This is a partial reinterpretation of some of the events in the movie 
"They Were 11".  If you haven't seen it, this will probably spoil it for
you, and won't make any sense either.


$Revision: 1.1 $
$Date: 1999/04/24 01:48:05 $

		     Spur of the Moment Productions
				presents
		       a "Yeah, That's It" fiction

			How Could I Do Otherwise

			     a fan fiction
				 by DaR
		   based on the movie "They Were 11"

				  ***

Day 53:

I am in Heaven, I am in Hell.  The Cosmo Academy final test is upon me.
Ten of us are supposed to inhabit this ghost ship for 52 more days.
Only there are 11 of us.  We all belong, but there are only supposed to
be ten.  How could this happen?  Already we're getting paranoid and
accusing each other.  I hope no-one does anything rash.  At least the
guns were locked away.

And then there's Frol.  My head is spinning.  I don't know what to
think.  When we took off our helmets everyone thought she was a girl.
Such delicate features, and that long blond hair.  But when I tried to
defend her from the others, she nearly took my head off.  She turns out
to be a he.

All day he was there, just behind me, measuring himself against me.
Whatever the results were, he wasn't terribly pleased.  His presence was
nearly maddening.  To have a guy that looks like a girl crawling all
over me, touching and grabbing and pinching.  Several times it was all I
could do to keep my reaction to a blush.

In the end it turns out he's rooming with me and Amazon.  What should I
do?

				  ***

Day 52:

Our second day.  Our third major disaster.  Ganga was hurt in an
electrical explosion.  One I caused.  I would have sworn I heard him
call for the circuit to be turned on, but he was still working on it,
and the short caused it to explode.  Thanks to Elder's training, we
managed to save him.  Frol and I had to do surgery to remove the wire
fragments lodged in his belly.

And after that King tried to get the others to vote I was the 11th.
Just because my intuition is strong enough to give me clues to find
things like light switches.  Frol tried to defend me, but no one would
listen.  Fortunately Ganga came to my rescue, even if he did nearly
rupture his sutures in the process.

I went up to the observation deck to think.  Somehow Frol found me,
bringing along a bottle of wine.  How can he put such temptation in my
sights.  To be so pretty, and yet a man.

The ship bothers me.  I don't know why.

				  ***

Day 39:

We've spent two weeks on board the Esperenza now.  Frol continues to
find ways to be around me.  To tempt me.  To tease me.  I can't let
myself think about that.  I mustn't dwell on it.

				  ***

Day 26:

Another disaster.  The explosions when we came in apparently threw us
out of orbit.  The ship is slowly heating up in the light of that the
harsh blue sun.  Already, things are warming up.  The heat exchangers
are damaged and can't shed the energy pouring onto us.

				  ***

Day 23:

Amazon made an amazing discovery.  Frol is really a girl!  And then Knu
revealed he's not a girl after all.  Frol is menir, a hemaphrodite.
When he... she... reaches maturity, her body can select it's sex.  If
her body temperature goes up, she becomes a female and receives hormones
to complete the transition.  If not, she becomes a male.

That's why she's taking the test.  On her world most people are forced
to become women.  Only the first born, about one in six is allowed to
become male.  And males have all the power, all the control.  She's the
youngest, and doesn't want to marry the neighboring lord as her parents
arranged.  He's already got eight wives and is 18 years older than her.

More than ever I am determined to succeed.  To help Frol become a full
man if he wants.  Not that my desires have anything to do with it.
Putting them off, I ignore them, they don't matter.  I keep telling
myself that.  Maybe I even believe it.

				  ***

Day 22:

Today I tried to help Frol move a crate.  She snapped at me and stormed
off, struggling to carry the crate on her own.  Amazon remarked how
she'd make a pretty woman but a difficult girlfriend.  Again I managed
to restrict my reaction to only a blush.

Inside my thoughts are a much greater turmoil.  I can't sort out my
feelings at all.  I want to laugh and dance and sing and cry when he
looks at me.  Everything I could ask for and more.  I consider aborting
the exam to avoid confronting my emotioms.  Such a coward.

				  ***

Day 19:

Disasters abound.  The vines used as electrical conductors will mutate
under the high heat and release a virus that causes Dell Red Spotted
Fever.  We have no vaccine.  And no mice.

It triggered the memory explaining why this ship bothers me so.  It was
the ship that killed my parents and left me an orphan.  I was on it 14
years ago, when the first outbreak of the fever killed all the
passengers.  There was only enough vaccine to save the children under
four, me among them.  My Elder... was the captain of this ship.  My
mother begged him to care for me with her dying breaths.

Frol held me through the flashback, providing an anchor in the madness
that threatened to consume me.  Fortunately I retained enough presence
of mind to prevent myself from holding him back, at least in the way I
wanted to.  From plastering my lips all over those pouty lips, brushing
my hands across those perfect, delicate features.

				  ***

Day 14:

Food fight!  Frol started it, spraying down King with a bottle of catsup
while he was complaining about Toto accidently getting a fork in the
soup.  When I intervened I got a pie in the face.  Amazon and Fourth
joined in with an unholy glee.  After that it was a free for all.  Only
Thickhead and Knu stayed out, until they creamed each other at the very
end.

It was a delight to watch him play like that, cavorting and carrying on
like a small child.  So righteous in his innocence.  Graceful and sleek,
and deadly with a squirt bottle.  For the first time I think I admitted
it to myself.  I love Frol.  Love, love, love, love.  What a wonderful
word.  Now if only I could get up the courage to admit it to him.  I
wonder if I ever will.

				  ***

Day 13:

The biggest disaster yet.  I nearly killed us all.  Our repairs on the
condenser were ruined when Ganga collapsed and I went to help him.  I
didn't mean to, but my elbow knocked the power lever, triggering another
explosion.  Our hopes of bringing down he temperature were shattered.

