Spanner in the Works?

Posted on Wed Sep 25th, 2019 @ 3:15pm by Chief Helmsman Eden Bowers & Executive Officer Jake Ford

Mission: Mission 10 - Temperance
Location: Recreation Center
Timeline: MD 07 11:00 Hours
1707 words - 3.4 OF Standard Post Measure

With everything going on with the likely Temperance investigation, Jake had almost forgotten that part of his job was to maintain the security of the Rosie too. And that meant occasionally giving any passengers a once-over for signs of trouble. Normally that meant looking through the manifest and matching them with any known troublemakers. He'd not had a chance previously, with it having been pushed down his list to near the bottom.

Having spent the morning following his incident with Eden and the replicator making sure he wasn't seriously damaged, Jake decided to avoid the crew mess and instead poke his head into the recreation centre where most of the passengers were relaxing. Hopefully that might avoid him coming across something that would blow up in his face while making sure the ship's passengers were checked on.

Walking into the recreation deck, his ears perked up at the sound of something unexpectedly familiar. Memories of a sound he'd heard a long time ago confused his thoughts as he came to a halt. Standing there, surrounded by a small crowd of captivated listeners, a young blonde woman was singing a pitch-perfect balad; an almost-mourning love song that had a number present already reaching for something to wipe away tears.

"I don't believe it..." Jake murmured. He stood motionless and open-mouthed as the song ended and the young lady stepped-down from the stage to applause. She weaved humbly through the crowd, thanking a few of them as she went, until she spotted the tall man standing by the door.

"Jake!" she squealed, running up to him and wrapping her proportionately small arms around his body in a bear hug.

Eden rubbed her forehead. What a day it had been. She entered the recreation center just for some background noise to distract her thoughts when she came upon Jake with a woman wrapped around him. She stopped walking and stood there taking in the sight and trying not to jump to conclusions.

"Perrie...?" Jake was still surprised by the tiny blonde embracing him. "What are you doing here?"

"Singing, obviously," she grinned, pulling back. "I boarded back at Daucina. I'm surprised to see you here - are you protecting someone else now?"

"Not exactly-" Jake's eyes flicked-up and spotted Eden. He instinctively pulled himself away from Perrie to head in her direction. "Eden! I wasn't expecting to see you down here."

"Yeah, I can see that." It would have almost amused her if it had been anyone else standing in her place. She took a breath and told herself to knock if off. They'd only had the one date. "Old friend?" She asked quietly, trying to put a smile on her face.

"Sort-of. It's a long-" Jake was interrupted by the bubbly blonde appearing by his side.

"Hi! I'm Perrie. Are you one of Jake's friends?" she asked with a dazzling smile.

"I guess so, technically it was just one date." Eden said, sort of confused about what to call herself, especially in the presence of this other woman. "Eden," she replied really wishing that one of them would explain and drop the pleasantries.

Perrie lunged forward and hugged Eden this time. "Great to meet you!"

"Ah, right..." Jake cleared his throat. "Perrie and I...we go way back."

"That's right! Jake was always my knight in shining armor..." Perrie gushed, wrapping herself around one of his arms.

"Professionally-speaking," Jake corrected, awkwardly extracting himself. "She hired me as personal security a few years ago on one of her tours."

"He's, like, the best," Perrie grinned.

"Ah, well he hasn't mentioned that. But then again every time we're together we seem to be a bit distracted by the ship trying to kill us which is also a long story. Maybe we should sit so I can hear about all these old times?" Eden normally was pretty open to people touching her but had been surprised by the hug. She tried not to show it. "There's a free table," She pointed through the crowd.

"Great idea!" Perrie practically bounced over to the table with Eden, Jake following involuntarily behind them. "So, you two have been dating, huh? I never got him to agree to go out with me."

"That's because it would have been unprofessional," Jake interjected.

"Spoilsport." Perrie prodded him with a finger. "So, you like each other, then?"

"Well the one time anyway, we haven't planned anything else yet but we've been a bit busy dealing with everything that's gone wrong on this ship and now finding the other ship." Eden glanced at Jake. "I think so," she knew she liked him if her rush of jealousy was any indication but he hadn't exactly said those words to her. He had however, held her hand and not let go in public.

