#(I just quit my job at an als clinic... it's hard to watch)

[dianemillers]

yea i had a feeling Gregory would die during the wedding, that was a nice montage at least he died peacefully in his sleep rather than go through the progression of ALS (which GH would inevitably portray terribly given the recent track record)

[queencryo]

I’m gonna liveblog my ccapstone final presentation and you’re all going to have to deal with it ^_^

ASPODFIASPODFIAPOSDFIAPOIVZJX PROF IS DOING A DESCRIPTION OF THE TEAMS WE ALL INHERITED FROM

THE ONLY GOOD THING SHE HAS TO SAY ABOUT THE ONE WE INHERITED IS THAT THEY WERE REALLY PERSERVERING. I’M LOVING THIS. THEY TRIED SO HARD BUT GODDAMN.

liHoly shit the glove group’s demo looks SO much better than their previous one. Full swag! full swag! And putting up a dude with TWO future tech cool gloves is always a huge coolthing to do during your presentation you know? That slaps hard.

Hope our presentation goes well, really badly hope it does... Man I hope they don’t shit on our putting so much time into internal testing for the presentation? That testing is what saved our project (ie: what made our prof finally start being on our side on things)

Holy shit I forgot that the glove group fucking. used pressure-to-conductance sensors then did tests with a cooking scale to convert their voltages to gram-force (which is what “hand specialists” use I guess????)

I’m fucking gargling, glove team had a team member in thailand so they did a lot of work at 830 PM or 830 AM. (*Ignores that we did a huge amount of work between the hours of 9PM and 6AM*). oh my GOD the guy in austin just.. left his computer on and the thailand one teamviewer’d into his PC to program stuff...

THEY FRIED AN ARDUINO. AND HAD TO SAW THROUGH IT BECAUSE UNSOLDERING WAS TOO HARD. ***AND THEY ACTUALLY PUT THIS INTO THEIR FUCKING PRESENTATION***. WHYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY

I FRIED A RASPBERRY PI BUT YOU DON’T SEE ME PUTTING THAT SHIT INTO OUR PRESENTATION

also dude y’all know the budget of $200 was what the university would give us right? you know you were supposed to get under $50 for the project itself right? right?

Glove group is getting some hard questions. Not insurmountable, but not easy. Hopefully I can figure out anything they ask!!!! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA also i am out of adderall so we’ll SEE how this goes :)

Next up is uhhhh I think one of the survivor guys? The phone guys? I’m tryna be p vague but yeah

holy SHIT survivor guy demo was. so bad. so bad. the audio sounded terrible, the splitscreen videos weren’t synced up quite right. oh my god. I don’t want to be mean but I’m just. literally I was cringing. jeez. Bad audio.

The rest of the presentation isn’t as bad, except that oh dude I can see part of your windows background? and your taskbar? AND YOUR TASKBAR IN A COUPLE OF FRAMES ELSEWHERE???? it just. this doesn’t feel like they put effort into it.

They do all look crisp with their white button-ups though. our team decided on black t-shirts, because we’re all fools.

WHY IS YOUR ENTIRE PRESENTATION NOT FULLSCREEN. DUDE DID YOU ONLY DO ONE TAKE ON THIS SHIT?

I feel like their presentation genuinely looks worse than their prafctice presentation. jesus. FULL SECOND BLANK BLACK SCREEN DURING SECTION TRANSITION

im bored so im now zoning out and talking to my friends on pisscord~

I’m also... unmedicated lol. im ouuttttttttt

oh! I asked some porn lady on twitter where she gets her hormones since I’m about to graduate out of access to the uni clinic i get em from now, so imma look into that at some point :) some kinda. anime-themed hrt distribution thing.

Which is weird but hey. I figure... if they’re putting effort into theming, they probably aren’t putting out cocaine-laced trash ya know?

THIS MOTHERFUCKER GETTING DISCORD NOTIFICATIONS WHILE THEY’RE ANSWERING INDUSTRY PROFESSIONAL QUESTIONS

literally chatting with my friends and manically laughing in hte moments up to my final presentation. this is just like my high school graduation.

Alright we’re UP babes. my video is ON and our recorded presentation is UP on my teammate’s (and perhaps... *friend’s*............) sccreen (that was a joke) (but yeah the presentation is up we’ere just waiting to GO baby!)

YEAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

Aaaand muting our presentation during the parts I talked in... I like her fine I just don’t want to listen to her...

The industry guys look perplexed but idk if th oh GOD why is the video stuttering... I hope that’s on my side not on anyone else’s...

aaaaaaaa I hope they don’t ask us anything TOO hard. they’re probably going to ask why we used the sensor we did, but beyond that I really have no idea.

okay im paying attention again. I think our presentation is a LITTLE on the sexual side. I can’t be sure but... :smirk: Wish I had a friend who talked as much as me. Ah man you know what I miss? Watching movies with Al or Morgan. never hung w ppl who talked during movie theatres as much as them and me :) It was really good times!

God our mobile application UI is OS fucking sexy. holy fucking shit. God our guy on that did such an amazing job. There’s even animations when things are happening? It’s SOOOO good.

Now is the internal testing section of the presentation. Kinda show off that “hey mang our sensor just sucks DICK.” it’s super narrow and it HATES detecting black things. ... holy fuk I hope the choppy video is on myyyy siiiiiide... .. eh, I guess chopy video is kind of survivable. Not exactly our fault or something we could possibly predict, you know?

DISCORD

THIS IS A TRASHBIN FOR ALL MY WORDS SO THAT I DON’T TALK OR SAY SOMETHING STUPID WHERE IMPORTANT PEOPLE COULD SEE IT. AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

at least the audio isn’t usually choppy during the parts of the presentation that aren’t videos? so that’s awesome :)

We did solve the problem of our faces getting in the way of the presentation

NOOOOOOO MY NAME ISN’T MARROW NOOOOOOOOOOO

ASDFASODPFAISPDFOI SHOWIN OFF THE PREVIOUS TEAM’S SHIT. PUTTING THEM ON FUCKING BLAST. FUCK Y’ALL. tho i did have the realization last night. you know what... if I passed with that shit I put in for 462, you know what... they can pass with what they did for this course. neither was good. <_<

ah fuck I’m talking again I gotta mute THAT SHIT (if it’s not clear, we pre-recorded our presentations and are now just... showing that, in da meeting).

hell yeah man hell yeah man

I think if they ask about our sensor choice I’ll say we got a $20 sensor beccause we had a budget of $50 for the final system. which. we SHOULD’VE then said “ohka ylet’s not use LiDAR.” but we didn’t, so here we are! I... think maybe part of this is my fault. Maybe a pair of microwave sensors was the way to go after all.

OH FUCK THE PRESENTATION IS OVER TIME FOR QUESTIONS.

They asked about the environmental concerns, and why we mentioned 3-d printing for the chassis when we didn’t actually do any such printing. both directed to me. we didn’t do any enviro conerns, and we didn’t end up 3-d printing because we couldn’t get it working so we just went with wood the whole way through.

Of course, we have a question about messaging between cones, because hey i mean that’s the most interesting part of our project, from a design standpoint. it is. it is. it is.

AY THEY SHOUTED OUT OUR ZOOM BACKGROUND FUCK YESSS

AY WHOOP AY WHOOP AY WHOOP THEY DIDN'T ASK SHIT ABOUT OUR PRESENTATION (i ASSUME BECAUSE IT WAS SO FUCKING FLAWLESS AND AMAZING THAT THEY HAD NO QUESTIONS AT FUCKING ALL BABY) 

THEY LITERALLY ASKED 4 QUESTIONS, ABOUT ENVIRO CONCERNS, CHASSIS, MESSAGING, AND SOME QUESTIONS ABOUT THE DATABASE

GOD THIS IS SO GOOD AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

goddamn. survivor guy group 2 is going SO MUCH BETTER than the last one. opened on a description of the project, with the arm slowly opening to reveal their little screen with a heart on it... that’s SO good bro.

This presentation is so much better than the last one. Oh my god this is so good bro. Y’all did so awesome. I’m in lvoe with you. LOVE THIS SHIT

lmao oh yeah our CPM critical path went from 30 days to like 79 days. partially cuz 30 of our days were spent waiting for parts...

SURVIVOR GUY SHOWING OFF THEIR ABILITY TO PLAY VIDEO WITH A CLIP FROM THE OFFICE. DEEPLY IN LOVE WITH THEM (I DONT LIKE THE OFFIE BUT THAT’S WAY MORE ENTERTAINING THAN THE OTHER SURVIVOR GUY TEAM’S EXAMPLE OF THE SCHOOL FIGHT SONG YEAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH)

really really great presentation. I went into their pisscord and made sure to tell zem i loved their presentation.

AW DUDE I LOVE MY SISTER SO MUCH. NOT RELATED. JUST LOOKING AT MY DMS AND SAW HER NAME.

I don’t really care about group 5. i just don’t care! I’m. my part is done. I’m free, mostly. I’m god now....

yeah i haven’t paid attention to much on group five. just can’t be assed!

bluh i have a shitton of history homework due tonight... gotta do an interview and like 5 fuckin writing assessments. Really dropped every ball available ya know?

PROF SAID “THIS IS THE BEST I’VE EVER SEEN GROUPS DO” IDK IF THAT’S TRUE BUT HELLLLLLLLLL YEAH I FEEL FANTASTIC

Prof says yall did great, woulda done great under normal circumstances and that you did so good under these is amazing.

:)

Something about making an abstract or something...? Student research week or something.

goddamn. finality. we did it folks. holy sh8it. last meeting ofthis class. kind of... the last meeting of my college career, if everything goes as planned? so that’s. weird.

hhhh okay i can’t let Finality Anxiety get to me I still have shit to do. don’t let it set in!!!!!!!!!

[spartanguard]

all the memories that we make will never change (CSJJ 2020)

Summary: Oh don't you wonder when the light begins to fade? / And the clock just makes the colors turn to grey / Forever younger growing older just the same / All the memories that we make will never change (Henry and Lucy find some polaroids of a long-lost night, of a couple in the throes of young love. / Emma and Killian meet in a nightclub, and their lives will never be the same.)

rated M | 5.3k words | AO3

A/N: Here’s my contribution to @csjanuaryjoy​ 2020! Thanks to the organizer for putting on this event again; it’s my third time participating and it’s always fun! This was inspired by the song “Golden Days” by Panic! At The Disco; it’s told in present-day and flashbacks (and it will all make sense at the end). (it was also slightly inspired by my parents, even if they didn’t meet until a few years later.) enjoy!

2020

“Hey, Dad? What are these?”

Henry looked up from the bin of records he was sorting through in the musty basement, over at where his daughter was doing the same. Or had been; Lucy’s attention was less on the old albums in front of her and instead focused on what she’d apparently found within them.

“Seriously? You don’t know what a Polaroid looks like?” he teased as he set down Aladdin Sane and stepped over. “I thought I raised you better than that.”

She huffed. “No duh, I know what they are. You only played ‘Hey Ya’ a million times when I was little.” Okay, maybe he was the one failing if that was her only frame of reference on instant photos. “But look!”

She shoved the stack of pictures into his hands, and once he got a look at the one on top, it was like being jolted into the past.

Frozen in time was a couple clearly in the throes of young love; it was obvious from the way they only had eyes for each other, though the background suggested they were at a club (a disco, maybe?). The date on the corner said August 1979, but the woman’s Farrah Fawcett curls and strapless jumpsuit, paired with the man’s wide-open, chest-baring top and perfectly coiffed hair, did a good job of telling him the era on their own.

He glanced over the next few pictures behind it: all similar, and a good number with part of an arm in the shot; a vintage selfie. He suspected a number of couples nowadays had similar sets of photos on their phones. (He knew he and Ella did.) 

But as curious as he was to continue skimming, he couldn’t help but feel like he was intruding—there was something intimate about these images that modern digital photography couldn’t match.

------------------------

1979

Killian nursed his rum probably a bit more clinically than he needed to. While it had been his favored vice not too long ago, he was trying to put those days behind him. But his friends insisted he still needed to get out and “have fun,” whatever that meant anymore. At least they were—he could see Jasmine and Al twirling their way across the illuminated dance floor from his seat at the bar. 

The deejay played decent music, he’d give it that. But drinking and dancing were in his past, he was sure. 

Until he spotted an angel on the other side of the club, and wondered if maybe he’d been too hasty in writing off this outing. 

Her likeness to a celestial being had minimal to do with the style of her hair, even if it was clearly modeled after one made popular on a certain ridiculous television program. No, it was the way she moved freely and joyfully in her red, fitted jumpsuit; the joy as she threw her head back in laughter at something one of her companions said; and her easy smile as she danced, full of a youthful exuberance that Killian was pretty sure he’d never had; he’d done a lot of living in his 25 years. 

He didn’t typically even go for blondes, but before he knew it, he’d downed the rest of his drink, hopped off the bar stool, and started to pick his way across the dance floor. He checked himself over as he maneuvered around moving bodies, briefly debating if he needed to do up another button on his paisley shirt or rather undo another, and then realized: he had no idea what to say. 

He froze feet away from her. Just what was he doing?

Then someone bumped into him, making him stumble forward—almost into her arms. Which might have been better than the sharp way his chest collided with her shoulder, sending her reeling into the brunette next to her.

“Hey, man—watch out!” the other woman shouted as she set her friend to rights.

“Apologies; I meant no...harm…” he tried to explain, trailing off when he saw Jasmine from the corner of his eye, giving him a sheepish grin as they danced away. He should have seen that coming, really.

“It’s fine,” the blonde sighed, annoyed, and Killian felt his chance slipping away faster than the overall sobriety level in the club.

But then she turned to him, and there was concern in her big green eyes. “Are you okay?”

“I think so, yeah,” he said, then quickly added, “but I’d be better if you danced with me.”

She quirked an eyebrow and gave him a wry look. “Oh yeah? Can’t say I’ve heard that one before.”

“That’s because you haven’t met me yet.” He had no idea where this swagger was coming from, but he didn’t want to think too hard about it, lest it disappear. “Name’s Killian.”

“Hi, Killian,” she said, offering a hand. “I’m Emma.”

He took her dainty hand in his and brought it to his lips, placing a gentle kiss on the back while holding her gaze—which, if he was being honest, seemed as much confused as it did flattered.

“What do you say, love? Care to take a turn about the floor?”

She bit her glossed lip and looked back to her friend, who was giving her a wolfish grin in return and promptly shooed her away. “Okay,” she shrugged with a smile when she turned back to him.

