A Problem Shared

Posted on Thu Apr 13th, 2023 @ 10:56pm by Executive Officer Jake Ford & Evelyn Reynolds

Mission: Mission 16: Hysperia
Location: SS Mary Rose - Bar
Timeline: MD-05
3204 words - 6.4 OF Standard Post Measure

"Well, to say we were meant to be having a nice, quiet, uneventful time on shore leave..." Jake declared, putting the mug on the table in front of Evelyn, "It's been the cause of quite a few shenanigans, wouldn't you say?" Between the various rumours and embellished tales he'd heard, Jake was surprised he'd only been called to bail out some of the crew just the one time. It was a kind respite to be sat in the deadly silent Rosie bar, just the two of them. No Hysperian chaos to contend with, just the gentle hum of the ship in dock, and the starfield out of the window.

"Seems par for the course," the doctor replied, drawing the mug closer and wrapping both hands around it. If she reflected adequately on recent events, Evelyn would have been forced to admit that it felt as if they'd been guests on the planet for far longer than it had actually been. A lot of the earlier days had been spent securing her role, of course, and tidying up whatever fallout her attempted resignation had created. That was far from resolved but there was something about medieval jousting and dragon-wrangling that made the rest of the galaxy seem very far away. It wasn't something she was inclined to complain about. "At least it's been warm," she teased, a smirk of a smile evident over the rim of her mug as she took a sip.

"Ain't that the truth," he mused, almost saluting the words with his own mug. Jake hadn't really reflected on the short time when he'd been forced to lead them through one mini-disaster after another. If he was honest with himself, he was pretty glad to be over it. The stress of the whole situation had brought out some...unusual personal issues. But, he reflected, it had also led to a strengthening of one particular relationship. "Funny: I met Cassie's granddaughter the other day. Bumped into her in the corridor. Didn't have any idea who she was for a good five minutes. I'm not sure which of us found it more awkward..."

It took Evelyn a moment to process that, admittedly because she hadn't paid much mind to her fellow scientist's odd temporal displacement since first finding out about it. It seemed such a terribly monumental thing that somehow whittled down to almost-mediocre given the crew's fairly casual acceptance of the woman's circumstance. Like so many of the extraordinary things this crew seemed to take for granted, Evelyn had simply learned to stop questioning their lack of concern. Instead, her amusement escaped containment for a moment and she huffed with laughter at his expense. "I don't know, Grandpa Jake has a nice ring to it."

He made a face of mock annoyance. "Next thing you know I'm walking around with a flat cap and a cane, moaning about the 'good old days'," he retorted. "Oh wait - you're the one with the cane and the 'good old days'..." he added with a little wink.

It was an odd, wobbly sort of line, one that took years of reaffirming to walk this close to and get away with it. Jake could cut it fine but, unlike his brother, he knew when to stop. Evelyn's featured crumpled into a wry deadpan for a moment before she observed, "Would you like me to go get it? I can give you a firsthand demonstration of its effectiveness in settling minor disputes." It was an empty threat, of course, and only culminated in her surrendering the balled up piece of napkin she'd been toying with by tossing it at his face. "It was always somewhat inevitable," she pointed out, returning to the initial point of conversation. "You are considerably younger than her."

"I seem to have a type," he nodded. "Older women. Much older..." he added, a little amused self-depreciation mixed in there. "But...I don't know, it seems to be working? Wasn't a relationship I would have told you I saw coming, in all honesty. Sometimes these things just sneak up on you."

Evelyn seemed to consider this for a moment, not an unusual pensiveness though her silence was conveniently explained by the long sip she took. With her palm pressed against the warmth of the ceramic, she then settled the side of her chin against the rim of the mug and opted for exaggerated haziness as a decently neutral offering. "Wasn't there an El-Aurian at the Academy who kept trying to save you a seat in the Biometrics lecture during Year 2?" A quizzical look upwards mimicked an attempt at recollection, though the doctor knew perfectly well that she wasn't making it up. "Maybe you should have seen it coming, there's definitely a pattern emerging." The twitch of her lips at his expense was well-meaning enough.

"Kaz?" his eyebrows went up as he suddenly recalled a memory long since forgotten. "That was never a thing. At least, I never thought it was..." he trailed off slightly, wondering if the memories that had resurfaced were as accurate as he thought, if Evelyn had seen them differently. Jake's mind slipped into wondering where that bright-eyed El-Aurian had ended up after all this time. Something to look up later, perhaps. He turned back to Evelyn, returning to the moment. "I can't help being hopelessly attractive to women," he said, another jest, considering how little he thought of himself like that. "Besides, I'm surely not the only one on this boat finding myself in that kind of situation..."

The stir of a teaspoon to disperse the flavour once more was possibly not a necessary step but it preoccupied Evie enough to make eye contact an easy diversion. Nothing about her missed a beat, which was somewhat of the problem. His comment barely seemed to raise an eyebrow.

"...I mean, Burnie and Nollel somehow getting accidentally married is one for the books," he chuckled. "Wonder who'll be next."

