An unexpected return

Posted on Sunday 20 December 2020 @ 16:32 by Civilian Sansa Draxx-Jones & Lieutenant Commander Hayley Godding

Mission: Homeward
Location: Hayley family home, Nicholls Town, The Bahamas
Timeline: MD6, 1700
2472 words - 4.9 OF Standard Post Measure

ON:

After transferring Fay to Abigale, Sansa felt a rush of life. She felt vital, alive, like all her senses were in overdrive. She decided to go and surprise Hayley at her family home. She knew she was coming but she hadn't pinned down a time.

She was sat in the transport fidgeting. She couldn't wait to see Hayley, to hold her. to..... She had considered calling ahead to let her know but decided this would be better.

Now just calm down, she thought to herself. You don't want to come on too strong.

After what seemed like an eternity, she was stood at Hayley's front door. She pressed the chime. "Just play it cool, just play it cool..." she kept repeating to herself.

"I'll get it!" Hayley called out, putting down the PADD she'd been reading in the front room and went over to the large front door. Her family home was designed in the American style, so all the rooms were substantially large with the main social rooms that led to the front hallway with the large wooden staircase leading up to the first and second floors having large open archways. The front door was a grand light cherry-wood thing with windows around it in the frame, although everything was covered up by Christmas decorations right now. If there was one thing the Goddings did to excess, it was Christmas.

As soon as the door had opened and she saw her standing there, all the 'play it cool' went straight out of the window.

"I.... You.... Oh, Screw it!" she said and launched herself at Hayley, kissing her passionately.

Hayley was almost knocked off her feet by the flying red-head who had launched herself at her and locked lips with a fervent vigour that seemed to want to suck the very life-force out of her. She melted into it, needing it as much as the instigator had clearly wanted it. It felt like an eternity before she regained her composure, although it had probably been something like forty or fifty seconds, the moment broken by the sound of girlish giggling from behind them. Forcing herself to break the kiss, she turned and spotted Katie Godding standing in the doorway to the family room.

"Shoo!" Hayley chastised her youngest sister, who giggled again and ran off towards the kitchen, no doubt to regail their mother and other siblings with her latest gossip. Their father was probably still out walking the family dog, Arthur.

She turned to face Sansa, who was still wrapped around her in her travel clothes. "Well, hello to you too." She smiled. "Erm... won't Fay object to you doing that?"

Sansa kissed her again before replying “Oh I’ve waited so long to do that and” she lowered her voice to a sexy whisper and with a devilish smile “I’ve got other things in mind for this evening.” She gave her bum a cheeky squeeze.

Hayley squeaked playfully and grinned at Sansa. "Well, someone's in a mood..." She purred. "I'm guessing your trip to Scotland was enjoyable?"

Sansa went on “So much to tell you. Fay has been transferred into a new host called Abigale who is an old flame of Mathias. I left those two to get... reacquainted. Dad has invited you to come with me to the family home in Italy for a family gathering and” she let out a big squeal “Mom’s pregnant!”

She was right, that was a lot to process! Firstly, Fay was no longer a consideration in her relationship with Sansa. That was actually really good news for Hayley, since she'd wanted very badly to introduce Sansa to her family for the first time, but without Fay, so that was a huge boon to her mood. The next was that Draxx had actually invited her to come to the family home, which was a huge step towards being accepted. The last bit, about Melody being pregnant, caused her to let out a huge "Ohhhhhh! That was what it was!" She exclaimed and then laughed at herself. "You're going to laugh, but I thought your mom had been replaced by an alien imposter after she started drinking Carrot juice... I feel a bit silly now..."

Sansa looked at her and burst out laughing. “Oh sweetie.” She suddenly became aware that she hadn’t met the rest of Hayley’s family apart from her younger sister whose voice could be heard ok I got from the kitchen telling the rest of the family. “Shall we go meet everyone before tongues start to wag?”

"I suspect it's a tad late for that, but I've been dying to introduce you to them for a while." Hayley smiled before taking Sansa's hand and leading her through the very festively decorated lounge, with the large ornate Christmas tree, sparkling away in the corner, and into the kitchen where the vast majority of the Godding family were sat around the island counter, listening to Katie's 'hot goss'.

