It's Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas

John And Mike Take A Holiday (Part II)

The most time consuming part of clearing the UNIT facility was tracking down academics who had yet to notice that there was anything aims. Jayne had always marvelled at the capacity for the academic mind (Erin's included) to become focused on the job at hand to the exclusion of all else. Jayne found it rather an endearing quality. It had taken no more than a few hours to clear the facility. As well as everyone being well practiced at the lockdown procedure about half of the projects were already secured due to engineering and bio-chem conferences being held in Brisbane and Sydney respectively.

After everyone had cleared the building came guard duty. There being no great rush to get the facility up and running again, it wasn't exactly a front line post, work on the system repairs wasn't going to begin until the following morning. Problem was, the facility couldn't be left unattended, especially without the regular security systems operational. The first on the duty roster in this instance were Jayne and Julian. It was odd for the CO to take guard duty but Julian refused to give his people duties he wasn't prepared to do himself and so, every so often he was on guard duty or other duties considered below his pay grade. This earned him a great deal of respect from his people, especially the non-military portion.

When Erin, John and Mike were about to leave Jayne to her solitary duty, Mike thought better of it.

"You go on ahead, I'll keep Jayne company," he said.

"You don't have to. I'll be fine on my own."

"I know, I'd like to. Do you mind?"

"Of course not, I'd be glad for the company."

Once John and Erin had left Jayne and Mike settled into a comfortable silence until, minutes later, Jayne's radio crackled to life.

"Greyhound to Trap two, do you read?

"Reading you Greyhound. How's The Robin fairing?"

The Robin was Vincent's code name, he was an excellent gymnast.

"Robin is faring well. Broken leg and bump to the head, nothing serious. Do you want some company on guard duty? I can probably come back in."

"Don't worry about it Greyhound, Captain Yates is keeping me company."

"Understood Trap two. Out."

"You remind me a lot of him you know, your grandfather, I mean," Mike said after a moment.

"You know, I never really get tired of hearing that. People say it all the time."

"Quite right to. He was one of the greatest men I've ever known and I've known some pretty great ones."

"Mike?"

"Yes."

"What was it like being gay in the seventies? I know it's kind of a personal question, don't feel you have to tell me, I've just always been curious."

"Honestly, a lot like it is now. Pre-Stonewall it could be pretty bad, I mean it was illegal. Between Stonewall in sixty-nine and the AIDS pandemic in the eighties it was pretty good. Exciting. There was momentum and change was happening finally. It really felt like you were part of something important. You know I was at the first Pride march in London?"

"Really?"

"John was there too, of course we hadn't met at that point. I wasn't entirely convinced about the whole idea but I thought it was important to go."

"I'd love to have been a part of the early first wave."

"The eighties and early nineties were terrifying. Gay men were dying like flies. We weren't the only ones but it seemed like it at the time. The treatments were as bad as the disease or worse and nobody cared because it only seemed to be killing Gay men and IV drug users so nobody knew anything about it. It was frustrating."

Mike, to keep himself from getting worked up,changed the subject and their conversation drifted until, an uneventful fewhours later they were relieved by a pair of Sergeants. They arrived back atErin's house quite late in the evening. When they arrived Erin was markingassignments and John was quite happily reading an Icelandic Saga.