"Ok..." Slightly surprised, Abbie sat back, glass in hand, waiting for the context her lover would no doubt provide in justification for the acknowledgement.  Last week it had been to the Separation of Church and State following an appeal hearing.  Last month it had been to a Defense Attorney who had been so useless he had failed to spot an opening Alex had uncharacteristically offered which could have destabilised the whole case.

"To Johanna Sigurdardottir."

"Who?"  Abbie blinked, the unusual sounding name not ringing any bells with her.

"Iceland's new Prime Minister."

"Are we moving to Iceland?"

"Maybe... they seem like a sensible country..."

"Because they've just appointed a woman as Prime Minister?" asked Abbie, happy to acknowledge the still too rare occurance of such an event, although New Zealand, Canada and Britain and Germany had all coped with that milestone relatively recently as far as she could quickly recall.

"Because she's a lesbian."

"I'll drink to that..."



"Helen?" called Nikki, maximising the web browser as if that would somehow magically reveal extra details about this rather momentous occasion.

"What?"

"Come look at this..." called Nikki again, her voice full of a passionate energy that Helen had never been able to ignore, not when she had been an allegedly happily engaged Governor and certainly not now she was living with her love 'on the outside', even if a warm bath was hard to get out of when it was snowing outside.

"What is it?" asked Helen finally, padding into the living room wrapped in a towel, her skin still glistening with the water which would hopefully still be warm when she got back into it... with Nikki.

"Johanna Sigurdardottir..."

"What's she done now?" asked Helen, not focussing on the text of the article, instead recalling that the older woman had been the Minister for Social Affairs in Iceland (it was one of the accidental benefits of her work with the Prison Service - an encyclopedic knowledge of International Politicians responsible for issues even tangentially related to the rehabilitation of societies affected by crime).

"Become Prime Minister!"

"Of Iceland?"

"No, of Outer Mongolia..." teased Nikki kindly, pulling Helen into her lap... "...you're wet!"

"I was in the bath love..."

"And I got you out of it..." observed Nikki sadly, knowing how much Helen enjoyed relaxing in a hot bath.

"I can always get back into it..."

"It would seem fitting..." agreed Nikki, shifting Helen onto her feet once more so the taller brunette could stand, obviously intending to share the experience.

"It would?"

"Iceland's famous for its hot springs..."




"So, did I miss anything?" asked Sam Carter, settling down into the couch and drawing the compliant Janet Fraiser into an intimate tangle of arms and legs.

"Whilst you were on PX5-89V?"

"Yeah, Planet Bland... I have yet to work out how Daniel managed to find two weeks of interesting ruins on an otherwise blank canvas..."

"Cassie picked her courses, the fridge finally died..." mused Janet, starting as she always did with their immediate domestic news.

"Do you need me to get a new one tomorrow?"

"No, it had started making a fatal sounding clunking noise the day after you'd jumped so I actually already had one being delivered the day after it died... which was fortunate," observed Janet practically.

"A fatal sounding clunking noise? Was that your professional opinion Doctor?" teased Sam, enjoying the mundane domestic details.

"Yes... oh, and I taped the Inaugaration for you."

"Was it good?" asked Sam, wondering whether the new President had had his SGC briefing yet... and when she'd be summoned to explain something.  At least this time she might not need to dumb down the quantum physics to sub-Jack O'Neill levels of simplicity.

"Very..."

"The right wingers didn't find their heads exploding?" asked Sam, recalling some of the more crazy snippets she had noticed during the election campaign.

"No... but they might tomorrow..."

"Oh?"

"Iceland's just appointed a lesbian as Prime Minister."

"I'm amazed the world was still on its axis enough for me to be able to 'gate home..."

 


"That was an odd movie...I do not think I will watch it again" declared Ziva as the credits of 'Burn after reading' began to roll.

"Mmmm... why did we wait so long to see it?" asked Jenny, distracted from the credits by Ziva stretching and releasing her hair from its ponytail.

"We didn't... it only came onto DVD last month..." explained Ziva, deciding she didn't like the song that was playing over the credits.

"Didn't I see an email about a trip being organised to see it at the theater?" continued Jenny, enjoying the view Ziva was giving her lover as she bent down to retrieve the disc from the player.

"And numerous other emails about how ironic and funny it was for a group of NCIS agents to go and see a film about the inadequecies of the CIA..." recalled Ziva.

"I'm not sure we were laughing where the Director wanted us to laugh..."

"All the more reason not to watch in a movie theater with other people," said Ziva, contentedly returning to the couch to relax with Jenny, the TV now turned off.

"I'm just glad you hate movie theaters as much as I do..."

"I dislike dark places with strangers in them that you expect me to relax in.  I do not hate movie theaters...but I understand that you do not feel you can go to them with me..." said Ziva carefully, a carefulness that Jenny did not miss.

"You think I am paranoid to worry about being seen with you..."

"Not exactly.  I understand the pressure you are under as the first female head of a Federal agency... but I do not believe that will be always the case."

"Even if it stops being a 'boys club' I don't see them accepting a lesbian anytime soon..."

"It will happen."

"How can you be so confident?" asked Jenny, drawing Ziva closer to her, enjoying the reassuring presence of her lover and her absolute certainty of things that Jenny so often worried at.

"Iceland is one of America's allies yes?"

"I suppose..." Jenny wasn't following Ziva's leap of logic.

"What's good enough for Iceland will be good enough for NCIS..."



"That's crazy..." muttered Esther, throwing away the newspaper in disgust, not caring that the papers scattered across the Doctor's Lounge.

"What is?" asked Maca, entering just in time to see her lover tossing the newspaper across the room.

"This...tonta... thinks that Spain isn't homophobic, just sexist!" fumed Esther, gesturing towards the newspaper as if that suddenly provided Maca with everything she needed to know.

"Esther..." sighed a confused Maca, wearily slumping into the couch next to her lover, "...I've been in surgery for 8 hours... you're not making sense."

"A spokeswoman says that Spain is more likely to elect a gay man than a straight woman..."

"She's right...probably..." decided Maca, prudently trapping Esther in a close embrace so as to avoid being hit by any more exuberant gestures.

"Why?"

"Look at all the bad press women get just for wearing the wrong clothes...anyway, why the sudden comparison between tolerance of sexuality and gender?" asked Maca, surprising herself with how well she was keeping up with this rather unexpected topic of conversation given how hard she was having to concentrate on not yawning.

"Iceland just found itself a lesbian leader..."

"We'll ask Theresa to send them a tortilla turner to celebrate..." muttered Maca as she, now in the warm, comfortable presence of her lover, gave into sleep.



[In all seriousness, I would like to congratulate Ms. Sigurdardottir on her new position and wish her the very best of luck in what I do not doubt will be a challenging time.  As someone who doesn't find other people's personal lives particularly important, I'm more interested in how successful she has been as a Cabinet Minister & how the people of Iceland rate her (it seems very highly) and her ability to lead a coalition, than what her personal orientation is.  That the people of Iceland seem to also hold that view has taught me a lot about the people of Iceland & my respect (which was already high for them in light of recent times) has increased.  I do, nevertheless, recognise that for many people across the world, this is a major moment (either progressive and positive or disasterous), just as the Inaugaration of President Obama was two
weeks ago.  Good luck to them both.