The Most Dangerous Game I: Love

Posted on Mon May 28th, 2018 @ 9:57pm by Captain Charybdis MacGregor & Commander Fiona McCray & Lieutenant Commander Selune
Edited on on Mon May 28th, 2018 @ 9:58pm

0 words; about a 1 minute read

Mission: Operation: Risa!
Location: USS Bonne Chance, Deck 5, Commander Charybdis' Quarters
Timeline: 2265

"So she's supposed to be on leave for the next four days, but she was here on the ship in her swimsuit. Now," the Science ensign looked around nervously and dropped his conspiratorial whisper down to a practically inaudible one, "she made me... well, she strongly recommended that I never mention it ever. But she did say that she was very upset, and I know that she wasn't supposed to be here on the ship."

The young ensign squirmed a bit- he was obviously balancing his need to convey the information with what had actually occurred, and Fiona suspected there was a touch more to the tale than he was telling. "She was... she was a little... the Commander, she's really a sport, you know? We make a lot of jokes around Science all the time and she's right there with us, y'know? And we know she's jumped ranks lately, but she's a good chief and we get a lot of good work done and she recognizes everybody's contributions."

"It wasn't like her, Lieutenant Commander McCray. Not like her at all," the young man with the receding hairline and the brush-over haircut stated firmly. "She might drum me out for telling you, but she's never spoken to me or any of the guys like that, and I tellya, something's wrong. I woulda brought it to Doctor McKenzie but he's still on leave... but you two are friends, right? I saw you were on leave together last week with that bombing at the hotel, so..."

Fiona stood silently hands clasped in the small of her back and listened to the young science officer stammer and babble. Her usually mobile face remained expressionless the entire time, except for a an occasional eyebrow lift. Ah laird, I wonder what he did. She finally sighed and nodded "Yes, the commander and I are friends." she said simply in a stone cold tone not really trusting herself to say more without being wildly inappropriate.

"Please don't tell her it was me, ma'am. I don't want her to be mad at me, and she said she'd forget me... disturbing... her when she was off duty as long as I didn't tell anyone. If something is wrong and I'm right, please find a way to have heard about it other than me?"

Fi broke protocol and stepped into Barclay's personal space and laid a gentle hand on the ensign's arm. "Bar-clay, it's alreet. Ye duin good lad," she let warmth into her tone and her expression, "this will be our little secret, nivver ye fret. The Commander's a guid lass.... I'll no tell her." She gave the junior officer a slight smile, "best my myth oov kenning everythin' thet goes on here keep on growin'," she stepped back and straightened smartly.

"Carry on, Ensign. By tha way... guid job in tha dilithium chamber experiments, been reading tha reports and you've been proper thorough," the praise came easy. She turned to leave. "Oh, and Barclay, if ye do tell anyone else aboot this business with tha Commander... I'll stoof ye intae an airlock an cycle it," she gave him a little nod and strolled down the corridor towards the crew quarters.


"Y-yes ma'am, Lieutenant Commander. Nope. I was never here, this never happened... look at me talking to myself like I'm crazy. Yup, should get back to work, that's what I oughta do..." the excitable ensign strolled away with a purpose.

Fiona's eyes narrowed as she walked away. She waited until she was out of view to pick up speed. There were only a couple of places that Char would be, logically speaking, if she was upset. The engineer's lips pursed and she took a quick side trip to her quarters to pick up a couple of things... which as generally happened these days included the ship's cat. Teague darted out the door as she exited her room with her non-regulation bag of holding and then fell in step at her heels.

The engineer was only stopped twice on the way to Charybdis' quarters. Nothing official, just a couple of the junior officers congratulating her on her new rank. She thanked them graciously and moved on as quickly as good manners would allow.

She paused outside of Char's door then tapped the intercom beside it. "Permission tae enter, Commander?" she said formally. She was somehow unsurprised when there was no answer.

Fi gave a snort and looked down at Teague. "Really? " she asked the big orange tom conversationally as she pulled out her multitool and simply bypassed the lock. "On me own ship... as if!"

The door slid open in short order, and the rooms beyond were dark. Apparently if she were here she wasn't keeping any ambient light sources turned on, so save for the narrow rectangle of light that spilled in from the hallway, the quarters were black as pitch.

Teague strode in like he owned the place, and his small companion did the same. She pulled the tool out of the lock as she went allowing the doors to close behind her.

She knew these vessels inside and out, and her hand automatically found the light panel and she palmed it to half illumination. Sure enough, there was a canvas bag with what looked like most of Char's belongings on her desk spilling out onto the desk, as well as some of the packages she had brought back from their shopping trips on the floor.

"Char, I know yer in here and Teague an' I are no goin tae leave."

The wee scot was rewarded by a sniffle from behind the bed.

"Well, Are ye gaen tae coom oot oor do I need to coom in after ye?" Fi asked in the same tone her mother had always used when she had to coax her daughter out into the open.

The silence that followed answered her question. The Vulcan lass apparently wasn't coming out, and coming in after her would be the order of the day.

