A Well Needed Respite

Posted on Mon Jun 29, 2015 @ 10:17am by Lieutenant Nicole Anderson & Lieutenant AJ Taggart

2,453 words; about a 12 minute read

Mission: All this has happened before...
Location: Sickbay/Nicole's Quarters
Timeline: Backpost (Evening after Bethesda Mission, before Briefing)

ON:

AJ sat at his console, tapping anxiously as he tried to concentrate. All that he was detecting on sensors were ghosts and random flashes of radiation coming from the Bethesda. Checking another side of his console, he decided to locate Nicole. AJ figured that she was coming off shift at this point as well, and he would have killed to spend a small amount of time with her. Their first encounter had gone rather well, until they were rudely interrupted, and their subsequent get-togethers had been brief, given their schedules, but quality time. His query was returned- Nicole was still in Sickbay. Checking his watch, he watched as the seconds ticked by. As soon as the hour struck, AJ stepped away from his station as his replacement stepped in. He jumped into the turbolift and taking the first chance he got when the doors slid shut, he unzipped his uniform jacket to reveal the command red turtleneck underneath, releasing a breath, he managed to close his eyes for a few moments.

"Deck 3, Secondary." AJ said lazily. The computer beeped an affirmative and the turbolift shot down. The lift ground to a halt a moment later and the doors slid open with their signature pneumatic hiss. Stepping out into the brightly lit passageway, AJ strode down the corridor and entered Sickbay. Crossing through the curved walls, he entered the main room which was dimmed to allow the lone patient that was lying in one of the biobeds to sleep comfortably. Walking towards the office, he saw Nicole at her desk reading something. Knocking on the glass window, he waved playfully at her.

Nicole looked up with a start and blinked in surprise. Seeing AJ outside her office, she smiled a bit and pushed her chair back. "C'mon in," she said. "I'm just killing myself with analyses. How are you?"

Walking in, AJ gave a slight shrug. "I'm just happy to be off alert and I figured we could both use some stress relief."

Nicole sighed and rubbed her eyes. "Yeah, maybe," she said. "Someday I'll feel like I'm caught up with my paperwork." She yawned a bit. "What did you have in mind? Dinner?"

AJ thought for a moment. "I was actually thinking of maybe watching a movie or two. Do you want dinner before or after?" he asked.

"I probably should choose before. I've had a craving for rokeg blood pie for the last two hours. That's usually a sign I've gone too long without something substantial to eat." She stood up, straightened her uniform and came around her desk. "Crew lounge?"

AJ thought for a moment."It's bound to be a little crowded, are you okay with that?" he asked her,

Nicole considered it, but shook her head. "Might as well go to my quarters. If we're going to offend your home-cooked palette with replicated food, we might as well do it there."

AJ chuckled slightly. "Is that supposed to be a jab at my taste? I'm not exactly picky you know," he said, holding his hand to his chest in a gesture of mock offense. In all truth, he rather enjoyed the banter between them. For some reason, it made him feel warm and fuzzy inside whenever he spent time with her.

"You know how to cook. I know how your type is," Nicole said, smiling slightly as she passed by him and started crossing through Sickbay, her steps soundless from years of practice.

When they'd gotten to the corridor and the doors shut behind them, she let out a breath. "What was the 'movie' you had in mind?"

AJ smiled. "Well it depends on what you're looking for. I was thinking Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom." he said. Granted, movies were old but this one was a classic that had endured even over hundreds of years.

"Sounds overly dramatic," she said. She draped her hands behind her back and stopped in the turbolift vestibule, grinning wryly. "So, dinner and a movie? Are you sure we aren't pushing our luck?"

"Pushing luck is something I specialize in, mi amore," AJ said as he pulled Nicole's hands back around to her front and gently spun her around with a flourish. "Now I don't know about you but I have been craving chocolate. What do you say?" he asked.

Nicole looked at him, eyes a bit wide. "I say we might need to go back to Sickbay and see what's come over you," she always blushed a bit when he smiled at her, but smiled back. "Let's start with dinner and the movie," she said. "You can get me drunk on desserts after if we're lucky."

