Alisaura
Blue Crack Supplier
Here we go again... There's a language warning on this one, a bit of swearing going on. Tune out now if you're easily offended. 
And the usual disclaimer: Don't know the band, don't know Wales; this is all made-up. And I claim no responsibility for the thoughts, words and/or actions of my characters...
end of chapter 5:
-------
I made a point of telling the woman who ran the B&B (where I was, incidentally, paying £10 more a night than I had been two months earlier) that I was there to take soil samples for the university, but I was met with stony-eyed scepticism, and gave up. Let them glare at me.
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Chapter 6:
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The wind was roaring across the rolling hills on my third day of pulling plugs of dirt out of the ground, and I might have been forgiven for taking the day off and waiting for more clement conditions. But I was nearly finished, and it wasn't a cold wind. I'd never been deterred by windy weather, in any case.
Once again, the stone circle loomed nearby. I was ignoring it.
Overall, this trip was a success. I'd conquered the gremlins in my magnetometer, reasserted the supremacy of logic, and had taken a series of good soil cores over the last few days. Interestingly, I'd seen what looked like a thin layer of black ash in nearly every core, as if a fire had swept through the area in the past. It seemed unlikely that I'd co-incidentally chosen old hearth sites for every single core. In any case, my unprofessional moment of weakness had been wiped clean, and life was good. I'd had the chance to relax in the time out alone; unwind and pretend I was the only person on the planet. The wind buoyed my spirits, and flapped my favourite t-shirt. (It was pure geekery; a panel on the front that looked like an element from the periodic table, except the symbol was 'Ea' – Earth.)
I couldn't even hear the wind over the music in my ears, anyway. I was howling along to the lyrics as I turned the soil corer, leaning on it to drive it into the ground, my foot tapping to the beat. I was having a great time.
"And no one gives a fuck about the earth!" I bellowed. "And no one gives a fuck for what it's worth! And no one gives a -- GAAH!!"
A hand had descended on my shoulder. I shot three feet into the air, dropped the corer, and spun around, my heart hammering violently. The corer leaned drunkenly, stuck into the ground. I'd never been so terrified in my life.
Behind me - well, before me, now – half doubled up with laughter and slapping his thigh, was Ed, complete with beanie. I saw red.
"What the FUCK do you think you're doing?" I pulled out the earphones, strode forward, and shoved him hard, in the chest. Still unbalanced from his fit of laughter, he fell on his arse. Rage poured through me.
Shock had replaced amusement on Ed's face. He scrambled to his feet, but I was in his face again, and gave him another shove. He stumbled back.
"You fucking tosser! What the hell was that about? You gave me a fucking heart attack! What if I'd had a heart condition, huh? What sort of rude, arrogant fucker sneaks up behind someone and does that to them? Fuck you!"
He had been retreating before me, trying to get a word in edgewise. My final statement was punctuated with another shove, but something had sparked in Ed's eyes, and he caught my hands before they connected. Caught and held them firmly.
"That's enough!" He was angry, all gentleness and serenity gone from his face. Burning green eyes, pointy teeth. It was alarming.
Damn, I thought, he has strong hands. I pulled away, and he let go. We glared at one another.
"I apologise," he said at last, and I was reminded of my 'apology' to Dr. Lawson. His eyes were hard. He probably expected me to apologise too, but I didn't. Couldn't.
My heart was still pounding, the adrenaline making me shaky. "I'm busy. Again." I turned away, and walked back to the corer, trying to compose myself. I was still furious. The fact that he'd laughed so hard... I would have paid a lot to make him vanish, then and there. Or better yet, give him as bad a fright as he'd given me. What a bastard!
"Lisa."
It wasn't going to work this time. I examined the corer – it was unharmed, but I would need to make another core a short distance away. The fact that my equipment could have been damaged only fuelled my anger. I walked about five meters away, and prepared to start again.
"It's Dr. Erikson to you, Dr. Evans," I shot over my shoulder. I wanted him gone. I had no idea what the hell he was doing out here anyway. I put one of my earphones back in – I didn't want to be snuck up on again, as much as I would have liked to blot him out completely.
"Dr. Erikson, I'm sorry."
