26 November Word: Bubbles, Ready to get started?

[Kim]

This week's word is:

Bubbles

Let this word inspire you. Write for 15 minutes a little story and post it here under this message.

[anne3rose]

Ok, think I'll type it here. It's 5:34...


Bubbles, there ought to be bubbles.

Kathryn leaned back in the tub and tried to imagine her tub back home. When she opened her eyes, she was still on the planet.

It had been several weeks and she was finally settling into the routine on "New Earth". Chakotay was tolerating her fanatical pursuit of the bug that infected them. She watched him, watching her, knowing he was waiting for her to work out her nervous energy on her quest.

It was only a matter of time.

It looked like her time had run out.

The storm that destroyed her equipment had at the same time destroyed her hope and revived it. They weren't getting off this planet, ever, but that opened as many doors as it closed.

She sat in the tub, wiggling her toes against the wood. Wood he had hand carved. Her thoughts drifted back to watching him carve other things for their home. It hadn't occurred to her until just then that he always seemed to have his workbench set up nearby. Usually in direct line of sight from where she was.

Kathryn smiled. One of his Maquis campaigns no doubt. Not over selling, just displaying the goods to their best advantage, and just out of reach. She'd been too consumed with her work to really think about it before, but he was always there, not close enough to push her, but close enough that she'd gotten used to it and missed him when he wasn't around.

Like right now—he wasn't around and she wondered what he was doing. He'd been working on a sand painting when she'd come outside. He barely looked up as she passed by. Now she wondered if his gaze had followed her as she left the shelter. Or was she just letting her imagination run away with her.

There was a rustling in the bushes a few feet away.

Kathryn sat up suddenly.

They hadn't seen any dangerous wildlife, but still, naked in a bathtub would be a bad way to discover a new predator.

She called for Chakotay as she clambered out of the tub and wrapped a towel around herself. She was still tucking in the end when he arrive, phaser in hand.

Just then, the monkey stepped out of the brush.

Kathryn had to laugh at the situation. There she was, a Starfleet—former Starfleet captain, she amended, standing in a towel because a monkey had frightened her.

She glanced back at Chakotay and caught his eyes, before they looked up to her face. He looked away quickly and mumbled something as he shifted his weight.

Then he was gone, back into the shelter.

Kathryn watched him go. Maybe it wasn't all in her imagination? Maybe it was time to have a little talk about redefining parameters to fit their new status outside the command structure...

5:49

[Dakota]

Kathryn stared into the glass and watched the bubbles rise to the surface and float around. It was a steady yet random pattern. She swirled the flute once and watched the bubbles spin on the surface.

She glanced across the room at the happy couple. Tom grinned at his friends but when he looked at B'Elanna, Kathryn thought he was staring at something rare and fragile. She smiled as his eyes met hers briefly.

When Tom looked away, Kathryn turned her attention back to her glass. The bubbles were still rising. One popped into oblivion, then another. Ever so gradually, the number popping increased as the number of new bubbles decreased.

Kathryn sipped from the glass and considered how like her life the bubbles were. A journey working her way to the top of some goal to enjoy a brief moment of happiness before it vanished and she had to find a new goal, a new challenge. It had been true during her childhood and at the Academy. She had spent long years before achieving her own command where her brief moment of happiness was only a few weeks before that bubble popped and she found herself seventy-five years from home.

She glanced back at Tom and B'Elanna. She had started the journey toward the goal they were celebrating only to have the bubble pop before she achieved it. Eventually she had tried again and again the bubble had popped.

Bubbles at the bottom of her glass caught her attention. They clung to the side trying to avoid the long journey to the surface and certain obliteration once the journey ended.

"What do you find so intriguing about that champagne?"

Chakotay's voice startled Kathryn and she jerked the glass loosening a few more bubbles near the bottom. She glanced briefly into the brown eyes staring at her then back at the bubbles still clinging to the bottom of the glass. Again, she saw herself only this time she was clinging to the bottom, afraid to start a new journey, afraid it would end before she reached the top, afraid the time on the surface would be too short.

"I was just watching the bubbles."

"The bubbles in champagne always tickle my nose and make me smile."

"The ones on the bottom can't do that."

