Mother Nature (The 4400, original series, Diana) 2/?

[Chanel_no5]

 ***Note***

The show made Diana's allergies canon.     There may have been a time when I’ve been more grateful to a script writer about something, but I don’t think so, because I can’t remember a show or movie ever confirming that my favourite, sizzling hot, character has allergies. And that those allergies are eyes/nose-related. And that the character herself says it, so I've heard the woman with the sexiest voice in the world say the phrase "my allergies are acting up".   

SO! Since the show didn’t actually use this for much, (at least not as far as I've gotten..) I will!  

This story takes place loosely around season 2, so it’s set in 2005. I am shock-full of nostalgia when watching this show, omg. It’s my late teens/early 20s all over again, the fashion, the technology, the music, even the clunky CGI, oh my God I miss it.

For those who can't view signatures (I have these in my sig, because of course I do, and yes the quality sucks, sorry about that), this is the lady in question. Struggling with her allergies. And I probably shouldn't have added this before I copy-paste the actual story because now I can't stop staring at it.   Ugh, I love how subtly she's acting out the allergic misery. She looks low-key but constantly uncomfortable and itchy in her allergy scenes.  It's almost better than sneezing. No, it isn't, but it looks like she's just so genuinely fed up.   Never seen allergies acted out that way on screen before. Seen it a lot in real life though...   

             

Ehhhhm, anyway. Here's the first part of the fic. I've tried to add as much background as necessary to follow the plot without doing too much of an exposition dump, but in this case I kinda had to be a bit obnoxious about it.   Sorry.  (also, Diana's way of adapting to motherhood when she's never wanted kids, it's kinda cathartic for me. Not that I'm becoming a mother, but it's kinda relevant for me too in some ways. Helps me like hell, tbh).

And just because I have to scream about it one more time before I explode.... DIANA'S ALLERGIES ARE FUCKING CANON!!!!!     

 

***

When Diana woke up that morning, she wondered if she was getting sick. She felt completely run down, her throat was dry, her nose blocked, and she felt annoyingly tickly. 

She rolled over to check the time, and almost smacked her sleeping daughter in the face. Right. Maia had woken up from a nightmare – something about a monster chasing her mom, which could be a nightmare that any nine-year-old could have, or it could be a precognitive dream that this particular nine-year-old sometimes had. At three in the morning Diana hadn’t been very keen on discussing the possible implications of this dream with a crying child – besides, Maia had scared her shitless when she, out of the blue, jumped up in Diana's bed and woke her up, so Diana needed to calm herself down too – and so she had settled for comforting the girl and then just let her go back to sleep in her bed. Once Maia was asleep, Diana had briefly thought about carrying her back to her own room, but before she had even finished the thought, she too was out like a light.  

Now, as she narrowly avoided waking her daughter about as rudely as her daughter had woken her last night, Diana squinted at the numbers on the clock radio.

And then shook the girl awake in a not particularly mild manner either way.

“Whoa,” Maia said and recoiled from her adoptive mother at first glance, “you look awful!”

Diana rolled her eyes.

“And a very good morning to you too. Go get dressed, we’re gonna be late!”

Her voice was raspy and wavery and she once more wondered if she was getting sick, but her throat didn’t feel sore the way it did when she was coming down with a cold, it just felt dry. Besides, she didn’t have time to dwell on this right now, she had a kid to get to school and herself to get to work, the latter preferably before NTAC sent out a search party.

Maia left her room and Diana quickly got dressed; shirt, skirt, jacket, boots, she was going to feel cold in the chilly spring morning but she was not going to even attempt a wrestle with pantyhose today.

When she caught glimpse of herself in the bathroom mirror, she did a double take just like Maia had.

She really did look awful. Eyes puffy, red and watery, with what looked like shiners underneath. Her nose was pink. Diana only looked like this for one of two reasons; she had been crying, or her allergies were acting up. And she had certainly not been crying.

Great. Just great.

