Reconnecting?

I wrote this to aldersprig's sixth prompt "I'm just here for the (Something)."

I have my triggers, so I hit the guy.  Right in front of my father, when the entire point of this get-together had been to convince him I was a calmer, more in control, adult person these days and thereby get back in contact with the rest of the family.  Not that I had time to think about that at the time because, once having hit him, I had to follow through so things got a bit hectic.

I thought I heard Dad saying my name while I was breaking the guy’s arm but I was a little busy, what with breaking bones and making sure I wound up in control of the knife he had in the hand that was about to become less useful than it had been.  Other people’s yelling and screaming stopped, or at least seemed to from my point of view, when his partner in crime pulled out a handgun and shot at me.  Fortunately for me, if not for the first guy, I was able to put him between me and the bullet.

After I threw the creep that had been shot at his friend and gone after the gun, the police arrived.  I was the good one who obeyed orders, put my hands in the air and did what the police told me.  Heaven knows I’ve been in that position before.  I was very cooperative and let the police pull my wallet out of my pocket to see who I am.  Fortunately the policeman was very professional and didn’t repeat the first guy’s move of groping me at the same time.  He also flipped open the wallet, read the identity card inside and handed my wallet back with a very polite, “Inspectore, please put your hands down.”

Processing and statements kept us all tied up for over an hour so by the time the police were done with us our meals were cold.  A pity, I’d been looking forward to the food.  My father’d had enough and he was going home.  I was suffering through his analysis of my behaviour, ‘thuggery’ and ‘thoughtless violence’ did come up in there somewhere, when we were interrupted by the officer in charge of the crime scene, “Excuse me, Inspectore Dragunova.”

I turned to him in relief.  “Yes officer?”

“We’ve obtained a positive id on those two holdup men.  Apparently they’re part of the Harnorf network.  Did the Internationale,” he gave the short name of the body I worked for, “know they would be coming here tonight to ‘raise funds’?”

“I certainly didn’t,” I flashed a grin at him.  “I’m just here for a buffet dinner with my father.  If you think they were fund raising for the network, could we have a copy of your report?”  I pulled out my wallet again and gave him one of my business cards, not the warrant card his colleague had seen.

We exchanged a few more pleasantries and he went on his way.

“Inspectore Dragunova?”  My father was flabbergasted.  “You’re pretending to be some sort of cop under an assumed name?”

“Not pretending,” I flashed a tight smile at him, “working hard at being one and not an assumed name, the one I took on when I got married.  Both subjects I intended to cover over dinner, before events intervened.  As for your character analysis of me, you’re entitled to your opinion but my bosses and my husband seem to like me just fine.  Are we still talking or am I going on my merry way, never to darken your doorstep again?”

“Isn’t that extreme?  All or nothing?”  I had him on the back foot for once, interesting.

“I’ve never liked being called a thug.”

Buried Issues Arise

I wrote this to aldersprig's seventh prompt "More Rensa."

Rensa’s figure was blossoming, expanding its borders while inside her a small biological miracle was growing.  All the senior members of the regime treated, if not her, the baby she was carrying as a favourite grandchild, niece or nephew in utero so she was being coddled and advised and urged to do things that were good for her pregnancy.  Every time she made a public appearance there was a flood of letters offering more good advice.  Everyone seemed happy for her.

And then the dreams started.  Dreams where they came to take her baby away from her.  Dreams where she was alone, being pursued by angry, chanting men because everyone she thought she could rely on turned into mannequins as she reached them to ask for help. Yannic, Mirren, Tyrren and even Bannoc, leaving her in the end alone and surrounded by her pursuers.  She usually woke up at that point but one time they’d laid hands on her, she’d woken to find Yannic shaking her, and a voice had said, “The sooner you give this one up the sooner you can have another.”

She supposed the dreams were about the pressure to have children and the fear of losing them too, plus a good dollop of…something that her new life might all be a sham, a construct to hide the prison bars.  Figuring out what they were about might be scarier than having them…

“You have to see someone about these dreams you’re having,” Yannic said firmly over breakfast the morning she was officially seven and a half months pregnant by the calendar.  “It was only occasionally to begin with but it’s almost every night now.”

“I don’t think I had the dream last night,” Rensa replied carefully.  “Well, not to remember.”

“I think you did, or something as bad,” Yannic was looking stern.  “You cry and whimper in your sleep when you have that dream and that’s what you were doing last night.  I want to help you, but I can’t or at least I don’t know how.  That’s why I’ve made you an appointment with a psychologist.”  He put a card down on the table.  “She’s supposed to be very good.  I want,” he paused, “I want you to be happy and I think these dreams mean that there’s something that we need to fix for you.”

Rensa picked up the appointment and read it.  “For today?  Thank you.”