He grinned back, partly in relief but mostly that he hadn’t been shot down. It was a boost to his confidence he didn’t realize he’d needed—and it just might have broken his freshly healed heart if she’d said no. 

He led her a step or two away from her friend, so they could have a bit of space, and placed his blunted wrist on her hip. She glanced down at it and he froze; he was finally starting to get comfortable with his lack of appendage there, but most people still acted squeamish about it.

To his surprise, though, she didn’t seem to take much note of it and found his eyes again. If anything, she moved closer, and they wordlessly started to sway to the pounding rhythm—or, at least, their hips began to shift in time with the music and each other, and really, that was all that was needed.

Their feet eventually got the message, picked up the beat, and began to carry them around the floor. Killian found himself falling into some ancient habits he wasn’t aware were still in his muscle’s memory, and his heart skipped a bit as he watched an amused smile take over Emma’s face. 

“You sure are a swell dancer,” she told him. “How’d you learn to dance like this?”

“It’s simple, really; there’s only one rule,” he replied, then leaned in closer. “Pick a partner who knows what he’s doing.”

She grinned and looked down, but if she was trying to avoid letting him know her thoughts on the matter, she failed—even in the orange light, he could see the blush on her cheeks.

For a moment, he worried he might have come on too strong and she’d push away, but quite the opposite happened: she moved even impossibly closer, sliding her hand down to his waist to pull herself to him. The pinpricks of light from the disco ball danced over them like stars, illuminating the glitter on her collarbones and cheeks; goodness, were they in a dance hall or a fairy tale?

The bodies and music around them began to fade away as his focus narrowed on Emma: on the soft pout of her lips, the easy smile that played at them, the feel of her body against his…

And then the rest of the club came back into startling clarity as the music abruptly changed, loud horns signifying the beginning of an overplayed and overhyped Village People tune.

“Oh god, I hate this song,” Emma cursed, equally jarred by the change, it seemed. But she hadn’t made a move away from him.

“Agreed,” he replied; but if she didn’t want to dance, he needed another way to stay close to her. “Can, uh...can I buy you a drink?”

“Sure!”

He wasn’t expecting her enthusiasm, and the wide-eyed look she gave him after suggested she wasn’t expecting it either. He chuckled, but squeezed her hand and led her back to the bar.

They found an open spot near the end and the bartender was quick; Emma ordered red wine, and Killian said “Make it two.” The bartender glanced between them, then grabbed a couple glasses and set a bottle down in front of them, with the direction to have fun.

“Well, he was awfully presumptuous,” Killian said, again not wanting to come on too strong. 

Emma just shrugged, though, and popped the cork. “He didn’t say what kind of fun.” Her tone was laced with innuendo, though, as she poured their glasses. “For example, we can have fun with this,” she continued, offering her glass up for a toast; he took his and clinked it with hers before taking a sip (not the best he’d had, but not the worst). “Orrrr, with this!” she exclaimed, reaching around him for something on the bar.

She produced a Polaroid camera, looking proud as punch with her prize. “Is that yours?” he asked.

“Nope,” she answered, popping the ‘p’. “It was just sitting here.”

It was a good thing he was staring at her in dazed admiration, because the next thing he saw was the bright light of the flash temporarily blinding him. “Bloody hell,” he cursed, blinking. “Warn a man next time!”

“Oh, but candid shots are always best,” she teased, pulling out the picture and shaking it. “I can’t wait to see it.”

“Oh really?” He wasted no time in setting down his drink and taking the camera from her, relying on speed for shock, and quickly snapped a pic, too. “That should be a good one, then.”

“Asshole,” she tried to complain, but her smirk gave her away. “That’s gonna be terrible.”

“Impossible,” he countered, “when the subject is so lovely.”

She was leaning on the bar, rolling her eyes, so he stepped closer and mirrored her pose. “You’re full of it,” she laughed.

“I’m actually quite shy and reserved.”

“No you’re not.”

“No, I’m not,” he conceded, and snapped another picture with his outstretched arm.

“Oh my god, you—!” Whatever she was about to say was lost in the struggle of her wrestling the camera back from him; he let her take it, especially when her chest brushed against his in the friendly scuffle. She yanked out the photo and put it on the bar with the others, shaking her head. “You’re wasting film, you know.”

“I highly doubt that.” She hadn’t made any effort to leave his personal space yet again.

“Besides, there are so many better things to take pictures of.”

“Also not true.”

“I’m just saying—why would you bother with pictures like that, when you could take ones like this?” she said, looking up at him through her lashes.

“Like what?”

She answered by grabbing the lapel of his vest and hauling his lips to hers. She pressed herself against his entire upper body as her mouth claimed his, and he was quick to surrender to her passionate kiss. He heard the flash bulb go off as she likely took another snap, but he was too lost in her to care much. He wrapped his left arm around her to hold her close while the other found her waist and anchored himself to her. 

They eventually broke apart for a breather, but he continued to pepper kisses down her chin and neck, and he could feel her fingers toying with his chest hair. Another flash bulb. 

“You don’t work for Playgirl or something, do you?” he breathed.

“No,” she giggled. “Just liking what I see; and I don’t want to forget it.”

“Nor do I.”

They resumed kissing for a moment, Emma going so far as to wrap a leg around him and bring her core to where he was obviously wanting her—which only seemed to egg her on, and he had no reservations in palming her pert rear end through her jumpsuit.

“Do you live nearby?” she asked on their next breath.

“Aye,” he nodded; he could hardly remember where, he was so intoxicated by her, but at least knew that much.

“Do you want to go back?”

“Only if you do.”

“I definitely do.”

“Alright then.”

She gave him another kiss on the cheek, then asked him to sit tight as she let her friends know. He quickly downed the rest of his glass, threw some cash down to pay the tab (probably not the right amount but he hardly cared), then gathered up the pictures they’d taken from where they landed scattered across the bar.

He didn’t know what lay ahead, but something told me he’d want something to help him remember this night.

------------------------

2020

“What are they wearing?” Lucy giggled. “That shirt is so ugly!”

Henry chuckled. “That was just the style back then; he actually would have been considered pretty debonair and suave at the time.”

She rolled her eyes. “Yeah, right.”

They continued to flip through the photos. “Say what you will, but she seems pretty into it,” he lectured; not like he had much room to talk—he had no idea how he’d managed to catch Ella’s eye with the kind of stuff they wore in the late 90s. (There was definitely a bonfire fueled by a pair of JNCO jeans and ratty plaid shirts in his past.)

The background of the photos changed as the pair moved out of the club and onto the street—one he immediately recognized. It changed again to a dock, with ships bobbing behind the pair.

“Is that…?” Lucy asked when the couple apparently boarded one of them.

“Yeah, looks like it is,” Henry had to agree; he knew exactly where they were. 

And the next couple of pictures told him exactly what they were doing. (He made a point to keep those away from Lucy’s view.)

------------------------

1979

Emma still couldn’t believe she’d proposed this. She had a kid; what was she doing out on the town, following a guy she’d just met back to his place? 

(Ruby, that’s what—she could never say no to her best friend, especially when said friend’s granny was providing free babysitting and said friend had also told her to “do him before I do”.) She pulled up the top of her strapless (borrowed) jumpsuit, amazed that it had stayed on this long, and took in a deep breath of the refreshing air outside the club.

“That’s much better,” Killian said, and then Emma registered the pop of the flashbulb behind her closed eyes.

“You’re gonna make me regret picking that thing up,” she teased. “And I wasn’t gonna steal it!”

“Too late,” he shrugged. Even in the yellow light of the street lamps, she could see the mischief sparkling in his blue eyes and hiding in the dimples that cut into his scruffy beard. He didn’t seem like he was too much older than her, but he’d clearly been through a lot. Which was good, since she had, too.

“Are you just gonna be the paparazzi or are we going to go somewhere more fun?” she asked, pressing herself into his space—partly because she liked the kind of shocked look he got on his face when she did, and partly because she just wanted to be close to him and his impressive display of chest hair.

“I’d be more than happy to escort the lady to a more comfortable location,” he said, making her swoon; god, she never did that. She almost lost focus in stealing the camera back, but managed to before he could fight it. 

“Lead the way,” she whispered.

He just swallowed and nodded, then took her hand and led her down the sidewalk.

The air cooled as they went and she could smell the salt of the harbor as they got closer to the docks; not a long walk, but not too short that they couldn’t get to know each other a bit. His last name was Jones; he was 25; he’d enlisted in the Army right out of high school and served a few years in Vietnam, until he lost his hand. “I didn’t want to fight, but I didn’t really have any other options. My brother died over there, so I guess I thought I’d avenge him, or something,” he admitted. “Not my best idea.”

She knew all about that. After all, she was 21 years old and already a mother to a 3-year-old; she clearly had no room to judge. He took it in stride, though, and was quick to ask about her kid; it was actually refreshing not to have someone do the math in their head and start scowling. “It’s been hard, but he’s probably the best thing that ever happened to me,” she told him, establishing some boundaries.

“Well, you strike me as a tough lass, Swan,” he replied; she was beginning to love the sound of her last name on his tongue. “It sounds like you two are doing just fine.”

She hid her blush by taking a picture of his encouraging smile, which quickly turned into a sputter.

He stole back the camera—and her breath—with a kiss after that.

She returned the favor, pressing him against a fence at the marina—but not too forcefully; she didn’t feel like swimming tonight.

“Hopefully you’re alright with sailing, though,” he murmured, guiding her down one of the docks.

“You live on a boat?”

“Please—it’s a ship.”

Whatever it was, it was gorgeous—all hardwood and classic-looking. The sails were tucked away but she had to imagine it looked impressive out at sea, and the idea of Killian at the helm, sun tanning his skin as the wind whipped them along...damn, what an image.

(Okay, maybe Ruby had been right earlier when she said Emma needed to get laid.)

He casually stepped onto the ship, unphased by the way the deck shifted under him, and extended a hand to her to help her down. Her platform sandals were absolutely not the right shoes for this, so she nearly stumbled as she stepped aboard—right into his (strong, sturdy) arms. 

“It’s about bloody time,” he purred.

“Like I haven’t been over you all night,” she countered (and made sure not to bring up the body glitter that had found its way into his chest hair).

“No, but it’s nice to finally be alone.”

“It is.” Without another word, they picked up where they’d left off in the club: hands wandering, lips tasting, bodies not able to get close enough—but she didn’t have enough balance on the rolling deck to try to hitch her leg around him again. 

“You got a bed on this thing?” she panted.

“I thought you’d never ask.”

A minute later, they were below deck, in a cozy cabin. Two minutes later, he’d undone the zipper on her jumpsuit, letting it fall around her ankles. Three, and she’d opened his way-too-many buttons to reveal his frankly stunning array of chest hair and was quickly discovering how far south it went. (Answer: all the way.)

The bed wasn’t exactly large, or solid, but anything would do once he got her worked up, his fingers dancing over her breasts, overheated skin, and aching sex. 

He hovered over her after he got the condom on, clearly nervous even though they were both stark naked and had been dry humping for who-knew-how-long.

She drew her bare heel up over his firm thigh and pert ass, then pressed against it, bringing his hard length almost to where she wanted—no, needed it. “Please,” she panted, not sure what else to say. 

“As you wish.”

That took her by surprise—she wanted to ask if he’d read her favorite book, The Princess Bride—but then he was pressing into her and anything she could say came out as a gasp. Holy shit, did he feel good.

“I’ll take that as a compliment,” he said in a strained voice; fuck, she’d said that out loud.

“You should,” she answered. “And if you want another—move.” She punctuated the command by pressing her other heel into him.

As eager as she was, she wasn’t ready for the feel of him dragging along her inner walls, then pressing back forward; it really had been too long since she’d done anything like this with another person. But she got the impression Killian was in a similar boat (pun not intended).

That didn’t stop him from being “fucking amazing,” she sighed.

“You...too…” he grunted as he pressed. She did all she could to keep up and match him thrust for thrust, but all too soon, she was gripping his broad shoulders for dear life.

It was like riding a roller coaster: she was climbing, climbing, climbing, and then she was free falling with a shout as her orgasm peaked and carried her away with it. He wasn’t far behind, coming with a shout of her name and eventually collapsing beside her. It made the whole bed shake but honestly, it was no worse than what they’d just put it through.

Once they both caught their breath, he pressed a kiss to her bare shoulder and then got up to clean things, but was back faster than she expected he’d be, flopping down next to her.

“Bloody hell, love; that…”

For someone as seemingly verbose as he was, having him speechless was definitely a boost to her ego. “Incredible? Fantastic? Far out? Groovy?”

“I’d never dream of putting something like that so colloquially,” he answered, wrapping his arms around her waist and pulling her close. “But perhaps we need to give it another go so I can properly describe it.”

“Mm, I think I’d be down with that,” she said, smiling. Normally, she’d be headed for the door already—but there was just something about Killian that made her want to stay, and it wasn’t just the mindblowing sex.

“Good.” He pounced on her lips again, and round two was just as fabulous as the first. (So was the third.)

And a few hours later, she woke in his arms to the obnoxious sound of an alarm clock blaring. But he just gripped her tighter from behind and buried his head in her neck, tickling her with his beard. 

“You gonna get that?” she asked, both annoyed and still sleepy.

“Ugh, I don’t want to.”

“Why not?”

“Because then I need to get ready for work and you’ll have to go.”

She turned in his arms and placed her hands on his hair-covered pecs. “What if I came back sometime?”

He gave her a sleepy smile. “I’d like that very much.”

“Me too.”

He finally shut off the clock and stretched; she had to avert her eyes, or staring at the way his trim muscles moved under his skin would make him even later. And the sooner she got home to her kid, the better.

Somehow, she managed to get dressed again, pointedly ignoring the heat of his fingers on her back as he zipped her outfit. (It was less easy for him to hide his arousal when she buttoned up his work shirt.)

The morning was chilly when they got back up on the deck and the sun was just starting to rise over the horizon; she shivered immediately. “Oh, bloody hell,” he cursed, then ran back below deck, returning with a blanket. “Here, love; I’d be a shameful host if I let you catch a cold. Do you need me to call you a cab?” he asked as he wrapped it around her shawl-like.

“No; I’m only a few blocks away,” she answered, pulling the blanket tight. It was soft and smelled like him. Hopefully, he didn’t want it back.

“Can I walk you home, then?”

“Won’t you be late?”

His reply was a shrug.

“Alright then.”

She started to head to the edge of the ship to disembark, but then he said, “Wait.” She turned to see what the holdup was and only saw the light of the flashbulb again. 

“Seriously?” she laughed.