He did sound sincere now, but I still wasn't looking at him. "Fine. Don't do it again."
I started making the core, and hoped Ed would go away. Any sane person would have left after being shoved to the ground like that. But he didn't.
He walked around into my range of vision, and watched me in silence. I gritted my teeth and kept screwing the corer into the soil.
"How deep is the soil here?"
I stopped, straightened, and faced him. "What. The hell. Are you doing. Out here." And why won't you leave me alone?
His expression closed. "I've as much right to be here as you," he said. It was bewildering, as if we hadn't just been shouting at one another.
"But no reason I can think of. I'm working. Where's your family? Having another holiday already? Or have you moved to Ystradffin to get back to your roots?" My tone was degenerating into sarcasm.
"I like it here." Was that a note of defensiveness?
Involuntarily, I glanced at the stone circle on the hill above us.
"Explain to me, in words of one syllable or less, why you happened to be here today, and why you won't just go away! I'm not interested in explaining my work. I've got nothing to do with the wind farm, if you're campaigning against that. Take your bloody beanie and leave me alone." He couldn't possibly be cold on a day like this, wind or no wind.
Ed's eyes flicked beaniewards, then back to me. "I'm not campaigning against the wind farm. I haven't moved here, and I'm not stalking you. My meeting you here again is entirely co-incidental." His tone was guarded, and he still hadn't answered the question.
I was torn between wanting him to leave, and finding out why he'd come back. He'd shown no sign of actually going, yet. He just stood there.
I gritted my teeth. "Last time. Why did you come back here again?"
Ed sighed, and eyed me with a strange expression. He almost looked uncertain. "I... had a dream."
I laughed derisively. "Oh, come on. A dream?"
He definitely looked defensive now, and his face had reddened more than the gusting wind could account for. "You did ask."
"Right. What's your degree in, psychic phenomena? If I went to every place I dreamed about, I'd spend my whole life in aeroplanes. Dreams are just dreams."
Ed's admission had surprised me – I hadn't expected that someone who'd seemed so technically-minded the first time I'd met him, would put any stock in dreams. Yes, I was rubbing it in, but I was still stung from his laughter before.
"Have you been up there?" Ed asked, gesturing at the ring of stones. His tone was oddly challenging.
"Yes. I took geophys readings all over the hill a few days ago," I replied shortly.
A pause. "Inside the circle?"
"Yes."
"And?"
"And what? They're rocks in the ground! There's nothing mystical or magical about the place. The magnetometer showed there are things under the ground there, but there are things buried all over this area. There's a barrow two valleys over. People lived here thousands of years ago, and left half of their junk behind. That's all."
Ed was gazing at me, considering. "That's not how you were speaking a couple of months ago."
My turn to go red and defensive. "I made a mistake. I'm a scientist, I don't have time for mysticism. Not when I'm working."
"And when you're not?"
"I thought you were a scientist, but I was clearly wrong," I said, ignoring his question. "You're a git. You sneak up on me, scare the living shite out of me, laugh at me, and then try to tell me that a dream brought you back here. You may not be stalking me, but you are harassing me. This conversation is over. Just go."
Ed's mouth opened and closed, he was clearly trying to figure out what to say. But as far as I was concerned, there was nothing more to be said. I put the other earphone back in, and went back to work. I don't know when he left, but by the time I pulled the last soil core up, Ed was gone.
That night, my last night in the village, I thought again about eating in the local pub. It was only a brief thought, though – the risk of running into Ed again was too great. I sighed, and microwaved myself some noodles.
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"Oh, you're back. Nice of you to join us. Where did you go again?"
"Wales."
"Again?"
"I just... needed to get away for a few days."
"Did you take your family this time?"
"No. Hence the 'getting away'."
"So it wasn't just us you were escaping?"
"I hate to damage your ego, but no. You are not the sole motivation for my actions."
"Did anything interesting happen out there?"
"Well, I did run into that woman again. The geologist."
"You don't look happy about it."
"Let's just say we didn't get along quite so well this time. I'm sure she looks familiar though; it's bloody irritating."
"SHE sounds bloody irritating. You probably met her for ten seconds outside a gig or something, ten years ago."
"No, it's not that. She didn't recognise me."
"Now whose ego has been wounded? Hah!"
