The Federation

It was Induction Ceremony time at the Legion again. I was expecting to have a good time, shrugging off all my recent stress like a poorly knitted shawl with alcohol and dancing. I wasn’t expecting Joan to ask me to be the guest speaker, however. At first, I wanted to refuse, and I think Joan saw it in my eyes, because she told me that no one thought the recent Federation fiasco was my fault. No one would throw rotten vegetables at me. There would be no booing. She reminded me that instead of sulking around all helpless-like, I took matters into my own hands and made things happen, things that stopped Carter in his tracks. She said that I had been extremely brave throughout the entire ordeal, and everyone would benefit from a speech by me. I’d been so flattered after her little speech about why I should say a speech that I couldn’t find it in my heart to refuse. And her puppy dog eyes helped. That woman can give some damn fine puppy dog eyes, I’m telling you. She could make Boy George straight if she asked him and then gave him those puppy dog eyes.

The ceremony also gave me an excuse to wear a pretty dress.

I drifted into the large ballroom where the ceremony was always held along with everyone else. I had tucked my note cards—for last minute review of my speech—down the bodice of my dress. The guest speaker was always a mystery until Joan introduced them at the ceremony. I had to be secretive upon entering the ballroom. Then, when no one was looking, I snuck into a back room Joan had shown me when she asked me to be the guest speaker. There were speakers in the room so I could know my cue to head out on stage. It was a pretty handy little set up, I thought.

Eventually, my time in the little back room drew to a close. After Joan had said her opening speech, I stepped out of the little room and headed towards the stage. I reached the edge of where I could stand without anyone seeing me and waited.

“I have a very special guest speaker this evening,” Joan began. “Only last year she was sitting right where you are now.” She motioned in the direction of the fresh recruits. “Since then, she has proven herself time and time again that she is one of the best agents the Legion has to offer. So, everyone please give a warm welcome to Miss Asher Tallarico.”

I stepped up on stage to a thunderous round of applause. Okay, so I guess Joan was right about people still liking me despite the whole Carter thing. Joan and I exchanged a brief hug before I turned towards the microphone. I released it from its stand and stepped up front and center, peering out at the sea of rockstar faces before me.

“Oh, snap, I forgot to leave these backstage,” I exclaimed suddenly, reaching down into the bodice of my dress and pulling out the note cards. I think I heard Brian wolf-whistle while everyone else laughed. I shrugged and tucked the cards back down there before beginning to pace slowly back and forth. Movement kept people alert during speeches. I learned that back in high school. Remember it for the next time you say a speech in front of a ballroom full of rockstars.

“So, I think we’ve all heard about my horrible taste in men,” I began with a nervous laugh. “I mean, first I dated The Rev, who’s perfectly insane in his own right, and then I become engaged to a power-hungry, avenging psychopath with really great hair. Can’t a girl ever get a break?” I heard a few appreciative cheers from several ladies. “When Joan asked me to be the guest speaker, I was a little reluctant, but then she brought up the fact that I might’ve caused this whole ordeal, but I had also stopped at nothing to stop it.

“That is a characteristic that Legion agents can use the most. A Legion agent needs to be determined and brave enough to do whatever crazy, hellish thing they can to get the job done. I want you all to know that you guys won’t accomplish all that I have. Hell, some of you will accomplish more. Don’t set store by what I’ve done in my career. Focus on yourself, your teammates, and your work. I wouldn’t have gotten where I am now without my friends and my teammates. So, during your time as an agent, focus on friendship and teamwork, and you will do no wrong. Unless, of course, you completely fail the mission and force some poor soul who thought he bought an MCR CD listen to Mariah Carey with her high-pitched voice and even higher skirts.

“You guys and gals are about to embark on a new stage of life. Enjoy it, okay? A mission fails, don’t fret about it, just learn from your mistakes and apply what you learned to the next mission. It’s a learning process. Not all of you will be amazing, natural agents. Some of you will struggle. But if you keep at it, keep working and trying, your hard work will be rewarded.