Diana was so scatter-brained when it came to her own personal comfort that she often forgot to keep track of the pollen count or even allergy season itself. Weeks bled into each other and before she knew it, it was a new season. Winter had given way to spring much faster than she had kept up with, and it was already…

“… what date is it today?” she asked Maia, who rushed out of the kitchen with her schoolbag over her shoulder and the last bite of a sandwich in her hand.

“April 14, are you coming, mommy? I’m gonna be late!”

“Yeah, well, I’m gonna be even later,” Diana muttered under her breath, but bit her tongue before she sounded too snarky. It was her fault, not Maia’s, she was the grownup, and she had messed up. “It’s okay sweetie, you won’t get into any trouble. I’ll talk to your teacher,” she said in a softer voice. “Do you have all your stuff?”

Maia nodded. Diana quickly put on her holster, reflexively checked the gun before holstering it, strapping her access card to her skirt, put on her black leather coat and slung her purse over her shoulder.

“Alright, let’s go.”

April 14, she thought with an inward sigh as she locked the door. That was a bad time of the year. It was still tree pollen season, but grass started blooming too. The past few weeks had been quite rainy, and thus not much pollen in the air. So tree pollen season this year had been so light that Diana had almost forgotten she had allergies. Yesterday and the day before had been sunny, with soaring temperatures, and naturally, that had sped up the blooming. Trees were almost fully in bloom and now the grass was struggling to catch up. This enthusiastic botanical rivalry was certain to cause great suffering to allergy sufferers… like Diana. And it was only getting worse from here; spring was bad, summer was worse. The more things were in bloom, the more intense her body's reaction to it. 

Stepping outside, she was hit in the face with a gust of wind carrying so much pollen that she could physically feel it. It was like getting fine sand in her eyes… and pepper in her nose. Much as she knew allergic reactions weren’t immediate, they needed time from exposure to reaction, just like a viral infection (albeit shorter), it was as if her body was so on high alert for this assault on its high-strung immune system that it immediately sent every troop to the frontline.

Maia was holding Diana’s hand as usual – Diana thought that to begin with, that had been a security thing for the time-travelling little girl, a way to feel anchored in this new, strange, future world, and now it had become a habit. She knew Maia would outgrow this soon enough, but she wasn’t sure she would. She was still her little girl’s hero, but she knew that in a few years, when the terrible teens hit, she’d be the greatest embarrassment in the universe, so she savoured these moments as long as she still had them. It may have started as a security thing for Maia, but by now, it was a security thing for Diana.

So when Maia suddenly pulled her hand loose from Diana’s grasp, she was at first surprised and a little bit hurt, but no more than two seconds later, the urge to sneeze struck her with such force and so suddenly, that she just stopped dead in her tracks, bent over, and sneezed openly towards the ground.  

“HEEEIIISSSSHHHooo!”

“Bless you,” Maia said, put her hand in Diana’s again, and kept walking. Diana had to hurry to keep up.

“You knew I was going to sneeze?” Diana asked. “Was that why you let go of my hand?”

“Yes,” Maia said.

“I didn’t know I was going to sneeze before I did,” Diana said. Maia just shrugged. It wasn’t the first time they had talked about how Maia could know things, but it still hadn’t offered either of them any explanations. As far as they could tell, it wasn't entirely consistent - sometimes she could know a tiny detail like that, but then not know that a plane was going to crash. She could know some things in great visual details, and sometimes it was just a feeling. Sometimes she got insight into almost everything around her, and then it was limited to random, unrelated insights.

