Joint Duty Log - LtCmdr Waterhouse & Lt Shea - "You Came Along And You Moved Me"

Posted on Wed Sep 17th, 2014 @ 7:18am by Commander Amelia Waterhouse & Lieutenant Dustin Shea

2,630 words; about a 13 minute read

Mission: Are You Touched?

Amelia had still been nursing her Blood Punch as she'd marched up to the front desk. The Ferengi working the desk had been a little slow on the uptake that the crew of the Vindicator was leaving, now, and that all rooms rented to their group needed to be paged with the order to return to the ship. That was, until it was made clear they were still getting paid for the entire length the stay had been booked, but being emptied would therefore be available to rent out again. Then suddenly it was nothing but 'yes, ma'am', 'do you need a refill on your drink, ma'am', and 'is there anything else we can do for you, ma'am?". She emptied the glass at the front desk, leaving it there as she walked away with a head shake.

As she marched back to her room, irritated due to the combination of a shortened leave and the frustration of dealing with the Ferengi at the front desk, Amelia paged Vlimar via combadge to give him the quick run down of the situation. Once the Frenchman was brought up to speed and set to the task of collecting the crew that weren't in their rooms at the resort, Amelia set to packing her stuff into her small messenger bag. Soon she headed down the hall back to the lobby, and it occurred to her she wasn't sure what room Dustin was in, thus not knowing where to track him down. As she resigned herself to paying another visit to the front desk, she spotted the short engineer up ahead.

"Dustin," she called after him, and jogged towards him, her flip flops slapping at her heels loudly.

Dustin, hearing his name being called, paused and turned and saw that it was Amelia calling out to him. "What is up, good lookin'?" Dustin questioned noticing the hurriedness in her eyes.

Amelia grinned at Dustin, and the passing compliment he slung at her, as she closed the space between them, adjusting her bag on her shoulder. "Leave got called short," she explained with a sigh. "If you still want back into the fleet, you need to get your stuff and beam up to the ship. We can sort the paperwork on board."

"Aww, dammit. I was just about to go bar hoppin' too... Maybe even have some fun on the beach..." Dustin said with a disgruntled sigh. "Alright, I'll pack up my stuff up, shall I meet you somewhere for transport? Because, the detail of no combadge to communicate yet, you know?"

"Hey, how do you think I feel? I only got like half my leave, and the one chance to get a good bar fight in got killed because... well, stupid shit," she grumbled, electing to not go into the details she'd gotten from Rochelle about what the bartender had been up to. She didn't know if Dustin knew about the civil war mess, and didn't want to go into detail about it if he didn't. "They've got a transporter room in the lobby, though it's likely to get backed up quickly as the crew starts filtering up to the ship." Amelia chewed her lip a moment. Realistically she should be back on board as soon as possible... but it was going to take a while for all the crew down on leave to beam back up again. She could afford to kill a little time, and whenever she called for beam up, they would jump her to the front of the queue. "Though if you want me to stick around while you pack, you can skip the line."

"If you don't mind. I would greatly appreciate that and the company."

"Then lead the way," she insisted, draping her arm around his shoulder.

Dustin lead the way to the room he was staying in at the resort. It was a penthouse room that he was renting with an open departure date with the front desk. Since Dustin had not established any plans to be doing anything drastic such as reenlisting with Starfleet, his schedule was open to do whatever he pleased, whenever he pleased. That all had changed when he met Amelia, whom was still walking along side of him with her arm around his shoulder. Upon arrival to his room, he opened the door and just realized that he had not made the place suitable for company. With the limited amount of time he stayed in the room from bar hopping, clubbing, and hours spent on the beach, he never took the time to pick up the articles of clothing that he had tossed across various chairs and the bed in the room. Dustin had various engineering and computer articles scattered about various PADDs, he also had a few magazines related to Tae-Kwon-Do scattered about the coffee table.

"I apologize for the mess. Please come in, if you would like, and make yourself at home while I grab a quick shower and start packing up," Dustin offered as he started stripping as he walked into the room.

