prompt # 10 - jealousy Title: Something Happens In The Spring Author:andwhenwespeak Fandom:Northern Exposure Character/Pairing: Maggie/Shelly Rating: PG-13 Word Count: 200 Prompt: #10 - jealousy
Maggie always gets restless in the spring. Something gets under her skin, something squirming and itching, something uncomfortable. She keeps catching herself watching Shelly; her face, the way she moves. The way she smiles. She'll admit it, she can: she's fascinated. Maybe. A little bit. Shelly is *happy*; she's a happy person and Maggie, as everyone knows, is not. Not miserable, maybe, but not ever happy, not content. She used to dismiss Shelly's happiness, tell herself that Shelly was, well, maybe not actually stupid, but… simple, kind of. And not in the bad way, not in a mean way, just there wasn't much *to* Shelly, like she was the opposite of complicated.
But Maggie's come to realise that's not true, that Shelly isn't as straightforward as she appears, that there are layers there. Thoughts. Choices, even.
Every day, Maggie has come to see, Shelly makes the decision to be Shelly, to be herself, and that truth, that trick of being oneself in the world, seems to be the one thing Maggie is incapable of.
So she watches. She waits, observes. Shelly Tambo is a puzzle, an enigma. And it's spring, and Maggie O'Connell is a woman who loves a mystery.