![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Posted a new H5O story today
"In the Breathless Night"
Can be found at my AO3 page: http://archiveofourown.org/works/944159
It's a tiny snippet of Adam and Kono on the run, because I love their doomed romance so. And there are not a lot of us! The Adam/Kono tag over there had all of 12 stories listed, and (having clicked on all 12), in many of those they are together only off screen, don't even have an in-fic conversation. !! So, small increase in the number has a big impact percentage wise. ;-)
I wanted to write them a longer story, but alas, it never raised it's head.
And - as always - a huge shout out and thanks to Ms_Artisan, who provided a lovely beta even in her week of laptop disaster. Yay Ms Artisan!
Can be found at my AO3 page: http://archiveofourown.org/works/944159
It's a tiny snippet of Adam and Kono on the run, because I love their doomed romance so. And there are not a lot of us! The Adam/Kono tag over there had all of 12 stories listed, and (having clicked on all 12), in many of those they are together only off screen, don't even have an in-fic conversation. !! So, small increase in the number has a big impact percentage wise. ;-)
I wanted to write them a longer story, but alas, it never raised it's head.
And - as always - a huge shout out and thanks to Ms_Artisan, who provided a lovely beta even in her week of laptop disaster. Yay Ms Artisan!
no subject
“I worked all over Asia for the next six years or so. I loved it, especially the first four, maybe five of them. By then it was the early seventies, though, and the world was changing again. We’d lost the war in Vietnam, which increasingly looked to have been a colossal mistake. Watergate happened. It was clear that policy makers in Washington were paying no attention at all to knowledgeable people in the field. Good agents fought and died to bring in actionable intelligence and, nothing. Nada. Bupkiss. Same stupid mistakes, same stupid orders. I shot my mouth off to the wrong people,” she caught Kono’s eyes, “Surprise!”
Kono chuckled encouragingly.
“After that I found myself in more difficult missions, doing more dangerous, complicated things. Bad stuff went down. I became a feminist. And a hippy. You know. For the CIA version of the same.” She rolled her eyes, gently mocking her past self. “I got reassigned to a desk job in Honolulu in late 1974.”
“That’s where you met Steve’s dad?”
“Yep.” Doris’s smile turned gentle and full of delight. “He was handsome as could be, a Vietnam vet, about eight years older than me. He was still in uniform, on the street, ticketing my car day after day. I’m not sure how long it took him to figure out I was doing it on purpose. A while. Eventually he asked me out for coffee.”
“And you fell in love.”
Doris’s smile faded and she was quiet for a time. At last she said, “He fell in love. I fell in love with the idea of falling in love, quitting the CIA, playing house, having babies, gardening, knitting, decoupage, getting involved with the women’s movement, finally getting a college degree…”
“Decoupage?”
“It was a thing. It was the seventies. You shellacked paper cut outs or photographs onto, well, everything that couldn’t run. Rosanne Barr, back in her stand up days, had a bit about decoupaging her husband because he never moved from in front of the T.V. I laughed so hard I pissed myself the first time I heard it.” Doris laughed heartily again, in memory. Though of decoupage, Rosanne Barr, or John McGarrett, it was impossible to say.
Kono wasn’t interested in weird 1970s decorating habits. Or Rosanne Barr. “So. You married him.”
“Yes.” Doris nodded. “I married him. Quit the CIA. Moved into our cute little house out in xxxx, and threw myself into my new life.”
Kono wasn’t aware of making a sound, but Doris shot her a sharp-eyed glance and waved an admonishing finger at her. “Don’t look so judgmental, Kono. I wife-d the hell out of John McGarrett. Perfect meals, spotless house, charming hostess, tiger in the sack. I wanted him to be as happy as I was. And I was happy. So, so was he.” Her voice softened again. “In my memory that time is always bright, sparkling with sun and laughter and flowers.”
This time, Kono didn’t interrupt.
“The babies came, they were beautiful. John made detective. I started classes at the university. In fact I was part of one of the early day-care collectives on campus. Still one of the things I’m proudest of. Getting the University of Hawaii to provide child care for students.”
“Go you!”
“The personal is political, baby.” Doris bumped Kono’s raised fist with her own. Then her smile faded and she took up her story again. “The glow started to come off about the time Mary started school. I’d finished my degree. In Asian studies, natch. John was gone most of the time on cases, fantastic cases. He was doing brilliantly. But it meant I was more or less a single parent. I got lonely. And bored. And frustrated. So I volunteered everywhere and started talking about looking for a part time job.”
“Someone must have been watching and waiting, because I’d no more than admitted it, in my heart, that I was unhappy to be so without purpose, when the CIA came calling again.”
Kono had no difficulty at all imagining a bored, restless, high-energy Doris McGarrett, kids at school, husband on the job, time hanging heavy on her hands. “An easy mark.”
“All over again. New verse, same as the first.”
Doris looked directly at Kono then. “If I have one thing I could do over, it would be that. I would turn them down.”
“But you didn’t.”
“No. I didn’t.”