"Ahhh, but they do. They are there when I take the last sip and are the last I enjoy. In some ways the ones on the bottom are the best."

"So you like the bubbles on the bottom."

Kathryn looked back into his eyes wondering what he thought of her questions. The sparkle in his eyes and gentle smile were all the answer she needed, but the nod of his head was comforting all the same.

Kathryn lifted her glass to his. "To the bubbles on the bottom. May they always make you smile."

[Squirrelly]

Kathryn forced herself not to drum her fingers on the arm of her chair. Fifteen excruciatingly boring minutes until she could leave the bridge, but she was going to take it like a captain, by golly.

She could sense Chakotay's concern beside her, but she refused to give him even the satisfaction of a glance. All your fault, anyway, you Maquis charmer, she thought blackly. You and your dark eyes and angry warrior speeches.

The rational part of her mind told her she was being a little unfair to the so-called love of her life, but the hormonal pregnant part of her thought she was being more than just. She had been miserable ever since she crawled out of bed that morning.

First, there was the thing with breakfast. She had just finished eating her oatmeal, and had high hopes of keeping it down. Then Chakotay sat down to eat. She watched him liberally squirting ketchup on his eggs, and suddenly her stomach wanted to claw its way up out of her throat.

And then there was some mess or other in Engineering, so she had spent her lunch hour crawling around in Jeffries tubes, and now she was so hungry she thought she would pass out.

And even now, hungry as she was, her stomach rolled at the thought of eating whatever nutritional travesty Neelix had cooked up in the name of dinner.

How was she going to get through this? What if some aliens attacked and she was too busy ralphing into the toilet to command her ship. What in the world had they been thinking when--

Suddenly, in the middle of her frenzy of self-doubt, Kathryn stopped short. Something strange was happening. What was that funny sensation deep in her belly? That tiny tickling, like bubbles popping in her tummy...

And suddenly, she knew. A soft, gentle smile tugged at her mouth as she sat there, worries forgotten, waiting for her baby to kick again. This was what they had been thinking.

[Jade]

How did the heck did this happen to me? I was retired. I got to spend my time fishing. Now I only get to fish occasionally and even less often get a bite. Mostly I just watch the bubbles and think of my sg1 family.

Oh sure, I like get to travel and meet the some pretty cool aliens, but with this odd group? How did I get to the place where I would risk my life for them all.

The shimmer of the gate's pool draws me, sure. But if I never see a ripple in that odd pool of a wormhole, I would be satisfied if I could be within shouting of my team.

Yeah, I love fishing, yeah, I miss those long lazy days of doing nothing sometimes, but I know my place here. In the gateroom waiting for the seventh chevron to be locked, waiting for the reverse whirl to blast out and disappear. It is then that I get to see that open door to other worlds, where I may be only a bubble or a drop or a ripple or even a flood in the great mutlilevel universe.

Or with my friends I may just get to kick some G'ouald ...
_______________

Jadie
:cat35:

[Kim]

Ok, I have to follow my own rules.


She studied the bubbling ground at her feet and pulled her scarf around her face, hoping to block the sulfurous fumes rising around her.

“This is horrible.”

Chakotay put his gloved hand over his nose and mouth and nodded in reply. Speaking would require inhaling, and that was one thing he didn’t care to do too much of here in this…

“Slough? Swamp?”

She was going to demand answers and he’d been the designated victim. “Technically, it’s a mineral hot spring. Harry found it.”

“I’m sure he did.”

“You were the one bragging, Kathryn. The crew has an interest in knowing if their captain means what she says.”

“In other words, half the rations on the ship are right now riding on whether or not I find a cup of coffee within a quarter mile of here.”

“Just exactly is the distance ‘mile’, anyway?” Chakotay jumped sideways as the frosted vegetation beside him began to surge upward, and a split in the frozen ground emitted a blast of toxic-smelling gas.

“It’s a phrase, Chakotay… We say it back home in Indiana all the time.”

“You said it, and they called you on it. You said you could find a cup of coffee within a quarter mile.”

“And you’re here…”

“To confirm your efforts and witness your – “ he coughed. “Success.”

“Chakotay, a blood hound couldn’t find a cup of coffee in these fumes.”