The greatest challenge to this wasn’t the fluctuation about it, but the fact that she was a child. A very bright, very clever child, but still a child, and some of the things that she learned through her visions weren’t exactly age appropriate. Diana sometimes caught herself guarding her own thoughts, especially after the time that Maia had stared intently at her and then asked why she’d ever want to take a shower with Russell Crowe?? Explaining birds and bees to a kid from a strictly reproductive aspect, that she thought she could do. Explaining other aspects of those birds and the bees they hung out with, well… no. She had settled for ‘grownups do weird things when they’re in love.’ Maia’s response had been; ‘but you’re not in love with Russell Crowe, you only think he’s handsome. Same with Kate Beckinsale.’ By then, Diana - who had never mentioned Kate Beckinsale outside of her own fantasies - was going into full disaster control mode and racked her brain trying to find the best answer but only came up with: ‘Yeah, well, grownups have weird thoughts when they think someone is handsome too. Could you do me a favour, baby? When mommy is thinking about people with very little clothes on… don’t read those thoughts. For your sanity and mine.’ Maia had given her a look that was so offended Diana suspected she’d see the exact same look many times when Maia was a teenager. ‘I don’t look at those. They’re gross’. And that was that. Diana felt bad for Maia whose ‘ability’ exposed her to things she would be protected from if she had been a normal kid, and more than a little uncomfortable that Maia could look into her mind in general, and even more so when her thoughts were… of private nature. Still, flat out forbidding her to ask questions, even if they were uncomfortable for Diana to handle, would only make her clam up altogether. Diana hadn’t trusted her own parents, and she wasn’t going to let Maia grow up with the same doubts and sense of being ignored that she’d had. Tough as it was to be the one with answers, the one without fear, the one whose role it was to protect and care, Diana wanted to be the kind of parent whose child ran to her when things went wrong, not from her.

It was funny, really; Diana had never planned on having children, and she never could have pictured herself as a mother, but now that happenstance had made her one, she wasn’t going to fail for lack of effort!  

***

“That monster dream you had,” Diana said as they got into the car, “could you tell me about it?”

“Why?” Maia hugged her stuffed toy - another security thing that she would soon outgrow, or so Diana had been told - and looked out the window.

“Well, because if I’m going to be chased by a monster, I’d like to know as much as possible about it in advance,” Diana replied, rubbing her eye. The pollen-laden air was really making her allergies act up now, she’d have to stop by a drugstore and pick up some allergy meds before going into work, no matter how late she was.

“You said it was just a nightmare.”

“I said it was probably just a nightmare,” Diana corrected her. “But we don’t know for sure, do we?”

“I guess.”

Maia started telling her, and Diana thought it sounded more like a regular nightmare than a prediction, but filed it away in the back of her mind as ‘potentially useful information’ nevertheless. She had very quickly learned to do that after the weird events from last year. Neither her seven years with CDC or her latest few years with National Threat Assessment Command could have prepared her for the situation with the returnees, over 4000 people who had vanished without a trace from all over the world from the 1940s to 2001, and then returned, all at once, not one day older, in a ball of light, of all ridiculous things. Her past had prepared her even less for her current situation as the adoptive mother, herself born in 1967, of a nine-year-old who was born in 1938. Oh, a psychic nine-year-old, at that. So all things considered... Diana thought she handled it surprisingly well... better than many others would, at least. The key was to just accept it and not think too much about the bigger picture, or you'd go insane. But that was true for many things. Even in the shadow of the greatest mysteries, every day life went on regardless.

***

Once she had dropped Maia off at school and spoken to her teacher, Diana went back to the car, glaring at the rows of birch trees that lined the parking lot. In that short amount of time she had been inside, the trees had already released enough pollen to coat her car with a fine film of golden powder.

Her nose prickled just looking at it, and she made a face that was in part simply an expression of disgust and annoyance, and in part a facial twitch in response to the increasing irritation in her nose.

I really need to get some Claritin or Zyrtec or something, she thought and rubbed her nose with the back of one hand as she opened the car door with the other. When she sat down, the prickle in her nose flared up like a full-on firestorm, and she sneezed right in front of her, into the air, and the spray hit the steering wheel.

“HehISSSSHHHuh! Oh God, I hate spring,” Diana said out loud, leaned her head back and sniffled thickly, then went back to breathing through her mouth. That was current level of congestion, and it was bad. She needed tissues too.

