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White Snow and Mistletoe	By : Phoenyxphiyre Category: 1 through F > Andromeda Views: 3245 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 1
Disclaimer: I do not own Andromeda, nor any of the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
- 1-White Snow and Mistletoe
- 1
Title: White Snow And Mistletoe

Author: Meg Brown, aka Andromeda Valentine

Fandom: Andromeda

Pairing: Dylan/Rommie, mention of Trance/Harper and Beka/Tyr

Rating: NC-17

Status: New; Complete

Archive: Yes to list archives, anyone else please ask first.

Feedback: Yes, please!! It'll alleviate *my* holiday blues...

E-mail address for feedback: andromeda_valentine@hotmail.com

Series/Sequel: None, yet

Other Websites: Crimson Redd - http://www.angelfire.com/goth/crimsonredd

Disclaimers: Still not mine - couldn't talk Tribune or the Roddenberry estate into handing them over, even for my Jan. 6 birthday...

Summary: Dylan helps Rommie through a case of the holiday blues. (Dylan's POV)

Note One - Setting: This takes place in my own little universe. All you need to know is that the crew is planetside somewhere very Terran for Christmas/Winter Solstice, celebrating, at Trance's request, with an all-night party/vigil. The story picks up shortly before dawn. Also, Beka and Tyr are involved, and expecting, and Harper and Trance have recently announced that Trance is pregnant as well.

Note Two - Winter Solstice: In Neo-Pagan religions (Wicca and the like), the Winter Solstice is a time of hope and renewal as the sun finally reaches it weakest point and then begins to steadily if slowly wax warmer. (There's a lovely metaphor of a Mother Goddess giving birth to a son - a Sun Child - that night and bringing his power into the world at dawn to grow stronger as he matures.)
A common Solstice ritual is to hold a vigil or celebration (depending on the desired tone and mood) from dusk until dawn.
And, of course, belated Happy Holidays to all, be it Christmas, Solstice, Kwanzaa, or Hanukkah - yeah, I know, it's March, but I started this way back in December, so... (By the way, I hereby thank my friend Eiluned for inadvertently getting my Muses back on track here...)

Warnings: None, unless a little hopeful holiday vibe disturbs you. ;o)
********************

"From darkness comes the light;

Out of our blindness, sight;

Let shadows now take flight!

Now at the holy hour

the word of power is spoken;

and night is broken...
The year shall cycle round,

The cold earth be unbound,

All that was lost be found!

Now at the holy hour

the word of power is spoken;

the ice is broken...
When loss is turned to gain,

By joy transforming pain,

Shall sorrow strive in vain.

Now at the holy hour

the word of power is spoken;

and death is broken...
The blessed tidings bring,

From winter cometh spring,

This is the truth we sing.

Now at the holy hour

the word of power is spoken;

and fear is broken..."

-A Druidic Winter Solstice song from Marion Zimmer Bradley's Lady of Avalon

********************
She leaves the room quietly, unobtrusively - the way she does everything. The way she's *made* to do everything...
It's the surreptitious look around the room that draws me after her. There's something uncharacteristically cold and weary about her eyes that's become all too familiar over the last few days here - something directed at *me* in split-second glances whenever she thinks I'm not watching.
I walk out onto the porch after her, the cigar in my hand my apparent excuse for following. She turns idly to look at me, and I almost smile to see the flicker of annoyance that crosses her face as she sees the cigar - one of my few (occasional) vices, but one she's always hated, and it's strangely heartening to see such a familiar reaction from her.
As happens so often in these moments, I find myself playing the clown to lighten her mood. I flash her a smile as I sit down, making a display of propping my feet up and lighting the cigar just to tease her, and then pretend to shiver a little. "Aren't you cold? It's freezing out here."

