Joint Personal Log - LtCmdr Waterhouse & Lt Atarah - "D Is For Darkside, That's Good Enough For Me"

Posted on Tue Aug 19th, 2014 @ 7:31pm by Commander Amelia Waterhouse & Danielle Atarah

2,898 words; about a 14 minute read

Mission: In the Dark

Amelia was still reeling from the surprise her friend, her captain, had laid upon her shoulders. It honestly had come out of nowhere, Amelia literally had sat with her jaw on the deck for almost a minute when Rochelle had finally made it clear to her. Amelia was Executive Officer of the Vindicator.

On the one hand, she was excited by it: the challenge of it, the advancement of her career, the chance to work so close with Rochelle. But then she was also terrified. Running a department had been stressful enough that Amelia had gone running back to Intel with open arms when they called her back after her time on the Griffin, despite the fact that her mother made it clear she didn't like intel at all. It had taken some time, and a lot of help from her father, to convince her mother to talk to her again after that transfer. Now she was responsible for being the Captain's safety net and support in running a whole ship? Not to mention that Dani was going to hate her if she wasn't careful about how she played this.

Amelia decided the best way to start was cookies. She'd pulled up one of Gram's recipes, and instead of replicating she meticulously followed the directions. When it only took her two tries to get it right, she was pleased. She loaded the cookies into a tin that featured the Animaniacs on the top and wrapped around the sides, and headed out back to deck six. She was rocking her favorite TMNT tshirt, the green one with the orange mask across the chest, with a denim mini skirt and a pair of orange flip flops.

Dani was in her room, doing something she shouldn't be doing. The small quarters were almost desolate in their emptiness, her bags still almost fully packed, and the only personal items that decorated the walls was the row of comic books at the top shelf of an otherwise empty bookcase. The only exception to the pristine room was the desk, where pieces of electrical conduits and metal pieces lay around amidst solder, power tools and a big pair of high-strength magnifiers.

Dani half sat, half crouched atop her tools, wearing an oversize pair of magnifying gogglers with changeable lenses, focusing intently on the electrical board in front of her and a pair of micro tweezers, soldering a segment of micro conduit.

The chimes went off, and Dani paused, grunted, put the tools back on the table gently and covered the circuit board with an anti-static fabric cover.

"Open sesame," she muttered and then, remembering the goggles on her eyes, pushed them up to sit on her forehead.

Amelia strode in when the door opened, holding the cookie filled tin in front of her, not quite unlike a shield. It gave her some measure of comfort and familiarity to see the mess of a tinkering engineer already spread on Dani's desk, even if nothing else had been settled in beyond the beloved comic books.

"Nice eye ware," Amelia commented, offering the tin to Dani as she approached.

Dani blinked, then smirked, "Thanks. I try to keep myself fashionable in the presence of high ranking office— ooh! Nice box!" she took it curiously and looked at it from all sides, examining the drawings. "Great detail for a replica. You know, I've seen an original once from 1995," she spelled that date reverently, "beautiful shape, too. This isn't a bad copy... so what trouble are you getting me into this time?" She gave her friend a suspicious smile, "last time you gave me something we ended up raiding a mine system, and I had to replace one perfectly suitable pair of eyes." She grinned, and returned her attention to the box, finally noticing there's something in there, rattling it gently and listening.

Amelia smiled at Dani's reaction to the tin. "Well, if someone hadn't run off on her own, she may not have gotten her sexy eyeball upgrade. You know my Dad's still jealous of your peepers, yeah?" Amelia let a corner of her lips curl upward just a little, crossing her arms as she watched her friend shake the tin and listen to the cookies shift inside. "Careful, you might break them."

"Yeah, you told me," Dani nodded and continued inspecting the box, sniffing at it suspiciously before opening the lid slowly, "ooh," she sniffed deeper. "Wow, Waterslide, I can't wait to hear what trouble you're going to recruit me into if that's your payment." She picked a cookie with delight and sniffed it deeply and took a bite, ignoring the goggles that started sliding down onto her nose.

"OMG," she spelled that out with a mouth full of cookie, "Chocolate chip! Watermelon, whatever you want, I'm yours."

"So, it's not just men that feeding works on?" Amelia teased, grinning at Dani's reaction. She was glad the cookies had turned out right, sometimes that wasn't a given. She wasn't in a rush to move onto the confession portion of this visit though. She turned her eyes to Dani's desk again. "What are you working on?"

"Stuff," Dani blurted, showering her immediate vicinity with crumbs. She smirked, closing her mouth to chew properly, and swallowed. "I'm just playing around with spare parts I found." And some that she brought with her, but she didn't think that detail was that important to share. "It's still all..." she gestured with the box in her hand, "messy. We should sit on the couch, it's cleaner." In fact, the last person to sit on this couch was the previous occupant of the small room.

