Aberrant: Stargate Universe - "Applied Practice" [Complete]

[Aradia McConnell]

Date: October 17, 2004

Time: 10:55 a.m.

Aradia grabbed her duffel bag, and hurried out the door. She was scheduled in five minutes, and the range was a good ten minute walk across base under normal circumstances. She skittered down a flight of stairs and hurried out the door, in full-run mode so she wouldn't be late.

She covered most of the base in good time, but as she rounded the corner towards the range, she felt herself impact firmly with a person. Aradia's curses mingled with the ones of the large, intimidating man standing in front of her for a moment, and then she glanced up, her words trailing off as she caught sight of who it was.

"Hey, sorry, I-"

"Better watch yourself, little lady. Another man might get upset - or see an invitation."

The big man smiled at her, putting his hands on her shoulders to steady her, and leaving them a moment too long. Aradia froze for a second, as she absorbed the guy's face, remembering what Livy had said about him.

Originally Posted By: Olivia Jenings-Izumi

She looked up and met Aradia's eyes. "He's slime. He didn't do anything, but he gives off that vibe." The lie, such as it went, was good, and it even allowed her to say, "Aradia, stay away from him. All my instincts say he's no good. He's a Sergeant named Hatchins."

"...Hatchins. Right?"

Hatchins smiled and preened a bit, clearly pleased that she'd known his name.

"Yeah, but it's Carl to my friends." His smile became a near-leer. "I think you'd make a nice friend, so you can call me Carl."

She felt her stomach roll in disgust, and she stepped back, pulling herself out of his grip.

"Carl.."

Wait.. Carl? Isn't that what Waki said the guy who.. no way, it's gotta be a coincidence.

"Well.. thanks for the warning, Carl. I wouldn't want anyone to get the wrong impression."

It can't be the same guy. Though he acts like a creep.

"Glad I can help a friend." He loomed over her, and she wasn't sure it was all from his size. He seemed to have an arrogance that suffused his posture, too. "But I don't know your name, friend."

She straightened, looking him directly in the eye, and forcing a polite if not wholeheartedly convincing smile.

"It's McConnell.. Specialist Aradia McConnell."

"Oh, yeah, I thought you were familiar." There was a slight change to his attitude; a hint of wariness. "You hang around with

Liv Jenings, don't you?" He was all slime as he asked, "Are you a friend of hers?"

"You could say that. Known her a long time, actually."

As his demeanor changed, she found it easier to stand her ground.

The slimier he acted, the more the thought tugged at the back of her mind that this might just be the guy who'd fucked Livy up. And the more she thought that, the angrier she felt about it. Her voice was cool, with a degree of casualness she didn't quite feel.

"Why.. you know her?"

"I met her my first day here," he said smoothly, "real sweet girl." His tongue darted out to lick his lips; Aradia wasn't sure he was aware of the movement. "I admit to having my eye on her, though apparently she's taken. Multiple times over."

Somehow the thought of this man thinking Livy was some kind of slut turned her stomach, and she felt anger blaze, though she swallowed it back.

"I've heard those rumors. But she's with Vinny.. you know, Captain Wright? She's got good friends, though. We're all pretty tight. We deal with dangerous shit, so we've gotta be. Now.. if you don't mind.. I gotta get to the range. I'm late for practice."

"Too bad, she'd be a wildcat in bed. Quiet ones always are," he said, as if you talked like this to a woman's friend. "Don't

let me keep you, Aradia - it was nice to meet you, and I hope to cross.... paths again."

"Yeah.. sure."

She grabbed her duffel bag then, and tried not to hurry away in the direction of the range. She didn't want that guy thinking he intimidated her.. even though he did. But she could still feel his eyes on her as she walked away, and she tried to suppress the sick feeling in her stomach that she couldn't make go away.

[Aradia McConnell]

Date: October 19th, 2004

Time: 5:22 p.m.

Aradia spent the next day or two thinking about her run in with Carl Hatchins. The guy's creep factor was off the scales.. he hadn't even left much to innuendo. It bothered her through gun practice, and through a meeting with Vinny. Livy was on vacation for a couple days due to stress, which only made Aradia more suspicious.. she'd be stressed out too, if her rapist was stationed at the same base. And she wasn't sure she could have brought herself to talk to her best friend about it anyway. I mean, what was she gonna say?

