ds short: "Light Over Sleep" (Francesca, G)

[hsavinien]

Title: Light Over Sleep
Author: H. Savinien
Rating: G
Disclaimer: due South and the characters borrowed belong to the Pauls and their respective actors.
Word count: 445

Summary: Frannie isn't wild about some of Maggie's ideas, but they usually turn out pretty all right.

***

"Oh geez," Frannie groaned around a yawn. "Why are we up? It's still dark out."

Maggie stuck a mug in her groping hand, closing Frannie's fingers around the warm ceramic. "We're up because you wanted to see the Northern Lights."

"But it's, like..." Frannie scrubbed at her face and tried to remember whether she'd wiped her make-up off properly before keeling over the night before. If not, she probably looked like a highschooler who hadn't figured out eyeliner yet.

"A little before three-thirty in the morning."

"Three-thirty?" Oh geez, why? she didn't add again, but Maggie must have read it anyway.

Maggie grinned at her, hair flopping around her ears instead of in the neat ponytail she usually wore. "Come on outside. You'll see. If you don't think it's worth it, you can go straight back to bed."

Frannie poked her foot groggily at her boot until she managed to get it in the opening, slumped over to tie a sloppy bow, then fumbled the second one on. Maggie dropped her coat on top of her and while Francesca was flailing weakly for the sleeves, stuck a big furry hat with ear flaps on her head.

“Mnnghh...”

Maggie turned the hat right way round. “Sorry, hon. Come on, now. We won't be out long enough to need more than this.” Maggie, of course, was tucked in and zipped up as tight as if she was about to go into town.

“Fine,” Frannie groaned and picked her mug back up. Maggie hoisted her off the couch.

“Come on.”

The air was chilly in Frannie's nose before she reburied it in her mug for another drink, but there wasn't much wind and the sky was partly clouded. It was astonishingly dark out here in the middle of nowhere, at least as far as human-made light was concerned. The stars made a broad swoop overhead that looked like somebody'd gone a little overboard with the sequins.

“All right,” Maggie whispered. “Look north.”

Frannie turned to follow the gentle push on her shoulder and looked. A little green, glowing mist – like a mountain outlined where there wasn't one – shimmered above them. It moved, rippling like something alive, with a purple veil following it and growing, ribbons of sheer silk light growing into sheets or banners, vast rivers of light with the stars still shining through behind them. Frannie staggered sideways into Maggie, who steadied her with an arm around her shoulders.

“Oh geez,” she breathed. “Maggie.”

Maggie squeezed her gently. “I know.”

They stayed out until the colors faded and the world started lightening into the more familiar shades of dawn, sharing warmth and watching the sky.