This time, he succeeded in evoking an amused frown. "I'm sorry, how does one accidentally marry?"

"You got me, but they somehow managed it. I'm telling you, Hysperia's not somewhere I think I'll come back to unless I'm in the throes of a midlife crisis," he said with amusement. "Did I hear tales that you got yourself involved in some bother? Pretty sure I heard Beya and Kali enthusing about some fun they'd been having with some locals."

The hesitation from the other side of the table spoke volumes. Evelyn had already been well-aware when she'd accepted the opportunity to compare notes that they would arrive at this. And as an initial story, this was a simple enough retell though a little tired and worn around the edges to match her patience in its regard. It trickled into more complicated footnotes, however, and those currently had no viable explanation, at least not when it came to digesting them over tea.

"Just your average display of bigotry and cowardice dressed up as concern for my reputation. Apparently," Evelyn added, "I present as the kind of woman who requires a man to correct my errors in judgment." A cool eyebrow queried his assessment of that inaccuracy.

"And there I thought you existed purely to correct mine," Jake mused with a slight grin. "I'm relieved it didn't escalate too far. I'd have hate for them to have been on the receiving end of your cane. Or your wit."

"I said my piece early on, it's Beya that took the reins from there." The opportunity to distance herself somewhat allowed Evelyn to relax into recollection of the incident far more easily. "You do seem to have surrounded yourself by people, predominantly women, who shouldn't be approached suddenly from behind."

"I definitely do have a type..." he nodded, feigning deep thought on the matter. "Honestly, though? I think that's maybe an unconscious bias on my part." Jake settled back into his seat a little. "The whole...head thing," he waved a finger towards his temple. "Feels like it's been playing on my mind again lately. The stress of the ship breaking down may have accelerated some things. Lot of bad dreams."

That earned him a raised eyebrow. "You do realise you should be talking to an actual professional about this, right? I cannot understand why the whole lot of you are so cavalier about something that ought to have been medically impossible."

"I am talking to a professional. You're still a registered MD." He offered her his open palms by way of shrugging off the question. "As medically impossible as it is, we live on a spaceship that can travel faster-than-light across the galaxy. There are crazier things out there." He settled back in. "If bad dreams are the worst thing I have going on at the moment, maybe things aren't all terrible."

"Except you keep bringing them up, which means they're obviously bothering you."

Furrow-browed, Evie pushed aside her incredulity and chose instead to recognise just how much her oldest friend needed to talk about this. It kept cropping up in conversation, only for him to try and brush it aside again as he just had. Jake was nothing like his brother in that, despite often feeling like he shouldn't be imposing on others, he genuinely valued support. She'd forgotten how nice it was to have a Ford male actually respect her opinion.

"Tell me a little more about these dreams," she continued gently, a final concession to take him seriously.

"Fear. Paranoia. Being hunted...by something inescapable." He said it clearly, firmly. Understanding, and yet at the same time unable to. "I don't want to have a counselling session, Evie. I wanted a cup of coffee and to maybe gossip about other people, not my weird overactive subconscious."

Letting go of her mug a moment, Evelyn held up both hands. "You brought it up. You seem to bring it up every time we have a chance to sit down and talk. You might not want a counselling session but perhaps you need one." Blue eyes pinned him with a typical refusal to provide wriggle room. "You do realise I'm this close to being officially allowed to declare you medically unfit for work, right?" It was an empty threat, barely even classifying as one because they both knew the very notion was a highly touchy subject for her currently. "I'll reassign you to janitorial work until you stop being grumpy with me every time I offer to help."

"You do know that if I was assigned to janitorial work, I'd be redirecting the sewage flow into your quarters," he replied. Matching wits with Evie was something he'd missed, over the years. Like a good sibling rib, their natural tendency to poke and tease one another was half the reason they'd stayed friends. "I'm about as far from unfit to work as I can possibly be." He knew the line wouldn't be good enough for her, so he sat back down properly and looked across the table at her. "Like I said, it's mainly just feelings and sensations. Nothing particularly solid or substantial at the moment. How about this: if anything changes, I promise I'll come and tell you?"

Sometimes, in her darker moments, Evelyn had wondered if the reason she tolerated Jack was because she felt so intrinsically ingrained in his family at this point that extracting herself threatened too many severed connections. It was a sentiment peppered with fallacy because, as currently evidenced, it had never been a requirement of her friendship with Jake that she romance his brother. She'd met them independently, after all. The sheer amount of times the older Ford had thrown that relationship in her face was well beyond the point of tedious, constant jibes that she had chosen the wrong brother somehow meant to derail her. Evelyn had absolutely no doubt that the sentiment was correct in its evaluation of Jack but it implied a choice that didn't exist. Maybe right back at the start it could have but they were too far along the course by now. It was only a matter of time before Jack used his connections to track her location and, once he realised where she'd landed, the fireworks alone would be worth watching. She'd somewhat ironically fallen right into the arms he was most fearful of losing her to. She seriously doubted he'd take the time to realise they hadn't carried her straight to bed. Jake Ford was worth his weight in latinum for that ability to drive his brother insane alone.