“Yes, completely,” he answered through his own chuckle. 

“You’re such a nerd,” she tossed back, but god, was he adorable. If she wasn’t careful, she was probably going to fall in love with him. 

But honestly, would that really be so bad?

------------------------

2020

The last photo was of the blonde woman in early morning light, wrapped in a blanket with a lazy smile on her face. It was obvious what they’d been up to, but that was a different kind of happy expression—more than just physical bliss.

“God, she was so beautiful,” Lucy breathed.

She always had been. “And she still is,” Henry added; Lucy hummed in agreement.

Reaching the end of the stack, they set the photos aside and kept browsing the records, pulling some out here and there as they caught their eyes. A bit later, armed with Goodbye Yellow Brick Road, Damn the Torpedoes, and A Night at the Opera, they headed upstairs with their prizes—Henry making sure to grab the stack of Polaroids.

“You’re done already?” Henry’s mom called out from the kitchen, where she and his dad (well, stepdad, but he’d raised him) were busying themselves.

“Yeah! We found some great stuff, Grandma!” Lucy shouted, running down the hall and promptly gushing over her new treasures. 

His mom had been reading at the table, but she put down her magazine when Lucy barged in. Henry hung back for a moment, though.

The smile on her face was the same one in the photos, even if Emma’s hair was more gray than blonde now and she needed glasses. It was a little jarring, to be honest; growing up, he didn’t notice it as much, but looking at her as she was when he was a kid and comparing it to now made him realize just how much she’d changed in the last 40 years. But the grin she sent his way as Lucy babbled hadn’t at all.

“What have you got there, darling?” his dad interjected, stepping away from the stove to inspect the collection of albums. Killian, too, was all silver now, but for a man in his sixties, was in damn fine shape; Henry only hoped he’d look that good when he hit that age. The crows feet around Killian’s eyes had deepened with time (and laughter, and smiles), but they were still the same bright blue behind his bifocals and he still wore the same scruffy smirk.

Emma threw a concerned look Henry’s way, which told him he’d spent far too long staring. “Everything okay, kid?” she asked when he joined them.

“Yeah, yeah; it’s great. But uh, we found something else, too.”

“Oh yeah?”

He pulled the photos out of his jeans pocket and set them down on the table in front of his mom; Killian peered over her shoulder to inspect. They both hitched their breath at the same moment.

“Oh my god, I forgot about these!” Emma exclaimed as she picked them up.

“Same,” Killian said, almost breathlessly. “But I haven’t forgotten that night,” he quickly added, pressing a kiss to Emma’s temple.

“I’d be worried if you had,” she said. “This was our first date,” she explained to Henry and Lucy, “and someone here thought it’d be a good idea to steal a camera from the club we met at.”

“Pardon me, but you started it, love.”

Emma snorted and smacked his prosthetic hook where it rested on her shoulder, but a nostalgic kind of look came over both of them as they looked them over.

“Good find, Lucy,” Killian said, pulling his granddaughter close and kissing her cheek.

Emma set the photos aside and Killian went back to cooking dinner (which was delicious, as always). The flashback the photos had given him made Henry want to stay later and reminisce—on their wedding, on weekend trips on the Jolly Roger, on that one time he and his sisters tried (and failed) to throw a kegger in the backyard—but it was a school night and Lucy had homework.

He kept coming back to one thing, though, especially as they said their goodbyes and headed home: the way his dad looked at his mom in 1979 was the same way he did in 2020. Henry had always been happy that, despite their rough starts, his parents had managed to find each other; he couldn’t think of anyone more deserving of the kind of true love they had. And they made sure that their children knew and saw that same kind of love every day; if only everyone could be that lucky.

(Thankfully, Henry was; when he greeted Ella at home that night, he knew he still looked at her the way he first had in 1998, and she still smiled at him the same way she did that night from across that party. Henry had known then what true love looked like, and what it looked like now, and what it would look like in 20 years. And he couldn't wait.)

------------------------

After Henry and Lucy left and dinner was cleaned up, Emma got out the pictures they’d found again; hazy memories were coming back into sharp clarity in her mind (though some had never really dulled). 

“You’ve got that look in your eyes, Swan. What are you thinking?” Killian said, taking a seat next to her on the sofa.

“Swan? Pretty sure I’ve been Jones for almost 40 years,” she teased, scooting into his side. 

“Aye, but you’ll forever be my gorgeous Swan,” he answered, like he always did, his eyes also on the old photos. It was kind of amazing they were still in decent shape.

“Well then, I’m thinking that we looked damn hot,” Emma finally said. 

“Indeed we did. Though you still do,” he added, kissing her cheek.

“So do you, silver fox. You still got that shirt?” 

“That ugly thing? Heavens no.” He sounded genuinely offended—although he never quite learned how to fully button his shirt, and she cast a glance at the silvery chest hair exposed by his v-necked shirt today. “But I might be able to come up with something similar...if you still have that jumpsuit,” he said, leering seductively. 

Emma just laughed. “It’s cute that you think I’d still fit into that after two more kids and a few decades. And that was Ruby’s anyways.” Some parts of her had never quite recovered from having Hope and then Alice in fairly quick succession, but it didn’t matter to Killian so she’d never minded much.

“Well, then I guess you’ll have to wear nothing,” he purred. “I seem to remember that being part of that night, too.” 

“Only if you wear the same.”

“As you wish.”

(He had indeed read The Princess Bride, it turned out, and they had excitedly taken Henry to the movie when it was first released; their VHS copy was later worn down by the girls, once they were old enough.)

Some days, it was hard to believe they’d been together for over 40 years—time flies while having fun, and all that. There’d been great ones and hard ones and plenty of just average ones in there. They weren’t the same people they were when they met; hell, they weren’t even the same as when Alice moved out ten years ago.

But some things had never changed, and never would; for one, how easily and amazingly they were able to satisfy each other physically, and how well they fit together, especially when they were cuddled close, sated.

The most important, though, was their love.

------------------------

thanks for reading, friends!! tagging some peeps who might like this:  @kat2609​ @thesschesthair​ @optomisticgirl​ @xpumpkindumplingx​ @laschatzi​ @shipsxahoy​ @amortentia-on-the-rocks​ @mryddinwilt​ @cocohook38​ @annytecture​ @wingedlioness​ @word-bug​ @distant-rose​ @wellhellotragic​ @welllpthisishappening​ @let-it-raines​ @pirateherokillian​ @bleebug​ @its-imperator-furiosa​ @fergus80​ @killianmesmalls​ @sherlockianwhovian​ @effulgentcolors​ @ive-always-been-a-pirate​ @nfbagelperson​ @stubble-sandwich​​ @lenfaz​ @phiralovesloki​ @athenascarlet​ @kmomof4​ @ilovemesomekillianjones​ @whimsicallyenchantedrose​ @snowbellewells​ @idristardis​ @scientificapricot​ @searchingwardrobes​

[bellsybuilds]

[Part 2 of the Truck Stops and Tribulations series (link)]

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The way home - chapter 2 (T rating and warnings will change)

Din Djarin, Paz Viz(s)la, Baby Yoda, Jack “Agent Whiskey” Daniels, Agent Ginger Ale (modern AU, all human, road trips, found family, family reunions)

---

Din just wants to keep this kid safe, but the effort is taking him cross-country and he's loathe to admit he can't do it alone. Paz is the trucker who rescues them one night, and is strangely happy to keep on helping them. Jack is the estranged, obnoxious brother Din likes to pretend he doesn't have, but beggars can't be choosers.

And Poppy is the up-and-coming drug mogul who will make them all reconsider their life choices.

Set pre-Kingsman: the Golden Circle.

Din expects a medical wing. A sterile clinic, at least. What he gets instead is a conference room.

He frowns at his brother, but Jack has been on the phone since meeting them at the boundary of Statesman’s grounds and waving them to follow through the side door of the imposing oaken gate.

It’s not that he distrusts his brother. He can hear Jack negotiating with someone for medical equipment and murmuring about discretion.

No, it’s Statesman itself.

The air of this organisation has always set him on edge: the estate is thickly steeped in a disingenuous veneer of Southern charm, glossy and flawless as the dark wood polish of every surface now gleaming back at them. Din can see how this place has clawed a foothold in his brother from the way Jack walks and talks. Even the way he smiles, mouth curving crooked when he doesn’t think others are watching but it’s snide, superior, and calculating.

Careful, Jack. Your colours are showing.

Jack didn’t always pass so easily as a Southern-born and bred son.

The chill of a memory slows Din in his step-- cold damp of a concrete bunker, gun heavy in hand.

“Only one of you can be chosen,” the voice had crackled with static over the speaker. “And only you three can decide who that will be.”

He closes his eyes, shivering hard. The memory slips like a damp shroud from his shoulders, bundled and thrown to the darker corners of his mind; too well-used over the years.

At least in the air force, they were upfront about who they were and what they were doing. Being an agent for Statesman would have required more subterfuge than Din was prepared to deal with. By contrast, Jack had embraced the opportunity to remake himself.

Once the conference room door clicks shut behind them, the child squirms on his back in its carrier, whining softly.

“Okay,” he hushes, swinging the pack off.

Jack has led them to a reception building that looks designed to receive visiting sponsors and exec reps. Din’s hackles rise. How is this supposed to help them and the kid?

A broad table dominates the conference room, leather chairs flanking its long sides. The moment Din sets the kid down on its polished surface, the little one rolls onto his belly, pulls up on stubby legs, eyes bright with mischief, and takes off running.

Din flinches, tense. “Catch him--!”

At the table's other end, Jack glances down from the call on his cell and offers a cautionary hand. He nods, tone distracted with the person on the other end of the line. “Yeah, I took them to meeting room three.”

The kid barrels into Jack's waiting arm with a happy squeal at the table’s edge.

Din huffs in relief.

Jack wheels him about and the kid sets off in a beeline back to Din, soft sneakers smacking the wood. Din receives him with a weary oomph-- not because the little one’s impact even registers (the kid is so small it’s like catching a bean bag), but when he sways with an exaggerated wince--

The kid gurgles with laughter, simple, unbridled joy. Small hands tug on the ends of his jacket. He looks up and up into Din’s face with an exhilarated giggle, smile impossibly wide, and Din is abruptly stung by the notion of a world where that smile is gone or the kid doesn’t instinctively run into his arms at the sight of him.

Blinking, his vision swims with an overlay of the child’s face slack with fear, eyes wide in confusion. Heavy doors closing on the sight.

Din’s chest tightens, rejecting the notion. Swallowing tightly, he pinches one of those round, dimpled cheeks and allows himself to smile. It’s going to be okay.

But wasn’t the kid whining from exhaustion a few short minutes ago? Maybe it was just the prospect of freedom. This is the most they let the child run in the last week. They haven’t enjoyed the luxury of too many truck stops or long walks.

Paz hovers by the closed door, large hands clenching and unclenching at his sides, mouth pursed in a tense line. Their eyes meet. Paz draws in a slow, heavy breath, and Din nods at the look in his eye. Hopefully this was the right choice.

Hopefully they can rest soon.

A careful knock raps on the door.

Jack hangs up his call, nodding at Paz to let them through. “That’s Ginger.”

The woman they find waiting on the other side of the door looks more like a doctor than a secret agent.

“Oh,” she breathes, eyes comically wide at the sight of Paz damn near filling the doorframe with his shoulders alone. She stumbles a half step back, hand rising to her throat. “J-Jack?”

Paz scans the length of her white lab coat and frowns at the steel clipboard clutched in her arms. “And what are you supposed to be?”

“Hell. Teach your guy some manners, Din.” Jack breezes past him and waves Paz back from the woman all but cowering on the threshold. “Quit hulking and admit my colleague, Vizla. Speed and discretion are of the essence. For the kid’s sake.”

The woman, Ginger, looks at Jack with alarm. “Kid?”

She is so petite Paz could likely blow her over with a growl. Din watches him study her with the same critical appraisal Jack had endured, searching for threats and opportunities, forming a summary in his mind. Din wonders if they arrive at a similar conclusion: scientist. Analyst, maybe. Unlikely to be a field agent.

“You didn’t say anything about a kid,” Ginger mutters at Jack, shoulders tense.

As if perking up at the subject of discussion, the kid coos in Din’s arms, legs kicking with delight. All that tired energy and nowhere to go. Din winces gently and narrowly avoids a tiny, flailing fist to the chin.

Ginger finally sees them. The moment her gaze settles on the toddler, her dark eyes grow large and round. Some of the tension leaves her shoulders. “O-oh.” Her voice has fallen soft. Her eyes lift to Din and she visibly startles. “Oh!” She squints, staring at him hard. “Wait.” She gapes at Jack, then Din, and to Jack again. A slim hand points at Din in accusation. “A brother? A twin brother? How did I not know this?”

Din catches the meaningful look Paz turns on him. It feels kind of judgy. Din spreads his hands in question.

What?

“You two really don’t talk about each other,” the tall man muses under his breath.

Din shrugs, head cocked. What was the big deal? Hadn’t they ever seen twins before?

Jack, meanwhile, is sweeping an arm out to usher Ginger quickly inside. “Well, there’s a lot you don’t know about me, honey. So much more to learn.” He grins, wide and shameless. Jack always thought he was so charming.

It’s testament to how well this woman must know him that her eyes roll hard with a thin groan, tugging a silver steel trolley after her. Paz pushes the glossy, oaken doors shut behind her.

“Just tell me you didn’t get his personality either. I can only deal with one of him,” Ginger says.

It takes a moment for Din to realise she’s addressing him. “Oh. I, uh… no, he’s….” He shakes himself out of the fog and inclines his head. “I’m Din.”

Ginger returns the gesture, a perfunctory smile finding her lips and disappearing just as swiftly. “Din Daniels?”

“Djarin,” he corrects. “Just call me ‘Din’.”

He’s not sure what it is about that statement that lights up her face with soft relief, but at least she doesn’t question why they don’t share a surname. Din is tired of telling the story. “Agent Ginger Ale. Call me ‘Ginger’. At your service.”

“Daniels says you all have experience with blood trackers,” Paz says.

Ginger twists around and regards the man studying the tools on her cart. She throws a hand out as though to ward off any risk of him touching her instruments. “And you are?” She looks less intimidated now; more bemused.

“Vizla,” he says, meeting her eye briefly. “Paz Vizla. I’m with him.”

Ginger follows his nod back to Din. “I see. Your bodyguard?”

“His ride,” Paz supplies, rounding her to get a better look at the tools.