-------------------------------------
Glen was concerned when I got home and told him what had happened.
"A dream? It sounds to me like he was stalking you," he told me, scowling over his stir-fry.
"I did give him my card, that first time," I said, wondering if he mightn't be right. But I shook my head. "It only had my phone number on it, and email, and he never contacted me. He could have shown up at the university, or here. Why go all the way out there?"
"You were isolated," Glen said grimly.
I thought about it for a second. "I don't know. I believed him when he said he wasn't stalking me. He's probably just some nut obsessed with Celtic tribes and druids and stuff."
"Well, just because you believed him, doesn't mean he wasn't stalking you anyway."
"So what, I can't tell a stalker from a harmless nutcase? I'm naïve?"
"Come on, that's not how I meant it."
There was a tense silence. I sighed. "All right, I'm sorry. I just think he's a ... mostly harmless nut. I could have killed him after frightening me like that, though. I really don't think it was malicious, but I hate people sneaking up on me."
"I know," Glen said wryly. He'd learned that years ago.
The rest of the meal passed in relative silence. While I was stacking the dishwasher, I came to a decision.
"I think I'm going to look for a longer-term job next," I said, stopping to look at Glen. "Somewhere abroad."
He looked back at me. "I see. Was dinner that bad?" He gave a small smile, and came over to hug me.
"Horrible," I replied, smiling back over his shoulder. "It'll take me at least three months to get over it."
"That long? Wow. Those snow peas must have been really rancid."
We stood back. "You need to get away?" Glen asked.
"Yeah. I've had enough of Wales for a while."
"I'll try not to be too offended," he smiled. "Just don't be in too much of a hurry to leave, okay?"
"You could always come with me," I said. "How much leave do you have accrued, again?"
Glen sighed. "It never seems to be a good time."
"Sod them! You've worked up that leave, take it. It's their fault if they can't cope while you're gone."
"I'm management now. One of 'them', O ye of the independent spirit."
"Corporate politics," I said, and made a rude noise.
"You chose your path, and I chose mine," Glen smiled.
-------------------
And the usual disclaimer: Don't know the band, don't know Wales; this is all made-up. And I claim no responsibility for the thoughts, words and/or actions of my characters...
end of chapter 5:
-------
I made a point of telling the woman who ran the B&B (where I was, incidentally, paying £10 more a night than I had been two months earlier) that I was there to take soil samples for the university, but I was met with stony-eyed scepticism, and gave up. Let them glare at me.
----------
Chapter 6:
----------
The wind was roaring across the rolling hills on my third day of pulling plugs of dirt out of the ground, and I might have been forgiven for taking the day off and waiting for more clement conditions. But I was nearly finished, and it wasn't a cold wind. I'd never been deterred by windy weather, in any case.
Once again, the stone circle loomed nearby. I was ignoring it.
Overall, this trip was a success. I'd conquered the gremlins in my magnetometer, reasserted the supremacy of logic, and had taken a series of good soil cores over the last few days. Interestingly, I'd seen what looked like a thin layer of black ash in nearly every core, as if a fire had swept through the area in the past. It seemed unlikely that I'd co-incidentally chosen old hearth sites for every single core. In any case, my unprofessional moment of weakness had been wiped clean, and life was good. I'd had the chance to relax in the time out alone; unwind and pretend I was the only person on the planet. The wind buoyed my spirits, and flapped my favourite t-shirt. (It was pure geekery; a panel on the front that looked like an element from the periodic table, except the symbol was 'Ea' – Earth.)
I couldn't even hear the wind over the music in my ears, anyway. I was howling along to the lyrics as I turned the soil corer, leaning on it to drive it into the ground, my foot tapping to the beat. I was having a great time.
"And no one gives a fuck about the earth!" I bellowed. "And no one gives a fuck for what it's worth! And no one gives a -- GAAH!!"
A hand had descended on my shoulder. I shot three feet into the air, dropped the corer, and spun around, my heart hammering violently. The corer leaned drunkenly, stuck into the ground. I'd never been so terrified in my life.
Behind me - well, before me, now – half doubled up with laughter and slapping his thigh, was Ed, complete with beanie. I saw red.