Fiona fought a smile. "Stubborn," she said gently then did what her mother had always done when she'd resorted to 'denning up' as the dear woman had called it. Fi made a mental note to call home and talk to Mum as soon as possible. Being the direct sort she simply hopped up on the bed and walked to the other side and peered down.

Curled up on the floor, still clad in her swimsuit, arms tucked tightly to her body and knees pulled nearly to her chin lay the Vulcan vixen. Her hair was somewhat tangled and spread about behind her, and her eyes were closed. She sniffled, showing a sign of life, but that was all Fiona got from her.

Fi shook her head and sighed softly. She dropped off the side of the bed lightly and sat down on the floor next to her friend, close but not touching her. "You want tae coom here eudail?" the affectionate term slipped out easily. "Dinna greet yersel' so... they're generally no worth eet" she said quietly as she pulled a box of tissues out of her bag and sat them down next to her. She reached out and stroked the younger woman's hair. "Broke yer heart, did he?"

The violet eyes opened slowly and she nodded. "Mmm so stupid..." she murmured.

"Pfft! Whist with thet now... yer no stupid. Yer a clever puss. He's joost a man and eudail, they'll turn ye inside oot an' nivver break a sweat oor it," her hand continued to stroke her friend's hair, "want tae tell auld Auntie Fi all aboot tha flavor oov jack ass thet he was?"

With a long and dramatic sigh, she unkinked her arms and levered herself off the floor- obviously she had been down there in that position for a while, and the puddle of salty tears was quite impressive, particularly given how many of them had been soaked up by her hair. She shifted her weight and dropped her head into the redhead's lap, resting her head on her arm.

With an eerie recall she narrated and repeated the conversation word for word. Fiona had never quite grasped this aspect of her unusual friend, but inflections, pauses, statements... all of it had apparently been faithfully recorded and she spit it all back out, theoretically flawlessly like a recording device. She could not mimic the captain's voice, but his speech pattern was easily identifiable.

Throughout the whole diatribe, the Scott continued to stroke her friend's hair and shoulder and didn't make a sound. The only time she shifted was to pull out some tissues and press them into Chary's hand.

"So I didn't know what else to do, so I beamed back up, leaving his gifts there and the ring that I bought him... and I collected my things from his quarters and I came back heeeere and then I tried not to but I couldn't help it and I started crying and I can't stop..." and sure enough, she began sobbing once more.

Waiting until the Vulcan wound down from her speech, Fiona then spoke the words that women have been using since Eve got framed for getting the first couple kicked out of the Garden of Eden. "The man is a fool."

"I did what you said... I talked and told him how I felt and I stayed calm and I tried to explain and find ways and... and he just got mad and I screwed it all up..." A colossal nose blowing occurred after that, demolishing a tissue.

Fi gathered the larger woman up into a hug, "Och muirnn, fruim tha sound oov things you didna screw anythin' oop. He was... a right bastard."

"We just want different things... and that's okay... he isn't a bastard, he was trying... kind of..." The pointy-eared girl shuddered slightly.

"Why does it hurt so bad, Fi?" she asked simply. "I feel like I'm going to die... but I don't."

Fiona gave a soft snort and kept her opinion of the Captain's efforts to herself. "Ah... aye, I ken. Tha first heartbreak is always tha worst. It's hard when a dream dies. And no muirnn ye won't die even though it will feel like you will and you'll almost wish it. You'll survive... and it'll get better." she soothed, "there's a process."

The alien girl's breath hitched for a while as she lay silently, then Teague came over to inspect her, and she reached out to scritch the cat's ears.

"First we grieve... we cry fur ourselves, our dashed hopes, what might have been and the stinkin' in joostice oov it all..."

"I wanted to have his childreeeeeennnnnn," she wailed as Fi struck a chord, and Teague, with the instincts of a survivor, ran for his life before being pulled into an embrace.

The little Scott successfully stomped on those instincts and let her friend use her as a small wailing wall. "Shhhh... shhh I ken ye did, muirnn."

After an hour or two of similar confessions that were of no surprise to the engineer, who understood her friend's dreams of home and hearth, and an ordinary life, she had calmed down enough to at least sit up for a few minutes successfully and brush the hair out of her face.

Fi got up long enough to get a cold washcloth. "Wash yer face," she said briskly as she rummaged in her bag and pulled out a bottle of blue liquid. She cracked the seal on the Romulan ale she'd picked up and handed it to her friend "Just a wee nip... nae too mooch," she cautioned as she dove back into the bag for a container and a spoon.

The violet eyes lit up as she saw the bottle. "Oh Fi, that is exactly what I need!" she exclaimed, and in the time that it took for Fiona to dive into her bag she heard the distinct sounds of mouthfuls being swallowed. Multiple mouthfuls, by someone apparently quite proficient at guzzling the pale blue ale. A sip indeed...

The engineer straightened and took the bottle back. "Jaysus!... joost a bit... nae oblivion!" she chided without an ounce of heat behind it.

"I'll be fine, I just... it'll numb the pain, that's all. And that's JUST what I needed Fi... thank you!" Her words were not slurred and despite having drained perhaps twenty percent of the bottle, she did not appear to be suffering from the burning sinuses that tended to accompany the tart liquor.