On the cart’s other side, Jack snorts a laugh under his breath. For a moment, Din wonders why. When it clicks, he wishes it hadn’t. His brother will never grow up.

“Is that a temperature scanner?” Paz points at a device that looks like a barcode reader beside a series of electronic tablets and other items Din doesn’t recognise. Medical care was never his strong suit.

Ginger nods and they follow when she brings the cart to the end of the conference table. “Among other things. I understand someone is being traced, and... you want to get it out.”

“The kid,” Din gestures with him tucked against his chest, balanced in the curve of his elbow. The kid cranes back to peer at his face with a quizzical sound, a small hand reaching for the thin stubble on his chin. “They put a tracker in his blood. Not something just anyone can remove.”

Ginger glances between him and the child, gaze soft. “Who’s tracking him?”

“No one good,” Din says, eyeing the trolley critically. “Anything on there really up for the job?”

Ginger looks to Jack as though for permission. Whatever she’s seeking doesn’t come and she sighs, treating Din with a careful smile, almost apologetic. “That sounds… complicated.”

Hands deep in the pockets of his thick blue jacket, Jack closes the distance with that slow strut of his, expression thoughtful. The kid hums under the hypnotic brush of Jack’s fingers over his brow, back and forth. The kid’s large, dark eyes blink, eyelids growing heavy.

Din will need to learn that trick.

“Yeah.” Jack holds Ginger’s eye, an entire conversation passing between them. “It might be.”

Din waits for one of them to share. He doesn’t like the idea that Jack could be withholding anything where the child’s concerned.

“We’ll try our best.” Ginger offers a slender, gloved hand for the little one. “All right, Baby, let’s take a look at you.”

“Din.” Jack nods for him to follow to the room’s end, lifting a tablet from Ginger’s trolley. “Let’s make sure you’re not being tracked.”

“We’re not,” he says.

Jack stops and holds his gaze, eyes narrowing. “How do you know?”

“I’m sure,” Din asserts. “Just the kid.”

“All right.” Jack neither sounds nor looks convinced, but he doesn’t press the point, glancing at his tablet in hand with that condescending air that always made Din’s blood boil within a second. “Let’s check your devices then.”

Statesman has access to resources they don't. It would be foolish not to take advantage.

Huffing with a glance over his shoulder, Din catches Paz’s eye. He gestures to the kid. “Could you…. ?”

Paz nods, arms unweaving to take the child. The kid looks absolutely miniscule when it tucks into his elbow, head pillowing on his chest. The little one’s sleepy, curious expression lights up with dopey joy at the familiar face he now finds above him.

Paz smiles back, warm and amused.

“Din.”

He blinks, coming back to himself.

At the head of the table, Jack raises an eyebrow expectantly.

“Actually--” They all look to him, waiting. Din nods at Paz. “Yours, too. We should check.”

He sympathises with Paz’s uncertain frown, but eventually the man digs into his back pocket with his free hand and slaps the phone into Din’s waiting palm.

"I'd appreciate you not going where you don't need to," Paz says.

When Din reaches Jack at the room’s other end, his brother plugs Paz’s in first. A new dialogue pops up on the tablet before them and Din watches the file names and system messages stream past.

“I already checked. It’s clean,” Din says.

Jack hums in that sing-song patronising way of his; what other tune would he know? “Never hurt to be thorough.”

A heartbreaking cry splits the air, freezing Din’s blood in his veins. He whirls, looking for the source of danger. He finds only Ginger glancing helplessly between Paz and the little one desperately scrambling to curl into a tight ball, all but clawing at Paz in his attempt to climb under his jacket and the shelter of his arm.

Paz yelps, adjusting to save the child from dropping out of his hold.

"I haven't even touched him yet!" Ginger protests, expression contrite. "Oh, I'm sorry, baby... I don't like needles, either. But it's not that bad. I promise."

Despite the squirming protests, Paz shuffles the little one higher in his arms. The kid whimpers, shaking, hiding his face in his thick shoulder.

Din almost goes to him.

“Here. Let me,” Paz says, and Din stares as Ginger hands him the cannula.

Paz hums a strange, nonsense song, his touch dancing over the kid's exposed arms and legs to lightly poke and pinch with the cannula's blunt end, reducing the device to a toy, just another part in his game. He sways on the spot in a soothing rhythm. As they watch, the kid's whimpers fade to soft sniffles. His round face eventually surfaces from Paz’s shoulder, pout severe. Paz bops him on the forehead, then his nose. The kid’s face scrunches in a helpless giggle. He squirms, laughing, when Paz tickles his belly.

Paz has that look on his face: the one that makes his features soften and glow and, honestly, Din can relate. There’s nothing like being the sole focus of that child's smile.

With his distraction, Ginger successfully slides the cannula into the child’s arm held immobile and starts withdrawing blood samples for her tests.

Paz has done this before.

"So, what are you doing keeping a married man from his family?"

Din frowns at his brother, unsure he heard him right. What is Jack talking about?

"I saw his wedding ring," Jack keeps his voice low and even. A conspiratorial smirk curls his mouth. "Finally come down off your high horse?"

Din blinks, bewildered. Off his--?

"You slept with him yet?"

A disgusted bleat of offence escapes Din's throat before he can throttle it. His jaw clenches. "It's not like that."

Why is his brother so punchable? Not everyone tries to prove their prowess by seducing someone away from their partner.

Jack shrugs, appraising the big man holding the squirming kid still for Ginger's examination. "I mean, if you're not moving in on that--"

"You know, you don't have to fuck with every person you meet," Din rolls his eyes. "What about that medic of yours? You slept with her, too?"

Jack pulls an affronted face, shaking his head. "Ginger? She's ground support." A thoughtful look lights his eye and he catches Din with a suggestive leer. He leans in, elbowing his arm. "Might be just your type!"

Din all but shoves him off. His brother is infuriating. But this is not the time nor the place. No matter how bad a situation, Jack could always make it worse.

"Not everyone's looking for that," he snarls, snatching his phone back once he sees the progress bar of the scan complete.

Not everyone needs constant companionship. Jack would probably die if he didn't have staff to harass and someone new to warm his bed every week.

The two things weren't always mutually exclusive, either. Jack thrives on controlled chaos, but to Din from the outside, the whole thing is a stressful HR nightmare waiting to implode. He doesn't want any part of his brother's circus. He's known since they were quite young that they want different things in life.

Maybe one day Jack will accept that Din doesn't want or need a companion. Some people aren't meant for relationships.

They're just different, he and his brother.

Jack snickers and shakes his head. "Spiky as always, Din'ika."

Din glares at him, but despite his best efforts, his brother's words linger. Din has seen the wedding ring, too. And he has wondered who waits for Paz. Where is home. He's wondered why Paz hasn't agreed to offload Din and the kid at the next available opportunity so he can go back to them.

They have traveled together for a week. Din never sees him call anyone.

Din may not believe in relationships for himself, but he won't be the reason someone compromises their own.

It's occurred to him that maybe not all is well for Paz on the home front. Maybe Din and the kid are a convenient diversion for a time. And while Din isn't going to break up a home, he won't tell a stranger how to live their life, either.

They're grown men. They're all free to make their own mistakes.

///

“I’ll need some time to get the results,” Ginger had apologised, writing on small, white labels and carefully wrapping them round the vials before treating the kid with a gentle smile. “You did so well, sweetheart.”

The little one just pouted at her from the cradle of Paz’s elbow, the bright white cotton ball taped down over the needle site comically large in proportion to the arm it was bound to.

Jack glanced between Din and Paz, nodding. “All right. Might as well get you two settled for the night. Follow me.”

Once shown to their rooms, Jack had promised to come back after a few quick words with Ginger, so Din is surprised when he answers the knock at his door and finds Paz instead.

With hands in his pockets, ear bent like he'd been listening for the latch, Paz meets Din's eyes and smiles, rocking on his heels.

"Hey." Din frowns, searching him for a hint of his intentions.

"Hey,” Paz’s voice is quiet and his body language is… hesitant? What is he nervous about? “Thought I'd offer to look the room down. If you want."

Din blinks at him. “Really?”

Does Paz think they’re less safe behind these walls with their automated security and stationed patrols? Less safe than in his truck?

The man shrugs and his large shoulders crowd as though apologising for all the space he’s occupying. He spares a glance down the short, carpeted hall, warm lanterns in the walls. "I know it's your brother's place. But just. After the last week." Paz looks the closest to sheepish Din has seen in their time together. "Habit, you know."

It’s true. Din has noticed his nightly ritual of pacing the length of the truck. Din assumed it was to check for wear or damage as much as anything suspicious.

He didn’t expect that habit to follow them onto Statesman grounds. He is not sure how to deal with Paz like this and he feels at a loss. But if Din invites him in, does it mean Din himself distrusts Statesman that much? More importantly, does he have so little faith in Jack to keep them safe?

Glancing back into the room, a mischievous giggle draws his eye to the kid wriggling down into the pillows on the bed.

Maybe Paz just wants to say good night to the kid.

“I--” Din stalls and the absurdity of the offer must be starting to sink in because Paz kicks his heel at the carpet, and Din watches a shutter close behind his eyes.

"If you wanted. But. It's stupid. Never mind. G’night, Din." He starts to back up. Something about the way he ducks his head goodbye makes Din falter.

He’s not sure how or why the next words leave his mouth: “You want to come in? Say good night to him?”

It’s like watching that shutter pull back when Paz smiles, bashful and pleased. He doesn’t need to be so embarrassed about wanting to say good night, Din thinks, stepping back to let him past. The kid just has this effect on people. At least, the ones not shooting at them.

The door clicks shut and he hears Paz call, “Hey, kiddo, ready for bed?” but when he turns back, Paz is running his hands the length of the windowsill and then finding it has little risk of breach because it lacks a means to open, anyway. It’s not that kind of guest quarters.

Paz’s expression turns pensive in the dark reflection of the glass and he presses his palm flat, studying his knuckles. Din thinks he has little reason to worry. If only he knew that glass was bulletproof, as it was through most of Statesman. Paz heads into the bathroom to inspect further anyway.

“So, why does a distillery for one of the country’s biggest brands have advanced medical technology?” he calls, voice echoing on tile.

Sighing, Din reclines on the bed, careful not to lean too heavily on the pillow nest. Ankles crossing at the knee, he pulls out his phone and starts scanning the news.

“There are some questions we shouldn’t ask,” he says.

“We? I think you know the answer or we wouldn’t be here.” Paz emerges from the bathroom and clicks the lights off. His tone is skeptical. “But if you don’t want to share. That’s up to you.”

Din just frowns at his phone. No, he doesn’t.

To his credit, Paz drops it. His curiosity must be satisfied because he instead leans over the bed and burrows deep into the pillows beside him. Din grunts, jostled by the movement, and doesn’t bother looking up when Paz emerges with an armful of squealing child, crowing triumphantly.

Din snorts under his breath as the kid shrieks with laughter, held high overhead before he’s brought down and Paz blows a loud raspberry into his stomach. Din stares at the far wall and suffers in silence.

“Okay!” Paz declares in that exaggerated commander voice that for some reason delights the kid. “Lights out, no snacks after midnight, and be good for Din.”

“It’s nine o’clock,” Din says, swiping through the all points bulletin feed on his phone.

“No snacks after nine!”

“Don’t get him excited. He was just getting sleepy again.”

“Understood. Want me to put him down?”

Din sighs, finally looking up to find Paz dangling the kid upside down by his ankles over the pillow. It’s a hold more fit for game than precious cargo, but both Paz and the kid are watching, waiting with matching grins, and the kid beams at him with its tufty thick afro sticking out every which way.

He shrugs and shakes his head in resignation. “Sure.”

As Paz settles the kid with its blankets and bottle, a thought occurs to Din. “Are we still on schedule for your job?”

When Paz had rescued them outside that diner, he’d been on his own way to make a delivery. They’d spent the last week routing circles through the states to keep the hunters off their tail, but Din’s guilt insisted Paz not derail his life for them. The man had done him a favour, and he had a job to keep. Coincidentally, leading them straight to Kentucky. Reaching out to Jack had seemed like the natural next step.

“Drop off’s less than two hours away and max delivery time isn’t for another few days. We got time.”

Din frowns, lowering his phone to consider Paz’s back, bent over the baby seat. “But--”

“We got time,” Paz says, firm but gentle.

Din inwardly huffs, grinding his jaw. It's not his problem.

Paz brings the kid and its makeshift cradle over. Bundled in a nest of blankets, he settles him securely on the bed beside Din and borders him with pillows. Least likely place to fall. Safe and close. “You got the rest?”

“Yeah, I'm on it,” Din says, already opening the music app on his phone. They both glance in at the kid when the rush of wind and storms fills the air and, with a heavy blink, the little one looks over at Din. A small, pudgy arm lifts and Din takes the tiny hand that reaches for him, rubbing gently. He feels a smile tug at his mouth and glances at the cotton ball still taped to the kid’s forearm, evidence of his bravery. “You did good today, kid.”

“Beh.” The little one hangs onto his fingers even as his eyelids grow heavy.

“Sleep now, kid,” Din reassures him.

You’re safe here.

Din has to give it up to Paz for this trick with the soundtrack of rain and storms. Bedtime had only been a concept before he found them.

“I hope these people can help him,” Paz says, once the kid’s head has drooped to his pillow and his eyes have slid shut.

“Yeah,” Din sighs, studying that round face softened in sleep. “Me, too.”

He lets the thunderstorm continue to play, it was always safest to continue at least half an hour to ensure the kid was well and truly asleep.

At the next boom of thunder, Din realises Paz hasn’t moved from his place by the bedside. Looking up from the baby seat, Din meets his eye only to find Paz already watching him, expression thoughtful.

He frowns at that look. “Was there something else?”

Paz blinks, as though coming back to himself. “No. No, place looks--” He glances round the room. “Good.”

He’s still standing there, unmoving.

Din glances to the door; Paz seems to need the hint. “Jack will be back any minute.”

And finally, Paz is motivated into action. “Yeah, I’ll-- I’ll see you tomorrow. Good night, Din.”

Din turns back to his phone and the bulletin feed. He doesn’t watch Paz go, he needs to make sure the authorities haven’t been given any reason to look for them either.

“Lock it behind you,” Din calls after him when the man is at the door.

He only looks up once he hears the click of the latch close. Alone at last. Grunting under his breath, he glances back at the sleeping child.

“Yeah, he’s a strange one.”

///

“Hey.”

Standing before the door to his own room, Paz stops, key card at the lock. He raises an eyebrow as Jack strolls to an easy halt, sound of his steps swallowed by the copper-tinted carpet. The cowboy points to his brother’s door.

