way."
Jake moved back to the table and put the bottle of amber liquid between them. "Are you going to tell me why you don't like me so we can sort things out or am I going to have to ask Grace to flatten a burrito for me so it'll fit under the door?" He picked up the whiskey, taking a long drink. "Where does Augustine get all of this stuff?" He wiped his mouth on the back of his hand.
"She knows people apparently. Still won't tell me who though, bitch that she is." Much to her surprise Ivory felt guilty as soon as she finished her sentence. Yes Grace did seem like a bitch but from the time she'd spent trailing around after her around the rainforest Ivory was beginning to wonder if it was simply because she was so dedicated to the idea of patching things up with the Na'vi that she didn't realise how horrible she could be in the process. "And I don't dislike you exactly." She added, almost as an afterthought.
"Then why do you act like I've got the plague?"
Ivory took the bottle from Jake, swallowing a generous measure of the golden liquid within. "It's..." the woman stopped, searching for the right words. "A long, messy story."
"I've got time, anyway if you tell me then we can make nice. And fair warning, if I miss my dinner I get extremely pissed."
Ivory traced a finger over the engravings on her dog tags. "I don't know if it's a good idea. I don't really want to think about the army."
"We were both military, weren't we? It won't be anything I haven't heard before. Now come on, there's an hour and a half until dinner and I want to get there early. If you tell me what's happened and why it means you don't like me we could get things sorted before you make Augustine blow a gasket." Jake persisted, dragging the bottle back over to his side of the table.
"Fine." Ivory sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose. "It really started going to shit when I hit thirty, the army's a clusterfuck as we've both seen..."
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An hour and a half later Grace appeared at the door. "Have you two sorted things out?" She asked, slipping a hand into the pocket of her lab coat.
Jake looked at Ivory, waiting for her to say something.
The woman's heart was still racing after the time that she had spent recounting everything that she'd gone to Pandora trying to forget. "Yeah... yeah, I think so."