Letting out a sound that was a mix between a sigh and a groan, she put on her seat belt and started the car, just about ready to go find the nearest drugstore, when her phone rang. She flipped it open with one hand while steering with the other, and when she put it up to her ear, she ended up having to hold it away from it almost immediately.

“Diana, where are you?!” Tom all but shouted.

“In the car, I slept through my alarm this morning. I just dropped Maia off at school and I – “

“Get over here now!”

Not the time to inform him that she needed to swing by a drugstore, then. Diana considered doing it anyway, because she really was going to be a mess soon, but then their new-ish boss, Nina Jarvis, took the phone from him.

“If you’re not here in ten minutes, Skouris, Baldwin is leaving for Fairville by himself. Get your ass over here now.”

Diana rolled her eyes at Jarvis’s tone, but at the same time she knew this boss took no prisoners, so she’d better be in within eight minutes.

“Yes ma’am,” she said, barely avoiding adding a sarcastic touch to the phrase – that would not have gone over well – and hung up. Driving carefully until she was out of the school area, she then floored it, thanking God and budget cuts for the lack of traffic cops on the streets, and was at NTAC within seven.

***

Tom met her in the parking garage, budging under the weight of two overnight bags; his own and hers.

“Oh good, you made it. Jarvis didn’t think you would… what the hell was going on?”

“I overslept, Tom,” she said. “Can happen to anyone. Has probably happened to you too at some point.” She took her bag from him and hauled it into the trunk of their designated car (the only one with a broken passenger door handle, because of course) with a thud. “Would you mind bringing me up to speed? Where are we going? What’s happening?”

“We’ll take it during the ride,” he said and tossed his own bag next to hers, closed the trunk and jumped into the car, opening her door from the inside.

Diana was about to get in, but stopped mid-step, turned away, and sneezed. It was one of those sneezes that start out reasonably generic-sounding, and then takes a weird turn halfway and ends in a high-pitched, desperate almost-scream.

Tom laughed out loud while he started the car and Diana got in, wiping at her nose with the back of her hand.

“Wow, bless you!” It wasn’t until now that he turned and really looked at her, and he had the same reaction as Maia had… that Diana herself had had. “What the hell happened to you?”

“Spring,” Diana replied, rubbing her left eye with her fingertips. “I don’t wanna talk about it. Just drive.”

“Your allergies acting up again?” he asked. “You’ve been fine almost all spring, I thought you just found some good meds.”

Diana had already gone through her purse in pursuit of tissues, to no avail, and now she searched her pockets despite knowing there was no way she kept any tissues in them. The way her nose was feeling – like it was about to start dripping, leaking faucet-style – she would have settled for anything that could be used to wipe her nose with – a scarf would do – but all she found were two plastic candy wrappers, one of Maia’s pink hair ties (broken), and some change.

“It’s been raining most of this spring,” she reminded him and opened the glove compartment, looking through everything in there, rummaging through roadmaps, plastic gloves, flashlights, more roadmaps… “Rain grounds the pollen. Don’t we usually have tissues in here? snff..”

“Usually… but it’s kinda our own responsibility to refill the stash, so to speak.”

“I’ve barely needed any tissues at all this spring, not a chance I’ve gone through all of them, and you don’t even have allergies… for which you should be immensely grateful.”

“In case you’ve already forgotten, and I don’t blame you if you have because it was not pretty, but you and I shared an unpleasantly intense cold back in February, and just as a side note, I don’t know how this car wasn’t sent to decontamination after that,” Tom replied.

“Or deconstruction,” Diana filled in, shaking her head. “Yeah, I remember, you’re right. Damnit … snfff!.”

Tom sighed.

“So I take it no tissues means I’ll get to listen to that the entire four hour drive to Fairville?”

Diana cupped both hands over the lower half of her face and snapped forward in her seat.

“AEESSSHHHH! EH-AARGGSSHHooo!”

She sniffled and blinked away some irritated tears pooling in the corners of her eyes.