"mm," The engineer didn't give an opinion, she just twisted the top off of the self chilling container she had in her hands and passed it and the spoon over to her friend. Charybdis looked at the container then looked back at Fiona questioningly.

"It's the ultimate earthgirl remedy fer man troobles," the engineer said gravely. " Triple chocolate truffle chunk with raspberry swirls." She gave the Vulcan a crooked smile, "Mum sends me care packages....and this is an emergency stash. Straight fruim Gelatto Robertos in Edinborough."

The broken-hearted bombshell looked at it dubiously, but took out a spoonful and tasted it, then her eyes closed and she savored the spoonful. Fi had seen Char eat, and 'savor' was not usually a word that came to mind- 'wolf', 'demolish' or perhaps 'terrorize' were terms some might use in description of the voluptuous Vulcan's relationship to food, but seldom had she ever seen the woman actually savor the flavor of something until now.

Apparently the legends of chocolate and Vulcans had some basis in fact after all.

At the rate of one spoonful per minute- and miracle of miracles, she shared well with others- Char seemed to be on the mend. "Where's Selune, anyway? Just when I could really use a cat to hug," she joked, a sure sign that her mood was on the upswing.

Fiona chuckled and pulled out her communicator, "McCray tae Selune... coom een Ki-tteh," she said after she punched in the pilot's code.

She shrugged a shoulder at Char, "Proobably in orbit with her new play toy. Last time I passed her she was bubblin' boot takin a test drive."

"That's good. May I have more ale please?" Chary asked politely. The return of her gentle manners was a good sign as well

Fi slid her the bottle as she tried Selune's com code again, and the alien menace once again put a healthy dent in the bottle that seemed as though it should have been toxic. "She's a good flyer. She needs to be able to do more than just fly the Bonnie like a cargo ship... I hope Patrick doesn't take it away from her. I hope he doesn't transfer me off the ship..."
Apparently that thought disturbed her considerably, because she buried herself in the bottle for a few more gulps after that.

"Herrrre kitteh kitteh kitteh," she said ominously into the communicator, mugging for Char's amusement and taking the opportunity to tease Selune at the same time. The engineer believed in multi-tasking. Teague came out of hiding and wound around his human companion purring loudly. "Not talkin tae you, brainless," she told the tabby affectionately.

"Mew?" Selunes voice purred back, pulling off her best impression of the typical household cat.

Fiona had to laugh at that " Hey you," she said. "Took ye long eno!" The words were affectionate, though. "Are ye on board or oot gadflying aboot?"

She hesitated then added, "Char had...'THE talk' with himself," she said by way of an explanation.

"I'm in the shuttlebay, your engineers don't like my ideas for improving things..." she hesitated before getting to the important part, taking a small breath, "How'd the talk go?"

"It did NOT go well... and tell them thet I approved tha goddam specs m'self"

"Surprise!" Chary chimed in. Obviously between the blue stuff and the chocolate something was working on her biology to improve her demeanor.

"I've been applying earth home remedies tae tha situation. We're in Char's quarters. Care tae join us oor are ye busy?"

"Heeeere kitty kitty kitty! Hee hee!" the cheerful commander chimed in.

"I'll be right there," she replied without hesitation, "Just uhm... let me finish talking about the paintjob... I don't see the problem with pink, but noooo... Also. My names not kitty," she lightheartedly growled through the com.

"It's not? How odd, the universal translator keeps translating Selune tae Kitteh..."

Between the two of them they were managing to confuse poor Teague horribly. He kept walking from one to the other, head butting them and mewing, though Char was content to pet him whenever he came close enough.

As the communicator snapped shut, Charybdis smiled at Fiona like a simpleton. At half a bottle, apparently, she was finally coming into her own... it was either that or the chocolate, but she was at least savoring the chocolate.

"He knows m'secrets y'know. But it'll be okay. Cuz he won't tell. But I promised you I'd tell ya, so I should. And now I'm drunk, whee! I never get drunk- too hard. Gotta be village-int."

Fiona fought to keep the amusement off of her face. "Feelin better, muirnn?" she asked gently, then said, "Only tell me what ye want, Char... tis ok. Secrets kin keep."

Blowing an errant lock of hair away from her face, the young woman sniffed the bottle appreciatively, inhaling deeply of the scent of which she seemed so overly fond. "Secrets... secrets are like snails. If you pull them out of their shells they are very hard to put back into the shells again, and then they never fit right again." Holding the bottle with both hands she poured enough if it down her throat again to drop half the Engineering department stone drunk. "And secret'sre supposed ta be currency, like lies. But I don't lie to my friends... well, except for the one big one. If I tell you then it spilled out s'more.. but if I don't them I'm lying to ya... cept I never say it, so it int a lie. See? M'clever. Clever clever monster they made me."

Fiona reached over and patted Char's knee, "Aye, yer verra clever muirnn." She hesitated then asked, "Who made you?" Curiosity was one of Fiona McCray's besetting sins.

 

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