"Really Katie, you're such a gossip hound." Hayley chastised her as they entered the room. "Everyone, this is Sansa Draxx-Jones, my girlfriend. Sansa, allow me to introduce you; first, this is my older brother Luke."

Luke had short blonde hair with bright blue eyes and a chiselled jaw-line in addition to his somewhat muscular body. Whilst Hayley had a friendly relationship with Luke, they weren't as close as she was to her younger sisters. He had three doctorates and was quite the stellar figure in the micro-robotics field at the moment.

"Nice to meet you." He said, cordially, with not a whole host of warmth to it.

Sansa still smiled warmly at him. She was on a natural high at the moment. ” It's nice to meet you too.”

"Next, this is Ashley." Hayley motioned towards a girl who was almost the spitting image of Hayley but had cropped her hair to just above her shoulder-line and had a green dyed streak on one side. There were other subtle differences between the sisters, like due to her job, Hayley had a much more trim figure and a slightly bigger bust, whereas Ashley was more comely being a house-wife rather than a Security Officer.

"Hey girl." Ashley grinned and ran up to give Sansa a warm embrace. "I'm sorry you can't meet my motley crew right now, but they're with their father at his parents. His family don't much care for me all that much, so I decided to wait for them here so at least our sons can see both families. Sean wasn't very happy about it, but I don't want our kids to be caught up in the drama. Anyway, sorry to blab all that out, but if you're around later, you might get to meet them."

Sansa hugged Ashley back, listening to the young girl tell all.

"And this is Katie." Hayley said, gesturing to the youngest Godding sibling, who waved back. She was much shorter than everyone else and had Jet Black hair and dark purple eyes. Due to a mix-up at the fertility clinic, Hayley's mom had been inseminated with the wrong genes, but rather than fret over it, they'd just accepted Katie as who she was. Whilst she didn't look like anyone in the family, she was still the darling baby girl of the household.

”Hi there Katie, I love the colour of your eyes.” she said, thinking back to how her eye’s had looked when Fay was with her.

"Lastly, and by no means least, this lovely lady over here is my Mom." Hayley said, as the older woman came over and took Sansa's hands in hers and surveyed her carefully. She had the same genetic appearances as her kids (except Katie of course) but was much older so had a care-worn expression with grey highlights to her hair.

"Oh, aren't you lovely." Fran Godding said, appraising Sansa. "When Hayley told us she'd be bringing you to Christmas dinner, we were all so excited to get to meet the girl who finally got Hayley to sort herself out..."

"Mom!" Hayley chastised her.

"Well, it's true! You've been so lost for so long, I really did fear you were going to be single forever." Fran said.

Hayley rolled her eyes. "Wow, thanks so much for that..."

”I was lucky that she was. Hayley saved me from some unwanted attention from a Ferengi and she just melted my heart. She is so loving and understanding and she puts up with me. I can't imagine being without her.” Sansa said, stealing a glance at Hayey.

She looked back to Fran ”You have a wonderful family. Thank you so much for letting me come and spend this time with Hayley. Recently I had an alien visitor sharing my body and Hayley gave me her support and patience.”

"Really? How fascinating!" Luke replied, visibly warming to Sansa's presence suddenly, as she now became something of interest to him. "You have to tell me all about it!"

"No, she really doesn't." Hayley said, waspishly.

"Hayley! That's no way to speak to your brother!" Fran said, chastisingly.

"Yes it is." Hayley said, coldly. "He showed zero interest in her until she became a 'scientific curiosity'. He's not changed in the slightest, and neither have you, giving him special treatment because he's the 'favourite'. Geez, its no wonder I don't come home that often."

"Hayley, don't you speak to your mother like that." Came the stern tone of Charlie Godding as he came into the kitchen. He was tall, rakish, with snow-white hair and a stern expression.

"My apologies." Hayley said, with a bitter tone. "Forgive me for not allowing my brother to treat my girlfriend like a lab-rat."

