Venturing out.

Posted on Mon Mar 1st, 2021 @ 12:39pm by

785 words; about a 4 minute read

Mission: Guilty By Association
Location: Marine Commander's Quarters/Earth
Timeline: Shore leave

The cool packs that she'd placed on her face had eased the painful swelling under her eyes and in her cheeks that had been caused by her seemingly endless tears. That was a tick in the winner column of this day. She almost felt good, which was another tick in that column and Acacia sighed deeply. There were things she needed to do. Not things, shopping. There was shopping she needed to do.

She needed to get some things for the baby, some things that she would prefer not to replicate. Perhaps it was a throwback to her Aldean upbringing, but she wanted their child to have some things handmade.

Showering and dressing, she didn't really pay attention to anyone or anything on her way to the transporter room. Her fingers had defaulted to a pair of denim leggings, into her black boots and a black tees shirt, over which she'd thrown a knee length jacket in grey black and white. It was pretty enough and hid any evidence of her pregnancy.

She logged her destination in the Transporter room as the main shopping district of Greater San Francisco, and beamed down to Earth. The doctor was headed to the market square, where she knew a trade market would be being held at this time of day. She could and would be able to find anything there.

The sharpness of the air made her sigh and smile, the faint tang of ocean water tickling her nostrils until she sneezed. Three times, in rapid succession. Someone called 'bless you' and in response she waved at the politeness. Chuckling faintly after wiping her nose with a handkerchief, she tucked it back into her bag.

The bag was a messenger bag she'd picked up on the last trip she'd made to Earth and she loved it. It was a patchwork bag, with black stitching over the patches. The patches themselves held every color of the rainbow in various patterns and they seemed to unify the piece somehow.

Her chest ached that she wasn't doing this shopping with Jason at her side. He had the right to enjoy this too, and she was furious to the point of weeping that the Marines were stealing this experience from him. As much as Acacia didn't want to do this alone, she also didn't feel right or fair to do any of this with anyone else.

She could smell the market before she could see it, the scent of food stalls reaching her overly sensitive nose. Fortunately, or perhaps due to the antiemetics they didn't overwhelm her or send her belly into spasms of nausea. It actually made her hungry. I'm hungry? That's a nice change from you little one

Purchasing a pair of pocket pies, one with sausage and cheese and the other with strawberries and crème she filled her belly as she crossed the enormous market square. The download of the map of todays market had come with the tap of a button on her wrist interface. Nibbling tentatively at first, then with more enthusiasm as her stomach didn't object to the food Acacia quickly finished both of the treats.

The stalls were under canopies and she wandered around aimlessly browsing. She would get to the sellers she truly wanted to see when she reached the other side of the market.

It was sooner than she'd expected that something caught her eye that took her breath away. A seller of quilts, that had a white edged quilt, with a scale like pattern that she recognized vaguely as 'waterfall' in a white to forest green gradient.

It was perfect, and they had multiple sizes of it in stock which she found to be even more perfect. The quilt could grow with the child. Since Acacia wasn't going to look at the sex of the child, and green was a neutral color in both of their cultures it was even more perfect. It didn't hurt that the color itself reminded her of Jason. It still gave her a thrill in her heart of hearts to think of him as Jason, and another to have him WANT her to think of him only as himself.

The bright haired woman was like a beacon among the stalls, and attention was attracted to her even as she browsed idly. Periodically things would catch her attention, and she would either browse the entire stall, or pause gazing into a stall.

She ended up finding a lovely cradle made of woven bamboo, which was both durable and light. A couple of sets of actual cotton and bamboo bed linens, the quilts and the softest receiving blanket she'd ever felt in her life.

RSS Feed