"Hey Liv.. that Hatchins guy.. I know you said he didn't do anything, but are you sure he didn't actually gang-rape you with three other guys several years ago?" Yeah.. not so much.

Yesterday she had planned on spending most of her time working out in the gym, but she'd spent the first hour feeling like someone was watching her. It wasn't an unusual feeling, except for the fact that it didn't feel right. She had finally stopped for a drink, and caught Hatchins watching her on the dismount. She felt another roll of nausea wash through her, and decided to call it for the day.

By today, unable to get that creep off her mind, she had finally come to a decision. One way or another, she had to figure it out.. and if she couldn't get the truth from Livy, she'd have to get it another way.

She hopped off her bed, and pulled open one of the drawers on the dresser that the Air Force had issued her. She'd heard rumors that Captain Mitchell had redecorated his own suites, and that they were allowed to do the same. If that were the case, she needed to get to work on that sometime soon. It might make this place feel more like a home, and less like a prison cell.

She yanked a set of her BDUs out of the dresser drawer, and promptly began to change into them. She had channeled enough energy into all her sets of BDUs before anything else, so that she wouldn't ever have to worry about not being prepared on an assignment. So she got dressed, tossing the rest of her clothes into the hamper, and pulled the ponytail holder out of her hair. It wasn't attuned to her abilities, after all.

Fuck, I don't even know what his room number is!

She stood there, looking at herself for a long moment in the mirror, trying to figure out what the best option would be.

Cat? No.. no stray cats on base. A fly? No.. people swat flies, that's a stupid fuckin' idea. What about a mouse? I dunno, people don't like those either and make a big deal about one, that could be kinda risky if I'm spotted. I dunno.. I'll figure it out when I get there, I guess.

Aradia headed out of her rooms, and took the elevator up through the mountain complex in order to reach the upper levels. She wound her way through the halls of the base proper, where the base exchange and the normal soldier's dorms were located. Once she got close enough, she slipped around a corner where she was pretty sure there wouldn't be any surveillance, and where there weren't any human eyes watching her either. She looked around cautiously, trying to make sure no one else was around. And then she shifted, changing herself into a small, unobtrusive little rodent, though like it's hummingbird counterpart it was a brown mouse with little blondish flecks. The mouse peered left and right, the way one the cartoons depicted them when on the hunt for something, and then made it's way to the men's dorm entrance. She found a little crack in the wall big enough for a small mouse to squeeze into, and settled in to wait.

____________________

Date: October 19th, 2004

Time: 7:46 p.m.

Aradia didn't have any room to move in the small opening. She'd been sitting here well over two hours, and the guy still hadn't shown up. It was getting hot and uncomfortable, and she was losing patience. What kind of weirdo doesn't immediately go back to their room after their shift, and change into civvy clothes?

____________________

Date: October 19th, 2004

Time: 8:51 p.m.

Aradia had been almost ready to give up when she finally spotted him approaching the dorms from the other side of the street. He was already dressed in his civilian clothes - Bastard must've taken them to work with him so he didn't have to come back to the dorms - and he was carrying a styrofoam container filled with food from the mess hall. She waited silently, until she saw him turn down the hall that led into a group of men's dorms. Then she squeezed out of the small space, scrambled across the hall, and found an air duct with big enough holes to squeeze through. She followed him from there, watching him through various air vents as he made his way through the halls and finally into his room. She had to detour through the air vent system for a bit, but fortunately it was October, and there wasn't a lot of air blowing through the vents one way or another - it wasn't cold enough to heat the dorms, or hot enough for the air conditioning units to be running. Without the sound of blowing air to drown it out, she'd been able to keep following the noises, even when she'd had to detour.

The plan had been to get the bastard's room number, so that she could come back and search his dorm room later. But.. now that she was here, the idea of leaving it at that seemed less appealing. She had some time, and it would be safer to make it back to her dorms when it was a bit later anyway. So instead, she found the shaft that ran to him room, and skittered with little mouse-feet along it until she reached one of the vents that had a view into his room.

She watched as the smooth-talking bastard unwrapped his food, and sat down to eat.. hoping that the next couple hours would prove more eventful than just dinner.

[Aradia McConnell]

Date: October 22nd, 2004

Time: 2:41 p.m.

