Morning, and the photo-real light of a dawn after a storm evaded the curtains and fell on Alex, sprawled asleep in the halo of her golden hair. Martin, in the doorway of the spare room, stood and watched. Whatever time she had got back last night, it must have been sufficiently late for her to not risk disturbing him. Standing and remembering the first time he had woken up to her face.
"So you were lying about winding up in our own beds?"
She shrugged, which was difficult under the circumstances. "You managed it, and as mine's over three hundred miles away, it would've been tricky."
"Um."
"You never did tell me how you got to meet Jonathan."
He didn't even try to return the shrug. "We're in the same department, on two closely related projects. Started at the same time, 'cept I'd already been a student here and he'd just arrived, so he sort-of tagged along with me when Richard wasn't around. Some of the others I know 'cause Dave's been a good friend for ages and keeps introducing us. Some are just friends anyway. And of course I've been doing some anti-35 stuff." Actually, much of his activism had been burned up when he had realised they couldn't stop the bill as a whole, and were being forced to concentrate on clause 35. The fight had become more specific, and excluded him.
She nodded, which was an easier gesture. "Yeah. Jonathan's the only one I really know, though Richard came up a few times last year. We were in the Uni group together, what, three years? Including when the ID shit first started. It almost feels like he abandoned us."
"Can't imagine why he'd want to do that."
"Oh, come on. Richard is so cute..."
"That does appear to be the consensus."
"And it is rather nice down here."
"Ah."
This time, there was a dawn chorus, and his grief and fears began to fade.
Too early to wake her. Breakfast, or at least coffee, and the memories slipped further back, to the night before.
The kitchen, Jonathan and Richard's flat-warming, Martin alone in a room full of people. He would probably not have gone, but Dave had dragged him along. Dave was in the front room, singing the alto line of a duet with a gravelly female tenor. Less than a week after his mother's funeral, he had no idea what he was doing here, no feeling left. All around there was a sense of hope, perhaps desperate, but real hope about the impending vote, and he could not share it. Stepped into the hallway, quieter, empty. No, not empty, one other, leaning against the wall, staring at a hole in the sickly yellow paint opposite where something used to be fastened. Tall, boots looking like they'd come from a surplus store and were at least a size too big for her, black leggings, black tee-shirt, black hair buzz-cut save for a floppy crest which extended into a short pony-tail. She turned to him with half a grin. "You look like you're suffering from het-lag."
Martin wandered over, shook his head. No, that wasn't it. The front of her shirt read 'Nobody knows I'm queer.' He slumped against the wall to the right of the hole, then slid to sit on the floor. "Just thought I'd join this really happening hall-party."
"Ah, you mean this haven of tranquil sanity, where it's alright to be alone, and everyone is expected to wind up in their own bed." It sounded familiar. Cynicism barely concealed by her light tone, no suggestion of bitterness; but staring at the knotwork at the top of her boots he couldn't read her expression.
He took a drink, "Possibly," caught her face looking at the bottle.
"I didn't realise there was any decent beer around?"
He held it out to her. "It's the last one, I'm afraid."
She took it, shrugged, "Oh, well," and drank. Turned and sat against the wall next to him, handed it back. Another swig for him. Background noise from the kitchen and the front room. "Aren't we a fine pair of bums, sitting here being antisocial, sharing a bottle, while all around us engage in gross depravities, well, minor decadence at the very least, celebrating our immanent victory on 35, or having one last final shout of freedom ..." He handed her the bottle which kept her quiet for about two seconds. "And we're just too damned mean-spirited to join in. Shit, I could do with a joint right now."
"Don't look at me. Haven't got a drop." Which was the normal situation.
"Bugger." She was trying to pull her hair out from between her back and the wall. Staring at the blank yellow, a moment of uneasy silence, save for the duo starting up again. Something needed to be said. "So, here we are, no sex, no drugs, and the rock and roll is distinctly questionable." He passed the bottle, and the responsibility for the next line.
She was looking at him. Her hand covered his on the bottle. "When did we decide on no sex?"
They hadn't. "We didn't." It had been implicit, he thought. "I just assumed ..." Mind forced to take unexpected paths through the wash of alcohol. Het-lag?
She forced the bottle to the floor, leaned towards him. "Assume nothing." Leaned closer. Kissed.
But of course Alex had gone home the next day, and then 35 got through, and nothing was ever going to be the same again. Loss had become the hollow core to his being, and into it disappeared all the anger, all the energy. Had it been worth it? Had it been worth his father screaming down the telephone at him, unable to reach him all day because he'd been at the final demonstration? And he in turn unable to get back to see his mother one last time? Had it been worth the family's cold hostility as he wore a rose-gold triangular pin, borrowed from Jonathan, on his black tie? It had cost him. He had been defeated just as much as Dave, and Jonathan, and Richard, and all the others who had to carry it stamped across their faces. At the time, he was naive enough to be pulled through by the increasingly frequent visits to and from Alex, but she had never given up the struggle, and neither had Dave, and now Dave was in danger of paying with his life.