Watching Yute (23 page)

“
Put out your hand.” Cassidy
said softly with a little smile. Cheryl cautiously obliged. Cassidy
took it, and positioned it palm-down. The less-sensitive back of
her hand would be less ticklish to the soft little touches of the
little lizard. She placed the aeki on Cheryl’s hand, keeping her
own hand close.

“
Ah!” Cheryl whimpered,
“It’s feet feel so..” She got used to the little padded steps on
her skin, careful not to upset the aeki. It was pretty docile, so
Cheryl felt a little braver. She put her face closer to the aeki,
and stared it in the eye. “Hello….!” She said softly.

Cassidy just smiled, and stared at
Cheryl in adoration.

As some time passed, Cheryl’s look of
innocent wonderment dissolved, as she looked back into Cassidy’s
eyes. “I think I’m done with this. What do we do with
it?”

Cassidy took it back, smiling at
Cheryl. “Normally I’d get dressed and take him outside when I was
done my shower.” She stepped out of the stall, and placed the
lizard in a sink, and then came back to Cheryl. “But we still have
hot water.”

Long after fingertips were wrinkled,
they migrated activities to Cassidy’s bunk, briefly attacking the
wine from Cipriana. Without glasses handy, they drank right from
the bottle. While Cheryl was taking a turn, Cassidy dug for her
terminal to play some music. Cheryl’s was still at the
camp.

Cassidy had to turn on her terminal; it
wasn’t seeing a lot of use lately. Cheryl passed her the bottle,
and Cassidy took a swig, but nearly spit it out when the terminal
was done initiating. A notice on the screen waiting read Missed
call: Brandy – Message waiting.

“
Brandy? Like your ex,
Brandy?” Cheryl was surprised, but far less than
Cassidy.

Despite shock, Cassidy saw little
reason to care. “To heck with it. Hang on, I’ll find some
music.”

“
Nah, nah, may as well get
it done. Do you want me to go in the next room?”

Cassidy didn’t think she had anything
to hide from Cheryl, so the tapped the button. “Nah, it’s
cool.”

Brandy’s face appeared on the screen.
She looked worried. “I saw about the attack on the news. Are you
still at the weird temple base? Call me when you get this, I just
wanted to know if you were okay.” The message ended, and Brandy was
gone.

“
Damn, it’s on the news so
fast!” Cassidy went to switch to music.

“
Well? Call her back! She
was concerned enough to call.” Cheryl urged.

Fine, she was right, really. Cassidy
threw her top back on, and called back. It took a bit for Brandy to
pick up. “Cass! You are alright! When your terminal was off, I just
got more freaked out. You look fine.”

“
Yeah, I-“ Cassidy was cut
off by Cheryl. “Yeah, she’s only alright by luck! The silly twit
jumped on a grenade!”

“
What?” Brandy said, “That
was you? One of the people on the news mentioned a woman laying on
a grenade, and another woman throwing a grenade away...”

“
Hi, I’m the thrower, I have
some common sense.” Cheryl peeked around to get part of her face in
the picture. Cassidy pushed her back, and threw her top at
her.

“
Who’s your friend?” Brandy
asked.

“
Oh, that’s Cheryl.” Cheryl
had her top back on, so Cassidy pulled her over so they were both
in view of the terminal’s camera. “She’s uh…” Cassidy sighed a
little. “She’s Cheryl.”

Brandy smiled a calm smile, glad for
Cassidy to have someone, but a tiny bit disappointed that Cassidy
had someone. She spoke in a voice that quite well reflected a mix
of feelings. “I see. How long?”

“
We’re about a week early,
but we’re celebrating month six.” As Cassidy said it, she imagined
Brandy calculating how long it was after the breakup before Cassidy
and Cheryl got together. She refrained from asking if Brandy was
seeing anyone. She didn’t really want to hear it if she was, and if
she wasn’t, it would be uncomfortable as heck.

Brandy held up her smile, but the
effort it took seemed to imply that she was single. Maybe Cassidy
was trying to read too much. “Well congrats! You two look like a
good match. Anyway, I just wanted to hear that you were alright.
Both of you try to play safer, alright?”