"So what's up, Commander Waterhouse?" Dani smirked and pushed the goggles back up to her forehead, then picked another cookie. "You seem serious, and you brought cookies. Should I worry? You're not pregnant or something, are you? I swear, I'm not the father," she snorted an amused chuckle and collapsed into the couch, biting into another cookie.

Amelia followed the energetic engineer to her couch, still trying to figure out how to tell her friend about her new job. At the joke about pregnancy, Amelia giggled. "If somehow your genetics had defied all biology and gotten through the defenses of my birth control, I'd be in sickbay having them investigate that miracle. They'd probably come collect you for an autopsy next." She slipped out of her flip flops as she sat down, tucking her legs up under herself. As she settled, she reached over and plucked the goggles off of Dani so she could look closer at them.

Dani swallowed. "Hey! There's an insult in there somewhere..." she twirled her finger at her friend and took another bite off the cookie in her hand.

"Hardly," Amelia returned with a snort, pulling the goggles on so she could look through them. She turned and looked at Dani enjoying the cookies and smiled at her friend, then she sighed. "So, I didn't know this was happening, let alone it was a possibility... Rochelle literally blind sided me."

Dani paused mid-bite to look at Amelia with a mix of curiosity and surprise. "What? Like... with a blindfold?" she blinked twice, "Ivanova? Commander Captain Ivanova?" her smile widened slightly. "Good on you, Warehouse! What is that, your third Captain?" she grinned.

"XO," Amelia corrected, dropping her gaze to study her hand through the goggles.

"No, she was promoted to Captain," Dani gave her friend a weird look, "remember? Right around the time you received," she brushed her neck with mock disgust, "more stuff thingies on your neck there. But it's okay, I guess ranks don't matter when you're blindfolded," she grinned.

Amelia let out a small laugh, finally catching Dani's joke. "No, no... and she would have only been the second captain I snogged, if that's what I meant. She's made me her XO."

"Ha! So you did have a previous one, I knew it! You and your 'it was only professional'," Dani laughed, giving Amelia a triumphant look. "She made you do what to her XO?"

"Levine was just the one time, in the mines, so I could slip her a note to tell her who I was without the fat bastard catching on," Amelia insisted with a grumble. "Wish it'd been something legit, instead of an act of subterfuge." Amelia pulled off the goggles, looking for somewhere safe to put them down. "I am the Executive Officer for the USS Vindicator," Amelia laid out finally, not being sure where to lay the goggles, so she set them in her lap with a hand on them to keep them safe.

"While I was crawling down dirty shafts — and dangerous, mind you! — you were busy smooching my Captain. Sometimes I just want to be you. Well, minus the intelligence oxymoron business. And the phasers. And I could do without the new pips. And the ginger." She grinned, an expression that stayed on her face as she finally absorbed the second part of the conversation. She leaned forward, and the grin only had a little time to fade before Dani's eyebrows furrowed in suspicion, then sarcasm, then amusement, and finally sheer humor.

"Right," she snorted, "of course you are," she laughed. "You have weird ideas for role playing fantasies, but I can play. I can be chief of security; I even have the handcuffs and everything," she smirked, her chest rocking with fits of chuckling. "Seriously, Waterhouse, if that's what you have in mind, you really didn't have to bribe me with cookies," she grabbed another cookie broke it in two, and settled back into the sofa, giving Amelia an amused grin.

"If I wanted you handcuffed, I have my own," Amelia assured her, her hand falling to the small pocket on the front of her denim skirt. She slid her fingers inside, and pulled out a pair of full sized handcuffs, twirling them on her finger. "But if you doubt me, I can show you to my large new quarters down on deck eight. If you'll dare risk being seen with me now that I've gone to the dark side."

Dani stared for a moment, the amused expression still frozen on her face as her eyes examined Amelia's. "You... are serious," she allowed doubtfully. "Come on, Waterbucket, don't joke about things like that, I'm allergic to brass jokes. Here," she raised the box of cookies and offered it to the woman in front of her, "have a cookie and let's forget about yanking each others' chain for the day. I'll even try to call you by your actual name."

She was smirking, but traces of doubt still swam in her eerily light-brown eyes. "Just admit defeat in trying to trip me in this joke, and then you can have a cookie, and I won't get all panicky about having brass actually inside my quarters." She blinked, "well, I did have brass in my room before, but they were either here to take me to the brig, or they were naked, so that doesn't really count. You're not here to take me to the brig, are you?"

"I could be naked, if it'd make you feel better," Amelia insisted, "But are you up to something that I should be taking you to the brig for?" Amelia tilted her head with a smirk upon her lips to tease her friend.

"Always," Dani nodded, but her smile was gone. "You're not joking."

