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This is for Bain who, like me, were big fans of the Claudia/Roy pairing and wanted them to have a happy ending.  In my universe they do.





Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.


She didn’t expect him to be on time.  He never was.

 

Claudia Grant held lonely court in a café booth, indifferent to the steady hum of lively conversation around her. She idly watched the wafts of steam from the hot chocolate she ordered evaporate like so many little ghosts.  A plate of French silk pie, her favorite, lay uneaten in front of her.

 

She quickly glanced at the clock on the wall.  Four-thirty.  She would wait another fifteen minutes, no more.

 

Maybe Lisa’s right, she thought dimly, taking a calming sip of the cocoa, which was growing cooler and had lost its foamy crest of whipped cream.  This was getting repetitive.

 

They’d been a couple for almost a year now, but sometimes it seemed that Roy Fokker had forgotten that fact.

 

He was late again, and her shift was in less than two hours. 

 

It always played out the same.  Oh, he’d show up eventually, bearing gifts and apologies, and it was difficult to resist the sincerity in his voice or the irresistible gleam in his ice-blue eyes. That rakish smile of his always turned her legs to rubber.

 

His deep, soulful kisses made Claudia forget her own name.  And, oh god, the way he made love—

 

It seemed so long ago when he’d pursued her with such single-minded determination. 

 

What on earth did you expect, she asked herself pragmatically, taking another sip of her cocoa. There was a war going on, and whatever private life you thought you had, takes a distant second to duty.  You knew that when you first decided to get involved with him.

 

You knew that before you started sleeping with him.

 

That was the crux of the matter.  They were in a war that no one on earth wanted, and one that some believed couldn’t be won against an enemy with vastly superior resources—and the willingness to use them.

 

“I must have been crazy to have gotten myself into this mess,” she muttered, shaking her head wearily.  “I should have listened to my intuition, rather than my body.”

 

Claudia girl, what on earth did you do with your senses?

 

But she knew the answer.  Every time they were together was something special.  He treated her like a princess, catered to her every whim.  Every time she was in his arms, reason and common sense went south.  Their waking relationship might be on shaky ground, but their nighttime relationship had the both of them shaking from intense orgasms they always gave to each other.  One thing was for certain, making love to Roy was never boring.

 

Must have been all that previous experience, she thought wryly.

 

None of that explained why she was sitting alone like some tragic heroine from an old earth romantic drama, waiting for a man.

 

Okay, not just any man.  Commander Roy Fokker.

******************************************************************

Claudia had never been star struck, so when the handsome and charismatic leader of Skull Squadron first asked her to dance, flashing those irresistible baby blues, at she completely brushed him off.

 

But Fokker wasn’t one to take no for answer, and eventually he got his dance, and a lot more than either had bargained for.

 

After all, she had kissed him first.  Talk about playing with fire.

 

Fokker had the much deserved reputation as a notorious flirt and ladies man.  His conquests had been many and those who claimed to have experienced his expertise firsthand boasted rather loudly about his skills as a lover (and they hadn’t lied, for Fokker had the most talented mouth in the universe, and he could play Claudia’s writhing frame like an instrument).

 

At that time, Claudia had no intentions of becoming another notch on the cocky pilot’s belt, but Fokker had other ideas, and the stubbornness to back them up.

 

Once he was out of the endless limelight of adoration and hero worship, Roy Fokker was a far different person.  Their first date, ironically began the same as this one, except that she’d found him in his quarters, hurt deeply not by the Zentraedi, but by a vicious rumor.  That night he ceased to be the cocky and brash Valkyrie ace, but just a man in pain.

 

And a man who was reaching out to her for understanding.

 

That night they talked for hours, sharing their lives, their secrets.

 

At her urging, he played his guitar with such skill and passion that it nearly brought tears to her eyes. Her heart and soul had been taken on an emotional journey, one that had stirred her senses, and even though a part of her knew she was entering dangerous waters, something would not allow her to leave.

 

An attraction she tried to deny wasn’t going to let her do so.

 

Claudia’s body grew warm, remembering the hungry kisses and caresses they’d shared that night.  She remembered wanting him so badly.  Then again, how could she have ever forgotten, considering the reason that he denied each other what they both wanted?

 

“But I want more than that from you.  I want your regard, your friendship, and I want your love.”

 

Weeks later, they’d finally given into their undeniable passion, and from that moment she and Roy had been damn near inseparable.

 

In spite of his tendency for being late.

 

Which had led up to her being here now, in a crowded café, waiting.

******************************************************************

 

 

Roy Fokker felt like the guy from that old earth commercial, except that he wasn’t sprinting through a crowded airport.  Instead he was making a mad dash through endless traffic, which appeared to conspire against him.

