So many issues, so little time

[helsinkibaby]

Let's get the ranting out of the way, shall we, with the torture known as American Idol, which I've just finished watching.

How the hell is that thing, who looks like an overgrown Hobbit, moves like a spastic marionette and has the voice to match staying around so long? I never thought I'd find the contestant that could match my Josh hatred of last season, but he's surpassing it. By a mile. OK, so I've never forgiven the massacring of Tiny Dancer in his heat, but last week, he killed She Believes In Me stone dead, and he should have gone instead of Matt. Dear sweet Matt, how do I miss thee. This week, This Old Heart of Mine didn't suck quite as bad as last week, but lordy me, he was still weaker than anyone else on that panel. Apart from maybe Camille, but that girl needs serious work done on her nerves. Amy should not have been in the bottom three, this week or last. Jennifer, this week, should not have been within an ass's roar of the bottom three. Latoya, ok, she was rough because you couldn't hear her over the frelling band. John Stevens, yes, had an off night, and while I love him singing, I'm of the opinion that he's not American Idol material, much as I do love him. He should have been in there this week, and from the look on his face he knew that damn well, and the only reason he's not is the teenage girl vote, which you do not fuck with, that's why we had to put up with Josh for so long. And I really feel for Amy, who's got a better voice and more stage presence than at least three of them up there that I can think of. And no, it's not JPL JPL and JPL, though he is one of them. Anyone know the theme for next week? And please, can we get JPL the hell off my screen?

All I can say is, at the risk of jinxing him, thank God for George. He can sing, he can dance (the only guy left who can, because JS doesn't have a stick of rhythm and see above re my opinion of JPL) he's funny, he's got a heck of a smile, and oooh, did I mention that he can sing? I swear, the day my boy gets beat by JPL is the day I turn off this show and never watch again.


I feel ten pounds lighter now.

Did I mention I have a half day of school left before the holidays? Because I do.

And fic. For the csreports anniversary challenge, where I also incorporated the REM song titles challenge. It's called
Star 69
Warrick’s worked with Sara for four years now, is pretty sure he knows what to expect from her. So he’s pretty surprised when, having extracted a confession from the guy they’ve been chasing for over a week, he goes into the observation room and finds it empty.

Surprise rapidly gives way to concern though, because Sara’s not been herself lately, skipping the interview just one symptom of a wider disease. Turning, he head towards the lobby, intending to ask the receptionist has she seen Sara. Such enquiries are rendered redundant when he sees Sara there, arms wrapped around herself, staring off into space.

“Hey girl,” he says, walking up to her. “You see that?”

She turns to him, nodding and smiling with a vaguely distracted air. “Yeah, he went,” she said. “Good work.” But by the time she says the second sentence, she’s turned away from him, is staring off into space again.

Then he realises that she’s not staring into space.

She’s staring at a dark wall of stars, at one star in particular.

That’s when it all makes sense.

“Sara?” he asks gently, dismayed to see her swallow hard, tears in her eyes.

“Star 69,” she says to him, pointing it out. “Not even a name… just the 69th cop killed in the line in a given period of time… like he didn’t even matter.”

Warrick sighs, stepping closer to her. “He mattered,” is all he says, wishing he could say something, anything, that would take away her pain. Truth to tell, he didn’t realise sooner that it’s almost a year since fate played the cruellest trick imaginable on Sara, a year since Cyrus was shot and killed.

He, like everyone else, kept a close eye on Sara after that, but he’s dropped the ball on it lately, because she’s been doing better, or at least, so he thought. But anniversaries are hard, he knows that from personal experience, and he promises himself – promises Cyrus come to that – that he’s not going to make that mistake again.

So he reaches up, puts an arm around Sara’s shoulder, and it’s a measure of how low she’s feeling that she not only doesn’t push him away, but leans into him, as if he’s the only thing holding her up. “I miss him Warrick.” The words are so quiet that he can barely hear them, but he squeezes her shoulder to let her know he did.

“You know I’m here for you, right?”

She straightens, grins, wipes at her eyes. “I know.”

“Sara.” His voice is firm, and he holds her gaze, and her shoulder, until she looks away, more tears threatening.

“Thank you,” she whispers, not looking at him, and that’s when he drops his hand, moving his other one to her back, ushering her to the exit.

“Come on,” he says. “Let’s get back.”

She throws one last glance back to the star on the wall. Then she follows him out into the light. and it's a Sara/Warrick friendship piece, set in the Fool for Lesser Things universe. Anyone remember when I was finished with that after 92,000 words? Those were the good old days!