She just turns back to stare into the nearby forest again. "I don't feel cold. I don't feel much of anything..." Her voice sounds dull, resigned...
"Want to talk about it?" I end the cheerful routine, as it's obviously not working, dropping my feet back to the deck and sitting up a bit straighter.
She just shrugs half-heartedly. "All this holiday togetherness is getting to me."
God, when did she get so jaded...?
Silence falls for a moment then, something indefinable hanging over us both.
"Tyr's right, you know." Her voice breaks the silence suddenly.
"Oh? About what?" I cringe inwardly at whatever it is she's about to agree with. Years of serving together, and they still haven't made peace with each other - he still treats her like an unfeeling object and she retaliates by treating him like something we'd clean off her hull.
"I should just accept the way things are for me. I'm a warship, not a human being, and I'll only ever *be* a warship. Wishing for anything else is foolish."
That stings in a way I hadn't anticipated. "Rommie..."
She turns to face me, and I can see she's fighting back tears. "It's true, Dylan. What have I got to offer anyone? I can't leave my ship-self to give them a real life and I certainly can't give them a family."
Realization dawns then. I had thought she was handling this better. "This is about Trance and Harper's baby, isn't it? And Beka and Tyr's. I thought you were happy for them."
"I *am* happy for them. It's just hard to watch them all when I'm so-"
She bites back the word, but it still hovers there, filled with the dead weight of all the guilt and crossed signals between us. She's lonely, and she at least partially blames me for it. Strangely, I can't find it in me to disagree - I've let her down in so many little ways trying to deny what I feel for her.
I walk over to her and put a hand on her shoulder. "Rommie, you have plenty to offer *anyone.*"
She stiffens, still turned away from me, and her voice is ice-cold as she speaks. "Not, apparently, enough for you."
My hand drops away from her shoulder as I stand there stunned, and she stalks down the porch steps and into the trees across the yard as I just stare.
There's a long moment after where it seems like everything just... freezes as I try and make sense of the strange jumble of emotions her sudden hostility causes. Unfortunately, my emotions where she's concerned are always nearly impossible to figure out since I can't ever seem to distance myself from them...
It's Beka that finally snaps me back to reality as she walks out onto the porch. "So are you going after her or what? I'd go myself, but..." She smiles wryly, placing a hand on her swollen stomach. "Little guy makes it kinda hard to run."
I just sigh. "I'm probably the last person she wants to see right now, Beka. She hates me..."
"Actually, Dylan, you're the *only* person she sees - period."
I look over at her sharply, and she arches an eyebrow. "Don't tell me you didn't know this was coming..."
"Oh, I knew." I answer, rubbing tiredly at my eyes. "I was just kind of hoping I was wrong."
She places a hand on my shoulder, her eyes filled with that amazing reserve of compassion I sometimes forget she has. "Go talk to her, Dylan. You two have to resolve this, one way or another, or you're going to lose everything."
She's right, of course, and I set off after Rommie, hoping that I haven't worsened things by taking so long. I have no idea what I'll say to her when I catch up with her, but I *know* that I can't let her slip away from me like this. Not without a fight. Fortunately, the moonlight refracting off the snow is bright enough to see Rommie's footprints easily and it doesn't take me long to find her.
She's sitting in a brightly moonlit clearing, kneeling there on the white snow, and I can't help but stare. She always looks beautiful to me, but the stark contrast of her dark hair and clothes against that field of white is absolutely breathtaking. She looks like some sort of ice princess...
After I stand there staring for several long moments, she breaks the silence. "I just want to know one thing, Dylan."
She seems calmer now, so I move a bit closer... "You know you can ask me anything, Rommie."
She looks up at me, suddenly gone very quiet and still, as I stop beside her. "Why, Dylan? Why won't you let yourself love me? Is it that impossible?"
I usually attempt to dodge my way out of these conversations, but it's finally time to get this all said, whatever happens afterward. "It's not impossible at all, Rommie. In fact, it's entirely too easy sometimes."
That brings us perilously close to the unseen line we've never dared to cross, and we both just sit there watching each other for a long moment. Part of me, locked into years of denial, is struggling desperately to find some polite way to take back what I said, or at least render it a much more neutral statement.
The other part of me takes one look at the sudden ray of hope in Rommie's eyes and refuses, unequivocally, to give in anymore.
She smiles at me tentatively - the first genuine smile I've seen on her face in days - and rises to her feet. Her words, when she finally speaks, are half-murmured and nearly inaudible. "So I wasn't wrong - you *do* care..."
I suddenly feel strangely like a schoolboy teased into admitting his first crush, and in the split second after I think that, the ridiculousness of this entire situation crashes in on me. All this time wasted, and for what?
"I am *so* sorry, Rommie." I tell her as I pull her into my arms. "I've been an idiot." God, I hope I can make this up to her...
She pulls away after a moment, looking up at me. "So what happens now?"
I pause at that. What *is* going to happen now? Admitting how we feel, however obliquely, is one thing. Acting on that admission is something else entirely...
"I really don't know, Rommie. What do you want to happen?"
She smiles shyly, and I could swear she actually blushes as she stares at the ground. "I'm not sure. I want... you. That's all I've ever wanted."
I can't help but smile at that, even as I reach out a hand to force her gaze up to meet mine. "First things first, though - you have nothing to be ashamed of. Loving someone isn't silly, or weak, or pointless, and neither is wanting them to love you back."