“You just come from here?”

Something about his tone chafes.

Paz glances between the light wood and Jack’s disapproving frown. “That a problem?”

Jack’s arm drops and swings at his side like a pendulum weighed by his disappointment. He shakes his head.

Does he think Paz would care about his opinion? Because he doesn’t.

Paz turns to face him straight on, hands finding his hips, head cocked. “You got something you want to say, I prefer we talk straight.”

“And are you?”

“What?”

Jack throws a hand up, gesturing at the length of him. “Straight?”

Paz blinks at him in disbelief. Well that’s just fucking rude. “And here I thought you Southerners were renowned for your manners.”

“You heard right.” Jack’s smile is cheshire smug and just as sharp. His eyes burn dark beneath the brim of his hat. “But that’s my little brother you’re messing with. My last remaining family. I’d be well pleased to show you the limits of our hospitality, if I learn you so much as think about crossing him.”

Well, that’s a surprise. Wouldn’t it be nice if this turned out a genuine display of concern?

Paz’s mouth shrugs and he keys his door open. It beeps affirmatively, light flashing green, and he pushes it open, greeted by darkness on the other side.

“That’s funny,” he mutters and flicks on the lights.

“What did you say?” Jack says, voice rising.

Pausing in the doorway, Paz smirks at him, lazy and wide. “From what I heard... only one you should be protecting him from -- is you.”

He shuts the door on the satisfying sight of Jack’s face darkening with anger, and chuckles quietly to himself. Paz didn’t even start swinging.

His aunt would be so proud.

Paz stops up short, the warm mirth at Jack’s expense fizzling down to a hushed ember at the thought of her. His aunt.

Staring at the dark face of the cellphone in his hand, Paz sighs. Double checks the door is locked behind him before he makes the call. Sinking down on the impeccably made bed, Paz palms his knee and waits, swallowing moisture down his throat.

With each ring, his chest tightens further, hot and difficult. The fifth ring is interrupted mid-tone and his heart leaps to his throat.

“Yes,” she answers, calm and controlled, with all the weight of the authority that used to inspire him with so little effort. Her voice, projected through great halls, could make every head turn and hail a reverent silence. When she spoke, Paz did not only hear her but all the voices that had come before and infused her with their wisdom.

She still has that effect on him. But now, instead of drawing his shoulders back with pride, Paz sweats at a single word.

“It’s me,” he says, glancing to the shuttered windows.

It’s stupid. He already checked them. Swept this entire room twice for surveillance, surprised to actually find none. Statesman were unexpectedly trusting of their guests. Jack was apparently the exception.

“Yes,” his aunt’s tone is unaffected. “I know.”

Paz takes a deep breath. Exhales slowly. “I’ve set the plant. They can start the trace now.”

“They have already begun.”

Of course. They would have been ready. They had been waiting far longer than Paz promised they would need to.

It hadn’t been easy to steer Din here.

“Good,” he says. “Let me know what you find.”

“And how are you? Still confident in your plan?”

His palm closes over his knee, kneading sweat into the worn denim. His eyes lift to the wall dividing his room from them - Din and that sweet kid on the other side.

Gaze dropping to his boots, his voice is steady. “I am. But I need a favour.”

She grunts in amusement. “Bold of you.”

He knows she’s right. He shouldn’t ask. He has no right to ask after the way he left. They are already doing him this favour, but they will also gain from his efforts. If everything goes as planned. Years of patience at last rewarded.

“Yes,” he says. “And maybe fortune will favour us once more.”

He can hear the smirk of approval in her voice, and it’s like the release of a vice around his chest when she agrees, “This is the way.”

“This is the way.”

<< previous chapter | next chapter >>

[nerdgurl22]

Election Night 92′ - Part 5

I want to let this chapter speak for itself.  I really hope you enjoy.

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Bill was in his office with Al and some campaign staffers and they were discussing cabinet picks, and that was when Hillary thought she could quietly sneak out and head to the doctor but there was quite the commotion at the door as she tried to leave unnoticed.  The secret service was not allowing her to go anywhere alone, and this was now the part her reality she was not prepared for.  Trying so hard to quietly make a deal with the secret service before Bill was alerted to what was happening, but that was short lived as he came out into the front hallway.  "What is going on out here?" Bill yelled.  "Sorry sir but the First Lady wanted to go out and we can't let her leave alone."  Jeff the head of the detail explains.  Hillary just looked down to the floor.  "Honey, where are you needing to go?"  He asks in wonderment.  "I just need to run a few errands Bill, it is no big deal."  She tries to calm him down without alerting him to what she is really doing, and she casually glances down at her watch.  She continues before he can say a word, "It is fine Jeff and the guys will go with me and you can get back to working on the short lists for cabinet picks and I will be back before dinner."  She hops up on her tippy toes to give Bill a kiss and she is out the door with Jeff before he can really process what is happening.  He stands in the hall and just looks at the front door, puts a puzzled look on his face, shook his head from left to right and turned around to go back into the study.

Meanwhile as Jeff and her detail are taking her to the car she taps Jeff on the arm, "Please Jeff if you could keep where we are going from Bill that would be very helpful."  Jeff looks at her, "Ma'am if the President Elect asks me I cannot withhold that information from him, it is a violation of my job."  She is trying to grasp all this new added security and she doesn't want to make their job any more difficult.  "I understand Jeff, but I just need to make sure of something first before I let Bill know what is going on.  I don't want you to violate your job but I just need to make sure what is about to happen is something that will happen and not something I am just dreaming in my head."  Jeff is now extremely confused but begrudgingly he agrees.  "So ma'am where are we headed?"  Jeff asks as she gets into the car.  "Little Rock Medical Center."  Hillary answered as they closed her door.

Trying to arrive for the doctor appointment without being noticed was not going to happen now, not with the police escort and secret service members having to now sweep the hospital before her arrival.  They pull up and they open the door to let her out, as she walks into the front door her good friend and doctor Carol Shuster is there waiting for her.  "Hillary, it is so wonderful to see you."  She reaches out to hug Hillary.  As she and Hillary embrace Hillary whispers in her ear, "Carol continue to pretend I am just here for a friendly visit but I need to be examined, we need to keep this super quiet."  She pulls away from Carol and smiles, Carol now understands why Hillary's name was down for an appointment.  "Let's head into my office for a light lunch and we can discuss the work I do at the clinic."  Carol is now playing along, it all looks so casual, people in the waiting area come up to congratulate Hillary on her husbands amazing victory last night and she is smiling and making it all seem just so normal.  "Janine please make sure my appointments are looked at by the partners, Mrs. Clinton and I have some catching up to do."  As they approach the office Hillary stops Carol, "Jeff and the agents just have to sweep your office Carol give them a moment."  Carol nods and they wait.  "Mrs. Clinton all clear ma'am you can go in."  "Thank you Jeff, if you wouldn't mind just waiting out here at the door while Carol and I catch up that would be very much appreciated."  Hillary is hoping Jeff will say yes but she isn't sure if they literally need to be with her at all times or not.  "Of course ma'am, we will be right at the door."  Jeff is now understanding her perimeter of comfort, and her and Carol go into the office and close the door behind them.

"Ok Hillary, what is going on."  Carol is not a woman who beats around the bush and that is why Hillary is good friends with her, she gets right to the point.  "I am not sure to be honest, I had this very weird dream yesterday afternoon as I was napping and it woke me out of a sound sleep."  Hillary explained.  "What kind of dream?"  Carol is not at all a psychologist but she and her friend Hillary are just having a chat.  "Much like the one I had when I found out I was pregnant with Chelsea."  Hillary knows the minute Carol processes what she just said she will surely understand why she is here, and she was right.  "Ahh, I see.  So you need for me to run a few tests to find out for certain."  "Yes I do Carol, I hate imposing on our friendship but I need this to be as discrete as possible and Bill cannot find out."  Hillary before going any further was cut off, "Hillary why don't you want Bill to know?  It's his right?"  Hillary laughed and so did Carol, they both know that it would of course be Bill's child.  "I just don't want to tell him and get his hopes up if I am wrong, I couldn't bare to see him that crushed again.  After our loss in 84' he tried to pretend it didn't bother him and he wanted to be strong for me but when I heard him the night after in the bathroom crying and asking god Why, (Hillary starts to cry.) it broke my heart and for it to be my fault I couldn't give him another child...  That was the most painful time for us."

Carol sensing that this might get away from her, she stands up and walks around her desk to put her hand on Hillary's shoulder.  "Don't worry sweetie, I won't breath a word of this to anyone.  But in order for me to run the test I am going to need to get you into an exam room and with your Secret Service detail that might be difficult without them suspecting something."  Hillary quickly responded, "No, it should be ok, I might be able to convince Jeff to move to the end of the hallway.  I can tell him that you want me to meet with an old friend in one of the rooms that is going through some tough times.".  "Let me go and get an exam room ready around the hallway and then you can talk to them, just relax here for a few minutes."  Hillary taps her friends hand on her shoulder and nods up at her with a smile.

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Hillary tilts her head back on the chair for a moment and closes her eyes and she is instantly drifted back to her memories...

It was the summer of 1984, and Chelsea was away at her grandparents house in Park Ridge, Hillary and Bill would be joining her in a few days after they finished up some work.  It was a rather hot day at the end of June and Hillary had gotten home first, she went up to the bedroom with her briefcase she had a ton of reading to do on not just the case she was working on but also a bunch of material she had to review for a few schools in northern Arkansas.  She laid her briefcase down on the bed and went right into the bathroom to take a shower to try and cool herself down.  She was not a fan of the dry heat that Arkansas had, but just like many other times in her life she had learned to adapt to it over the years.  She exited the shower and dried herself off and saw Bill's Georgetown shirt on the sink from the the day before so she quickly pulled it on and made her way out into the bedroom.  She started to pull her papers out of the briefcase and her glasses and she climbed onto the bed propping the pillow behind her on the headboard to sit more comfortably and read her material.  About an hour later she thought she had heard the front door open, it was Bill getting home from a late day at the State House.  He was not in a very good mood, in fact he was fuming mad.  He got into an argument with his staff over a proposal that would get more tourist to the state, he usually didn't get this mad but with the heat like it was it really was getting to him.

He came right up the stairs never checking to see where Hillary might be, in fact he wasn't even sure she was home yet.  He walked into the bedroom and was just having an argument with himself never noticing his wife on the bed reading and she didn't make herself known because when he came in he threw his stuff on the chair across from their bed and went right into the bathroom and shut the door.  She took her glasses off and just stared at the door to the bathroom, she then heard the shower start and she realized that he just needed to cool off and calm down from whatever had him so furious.  She went back to reading her material and never gave it a second thought.  Finally after about 15 minutes she heard the water turn off, and about 3 minutes later Bill came out of the bathroom with just a towel draped around his mid-section and a hint of water still glistening on his bare chest.  She was just staring at his chest, rather seductively mind you.  Bill stopped dead and just stared back at her... her legs were bent at the knee, her hair was barely touching her shoulder because she haphazardly pulled it up and her glasses on the bridge of her nose and in his over sized t-shirt just barely laying over her stunning hips.  She looked so relaxed and so sexy.  "Well hello there, how long have you been there on the bed?"  His heart seriously pounding almost out of his chest.  "For a while honey, you came in so angry and went right into the bathroom I didn't want to startle you."  She said it so soft like, that it sent a damn electron-shock through his damn body.  Something about her just sitting there so comfortable and relaxed and not even trying to be sexy, made her that much more sexy to him.

She still however could not stop drifting her eyes to his bare chest still glistening with a few beads of water, my god he looks so damn sexy.  She was getting flush and she could tell her cheeks were getting pinker by the second.  Bill couldn't help noticing what him standing there was doing to his wife, so he decided to make the tension even more difficult for her and he walked over to the foot of the bed now even closer for her to admire.  "What are you working on my love?"  He said it with a little more draw in his voice that he knew she couldn't resist.  "Uhh, just some stuff for my case and then I was going to review school figures."  She knew when she said it that it sounded so not like her, she was distracted and she tried so hard never to be.  She just couldn't help herself, something about him in that moment was causing her to act like a love struck teenager.  She shifted her hips just slightly but enough for Bill to notice exactly what he was doing to her.  This power the two of them have over one another that no one else gets to see, on the surface they look like a typical normal married couple, but that's how they want people to see them.  No one sees the deep desires they have for one another, many in Arkansas never understood them, why a man as charming as Bill would go for what they perceived was a wallflower.  Little did they know that Hillary Rodham Clinton was anything but, she is smart, intellectual, sophisticated, a big heart, a fighter, a lover, a friend, a mother and a wonderfully devoted wife.  

Hillary now twirling her glasses in her fingers and she looks down at her knees hopefully the goosebumps aren't showing on her legs, and quickly Bill pushes the papers she has spread out on the bed out of the way so he can sit on the bed at her feet.  Before she knew it he was bent over and kissing the top of her left foot, and he slowly began to move up her leg until his lips were on the top of her knee cap.  As he is paying attention to the top of her knee his soft gentle fingers were following slowly up the back of her leg, and her right leg went flat, she closed her eyes and tilted her head back toward the headboard.  The tension in her body is almost just too much, she is yearning for him in a way she almost had never felt before.  His gentle touch with not just his lips but on the under side of her leg and now knee with his fingers was sending her into another dimension, and Bill knew it so he over emphasized the light gentle touch.  All she could muster were almost breathless "Mmmms" as Bill just kept teasing her, she knew she was no longer in control but she also was not expecting this to be happening right now.  All she could think about was his soft touch.  Bill now takes this chance to run his right hand very lightly up the outside of her left thigh, and as he gets to the top Hillary arches her back, completely unaware of all time and space or even what she is doing.  Bill follows the path of his fingers with his lips.  He knows he has her in a totally different universe and he is not stopping now.  

Kissing the outside of her thigh he realizes she is not wearing any type of under garments, so he slides his hand up under the shirt tracing the outline of her hips and slowly up to her rib cage.  He has to get this damn t-shirt off of her but he doesn't want to go to fast, seeing his beautiful wife enjoying every light touch is a sight to behold.  His fingers are now rubbing up and down her rib cage like he is plucking the strings of a guitar, and Hillary in between moans and conjuring up what little breath she can, "Bill."  He can only smile, his lips are now on her hip and he is kissing it like he was on her lips, he can feel her body tingle, her left hand now running deep into his hair.  He is so aroused but he knows this can't be quick, this isn't like the time they threw the cocktail party at the mansion and he took her quickly in the small bathroom because he couldn't contain himself any longer, no this had to be slow and steady.  