The turbolift arrived and she called out the deck number as they stepped in. She didn't say anything, just stared at him as they rode the few decks up. She felt like she hadn't fully appreciated him before now, and the back of her mind told her she probably hadn't. She'd recognized him as being adorable, but not much deeper than that, and while she'd tried to get to know him, it had always been difficult. Now the ice seemed to be melting. *Or just the ice queen,* her mind said, snidely as she kicked herself. Maybe he'd always been this way around her, but she was too stubborn to notice.

She led him down to her door and into her quarters and wished she had brought more from home. She'd always been fairly spartan when she was traveling, but this time around, she'd brought nothing with her, a subtle reminder of where she really had wanted to be. Now, she wished she'd taken more of her holos, more of her sculptures from her patients, something to remind her of home, not just standard issue furniture. "Please," she said, "make yourself at home," she said, while kicking herself for sounding so perfunctory.

She walked over to the replicator. "We know what I'm eating, how about yourself?"

AJ took a moment to think, then turned to the replicator. "Replicator pattern Taggart-Porter-Two." A few seconds later, a plate containing a seared Porterhouse Steak with brown buttered garlic potatoes materialized on the platform. Picking up the plate, he set it down on the table and stabbed the fork into one of the potatoes, handing it to Nicole. "Taste this. It's one of my personal recipes."

Nicole sniffed at it experimentally and took the fork, chewing thoughtfully while she programmed her own dinner into the replicator. Taking her own plate and a tankard to the table, her eyebrows bobbed in appreciation. "I like the garlic and butter," she said. "The potato is an interesting texture," she said. "On Rigel, we have a tuber that's similar, but the texture is more..." she thought for a moment, "fibrous. It drove my mother mad trying to make bangers and mash." She took a forkful of blood pie and sat back in her chair, chewing thoughtfully. "The first time I tried it from a replicator, I couldn't figure out the texture. It seemed so mushy and bland. Whatever else you say about Klingon food, at least the flavor is robust."

AJ shuddered slightly as the scent reached is nostrils. Vivid memories surfaced of the time that he had been forced to endure a Klingon banquet where he had ingested a number of unsavory things. After that moment, he vowed to never sample Klingon food again.

Nicole caught the look and smiled, taking another forkful. "That is the face of someone who bit off more racht that he could chew," she said, amusement clear in her voice. "You should try pipius claws. If you like crab, you'll like those. Or krada legs with a spicy dipping sauce are really good. I'm told they taste almost like pheasant, whatever that is."

AJ chuckled again. "A pheasant is a game bird with really nice feathers that humans occasionally hunt and eat. " Grinning suddenly, he told her about the time he had gone and disturbed a group of pheasant nests and was subsequently chased by a large flock of angry birds who did not take kindly to him attempting to steal their eggs. He was surprised to hear her laugh. Normally, his amusing anecdotes earned him a chuckle, but the musical sound she was making was a nice change. "If we ever get to Earth, remind me to show one to you," he said.

"Well, that might be a long way off," Nicole said. "I just realized, Rigel's harvest festival is next week. First time I won't be there for it in a while. One week of amazing foods, dancing, music. Best planet-wide party of the year." She smiled and giggled a bit. "Last year, we had a really good batch of yon savas and the head of one of the outlying clans made a batch of yon naliveh that was so potent it had half the city passed out before sundown. We were dealing with so many hangovers the next day." She smiled a bit guiltily. "Myself included."

AJ smiled the mere thought of a hangover. It was strange how long he had gone without an actual drink or an actual hangover. Synthetic alcohol just didn't have the same flavor as regular alcohol, and if you could shake off the effects so easily, what was the fun? As they finished their meals, Nicole put the dishes back in the replicator and AJ sat back in his chair. "Well, it's good to know you aren't above having a little fun," he teased.

Nicole frowned a bit as she turned back to face him. "I wasn't that bad, was I?"