Kill me now was the only real thought running through Jake's head in that moment, until Eden spoke. He looked over at her. She really did like him, then. For some reason that lifted his heart. He looked back over at Perrie, who was all bright-eyed and enthusiastic as always. He was pretty sure nothing would ever dampen that positivity.

"That's amazing you guys!" Perrie clapped her hands together. "I'm really glad Jake found someone. He always used to be so grumpy and mean...well, not to me, but to most people."

"It was my job to be mean to people sometimes. A lot of those folks were journalists wanting exclusives," Jake sighed. He finally looked back over at Eden. "Hard to be mean to people around here."

"Oh I don't know, you had a pretty good grumpy look going. It didn't stop me from climbing over the top of you to get the access panel in the turbolift. You just softened up pretty quickly after that, at least after I rescued you from the cargo bay. But you weren't ever mean."

"I'm glad you see it that way," he replied, giving her a genuine smile.

"Aw, you guys are just the cutest!" Perrie grinned. "So Eden, has Jake told you about the time he had to fill in as one of my backing dancers at the last minute?"

"No, he conveniently left that out of our conversations." She looked at him expectantly, a smile sliding onto her lips. This was turning out to be a pretty pleasant evening. "I had no idea you could dance." it was probably too much to ask to have the routine repeated in front of her but she was itching to open her mouth and suggest it.

Jake paused, hoping beyond hope that there would be a red alert klaxon or another system malfunction that might rescue him. None was forthcoming.

"Uh...it's not really what you think. It was an old Andorian routine, I didn't really do much..."

"Nonsense!" Perrie quipped. "You were a star!" She leaned over towards Eden conspiratorially. "I think the headdress was rather fetching, too!"

Eden, who didn't mind her leaning over at all, rested her chin on the palm of her propped up hand and asked, "Oh please tell me you have an image of this?" She was still staring at Jake though, almost waiting for him to blush, as if she thought it was inevitable.

Perrie started fishing around her person for something, but Jake interrupted before she got far.

"I imagine it's not really worth seeing that much..." he said uncomfortably, his face reddening by the second. "Uhm...look at the time...Eden, maybe we should be getting going now..."

"Aww, come on. One little look. I won't tell anyone. I swear. I'm actually very good at keeping secrets. I was married to Sebastian for almost a year and no one knew it. I'll tell you the story of how he caught me climbing the shelves in the cargo bay in the middle of the night."

"Wait, you were married?" Perrie blinked, interested by that. "Sounds like you had an eventful relationship. Spill those beans!"

Eden smiled. "I'm actually like a hundred and eighty something years old. I'm human, I served on this ship when it was fairly new. I met Sebastian in the mess hall and we kept running into each other in odd situations. We decided we were in love but kept it from everyone because things were different back then. We got married and kept that a secret too. And then he died along with most of the crew on this ship. But he actually saved the few of us that were left by putting our patterns in the transporter buffer where I was revived about a year ago, still on this same ship. Not exactly a cheerful fairytale love story."

"N-no..." Perrie glanced uncertainly at Jake, the wind taken out of her sails for a moment. "That sounds pretty awful, actually." She put a hand on Eden's. "I'm sorry for your loss."

"Yeah, it happened a long time ago now and besides, I had just decided that I was tired of being sad when I walked into that turbolift and got stuck with Jake here. So some things have worked out." Eden shrugged. "What happened to looking for the image?" She grinned at Jake. "Then I'll let you two catch up."

"Hows about we catch up later - just the two of us girls," Perrie shot a grin at Jake, "And I'll tell you all about it. Save him the shame...poor thing looks like he's about to hurl."

"Fine," Eden smiled. She put a hand on Jake's shoulder as she got up. "Enjoy the afternoon, I've got to get back to work anyway."

"Uh, yeah." Jake felt a weird feeling as she moved to leave. He didn't exactly want her to, but at the same time he dreaded the thought of Perrie spouting off all of her embarrassing stories. As he watched Eden go, he felt Perrie nudge him again.

"She's nice," she said.

"Yeah. She really is."

"Serious?" she asked. Jake gazed at the back of Eden as she left the recreation center.

"You know what...I'm starting to think so."




::OFF::


Jake Ford
Chief Armoury Officer
SS Mary Rose

Eden Bowers
Chief Helmsman
SS Mary Rose