"Almost wish I was, but it's not exactly an offer one turns down," Amelia dismissed with a sigh. "My new quarters are HUGE though, and have a nice view port."

"I would have turned it down," Dani muttered, almost instinctively, a half-eaten cookie still in her hand. "So... you are the new XO. What Ivanova was to Griffin, you are to the Vindicator, only under Ivanova... here." She blinked. "You've got to be shitting me." She picked herself up from the couch and walked to the replicator, using its touch interface rather than voice commands to order herself a drink. "Seriously," she sighed, "this is all kinds of fucked up." The replicator hummed and Dani picked up a steaming cup and turned back to Amelia. "I remember when I outranked you, and I wasn't even demoted or anything for years." She sipped, giving Amelia a considering look. Though her outraged was somewhat humorous, she was still obviously calculating the implication of all of this.

"I can still be naked, if it'll help?" Amelia offered, sighing softly. She pulled her knees to her chest, and wrapped her arms around them after setting aside the goggles. "You can turn something like this down, because you're not looking for a career, you're stuck here because you have to be. Me, if I turn this down, that's a mark on my record and my career will suddenly crawl to a near stand still. I could only turn it down if I didn't intend to stick around for any length of time."

Dani was about to answer - something that would come out quite poisonous, probably, a question about what sort of career one expects to have in Starfleet, but she forced herself, instead, to take another sip from the steaming liquid in her cup. It stung her tongue, but she didn't care. "Well. If that's what you want to do with your life, that's up to you," she shrugged, "it's not like we're married or anything. Your choices are yours." And mine are mine, she continued silently. Does this mean she will have to be careful around her friend, now? She would have liked to believe that things would remain the same, but there were certain things that probably will change now. Especially now. Especially with what goes on outside with the Fleet and the Federation and Earth and...

"Well," she scratched her head finally. "Does this mean I can get out-of-the-brig-free cards now?" Her mouth twitched finally towards a small smile.

"You have the same policy my Dad has with me. I won't turn you in if I'm the one to catch you, but I can't save your ass if someone else does... and you'll be answering to me if you're doing something I think is stupid or unsafe," Amelia answered, resting her chin on her knees. This wasn't going as bad as it could be, but she could certainly tell Dani was not pleased.

Dani snorted, "You say 'catch me' as if that happens." but it was the 'answering to me' part that she took into consideration. This could be either wonderful or disastrous, and only time would really tell. "Okay," She nodded and walked back to the sofa. "Can I use your new big room for parties?"

Amelia signed in relief, tucking her legs under herself again. "Nobody's perfect, but I'll admit you're slipperier than most. Just keep your nose clean, and I'll pretend you're as innocent as you play at." Amelia winked and grinned. "As for the parties, we'll see. I reserve veto power over the guest list if I say yes."

"Fine, but I decide on the music and the food," Dani nodded and sat back down, "and you make me more cookies," she smiled. Things will change, but not all things must change.

Amelia laughed. "I'll see about making you some snicker doodles next."

Dani couldn't help a grin. "I'm into anything that involves snicker doodles." Almost anything. "Well," she raised her glass, "I guess that's congratulations. Are you going to throw a party?"

"Maybe once I make more friends than you, Rochelle and Teá." Amelia shrugged. "Though an open invitation to the whole ship for a party in the XO's quarters could make me popular with the lower decks... though I wouldn't be able to pull out the good stuff like the Romulan Ale." Amelia laughed.

"Bribes! You're learning the ropes!" Dani smirked. "But you're forcing me to decide between banning you from my quarters completely — or adjusting my no-brass-in-my-room rule. Tough choice, Waterpark," the smirk turned to a grin — and just like that, she relaxed again. Whatever happens, at least the small things remain the same. "You're not going to make me call you 'ma'am' now, are you? 'cause I gotta say — that ain't happening."

"If you started calling me ma'am, I'd start carrying my cat'o'nine around with me to use on you when you dared. And I thought you said brass are allowed if they're not wearing clothes? Do I just have to strip down to shut you up?" Amelia shook her head, grinning wide at her friend's ribbing.

"Tempting," Dani snickered, "But I have to say, I kinda like your shirt. If you're taking it off, you're risking me stealing it. So don't tempt me, Lieutenant Commander XO Ma'am," she grinned and saluted with her cup.

Amelia growled with a grin, and pounced on Dani. If necessary, she'd make her way back to her quarters through the Jefferies tubes if she was down a shirt when this was over, but now that she was sure her friend wasn't going to try to push her out the airlock over her new job, she needed to do something to get the cheekiness in check.

=/\= END LOG =/\=

Lt Commander Amelia Waterhouse
Executive Officer
USS Vindicator

Lieutenant Danielle Atarah
Engineering Officer
USS Vindicator

 

RSS Feed