#SQC fix on the way

[imsfire2]

Out of darkness: chapter two

(Author’s note: So I started a fix-it fic for “Solo quiero caminar”; it was going to be a one-shot but I couldn’t resist taking the story a bit further.  Not sure now how long this one will end up being, though I hope not quite on the scale of “In a dark time...”  Anyway, you can read chapter one on AO3 now, and here’s chapter two).

He starts in the only place he can.  Algeciras. The sea is fiery blue in the spring light, the town comfortably dirty and alive.  Kids drinking cola on the sea front; a market, a shopping mall, a few tourists; ferries putting in and heading out, and the perpetual smell of fish and dust in the air.  The big British rock at the end of the bay, a bulk like an elephant turd, streaked with chalk-white.

A simple place to stay the night, right on the waterfront, Hotel El Bahía; unpretentious, nondescript, the room is small but the bed is good, and he pays extra for a window looking onto the sea.  The sea, not the ocean; not the waters he dimly remembers from some long-ago trip, the memory of warm Pacific waves and sand, all tangled with a child’s fears and hopes and desperations; this is the Sea, the Mediterranean, the hot enclosed sea of legends and histories and myths that are not his own.  Aurora’s sea.

Did she ever pass this hotel, look at this self-same view?  He drinks his coffee in the ground floor bar, looking out at the azure water, the dusty sun umbrellas.  Gulls drift by in the distance, white as torn paper between blue and blue.  

There’s a public library, and a librarian who smiles, and remarks on his accent; asks “Are you trying to trace family here?”

“An old friend.” Gabriel smiles back.  It’s strange how the untruth doesn’t feel like lying. Did he even exchange a hundred words with Aurora?  Yet the memory of her feels as real as any in his life; she’s everything vivid and concrete, her complete certainty of self, calm and brave with him, her face bending unhesitatingly into the kiss and then not looking back.  He smiles at the kindly woman looking up at him from the desk, and accepts the help she offers without looking for motives.

It still feels strange to do this, living without calculation, finding and understanding his own emotions, smiling just for himself.  He’s barely known what it is to feel at all, the last few years.  He must remember to be calm with himself, not to panic and shut his mind to this strangeness.  

His heart is on fire as he reads the local telephone directory.  The air-conditioned reading room is cool and quiet, and the cool and quiet do nothing but inflame him further.

There are dozens of Rodriguez’s but no Aurora.  The cold place under his rib opens up again, it aches with the certainty of coming failure. He’ll never find her – he’ll find her and she’ll be gone – he’ll find her dead - or find her married after all, he’ll find she was a woman who would lie to console a dying man and that mere small kindness will kill him now – and he tells himself Shut up, shut up, cabrón, shut up you idiot and closes the pages, flips to the publication date at the front.  The directory was issued last month.  Just to be certain, he takes it back to the desk and asks for last year’s.

Waiting for it to be fetched his hands are shaking and again the inner voice starts up with its chatter. He never had an inner voice before. He’ll find her gone, he’ll find her and she won’t remember him, or she’ll look at him with ice in her eyes and he will go back to Mexico to find out what it is to grow old and be this much alone…

He turns whole slabs of pages thumping together, D to M to R, and individual sheets crumple as he leafs through them.  His thin fingers slip on the coloured paper: Radigüer, Rafael, Reyes, Rocio, Rodrigues, Rodriguez – and – Abraham Alvise Amaral Antonia Antonio – a stack of Antonio’s –

Aurora.

He’d breathing deep and fast, his nostrils flaring; he has to blink back moisture in his eyes and for a moment his mouth works with shock, before he permits himself to go into the place of emotion again.  To feel this shock, this hope, so intense, almost painful.  To smile this hard.  He’s found her name, and the street she lived on, a year ago.

He thinks of paying bribes or offering threats, of what once would have been his only move now, and his smile shifts sideways and grows even more incredulous as he realises he will not do any of that.  It’s an idiot grin, but he’s an idiot with happiness.  He never really had any hope of it before, he thinks, this thing called happiness; all the hope was just threads, like hairs tickling his skin.  

Dark hairs, long dark hair, he remembers the silken feel of that hair gathered in his hands, heavy, unbound.  If he’s to merit this, he must be whole in his commitment.  No more of Félix’s methods.

He’s not there yet, but it’s a start, and he’ll follow as far as he can, walking down this road.

It takes a few days, a few times standing in front of a stranger and asking plainly for help; but by mid-week he knows where she moved to.  In the course of those questions and requests he hears the word “stalking” used and feels that inward fear again, though the speaker says it only in passing.