“Better still. You get to listen to this the entire f-four… hehh… hour d-dr… drive… hehhhIISSSSHHuuh! And I get to do it the entire four-hour drive. Wonderful, huh? Heh… ehhYISSHHHooo! Snrrff… ugh.”

“Bless you.” It sounded more like a curse than a blessing.

“Believe it or not, Tom, I’m not trying to be obnoxious right now,” Diana said tiredly and sniffled hard.

“Ah, but you’re doing a great job of it nevertheless,” he replied, but he knew Diana well enough at this point to know that she was genuinely not feeling well. She would call it ‘just’ her allergies, but they could get pretty bad, nothing ‘just’ about them. “Sorry, I know it’s not on purpose.”

“It is annoying though, I know. I’m pretty annoyed too,” she admitted. “I was going to pick up some antihistamines, but then you called, just screaming away on the phone. snfff…”

“Sorry about that too,” he said. “Jarvis was breathing down my neck. Quite literally.”

“Oh, the horror,” Diana said, shrugging out of her coat and blazer, deciding she would sacrifice one shirt sleeve to the demands of her drippy nose. That would be a horror of its own, but she could always roll up the sleeve and hide the wet spot.

“Yeah,” Tom said. Then: “What are you doing?”

“But my nose is dripping!”

“If Maia ran into the slightest random problem, you would MacGyver up a solution in no time, but when it’s about yourself, you’re not even prepared with tissues mid-allergy season?”

“The way I remember it… snfff! MacGyver was never prepared, he improvised with what he had. snrrrff! So do I.”

“Okay, well… I’ll remind you to change shirt when we get to Fairville.”

Diana rolled her eyes again.

“I think I’ll remember that on my own, thank you. I’m the one with snot on my sleeve, remember?”

“Diana…” Tom made a helpless gesture with both hands before putting them back on the steering wheel again. “Oh whatever, just promise me one thing; let me know before you start coming for my sleeves.”

Diana laughed.

“Fair enough.”

“Jokes aside, I promise I’ll find a drugstore, but we’d better get some miles between us and Seattle first. I don't think Jarvis would be pleased if anyone spots us taking it slow and stopping along the way. ”

“Fine.” She sniffled. “So, a recap would be nice. Where are we going and why?”

“Remember returnee 2721?”

“Yes. What about her? She didn’t have an ability, did she?” She rubbed her eye again. 

“No, she didn’t.”

“So…?”

“She didn’t. She does now.”

“Which one?”

“Diana, she can control the weather.”

“Well that's not good.”

“No. It’s not.”

 

Edited March 18, 2022 by Chanel_no5

[Chanel_no5]

Part 2 edited and up. And Diana is finally getting tissues and meds... but I can't guarantee how long those meds will last, because, well... weather may or may not be the only thing returnee they're about to encounter has control over...   

Oh, and also, because I happen to have a gif of this character waking up from dozing in the car which she will in the first sections of this part... I can personally never have enough visuals, she's so ridiculously hot...  
 

Spoiler

 

***

Half an hour’s journey later they passed through a town and Tom stopped by at the local drugstore. By then, Diana was sniffling with every breath she took and sneezing with every five or so, and Tom couldn’t even be annoyed any longer, he just felt bad for her.

“Any particular brand you prefer?”

“Seriously?” She gave him a watery-eyed glance. “Do I look like I have a preferred brand right now? If it says antihistamine, I want it. uhhhEESSSHHughhh!” She wiped her nose on the other sleeve, the first one already used beyond capacity. “Ugh… my wallet is in my purse, you can take it out yourself… snrrfff! I don’t wanna touch anything and then hand it over to you right now… huhhESSSHHGGHH!”

“Bless you. Don’t worry, we’re putting this purchase on NTAC’s tab,” he said, brandishing the government-issued card, and Diana actually smiled at that despite the crawling itch that was behind her whole face. “Try to survive another five minutes,” he said, giving her shoulder a pat, and stepped out of the car.

