SSSD - Risk-averse

Alison makes an adult decision. Possibly also a slightly cowardly decision, but she sees no reason to get greedy. Besides, she has to work with Julie every day for the next several weeks. Why risk making it weird by talking about something off-color? Better to keep it simple and safe.

“So. Do you guys know Golda well?” Alison asks, getting cozy between the two Norwegians.

Signe is amused by the question. Julie is neutral and difficult to read. They exchange a look.

“She is in charge,” Signe replies mildly, looking down at Alison with interest.

“That’s not really an answer,” Alison replies.

“No,” Signe says with a glance at Julie. “We are not close friends.”

“Is she a good boss?”

Signe’s hesitation is telling. “She is,” she replies.

That tracks. Alison doesn’t doubt Golda’s competence overall, but her rapport with the crew could definitely be stronger.

“Do you think she is a good boss?” Signe asks.

There it is. Signe knows how to have fun. Julie, though? Hard to be sure. She’s listening, but how engaged is she? Is she thinking about ice right now? Alison honestly isn’t sure.

“I think she’s a great boss,” Alison says to Signe, giving her the most egregious cocky, horny, American frat boy expression imaginable.

Signe throws back her head and laughs, then takes a big drink from her bottle.

“Do you do this often?” she asks.

“Do what?” Alison is coy.

Signe hesitates again, perhaps unsure how to word it in English.

“Do you mean, do I often make a point to know intelligent, beautiful women?” Alison not-so-discreetly slips her arms around Julie and Signe, or tries to. It’s easy enough with Julie, but Signe’s broad enough that the attempt is a little pathetic.

Julie doesn’t react, but Signe snorts.

“In the interests of cultural enrichment,” Alison adds.

“Cultural enrichment,” Signe echoes, barely controlling herself.

“She enriched my culture.”

“I see.”

“So much that I’m still thinking about it,” Alison goes on.

Signe laughs again.

“What about you, Dr. Gretland? Do you like Golda?” Alison asks Julie directly.

Julie blinks at being addressed. She appears unbothered by the question.

“No,” she replies finally. “Not much.”

OK. Very blunt there.

SSSD

Signe, at least, is good company during the wait. Alison is stiff, cold, and needs to pee by the time that Marit arrives with Niv to rescue them.

It takes Marit all of ten minutes to have the snowcat running again, and it’s a simple matter to follow them back to the Outpost. Alison is so glad that the situation could be resolved with so little fuss that she isn’t especially disappointed about striking out with the Norwegians in the snowcat. Getting friendlier with Signe and learning a little about Julie is a small consolation prize for dropping the ball on a situation that could’ve come straight out of an erotica anthology. A CCL girl getting no action while trapped with two blondes in a snowcat? No one can know of this. Meri would banish Alison from CCL House.

“Low energy. Sad,” Meri would say.

It’s dark by the time they get back. At the Outpost, Alison learns that Ro got so anxious that they had to give her something for it, and now she’s passed out for the night.

Golda and Linda descend on the sample that is officially being brought back and spirit it away to their locked laboratory, sparing hardly a glance for Alison, who doesn’t take it personally.

“What was wrong with it?” Alison asks Marit as she’s shedding her cold-weather gear. “The snowcat.”

The girl faces her, squinting slightly. Right. Alison forgot; Marit’s English isn’t great.

Fortunately, Marit seems merely annoyed, not angry. She makes a face, then holds up both of her hands. When she speaks, English and Norwegian words are both used.

“The [word] must have two batteries. The [word] is not good for the [word]. And if it is [word] you must have [several words].”

Alison doesn’t get much of it. She does pick up that Marit seems neither surprised nor bothered by this occurrence. Alison thinks of Norway as being super modern and glossy, but is that really true? Well, this isn’t Norway.

“You’re my hero,” Alison tells Marit, giving her a quick hug. “Thank you so much for rescuing us.”

“Don’t mind me,” Niv says cheerily, struggling to pull off her boots. “I did nothing.”

Marit says something to her in Norwegian and Nic struggles not to laugh. Then Marit looks Alison up and down. Without a word, she walks away.

Julie and Signe have vanished, and Alison is starving. Birgitte gives her some leftovers, and Alison finds herself sitting alone in the dining area. This frigid, lonely, in many ways anticlimactic reality is not what she pictured.

She’s glad to be alive. Excitement is not what a reasonable person wants in Antarctica. Tedium is good. It’s fine. Everything is fine. Everything has already wound down for the day. It didn’t exactly fly by, but it’s gone.

As she takes her dishes to the kitchen, she wonders how to proceed.

Alison isn’t at her horniest, but she’s still smarting from blowing it in the snowcat. Sleeping alone tonight will majorly hurt her ego, but she has a feeling that Golda will not be available to comfort her.

Signe seems… approachable.

In the kitchen, Alison finds Birgitte and Marit together by a heater, each holding a bottle of beer. There are more beers on the table. Marit notices Alison.

She reaches out with her bottle to nudge one of the ones on the table in Alison’s direction.

That looks like an offer.

Have a beer with Marit and Birgitte?

Or go see what Signe is up to?