Dishonourable Discharge: Grace Augustine

54

Grace swung her legs out of bed, yawning.

"What are you doing?" Ivory asked, not raising her head from the pillow.

"The change in the weather means that the plants-"

"Don't even think about it." Ivory pushed herself up, brushing sleep out of her eyes.

"Ivy my samples-"

"Can wait. If you bust your stitches then you'll bleed out before you can take any."

"If I just-" Grace's voice was indignant.

"You're staying here Grace, doctors orders."

"You've got a doctorate?" The redhead's challenged.

"Stop being so bloody argumentative and come back to bed it's," Ivory squinted through the darkness at her watch. "Half four in the morning. What the fuck Grace?"

"I wanted to get samples at different times of the day so I can compare the readings."

"Norm can take them for you if they're that important." Ivory paused. "When it's actually daylight."

Grace muttered something that sounded suspiciously like 'for fucks sake' then got back into bed, sliding her arms around the other woman's waist. "How long are you going to keep up this whole bossy attitude?"

"Well you've managed to keep it up for decades so I think I'll be able to carry it on for a while." The dark haired woman shifted so that her head was resting against Grace's chest.

"Are you alright?"

"Mmm." Ivory smothered a yawn. This was the first time she'd slept since the flight from Hell's Gate and she'd been plagued with nightmares
She'd woken up drenched in sweat at two in the morning, thanking whoever was listening that Grace was still asleep as she tiptoed to the bathroom, trying to get rid of the sour, metallic taste that adrenaline had left in the back of her throat. No matter what Ivory did she couldn't shake the memory of the blood glistening on Grace's palm or the panic that she had felt as Grace had slipped in and out of consciousness as she held onto her, wondering if she was going to have to watch another person she cared about die as she sat drenched in their blood, unable to do anything to stop it.

"I'm sorry." Grace said with difficulty.

"Do you need me to move so you can go throw up?" Ivory asked, her dark brown eyes glinting wickedly.

"Asshole. No, funnily enough saying sorry doesn't make me sick, I just hate doing it."

"I've noticed."

"I mean it. I am sorry, I know I'm being a shit I'm just... stressed. But I shouldn't be an arse to you. You're just trying to help, even if you're being bossy."

"It's okay, I get it. But for future reference if you're going to apologise to someone you should probably leave the insult out." Ivory murmured, shutting her eyes and burying her face into Grace's chest.

Grace reached out and brushed Ivory's hair away from her face, running her thumb over the scar that snaked down her cheek. Ivory pressed her cheek against Grace's hand, a small smile edging its way onto her face. "You look knackered."

"If you keep compliments like that coming I'm not going to be able to keep my hands off you." The dark haired woman said sarcastically, rolling onto her stomach.

"I mean it," Grace's voice was edged with concern. "Come on, you've been edgy since we got here. What's up?"

"Nothing, I'm just tired."

"I'm not Max, I can tell when you're lying."

"I'm scared that something like the other night is going to happen again and I won't be able to do anything to save you. I've already lost one person because I couldn't act fast enough and when you got shot it was almost a repeat. If Norm, Jake and Trudy hadn't been there I don't think you'd still be alive."

Grace exhaled shakily. "I wish I could promise that things are going to be fine now we've gotten out of Hell's Gate but I can't. Like I said before, we can't stop what's coming."

Ivory gently placed her palm on top of Grace's stomach, breathing a small sigh of relief as she felt how much the swelling had gone down.

"I love you." Grace said suddenly.

"I love you too."

A/N: I start University next week and I've somehow managed to print about thirty screen caps from Avatar to decorate my wall