"Bill... Bill..."  

All she can seem to get out is his name, not anything else.  Bill takes her glasses from her hand and throws them on the other side of the bed, and in one seamless fluid motion moves his right hand to the middle of her back, and pulls his shirt up over her head with his left.  There she is completely exposed to him and only him, no one else gets the honor and privilege to see her this vulnerable and no one ever will.  His lips are now on her rib cage and both of her hands are running through his hair.  Her breath is so taken that every time she inhales and exhales her chest is rising and falling so dramatically.  She is almost breathless and she is totally lost in his universe of pure ecstasy kissing now moving up to her shoulder and he gently rubs the side of her left breast with his face and it causes her to let out a hiss.  Now on her bare beautiful shoulder he makes his way to the underside of her neck and she has her head tilted back and an arch in her back.  He moves up the underside of her chin, then her chin and waits a moment for her to catch up to where he is now and leans down to catch his blue eyes into her blue eyes and when their lips touch literal fireworks went off.  

"Bill I can't take it any longer...  I need you..."  Finally she found her words and Bill just stared deep into her eyes.  He unhooks the towel from around his waste, never dropping his gaze on her, never losing the connection their soul is now having with their eyes.  He thought to himself "If this is heaven I don't ever want to leave."  He wraps his left hand and arm around her and slides her down on the bed a bit, and her body is literally seething.  He places his right hand on her breast plate very gently, "Baby, relax, please.  Just feel my touch." She is trying lord knows she is trying but she has no control over what is happening to her at this moment, but she is looking into his eyes and he is lovingly trying to get her to regulate her breathing.  As soon as she settles her breathing and looks a little more relaxed, he gently slides himself inside her.  The euphoria caused her to go almost speechless again, "Oh...... god.....".  Bill's pace is slow, he wants them to take their time and connect so deeply that their souls will literally become one.  Her hands are on his back shoulder blades, she can literally feel his muscles move with each slow thrust.  She lifted up and bent her right leg, Bill then dipped his head down to where her neck meets her shoulder, Hillary's slight move of the leg gave him deeper penetration and her hips are moving with his rhythm.  

Her moans are causing the hair on the back of his neck to stand up, and he slightly increases his pace, "Hillary..." he whispers into her right ear, "I love you so much.".  She moves her hand to the nape of his neck and he tilts his neck and back and without trying he thrusts into her a little harder and deeper, "Oh... Bill... Oooohhhhhh...", they are there and they both know it and he puts his forehead on hers.  "Baby, don't take your eyes off me.  Keep looking into my eyes."  She complies and when they both feel the ocean at the same time he can see sparkles in her eyes.  

She goes back to that memory because that is the time they made love that they conceived the baby, confirmed at her doctor's visit 3 weeks later after they got back home from Illinois.  Bill was so happy in the exam room with her when she found out, the look of sheer pride in his eyes and how he kissed her and said, "Thank you for another blessing."  Filled her heart with such warmth. ��It was so beautiful, and joyous, but it wouldn't last long.  3 and a half weeks later as Hillary was leaving a meeting with junior lawyers she felt a pain she had never felt before, and she knew something was very wrong.  

She went quickly into the bathroom and that's when she saw the blood, her heart dropped.  She fixed herself as best she could and went into her office and called her doctor, they wanted her to come in right away.  She then called Bill at work and knew this would be the hardest phone call she would ever have to make.  "Hi, Donna, it's Hillary.  Is Bill available?"  "Yes he is dear, he just got done a meeting let me put you through."  Bill picks up the phone, "Hi my love."  Hillary starts to cry.  "Honey, what is wrong?"  "Bill... you need to meet me at the doctor's right now."  Bill's heart sunk in his chest, "Okay sweetheart, I am on my way right now."  After he hangs he calls for his secretary, "Donna!"  His secretary enters stunned, "Governor?  What's wrong?"  "I have to go meet 

Hillary at the doctors, something is wrong."  Donna dropped her head down, she was the only one he told, he couldn't help it he was so excited and Donna has been with him for almost 7 years, she is more like a sister.  "Governor I will move your schedule around, don't worry."  Bill stands up and leaves his office.   Hillary was already in the room, changed and on the table in a gown.  When Bill arrived he ran down the hallway to her room and burst in, panting and out of breath.  As soon as Hillary saw him she began to cry, Bill rushed over to her and took her head in his arms, and tried to rock her.  The doctor entered the room as soon as he heard the Governor had arrived, Hillary insisted to hold off examination until he arrived.  "Governor (the doctor shook his hand), ok Hillary are you ready to begin?"  All she could do was acknowledge yes with the shaking of her head.  Bill held her hand and rubbed her forehead, trying all he could do to keep her calm, but silently he was asking for God to not do this to her.  "Please lord, don't do this to her.  She will never forgive herself if we lose this baby.  Please just don't do this to her."  

After a few minutes the doctor stood up and removed his gloves, and Bill watched him like a hawk.  As he threw the gloves into the trash can he was trying to search how to tell the Governor and First Lady this news.  He turned to look at Bill, and as soon as Bill saw his face he knew the answer.  "Bill and Hillary... I am so terribly sorry."  Hillary squeezed Bill's hand and started sobbing uncontrollably, and all Bill could do was hold her head to his chest.  Trying everything he could to give her whatever strength he had inside him, rubbing her head and her clutching his arm.  The pain was unbearable to her, the hope of new life, the hope of a new life she and Bill had created was gone in a flash.  

When they arrived back at the Governor's mansion Hillary could barely move, she was so drained emotionally and physically that Bill had to carry her into the house and up to the bedroom.  Her arms wrapped around his neck with tears still streaming down her face.  Bill had called his mother to get Chelsea so that Hillary could rest and sleep for as long as she needed, hearing her son's voice crack over the phone made Virginia's heart drop.  She wasn't sure what to tell him and her heart broke for her daughter in law even though they didn't really get along, she knew how wonderful of a mother Hillary is and how heartbroken she must be to have lost the chance to show love to another child.  

Halfway up the stairs this weak small little voice was heard, "I'm so sorry honey."  Hearing his wife apologize for something he knew she had no control over just broke his heart.  "Baby you have nothing to be sorry for, do you hear me nothing."  She squeezed him even tighter.  He knew it, he knew she would blame herself for this and he found himself angry at God for what he was now putting this selfless woman through.  Bill laid her on the bed and helped her into her pajamas, she didn't want to let go of Bill and finally she drifted off to sleep.  Bill sat on the floor next to the bed just holding her hand as long as possible.  Watching her sleep brought him some relief but not much, he was so mad at God and the universe, "Why her?"  

He repeated over and over again in his head, why was she meant to suffer this terribly loss, this woman who has always given so much of herself so unselfishly to so many, who would move a mountain if she had too to help those less fortunate.  He stayed up all night watching his amazing wife sleep just hoping he could take all her pain away from her, and finally he couldn't take the anger in his body anymore.  Letting go of Hillary's hand he ran into the bathroom and shut the door and started to sob, Hillary was awakened by the echoed sobs coming from the bathroom and she approached the door and she could hear Bill.  "Why did you do this to her?"  "What has she ever done to you?"  She started crying again, as she swung the door open Bill looked up at her and reached out for her to join him on the bathroom floor.  Wrapped in his arms all he could say, "I'm sorry baby, I am so sorry I couldn't protect you and our baby." ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Carol returned to the room, "Hillary, it's all ready."  She approached Hillary and put her hand on her shoulder again, Hillary let out a large sigh.  Carol nods and Hillary stands up and Carol opens the door Jeff is at the ready.  "Jeff, can I speak to you a moment in private?", Hillary trying hard not to alert the other agents attention.  "Of course ma'am."  He steps inside the doorway and Hillary whispers to him as Carol waits in the hallway as to not draw suspicion, Jeff leaves the doorway and moves the agents down the hall away from the room a bit.  Success!  Now comes the hard part.

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I really hope that I was able to bring across the pain both of them felt in this moment of pure loss.  I know that they had tried to have another baby and the only thing I have ever heard about it was what Hillary’s friend Betsey had said that they tried but it just wasn’t meant to be.  Hillary nor Bill have ever spoken further about it, so I assume (Purely my assumption.) that it’s too painful for them to discuss.  I know they had a hard time conceiving Chelsea, I read somewhere that it was such a stressful time for Hillary that Bill just had enough and took her away to Bermuda to just try and relax her... and well... it worked!

Thank you all so much for continuing to read the story and I am so appreciative of you all taking the time to enjoy it as much as I enjoyed writing it.  Part 6 will be posted tomorrow. =)

[biofunmy]

Hans Haacke, Firebrand, Gets His First U.S. Survey in 33 Years

Anyone who knows much about the defiantly political art of Hans Haacke, filling the New Museum in New York later this month, is bound to feel anxious before meeting the famous firebrand. But when Mr. Haacke showed up for an interview at his dealer’s gallery in Manhattan, what was shocking was his quietude: In sensible sandals, roomy jeans and a staid plaid shirt, the 83-year-old New Yorker answered questions with an amiable, unflappable calm.

Asked about what seems to have been almost an embargo against him among American curators, despite his huge reputation in Europe, he replied, “before they make a move — one that is not quite the norm — they need to consider (and I don’t blame them for that) whether this is good for their personal career.”

Queried on the power of museum donors, a group he has unflinchingly confronted in his art, he replied merely that he “suspects” — and in person, Mr. Haacke never does more than “suspect”— that the power of art to affect viewers’ thinking leaves museum benefactors with “an interest in what is being shown there, and what is not going to be shown there.” And the art some donors would prefer not to see exhibited includes Mr. Haacke’s own.

“He’s just a really nice guy,” said Andrea Fraser, a peer of Mr. Haacke’s known for equally hard-nosed work. “I’ve never seen him be aggressive” — at least not in the flesh, she clarified, acknowledging the aggression in his art.

In 1971, when Mr. Haacke was about to be honored with a survey at the Guggenheim Museum, the show was canceled. Once the director learned that the art on view would include research into questionable real estate dealings, he said there was no way his museum would display such “muckraking.” He fired the survey’s curator, too. Mr. Haacke’s conceptual artwork, “Shapolsky et al. Manhattan Real Estate Holdings, A Real Time Social System, as of May 1, 1971,” made up of photographs, charts and financial histories of buildings on the Lower East Side and Harlem, remains one of his best-known pieces.

“To introduce something that deals with the social and political world that we live in — that was alien,” Mr. Haacke recalled, expressing something like understanding for the predicament he’d created for the Guggenheim. “Maybe I was naïve,” he added, “but I did not expect that this would cause problems.”

Mr. Haacke admits that the furor around the cancellation helped establish him as an art-world force, but in a rare moment of personal revelation, he also mentioned what it cost him: “It was not easy. We had a two-year-old child. I had an adjunct position at Cooper Union. I could not sell my stuff — it was hard.”

It looks like American museums have never quite forgiven Mr. Haacke for his early transgressions. It has been 33 years since his last U.S. survey — and that was also at the New Museum, when it was a much more modest place than today. But Mr. Haacke doesn’t blame curators for not risking art from a wild-card. “Who knows what I’ll do?” he asked, allowing himself a sly smile.

“More than risk, we felt it was important to do this show,” said Massimiliano Gioni, co-curator of the New Museum retrospective, who hopes the survey will establish Mr. Haacke as “the artist who has opened the doors to a world outside,” making art for much more than art’s sake. Gary Carrion-Murayari, the show’s other curator, said that when they first offered it to Mr. Haacke, “it was the most surprised and happy we’ve ever seen an artist be.”

A centerpiece of the retrospective will be the work that lost Mr. Haacke his Guggenheim solo. Mr. Gioni reads the 300 documents in it as a kind of detective story, with Mr. Haacke as a gumshoe “going out into the city and revealing forces that are hidden.” It went on to teach several generations of artists that pure information could count as art. Also, that the most pointed social critique had as much claim on museum space as any pretty object. The barbed work that’s so common today descends from Mr. Haacke’s.

Mr. Gioni said that it was one of Mr. Haacke’s most polemical assaults on the establishment that first set the New Museum on the road to his survey. In 2015, the artist’s “Gift Horse,” a huge bronze skeleton of a thoroughbred, began its 18-month stay on a long-empty plinth in London’s Trafalgar Square. The square’s three other plinths bear classic monuments to a king and two generals, making Mr. Haacke’s riderless, fleshless mount a counterweight to such celebrations of Great Men. One of the horse’s front legs came wrapped in an LED display that carried the latest U.K. stock-market report. When “Gift Horse” goes up at the New Museum, the numbers will come from Wall Street.

The New Museum will be hosting still more Haackian critique in a recent piece called “We (All) Are the People,” enlarged and tweaked for the retrospective. The words of its title will parade across banners on the museum’s entrance wall in the languages of recently arrived New Yorkers from such places as Latin America, Vietnam and Haiti, a nation Mr. Haacke feels has been singled out for opprobrium by the president.

But the imperturbable Mr. Haacke is reluctant to attack collectors’ preference for the attractive and uncontroversial over tough work like his. “They have to consider, ” he said, “when they have friends in — coming for dinner and cocktails and so forth — that unless they are of their particular political clan, they don’t want to get into a big argument.” Speaking with Mr. Haacke, it can sometimes feel as though his art has absorbed all his ire, leaving the man himself free to adopt a more distanced, impartial view.

“There was a kind of clinical accountability to his way of talking about art,” remembered James Leary, thinking back on the classes he took with Mr. Haacke in 2002, at the very end of his 35-year career at Cooper Union college in New York. Mr. Leary and another student of Mr. Haacke’s named Seth Cameron went on to help found an influential collective called The Bruce High Quality Foundation, which, with Mr. Haacke as father figure, has addressed art-world hypocrisy. Mr. Cameron remembered being especially impressed by his teacher’s determination to keep the spotlight on his art, to the point of refusing to ever have his face appear in print (not even for this article). The pair remember being surprised to find Mr. Haacke’s politics mostly absent from his actual talk and teaching.

“I feel uncomfortable to be seen running around with a clenched fist,” Mr. Haacke explained.

At the New Museum, not every piece will be overtly political. One floor will be devoted to 1960s works that explore physical and natural systems and human impacts on them — easy-to-like works that, among Mr. Haacke’s fans, are the equivalent of the early, “funny” films of Woody Allen. A 1966 piece lets us watch a rod of ice grow and shrink depending on the humidity released into the gallery by visitors. In 1972, when a German sewage plant and factory were pouring effluent into a river, Mr. Haacke set up pumps and filters to clean a tiny sample of its water. Mr. Gioni pointed out that today, as we confront systemic threats to our planet, such early pieces seem prescient.