Am I a stalker?  Will she see it that way?  

Should I go home now and put this insane idea out of my mind?

And then he is standing in the hallway of an apartment building, outside the door of flat 1A-left, as the naïvely chatty occupant tells him that 1A-right has gone away on holiday and won’t be back till Saturday.  He asks “Where did she go?” and is told

“Mexico.  Mexico City.  She was pretty excited about it.”

He’s shaking.  For a moment it’s hard not to sink down on the tiled floor.  All the excitement and anxiety of the last few days is suddenly a focussed point like a laser, and it strikes him in the side, there where each muscle lines up along the memory of that killing blow and that pain.

“Oh no.  No, no, no. I’ve just come from there.”

“I thought you had that accent,” says the neighbour.  He leans on the door jamb, amiable and very young, and stoned, his frayed yellow jersey hanging around him, too long at the hips and in the arms, a roll-up in his grinning lips.

Gabriel would like to tell him he needs to be more careful.  If he were a stalker he’s just been told far more than he has a right to know.  

But he isn’t, and he won’t come back to the apartment until she invites him.  He’ll watch from outside.  It’s still stalking, it’s disconcertingly close to the way he staked her out, before; but what else can he do?  He came here to find her.  

“Here” is Granada; she moved inland, into the mountains, into the city.  He has a hire car now, and a room in another hotel, a high-ceilinged room overlooking the Plaza Bib-Rambla with its fountain and its café tables.  A bronze Neptune above the fountain exhorts passers-by to raise their eyes to heaven. Beneath the god’s feet is a row of stone lions’ heads with green moss dripping in their eyes; pigeons bathe in the lower basin and tourists sit on the edge as the afternoon sun beats down on them.  Gabriel sits on his balcony and pictures Aurora below, stopping, looking up at him. She must have passed those weeping lions so many times.  

Locals sit under the arcades in the shade, and above the square the squat bell tower of the Cathedral rises in the heat.  Over the rooftops he can see the Torre de la Vela and the walls of the Alhambra, pale and rose-gold on their hillside.

He could be perfectly happy too, he thinks, living here between Neptune and Christ, looking up to the hills.

He can’t rest.  The remainder of that day and all of the next he quarters the streets, looking, seeing, touching.  It’s a consolation to his eyes in her absence.  Her roads, her cafés and stores and market stalls, all the places where she lives now, the pavements where she walks.   He is in her world, while she is in his.  He imagines her visiting her sister’s grave, carrying an armful of flowers, granting herself the blessing of farewell.  Until she returns, he can watch over her streets and know that if he leaves now he’ll cause her no grief, no thought at all.  Until she comes.  

There are long shadows and the Calle Marqués de Gerona is cool in the shade and busy with the beginning of evening.  In the Bar La Riffeña the TV is showing the UEFA cup, and when he orders a drink it comes with a dish of olives and cubes of cheese, and a small slice of bread.   Gabriel takes a seat on the terrace, where he can enjoy the evening air and watch both the street and the screen.  The second rum, half an hour later, brings a spoonful of scrambled egg with asparagus, and more bread.  By now he’s enjoying the match even though neither of the teams is his.  Sevilla have just equalised, to the delight of the regulars at the zinc.  

The third drink gains him a tiny dish of Russian salad, tangy with gherkins.  At this rate he’ll have an entire meal gratis if he orders enough drinks.  ¡Viva Andalucía!

At the next table two exhausted Italians are poring over a spread map and downing large beers. There’s a goldfinch in a cage hung over the terrace; it hops about, singing over the buzz of talk and street noise, the rapid glee of the sports commentary.  At first he doesn’t hear the sound of suitcase wheels, and then thinks nothing of it when he does, such an ordinary noise, rattling and meaningless. Then he sees her.

Aurora Rodriguez, in her scarlet jacket, wheeling a bulky grey case towards him.  His eyes go to her as to a fire in the street.

He’d forgotten, he thinks, though he’d thought he remembered every nuance; her lips, her hair, her way of walking as though the guilty world were laying its heart beneath her shoes.