He was also just a bloody good friend.

"At the very least, we should take some baseline scans so I can track what's going on with you. It may just be residual psychological processing dysfunction," she held up a hand to staunch his protest. "And if that's the case then treatment won't be unlike what's required when aiding repatriated Borgs. Your brain is trying to resolve an incomplete memory sequence more than likely. But I would like to make sure there's no actual damage we need to be concerned about."

"Might not be a bad idea to compare them with the scans Oliver took when the whole swap thing happened. Maybe you can figure out whether there's been any...I don't know, degradation?" he suggested.

"I'm sure it won't be that bad." If it was, she was going to have several choice words to say to several people, primarily Jake himself. "But I would feel better if I was keeping a closer look on that brain of yours, so humour me."

"So you admit it, finally," he said, looking at her for a moment. "I do have a brain," he explained with a grin, as if relating the punchline to a joke that had been told for at least a decade.

"Or at least fragments of someone else's," came the immediate quip. Evelyn, as was almost immediately obvious from even an initial conversation with the woman, was not one to back down from a lively debate so easily. "Perhaps that's the problem," she added, eyebrows raised in jest. "After such a long time shouting into the void, you've finally reached a point where something has yelled back."

"Other than you?" he retorted in jest. "All right, I promise I'll pop in for a brain scan sometime. After I've gotten some proper sleep, of course. Which depending on your definition of 'proper' might be in a few weeks."

"Oddly relatable." In her case, much like his, interrupted sleep patterns had their genesis in deeper psychological issues and, as such, weren't really that surprising. That being said, they had been grounded long enough now that the daily rigour of basic duty should have lessened enough to allow some sense of relaxation. Evie, if nothing else, seemed distracted amidst her fatigue. "I'm starting to suspect I may have been better off sticking to my original plan to avoid most of the planet's festivities. I think the sound of fiddles playing may haunt me indefinitely."

"But you managed to get out and stretch your...leg," Jake said, motioning to her knee. "Did you have fun at least?"

The question gave her pause, for all it's simplicity not something that Evie had really considered in quite so direct terms. "I suppose," she eventually conceded, eyes slowly drifting until they arrived at a thorough examination of the contents of her mug. "Nobody's had to carry me back to the ship in full catatonic shock so there's that. Some of the quieter areas are quite stunning."

"I'm surprised. Normally getting you out and about among the people would need someone to be dragging you kicking and screaming," Jake observed, taking a sip of his drink. "What changed?"

"I am perfectly capable of attending a festival." The slight hitch of defensiveness caved pretty quickly to conscience. "Or at least somewhat reasonably capable. Of course, whether or not it was worth the effort is up for debate, I don't think any of us anticipated Oliver being targeted by the local eunuch." The entire situation leading up to the duel had been convoluted enough without more recent developments. "And for the record, I tried to avoid the opening ceremony; a certain auburn-haired cyclone utterly decimated those plans. I suppose that's what changed; your crew keep dragging me away from my sulking."

"One member of the crew in particular..." Jake observed under his breath. It wasn't unnoticed that the young medic had taken a shine to Evelyn; she was smart and capable, and easy to learn from. What was surprising was that she was actually thriving in the role of both teacher and mentor. "It's good that you're making friends. That's a good reason to settle down, you know." He gave her a meaningful look. "You're staying. Longer than you first thought you might."

Having instantly erected her cone of silence, by now simply verification as far as Jake was concerned that he was onto something, Evelyn nevertheless paused mid-sip and then lowered her mug to blink at him, several times, with intentional exaggeration. "You make it sound like an order, sir." Despite the edge of defensiveness to her tone, it was still an attempt at playful jest. "You needn't sound so shocked. As it happens, you're correct, but more because Gregnol has already spoken to me regarding my permanency, not because his First Officer has a Fairy Godmother complex." She took her sip then, though her eyes held contact with his over the top of the mug. "Life here has been an unexpected blessing but I'd be lying if I said it was easy to trust it. Things aren't going to miraculously go away because we want them to," she cautioned as she set the drink back on the table. "We can't expect this crew to weather Jack's interference when it comes."

He squinted at her momentarily at the mention of his brother's name. The elephant in the room. A subject they hadn't spoken of since she had shared her experiences that Jack seemed to have been at the forefront of. "Jack won't be an issue out here," Jake said quietly. As confident as he was in that, he suspected she held a different view. "But I'm glad you're here, anyway. It's good to have another friend on board, and it's a safe space for you to figure out what comes next." After the healing, of course.

"As long as we avoid body-swapping, psychotic holograms, portals to other dimensions and dragons," Evie suggested, eyebrows raised as she recounted the parts of recent adventures she'd been made aware of. Gregnol had been thorough in outlining the ship's history, she couldn't fault the man for ensuring she knew exactly what it was she was signing up for, but even then Evelyn wasn't sure prior warning was going to be enough to prepare her for the types of calamity this crew seemed to get themselves into.

And she'd be lying if she said she didn't find the prospect just a little...enticing.