“
Alright, will do, Brandy.
See you.”

“
Bye.”

And she was gone. Cassidy looked to
Cheryl with woeful eyes. “Part of me feels bad for her for some
reason.” Her face changed to an expression of mischief. “But the
bitch in me loves showing my ex the hot chick I bagged!”

Cheryl chuckled, and stopped short.
“Shit! If she saw the news, my folks probably did too! Can I call
em on your terminal?”

“
Yeah, sure.”

Cheryl punched them up. It rang, and
rang. Finally it connected, audio only. “Eh? Cheryl?” it was her
father’s voice, and he sounded half asleep.

“
Hey dad. Seen the news
today?”

“
Just caught the sports n’
weather, why?”

“
Not important. You were
asleep, it’s late, I’ll call you tomorrow.”

“
You sure?”

“
Yeah, yeah. I’ll tell you
all about it tomorrow. Go to sleep.”

“
Alrighty! Love
you!”

“
Love you!”

Cheryl disconnected, and switched to
some light music. “Hey Cassie.. would you wanna take some vacation
time and go visit them with me?”

“
Meet the folks, huh? Big
step!” Cassidy smirked.

Cheryl replied timidly. “Well… yeah, I
guess it is. Is that okay?”

Cassidy leaned forward and hugged
Cheryl tight. “You bet it is.”

“
Good.” Cheryl giggled
softly, and pressed Cassidy back onto the bunk.

~~~

Cipriana and most of the other women of
the unit, (barring those on night duty) wandered in some time later
to find Cassidy and Cheryl curled up (clothed) on Cassidy’s bunk.
Cassidy’s terminal was still playing music softly.

“
Aww…” Wanda said
quietly.

Maxine looked over and smirked. “Lazy
butts. If this happened on the guys’ side, they’d catch hell.” All
of the women knew that Cassidy and Cheryl would be here though,
with an official, unofficial excuse.

Wanda snickered. “If this happened on
the guys’ side, they’d be taking photos.”

Maxine looked at Wanda, who was still
looking at the napping pair. “You want to take a photo, don’t
you?”

“
They’re just so cute
together.” Wanda tilted her head with a little smile. As Cassidy
turned a little, her hair slid across her shoulder a bit. “Well,
now we know what it takes to get that hat off of her.”

Cipriana chuckled softly. “Go ahead,
take a picture. They might appreciate it.”

No sooner had the picture been taken
with Wanda’s terminal, than Cheryl began to wake,
yawning.

“
Hey Cheryl, like it?” Wanda
held her terminal in front of Cheryl, so she could see.

“
Mrrhh?” Cheryl peeked
through sleepy, half-opened eyes. “Mmhmm. Yeah.” She yawned again.
“Yeah, send me a copy.” She settled back in, closing her eyes
again.

Cassidy lifted her head. “Huh? Send
what?” but she saw Cheryl was going back to sleep, so she followed
suit before seeing the picture.

Wanda smiled quietly. “I guess I’ll
send it to both.”

Reluctantly, Cassidy and Cheryl slowly
accepted being awake. “Whu time’zit?” Cheryl mumbled, sitting
up.

“
Time for morning shift to
try to get a couple winks before they have to go to work.” Came a
grumpy voice from a lump under a blanket across the
room.

“
Sorry,” Cassidy said, “we
can take a double shift to help out.”

“
I don’t think that’s
necessary,” Cipriana said, “Your anniversary gift was a gift, you
don’t compensate people for a gift. Besides, we all would have been
on our little hike regardless of where you two were. And it was
only a few hours. Morning shift will survive just fine. Before I
forget however, I considered a new rule for your little
camp.”

Here it comes. Cassidy and Cheryl held
their breath, like a convicts awaiting sentencing. Cheryl literally
crossed her fingers.

“
I don’t think we need fear
your camp being a target, but I’d feel irresponsible if I didn’t
take some manner of precaution.” Cipriana somehow even made laying
down the law sound kindly. “As such, I’m afraid I’ll have to ask
you, and everyone not on night shift, to spend night time in the
base. However, I see no harm in the two of you spending your
morning free time at the camp.”

Cassidy and Cheryl looked at each other
with silent conference, and gave each other a little nod. “Sounds
fair, Cip.” “Can we hug you, Cip?”

Cipriana sighed. “That’s quite alright,
I’ll pass.”

Cheryl put her lips to Cassidy’s ear,
and whispered a little. “Oh yeah!” Cassidy said, “Cip, could Cheryl
and I take a few days off, go visit her folks?”

“
I’m guessing you both have
time stocked?”

“
Yup.” Cheryl answered for
them both.

“
I’ll try to make
arrangements. Let me know when you would like to go, and for how
long, and I’ll see what I can do.”