There’s no chance to think through what he will say, or to hide himself.  She’s forty metres away, thirty, twenty, and still walking.  She’s looking straight past him; her eyes are tired and both glad and sad, so that he wonders what she’s seen in Mexico City; does she know something now, for sorrow or for peace, that she did not know before? He’s looking at her approach as if she’s just marched down from paradise with her case in tow, and as she comes nearer he turns his head involuntarily to keep her in his sight.  A slow movement, focussed upon her, like a fixed star. She sees it and it draws her eye, her glance catches onto his, a hand catching on a rough edge of silk.  She takes two more steps and comes to a halt, ten metres away, with her lips parting.  Impassive, watching; then very slowly, slow as heaven, smiling.

The last time he saw her, her lip had still been split, her face bruised, from Félix’s fists.  She’d looked at him with defensive eyes.  He’d known he would have died for her, to atone for what had been done to her and her family, if he had not already been dying.

He stands, to meet her on his feet.

He’s never been a man given to fear; he barely recognises it, it’s so unfamiliar, this thundering of his heart against his sore, scarred ribs.  She is smiling at him and he is afraid.

He’d wanted to smile at her. In all his dreams of this moment he has been smiling.  But his lips will not move, except, for a second, to open, breathless, silent.  He exhales.  His throat tightens on a thousand unsaid things.

Aurora takes the next step, and the next, careful, deliberate.  The suitcase bumps heavily on the cobbles behind her each time.  

“Gabriel?”  So guarded; she was always ice, she was a loaded gun, an averted head, a figure walking away…  Her smile wavers and grows cautious, readying herself to strike or to turn away, and his heart tears apart.  He forces himself into a smile as frail as breathing.

“It’s you.”  

Which of them was it who spoke?  There’s so much tension in his ribs, his spine, he’s a steel guitar string, taut and tightening, coming into tune at last.

“Aurora.”

One more step forward, one more crunch of the suitcase wheels; and Gabriel inhales and flexes his hands, and takes a step also.  Suddenly he’s almost panting for air; but light seems to flood into him as his smile anchors itself in her.  “Aurora. Aurora…”

“Be careful,” she says. “You’ll hyperventilate.”  Her smile grows again.  It gives him life.  All the muscles in his face seem to be twisting, a stupid grin coming and going, helplessly shy.

His hands are shaking, that brief mortal fear still racing in his veins.  He reaches for her and she for him, their fingertips touch suddenly and she presses her lips together and then beams, quivering with mirth that is half shock.  “I’m glad to see you.”

“Would you like a drink?—“

The electrifying touch on his fingers, the dark eyes on his; humour, astonishment, joy.  Their hands slide into one another and clasp.  He’s not sure whether it’s her that is trembling, or him.  Where the boundary is.  She’s barely fifty centimetres away and he can feel the warmth of her body and smell a clean herbal scent coming off her, not perfume but some pleasant everyday thing like shampoo.  Her skin is unblemished, a slight blush of suntan on her brow, her nose, her cheekbones.

“To drink?—“

“Something to drink?—“

They’re speaking over and through one another, still holding hands.  He begins consciously to try and slow his breathing.  “A drink, yes.”

“Perhaps a – a beer…”

“Of course.”

Somehow, he’s holding a chair for her; somehow he’s managed to let go her hand for a few moments. She sits, looking up at him as he tucks her seat in; and as he takes his own again their hands find one another and grab, and hold on.

He eyes her lips her touch…

He’d like to bring her hand to his forehead in fealty; to his lips, in worship.  She’s here, she’s beside him, he found her.

[sanjaryacademy]

QAQC Course: What is its importance?

Trust and reputation are the pillars of growth in the construction industry. To achieve this level of growth, the industry must be able to back up its claims about the quality of its work. Through planned and systematic checkpoints, quality assurance (QA) aids in the prevention of problems. In the rush to finish construction projects, quality assurance is frequently overlooked. The amount of paperwork involved in QA is also a major thing.

 The QAQC Course in Hyderabad will teach you how it works and how to put it into practice in the construction field. The following is specific information that will provide you with a brief overview of the importance of the QAQC Course in Hyderabad. In the QAQC Course, an ongoing effort is made to improve the organization's quality practices. As a result, continuous improvements in the company's quality functions are expected.

 What are the benefits of QAQC?

 QC is a set of activities that helps to ensure the quality of the product and QA is a set of activities that helps to ensure the quality of the processes that produce products. The activities of the QAQC Course in Hyderabad are centred on identifying flaws in the actual products manufactured.

 The goal of the QC Course is to improve development and testing processes so that defects do not occur during the development of the product. The goal of quality control is to find flaws in a product after it has been developed but before it is released. The goal of the QA course is to prevent defects by focusing on the manufacturing process. It is a quality process that is proactive. The goal of quality control i.e QAQC Course helps to detect and correct flaws in the finished product. As a result, quality control is a reactive process.

