It Needs To Stop

Writers: Dana, Eimi
Date Posted: 18th January 2006

Characters: Ar'lis, Gaiya
Description: Ar'lis tells Gaiya what passed between him and Tiya earlier that day
Location: River Bluff Weyr
Date: month 9, day 17 of Turn 3
Notes: Follows "Accepting the Past"

Gaiya watched as Ar'lis pushed his food around on his plate. She knew there was something on his mind. With all that had been happening recently, that was nothing new. But she wished he would just _tell_ her what it was! "You don't like whiteroots, Ar'lis?"

"The whiteroots are fine, sweetheart," he replied, looking up at her and giving her a small smile before popping one in his mouth. He chewed slowly, watching her face. Ever since Zylarth lost Faylith's flight, something seemed to be...strained between them. Since then he'd been the considerate bedmate that he had always been to her, but something still seemed off, and he sharding didn't know what it was. He swallowed, shrugging that thought away. He was probably over-thinking things. He seemed to be doing that a lot lately.

"Is there something on your mind?" She looked at him over the rim of her wine glass. He had been acting strange all day. It worried her.

A dry smile tugged at his mouth. "Not something, _someone_." At her questioning look, he said, "Tiya."

"Tiya?" It was an unexpected answer to say the least!

"Yes. Tiya." Ar'lis shook his head. "Gaiya, the girl..." He ran a frustrated hand through his hair. "Shards, that girl." He sighed and shook his head again. "We had an...interesting conversation today out on the bluff."

What on Pern could they possibly have talked about? "Oh?"

"Despite her thoughtless ravings, she did have one good point - one that I'm determined to follow." His smile was humorless. "But shards, Gaiya...there's something wrong with that girl. _Still_. Abrei should be keeping more of a trained eye on her."

"Abrei is doing her best, love," Gaiya said rather defensively. After all, Abrei was almost like family to her. "But you said she made a good point? About what?"

Ar'lis took a long drink from his glass. "About me needing to sharding get over Lenala. To get over what happened that day. To sharding stop _dwelling_ on it!" He slammed his glass abruptly down on the table, his brown eyes burning with anger - anger directed at himself.

Gaiya jumped as the glass slammed against the wood. A slight hint of fear shone in her eyes as she glanced up at the bronzerider. "She's been through a lot, Ar'lis..."

He shoved his chair back and stood, running impatient fingers through his hair. "Shards, I know it, Gaiya. I know." He then gave a bitter laugh.
"But she's right about some of it, you know. Some of what she told me. She's fifteen Turns old, and she was _right_ about me needing to move on."
His eyes flickered to Gaiya. "Because I'm hurting others by not getting past it." He slowly moved over towards her, his fingers reaching to touch her hair. "And it needs to stop."

His flipping between brooding to angry to gentle was confusing to her, but Gaiya tried to smile up at him, understanding that he needed support now. When had their relationship stopped being fun and started being so sharding serious? Of course it wasn't his fault, but she longed for the simpler time when they could just _enjoy_ each other. It wasn't really all that long ago! And she could see in his eyes that he did too. "I will help you if I can."

His hand gently sank into her hair, his lips finding the top of her head in a gentle kiss before trailing lightly down to her brow. "You are helping, sweetheart." Then he chuckled and drew back to look down into her eyes. "Remember when the only sharding things we had to worry about were what time you could leave the weyrbrats for the day, and how long I could keep you in that bed the following morning until I had to rush away to drills?"

Gaiya nodded against his lips. She did remember.

His hands slid down her arms as the words he wanted to say danced on the tip of his tongue. But instead of saying them, his mouth moved lower to caress her lips with his.

She, on the other hand, made sure that her lips responded with all the words she knew he _wanted_ to hear...

Last updated on the January 18th 2006

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It Needs To Stop