"What the FUCK do you think you're doing?" I pulled out the earphones, strode forward, and shoved him hard, in the chest. Still unbalanced from his fit of laughter, he fell on his arse. Rage poured through me.
Shock had replaced amusement on Ed's face. He scrambled to his feet, but I was in his face again, and gave him another shove. He stumbled back.
"You fucking tosser! What the hell was that about? You gave me a fucking heart attack! What if I'd had a heart condition, huh? What sort of rude, arrogant fucker sneaks up behind someone and does that to them? Fuck you!"
He had been retreating before me, trying to get a word in edgewise. My final statement was punctuated with another shove, but something had sparked in Ed's eyes, and he caught my hands before they connected. Caught and held them firmly.
"That's enough!" He was angry, all gentleness and serenity gone from his face. Burning green eyes, pointy teeth. It was alarming.
Damn, I thought, he has strong hands. I pulled away, and he let go. We glared at one another.
"I apologise," he said at last, and I was reminded of my 'apology' to Dr. Lawson. His eyes were hard. He probably expected me to apologise too, but I didn't. Couldn't.
My heart was still pounding, the adrenaline making me shaky. "I'm busy. Again." I turned away, and walked back to the corer, trying to compose myself. I was still furious. The fact that he'd laughed so hard... I would have paid a lot to make him vanish, then and there. Or better yet, give him as bad a fright as he'd given me. What a bastard!
"Lisa."
It wasn't going to work this time. I examined the corer – it was unharmed, but I would need to make another core a short distance away. The fact that my equipment could have been damaged only fuelled my anger. I walked about five meters away, and prepared to start again.
"It's Dr. Erikson to you, Dr. Evans," I shot over my shoulder. I wanted him gone. I had no idea what the hell he was doing out here anyway. I put one of my earphones back in – I didn't want to be snuck up on again, as much as I would have liked to blot him out completely.
"Dr. Erikson, I'm sorry."
He did sound sincere now, but I still wasn't looking at him. "Fine. Don't do it again."
I started making the core, and hoped Ed would go away. Any sane person would have left after being shoved to the ground like that. But he didn't.
He walked around into my range of vision, and watched me in silence. I gritted my teeth and kept screwing the corer into the soil.
"How deep is the soil here?"
I stopped, straightened, and faced him. "What. The hell. Are you doing. Out here." And why won't you leave me alone?
His expression closed. "I've as much right to be here as you," he said. It was bewildering, as if we hadn't just been shouting at one another.
"But no reason I can think of. I'm working. Where's your family? Having another holiday already? Or have you moved to Ystradffin to get back to your roots?" My tone was degenerating into sarcasm.
"I like it here." Was that a note of defensiveness?
Involuntarily, I glanced at the stone circle on the hill above us.
"Explain to me, in words of one syllable or less, why you happened to be here today, and why you won't just go away! I'm not interested in explaining my work. I've got nothing to do with the wind farm, if you're campaigning against that. Take your bloody beanie and leave me alone." He couldn't possibly be cold on a day like this, wind or no wind.
Ed's eyes flicked beaniewards, then back to me. "I'm not campaigning against the wind farm. I haven't moved here, and I'm not stalking you. My meeting you here again is entirely co-incidental." His tone was guarded, and he still hadn't answered the question.
I was torn between wanting him to leave, and finding out why he'd come back. He'd shown no sign of actually going, yet. He just stood there.
I gritted my teeth. "Last time. Why did you come back here again?"
Ed sighed, and eyed me with a strange expression. He almost looked uncertain. "I... had a dream."
I laughed derisively. "Oh, come on. A dream?"
He definitely looked defensive now, and his face had reddened more than the gusting wind could account for. "You did ask."
"Right. What's your degree in, psychic phenomena? If I went to every place I dreamed about, I'd spend my whole life in aeroplanes. Dreams are just dreams."
Ed's admission had surprised me – I hadn't expected that someone who'd seemed so technically-minded the first time I'd met him, would put any stock in dreams. Yes, I was rubbing it in, but I was still stung from his laughter before.
"Have you been up there?" Ed asked, gesturing at the ring of stones. His tone was oddly challenging.
"Yes. I took geophys readings all over the hill a few days ago," I replied shortly.