Watching him that night, or the two nights afterward hadn't gotten Aradia much further. Her mood hadn't been improved by finding out about the most recent trauma Livy had experienced with the alien artifact, and though she had been allowed to visit Olivia today to make sure her near-sister was okay, it had only served to piss her off.

Here she goes through all this shit, and she has to put up with that son of a bitch too? Fuck that. I have *got* to figure this out.

So today, instead of waiting for her day to be over, she had taken some time out of her schedule that had been penciled in for a workout, and decided to get some practice of an applied sort instead. She made her way, like last time, in the direction of the bases dorm rooms, and since it had been working well she stuck with the mouse disguise. In fact, yesterday she had found an easier way directly into the vent system, and was learning her way around the vents in the base better than she imaged the brass probably wanted her to know. But then again, who would have thought of it?

She made her way to the bastard's bedroom, and slipped through the broken vent this time, instead of using it as a hiding place. Three days of watching him had given him a pretty good idea of his routines, and she was almost positive he was working right now, and wouldn't be back anytime soon. The tiny mouse became a normal-sized acrobat once again, and she glanced around hesitantly before she started her search.

In the desk drawer, in the dresser, in the closet. She took her time digging, making sure not to leave anything out of place or disorganized. The man was a neat freak, there wasn't a pin out of place in his room. It was disturbingly devoid of personality. He didn't seem to smoke or drink, at least she didn't find evidence of either vise in his possessions. His bed was made with military precision, and to her disappointment she didn't find anything suspicious under the bed or the mattress, either.

Finally, she hit the jackpot. It was her second trip back to the closet, and though she hadn't found anything the first time around, she had decided to take another look. This time she pulled out both of his filing boxes, instead of just the top one. It had contained only files and personal financial records, so she had initially disregarded the bottom box. But upon opening the second one, she knew she had hit pay dirt. Magazines upon magazines of porn, and not just any porn.

What she saw flipping through those pictures for the next thirty minutes was some of the most horrifying, disgusting stuff she had ever seen. It was like a train wreck.. no matter how nauseated and disgusted it made her, she couldn't look away. Aradia had known a lot of people who enjoyed their kink. In the world of carnival performance, you get all sorts, and the idea of being tied up or whipped didn't do much to phase Aradia. After all, it took all sorts. But these women didn't look like they had given their permission. They sure the hell didn't look like they were having any fun. Most of the pictures, unlike normal porn where the woman showed off or flaunted her assets, seemed to have been taken with the women not even watching, or looking at the camera. Of course, a lot of it was drawings - bondage and rape porn seemed to be very popular in manga format, where Aradia assumed people couldn't get in trouble for drawing it.

Hatchins didn't discriminate.. photographs or drawings, there were white victims, black victims, Asian victims, and Hispanic victims. They were victims of white men, black men, Asian men, and Hispanic men. There were even some victims of animals, which was almost enough to make Aradia throw up. But they all had that one very common element.. they looked like victims. There were no willing women in those photos, and Aradia found herself praying to whatever god that might exist that the women in those pictures had just been good actresses. Finally, she'd had enough, and she stacked them all carefully back in the box before setting it aside. The only thing that remained was the CD case full of burned data. She opened up the case, and pulled out one of the plain blank discs, marked with nothing more than an abbreviation for something and a number. She flipped on his TV and dropped the volume to the lowest setting. Then she slid the disc in and started up his DVD player. The grainy image popped onto the screen that looked almost like a homemade video, and it was two actors and an actress announcing that everything in this video is role-play, and was performed completely consensually. Then the pornography started, and Aradia wasn't able to watch more than ten minutes of it before she had to flip it off in disgust. If she hadn't seen the woman start the video by announcing that it was all consensual, she would have picked it up right then and taken it to O'Neill himself, whether she got in trouble for it or not.

But as it stood, she wasn't sure whether he could technically get in trouble for it or not, and she wasn't about to play her hand for an uncertainty. She flipped through the covers, memorizing the names of some of the magazines that she had paged through, before putting everything back exactly in it's place. A quick glance at the clock told her that time was almost up, and she'd been in here far longer than she intended. She shifted back into insignificance, and scurried away from the Sergeant's private hellhole.

[Aradia McConnell]

Date: October 23, 2004

Time: 8:12 p.m.

