by Lt. (sg) February Grace and Lt. (jg) Rada Dengar
80623.20
Just Before/Concurrent with Please, Please, Tell Me Now
-=Main Engineering, USS Alchemy=-
80623.20
Just Before/Concurrent with Please, Please, Tell Me Now
-=Main Engineering, USS Alchemy=-
February Grace spun back and forth slowly in her chair as she considered what she was about to ask Rada.
She was nothing if not a hopeless romantic, and she did think Dengar was such a great guy, she liked the thought of everyone who was such a nice person having the kind of happiness that she had found with Reece.
Finally, she got up the nerve.
"So, have you heard from your friend lately?"
"Hmm?" Rada asked absently, as he felt around up and over his head into his toolbox for an isolinear decoupler. Not really stressing as for once it seemed like he’d been asked a question which would be easy enough to answer.
"Your friend, on Earth. The one living in Australia."
Rada dropped his decoupler. This question was not so easy to answer. Rada’s relationship with Wren at the moment made Lair Kellyn’s handiwork here seem straightforward in comparison. He decided therefore that the best answer would be to not answer at all, to instead try to delay for as long as he could.
“News travels fast on this ship,” he observed whilst patting the ground around him in search of the decoupler.
Grace stood up from her chair and walked to stand by Rada’s legs where the decoupler had rolled. She bent down and handed it to him.
“Looking for this?” she asked.
Rada nodded thanks and accepted it. He hoped that the line of questioning had ended now, naturally it hadn’t.
“Tell me about her. Please.” February asked.
“What do you want to know?” asked Rada, avoiding eye contact and trying to seem as though reduction of inter-circuit energy transfer was the main focus of his mind at the moment.
February wasn’t about to fall for that old trick. The more specific the question the less relevant the answer when it came the subject of relationships, particularly when it involved someone like Rada who was neither prone to confession nor bragging.
“Just, tell me about her,” she said.
“Well, her name’s Wren. She’s a Betazoid and…”
Bru cut him off “No, tell me about HER,” she emphasised.
Rada considered trying to play the ‘I don’t know what you mean’ game and avoiding the question further but he always found the honest ones to be the most difficult to lie to.
“She is…one of a kind,” he confessed, his mind taking him back now to their first meeting “She has a formidable mind and is never shy about showing it. Every day, she treats the world to such an unrefined honesty that it’s almost contagious. Every thing just seems so clear when she’s around and the galaxy, Starfleet, everything just seems to…” he stopped himself realising he may be saying too much. Remembering that this is a woman who is light-years away raising another man’s child and that his most recent subspace message in which he asked to be a bigger part of their lives had as of yet been met with no response.
"Just seems to make more sense?" February volunteered, sounding suddenly like some sage being with hundreds of years of experience.
It was then that Rada remembered that while February was still a year younger than he was, that Grace was an old sage with hundreds of years’ experience.
'That's how I felt when I met Dabin, you know. That was just about the time you came aboard the Indy. I was so sick then. Blind at the time actually. I couldn't even see him. But he made me feel safe, and for the first time in my life, well, Bru's life- when he was in the room everything just made sense," she paused, crossing one foot over the other and folding her arms. "Of course, that was after we got past that whole Deveral and Tuli thing. I'm so glad we did though."
A momentary sadness crossed her face but one that was quickly replaced by a look of serenity.
"Reassociating with Reece was the best decision that I've ever made. No question." She was quiet a moment, then nodded and continued as if answering some unspoken question between them.
"Rada, love should never be easy. If it is, you don't appreciate it the same way. If it's a struggle somewhere along the line, then when you are finally together for good you never take it for granted. Not for a second. Believe me, I know." She returned to her previous location so as not to make him feel hemmed in, and let her words echo between them for his consideration.
"I'd like to meet your Wren someday," February decided. "She sounds like quite a woman."
Lt. (sg) February Grace
Senior Flight Controller
USS Serendipity NCC-2012
and
Lt. (jg) Rada Dengar
Chief Engineer
USS Serendipity NCC-2012
Senior Flight Controller
USS Serendipity NCC-2012
and
Lt. (jg) Rada Dengar
Chief Engineer
USS Serendipity NCC-2012