Also, more Alias fic - please tell Weiss to shut up! This is for the writers_choice Accidental Tourist challenge, where I prove I'm crap with titles, and that write what you know sometimes works, apart from when you end up with endings you really didn't expect!
Accidental Tourists
For vacation photographs taken with a disposable camera, Weiss thinks they turned out pretty good, and Sydney agrees with him.

Not that it was a real vacation, more a happy accident, a fault on the CIA plane rendering it unsafe to fly, leaving them with a six-hour repair stop-over in Ireland. Neither she nor Weiss, having just escaped a mission with the lives yet again, were in the mood to sit around Baldonnell Air Force Base, and, perhaps seeing that, the Base Captain had suggested that they go sightseeing in Dublin, only a short car journey away.

They hadn’t had to think twice.

The camera had been Weiss’s first purchase, along with a guide book, something that Sydney had teased him over, but she’d been glad of it when Weiss had been the perfect tour guide.

She sits on her couch now as they pass pictures back and forth, and she can’t believe it was only a year ago.

There she is, standing beside the Anna Livia fountain – locally nicknamed, Weiss had read ever so seriously, “The Floozie in the Jacuzzi” – seconds away from doubling over in laughter when Weiss suggested that she should copy the pose sometime.

There is Weiss, standing beside the statue of James Joyce, mimicking the pose exactly, though she got her own back on him, made him laugh when she told him that to be really precise, he should have had his shoes on the other feet.

Trading photographer duty, there is one of each of them beside the statue of Molly Malone (“The Tart with the cart” opined Weiss, in a mock-professorly voice) and two more of them in front of the entrance to Trinity College, and while there are none of the Book of Kells, photography forbidden inside the library, they are each now sipping hot chocolate from mugs with ornate Celtic designs on them, courtesy of the college gift shop.

Two more photographs, this time of them in the Guinness Hops store, requisite pint of “The Black Stuff” in hand. She caught Weiss in mid-sip, giving her the thumbs up, letting her know that it tasted fine. His taste buds are obviously different to hers though, as evidenced by the photograph he took of her. It is taken post-sip, her face screwed up in revulsion, and she begs him now to burn it, but he refuses, muttering something about blackmail material. She laughs again now when he reminds her of how the waitress took the pint from her, swearing it would taste better with a shot of blackcurrant in it – it didn’t, and she ordered a soft drink instead, and took the teasing from Weiss with a smile on her face.

There are photographs of them from the Blarney Woollen Mills, a shop in the city centre where they learned that Aran sweaters really didn’t suit him, but they did her, and she tried on several before she found one that met with his approval. He picked up some souvenirs too; a Belleek vase for his mother, another for his sister, a bodhrán for his nephew – yes, he tells her now, his nephew thinks it’s the coolest present ever, and no, his sister still hasn’t forgiven him – as well as another present that he didn’t let her see, not then at any rate.

There are several more snaps from around the city, shots of the buildings, of a street artist dressed up as what can only be described as a senile Tin Man, of a string quartet playing in the middle of the street.

But her favourite comes near the end, when they were making their way back to where they started. They were crossing the Ha’Penny Bridge (so called, Weiss informed her, because it used to cost Dubliners a half-penny to cross the bridge), the railings of which were, for some reason, festooned with red roses. It was a striking sight, neither Weiss nor Sydney having seen anything like it, and without even having to think about it, each of them posed for the other, smiling for the camera.

At the back of Sydney’s mind was a worry that they were obstructing people, but Dubliners were evidently used to this kind of thing, to the point where they stood back, not moving in front of the camera when she took the photograph of Weiss. In fact, they were so used to this kind of thing that one woman, who must have been in her seventies and looked, Weiss swore, like his Great-Aunt Edith, asked her if she wanted a photograph of her and her husband together.

They’d looked at one another and laughed, but they hadn’t corrected her, and Sydney had joined Weiss, had stepped close to him per the lady’s instruction. It seemed like the most natural thing in the world to slip her arm around his waist, especially when he slung one around her shoulders. They are laughing in the picture, looking like they don’t have a care in the world and, for those few magical hours, they didn’t.

That wasn’t the final surprise though; that came once they were airborne, and she was looking wistfully out the window. He’d sat down beside her, told her that he’d bought her something. Opening the flat box, she’d gasped when she’d seen the silver ring inside. “It’s called a Claddagh ring,” he’d told her, and in true tour guide mode, he’d told her the story, the tradition that went along with it. He held her hand as he did so, and when he was finished, he grinned nervously. “I’ll let you decide what way to wear it.”

Grinning, she slid it onto her right hand, heart pointing inwards, her own heart soaring when she saw the smile on his face, soaring higher when he leaned in, brushing her lips with his.

Those photos are a year old now, and she’s waiting for the day that the ring will have to change hands, change direction.

It can’t come soon enough.