Thwarted Dreams -- Chapter 7

Disclaimer: The TV show Dark Angel, all of the characters that appeared on it (Colonel Lydecker, etc.), and everything else that has to do with the show belong to their respective owners, not to me. No money is being made off of this fic. I only own the original characters (Caroline, etc.).

“Ladies and gentlemen, we are officially done for the year!” Rich, Dennis’ roommate, said triumphantly as he raised his glass of beer. “It was an appropriately glorious May day for such an important occasion. This has been one heck of a year for all of us and in a week, two of us will be officially done with the college experience and will be moving on soon afterwards to whatever the government decides to do with our sorry asses.”

Caroline laughed. “While Mark is stuck here for another year and Stephanie and I are stuck here for another three.”

“Thank goodness,” Dennis joked.

“You bastard,” Stephanie said. “You have to leave us here by ourselves.”

“Oh, come on,” Dennis said, grinning. “You can handle it. Just be happy that you did as well as you did this year and that we’re at a bar that’s not only good but also didn’t card you and Caroline.”

They all laughed. “Okay, I did do pretty well this year,” Stephanie admitted. “Not as well as the princess here, but I did damn good.”

“Princess? Since when did I get that honor?” Caroline said, amused.

“Oh, come on,” Stephanie said. “You never notice how the professors gush about you? How they say that you’ve got the potential to be one of the few or first five-star female generals if you keep going at the rate that you are?”

“So I’m doing well.” Caroline shrugged. “No big deal.”

“She’s as bad about it as Murphy over here,” Rich teased, slapping Dennis on his back.

“Yeah,” Mark agreed. “Ladies and gentlemen, we are sitting in the presence of Mr. and Ms. Modesty 1994! Let’s give them a hand!” He and Stephanie and Rich gave them exaggerated applause and laughed when Dennis and Caroline glared at them.

“Keep it up and I will show you just how much better I’ve gotten with automatic weapons,” Caroline said, pretending to be serious, but not quite able to keep the smile off of her face.

“Okay, okay, I get it,” Mark said. He also smiled.

“So, what are everybody’s plans for their breaks or in Dennis’ and Rich’s cases, before they have to report to their assignments?” Stephanie asked.

“I’m going to go home to Columbus and do absolutely nothing over the next few weeks,” Caroline said. “If Dad asks me to do something, I’ll remind him how it felt for him when he finished his first year here way back when and that should shut him up. Stephanie?”

“Pretty much the same thing,” Stephanie told them. “Go back to Huntington Beach and do nothing except work on my tan until I have to get back here. Rich?”

“Similar,” Rich said. “Mark?”

“Ditto,” Mark agreed. “Dennis?”

“Get back to Baltimore, spend time with my family, marry Simone, go on my honeymoon, and hopefully have time after that to do absolutely nothing before I report to my first assignment,” Dennis said.

“Relax? You’re gonna be a newlywed. You and your soon-to-be little woman won’t come out for sunlight and fresh air, much less to do absolutely nothing,” Rich teased. “Lucky Dennis! We’re probably going to have to live vicariously through him because he’s the only one out of the five of us that is definitely gonna get laid within the next month!”

“Am I hearing you correctly? You’re actually doubting your ability to get laid?” Dennis said, pretending to be shocked. “After ‘I’m going to nail her’ and ‘How much do you want to bet that she’ll sleep with me?’ for the past four years, you are actually admitting that at least the odds are that you won’t be getting some within the next month? Somebody call the papers and the TV stations. This is some news!”

Rich rolled his eyes as Dennis and Caroline and Mark and Stephanie laughed. “Whatever you say, Dennis. I have no doubts in my ability to get laid. All I was stating was simply the fact that being a newlywed is practically a 100 percent guarantee of sex.”

“You are so full of shit,” Caroline said. “We all heard you, Rich.”

“I will prove you wrong,” Rich insisted. “Excuse me, ladies and gentlemen.” He got up and walked over to a young woman who was sitting at the bar. They watched as Rich chatted and smiled charmingly at her and sure enough, after a few moments, she smiled back and they were talking animatedly. A short while later, Rich and the young woman were leaving the bar. Rich winked at them as they passed by the table.

“I guess that counts,” Mark observed. “If he actually gets some.”

“What is the deal with men and sex?” Stephanie said, disgusted. “I get away from my old high school, where the guys would talk about nothing but either sex or sports and then I get here and I meet Rich and he’s as horny as a thirteen-year-old. What’s with that?”

“Some men never grow up,” Caroline said.

“I think Caroline is a ‘glass is half-empty’ person,” Dennis teased.

“No, I’m a ‘I’m thirsty I don’t care how full the glass is just give me the damn thing so I can drink it’ person,” Caroline teased back. She blinked and rubbed her right eye. “Crap, eyelash.”

“Those can suck, especially if you somehow get a scratch in your eyelid and the tears get in,” Stephanie said. “That happened to me once. I don’t know how it happened, but it did and it was so painful for a few days when I’d get an eyelash in my eye and my eye would tear up.”

“That was semi-random,” Dennis said.

“Sorry,” Stephanie apologized.

“It’s okay,” Dennis said. He raised his glass. “Here’s to us. May we succeed in whatever we set out to do, may our lives be happy and healthy, may we just plain old have a great time doing it.”

Caroline and Stephanie and Mark also raised their glasses. “To us!”

TBC