*Before….

She went to her car and opened the door and she looked at me and I looked at her and she said loud enough for me to hear her from over there.

“Chris?”

“Yeah…?”

“Thanks…”

She got in the car and she drove off and I just sort of stood there with this sort of kind of ache going on because that thanks…it just sounded on the edge of stuff grateful.

God that feeling when you think you have a crush on someone maybe and they’re kind of maybe hurting and you don’t know them well enough that it just sucks.

*And Now… and in the present from now on….

Jem… Chapter 161

Jem…Chapter 161 by Bailey Summers Copyright © 2013 Bailey Summers All Rights Reserved.

*Before…

“What!? That’s going to turn us to point right at them!”

“Yes sir, I think we have a grav-sheer wave coming at us and we best turn into that oncoming wave!”

“Gotcha right!”

I send alerts for the grav-sheer out on all channels as much as I can to everyone that I can…please, please listen, get up shields and turn into the wave.

He turns us into the invisible thing and I’m trying to readjust our grav sensors to get a reading and it’s seconds away and we’re not turning in time as it’s coming up on my screens and I hang on for dear life as we’re hit and we’re suddenly tossed and fuses blow and there’s puffs of smoke and things go dark.

*And Now…

Jem… Chapter 160

Jem…Chapter 160 by Bailey Summers Copyright © 2013 Bailey Summers All Rights Reserved.

7000 Gold crowns a dance.

I joined up with the baron’s guards as a boy as much as I could as fast as I could. It was light things at first to escape myself. Escape the home where I was told relentlessly to stop crying, stop being a sissy and beaten by angry folk in my little steading fort for not being what they wanted.

It was apparent as soon as I could fathom that me being a lad was fundamentally wrong.

So it was working the fields and stables and cleaning and sharpening gear and staying warm and fed that was the biggest draw.

Sooners than Later’s Part 5

*Before…

I’m actually doing something that my mother had done and likely her mother had done or dad’s mother had done but I’m doing it too. And I know it’s weird to even think that it’s such a like good thing because of the whole girls in the kitchen thing and all of that and I actually believe in being feminist and that those old stereotypes suck.

But they don’t so much right at this moment to me.

Jem… Chapter 159

Jem…Chapter 159 by Bailey Summers Copyright © 2013 Bailey Summers All Rights Reserved.

We actually just sort of gather together around all the unconscious meta-animals and sort of wait a few minutes for the aero-cruisers and armored aero-transport get here and are landing and the prisoners are getting put away and Mrs. Champion looks at me. “C’mon we’re going with that ride.”

“Really? Me?”

“Yeah you you’re one of our heavies and it’ll look good too. The public likes it when we reassure them that we’ll keep an eye on people like them.”

“Okay…uhm…cool.”

She nods. “Now armor up as we’re getting in and give the press a little wave as we get in.”

*Before…

Sunny me inside though is livid…there’s this girl part of me that is so pissed beyond measure that she’s such a heartless bitch. That part’s been asleep for the most part lately but I can feel it, not like a sentient side of me but something in the core of where I started is really offended.

I know it’s sexist and stuff but part of me inside just can’t get over that sort of utter disregard for the lives of others.

What Comes Next…

We all wonder that when we finally take those first forays out of the closet. When we finally do the do or die part of transition and have nothing left to loose and take that one big step. That one huge step.

I did…I did tonight with me actually getting past my old life and my old relationship and the carnage that it wreaked on my soul and after what felt like a lifetime I finally screwed up every little bit of courage that I had and I went out of a date.

Janey met Jamie.

Hi I’m Janey.

Will got a call from a niece he had never met who's mother another woman, a trans woman that he never knew existed had been in a bad car accident and he was the only one that could help. He wasn't expecting what happened after he got there.

*Before…

I do this for a reason, you lay down the law and they know what’s going on. Every shift you get people tired of waiting wanting to know where they are in the queue. They almost always cause trouble or get loud or upset the staff it happened a lot in Afghanistan and the same ones were the complainers and that’s the ones with the self-important sort of looks on their faces.
If you give then the how it works then you can actually run things smoother, and the staff doesn’t get hassled or intimidated and also…also the message of they don’t mess around will spread after a couple of weeks or so.
I call out the first name from the first sheet I have and they actually sort of do a bit of civilian hustle getting to me.
I give her a smile. “Alright you’re my first number and that’s a fourteen.”
I give her a Post –it and I start to triage her and write down my notes.

*And Now…

*Before…

We head inside to get some other things and I look for a few other odds and ends like a table cloth that mom would have used for the picnic table and some other things like plates and cups and Quinn’s out in the garage getting the good lawn chairs those canvas fishing chairs with the cup holders and things and we’re just getting things looking nice actually when I hear a familiar car engine pulling in and it’s Quinn’s folks getting here.

I look at her and she looks at me and she looks just as scared as I am.

Seriously coming out and not being straight is just as hard as coming out as trans. It’s Oklahoma and it’s a really big deal.

Being straight’s a big deal.

*And Now…

*Before…

“But this, this was really worth it Emily, god this feels so normal.”