 The processes, procedures, and services of the QAQC Course are used to achieve and maintain product quality, process, and service in any sector. Audits of the system's operations regularly. Using tools and equipment to identify and eliminate sources of quality problems so those customer requirements are consistently met. Planned and systematic activities, including documentation, are used to prevent quality issues.

 Know the Importance of a QAQC Course in Hyderabad helps to Increase Sales:

 QC courses teach you how to ensure the production of high-quality products, which is extremely beneficial in attracting more customers and increasing sales. It has been correctly pointed out that quality control is a powerful tool for expanding markets both at home and abroad. It is extremely beneficial in terms of maintaining current demand as well as generating new demand for the product. A well-known company can easily raise funds from the market. Quality control increases the concern's goodwill in the minds of people by producing higher-quality products and meeting customer needs.

 Quality Control will advance a long way if a few standards of QC course practises are implemented:

 ●     Identify and audit any project results.

●     Make recommendations for corrective and preventive actions, as well as quality enhancements (through sending change requests that are applied to the quality management plan).

●     Measurements for quality control are gathered and analysed (these are results of quality control activities used to review and evaluate the regularly quality standards and production processes)

●     Examine the outcomes of corrective actions and generate quality control reports.

●     Validate procedures for detecting and correcting errors.

 Quality Assurance will advance a long way if a few standards of QA course practises are implemented:

 ●     Bug fixes should be prioritised based on software usage.

●     Metrics for assessing the quality.

●     Quality standards have been established.

●     Create a reliable testing environment.

●     Carefully consider the release criteria.

●     Establish a performance testing and security team.

●     When automation is required, use it.

●     Assemble a technical team that includes a quality assurance.

●     Ensure that all departments are in constant communication, collaboration, and optimization mode.

 The activities of the QAQC Course in Hyderabad will help to ensure that the expected quality is met. The quality assurance process examines the quality plan and quality control process to ensure that the project's quality standards are met. The quality control procedure ensures that the final product meets the customer's requirements. Under the QAQC Course in Hyderabad, helps to understand the statistical quality control (SQC) that refers to the application of statistical tools and techniques to finished products (process outputs). The QAQC course is a problem-solving management tool for testing the quality of products.

[yavemiel]

Do This: List all the things you’re currently working on in as much or as little detail as you’d like, then tag some friends to see what they’re working on: writing, art, gifsets, whatever.

Tagged by @rapidashpatronus​, thank you lovely!

What I’m working on right now: well, aside from trying to (slowly, so slowly) work my way through all my tag memes, I am also desperately trying to finish up my PhD and maintain a somewhat normal sleep schedule (HA).

In terms of projects though, hooo boy: I have A List. 🙈 (which I have put under the cut because it has become ridiculously long!). Tagging @ibohe​ and @justkeeponthegrass​ who I think are pretty much the only people I haven’t seen tagged so far, but if I’ve forgotten anyone and you’d like to do it, consider this your tag! :) 

What I’m actually working on right now:

A follow up to Nature and Nurture (my first ever Rebelcaptain fic) which gives them a slightly happier ending than they had a beginning (because that one is an ANGST fest), of which I have about 700 words written, which is less than a quarter I’d guess. A snippet: “Their first kiss is a pathetic little thing really. They’re on the ship away from Scariff (and if that isn’t a miracle, Jyn doesn’t know what is) with Cassian sprawled on the floor of the cargo hold, the severity of his injuries becoming more apparent now that their deaths are less imminent. His skin has a grey tinge that Jyn associates with too much blood loss, and his lids flutter over dazed eyes, pupils large and uneven. Chirrut’s chant seems to fade in the background as she grasps Cassian’s hand and grits out threats and pleas through clenched teeth. He’s fading fast though, and she slams her fist into the floor next to his body in rage and terror, screaming “Damn it,” and then softer “Damn you, you can’t leave me now, not after all this.” She isn’t sure where the impulse comes from, but under the circumstances she’s not inclined to ignore it, and she shifts forward clumsily and presses her lips to his, barely a kiss, more an expression of frustration and fear, but when she pulls back he’s looking at her, eyes actually focused, and gives her a faint smile, allowing her to see the blood coating his teeth. Then he passes out and she loses her mind.”