Diana hoped she could oblige. The sinus pressure was giving her a pounding headache, and the tickle in her nose was relentless, making her simultaneously want to sneeze to relieve the tickle, and absolutely not want to sneeze for fear it would make her headache worse.

Leaning her head back for a moment, she closed her itchy eyes and allowed herself a moment of self-pity.

She jolted awake a few minutes later when Tom opened the door and got inside.

“Diana?”

“... what..?”

“You were asleep just now, weren’t you?”

“No.” She straightened up and scrubbed furiously at her itchy nose.

“Right.” He grinned. “I see we’re playing the denial game again. Fine by me. You were awake. Just resting your eyes.”

“Tom.”

“Sorry.” He produced a bag full of things and placed it on her lap. “Hopefully there’s something in here that can help.”

Diana looked into the bag and shook her head.

“Whoa, I think you got me covered for the upcoming decade’s worth of allergy seasons.”

“I might hold you to that next time you sound like you should be trying out for the part of Sneezy at Disneyland.”

“Oh shut up,” Diana snapped, but even so, she was smiling. Relief was at hand. The bag was filled with antihistamines of all kinds and all brands; Zyrtec, Claritin, Allegra, Benadryl, there were tablets and eyedrops and nose sprays, and box after box - plus a bunch of smaller travel packs – of tissues. Diana tore open one of the tissue boxes before she did anything else, snatching a handful of soft white squares and blew her nose forcefully several times. Then she took a fresh tissue and dabbed at her watery eyes. Once this was over with and she felt at least somewhat cleaner – still had to change her shirt though – she took two different antihistamines, dropped some of the eyedrops into her puffy, bloodshot eyes, and used one of the nose sprays. Usually she only took a pill, but if she wanted to scare this reaction into submission before the day was over, she had to use everything she had at her disposal.

“I’m probably going to get very drowsy after this,” Diana informed him when she was done doping herself up. Most of the medications (the ones she had opted for right now anyway) made the claim to be non-drowsy, but between her battered body and the strength of the medicine, she knew from experience she couldn't trust it.

“It’s alright, we have over three hours left to drive, you can take a nap.”

“I’ve got to get hold of a babysitter for Maia before I doze off,” she said. “Ugh, feel like I’ve been out of whack all day, first Maia’s nightmare and then oversleeping and then an allergy attack and then…”

“Maia had a nightmare?” Tom interrupted her. “Something I should know about?” He knew as well as Diana how Maia’s psychic ability sometimes was reflected in her dreams.

“It’s probably nothing.”

“But?”

Diana rubbed her nose, sniffled, then took out her phone.

“Just a moment. I need to get this babysitter thing sorted first.”

“Being a single mom is tough, huh?”

“Toughest part is she doesn’t want me to be away overnight. I feel like a traitor.” She sighed as she began looking through her phonebook. “Alright, fingers crossed I can convince someone, on this short notice, to stay overnight and keep an eye on a psychic child whose predictions scare people.”

“If you can’t find anyone, call Jarvis,” he joked. “I’d say she owes you one.”

“You’re insane. She still views Maia as some kind of test subject. I don’t want her anywhere near my daughter.”

“Well, you’ve certainly got the Mama Bear instincts down to a T,” Tom said as he turned the car back onto the road. “I’m glad this whole adoption thing is working out.”

“Who would’ve thought?” Diana said with a shrug, took a fresh tissue from the box and dabbed it underneath the most troublesome nostril. “Okay, we’ll start with Mrs Bankey.”

***

Five minutes later, a frustrated Diana hung up on potential sitter no 7 and turned to Tom.

“The only one I have left to call is a sixteen-year-old kid who’s kept an eye on her once when I was at the dentist.”

“What about your sister?”

“April? No. No way.”

Tom looked at her.

“I’m saying no,” Diana persisted.

“Then I guess Jarvis is next, huh?”