“Well we’re hardly normal.”

“No but it’s good enough, close enough.”

Emily was going to say something else but she just felt it instead that whole push pull as she stood on her tiptoes and pulled Kira into a pretty strong kiss.

All the way into hearing her parents doing the really pointed coughing.

Her Mom was there watching red faced and her Dad there with just a grin. “Dishes done we’re breaking out Trivial Pursuit.”

She broke the kiss and looked at the kitchen. “Yeah, just give us a second and we’ll be right out.”

It only took a few moments to wipe down the sink and counter then they joined everyone in the living room sharing a space on the floor around the coffee table.

*And Now…

*Before…

“Wondertales from home, I’ve come up with a way to show you how to see them and I can share things from home I hope.”

We I make cheeseburgers with ground meat and as close to the condiments as I could find and the cheese and the buns were easy and frying pan cooked chips now that I know that potatoes are such a thing here and I have chocolate and cookies that are really the closest thing to graham wafers and I bought marshmallows there too and I make smores.

And using some of the sound power ideas from my air horn blast and focusing a light spell as a more of a tube based TV and stuff to show things I create a sphere that lets me show them things.

A little power in my memories to do a recall spell and I show them. “The Secret of Nimh.”

It works and while it’s strange for me to experience it this way basically replaying things from locked up memory wisps it’s so much fun to watch these two be just girls and themselves and just get lost in things.

And snuggling with a truly happy Shaya is pretty awesome too.

*And Now…

*Before…

We’re still going and I miss out on a few things as he’s drinking and reading some hardcover book called Lioness Rampant and Mary Jane nudges me hard.

I look at her. “Huh?”

She and the girls are looking at me and laughing….and it kind of hits what I was doing and I turn red.

Holy cheese I was just checking out a boy.

When the heck did that start to happen?

*And Now…

*Before…

It’s a flagship too like The Apollo but it really isn’t.

Long but with top and bottom sleek beveled armor and it looks sleek and then there’s the grand tower of the bridge and then there’s these huge arms/bridging sections that come off of it and extend out to these pods and each of these pods is like casing and FTL protections for smaller combat warships that it’s carrying.

Like sixteen of them in the two kilometer length ready to detach and disengage at will and that’s not even coming close to the hundred plus meter middle strip of the ship between the plate that is literally turrets and weapons and landing and fighter bays.

You know you’re really becoming part of the military culture when you see something like that and you smile.

I smiled because we were so close we could amplify to visual and see it in detail.

Heck I didn’t know what I was seeing with everything until I heard the watch commander talking about it with definite reverence.

The sound of someone who served on something like that.

I want to serve maybe on something like that.

*And Now…

He takes his food and the paper and his notes. “I’ll be in my office, I’d really appreciate it if you don’t leave the house like this right now until I have some time and get a chance to run this through my head and to pray on it for a while.”
I swallow hard.
I look at him and I nod.
He looks at me.
Drinks his coffee. “Don’t get changed though…I’ll be in and out all day and I want this…the way you look to still be here like this…until I work it all through my head.”
“Y..yes sir.”
Did dad just say it was alright to stay dressed?”
I’m actually kind of confused.
And I’m still confused and scared and sort of left hanging as I watch him go to his office and he closes the door.
Quinn comes over to me and she slips onto my lap and she pulls me close. “Well that could have gone worse.”
She’s right, she’s right and I know that she’s right and yet I’m still losing it because of my nerves and starting to hang onto her and cry anyways.

*And Now…

Jem… Chapter 153

Jem…Chapter 153 by Bailey Summers Copyright © 2013 Bailey Summers All Rights Reserved.

Jem… Chapter 152

Jem…Chapter 152 by Bailey Summers Copyright © 2013 Bailey Summers All Rights Reserved.

Jem… Chapter 150

Jem…Chapter 150 by Bailey Summers Copyright © 2013 Bailey Summers All Rights Reserved.

*Before….Gracia

Valhalla…

Named after the home of some of the lost gods or such.
The Capitol city of the High King and it’s built in these huge levels with like a star or a sun at the bottom and then it rises in huge, huge tiers and adorned with these fancy buildings all smooth and lit up and there’s the glitter of so much light and so much glass.
It looked like a fancy gigantic cake.
I…it…was headed for the palace…the castle called Whitehall…and I barely got a look besides it being huge almost a small city with towers and tall buildings all of its own before I crashed into a fancy garden with flowers and trees that looked decorative and in the end a gazebo of fine wood.
The soldiers came running with fancy spears and some with swords and some with crossbows and I remember seeing a man with a very nice uniform on like the others but with the best embroidery I’ve ever seen and he loomed over me with a dagger at the ready.
“Who are you girl and what sorcery be this!?”
“Gracia…Princess Gracia Lyonnes…my father…my…The Lion has fallen…”
It’s all I could get out.
This man his expression changed to shock then concern and things faded to black as I hear him yelling though he seems far away.
“Get the knight captain! Fetch a healer!”
And that was how I'm here, crying...so very far from home.

*And Now…