(june)

[letitbetrue]

It's not that Demelza doesn't love her husband or that she seriously entertains thoughts of straying, but she's an eye for attractive men, and there are days when one may cross her path that is truly difficult not to look at. Given Ross and his lingering affection for Elizabeth, which Demelza doesn't exactly like, but has perhaps grown to understand, given how lovely Elizabeth truly is, how beautiful and genteel and wonderfully kind, she doesn't think he'd fault her a glance or two.

For that's all it is. A glance.

Yet the problem arises when a glance becomes a distraction and Demelza, now quite visibly and uncomfortably pregnant and nearly into her third trimester, has not the balance or grace she usually possesses. All it takes is a lingering look that lasts perhaps a touch too long -- though she can hardly be blamed, she's never before seen a man with such a thick beard and is imagining what she might have to do in order to convince Ross to grow one -- and she's stumbling her way around a corner she hadn't realized was there. Stumbling straight into someone she's never met before.

"Judas God," she curses, reaching for his arms to steady herself. It wouldn't do to fall all over herself with the baby having grown so much in recent weeks.

"I'm that sorry, sir, I weren't-" But her words trail off abruptly when she glances up, finding she's wandered directly into another terribly handsome man.

Comments

[to_survive]

"Oh, you weren't kidding about a different time," he says, blinking. It's hard to even picture that sort of time in anything other than a generalization; they hadn't focused on much in history classes, and Bellamy's interest tended to lean toward ancient history anyway.

"I'm in the other direction. It was 2149."

[letitbetrue]

"Are 'ee from space?" she asks eagerly. "I'm sorry, tis only just that all other people I've met from such times have lived in space."

And space is fascinating to Demelza, the sort of world she can only ever imagine, having absolutely no context for what people have described to her. The books in the library help, but there's really only so much one can learn in that situation without having been there themselves.

"I'd so love to see it," she says. "But I know it ent possible."