 

He had cleared his entire afternoon in order to spend time with her, and to get to the café before she did. 

 

Just thinking about her took away images of blood and the smell of death and the seemingly endless cycle of one side attempting to assert dominion over another.  There was a refreshing honesty about Claudia Grant that had resonated with him from the first time he saw her.

 

The night at ‘The Bridge’, where he’d been hanging out with Max and Rick, all of them drinking like fish. 

 

He would never forget what she wore that night; it was burned indelibly into his memory—tight leather pants and a corset-style top that made his palms hot just thinking about having her perfect breasts in his hands.

 

Drunkenly, he had asked her to dance; she told him point-blank to get lost.

 

That should have deterred him, but it hadn’t.  If anything, her casual dismissal of him made her all the more appealing, considering that he’d always had his choice of women.

 

That choice did not include Claudia Grant.

 

His infatuation grew, along with his libido as she dismissively sauntered out to the dance floor and put on a show that fueled his sweat-soaked fantasies for days afterward.  He watched spellbound as her lush hips swayed sensuously in time to the music, and imagined what they’d feel like under his hands.

 

Roy had been used to women fawning all over him, no matter how much of the arrogant boor he acted.  More often that not, save in the case of his former paramour Mika Indigo, he seldom remembered either their names or their faces.

 

Like most soldiers, he’d held onto a certain fatalism that each dogfight could be his last.  Such awareness of his mortality caused him to live his life on the edge, savoring each and every sensation, and indulging in whatever appetites at whim.

 

That was before nearly six feet of legs for days and mocha-colored skin came crashing through the barrier of his devil-may-care attitude.

 

He’d finally met a woman who didn’t give a damn who he was.

 

He had liked that.

 

And, the way she moved her hips as she danced. 

 

In the end, he got his dance, though he had to go to her, rather than the other way around.  It was a dance for the ages, when he knew right then and there that Claudia Grant was special.

 

He had walked her back to her quarters that night, wondering what would happen, but having made a startling decision (at least for him), that he wasn’t going to blow his chances of getting to know her better by sleeping with her.

 

The taste of her lips when she kissed him almost made him regret it, but something totally unexpected had come over him, as if he’d been struck by lightning:

 

“I think I’ve fallen in love.”

 

And even though every time he saw her, and every moment they’d spent together, he put the brakes on his rampant sex drive, though touching her drove him crazy with need.

 

But she had been very much worth the wait.

 

Nothing had prepared him for the emotional as well as the physical intensity of making love to someone you loved.

 

Love.

 

Because of it, Roy had begun to envision something that he hadn’t in many years. 

 

A future.

 

And now, he seemed on the verge of completely blowing it because of the rotten traffic.

******************************************************************

Four-forty-five. 

 

She’d finished the pie (no sense in letting a perfectly good French silk pie go to waste.  Fokker wasn’t worth all that), ordered another hot chocolate and finished it, and was digging around in her purse to leave money for the bill (the owner of the café—Davina Morton—was ex-military and wouldn’t take money from other soldiers, but Claudia always left money on the table and would walk out the door before the woman could complain), when two large and warm hands, smelling of leather and sandalwood encased her eyes.

 

Inhaling the heady scent of him always made her insides stir.  The hands were calloused, but she knew how gentle they could be. 

 

Those hands had caressed her face as they lay on a blanket, kissing madly in the park a few days ago.

 

She did not want to think about that mouth or the devastation it could cause to her resolve.

 

There was a marvelous bouquet of roses and freesias on the table in front of her.  Damn him, he never played fair.

 

“Would it help if I said I was sorry?”  Those blue eyes could melt polar ice caps, but Claudia was in no mood to be persuaded by his innocent little boy façade.

 

She regarded the flowers with certain skepticism.  “Probably not, but they are a nice gesture.”  She stood up, gathering her purse.  “I’ll go and put them in water.”

 

“What about our date?”

 

“We had a date?”  Sarcasm dripped from Claudia’s mouth like poisoned honey.  “Oh, I guess that explains why I’ve been sitting in this café for nearly an hour.”

 

“Claudia honey, I’m so sorry, but this time it’s not my fault, I swear.”

 

“Is it ever your fault, Roy?  What was it this time, an ex-fling calling you for a date or, did your Veritech need a tune-up?”

 

“C’mon Claudia, that’s not fair, and you know that.”

 

This was not going well at all, as he saw the hard set of her chin.  Oh yeah, Fokker buddy, you have completely blown it.  If she forgives you this time, it would be a miracle.

 

         

 












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Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.