She just nods. "I know. But it feels that way sometimes..."
"I'm sorry for that, Rommie." I tell her, reaching out to stroke her cheek. "I know I haven't helped..."
She stares up at me with those big brown eyes of hers, and I'm about two heartbeats away from seeing what she'd look like after being thoroughly kissed when a sudden gust of wind blows noisily through the trees and startles us both.
We jump apart, laughing, and I reach up to see what the wind blew into the back of my head. I can't help but smile when I see it - a small twig, with green leaves and white berries.
I hold it up for Rommie to see. "Know what this is?"
She thinks for a moment, staring at it intently, before she identifies it. "Phoradendron serotinum. North American Mistletoe. I didn't know it grew here."
I'm still smiling. "Me, either. I was actually kind of disappointed that we couldn't find any for our holiday decorations."
She just looks at me blankly. Apparently, this is one holiday custom that didn't make into her data banks...
"There's an old Earth tradition about mistletoe, Rommie. Close your eyes and I'll show you." She looks at me questioningly, and I just smile. "Humor me, Rommie. You won't mind, I promise."
She closes her eyes, standing there with the same resigned expression she wears whenever she humors me in a whim, and I just smile as I lift the mistletoe over both our heads and lean in.
The kiss startles her at first, but it only takes a moment or two for her to start returning it with a fervor I hadn't anticipated, and I'm oddly reminded of my earlier 'ice princess' metaphor as I feel her soften in my embrace.
We part finally, both gasping for air a little, and I realize I was right. She looks absolutely breathtaking after being kissed, face slightly flushed, eyes wide, her lips parted and a little swollen.
The ice princess, melted by the kiss of her Prince Charming...
I can't help but smile at her, especially after that thought. "You should be kissed more often, Rommie." I tease. "You look amazing afterwards."
She smiles a little shakily. "So, the presence of mistletoe means you have to kiss?"
"Well, it's a kind of an opportunistic tradition." I explain, teasing again. "I wouldn't expect you to kiss, oh, say, Tyr or Harper if you landed under the mistletoe together. Now Beka on the other hand..."
She laughs at that, a full-throated laugh that even echoes slightly, and it's the most beautiful sound I've heard in weeks. "Who do you think *taught* me how to kiss?" she says, face a perfect picture of innocence, and then reaches out to grab the mistletoe from me while I stand there blinking in amused surprise.
Continuing the joke without even thinking, I reach out to take the mistletoe back from her, and we end up wrestling in the snow until I land flat on my back with Rommie on top of me, laughing. The mood changes suddenly as our faceser ier inches apart, neither of us quite daring to move.
Rommie leans in to close the gap between us finally, and something just gives as we kiss again. We roll around in the snow for a moment or two, hands roaming wherever they can, before Rommie breaks away to get to her feet.
She pulls me to mine, and we're reaching for each other again the instant we're both steady. Step by step, we stumble our way over to one of the trees at the edge of the clearing, still kissing and caressing.
I push her back against the tree as I slide my hands up under her sweater, and she moans softly as I trace out the curve and swell of her breasts, thumbs grazing over hardening nipples through the thin cloth of her bra.
The sound goes straight through me, and I feel myself twitch in anticipation - I'm already rock-hard, and these pants are getting tighter by the moment. I feel Rommie's hands at my waistband, and the world drops away suddenly as they slide inside my pants to cup me - the feel of her warm hands on me is almost too much to take.
Groaning, I pull her hands away, leaning in afterwards to kiss her again. She gasps involuntarily as I slide a hand between her legs, and I brush my tongue against hers as her mouth opens to mine. She tastes like spiced cider, and I lose myself in the tang and feel of her as I explore the damp warmth of her mouth.
She whimpers a little as I move my hand from between her legs, sliding it up under her sweater again to cup her breasts, but the whimper changes to a slightly startled gasp as I slide my leg between hers and move it just so.
Moments later, she's bucking against me, moaning slightly and gasping, and when her eyes fly open in the wake of her orgasm, they're so huge and dark that I almost drown in them.
My hands start roaming again almost of their own volition - I don't think I'll ever get enough of touching her - and I feel like I'm about to explode as she starts writhing under my touch again. My mouth is locked on hers, as if I could literally drink down each of her tiny cries, and I feel her hands move between us, followed by the sound of ripping thread.
Before I can react, her hands are at the waistband of my pants, freeing me, as she whispers "Take me." I lift her up a little, noting her ripped pants and panties with dim amusement as I finally bury myself in her.
She's hot, and tight, and all those other things I had tried so hard not to imagine, and part of me can't believe this is really happening. I've played out this fantasy in my dreams so many times that I expect to wake up any minute.
And I do - to the sound of her voice as she climaxes again. "Oh god...Dylan...love you..." Something in those words pushes me past the brink, and the world explodes around me as I pour myself into her and call out her name.
When reality returns, it's already growing light out, and we stand there watching the sun rise in this perfect silence. The rest - the walk back to the house, the next several hours spent in my room - is a blur, but I remember the sunrise perfectly.
Just like I'll remember the sight of Rommie sleeping next to me, a battered sprig of mistletoe clutched in one hand...
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White Snow and Mistletoe