Aradia had spent an exhausting evening pouring through internet web sites, trying to find out if any of the magazine titles she had seen were illigitimate. Unfortunately, after mind-numbing articles from religious groups, legislature, and freedom of speech advocates, all Aradia had managed to find was validation that as disgusting as they are, and as difficult as they had probably been to acquire, none of Hatchin's stuff was obviously illegal. She considered going to O'Neill anyway, but quickly dismissed the idea. She needed something more solid.. and even then, she was pretty sure she knew who she'd be taking this information to. And it was someone who was planning on doing a lot worse to Hatchins than slap him with a court-marshall.

Now that she had gotten a good look at his apartment, she wasn't sure what she had hoped to find. But she'd gotten lucky that night, or so she'd hoped. Hatchins had come back to his room, but instead of staying there, he'd changed clothes and headed back out after making a couple phone calls. Aradia had tracked him first on little mice feet, until he'd made to the garage, and left base via a black Dodge Ram pickup. She'd followed him by air then, turning into a falcon to ward off any larger predators of the sky. About forty minutes later, she found herself at a local strip club along the highway, full of truckers and townies who didn't want to risk running into anyone they knew at the strip clubs in the city. Hatchins' black truck had been followed by a beat-up blue Dodge of some sort, and there were two other guys in it who greeted Hatchins when they arrived, and disappeared into the club.

Aradia contemplated for a few minutes, before landing between some cars and shifting into the figure of a random, unobtrusive guy. She caught a glance at herself in the reflection on someone's side mirror, and realized she had made herself look like one of the truckers that visited the place.. a little on the rotund side, and with the stubble of a night or two without shaving.

She uttered a quick curse as she realized she wasn't sure whether she'd had her wallet tucked into the pocket of her BDUs when she shifted or not. Fortunately she had, and since she'd been intelligent enough to attune the wallet as well as her normal outfits. It had made the transition with her, along with the money and ID inside it. Another glance in the mirror and she touched up the lines, aging herself to the point that it wouldn't matter whether or not her ID matched - no one would ask for it anyway.

She strode in then, and asked the scantily-clad waitress for a seat near the back, where she had spotted Hatchins and his two buddies. The woman nodded, and placed her a couple tables away. Fortunately it was close enough for Aradia to listen to the conversation, so she ordered a drink and settled in to pretend she was watching the show.

Date: October 24th, 2004

Time: 12:11 p.m.

Aradia had learned several things that night. The first was that men talked about a lot of stupid shit while they were getting drunk and watching strippers. The second is that didn't get mad that you didn't order a lot of drinks, so long as you tipped well for the ones you did order. The third was that the later it got, the skankier the strippers were. But other than that, the evening was shaping up to be a monumental waste of time. Finally though, she overheard some laughter from two tables down, and her ears perked at the sound of a familiar word - 'librarian'.

"No shit, you mean the mousy little thing everyone talks about all the time?"

"Yeah, I heard she ain't that mousy though.. likes it from three different specialist, is what I heard."

Hatchins laughed then, a deep-throated, drunken laugh, and sat his drink down.

"I'll tell you boys somethin' - that librarian, or Doctor, or whatever she's calling herself these days. She acts like she's all high and mighty, but I'd bet money those rumors are true. See.. she's a hot little thing in bed."

The other two gaped at him, and Aradia seethed. It took all her force of will not to try and pound the guy right there. But there was no way she could take him - not without shifting - which would get her into some serious shit. So she waited, jaw clenched, as Hatchins drunkenly - Guess you were wrong about that one, dipshit, looks like he drinks after all.. - sealed his own fate.

"You're kidding, man - you've done her?"

"Naw, I don't believe it. She only fucks specialists. She's an elitist whore."

"I knew her before she was a Specialist. She was a pretty little piece back then too.. fresh out of college, or maybe not quite finished. And quite the little.. drama student."

She could hear the suggestive leer on his lips, even though she couldn't see him. She knew he was grinning in that slimy way of his, hooking the other two guys with his bullshit.

"Whaddya' mean? She was an actress, or somethin'?"

"No.. I mean she liked to pretend."

"Pretend what, man? C'mon, spit it out - you're killin' us here!"

"Well.. she likes to pretend she doesn't like it. She's into that sort of thing. Domination, acting like you were forcing her. It's what got her all riled up for us."

"Wait - what? Us? You mean she likes 'em more than one at a time?"

