Title: Just a Joke?

Author: Alan Hitchen

Email: darkmere2000@yahoo.co.uk

Archive: http://www.realmoftheshadow.com/alan.htm

Disclaimer: Popular is the property of Touchstone Television

Pairing: Sam/Nicole

Rating: PG-13

Summary: Sam thinks about nicknames.

It was just a joke.

I called her Satan and she called me Spam. And that way no one would even think we were friends let alone lovers. But we were, not friends that is, but lovers.

Actually, that's not quite right, the word lovers implies love, and to be fair Nic was clear from the start, as far as she was concerned it was just sex, not love.

But that's not the point. I called her Satan and it was just a joke - until the other day.

New ultra-slow-motion film of the first atom bomb test had been uncovered for a documentary about the Manhattan Project. I wasn't paying much attention as the narrator droned on about the facts and figures that eventually added up to nuclear armageddon, the literal creation of hell on earth, but then came the test itself and I watched with interest.

At first all seemed quiet in the pre-dawn desert, then the dull grey object sitting atop the tall steel tower exploded with a blinding flash, and the fireball blossomed before my eyes. Micro-second by micro-second the boiling angry mass devoured everything it touched.

Then I saw it.

Just one frame. For just one infinitesimal moment of time the swirling clouds of destruction formed an image.

A face.

Of someone I knew.

Of someone I loved.

It was the face of Nicole - with horns!

I called her Satan and it was just a joke.

Wasn't it?