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Mary was still mostly asleep by the time she dropped her breakfast tray on the table, the low buzz of the mess hall acting more like white noise and not really helping her keep her eyes open. If evidenced by the way she was slumped over on the table next to her, Shannon wasn’t faring much better either. Lilith, on the other hand (little overachieving shit that she was), seemed perfectly awake.
“Don’t even,” she growls the moment Lilith looks like she’s about to make a comment on their current states.
The younger girl looked like she was about to protest, but acquiesced with a shift from Shannon.
Even in the state of mind she was currently in, Mary couldn’t help but be impressed (if not slightly bitter) at the strength of the Drift Connection between the two. Even now, over eight hours since they disconnected from the Pons, they were still ghost drifting with each other.
(and really, she tried not to think of just what else Lilith picked up from the drift last night. It’s not her fault Shannon was always… buzzed… when coming off the Drift)
The previous night’s Kaiju attack still had everybody shaken. Guardian Angel wasn’t on duty at the time, but they were relegated to back-up if Primo Interceptor and Cardinal Horizon weren’t able to take it down. While they didn't end up needing to get involved in the fight, Cardinal had sustained enough damage that the PPDC were considering decommissioning it over repairs. Thankfully, the pilots were still alive.
They had still been relegated to clean-up alongside Pinnacle Vortex and Nomad Glory, carrying the Kaiju corpse and damaged Jaegers to the specialized naval carriers before heading back to shore. While Mary hadn’t needed to do any repairs on Guardian Angel , the post-deployment diagnostics still took almost an hour to complete.
“Are you going to eat your oranges?” Lilith’s voice interrupts her musings.
Mary glances down at her breakfast array. If there was one thing she was thankful for, it was that the food options in the PPDC were much better than what the Air Force provided. Mostly due to the sheer variety and the fact that pretty much all of the local options were fresh. They were currently stationed in Hong Kong and it was December, so fresh oranges were in season.
She preferred apples to citrus, but in keeping with their tradition of never giving in to each other, Mary looked Lilith straight in the eye before popping the fruit into her mouth.
“Don’t want to get scurvy,” she offered with a smirk, taking her pleasure from how Lilith’s face scrunched up into a pout. God, that kid was obsessed with citrus. She was one of those nuts who would eat a lemon straight out of the peel.
Shannon groaned, her head buried in her arms as her half-eaten tray was pushed to the side.
“Too early for your fights. Be quiet.”
Lilith, of course, immediately listened to Shannon, while Mary shifted to concentrating on making sure her hand did not drop the egg off her fork.
She was so focused on eating her breakfast that she didn’t notice the mess hall quieting until Lilith kicked her in the shin.
“What the fu-”
“Look,” Lilith pointed behind her.
She turns, and sees that one of the giant screens, normally playing some sports match (usually soccer, or as Lilith acerbically counters, real football ), was instead streaming a close-up view of the White House.
At first, she doesn’t understand what was going on, but then someone cranks the volume up, and then… oh.
“ -historic signing. 2965 has been passed by Congress and signed off by the President. Don’t Ask Don’t Tell has officially been repealed, allowing members of the LGBTQ community to openly serve for the first time in the history of America’s Armed Forces. Now-”
Mary was frozen in shock. She knew that the repeal act was making its way through the government channels, but after the disappointment of it not being passed by the Senate the previous year, she had given up hope of a quick repeal. But now…
She turns to Shannon, who is still staring at the monitor, eyes wide in wonder and shock.
The two of them have been in a relationship for years now, but with DADT in effect, they've had to keep everything on the down low. When they were still part of DARPA’s Neural-Interface project, they had the excuse of being co-pilots to explain their closeness, and that extended to when they transferred to the PPDC and went through both Air Support and Ranger training. But even though they are now PPDC personnel, they were still enlisted, and thus had to keep to US Military standards.
But now… now they didn’t have to hide.
Shannon seems to finally shake herself out of her shock, and Mary immediately pulls the taller woman into a hug, already feeling the dampness of tears as they are absorbed into the collar of her shirt. She knows how much this means to her. While Shannon may have been the one to initiate their friendship, fear of repercussions should word get out had kept Shannon from wanting to pursue a relationship while they were in the Air Force. It was only until the two had transferred to the PPDC that she had been open to actually dating, but even then Mary was the one who took the first steps in taking their relationship to the next level.
Mary turns to Lilith, who is actually wearing a genuine smile rather than her usual ‘smirk of superiority’. She then notices the manila folder in the younger Ranger’s hand.
“Figured you might want to get started on this,” was all she offered before standing up and moving to the exit.
Mary frowns as she takes the folder, but then can’t help but let out a snort as she sees the HR paperwork inside: PPDC Consensual Relationship Agreement. Of course the little shit already knew about the act getting passed.
“So,” she says to Shannon with a smirk. “Ready to update your relationship status?”