A pause. "Inside the circle?"
"Yes."
"And?"
"And what? They're rocks in the ground! There's nothing mystical or magical about the place. The magnetometer showed there are things under the ground there, but there are things buried all over this area. There's a barrow two valleys over. People lived here thousands of years ago, and left half of their junk behind. That's all."
Ed was gazing at me, considering. "That's not how you were speaking a couple of months ago."
My turn to go red and defensive. "I made a mistake. I'm a scientist, I don't have time for mysticism. Not when I'm working."
"And when you're not?"
"I thought you were a scientist, but I was clearly wrong," I said, ignoring his question. "You're a git. You sneak up on me, scare the living shite out of me, laugh at me, and then try to tell me that a dream brought you back here. You may not be stalking me, but you are harassing me. This conversation is over. Just go."
Ed's mouth opened and closed, he was clearly trying to figure out what to say. But as far as I was concerned, there was nothing more to be said. I put the other earphone back in, and went back to work. I don't know when he left, but by the time I pulled the last soil core up, Ed was gone.
That night, my last night in the village, I thought again about eating in the local pub. It was only a brief thought, though – the risk of running into Ed again was too great. I sighed, and microwaved myself some noodles.
---------
----------------------------------------
"Oh, you're back. Nice of you to join us. Where did you go again?"
"Wales."
"Again?"
"I just... needed to get away for a few days."
"Did you take your family this time?"
"No. Hence the 'getting away'."
"So it wasn't just us you were escaping?"
"I hate to damage your ego, but no. You are not the sole motivation for my actions."
"Did anything interesting happen out there?"
"Well, I did run into that woman again. The geologist."
"You don't look happy about it."
"Let's just say we didn't get along quite so well this time. I'm sure she looks familiar though; it's bloody irritating."
"SHE sounds bloody irritating. You probably met her for ten seconds outside a gig or something, ten years ago."
"No, it's not that. She didn't recognise me."
"Now whose ego has been wounded? Hah!"
-------------------------------------
Glen was concerned when I got home and told him what had happened.
"A dream? It sounds to me like he was stalking you," he told me, scowling over his stir-fry.
"I did give him my card, that first time," I said, wondering if he mightn't be right. But I shook my head. "It only had my phone number on it, and email, and he never contacted me. He could have shown up at the university, or here. Why go all the way out there?"
"You were isolated," Glen said grimly.
I thought about it for a second. "I don't know. I believed him when he said he wasn't stalking me. He's probably just some nut obsessed with Celtic tribes and druids and stuff."
"Well, just because you believed him, doesn't mean he wasn't stalking you anyway."
"So what, I can't tell a stalker from a harmless nutcase? I'm naïve?"
"Come on, that's not how I meant it."
There was a tense silence. I sighed. "All right, I'm sorry. I just think he's a ... mostly harmless nut. I could have killed him after frightening me like that, though. I really don't think it was malicious, but I hate people sneaking up on me."
"I know," Glen said wryly. He'd learned that years ago.
The rest of the meal passed in relative silence. While I was stacking the dishwasher, I came to a decision.
"I think I'm going to look for a longer-term job next," I said, stopping to look at Glen. "Somewhere abroad."
He looked back at me. "I see. Was dinner that bad?" He gave a small smile, and came over to hug me.
"Horrible," I replied, smiling back over his shoulder. "It'll take me at least three months to get over it."
"That long? Wow. Those snow peas must have been really rancid."
We stood back. "You need to get away?" Glen asked.
"Yeah. I've had enough of Wales for a while."
"I'll try not to be too offended," he smiled. "Just don't be in too much of a hurry to leave, okay?"
"You could always come with me," I said. "How much leave do you have accrued, again?"
Glen sighed. "It never seems to be a good time."
"Sod them! You've worked up that leave, take it. It's their fault if they can't cope while you're gone."
"I'm management now. One of 'them', O ye of the independent spirit."
"Corporate politics," I said, and made a rude noise.
"You chose your path, and I chose mine," Glen smiled.
-------------------
wow she's really giving Ed a hard time eh!
"What sort of rude, arrogant fucker sneaks up behind someone and does that to them?"
And to criticize the beanie, well... 
on her.
