damnfinecup | (no subject)

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jill

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Dale made sure he and Jill stopped by the kitchen for coffee before setting out on their way for their long-planned outing in the falling snow. It was more for his own sake, and the sake of the weather, than for Jill's, but it was always the gentlemanly thing to do to offer refreshment to one's partner for the day.

"Can I get you anything?" he asked her, his scarf hanging loosely around his neck, only to be tied the moment before they went outside. "These aren't really travel mugs, but they'll do in a pinch."

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"The announcement was to see if he'd be able to find help with the research," Jill pointed out. "There would be no point in Dr. Beckett advertising the study if he had no other researchers to help him."

"The announcement was public nonetheless," said Dale. "I would imagine finding out from a bulletin board that such a thing was in the works might've been unsettling."

"Unsettling, yes," Jill agreed. "Reason for a resistance? No, not quite."

"Well," said Dale, smiling a little, "I think the resistance is probably not going to catch on, despite the fetching goggles."

"Should I be sorry that I missed the goggles?" Jill asked, her eyebrows raised slightly at that. She'd only seen the bulletin and had no idea who Newbie was.

"Well, they were largely biodegradable, which was nice," said Dale, with an amused shake of his head. "I think they pretty much had to be seen to be believed."

"I just wish people didn't automatically associate research with an experiment," Jill admitted, still smiling faintly. "We don't want to strap anyone to a table and cut them open."

"Well, I would venture a guess that there are at least a few people here for whom research is experimentation," said Dale. "Probably not the one who made the sign, but a few. They might need a little bit more information on what will be involved."

"I don't know Dr. Beckett well, but I seriously doubt he has any intention of hurting anyone," Jill said. "He wants medical histories and DNA samples, which can be taken by a swab to the inside of a person's cheek."

"Well I, for one, am certainly interested in the results of this line if inquiry," said Dale, "though I don't have a clone of my own."

"Yet," Jill said, her mouth turning up faintly. "A man who looks like my boss is here, except he's about ten years younger, maybe a bit more. It's disconcerting."

"There was someone here once who was the spitting image of someone I used to know back home, I even mistook them for one another. It was definitely a disconcerting moment. It would have been nice if he... she... he had been the one to show up, though. A man can get used to this place, but it doesn't mean he doesn't think about home."

"He was a she?" Jill asked, looking a bit confused at that. She'd lived in Toronto, so she'd seen her share of men dressed as women and vice versa, but the way Dale had said it interested her.

"Well, no, he was a he," said Dale. "He just preferred to live as Denise rather than Dennis most of the time. It was all a little new to me; I haven't entirely gotten used to the idea yet. It would've been nice to have the chance to talk with him about it a little more."

Jill nodded, wondering who it was on the island that looked like him. "I knew a student when I was at Stanford who wanted to live as a woman. He didn't feel he could because of... well, a lot of things, really. What lab was going to hire a man in a skirt?"

"A lab more concerned with the quality of his work than the nature of his apparel, one would think," said Dale. "Denise was a DEA agent, and having seen him work in a dress, I think it's safe to say that his dedication to his job was not compromised."

"Those labs don't exist," Jill said dryly and turned her arm over, then pushed up her sleeve to show Dale the tattoo on the inside of her wrist. "I had to cover that at work. I don't disagree that a man in a skirt can do the job just as well as a man in a pair of pants."

"Well, then perhaps he needed to work in a lab run by someone like you," said Dale. Though of course, being in the Bureau, he knew all about the necessity of appearances.

"I'm a virologist, not a head scientist," Jill said dismissively. "David's lab was better. No one cared about my tattoos there." And that had been nice.

"I'd venture a guess that no one's going to care about them here, either," said Dale, pushing aside another tree branch, heavy with snow. "And here we are, at long last."

"No one has complained so far," Jill agreed, then followed Dale under the tree branch, studying the waterfall with wide eyes. "Wow," she said quietly.

"You should see it when it's actually falling," said Dale, looking up at it himself as though for the first time. "Though it has a different kind of beauty when it's frozen like this, doesn't it."

"It does," Jill said with a nod, still staring at the waterfall as she moved closer to it, her hand out to steady herself in the snow.

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