Diana clenched her jaw, thinking hard, going through everyone she knew in the Seattle area… and eventually flipped her phone open, and made a call. She glared at Tom the entire time until someone picked up.

“April? It’s Diana. Don’t hang up, it’s not about me, it’s about Maia. No, she’s fine. But we… uh…” she sent Tom another murderous glare before composing herself enough to ask; “… I’m called away on an overnight case and I need someone to look after Maia. No, I’m not gonna beg you, don’t be a brat…”

Tom smirked.

“Alright, fine, I’m begging you, best sister in the world, will you please stay with Maia overnight? Yes it did, it did hurt to say it. Don’t push it April, will you do it or not? Great, thank you! Thank you! Okay, she needs to be in bed by nine at the latest, and… no, you can’t take her to the movies, it’s a school night!”

Tom’s smirk only got broader as he listened in on Diana’s side of the conversation. Having met April a handful of times, he understood Diana’s frustration – they were like night and day. April was outgoing and spontaneous, and Maia loved her, but April was also sometimes (oftentimes) quite irresponsible. Diana was only ever irresponsible with herself, and even that had more or less stopped since Maia came into the picture.

“Oh no you do not! If I come home and find you got her inked, I’m going to rip your intestines out with my bare hands and strangle you with them,” the responsible older sister said. “Oh. Well, if it was a joke it wasn’t funny.”

Now Tom’s shoulders were shaking with suppressed laughter.

“Of course I’m desperate, would I ask my sister who uses my daughter’s psychic abilities to gamble and ‘jokes’ about having her inked, to stay with her overnight otherwise?!” Diana almost shouted, and Tom put a hand on her arm to calm her, then took her phone from her.

“April, it’s Tom. Diana’s partner. Yes, the handsome dude, exactly, good eye. Listen, Diana would really be grateful for your help, and to just keep things a bit quiet around Maia today, she didn’t sleep much last night according to your sister, nightmares apparently, so she should probably go to sleep early. Okay?” He listened for a while. “That sounds great. Ha, alright, I’ll tell her that. Bye.”

He closed the phone and handed it back to his partner.

“Your sister wanted me to pass on a message.” He blew a raspberry, and Diana rolled her eyes. “Wow, you two haven’t aged much since you were in middle school, have you?”

“April hasn’t, anyway,” Diana said.  

“Well, she’s picking Maia up from school, they’re having ice cream on the way home, Maia does her homework while April works on her art, and then they order pizza home. Sounds like a deal?”

Diana visibly pulled herself together.

“Great. Thanks Tom. April is… I just can’t…” she threw her arms out and nearly knocked over the tissue box on her lap.

“I know. But she is your sister. And she is Maia’s aunt.”

Diana nodded.

“Yeah. You’re right.”

“Can she handle it if Maia has another nightmare?”

“I hope so. I think so. Yeah. ”

“Speaking of, were you going to tell me about that nightmare?”

“In a minute.”

“Why not right now?”

“Because I’m gonna sneeze.”

“And that takes you a full minute?”

Diana shrugged, a very tickly look slowly spreading across her face. Her nostrils twitched as her eyes began to narrow and tear up. She took a couple of fresh tissues from the box and folded them over.  

“Might take two,” she said in a breathy voice and brought the folded tissues up to her face, but kept them a few inches away while she was giving herself up to the tickle. Every tiny facial muscle worked together to create the absolute sneeziest expression a human being could possibly display.

Tom had seen Diana sneeze many times over the past year they’d worked together; her allergies had been terrible last spring and summer, she’d caught three colds in fall and winter – Diana insisted this was unusual for her and most likely a result of being exposed to school plagues – and she just was a rather sneezy person in general, but he never ceased to be amazed at how sneezy she could look. Her eyes would sometimes glaze over, eyebrows raised and knitted, fine shallow lines between them suddenly visible, eyes narrowing, often while irritated tears spilled over… nose twitching, nostrils flaring, her upper lip pulled back, showing a glimpse of her teeth as if she was snarling at the irritation – which she might be doing for all he knew – and that soft, slow headshake, as if she expressed disbelief in how she could possibly need to sneeze again after all the sneezing she’d already done.