~~~

After getting a little more sleep
Cassidy and Cheryl put themselves together and headed out shortly
after morning shift did. They ran into Marcus just
outside.

“
Hey ladies,” he greeted, “I
guess you have mornings off until further notice. Tours are off
indefinitely.”

“
Oh? Was that Armil’s call?”
Cassidy asked.

“
It was a collaborative
decision,” Marcus said, “But yes, the final call was his. He didn’t
feel the risk was worth the benefits of doing the tours until we
understand the motives behind yesterday’s stupidity.”

“
That’s too bad. I’ll miss
the kids that come” Cheryl paused. “But it’s about their safety
more than anything, I guess.”

“
Come on, Cheryl,” Cassidy
said, “we have almost eight hours until shift, let’s go
camping!”

“
Yup!” Cheryl followed
alongside Cassidy, and waved back at Marcus. “See you
later!”

The camp was as welcome a sight as
ever. It had developed into quite a little haven over the months.
The tent with its blankets and sleeping bags, Cheryl’s terminal,
the grill, a cooler protecting a stockpile of ‘borrowed’ goods, all
protected from some of the sun’s harshest hours by a convenient
wall of the ruins.

Having camp almost taken from them gave
them pause to appreciate it, and remember Cipriana’s lenience about
it from the beginning.

“
We’re not going to be able
to keep it forever.” Cassidy grabbed a knife out of the cooler, and
looked at the wall. “What if we left something a bit more
permanent?”

Cheryl chuckled. “Would that even be
legal?”

“
Probably not, but I won’t
tell if you don’t.”

“
Okay, bad-girl. First I
want to call my folks. Do you want to be in on the
call?”

“
Sure.” Cassidy dropped the
knife at the base of the wall, and sat by Cheryl with the terminal.
Cheryl rang up her folks, and they took much less time to pick up
than in the middle of the night- go figure. A woman appeared that
looked a lot like an older version of Cheryl. “Cheryl!”

“
Hey mom! Sorry about
ringing last night, I-“

“
Oh, oh, don’t apologize!
It’s just as well! We didn’t see what happened on the news until
this morning, and since you called, we already knew things were
fine. Are you okay?”

“
Yes, mom.”

A male voice was heard hollering
somewhere off-screen. “Sandy! Izzat her?”

Cheryl’s mom turned to the side, and
answered back. “Yes, Peter, come on.” A moment later, Cheryl’s dad
was there as well.

“
Hey dad!”

“
Cheryl, you alright? The TV
was talking about a couple terrorists?”

“
Bah,” Cassidy grunted,
“They were just a pair of idiots. No real concern. We should watch
the news and see how bad they’re over inflating this.”

Mom spoke up again, “Oh! Cheryl, are
you going to introduce us to this young lady? I assume this
is….”

“
Yes,” Cheryl put her arm
around Cassidy’s shoulders, and drew her close. “This is Cassidy,
and she’s fan-tab-ulous. Cassidy, these are my parents, Sandy and
Pete.”

“
Well it’s great to finally
meet you, Cassidy.” Sandy said, “It seems our little Cheryl is
quite enamored with you.”

Cassidy couldn’t help blush a little.
“Well, feeling’s more than mutual, Mrs. Lowe!”

“
Oh, please, Call me
Sandy.”

“
Hey there, hey wait a
minute.” Peter jumped in, putting on a bit of an air of concern.
“Now Cassidy, you can understand that my wife and I are very
interested in the idea of grandchildren. This leads me to wonder;
do you have a penis?”