He stood up and walked over to her, giving her a kiss on her cheek. "Maybe a bit," he said, grinning to show he wasn't quite serious.

Nicole rolled her eyes and walked past him, accessing the large computer monitor by her desk. Normally she'd monitor readings in Sickbay, but instead she accessed the ship's entertainment files, bringing it out from the wall so they could watch from her couch. *People had to do a lot of work for their entertainment back in the day,* she thought.

She sat down on her couch, and AJ slid in next to her, putting his arm around her. She leaned back against him, resting her head against shoulder and instructed the computer to bring up the playback.

"You're going to love this," AJ said, excitement creeping into his voice.

Nicole didn't watch much of Earth's old cinema, she was more interested in theater. Still, she resolved to give the film, which seemed to have a very adventurous opening, a try.

"I don't understand how this relates to the shootout in the beginning," she said after a while.

"Well these stories are based on an old style called a 'serial,' AJ said. "You come in at the end of one story and launch into another. So that was one adventure ending, and this is his next one."

"Hm, neat," Nicole said. "Kind of an ongoing story that keeps the adventure up." If she were honest, she'd admit she had no idea what kind of story this was supposed to be. At times funny, at times disturbing, there was clearly adventure, but it was a very complicated story.

AJ smiled at her and hugged her a bit tighter. He was really enjoying this, being able to just spend some time with her. Their dates always seemed rushed, but he was hoping to slow things down, in a sense. He'd been able to glean a bit of her background, but he always felt there was something she was holding back. Still, he couldn't ignore that she'd changed lately, and he was happy for that.

"What a beautiful palace," Nicole said, watching the Indian dancers on the screen. "An impressive spot of civility in that jungle--BY PROVIDENCE WHAT ARE THEY EATING?"

AJ busted out laughing. "Squeamish, Nicole? I find that hard to believe," he chuckled. The dinner scene was always the point where many people lost their nerve. Things like "Snake surprise" or "eyeball soup" or "chilled monkey brains" wasn't what most humans considered food. The first time he saw it, however, he immediately understood the comedic effect the director was going for.

Nicole slapped his leg and kept a face of disgust through the rest of the scene. When it was finally over, she shook her head. "Humans are beyond strange," she said.

AJ chuckled again and kissed her head. "Don't worry, you'll love the next scene."

Nicole wasn't sure "love" was the word, but she found the interplay between characters amusing. As the movie went on though, and the tone got considerably darker, she was convinced that humans had some weird views on entertainment a few hundred years ago.

AJ, for his part, was pretty happy with Nicole's reaction. She gasped and squealed and pressed against him at all the right moments, scooting back from being in front of him to pretty much sitting on his lap, and he'd seen this movie enough to know when to hold her tight and help cover her eyes. When it reached its climax though, Nicole couldn't tear her eyes away and AJ let her take it all in. In the end, the hero got the girl, the children being enslaved were free, the bad guys died and all was right with the world.

As the monitor turned off, AJ gave Nicole a little jostle. "What did you think?"

"That was quite the up-and-down ride," she said. At first I thought it was going to be all gore and horror but I think overall it was a good movie, maybe just lacking in story." She smiled and elbowed him slightly. "The lead character's attractive though."

AJ chuckled. "You're not the first woman to think so," he said, wrapping his arms around her. "So, what do we do now?"

"Well," Nicole said, blushing slightly, "I'm honestly not sure. We haven't really had a full evening together like this. I suppose at this point I should call down to Sickbay to see what new disaster is waiting for m---" Her last word was cut off as AJ leaned in and kissed her. It was soft and sweet, and took her a bit by surprise. She quickly returned it, savoring the moment, but trying not to lose her head.

When they finally pulled apart, she smiled nervously, then shrugged. "I suppose Sickbay can do without me for a little while." She leaned in and kissed him again, glad to finally have at least an evening.


JP

Lt. AJ Taggart
CSO

Lt. Nicole Anderson
CMO

 

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