Will You Fight?
Sloan sat on their bed and watched Tom as he walked around their room getting ready for bed, stripping out of his work out clothes, going into the bath and turning on the water to fill the tub. Like nothing was wrong. Like he had not decided it was time to die.
"Why can't you just tell Mark you can't do it?" She asked again.
Tom sighed and came to stand in the bathroom doorway. "We've been over this, Sloan. I am Council Chosen. As well as the fact that Mark made his decisions on the San Jose house based on my recommendations. I am at least as responsible for what happened as he and the council." Tom's eyes were dark with pain and it squeezed Sloan's heart to think about how much had been lost when the Human League Militiahad blown up San Jose House.
"So resign!" Sloan yelled at him. It was yell or break down crying, and she refused to do that. "Retire! Maybe we're both to old for this life. People do it all the time."
"Chosen don't, Sloan."
Chosen.
Of course. Chosen don't retire. Chosen die.
Sloan stared in to Tom's eyes, daring him to say it out loud.
He said nothing. But his eyes slid away, unable to meet hers any longer. She wanted in. She wanted to know what he was feeling, but he had been shielding almost continually for days now. He wouldn't let her in.
"Don't?" Sloan asked. "Or won't? You aren't going to this gathering to establish the will of the people or defend Mark's policies; you're going because you blame yourself for the 72 dead children at the San Jose house." Her voice was thick with unshed tears, but she wouldn't give in and cry. She knew the first tear would lead to a flood which she could not afford to loose just yet. Not while there was still a chance of making him see how wrong this was. "You want to get in that circle with whoever William has found to represent him and you want to be punished for making a MISTAKE. But it won't bring them back, Tom. It just plays into William's hands. He'll seize the council with this if you let him, Tom, and then he'll take it back twenty years."
She stopped and bit her lip, afraid the tears were coming whether she wanted it or no.
Tom folded his arms across his chest and watched her with hunter eyes, then he turned away and walked back in to the bathroom. Sloan watched the play of muscles in his back and legs as he walked to the large soaking tub, reached over and turned off the water. There was little in the way he moved that gave away his nearly 55 years of age: a slight stiffening of the joints, a greater economy of movement. These were apparent to someone who had spent over twenty years watching him move, but most humans would never have guessed Tom's age on first meeting unless they looked into his eyes. Piercing, gray blue eyes that missed nothing and could go from laughter to death in a heartbeat. Eyes that were so very tired.
And then Sloan realized Tom wanted this argument. He wanted to believe she hated him as much as he hated himself right now. Punishment. He could never hurt enough to make up for the deaths of those children.
Sloan got up off the bed and walked up behind him. He turned the water off and stood up next to the soaking tub. As he straightened she ran her left hand up his spine to his neck and around his throat, then circled his waist with her right and ,drawing him close, kissed the tattoo that marked him chosen. She heard him draw a shallow breath as she lay her cheek against the tattoo and said softly, "I'll always love you."
***
How did she know? How did she always know? He had not let her presence touch his since the day they got the news from San Jose, so how did she know?
Sloan pressed up against his back in just a cotton slip, her hand at his throat, and everywhere she touched was electric. It hurt so much to think about losing this, leaving her behind.
Tom turned and caught her face in his hands. Her eyes were full of unshed tears and as he stood there one escaped and rolled down her cheek in a thin line. He caught it on his thumb and moaned as her love washed over him. After all these years she could still make him feel things in ways he had never thought possible.
Sloan covered his hands in hers and gently pulled them away from her face and stepped back.
"Sloan..." He reached for her again, but she evaded his grasp with a slight smile.
"Shhhh..."
Sloan pulled off her slip and tossed it into the bedroom and shut the door. She was so beautiful. When he looked at her now he saw fulfillment of all the strength and promise he had seen in her more than twenty years ago. Her figure had thickened from child birth, her face had lines around the eyes and mouth that deepened when she laughed and her hair was shot through with grey, but he knew first hand the strength and courage that lay behind these changes and he cherished them.
She picked up the basin next to the bath and dipped it into the water. Coming back to him, she lifted the basin slowly poured the water out across his shoulders, went back for more water, and then poured that across his chest. She repeated this twice and then took the soap and a bath mit, lathered it up and began to scrub his back and lower down.
With every touch, every movement, she loved him. How could she do that? After all his failures. He was getting old. He had slipped. It was his fault those children had died. Seventy-two children, eighteen mothers, twenty aunts: the entire San Jose Mother House compound shelled into oblivion by the Human League militia.
Because he had said it would be safe. He had thought the risks could be controlled.
He grabbed her hands as she moved around scrub his chest.
"Sloan, don't - "
"Shhhhhh." Again she silenced him, and pleaded. "Let me do this."
He relented and let go. She settled back into a rhythm as she scrubbed and Tom closed his eyes and let her.
Mark had agreed that it was time they have an open presence among the humans. They had wanted to defuse rumors that Dominants somehow enslaved their females and kept them locked up like chattel. There had been calls in the American legislature for investigation into the conditions under which communally raised Dominant children lived. Many of the more conservative politicians had problems with the fact that most Dominants never married and many had children at a very young age.
Keeping the Mother Houses closed and isolated was endangering all the acceptance that the Co-existence Faction had won for Dominants in American society. It had seemed like the time was right to establish a house in the open, in an urban center. Even William, the most hard line seperatist on the council had not opposed the measure as strongly as he might have.
Sloan moved behind him again and crouched down as she scrubbed his legs. Long even strokes in a steady rhythm, her love pulsing around him in time to her touch.
Where had the militia gotten the damn shells? They had set up on the roofs of buildings surrounding the compound but far enough away that they were out of range of sensing by the guards. They had waited until the early hours of the morning and then rained down destruction on the compound.
The men who had done the actual shelling were found dead with their equipment. A suicide mission. No one to question, nothing for the police to go on. Of course the chameleons were not as limited as the police, but so far they had not tracked the source of the weapons. William was calling for an elimination campaign against the Human League. Which of course why he called the gathering.
There had not been an elimination campaign since the Co-existence Faction had gained a majority on the council. Not since the gathering where Tom had won the right for Mark to stand as leader of the council. Won that right by killing Joshua, the previous Council Chosen, in the circle. He had been old and out of step with the will of the people. So Tom had thought at the time.
Joshua had been 46 years old.
Hot water poured down across his shoulders again and brought Tom back to the present. He realized his eyes were closed.
He opened them just in time to see Sloan sluicing herself down with water as well. She smiled at him. The tears were gone and all he saw in her eyes were love and playfulness. She climbed into the tub, settled into the neck-deep steaming water, and then held out her hand for him.
"Join me?" she grinned.
He fixed on her and every other thought dropped away. This woman. His mate. His life. What he had done to deserve her he still did not know, but he would never leave her.
He took her hand and joined her in the tub, his eyes locked with hers. He slipped into the water and she pulled herself round until he was under her. They kissed over and over again, hands sliding along wet skin hotter even than the bath water it seemed. Touching everywhere, moving in time and rhythm they both knew so well. Her presence open to him as always, he finally dropped his shields and allowed her in. The love she brought with her radiated out through him warming every cold place and brought with it an urgency that made him moan.
Then, at the moment he thought he would lose himself in her altogether, she stopped and held him, trembling. She leaned in close and brushed his lips oh so lightly and said, "Will you fight?"
He grasped the back of her neck.
"Yes!"
And he pulled her in to kiss as he surged up beneath her and they both forgot about anything except the feeling of the other.