Jayme stood and with her arms crossed over her chest she walked to stand just inside the opening to their cave to watch the storm. She wanted to walk out into it, to feel the electrical energy surge across her flesh, to smell the fresh air that follows a storm like this one. In the distance she heard a tree crack, rustle and thump down near by. The water was loud rushing over the rocks at the near by river.
Jayme closed her eyes, leaned against the cave wall occassionally getting gusts of wind and a light dusting of snow across her face. The temperature had dropped about 20 degrees Celcius since morning and the ground was we enough that any snow wouldn't stick but it was damn cold and she still hadn't dried out from her fall in the river that evening when they were gathering fire wood. She started doing some thinking--'When?...and she counted the weeks and came up with the week of the Dinner party with Will and Karissa. So this had nothing to do with the McCoy...a feeling of dread still filled her when it should have made her glad that it was Nathans...' A sharp gust of wind made her reposition her feet so that she didn't fall over but kept thinking...'Why now?' She needed the command experience of running the base or a ship unit or an expeditionary force in order to advance in rank to colonel...she didn't have time for motherhood. She wanted to finish her medical training, spend more time with Nate...but this...it was too much and she knew she didn't want to do it alone. She thought of Nathan being in Serenity City at Paladin Medical Center--half a planet away from her current life... Maybe... She thought about all of the ways she could make this all go away...to be nothing but a bad dream. She had none of the items at hand, but back at base she did. If she fell and was injured...that could solve the problem and she thought to take a walk to the river and check out the water and the boulder she'd sunbathed on...or hell if she got hypothermia and pneumonia...that could work...could work...could work.
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