"Can you skip the shower, and get it on Vindi?" Amelia asked, as her eyes traveled over the state of his room, and she shook her head slowly. "How long have you been here?" She picked up one of the magazines, and perched on the arm of a chair as she started to flip through it, keeping half an eye on Dustin as she did.

"Yeah, I can if I'm that strapped for time," Dustin said as he halted in tracks, putting his favorite white dress shirt back over his head and refastened the button on his signature pair of khaki pants that he always wore. Dustin was also in the process of kicking off the sandals he was wearing, but managed to stop before sending one flying towards the one other pair of black shoes that was sitting at the foot of the bed. Dustin then started quickly gathering and folding the pieces of clothing scattered about the room, then place them in an open suitcase that had been tussled about and sitting in a chair opposite the bed in the bedroom. "I wanna say I've been here for a couple weeks now. The days just start blurring together after a while. Especially when sleep isn't a top priority."

"I absolutely know that feeling," Amelia returned, watching him as he moved around the room. "I've had a couple of Intel assignments where it went like that. Adjusting back to a fleet schedule afterwards was fun." She set the magazine back down with the others. After she'd had a chance to pick his brain, she might ask about borrowing it.

Dustin finished collecting all the articles of clothing and placing them in the open suitcase. He then went over to the coffee table and picked up all the PADDs and magazines on the coffee table and placed them in the suitcase. Dustin started closing the suitcase, but then remembered that he still hadn't packed up the insulin in the unit's cryo. "Oh, crap... Can't forget the insulin!" Dustin exclaimed as he made his way to fetch the vials that were stored in there. Dustin grabbed all the boxes of vials in the cryo and stuffed them in what was left of space in his suitcase. "Now... am I missing anything..." Dustin stood looking around and thinking if there was anything he was forgetting. He then started going through various drawers in the room looking and ultimately found nothing left behind. "I guess, I'm good to go now. Shall we?" Dustin questioned as he looked studiously over at Amelia.

Amelia had watched silently as Dustin moved around the room; collecting things, tucking them away into the suitcase, talking to himself. It was almost as if she wasn't there as he packed. Which was fine by her, you learn things when people forget you're there. Like she'd just learned he's diabetic. She mentally filed that away — if they were going to spend any time together they'd probably eat together, and she'd hate to tempt him with things he shouldn't be eating.

"We shall," she returned, standing from the arm of the chair she'd remained perched upon during his packing. He'd actually been pretty quick about it, and she was pleased.

Dustin grabbed his suitcase and headed to the door and opened it, motioning for Amelia to walk out first. "I was really enjoying my time here. Such a shame to see it end abruptly. What's going on that has cut the leave short?" Dustin questioned as they headed towards the lift to make their way towards the front desk to check out of the room.

"Distress call, the Klingons have identified it as something hailing from Earth. We don't have much info to go off of yet, but we'll have a representative from the Empire, Kogroth, along for the ride," Amelia explained. " I expect I'll be drug into briefings once we break orbit. Which means I need to get you settled somewhere with the paperwork before that happens."

"Oh, how exciting," Dustin said sarcastically. They both entered the lift and Dustin called for it to approach the lobby.

Amelia shrugged as the lift made the short trip down to the lobby. When they reached the front desk, it was the same Ferengi that had helped her earlier, and it took all of Amelia's patience not to break the little toad as he tried to add extra charges and fees to Dustin's bill. Eventually, the bill was squared away and Amelia escorted Dustin to the front of the line to the transporter that had been steadily growing as Dustin had fought through checkout.

She decided for a lack of better place to take him, she'd have him follow her to her quarters for now. Get him in uniform and started on paperwork until she could present him to Almar and have quarters assigned.

"Replicate yourself a uniform, and go ahead and use the shower," she directed as she lead the way into the XO suite on deck eight. Everything was meticulous, the only things looking possibly out of place were an open TMNT comic on the coffee table, a plush turtle with orange mask and a plush mountie — both sitting in the middle of the couch, and a stack of comic books in polybags on a side table.