Gearing up for a minute of sneezing – or maybe two – Diana appeared to be focused only on what was going on inside her own body, or more specifically inside her nose, but Tom quickly learned that she knew how to multitask even mid-allergic agony when she said, every word drenched with congestion and jagged from her uneven breathing:

“I can sneeze without your supervision, Tom. Keep your eyes on the road.”

He laughed.

“Alright, I’ll leave the allergy attack to you, then.”

"G-good call... leave it to the expehhh.. hehh... expert... HEH-eh-yISSSCHooo-ihSSSHHoo-ahhyESSSHHHew!!" She exhaled in a tired sigh, then immediately inhaled again. "Uhhh... huhh-AhhhIISSSHHoo! HaaRGSSHHHoo! "

"Expert sneezer," Tom mumbled. "Yeah, enough practice can make you an expert in any field, I guess."

"HaaaIIISSSHHHuuh! G-gen... ehhh...Oh my God... hahh-EESSHHHH!" Generally I try to avoid fields," Diana replied. Tom took it as a good sign that she at least tried to keep the banter going; that meant she wasn't feeling too lousy. "For obvious reahhh... hehhh... reasonsISSCHhheh-eSSCHHuhh! AAHH-eSSHHew!"

"I bet..." Tom muttered under his breath. "First minute is up, by the way. So going for two?"

Diana, mid-buildup, gave him a thumbs up and he chuckled to himself. 

"Alright. Try to breathe now and then."

This time she flipped him off instead. 

 

 

 

I need to ask, since it's yet another obscure fandom; is there any reader interest in this fic? I'm still gonna write it for myself (and my accomplice ) because I want to know what happens, but I won't keep posting parts if there's no interest. It will have some plot and probably won't be a weekly update kind of thing, (got other stuff to work on/finish too) but as long as there's interest I'll keep posting when I have something new.  

 

Edited March 20, 2022 by Chanel_no5

[RavenWatson]

8 hours ago, Chanel_no5 said:

ask, since it's yet another obscure fandom; is there any reader interest in this fic? I'm still gonna write

Very much so. 

[sneezemeister]

I love all your writing! I'll read anything you post lol

[Chanel_no5]

Great to know, Raven and sneezemeister, thanks! ☺️ It's really helpful to know that people do read it, sometimes like it, and even want to read more. ☺️

I don't know when the next part will be done, I've got lots of wips right now and I put them in order of importance... Trying to, anyway. Right now trades and more popular things are ahead, but I really love Diana (and her CANON allergies..! 😏 😈) so I plan om keep making her situation worse... 😈 😅

Edited March 27, 2022 by Chanel_no5

[MIN]

I have never heard of this show before, but I certainly don't want this to stop anytime soon! This is great! 

[Chanel_no5]

On 6/9/2022 at 2:47 PM, MIN said:

I have never heard of this show before, but I certainly don't want this to stop anytime soon! This is great! 

Thank you so much! I've got a bunch of fics I'm working on (and constantly get sidetracked by new ideas too...), but this one is still on my mind.   I can totally recommend the show, if you can find it somewhere, it's criminally underrated. It has a similar feel to it as The X-Files, but without ripping it off, it has its very own premise. (also, IMHO, Diana gets hotter with each season. 🤷‍♀️) 

 

[MIN]

1 hour ago, Chanel_no5 said:

Thank you so much! I've got a bunch of fics I'm working on (and constantly get sidetracked by new ideas too...), but this one is still on my mind.   I can totally recommend the show, if you can find it somewhere, it's criminally underrated. It has a similar feel to it as The X-Files, but without ripping it off, it has its very own premise. (also, IMHO, Diana gets hotter with each season. 🤷‍♀️) 

 

Ooh, I'll have to look out for that! Thanks! 

Cant wait to read anymore you have!