He pulled the zipper of his parka up so that the collar rose up to his cheeks and buried his lower face.

“How safe is this place?”

“Safe enough. We don’t want to kill you, after all.”

She scanned the rough ground. Scrub bushes, low rolling hills and patches of snow and ice contrasted with the bubbling hot spots where the steam rose. She felt herself sinking in the soft soil and turned around, looking for something that would be a likely hiding spot.

She pulled off the red scarf that Tuvok had offered before beaming them down and draped it over the thorny bush. Then she turned in every direction, and the wind blew the furred edge of the hood.

“Ok, I don’t smell it here, so it must be downwind of us.”

“Right.” Chakotay shivered.

“Put up your hood, you’re losing too much body heat.”

“Find the coffee, Kathryn, and let’s get back to the ship. You have fifteen minutes.”

She glared at him before turning around and letting the wind buffet her back. Counting, slipping, sliding, she walked for six minutes with the wind, Chakotay a good two meters to the side, trying to stick to the ground were the brambles weren’t too bad but the ground was strong enough to bear his weight. Once or twice he slipped kneedeep into the mire and he heartily cursed Tuvok and Harry.

“What’s Tuvok got to do with this?” she yelled over the wind.

“We did some aikido last night. It’s a miracle that I’m even walking.” He was behind her, glaring at the mud on his boots.

“I heard you were pretty beat up after –" She stopped. “I smell it.”


And that was 15 minutes.


Kim B)

[Mlle Lambert]

When he gets here, I swear I'm going to kick his butt.
Why? Oh, just a little matter concerning a certain part of his anatomy that caused me to become pregnant, that's why!
Janet just told me. I can't believe this! I knew I should have never gone fishing with him! But Daniel convinced me. I guess he and Teal'c were sick and tired of him begging them to go with him when I refused.
My career is finished. The regulations forbid what happened between us! Relationships are unprofessional, whether pursued on or off duty, when they detract from blah blah blah... I'm going to kill him, then General Hammond is going to kill us.
When I found out, I sent him a message to come to my house when he was finished with his report. I decided to take a nice bubble bath. I've been here, watching the bubbles disappear for the past hour. No doubt, I look like a prune.
There's the doorbell. I am not going to answer it. Jack has a key, and I know he'll let himself in if I don't come to the door.
A few minutes pass. I finally hear the turning of the lock and he calls to me. "Sam?"
"I'm in here!" I left the bathroom door unlocked so he could just come in.
He opens the door. "What's--" he stops to regard me in the bathtub. "So you called me over here so we could take a bath? Do I really smell that bad?"
I rise from the water. "No, Jack. I told you to come here so I could do this." I grab a towel from the rack and hit him with it. (Not a very good weapon, I know, but it was the only thing available.)
"Ow! What was that for?" His muffled voice asks.
"What do you think it was for? I'm pregnant, Jack! It's all your fault!" I glare at the fluffy towel that is my commanding officer. "We're going to court martialed for this!"
"Ah, Sam?" He pulls the towel off of his head. "Sam, hey!"
Tears have begun to stream down my face. What is it with me? Must be hormones.
He takes me in his arms. "I'll talk to General Hammond. We'll get this straightened out. If need be, I'll retire."
I would answer, but the emotions have overtaken me. I sniffle and nod. Jack puts his hand on my abdomen, and gives me a slight smile. It tells me that no matter what happens, everything will be all right after all.

That's 15 minutes!
WHEW! And yes, that is an actual part of the AF regs, just w/o the blah blah blah part...

This post has been edited by Mlle Lambert on Nov 29 2003, 01:48 PM

[Kathryn47j]

I'm learning more about this and found I'm supposed to reply when I read stories. I hope you'll all forgive me for not doing that before now. I don't have much time on my computer and will probably be delinquent again.

What wonderful stories. I'm impressed that you can write something like this in only 15 minutes. I particularly liked the image of the champagne bubbles. I liked the story with the hot tub on new earth and the flutter in her tummy with the baby kicking brought back fond memories. Each of the stories was unique and very enjoyable.

~ Kathryn ~

[Dakota]

You don't HAVE to reply, but if you WANT to reply to all the literary efforts, the authors won't complain. :D