"Your brother was merely showing curiosity at something that interested him." Charlie said. "You should indulge him."

"Oh sure, you immediately take his side. It never changes. Luke's the golden boy, he can do no wrong. I'm the problem child because I don't let you let him walk all over me." Hayley bit back. "And you wondered why I didn't introduce you to her earlier?"

"It's ok Hayley, I don't mind talking about it." Sansa offered, trying to smooth the waters.

"This is the story of my life, Sansa." Hayley replied. "Luke has always been the favourite, and we three have always been compared to him. Nothing but sunshine and roses shoot out his backside. You'd think it'd change as we got older, but no. I came home only two days ago, announced I'd been promoted and I got 'Well done dear, but Luke got an award for his dissertation and we think that's amazing'."

"Hayley, do we really need to do this right now?" Ashley asked. "I know how you feel, but we shouldn't do this in front of guests..." She looked at Sansa with apologetic eyes.

"I don't see why you need to bring it up all the time." Katie said, focusing on her PADD. "We all know it. Mom and Dad don't care nor will they ever change or apologize for it. Might as well just live your life your way, why bother waiting for their approval, you'll never get it."

"Girls! That's incredibly hurtful and unfair for you to say!" Fran snapped.

"Why? Don't like us airing the truth to outsiders?" Katie replied, tartly. "Ashley spent years trying to keep the truth from Sean, he only found out after they got married. Poor bugger. I'd escape whilst you can, Sansa, this is pretty damn tame for them."

"Katie!" Charlie barked angrily.

"Just for once - I had hoped this family could put its best foot forward when I brought home someone I truly love and care about. But as usual, you can't even give me that, can you?" Hayley snapped, emotion cracking in her voice. She bodily shoved her way past Luke, who tried to stop her, and burst out of the glass doors leading into the garden and stormed off towards the private beach at the end of the garden.

There was silence in the kitchen for a long moment. Sansa broke the silence finally by saying "I'll go and talk to her."

Sansa then followed in Hayley's footsteps. She caught up with her down the beach. She called out to her. "Hey, that was quite an exit. You wanna talk about it Sweetie?"

"It's always like this! I keep thinking they'll change, that someday I'll achieve something that'll make them see me beyond the halo that Luke casts..." She fumed, shouting mostly at the ocean as it gently lapped ashore. "I'm so very sorry you had to see that... I really am..."

Sansa reached out and took both of Hayley's hands in hers. "Hey, hey... it's ok. What's that old saying? You can choose your friend, you can choose your enemies but family's in the stars." She then pulled her closer to her. "What you've done is amazing and I think you're amazing and deep down you know yourself what you've done and how hard it's been to get here. You don't need to justify yourself to anyone and I think deep down, your family is proud of you. I know I am."

Without saying a word, Hayley leaned in and kissed Sansa tenderly.

Sansa didn't offer once ounce of resistance and returned the kiss.

Hayley grinned a mischievous grin. "You know... I distinctly remember someone promising me some entertainment this evening. Well, I'm somewhat impatient..." She reached over and slid her hand down the waistband of Sansa's trousers. "Maybe I should show you to my bedroom, let you see the.. uhm.. 'memories' up there..."

Sansa sighed and gazed lovingly at her. "You had me at "You know..." putting her hands on Hayley's shoulders, tempted to work her top off right there. "Are we going to have to sneak back into the house?"

"We'll go in through the front and sneak up the stairs. I don't really want to deal with the post-argument fallout right now." Hayley replied. "Besides, I've been wanting to be with you for a very very long time... nothing against Fay... but my god was she a show-stopper..."

Sansa smiled. "Well, she wasn't that bad. I guess, I just got to know her a little better," she said, shrugging her shoulders. "But then again, I've not held your body close to mine in ages so, come on, race you... Tell you what if you're first back I'll let you...." and she whispered in Hayley's ear.

Her suggestion sent a thrill through her body as if she'd been stung by ten thousand volts of electricity. She grinned ear to ear and then bolted back up towards the house before Sansa had a chance to react.

OFF