"Oh yeah.. she sure does. It wouldn't surprise me if that hot little thing is havin' her fun with all three of those weirdos at once. After all.. she was nice and tight when we had her, if you know what I mean."

Aradia stood up, and tossed some bills down onto the table to pay for her drinks. She couldn't handle it anymore.. seeing pictures was one thing, hearing him describe it was another. She made it out to the parking lot before she ended up clinging to some stranger's car, doubled over, throwing up the dinner she'd had earlier in the night along with the beer she'd managed to choke down while waiting for Hatchins to talk.

Finally, drained and exhausted, she managed to change back into a swift-flying bird.. in the end, she couldn't even remember what kind, it might not have even been a real bird at all.. and flew back to base. Another shift to get herself into the base unnoticed, and that was that. By the time she reached her bed, she fell into it without even changing her clothes, sick and sweating and exhausted from the strain she'd put on herself that night. She was, thankfully, too exhausted even for dreams.

[Aradia McConnell]

Date: October 24, 2004

Time: 10:17 a.m.

Aradia had woken up to an email from Vinny. They were heading out on assignment through the Stargate tomorrow, and they had the day off today to get their affairs (such as they were) in order, and have a day to relax. Aradia had been trhilled.. it gave her the opportunity she'd been looking for. She'd gotten up and gotten dressed, skipping breakfast in the process. She still felt sick from last night, though she'd thrown up all the alcohol she'd consumed the night before in the parking lot.

No, she was sick with disgust, and today's day off gave her the perfect opportunity. She intended to follow him around all day, get a good idea of his actual schedule, when he took his lunch, where he went for break. She didn't know how much it would help, but she wanted to have some general information before she went back to Wakiki.. not just an accusation, no matter how accurate.

So she'd disguised herself again, and in a way was surprised to realize it was getting a little easier to change from one shape to another, or stay in one for a longer period of time. She'd tracked him from his room that morning, and watched him during breakfast. She'd tracked him to his post at the quartermaster's office, and found a small, safe place to hide in. The mouse disguise was working well for her again this morning, though she didn't know how much she was going to get from him other than schedule details.

At this point, that was all she needed. In her mind.. he'd sealed his fate already.

[z-Olivia Jenings-Izumi]

Date: October 24, 2004

Time: 1523 MST

Her afternoon lecture was done, and Declan had walked her to the library. Olivia was almost getting used to being escorted everywhere. Between Daniel, her team, Vinny and Adaria, she was rarely left alone. Vinny and Adaria had no idea why she’d been so eager for company recently, but neither one really objected. Once, Teal’c had even shown up to walk her, explaining in his deep voice that Daniel had been busy, and asked him to walk with her.

,,

It had made Olivia feel safe, in a way she hadn’t in a while. That sense of safety was why the incident in the library hit her so hard.

She was reading mission reports, crawling through SG-3’s long-winded report on some Ancient ruins. The subject matter was entrancing; the prose and writing style less so. It was dry and unnecessarily florid, and Olivia found her interest waning, despite her love for this kind of information. Sighing, she rubbed her eyes, then found her place again and tried to focus.

The door opened and closed, and she looked up, grateful for the interruption. Two airmen came in, people Olivia had seen around the base. She started to smile a simple greeting and return her attention to her document, but they were looking at her and approaching. All of the escorting and protection had lulled her into a sense of security, and she felt no trepidation as they approached.

“Hi,” one of them said, leaning on the table and looming over her. The other moved to the side of the table and Olivia realized they’d just cut her off from the door. Now she was flooded with sudden concern, and she stood without realizing what she’d done. The men tensed, subtly.

Crowers and Phillips, she knew as adrenaline pumped into her system and her mind went into overdrive. She’d seen Crowers working in the garage, and Phillips was a member of Syler’s armory staff. She stepped back and the two men followed, flowing around the table like stalking cats. That kind of thinking isn’t helpful, she informed herself. She fought the urge to call Damien; they weren’t to that point - yet. With the firmest voice she could manage, she said, “Can I help you Airmen with something?”

They looked at each other, communicating silently. Phillips smiled, a slow, hungry expression that curled her gut. “Yeah, you can. We heard you like more than one at a time.”

Grinning grossly, Crowers said, “And we have some more buddies we’d be willing to share with, if you need more than us.”