Mr. Haacke first revealed a commitment to exploring social systems in a talk he gave in the 1968, as he found himself reeling from the murder of Martin Luther King Jr. Faced with that, he said, artists could only realize “how unsuited their endeavors are for making society more humane.” And ever since, he’s taken society on.

Mr. Haacke’s political awareness has deep roots. He was born in Cologne in 1936, to a father who lost his job for refusing to join the Nazi party He spent his childhood amid the terrors of World War II. For art school, he took care to choose one of the few West German institutions that still held to the Bauhaus ideals that left artists “very much involved in the society in which they worked,” as he put it. The school was in Kassel, a bomb-flattened town by the East German border. In 1961, Mr. Haacke came to the U.S. on a Fulbright fellowship and settled in New York four years later.

SINCE THE CANCELED Guggenheim survey, Mr. Haacke’s gimlet eye has often strayed from the ills outside museums to the politics inside them. “Whether artists like it or not, artworks are always ideological tokens, even if they don’t serve identifiable clients by name,” Mr. Haacke once said.

A 1975 piece in the New Museum exhibition quotes David Rockefeller, a longtime trustee of the Museum of Modern Art, on how a company’s involvement in culture can deliver “extensive publicity and advertising, a brighter public reputation, and an improved corporate image.”

A 1985 work looks at the relationship between sales of fuel to apartheid forces by Mobil oil and the company’s support for African art at the Metropolitan Museum of Art; it couples a statement from Mobil defending those sales with a pitch from the museum on how sponsorship can provide “a creative and cost effective answer to a specific marketing objective.” Such works made Mr. Haacke the godfather of the art movement now called Institutional Critique.

“He’s been a major influence on me, and an inspiration,” said Ms. Fraser, chair of the art department at University of California, Los Angeles, and the most eloquent of institutional critics.

This summer at the Whitney Museum of American Art, it was hard not to feel echoes of Mr. Haacke when artists protested a board member’s ties to a company that produces tear gas.

But his own work is still and always art, not activism. “Of course, I don’t believe that artists really wield any significant power,” he once said. “At best, one can focus attention.”

That brings Mr. Haacke close to many great artists in the Western tradition. The medieval painter Ambrogio Lorenzetti “focused attention” on the evils of bad government; Caravaggio showed us cardsharps and torturers; Goya made heart-rending prints of the evils of war — and none of them ever thought that such ills would end once they’d revealed them.

It’s hard not to notice that nothing in Mr. Haacke’s show probes the New Museum itself, despite its history of anti-union measures, a board drawn from members of the 1 percent and a coming expansion that may demand appeasing donors.

Mr. Haacke admitted that his fires may have cooled. “I’m too old by now — I’m 83,” he said, adding, “What I read every day is very upsetting, but I don’t have that much energy anymore.”

But he also hinted (that sly smile again) that the checklist to a Haacke exhibition is never final. So do confirm the show’s detail before heading out to Mr. Haacke’s latest retrospective. It’s never too late for a cancellation.

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[healthnewsdate]

Baltimore's medical students celebrate years of hard work at Match Day

Rebka Tekeste and her husband planned on having children later in life. The 28-year-old was in a grueling medical program that left her little time for anything else.

But sometime life throws you a curve ball. Tekeste found herself pregnant during her third year at the University of Maryland School of Medicine. She gave birth to a son and decided she wanted to give him a sibling sooner rather than later. Her daughter Grace was born six weeks ago.

Tekeste held Grace when she walked on stage Friday at the Hippodrome Theatre to receive the letter that would tell her where she would practice medicine for the next three years. Her husband Temesgen Meheret stood next to her holding their 2-year-old son Nathaniel. She will stay in Baltimore for a residency in pediatrics at the University of Maryland Medical Center.

Tekeste, who immigrated to the United States from Ethiopia at age 10, joined her classmates, along with medical students around the country, in the celebratory end to medical school and annual rite of passage known as Match Day. The day was a celebration for the whole family. Her dad worked three jobs to give his family a better life and stressed education when she was growing up.

Tekeste said balancing dirty diapers and late night feedings with labs and exams was as hard as it sounds, even with a lot of help from her husband and mother, who quit her job as a cashier to help. During the Match Day ceremony Nathaniel got a little cranky because it was nap time. Meheret almost missed joining his wife onstage, as a result.

Still, they wouldn’t change a thing about the past four and a half years.

“They bring so much joy to my family that the challenge was definitely worth it,” Tekeste said of her children.

This year 37,103 students vied for 33,167 medical residencies nationally, the most ever offered, according to the National Resident Matching Program. Students across the country all received their much anticipated letters at noon.

They are entering medicine as the country faces a looming shortage of doctors. The United State will be short 40,800 to 104,900 physicians by 2030, according to the Association of American Medical Colleges. Specialty care will face the largest gaps.

Tekeste was among 142 students from the University of Maryland School of Medicine who were called onstage at the Hippodrome in random order to receive their letters. Each student walked to a song of their choice, which ranged from “Girl on Fire” by Alicia Keys to “Like a Surgeon” by Weird Al Yankovic. Some opened their letters on stage while others did so back at their seats huddled with family, friends or fellow students.

The day is one filled with emotion and anxiety while waiting to hear your name called, relief and happiness after opening the letter.

Serena Yin and some friends decided to open their letters at their seats. Her friends engulfed Yin in hugs as tears streamed down her face after learning she would continue her medical training in neurosurgery at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago.

Brother and sister Daniel and Minna Leydorf opened their letters on stage. Daniel, three years older than his sister, enrolled in medical school after a career in politics. Minna knew since high school she wanted to be doctor.

The siblings, originally from Annapolis, lived together during their medical school years and served as each other’s support system during stressful times. Daniel joked that Minna, the more serious and disciplined of the two, helped keep him focused. Minna will train in pediatrics at the University of Maryland School of Medicine and Daniel in surgery at Anne Arundel Medical Center. His office was once across the street from the hospital, inspiring him to change careers.

Other students are headed to Cleveland Clinic, New York University Langone Medical Center, University of Pennsylvania Health System, Georgetown University Medical Center and a variety of other places.

Across town, 120 students from the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine received their letters all at once after a ceremony in an atrium on the East Baltimore campus.

Christine Boone, who also received a Ph.D. while in medical school, is going to California. The first stop is Santa Clara Valley Medical Center for a transitional program. She then will head to UC San Diego Medical Center to train in interventional radiology and research. She waited about 40 minutes to open her envelope. She wanted to open at the same time as her fiance who finished his medical studies at St. Louis University.

Boone has liked science as long as she can remember. She conducted her first science experiments at age four when she would put objects in the freezer to see the impact of the cold. She wanted to be a doctor after watching her younger sister live with a rare chromosomal anomaly that gave her seizures, which her neurologists described as electrical storms in the brain.

“That idea was really fascinating to me,” Boone said. “From that point on I was enthralled with neuroscience and how the brain works.”

Medicine was a career change for Stephen Lesche, who was a jazz guitarist in the military before getting accepted at Johns Hopkins. He took his first biology class his senior year of college, but thought it too late to change his major. But the joy of that class lingered in his mind years later.

“I loved learning about life and cells, DNA and research,” he said. “I still remember thinking how cool it was.”

Lesche held his daughter Rosalind, 3, as he opened his letter. He will train in ophthalmology at the University of Maryland Medical Center Midtown and George Washington University.

The annual Match Day, in its 66th year, was created as a fair way to assign students to residencies where they will further their training for the next three to seven years.

The match process is an intense and cumbersome one where students fill out long applications and undergo extensive interviews with potential programs. The medical centers and students then make their top picks. Based on these preferences, the nonprofit National Resident Matching Program uses a computer program to assign students.

Some will train in general or primary care, while others will pursue specialties, such as orthopedics.

“It represents the culmination in many ways of their incredible work in medical school,” said Dr. Thomas Koenig, associate dean for medical student affairs at Johns Hopkins.

At the Hippodrome, University of Maryland School of Medicine Dean E. Albert Reece encouraged the students to spend their careers being of service to others and seeking excellence and higher purpose. He also told them to treat their patients humanely.

“Always remember that your patients are people,” Reece said.” They are not a disease, not a collection of symptoms or just another case. Your patients are daughters, sons, mothers, fathers and children. Each and every patient deserves your full attention, your deepest respect and excellent care.”

amcdaniels@baltsun.com

twitter.com/ankwalker

[titheguerrero]

Burnout Returns to Center Stage

A recent Mayo Clinic Proceedings guest editorial, by Yale University physician Kristine Olson, asks the question--to some of us it's far from a rhetorical one--whether burnout among her fellow physicians is in fact "A Leading Indicator of Health System Performance?" Seems to me that her gist is: yes, it surely must be just such an indicator. If she's right, then our system's performance is in a heap of trouble. What is burnout? Our fearless editor, Dr. Poses, has addressed it repeatedly, including a few months ago here in these pages. But burnout is actually hard to delineate and hard to quantify. People quitting? People getting a lot less efficient once they see they're on the hamster-wheel? Getting lousy performance ratings because they're forced to hang in? (Wishing they had another option?) Leaving front line medicine to go to industry? Leaving to clip coupons and bicycle in Provence? Well, to quote Justice Potter Steward in his inimitable pronouncement for his short concurrence in the 1964 SCOTUS obscenity proceedings, "I know it when I see it." I know burnout when I see it. So do you. You want a physician who loves her job enough to get good at it, because lives depend on that. How's that going for you? I've watched my best and brightest colleagues--or those who could find another job or afford to do so--leave in droves. Now the waves of new investigations of burnout are coming at us thick and fast. What's striking about the latest spate of writings on burnout is what it doesn't try to say. Which is to say: back at the turn of the century, or just before that, or just after that, the preponderance of published sentiment was on reinforcing providers' resilience. Essentially, pep talks disguised as exegeses on "professionalism." "Stiff upper lip, remember your values and for heaven's sake, keep your professional wits about you. That's now changed. The surfeit of real, serious challenges--external threats--from HIT FAN (Health IT FAke News) to the opioid crisis to maldistributed resources, are now finally being examined. We'll come back to whether it's too late for any of this. So here are some recent chances for readers to get, usually without a paywall, a look-see.

The redoubtable New England Journal has several recent entries in its 25 January 2018 number dealing forthrightly with the "crisis level" of the problem, beginning with a perspectives piece from National Academy of Medicine authors Victor Dzau et al., including colleagues from most of the major national organizations involved in training and accrediting physicians and their organizations. I hope they read this blog.

The article cited above embeds an excellent and downloadable audio interview with Tait Shanafelt, MD, of Stanford University, also on burnout. He helpfully points out how front line doctors--those in primary care fields like internal medicine, family medicine and pediatrics--bear the brunt of the burden. That is, they bear the burden reflected in the alarming rate of especially experienced practitioners peeling off rather than continuing to put up with the (now my words) losses of autonomy and coherence. More later on autonomy and coherence. (At Stanford, Shanafelt holds the title of "Chief Wellness Officer." That tells us something right there. At a website tied to fitness, the CWO is defined as somehow hired  to "create work culture for employees to not only show up and perform, but thrive." Hey, any port in a storm. If removing noxious threats such as those above can be compared to wellness threats on exercise machines, like coach-driven anabolic steroids, then we're all for it. Let's get rid of the bullying managers along with the bullying coaches. Can CWO's effect such a change?)

In the same number of the Journal, one finds another superb piece by the now long established team of physician-journalists Alexi Wright and Ingrid Katz. Gott sei dank for the impact of young persons and women on health policy around medical worklife. Wright and Katz title their piece "Beyond Burnout -- Redesigning Care," not the shopworn twentieth century "Be More Professional" meme. They go on at length on the cost of losing experienced doctors, and describe one means of addressing the crisis created at the University of Colorado. In the so-called Colorado APEX project, which started (as many innovations do) in Family Medicine at UC, then spread to other departments and institutions, they show how certain burnout measured were cut dramatically. They conclude, though, with an admonition: "how [can] physicians can reclaim joy in the practice of medicine?" They're not sure, nor am I, whether managerial redesign of care, by itself, can "restore meaning and sanity" to the lives of providers. And this is not just about--in the main this is not about--making doctors' lives better. Not the real point. Doctors flake off, patients have longer wait times then have access to less and less experienced ones when they finally get to see them. Doctors lose that passion for the art when they're overwhelmed with prescriptive guidelines around the "science." Unclear which is more dangerous: doctors who burn out and leave, or those who burn out and stay behind.

Wright and Katz and a number of other observers cite what's turning out to be a seminal study published last fall in Mayo Clinic Proceedings. Authored by a team led by prominent internist Christine Sinsky, the piece provides all the evidence anyone will ever need to understand the magnitude of the crisis as well as some of its causes. Chief among those causes, a topic repeatedly and eloquently underscored (most recently here) in these blog pages by our own InformaticsMD, is the Electronic Health Record, or EHR. The blog post just quoted actually harks back, through a report in Medical Economics, to the same Sinsky piece mentioned at the start of this bullet.

There's been a lot of inkshed lately about the EHR as a cause of burnout. But what seems most likely is a murkier picture that means we have to look both across the causal spectrum and across the political spectrum.

Does having your practice swamped by addiction-crisis patients contribute as well to burnout? In an earlier blog we pointed to the phenomenon of physicians across the country "learning" about opiates, first becoming "convinced" of the non-addictive properties of drugs like OxyContin. In a word, later, realizing they'd been snookered--a real blow to the joy and coherence of medical practice. Not to mention the end-effect of whole practices being consumed by drug- and doctor-shopping by patients totally convinced that they "needed" continued use of these drugs to avoid pain relapse.

But wait. Burnout is multicausal. Physicians trained to practice public health and physiologically-based internal medicine are stymied by loss of control of their practice, as the managers insist on crowding their schedules with all comers. No choice. Firing a patient is well nigh impossible.

They're also stymied by the bizarre contradictions--see above and all the new articles--of the technology imposed by managerialism. Why is it imposed? The physicians know why, and there's nothing they can do about it.

It allows managers to "watch"--using all the wrong metrics--their performance.

It gives managers the illusion of control by means of counting--which in fact EHR does very badly--adherence by clinicians to clinical guidelines, even when the latter are ill conceived.

