Not What You Signed Up For

Posted on Sun May 1st, 2022 @ 11:30am by Executive Officer Jake Ford & Evelyn Reynolds

Mission: Mission 15: Adrift
Location: Deck 6 - Cargo Bays
Timeline: MD-01 23:00
3254 words - 6.5 OF Standard Post Measure

With everything else looming over them, Jake had done has absolute best to delegate, prioritise and bring a sense of structure to their new situation. Not normally prone to stress, this probably had to be the worst sort of crisis they'd dealt with since he'd arrived on board, and he was having to lead the crew through it without Gregnol bearing some of that weight. He'd always been the 'number two' guy, never really the one in charge.

On his mind more prominently was the fact that he had invited Evelyn on board just a few days earlier. She was a passenger, not crew. And she wouldn't know the ship or its people, which meant this would be even more scary in prospect for her. His natural protective instincts had kicked in and he had found himself more worried about her than he needed to be. Thankfully, Delaney had come through when he needed her to, and he found himself in one corner of the cargo bay. Now a makeshift dormitory for a dozen people, it probably wasn't the most ideal situation for a passenger to be in.

"Evie?" he approached at a fairly rapid pace in spite of his own weariness. "You doing okay? Nothing broken? Got everything you need?"

Evelyn herself would have been the first to admit that sitting on a bed, in a corner, in the middle of an emergency shelter, was about as far from her typical response to multiple counts of priority alerts as a person could get. Moreover, it didn't take any sort of behavioural expert to read the tension and anxiety in her body language. Coming to the assembly point had been a compromise tempered by her common sense because honestly there hadn't been a way to tolerate any of the arguments against it, but as heightened as she was, Evelyn had failed to anticipate just how many people there were to pack into such a small area. Every face was unfamiliar, every voice that carried through the space was an additional invasive menace, and the entire situation might have been enough to warrant a perfectly understandable panic attack if Evelyn Reynolds' fierce grip on her own composure wasn't forged of incompliant steel. It stared back at the worried gaze of the only distinguishable presence the ship could offer and allowed the blonde scientist enough grace to incline her head in reassurance.

"I'm well-beyond your greatest concern." The gauze taped to her head, just above her left temple, was a betrayal of information Evelyn hadn't been a big fan of broadcasting until she realised that appearing visually wounded had kept people from disturbing her retreat to bed. "Perhaps it would be fairer of me to ask if you're okay. This is quite..." Her blue gaze lifted to consider the scene just over Jake's shoulder. "Stressful."

"This?" he tossed a tired gesture to their current setting. "A normal Wednesday evening round these parts." Jake lowered himself to a makeshift cot next to hers. "Just wait until we have a real crisis." He leaned back, tucking a hand behind his head as he stared up at the high bay ceiling. "In all seriousness, though? Not what I had in mind when Gregnol packed himself off to help out the Rangers."

From her perch at the edge of her cot, Evelyn studied the weary man's face with the same evaluative zeal she afforded her research. Months of reading between lines had created a fatigue that ran bone-deep but it was a compulsion difficult to ignore. Ultimately, she was never satisfied. As much as she might determine that the people in her life were acting as they usually did, the cost of being wrong and the consequence of not anticipating betrayal was too significant for her to ever relax. She had clung to the hope that this connection, outside the bureaucracy that had cast too many shadows, would provide some semblance of security. Now, as Jake openly referenced an allegiance that might have otherwise been an interesting confession to allude to in the presence of a Starfleet officer, Evelyn wondered just how much he already suspected.

Her shoulders slumped slightly. Of course, his people would have reported her behaviour.

Her lowered gaze wandered aimlessly over the contours of her aching leg before Evie cast her eyes back to the crowded cargo bay. "They don't look like this is a regular occurrence," she observed quietly. The palpable tension in the air was difficult to miss. "And I think of your ship makes a habit of succumbing to total systems failure, you should probably consider replacing it." It was an attempt at a gentle jest, though Evelyn's expression as she turned back to him was a little too sombre to make it work. "What is our situation, anyway?" There were a thousand other ways she wanted to phrase that but none seemed like conversations Evelyn knew how to condense into the kind of time an emergency of this magnitude would allow.

Jake's jaw clenched for a moment as he tried to decide whether to sugar-coat it or be honest. Evie had always been intelligent, and courageous. And she was Starfleet-trained, so this might not terrify her as much as it would a typical passenger. And she knew him, too, so lying about it wasn't going to help.

"Not great. We're virtually dead in the water and sitting in the path of an ion storm." He spoke in a low voice, making sure it was just the two of them in the conversation. "Things are going to get bumpy before they get better. Thankfully, we've got some plans to get us through the worst of it, and we seem to have a decent amount of supplies, so I'm sure we'll get through it. That said, with your medical needs...I just figured you should be ready for things to wobble around once we hit the leading edge."

"My medical needs are negligible." Try as she might, Evelyn couldn't keep the faint prickle from her tone. It was hardly a surprise that life as an invalid had become something that tested her normal graciousness. "Thankfully, none of my aches and pains are life-threatening. This current situation, however." The added threat of an ion storm had only elevated Evelyn's wariness. "Do you have a cause for the systems failure yet?"