“Now, we’ll induct some rockstars into this Legion and then let’s all get shit-faced and drunk off our asses!” I concluded, raising my hand in the international rock symbol. Everyone cheered and I began to state off names.

~~~~~

“The note cards were a nice touch.”

I looked up from my fruity feminine drink to find Jimmy occupying the previously vacant seat beside me at the table. I smiled, fishing out the olive connected to the end of a toothpick in my drink, a toothpick that if I was drunk enough would somehow end up stabbing me in the eyeball. I stuck the end of the toothpick in my mouth, prying the olive off of the toothpick with my teeth, before placing the toothpick on a napkin sitting astride the table.

“You did that on purpose, didn’t you?” Jimmy asked with a frown, shifting uncomfortably in his seat.

“I didn’t do anything,” I answered with a frown of my own, my eyebrows joining together over the bridge of my nose. I was so confused, and it wasn’t because I was drunk. This was my first drink of the evening. I wasn’t drunk yet. What the hell was Jimmy talking about?

“You mean to tell me you didn’t realize how sexy you just looked sucking that olive off of that toothpick?” Jimmy asked incredulously, his frown deepening. I stared at him a few moments more before bursting into laughter. I had to put my drink down on the table because I was laughing that hard. I bent double, clutching my stomach and burying my face into my knee. I hadn’t laughed this hard for...ever since I dated Jimmy eternities ago.

I snapped upright, and the sudden movement dislodged the note cards from my bodice. One edge of a note card poked up from my dress, and before I could react, Jimmy’s hand snapped out as though connected to a spring and snatched the card right from between the girls. I raised an arm for a feeble attempt to swipe his hand away as I simultaneously tried to take a breath, only succeeding in looking like a druggie warding off the mini-elephants trying to fly up her nostrils.

Jimmy laughed too, placing the note card on the table. I picked up my drink again, taking a sip and watching Jimmy over the rim of the glass.

“What?” he asked after I’d been staring expectantly at him for several more moments.

“I’m waiting for your gutter mind to kick it in high gear and for you to ask me if I’m accepting volunteers to fish the note cards from my bodice when I’m too drunk to do it myself,” I answered, taking the last drink of my Cosmopolitan or whatever the hell that thing I just drank was called. It wouldn’t even matter anymore in a few hours, when I would be so drunk I wouldn’t know up from down or left from right.

“I actually wanted to ask you for a walk,” Jimmy said.

“A walk to my doom?” I asked as I stood up to follow Jimmy from the ballroom.

“If a ‘walk to your doom’ means that it will end up with us having sex, then yes, it’s a walk to your doom,” Jimmy answered as we stepped out into the marble hallway. We stepped into an elevator and Jimmy pressed a random button without paying much attention to it.

“Why has every conversation we’ve had for the past three days ended in you insinuating that we should have sex?” I asked with a frown. Jimmy gently grabbed my wrists and pressed me back against the side of the elevator. The railing pressed with gentle pressure against my spine, and for a moment Jimmy wasn’t Jimmy; he was Carter, cornering me in the elevator as he insisted that he loved me and that I loved him because he hadn’t changed. Then, Jimmy was Jimmy again and I knew Jimmy would never be Carter.

Jimmy’s hands rested on the railing on either side of me. He leaned in, having to tilt his head less since I wore heels and I wasn’t so short compared to him. Jimmy reached over and pressed the emergency button on the elevator.

“Because, for the past year, I’ve had to watch as Carter got to touch you all he liked, knowing that he was all wrong for you and knowing that I could’ve prevented all of it if I’d just told you my fears instead of hiding them away and breaking up with you and then using those same fears as an excuse for my asshole behavior towards you,” Jimmy answered quietly. “Every conversation we have ends up with me talking about sex because I want nothing more than for us to try what we had before I fucked it all up. I’ve learned since then, Asher, and I’ve realized that our passion won’t die unless we let it. And judging by the way I felt with you gone, I don’t think I’d ever let our passion die.”

I smiled, reaching my arms up and cupping Jimmy’s face in my hands. I pulled his lips against mine, only allowing him to pull away when I’d become light-headed from lack of oxygen.

“I’ll take that as a yes,” Jimmy gasped, his hand reaching out to press the emergency button again.

“Glad to see there’s no miscommunication between us,” I agreed, pulling his lips against mine again as the elevator shuddered into motion once more.

We did have one year and three months to make up for, you know.