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 floated into the lab the next evening with flushed cheeks and a bright look in her brown eyes, barely noticing that there was anyone else in there.
Ivory dropped the test tube that she had been messing about with back onto the table as she heard the door close. "How was it?" She asked.
"Amazing," Grace scooped up the test tube and slotted it back into the holder. "Don't you dare break these, there isn't another supply shuttle coming for a week yet."
Ivory rolled her eyes and pressed a kiss against her girlfriend's cheek. "I wasn't going to break any more of them, I was just bored."
"Any more?" Grace's eyebrows shot into her hairline.
"It was an accident!"
"Ivy-" Grace began.
"She's been messing with my stuff all day."
Grace struggled to hold back a groan as she recognised the voice of the red haired Australian scientist who had spoken to her girlfriend the day before. "I don't think we've met."
"Bindi. I'm one of the scientists." She held out a hand that Grace pointedly ignored. "Are you the one that Ivy's been waiting around for all evening? I've been trying and failing to keep her out of my work for the last hour."
"In my defence you left your crap all over the desk, it was hard for me to not have to touch it." Ivory closed her notebook with a snap.
"That would be me," Grace said shortly. "I don't mean to be rude but I've got things to get on with. Come on Ivy I need your help finishing some things up." The woman grabbed hold of her girlfriend's hand and left the lab without a backward glance.
"What do you need help with?"
"Nothing. I just didn't want to be in the lab anymore."
Ivory nodded. "It was boring as hell without you in there, no one was doing anything interesting."
"Hm." Grace swept a stray curl behind her ear. "What do you want to do now?"
Ivory shrugged her shoulders. "I don't know, I'm not really in the mood to try and get any more work done."
"Let's go outside," the redhead said decisively.
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Grace winced slightly as she shifted back against the concrete of the basketball court.
"Are you sure you're comfortable like that?" Ivory asked, lifting her head off of her girlfriend's chest to look at her properly.
"I'm fine." Grace slid her arm around her girlfriends waist and exhaled slowly, gazing up at the inky sky.
Ivory nodded, wincing slightly as her dark hair tangled itself around the strap of her exopack.
"Let me." Grace lifted Ivory's head and gently tugged her hair away from the thick strap.
"Thank you." The woman reached out and curled her fingers around her girlfriend's hand. Ivory was quiet for a moment, she wasn't sure wether she was supposed to ask more questions about Kiri or wait until Grace offered information of her own accord. In all honesty she had absolutely no idea what the right thing to do was, she had never imagined that she would end up in a situation like this, even on a planet with a plant that would probably eat someone if they dared to brush against the wrong part of it.
"What did you get up to today?" Grace asked, tucking her hair behind her ears as best she could as a determined breeze tried to blow it into her face.
"Nothing much really. I cleaned our room up and got a bit of research done." Ivory rolled onto her side. "I almost forgot, I had to remove Tigger from the dining hall by force. He managed to sneak out when I had the door open and ended up on one of the tables with his face in someone's lunch."
Grace rolled her eyes. "We really need to think about training him. Unless it was Velasquez's lunch, he pissed me off yesterday."
"It was not Velasquez's lunch, sorry to disappoint you."
"We can't win every time. Fucking wish it had been his though."
"What did he do?" Ivory asked curiously, pulling her jacket more tightly around herself in an ineffectual attempt to shield herself from the cold night air.
"He messed with one of my sample slides. Sit up for a second."
Ivory sat up reluctantly.
"Take this." Grace pulled her jumper off over her head and pushed it into her girlfriend's hands. "You need it more than I do."