"Not yet. Something about the automation system failing," Jake replied. "I'm no engineer. Something broke, it was bad, the people that know are working on it." It was a simple answer. Not evasive, but he just hadn't had time to process all of that yet. "Sorry that you got caught up in all of this," he said finally. "Not what I had in mind when I invited you along."

All things considered, it would have been a conversation that took hours for Evelyn to explain why she felt it more appropriate for her to apologise to him. Lack of definitive information did absolutely nothing to curb the incessant twist of her insides, but the scientist did her best to ignore the coiled tension to focus instead on removing a burden. "Neither of us can predict the future." There was more that should be said, a detailed attempt at putting his mind at ease perhaps, but Evelyn hesitated and, in the same breath, closed her eyes to marshal her composure. She had a scientist's flare for pursuing all viable theories but this inability to take her friend at face value was somehow worse than the months of slow degradation in her trust in other areas. "Have you ruled out outside interference?"

He hadn't even thought about it, he had to acknowledge. This was why he had never seen himself as command material: he wasn't that sort of thinker. React to fix the problem, keep people safe, for sure - but causal analysis? Tactical assessment? Even for a former security officer he wasn't really in that mindset.

"I don't...I mean, there's no evidence to say so..." he managed. "Why, are you worried about something in particular?"

There was a pause that was far too obvious for Evelyn to deny. She picked her way carefully around a response, however, as neat and tidy with her divulgences as she'd always been. Evie wasn't the easiest person to get to know. At the best of times, she held herself at an emotional distance and, whilst personable enough, had always had a tendency to engage firstly on an intellectual front. Given how intimidating she could be in purely academic terms, it had lead to scattered belief from multiple sources over the years that she held herself back and kept her distance out of some perceived sense of imbalance and superiority, and those same people were invariably shocked when her deep sense of generosity and altruism came into play. Evelyn spent a lot of time caring about others, she just didn't invest nearly as much energy into actually connecting with them.

Her eyes tracked the movements of the crew, each of them a stranger, all of them potential concerns. A complete polarisation of that fact allowed them to be equally as open to unjust threat. The pendulum swung, the silence thickened, and eventually she settled on a quiet, "Consider where your Captain has gone."

He frowned. "The Rangers? No chance; we're allies. Mutual assistance is part of that. Hell, if they were in range I'd be screaming out of the window for them to fly in and save the day." He shook his head firmly. "I don't think they would do that." His mind went back to their last proper encounter with the Thrai. Although not a normal meeting by any stretch, he never got the impression they were out to stab the Rosie crew in the back. Then again, they were Romulans, so it went without saying that such a thing was always a slim possibility.

He rolled over to look at her. "You sound worried yourself that someone sinister had something to do with this. Something got you worried?"

It wasn't the time and place. How do you even know if you can trust him? But there was likewise no other time and place if this situation didn't improve, and competing impulses collided to force a significantly faster decision than Evelyn was comfortable making. Once more, she plucked her response carefully from the quagmire. "When was the last time you spoke to Jack?"

"Jack?" he echoed. At first he wondered why she brought him up, but then of course that was their main connection in common. Indeed, that was the main reason he knew Evie at all. "Not for a while. Bumped into him on Daucina last year, but we don't stay in contact all that much." Jack's career was his thing. Since Jake's career had stalled-out, it left them with very little to discuss aside from when they were visiting their parents for the holidays. "Is he okay?" he asked, assuming she had connected more recently.

Another pause. The surprise in Jake's tone permitted a certain wriggle room for a diversion, and a hint of amusement that was otherwise out of place. "I do remember telling you I'd accepted appointment to his ship. That was nearly three years ago." Not for the first time in their friendship, Evie's blue gaze pinned him with a pointed look of pay attention, which carried warmth but also a level of exasperation. It gave her time to process his response, however, to determine how much she trusted the apparent sincerity of his confusion, and ultimately made it just a little easier to continue. "I'm not sure how he is. I..."

Just rip the plaster off, Evelyn.

"I tendered my resignation just before I arrived on Freecloud. As soon as it's ratified, I will not longer be a Starfleet officer." The stubborn set to her jaw was familiar. "Until then, it's technically not appropriate for me to say too much." But she wanted to; the strain was there, the weariness, the fear.

"You quit?" He was fully upright now. Evelyn had been a career officer. Bright, driven, professional. Something pretty serious must have happened to make her want to leave. Maybe it was something to do with the medical enforced leave. Or was it something to do with Jack? "He didn't...he didn't do something, did he? To make you want to walk away?" He looked at the medical cane meaningfully. He didn't want to say something like that out loud, certainly not about his own brother, but he needed to know all the same.