"Thank you," Dustin said has he looked about her quarters while starting to strip. Dustin saw the TMNT comic on Amelia's coffee table and the plush Michelangelo on the couch. "Turtle fan, huh? Truth be told, Michelangelo is who fascinated me the most of the group and inspired me to take up martial arts. Granted, I didn't take up ninjitsu, I still get to play with my chucks," Dustin explained his fascination with the cultural icons of the late 80's to early 90's era back on Earth. "Would you mind pointing me in the direction of the shower?" Dustin asked, now semi-dressed.

"Mikey's the best," Amelia agreed with a wide grin. She let her eyes linger on Dustin a moment, then nodded towards the bedroom. "Through the bedroom, turn right. Excuse the clothing explosion on the bed, I had something come up last minute that required a change of attire... you saw the end result, that dress I was wearing when we met." She grabbed and PADD and started digging for the paperwork he was going to need.

"Yeah, he is," Dustin replied as he made his way through the bedroom. "What a lovely dress that was, I'm sure there are other ways to make this room have an explosion of clothing." By the time Dustin made it to the bathroom, he was down to his birthday suit and making his way into the shower. "Feel free to join me, if you like," Dustin requested as the sonic sprays came to life.

Amelia just laughed at the cocky little engineer, finally finding the forms on the PADD. She set it down on the table and went into the bedroom herself. She was out of her tshirt and shorts in a flash, and into her uniform not much after that, soon after brushing her hair to pull into a tight French braid.

"Hey, it was worth a shot," Dustin said while washing himself down. Dustin peered out of the glass of the shower and watched Amelia change out of her tshirt and shorts, and into her uniform, with a smile on his face. A little while later, he shut the sonic sprays down and stepped out of the shower reaching for a towel. A few moments later, he was dried off and headed over to the replicator with just the towel around his waist and replicated himself a uniform that he hadn't worn in some time.

"You remember what color engineers wear?" she teased, finishing off the end of her braid. A couple quick twists and the length of it was a neat bun at the nape of her neck. "The PADD on the table is your paperwork. You can leave your stuff here until we can get you quarters assigned."

"I got this... I got this... PINK!... no.. no.. that's not it... that's tactical...," Dustin said teasingly, as he replicated a golden yellow uniform. Dustin looked over at the table with with PADD that he needed to fill out. "And what if I decide to never move my stuff out of here? Because, this place is definitely so much better than what I will have," he said, looking over at the full kitchen.

"I should make you wear a pink uniform, you cheeky bastard," she insisted as she landed on her couch, scooped up the plush turtle, and sent it sailing through the air at Dustin's head. "I gotta get to the bridge, hurry up. I know Rochelle won't be amused if I drag you with me in nothing but a towel."

"Couldn't tell me that wouldn't be a sight to see, though," Dustin said as he dropped the towel in plain sight of Amelia and started putting on the Engineering uniform. Just as Dustin lowered his head, the plush turtle went grazing past, hitting the wall behind him. A few moments later, he was dressed in the duty uniform, ready for inspection. "So, how do I look?"

"It is a sight that would end with you getting keel hauled," Amelia returned, shaking her head and clicking her tongue at his shamelessness. "Or at the very least, getting acquainted with the Captain's Daughter... and I do mean of the cat'o'nine sort."

When he presented himself fully uniformed, Amelia stood up and marched over. She paced around him with a serious look on her face, picking a piece of imaginary lint off the uniform. "Good enough, considering you've been out of the fleet for seven years," she finally said, maintaining a straight face as she did. "Grab the PADD and let's go." She started for the door, not waiting for his reaction.

Dustin grabbed the PADD and followed Amelia out the door. "Not gonna even wait. I see...."

She laughed merrily as she moved quickly out the door and down the corridor towards the turbolift. "Are you saying you can't keep up with me? So sad." She palmed the controls for the turbolift, and slipped between the opening doors to soon be standing waiting for him, grinning wide.

"No, not at all," Dustin replied, as he caught up and stepped into the lift.

"Good," she returned, eying him. "Bridge," she directed to the turbolift, and the doors slid shut behind them, the lift humming as it swept them away towards the bridge.

=/\= END LOG =/\=

Lt Commander Amelia Waterhouse
Executive Officer
USS Vindicator

Lt Dustin Shea
Asst Chief Engineering Officer
USS Vindicator

 

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