Silly mini-fic for when Grace eventually proposes a “Team PHM Kickball Tournament” to Stratt:
“What are our plans for the week before launch?”
She looked up at him from her computer. Her eyes narrowed.
Grace’s pros and cons list weighed heavily in his pocket.
Pro: Would help facilitate teamwork within the crew.
Con: Stratt could legally kill me if I even proposed taking time away from the mission.
“Preparing for launch. Do you have a better use of our time?” she asked.
He set up his pitch, just as he rehearsed: “What’s your experience with the great American tradition of kickball?”
“Very little.” She turned back to her work. No longer amused.
“You’ve seen The Sandlot?” Grace asked in disbelief. Grace jotted down a new “pro” his mind:
Pro: Stratt lives out her Sandlot fantasy.
“Yes. What was your point Dr. Grace?”
“At the school we would have a teachers v. students kickball game at the end of the year. It’s like baseball but quicker and worse.” said Grace. “It’s to boost morale. I think we need it.”
Pro: Crew would have a good time before their world-saving suicide mission.
Con: Stratt will call it “frivolous”, be annoyed, and throw me into the Siberian wilderness.
“I think you meant to say ‘fun’. And ‘what a great way to stop people from thinking about the world ending’.” he pleaded.
She shot him a deadly look. “Be serious.”
“You’re killin’ me Smalls!”
He was getting way too comfortable pushing her buttons. He’d be shocked if she didn’t call a nuke on him right now.
And desperate. “You can be a team captain.” he conceded.
Something in her clicked. Grace assumed it was some buried part of her sad German childhood where she didn’t get picked for whatever the sad German version of kickball was.
“If weather permits.” she said briskly, shutting her laptop.
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