In the panic afterwards, they turned on me again, King leading the
charge.

But what really hurt was the fact that Frol turned too.  None of the
others bothered me.  There was comraderie, but no attachment.  But to
have Frol come after me.  The man, woman, of my dreams came after me.

I ran but they captured me.  Rednose shot me, more or less by accident.
Not an experience I ever want to repeat.  Even on the lowest stun
setting it felt like my whole body was on fire forever, at least until I
blacked out.

When King wanted to interrogate me afterwards, Frol fetched me from the
makeshift cell.  In desperation I knocked his gun away and grabbed it
myself.  The look in his eyes shattered my heart.  He actually begged me
to kill him, so no one would find out his failure.  I had no choice but
to return the gun to him.  The gratitude in his face was amazing.  I'd
do nearly anything to see that look again.

In the medical lab, Ganga revealed he had the fever, and also admitted he
was the 11th man.  I don't think I believe him, but it got me off the
hook, and I was grateful none the less.  Too bad he's not my type.

Frol defended me again.  I want to say more about it.  I need to say
more.  But I don't know the words.

We finally got back into orbit, using the leftover bombs on the ship to
blow off the passenger cabin on the top of the ship.  The recoil was
enough to drive us away from that deadly blue star.  A reprieve from the
grave.

				  ***

Day 8:

My life seemed to end yet again.  Frol came down with the Dell Red
Spotted Fever.  Apparently the vaccine we derived from Ganga's blood
doesn't work on his biochemistry.

He tried to be brave, and insisted he could make it the rest of the
test.  It was only eight days, he protested, he wouldn't die in so short
a time.  But everyone else was unanimous, we would push the rescue
button.  We could all try again in three years, the risk wasn't worth
it.  Even King agreed.  Honor, the Academy, even Frol's manhood, none
were worth his life.

We gathered around the button and watched as King pushed it.  There was
sadness but we all knew it was the right thing to do.

Frol took off, tears streaming down his face as he ran.  Compelled, I
had to follow him.  I found him on one of the secondary observation
decks, curled up in a ball, crying.  Then I made one of the biggest
mistakes of my life.

I offered to marry Frol when she became fully female.  She protested,
but avoiding her fate was obviously on her mind.  In the end she curled
up next to me, seeming to take comfort from the contact.  I submerged
the real me, ready to do anything for Frol, even marry her as a woman.
How could I do otherwise?

				  ***

Day 7:

Our ship of fools is rescued.  But I am the greatest fool of all.
Thickhead was actually Instructor Glenn, part of the test to determine
if we were flexible and could cooperate under pressure.  His whole goal
was to ferment difficulty among us and drive us to press the rescue
button as early as possible.  The orbital shift and virus weren't part
of the test, but we still lasted 45 days, longer than almost every other
group, and with the top score overall.  We all passed with flying
colors.  Accepted into the Academy.  The victory feels hollow in so many
ways.

For some reason everyone gathered around me, offering friendship and
congratulations.  The ones that twice accused of being the 11th man.  Of
trying to kill everyone.  Amazing how fickle people can be.

I was stunned at the implications.  Frol could still be a man if he
wanted.  No failure, he's got the honors necessary to take the position
he wants.  I carefully nurtured the hopes I thought had died.  The time
had come for my heart.  Idly a part of me wondered if this is how Knu's
people feel when spring comes on their world after 12 years of winter.

Afterwards I went to visit Frol and give him the good news.  My thoughts
were heavy with how I want to say it to him.  He can become a full man.
Be what he wants to be.  Be what I want him to be.  After making small
talk for a while, I began to pace, working up the courage to say it to
him.  I stare out into space, pondering the depths of the blackness, and
of my own feelings.  I can do it.  I am ready.  I can reveal myself at
last.  For the first time ever.

I sit on the bed, the words at the tip of my tongue.  But he beats me to
it.

"If you still want me to, I can do it... be a woman..."

In my mind, I scream "No!"  But the words don't come as I look into his
eyes.  It's what he... she wants.  She's made her decision and is
willing to live with it, desires it even.  I bury the real me, crying,
in the depths of my heart, and smile at her, because that's what Frol
wants.  I will be what she wants.

How could I do otherwise?

				  Fin

Yet again, a short fic tears its way out of my subconsciousness with no
regard for my other projects.  I was watching They Were 11 for about the
fourth or fifth time, and noticed that Tada continued to blush in Frol's
presence long after Frol declares her/himself a man.  The thought went
through my head: "Maybe Tada just has a thing for guys."  I'd always
threatened to write yaoi fiction, but never carried it through, and now,
here was a perfect opportunity.  How could I do otherwise?  ;)

In the end it turned out not to be explicitly yaoi at all, just
suggestive of it, which is why this got neither a [lemon] or a [yaoi]
tag on it.  Oh well, maybe next time.

I'm not entirely happy with the results.  It needs more.  Or maybe less.

As always, I claim no ownership of the characters, settings, plots, or
anything else within this fic, even ones I did create.  And also, as
always, anyone is welcome to write their own versions of this idea, or
take this one and extend it.

	-DaR
-- 
/* Dan Root   -   XTEA cipher */  static unsigned D=0x9E3779B9,l=0xC6EF3720,s;
/* t=64bit text, k=128bit key */  #define m(x,y) ((x<<4^x>>5)+(x^s)+k[s>>y&3])
void enc(int*t,int*k){for(s=0;s!=+l;){t[0]+=m(t[1],0);s+=D;t[1]+=m(t[0],11);}}
void dec(int*t,int*k){for(s=-l;s==0;){t[1]-=m(t[0],11);s-=D;t[0]-=m(t[1],0);}}