It was too difficult to look at him so, instead, Evelyn turned her gaze again to his crew, gaze flitting from person to person as they moved through the space. "I don't know." Of all the phrases, these were not words that Evelyn ever said. Admitting ignorance, at least in such a defeated way, was so contrary to her primary makeup that it was very nearly a personality flaw that she couldn't admit to uncertainty. Now, she seemed to succumb to it. "I mean, no," she eventually added, eyes averted to consider the floor space between them. "Not directly. As for indirectly; I don't know."

Finally, Evelyn lifted her eyes to meet his.

And she was different. Hollow. Broken. An entire psyche fractured into a thousand pieces and glued back together with doubt and uncertainty. She'd had so much practise being Evelyn Reynolds, and before that Evelyn Lancaster, that faking it produced a reasonably convincing performance but where there had once been a large, shiny, rock solid composure and confidence, there remained only a pile of pulverised gold dust. "It's probably fine, Jake," she managed, clinging in desperation to his earlier question, "but if you are consulting with the Rangers, you may need at least to consider who would take issue with that. At least rule out intentional sabotage."

"Probably fine is the word of the day around here," he said, reluctantly glancing around the rest of the makeshift shelter. "I don't have time to worry about the who and the why right now. Honestly, I probably just need some sleep." His mind drifted. So many things to do, and people to check on. Hell, he should probably make sure Cassie was doing okay - as strange as that sounded in his own mind. Things were getting a little unexpected before things had broken down. He looked back over at Evie. Not the same Evie he'd met many years ago. Time changed people; he himself was evidence of that. "I'm relieved you're doing okay. Generally, I mean. And we should probably talk about the whole 'quitting Starfleet' thing. But not until you're ready to."

A tired nod was his only response though, in that moment, Evelyn understood what it meant to feel a slight lifting of weight from the lump that remained perpetually in her stomach. Absolute trust was not likely something she would rebuild again with any swiftness but there had been method and reason to her movements and her present company was no accident. When it came to confidences, Jake was certainly a better option than her family, if only because involving them was not something she anticipated enjoying.

"Give me something to do," she added after a moment, having reached what resembled a partial decision. "I have everything I require for my physical therapy, I'm sure some Starfleet-grade equipment won't go astray in treating your crew. It's been a few years since pre-med but I think I can still use a dermal regenerator."

"I was hoping we won't need the medical support, to be honest," he said wryly. "Just...talking to people? Reassuring them, keeping their spirits up, keeping an eye out for potential trouble?" he suggested. "We don't have an official counsellor on board, but damn would I kill for one right now."

And so the fork in the road eventually brought her back to another. There had been a time, which Jake was well-aware of, having been present at the time, where career paths were not as clear cut as Evelyn would have liked. Driven by her father's example to view medical training as a means for making a positive impact, she had entered Starfleet as a Medical student to leave her options open. Counselling, as well as Surgery, had been hot contenders for a while and she had really only switched to a combined Science degree because, in keeping with her personality, Evelyn saw benefit in affecting large groups of unknowns rather than the intimacy of one-to-one engagement. Now that she faced absolute obliteration of all her research had achieved thus far, she smiled faintly at her friend's attempt to re-engage an old tangent.

"The Jake Ford I remember," she teased softly, succumbing to nostalgia and a deep longing to feel some security, "wasn't all that keen for me to analyse his behavioural choices."

"The Jake Ford you remember..." he lowered his head a little. "Changed." He'd probably tell her about the whole subconscious merging thing at some point, but this hardly felt like the time. And she was right, the old him would have brushed over it. However now they were in a bind and he was supposed to be the figure in charge of it all, things just felt different. "Honestly, I might need you to do that in the next few days."

For a brief moment, a flicker that affected the nuances of Evelyn's expression gave a glimpse of a more familiar disposition lurking beneath the fresh layers of guarded secrecy. "Strong leadership starts and ends with having good people and know how to bring out the best in them," she reminded him gently. It was practically Chapter 1 of Starfleet's command manual and neither of them needed Jack to decipher its meaning. "They seem to trust you." Her only basis of assumption was the lack of any evidence of mutinous dissent, though Evie would concede it was early days yet.

There was sentiment behind the statement. And he wasn't sure if she was being astute or just reassuring telling him that given her short stay on board. He wanted to believe the former. He fell back onto the bed, the tiredness from the day finally catching up.

"I hope it's not misplaced," he said softly.

Slowly, gingerly, Evelyn eased herself off her cot and picked up one of the folded blankets resting on the end of it. Flapping it open, she took a laboured step towards Ford's bed and unceremoniously dumped the comforter over his head. Pulling it down just enough to reveal his face, he was greeted by a familiar, yet oft-absent, smirk.

"Of course, I've always favoured the lead-by-example methodology. Get some rest," she added, offering a huff of tired laughter before she succumbed to her body's aches and followed suit. Eventually, she had learned, she had no real choice but to sleep; her body would demand it without her permission if she tried to deny it for too long. With Jake this close, it at least felt possible to relax long enough to nap, but as she rolled onto her back in search of her knee's favoured position, the familiar sound of heavy breathing from the adjacent cot evoked a fresh chuckle, followed immediately by a rush of gratitude.

If snoring was the worst of Jake Ford's crimes, things might finally be on the way up.