It allows managers to draw in more dollars through "compliance" with government-imposed standards, out of the Office of the National Coordinator (ONC) for Health Care IT, including the now justifiably much-maligned Meaningful Use standards. Some standards we came to know well, allowing managers to capture more dollars, include things such as the following.

pushing out end-of-encounter "Clinical Summaries" that contain nothing but erroneous lists of medications, and no plan, then leaving these near-worthless paper documents on printers when they were destined for patients

striving perversely to push out "eScripts"--electronic prescriptions--for a certain percentage of patients during encounters, requiring first the e-prescription followed by a web-page button indicating "I wrote this prescription electronically," followed by billing for an eScript: except that most patients already got their meds renewed outside of in-office encounters

the push to "upcode" from lower- to high-reimbursement level billing codes for greater charge capture, requiring nothing more than gross importation of macros and text blocks

this list goes on and on; this write knows inside out the perversities of the EHR

So the opiate crisis and the technology crisis have converged with still other forces that now  becoming rampant. Chief among these is the much slower-simmering crisis of hyperspecialism. Students who would become great generalists cannot afford to do so because of crushing debt burdens. Their institutions impose drastic inflated costs on medical students while pushing, through both cultural and institutional pressures, these students to hyper-specialize in procedure-driven specialties whereupon they, too, can become part of the problem.

This last problem has been discussed on occasion over the years in HCRenewal by its editor, Dr. Poses, in his discussions of the secretive AMA-designated panel known as the RUC, the Resource Utilization Committee. RUC exposés are rampant--see here and here--and nothing new. But the result is that the AMA's efforts on behalf of its own heavily specialty-weighted membership have created within medicine an auto-cannibalistic food chain within which the profession, including academic medicine, essentially penalize their own most vulnerable. The most vulnerable who are in fact societally the most valuable. But since the AMA appoints the RUC, it is complicit in this autocannibalism, and therefore in the demise of physician worklife coherence. In his interview, Stanford CWO Shanahan states as much when we speaks of the particularly burdensome consequences of burnout among primary care physicians. (That Sinsky now spends some significant part of her time at the AMA is a good portent, we have to admit.)

So what are we left with? Earlier we said this is a multi-political problem. Look at the sources of the three causes of burnout discussed above.

The opiate crisis clearly stems from industry. Big Pharma, with one company, Purdue, allegedly leading the charge over several decades, gets the nod here. Not, as Wisconsin Sen Ron Johnson seems to think, the availability of Medicaid funds for addicted patients. Score one for private sector iniquity.

The EHR crisis clearly stems from Big Government. And probably, equally, industry, although when it started out the folks who brought you all the deficient EHRs were small entrepreneurs, nothing like Big Pharma. Score one for public sector iniquity. But Big Government brought them into the Bigs. Using by and large the wrong metrics. Medical managerialism then kicked in, bought the package, and went for the gold in them thar IT hills. That's the story of HITECH and even ACA as they sought out tech panaceas--the classic American technological imperative that brought us everything from the Interstate Highway System to the Moon Shot to the War on Cancer. And now this.

The relationship between public clinical needs and physician organizational resource mismatches is internal to the medical profession. "We have met the enemy and he is us." Score one for autocannibalism in a classic profession unable to regulate itself now, if it ever could before, in the face of all these new external forces.

Put all this on a SWOT analysis chart and you have a recipe for disaster. The one thing that both Big Medicine and Little Medicine had going for them in years past was autonomy and coherence. The autonomy couldn't survive in the 21st century, but the coherence--the joy of applying science to the individual patient--could have and should have. It is a flame still not extinguished. But faced with the forces we've discussed here, it is a flame flickering, just barely.

And the solution, like the problem, comes from every part of society, It therefore brooks no easy or solitary solution from either the left or the right extremes of political philosophy.

Article source:Health Care Renewal

[biancagarciacruz-blog]

OKAY. So, How in The World Did I Meet Martin Garrix in Taipei???

I’m not saying I’m a stalker, but I’m kind of a stalker. 

Before I go ahead and tell you the story of how I met the love of my life (don’t fight with me on this), I’m gonna give you an idea of much of a psychotic fan I am. So, here’s a little trip down memory lane.

THE LOVE STORY

****WARNING! You are about to witness some borderline psychotic shit! 

2013

It all started when I was just a freshman in college. One night, I was doing what college freshmen do best, getting wasted AF. It was on a Thursday night, and we had a thing we called “Happy Thursday”. It was when all the students from the the colleges and universities nearby hit the bars literally right beside one uni to challenge the legal alcohol limit simply because there weren’t any classes the next day. Aaahh, education.

Anyways, in that one particular night, I just remember being really, really drunk and everyone around me just passed the fuck out. It was only around 23:00 and the party was basically over. Mind you, I wasn’t one of those responsible types who’d go home when they knew they’ve had too much. I’m was more of a “let’s rob a Jollibee!” kind of chick. Not proud, but damn it, it’s the truth. So, I grabbed my school bag, got a taxi, and headed to the then clubbing strip of Manila.

When I got off the taxi, the first thing I noticed was a really long line at this one club called Privé. I went on over there to check what all the fuss was about. I bumped into some people I knew who let me know that Martin Garrix was going to spin. And I was like, “Martin who??”. And they said, “Si ano, si Animals (his track that blew up and really put him on the scene)”. We all know that that track is **sick **and they also let me know that he’s really cute, and that was enough to get myself to pay a PHP 1,000 entrance fee to watch the show. So, i get my drunk ass in the club, squeezed my way to the very front (which I wouldn’t have had the courage to do if I wasn’t so intoxicated), and waited for the show to start.

Just moments later, they dimmed the lights and it was showtime. The lazer lights went wild and the crowd roared. I kept it cool because i was just trying to see if this guy was really cute. I looked up and saw a guy and said to myself that “hmmm, yeah, he’s pretty cute”. But theeen, I took one step back and realized that I was just too short to see the DJ and I was just looking at one of the members of his crew. So, when I finally saw him, I was like, “DAAAMN, Papiiii! HE REAL CUTE!”. It was fangirl at first sight. I remember thinking to myself that if Narnia has a Prince slash DJ, he would definitely look like him. I basically spent the whole show on my toes and my arms extended towards him so that he would touch my hand. Which he did, by the way! Thrice on my right hand and once on my left!!! #achievementunlocked #neverforget

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA, pathetic! 

After his set, I went over to the entrance of the DJ booth to say hi. I shouted “Hi, Martijn!!!”. He just awkwardly smiled and waved at me. He was probably thinking “who the fuck is this ugly chick with orange hair in house clothes???”. I am 99.8% positive his thoughts were somewhere along those lines. No regrets!

2014

The following year, he had a much bigger show in Manila’s #1 club. I was lucky enough to get a free ticket and to be listed under the cocktail table at the very front and right in the middle. And of course, in true fangirl fashion, I was prepared with a sign.

It was around December and I wanted my Christmas present early *wink wink*. I pretty much spent the whole time with my sign up trying to get him to notice me, even after he’s already noticed me. He made a cutesy little heart symbol with his hands and pointed towards me. I had a mini heart attack and started annoying my friend Pam with the classic “DID YOU SEE THAT??? DID YOU SEE THAT!?!?”. And she was just like, “Yaaaas girl, he noticed you. No one can deny.” (More like, Okaaay, B. You can shut the fuck up now). He pointed towards me once or twice more for the rest of the show and that was definitely enough to end my year right! #hoehoehoe #merrychristmas

2015

****This is where it gets a liiiittle psychotic**

The game plan was clear. Stay sober, look cute, prepare a sign, and fight my way to the very front once his set was about to begin. And it was exactly what I did.

Once I reached the front, some really tall French guy, probably a guardian angel sent by the fangirl gods, randomly asked me if I would like to be carried by him on his shoulders once Martijn came out. He probably felt bad for my lack of length and inability to be seen by the #1 DJ in the World no matter how long I put my sign up. Being five foot nothing, it was an offer I couldn’t refuse. So, once they hit the music and hit the lights, I climbed my way up to the Eiffel Tower and there was my baby!

Martijn’s birthday was just a day or two prior to the show, so I couldn’t miss my chance to greet him. It didn’t take him long at al for him to notice me and my sign. He put his his hands on his lips and sent a kiss my way! And he even mentioned the birthday greeting on his Instagram!!! #achievementunlocked #telleveryone

If you ask everyone I know how I told them how the concert went for me, it would be everything stated above. Buuuut, there’s a little more to the story. What you’re about to learn next is only know by a handful of my favorite people.

Martijn’s set was coming to an end and the inner fanatic beast in me came alive. Like, really, really alive. As he played his last song, a crazy idea just popped in my head like ~LIGHTBULB~! I thought to myself, “So, if I pretend to faint now, the bouncers will carry me over the barrier and I will have the most fantastic view of my bebeluv”. Yeah, don’t really know where the fuck that came from either.

So, pretty much like everything else I do, without giving it much thought, if not at all, I just did it. I then grabbed my friend’s shoulder for her to look at me and I dramatically pretended to faint just like Snow White did when she took a bite of that poison apple. I’m quite an amazing actress, actually. Which pretty much explains why I spent half of my high school life in the clinic and why I always happened to have my period every week when we had swimming for gym class. What I’m trying to say is, they believed that shit.

With my eyes partially closed and my head going “What the fuck are you doing?”, my friends were in a HUUUGE panic. All i heard was them shouting at the top of their lungs “KUYA!!! KUYA!!!”, trying to get the attention of the bouncers for help. I swear to god, I was trying so hard not to laugh my fucking brains out.

Soon enough, the bouncers came and just like I planned it, they carried me over the barrier and right into the middle section of the two VIP crowds where only photographers and bouncers were allowed. Then there were fireworks, explosions, and confetti everywhere and I had the most perfect view of my baby basking in his glory. And I just thought to myself, “Great job, crazy bitch”.

And in a fraction of a second, the music was gone and the lights went off and the show was over. I then realized that i was supposed to be unconscious and my show isn’t over yet! *Snow White takes second bite off the apple*. There were a couple of bouncers around me at this point and they were all trying to move the barrier for me. Once moved, one bouncer carried me princess style (because how else are you supposed to carry a princess?) and rushed through the big crowd to bring me to the first aid booth. While going through the crowd, I can hear random people shout “Bianca?!?! Is that Bianca?!?!” “BIANCA!!!”. And again, I was just trying so hard not to laugh. The rest is history.

2016

Music Festival was cancelled a month prior to the show due to “the changes in political climate”. In other words, Thanks a lot, Duterte!

2017. The Meeting.

Here we go, here we go! About a month prior to my Taiwan trip, my friend, Keich, found out that Martijn was going to be in Taipei the same time as us. Coincidence?!? NAAAAAAAH.

On the first day that Keich and I spent together, we went to a handful of places far away from the city. By 18:00, we were extremely exhausted and didn’t have the energy to do anything but chill at our hostel’s lounge. While scrolling through Instagram, I came across a selfie that Martijn posted with a bunch of fans welcoming him to Taiwan in the comment section. FAN GIRL MODE: ON. I jumped off the couch and said, “KEICH. MARTIN GARRIX IS HERE. LET’S GO!”. She stood up right away because she knew I would do the same for her if we were in the same city as Kygo.

I messaged every fan who was welcoming him to Taiwan and I sent every single one of them a message asking if they might happen to know what hotel he was staying at. Most of them did not know but a lot of them just guessed for me. Keich and I rushed to the MRT station feeling more alive than ever, as if we didn’t have such a long day. We then rushed to the W Hotel where a few people suggested me to have a look since a lot of celebrities stayed there. We got in the lobby and waited a bit. THANK THE HEAVENS they had free wi-fi because I then received this message from yet another guardian angel from the fangirl gods on Instagram:

“KEICH! LET’S GO!!!!!!!!” We rushed over to the Gran Hyatt, which was just a few meters from Taipei 101. We had absolutely no idea where he was or if we were even going to see him. We were just thinking that if it’s dinner time right now, he would probably go out right after to see more of the city. Orrr, if he was having dinner outside the hotel, then of course at one point he’d have to go back to his room.

So, we waited for HOURS. By the third hour, we noticed different DJ’s walk in one by one with wristbands from the music festival. My heart was beating faster and faster. The next thing we knew was that the hotel lobby was empty and it was already past midnight. A young boy and his mom sat at the same sitting area as us and then I heard the words “Martin Garrix” in their conversation. I asked them if they were waiting for someone because I was guessing that we were all waiting for the same person. Damn, these two were so freakin’ cool. The kid is fourteen years old and is #ballin, selling Yeezy’s online. And his mom.. Well, his mom is waiting with him at midnight to have a photo with his favorite DJ. Ummmmm, can anyone say MOM GOALS!?!

Since we were all having such a great conversation, my eyes weren’t pinned at the entrance of the hotel anymore. I glanced behind me for a second AND HOMYGAAAHAAD I CANNAAAT WITH YOUUU!!!!! IT’S FUCKING MARTIN FUCKING GARRIX IN THE FUCKING HOTEL LOBBY ASDFGHJKL;’SFHDKFHD3487fgwbfd!!!!!!!**

I wasted NO TIME. In a blink of an eye, I found myself rushing towards him and saying “Martijn! I’m your biggest fan from the Philippines!”. One of his bodyguards was very quick to stop me and he blocked me with his arm. Martijn then blocked his bodyguard with his arm and said “No, it’s okay.” (HOMAGAAAAAHD!!!)

He looks over at me and says, “Really? Give me a hug!”. And then we hugged. (HOMAAAHGAAAAHD!!!!)

See, I really wish that I could all tell you how the whole meeting played out, but I just DON’T REMEMBER SHIT after that hug. I don’t remember Keich having a photo with him. I don’t remember the teenage boy having a photo with him. I don’t remember saying goodbye. And I don’t even remember leaving the hotel. SHIT WAS INSANE.

According to Keich, he hugged me four times and gave me a kiss on the cheek. The kiss, I kind of do remember it happening. I remember it like getting punched in the face right after I just blacked out by getting punched in the face. And I am soooo lucky for having such a supportive friend who remembered to take a video of me towards the end of our meeting!!! Check it out:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R5vFlByvrMI

(HAHAHAHAHAHA I’m too new for this shit to embed a video, so here’s the link, mofos!)

So, they didn’t allow to give him a pretend kiss on the cheek, so, HE GAVE ME A REAL ONE INSTEAD!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Martijn was much taller than I thought he would be and he is sooooooo much more good looking in person. It was literally a dream come true and was probably one of the best birthday gifts given to me by the universe! THANK YOU, UNIVERSE!!!!!

AND THEY LIVED HAPPILY EVERY AFTER. THE END. 

Or is it? ;)