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2
I'd Always Had A Penchant For 1950s Women's Fashion
Jack
Theemergingripalarmwoke me, but the dispatcher didn't get a chance to call me directly. I acknowledged the alarm and quickly climbed out of bed. It was my bed, which was lamentable, but at least my being on-call wouldn't have woken Mimi had I been in her bed where my dreams always took me.
I scrubbed a hand over my face, noting the stubble but disregarding it for the scar. Every rip flight carried the potential for disaster. Reminding myself that impending disaster wasn't always obvious despite the warnings was a good way to start a flight.
I started donning my flight suit but my eyes caught on the full-length mirror hanging on the back of the door. I stared at the reflection for several seconds, noting the weight loss, the decrease in muscle mass. I'd recovered some, since returning to this RATS, but there was still a way to go before I was completely back to my previous level of health.
Maybe there was more to me sleeping in my room than being on-call.
I shook my head and finished dressing, then ignoring my reflection, opened the door. The hall wasn't empty. Bryan Fawkes, the alternate universe Bryan Fawkes and not my dead friend Bryan Fawkes, was standing outside my door. I halted in my tracks, unsure what he'd do; not knowing this man like I knew my Bryan. Not trusting him, but finding it hard to not trust him.
My head hurt just looking at him.
My heart hurt even more.
"What are you doing here, Bryan?" I asked.
"I heard the alarm." To hear the alarm, he must have been out of his room. The alarm only activated the speakers in the bedrooms of those on-call or in public areas of the Academy.
I scrubbed my face; I didn't have time for this.
"Go back to bed, Bryan," I said.
"Is Sally flying with you?"
"Miss Groves is grounded."
"Why?" he demanded, clearly feeling affronted for Sally's misfortune.
Ironic, really.
"That is RATS business, Doctor. Please, return to your room."
He glared at me for a long moment. I held perfectly still, ready to react if needed. This Bryan being here, in our time and plane, was a complication we could all do without. Had I been conscious at the time we picked him up, I would have dropped him off somewhere else. Another time, another place.
Not here and not now.
But it had been Mimi who brought this Bryan back to our RATS. Mimi, who couldn't abandon a stranger who, in an alternate universe, had been a friend.
"Bryan," I started.
"I'll go back to my room," he said and turned away. His shoulders were hunched, his steps carefully placed, as if any sudden movement on his part would shatter him.
I let out a slow breath of air and the sound of the rip alarm continually ringing in the background finally brought me back to the task at hand. I was now officially late.
Putting on an unbecoming burst of speed, I made my way to Dispatch.
Of course, my day had started so disastrously, I could hardly expect it to change.
My Intern and Novitiate had beaten me here, which I had expected, considering my delay. But what I hadn't expected to see was Mouse. Mimi was grounded and shouldn't have been in Dispatch at all. On top of that, she was in her pyjamas. Little pink pigs were printed all over the fabric, curving around all her luscious dips and hollows, right down to the hem that touched her bare feet. She was wearing pink nail polish on her toes to match the pink piggies.
How was I supposed to deal with that?
"Doctor Evans," Jessica Harding said, breaking my stunned reaction. "The rip is expanding, we don't have much time, sir."
