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Rhiannon stared at her wife as she talked and with one word after the next threw daggers at her happiness. Piercing the mental bubble she had build around their lives. She listened silently with a sad expression creeping onto her face. She couldn't have done anything else. What was she supposed to say to all this?

As her wife finished her long monologue of destruction, Rhiannon turned away. She took a few steps, turned around, and took a few more. She began pacing for a moment. Maybe multiple minutes as her mind tried to wrap around the decay of her worldview. This felt like a wrong reality. Like a warped version of her life.

She finally turned back to her wife and looked straight at her. [color=efd7ad]"I believe you."[/color] She nodded, more to convince herself than Lisa. The scientist stepped closer to the dark-haired woman in front of her. [color=efd7ad]"I don't want to. But I will."[/color] She positioned herself next to Lisa, leaning against the car's front. [color=efd7ad]"I don't really know what to say to this. But maybe I'll start with: What the heck, Lisa?! You come at me with all of this in the [i]car[/i]?! And so close to the facility! Why haven't you told me this yesterday? Why haven't you told me this morning? You know what? What the heck! Why didn't you tell me a month ago? Or, I don't know, [i]ten years ago[/i]."[/color] Rhiannon's expression began to change from sadness to something more. There was a deeper feeling underlying the anger that she felt on top of it. A painful pull in her heart. [color=efd7ad]"I thought we were a team. And don't you dare bullshit me about 'protecting me'. You could have told me in college. You could have talked to me before we signed! After we signed. Any day, any year as we were working on the project. You could have told me when you decided to copy our work. Which, by the way, is a criminal offense according to our contracts! [i]That[/i] you also haven't told me! You have been endangering yourself, me, our jobs, our project and you didn't think to tell me?"[/color] She pushed herself off the car and began to pace again. The feelings tumbling inside her were too hectic to keep standing still. Her mind was racing, trying to process all that was happening. Trying to put her reality together with the reality her wife seemed to have experienced. [color=efd7ad]"I can't believe you've been operating behind my back. I never thought.... I never thought you had secrets from me."[/color]

As the anger lifted, the deep sorrow reappeared, visibly dancing across her expression and taking its bow. [color=efd7ad]"That wasn't fair of you. This is not something you do alone. Not something you do behind your wife's back. And you don't spring such news onto me right before work, at the side of the road, ten minutes from entering that building."[/color] Her hand gestured vaguely towards the facility. [color=efd7ad]"You could have picked a better time and place for this."[/color] The woman let out a big sigh and rubbed her fingers over her forehead. That headache was coming back again.

[color=efd7ad]"That isn't to say I don't believe you. I am not happy but I do have a functioning mind, mind you."[/color] Rhiannon looked at her wife's expression. The woman who loved her most hadn't been honest with her. For over a decade. [color=efd7ad]"What do you now propose we do? Wait for them to take all of our work? Then leave silently and - what? - live the rest of our lives selling marmalades?"[/color] She shook her head and put those fingers back to her forehead. [color=efd7ad]"I'm sorry. I don't mean to snap. This is a lot. And frankly, we don't have the time to discuss this. We're being late. I guess it's better than telling me after we get fired."[/color]

Rhiannon pulled her hands over her face, dragged them down her eyes and lips and chin. [color=efd7ad]"So why are you telling me now? What has changed? Are you proposing a plan of action?"[/color]

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