"Not that you will,” Phillips said, licking his lips. "We'll satisfy, no worries."

Ok, they were there. Olivia reached out with her hearing, locating the signal that was her CO’s radio. *Damien! Please come to the library!*

“On it.” His voice was calm and assuring even over the radio, and it was the rock that she grabbed onto with both hands.

“Who told you that?” Olivia asked, her voice hoarse with fear.

“Your old friend, that Sergeant you fucked.” Her back hit the wall, but they didn’t stop coming, slowly closing in on her. “He also said you like guys to be aggressive with you, to… you know.”

“No, I don’t know what you mean.” She pressed her shaking hands against the wall, hearing her breathing coming too quickly. She was afraid she did know.

Crowers looked unsure now, as if he were catching onto the mood in the room, or deciding that no one was that good of an actress. But Phillips was as empathic as a blindly-thrown brick and he pressed on. “He said you like to play at non-con.”

“Non-con?” Olivia repeated. So long as they stayed out of arm’s length, she’d be fine. Caine would be here soon. There was no reason to fly into a panic, not yet.

“Non-consensual. Like… rape fantasies.”

“He told you that?” Olivia asked, and something in her cracked. “He told you I liked rape fantasies? Did he tell you it was no fantasy for me?” Phillips looked startled; Crowers was already backing away. Both men were starting to give off vibes of extreme discomfort. Olivia didn’t care. “Did he tell you it was a nightmare, not a fantasy? That I still have nightmares of that night? That I can’t stand to have people touch my neck because he throttled me until the world was gray?”

Crowers didn’t try to answer; Phillips actually had his hands up, as if fending her off. “N-n-n-no,” he stammered. “I think… this is a-a-all a mis-s-sunderstanding!”

“No,” Olivia said, hardly recognizing the hard edge in her voice as she pushed off the wall and advanced on them. Her world was painted in shades of red; her heart pounded so hard that she heard her own blood roaring in her veins. “This isn’t a misunderstanding, this is slander.”

Phillips started to stammer, “We didn’t know-“

“And you didn’t want to,” Olivia said, back by the table and flowing around it herself in a mirror of their actions earlier. They were almost to the door. “All you saw, all you wanted, was an easy lay, a dark-skinned whore who’d spread her legs for anything with a cock. It’s easy for you to believe the lies about me, because you want them to be true. You want me to be the permissive, exotic woman, the one you can fulfill your jungle-fever fantasies on without any work or effort. You want a blow-up blackie, who’ll moan and pant for you and your friends. You want a dirty slut.

"I am none of these things!” Olivia pressed on. The rage of the last few years spewed out in a dark invective; had her words been made of fire, there would be two scorched corpses in front of her. “I’m a person. I hold three college degrees including a doctorate; my favorite food is kiwi. I’m in a monogamous relationship with a man who looks for excuses to destroy men like you. I have feelings, a heart and a soul. I’m not a thing for your tiny, abusive pleasure!

"But you can’t handle that.” She glared at them and they shrank further away from her, not quite able to rally confidence in the face of all of this rage. They almost stank of their shame. She shook her head in disgust. “Get out of my way.” They jumped aside, and she headed for the door.

*Damien, cancel the library, I’m not there.*

“ Are you alright? What’s your status?”

*Fine. Terrific. I need to have a little chat with someone.*

“Olivia, don’t do anything rash.” But she heard the satisfaction in his voice. He knew what she was doing. “I’ll meet you there.”

*Uh huh,* she replied, as she took the elevator down to the right level, then stormed into the quartermaster’s office. Hatchins was behind the desk; she’d known he was on-shift at this time. He glanced up and saw her, and a smug smile crossed his face. “Liv, to wha-”

She cut him off by grabbing the collar of his shirt and jerking him forward. The only reason that worked was because he wasn’t expecting it; he caught himself on his hands quickly, but not quickly enough to save face. The other guy working there started to snicker at the scene. “I warned you,” she snapped, her voice burning with rage. “I told you not to talk about me. You choose not to listen, and what happens now is on your head.” Her face twisted with disgust, she released him and stepped back before turning on her heel and leaving.

"We're not done, bitch!" he roared, and Olivia turned as he planted his hands on the counter and vaulted it easily. She fell into the forms that Declan had taught her, knowing it wouldn't be enough to prevent herself from getting hurt. Damien choose that moment to enter, catching the tail end of the statement and the threatening hop. The other sergeant was already moving to intercept Hatchins, but it was Damien's roared, "SERGEANT!" that stopped Hatchins.