A standalone fic about Jyn looking after Cassian in ways that he doesn’t expect, tentatively titled ‘Footsteps in the Sand’, of which I have written about 2700 words, again, probably about a quarter I reckon, and something I really must come back to. Another little snippet: “He doesn’t notice her slipping into the room, but he definitely notices when his datapad vanishes from under his fingers. It’s a measure of how tired he is that he doesn’t even make a move to get it back, just lets out a long sigh and presses his fingers into his throbbing temples.”

An AU where Cassian and Jyn meet as children when Jyn is with the partisans, of which the working title is ‘Road Not Taken’, and of which I have written literally the first hundred words, which are: “If the girl across the courtyard doesn’t stop twirling that vibroblade absentmindedly, she’s going to cut off one of her fingers, and Cassian doesn’t care. What he cares about is the fact that Draven promised him he could be involved in negotiations this time, and yet he’s still sitting out here in the courtyard, staring at the door to Gererra’s inner sanctum like his focus might magically make it transparent so that he can see what’s going on inside. This is their fourth visit to Taris in as many months, desperately trying to salvage the relationship between the Alliance proper and Gerrera’s band of misfits.”

An AU in which Cassian gets amnesia after an incident on a mission post-Scarif and has to figure out his relationship with Jyn (and the rest of R1) as well as his place in the Rebellion in the aftermath, which is what I’m currently working on the most and which will probably end up being a multi-chapter effort because I’m about 6000 words in and I’d say less than a quarter of the way done. It was supposed to be a short one-shot! A final snippet as here ends the list of WIPs that I actually have stuff written for:  “"Kay, was there a woman here before?" "There should not have been, as this section is restricted to medical personnel only," Kay says, ignoring his own distinct lack of medical capability. Cassian slumps. Definitely a hallucination then.   "However," Kay continues, "As Jyn Erso has never let that stop her before, I think it is statistically safe to assume that she was indeed by your bedside earlier." Cassian stares at him, bewildered. "Who the fark is Jyn Erso?"“

Coming Up: here follows a (shorter you’ll be glad to hear) list of things which I want to write but haven’t got round to starting yet!

A follow up to Sfumato in which Jyn stumbles across Cassian’s sketchbook.

An AU where they live after Scariff but Jyn leaves the Rebellion because of PTSD and sets up a home for herself somewhere secluded to try and recover.

An SQC fix-it, the same one @rapidashpatronus​ mentioned in her list!

A Harry Potter universe fic about the Ravenclaw common room guardian looking after her flock.

A Rebelcaptain proposal at Han/Leia’s wedding

Things I’ve started and will probably never finish: nothing that I can think of?

And there we have it! I hope to get round to all of these eventually, but I think the Amnesia Cassian fic is my immediate priority: we’ll see where the muse takes me after that! 😅

[ruby-red-inky-blue]

Was it you who wrote an SQC Aurora/Gabriel fix-it fic? I remember reading & loving it but now I can't find it. Aurora went back to Mexico City & found Gabriel - reunion scene in a graveyard & they decide to go away together to Madrid to make a new start? I wanted to recommend it to @halflingmerry in case they hadn't seen it. If it's not yours, does it sound familiar? - can you steer me to the right place to find it? Big hug - & so happy to see next chapt of TWTAS is on the way!

Yeah, that was me *waves* you can find the links to the individual vignettes here :)

[imsfire2]

SQC fic typo

That moment when you’re trying to write some very hot & heavy smut but you mis-type “she’s coaxing him inside her” as “she’s coxing him” and promptly have a mental picture of your heroine sitting in the bow of your hero’s rowing boat shouting “aand stroke!”

and you collapse sniggering like a nasty bratty kid.

I need to eat.  Back to the smut after supper, methinks.

[imsfire2]

Out of Darkness

Chapter four of my fix-it for Gabriel and Aurora is now up on AO3...

[imsfire2]

WIP meme again

Do This: List all the things you’re currently working on in as much or as little detail as you’d like, then tag some friends to see what they’re working on: writing, art, gifsets, whatever.

So, I’ve just been tagged by @rapidashpatronus - thank you for tagging me!

I’ve already done this here, just a few days ago; but since then the list has updated slightly.

Keeping Faith is now complete at 3 chapters and just over 10,000 words.

Hot and wet is also now complete.  Please don’t be put off by the title, it isn’t smutty at all!

In a dark time, the eye begins to see has updated and is now on chapter 36 and just over 80,000 words.

And I have just started on an as-yet-untitled fix-it for yet another doomed character.  A doomed Diego character, no less.  All your doing, SQC fandom!

Thank you and hugs from a very sweaty me in a heatwave in London!