Olivia looked scornfully at Hatchins and swept toward the door. She didn't need to see the reaming that Damien was about to give Hatchins. She was happy to know it was happening.

A thought occurred to her and she turned at the door. "You're not scary," Olivia said to the enraged man. "Not at all. I've seen things that show you to be the wussy little parasite who has to try to make others afraid of him to get his rocks off. You, Carl, are pathetic. And you can tell your masters the same thing." As he shook with rage, she left the room.

"I think that Dr. Jenings-Izumi said it all," Caine said, smirking. He'd enjoyed watching Olivia on fire; he hoped he'd see more of that now. Whistling, he left the room, moving to follow his teammate and make sure she was okay - even though he knew she'd be fine. He really believed that, for the first time in a long time.

[Aradia McConnell]

Date: October 24, 2004

Time: Immediately after 'Suspicions and Doubts', approximately 5:45 p.m.

Aradia waited until she heard Gwyn walking away, then she slid down her door, and took a deep breath.

An ongoing investigation which relate to events in Olivia's past. I wonder what the hell that's all about.. maybe Livy told them about Hatchins. Maybe they're trying to get him locked up.

She thought about it for a few minutes, but she couldn't think of anything else they could possibly be doing in regards to Hatchins, if that was the issue. Hell, from what she'd heard around here, Livy had been through so much shit it could damned well be anything in her past. God only knows what Gwyn was referencing, but it was probably some way bigger issue than Sargent Carl Hatchins.

Not that Aradia really gave a fuck if it was. Getting him locked up was way too good for the bastard. Who knows how many other women besides Livy he'd made suffer like that. She didn't care what the SGU might want with the bastard.. she and Waki and Vinny had rights to him first. Actually, Livy did.. but because of what he'd done to her, she seemed either unwilling or unable to make him pay for what he'd done. Hell, she might be too scared of him to do shit about it, other than sic her team on him.

Not that I could blame her.. the bastard scares me too. I don't think I could face him by myself either.

But from what she'd seen of Livy's team, she was glad she'd been put on Vinny's. He might not always give everything the thought he should - give him time, he was new to this Captain shit - but at least he seemed to have some balls. Damien and Gwyn both seemed like the type to lock up a rapist, instead of making sure he got what he deserved. And Livy had always been a big pacifist, or peacekeeper. The only one who might want to properly rip him apart was Dec, and from the sounds of it he was busy being evaluated and treated and everything else under the sun. Hell, he might not even know about it.

She thought about what Hatchins had looked like after Livy stalked out of the quartermaster's office. She'd been so proud of Livy then, she'd wanted to cheer. She accidentally let out a small, mouse-like cheep of pride.. but fortunately it was too quiet for anyone to hear. But then she'd watched as some of the other guys had tried to rib him about gettin' on the Doc's bad side, and how he about ripped their heads off because of it. They all shut up pretty fast after the first comment or two. But even then, instead of calming down eventually like a regular person would, he spent the next couple hours just getting angrier, and angrier. By the time he stormed out of there at the end of his shift, Aradia felt compelled to follow him all the way back to his dorm in mouse form, and track him long enough to see him leave the base, probably out for a drink. She'd been afraid the first place he was gonna go was to go find Livy.

She knew they all shipped out tomorrow for missions, so she wasn't too worried.. and she knew Livy would be here tonight, most likely, unless she was staying with Vinny or something, although she wasn't sure how far that had progressed.

I should call Waki, and me and Vinny could go meet him and take him out tonight.

But in the end, she decided against it - after all, her and Vinny were scheduled for a mission tomorrow, and if anything happened.. well, they might need time. She pulled out her cell phone, and looked down at it for awhile, debating whether or not to call Wakiki. But in the end, she decided against that too.. she'd already called him yesterday to let him know she was going to be out of town for awhile, on assignment. He'd pouted, in a cute, guy-ish pout kind of way, but he'd promised to take her out when she got back. Telling him now would risk too much - he might try and do something stupid while her and Vinny were gone, and that could be really bad.

No.. Carl would have to wait. And then he'd have to pay for the waiting, too.. on top of all his other sins.