Face to Face

Posted on Wed Jun 24th, 2020 @ 3:02am by Lieutenant Nicholas Boucher & Lieutenant Alexandra Alves MD
Edited on on Fri Jul 10th, 2020 @ 5:43pm

Mission: Death in Paradise
Location: Recreation Deck

ON:

Alexandra was exhausted by exercise she took at the gym - some running, aerobics, and lifting weights -, and felt she definately needs either a glass of ice cold mineral water or a fresh smoothie. Hence, she approached the closest lounge area to order something. However, as she stood there in her workout wear, looking at the menu, she noticed a familiar face in the distance. For a moment, she hesitated to greet the guy, as they haven't spoken a word with each other since their little 'night-out', and she didn't really know how they should approach the subject, but eventually, she took a deep breath, and began waving to him. "Hey, Nick! Hello!"

Nick had been in the lounge to grab himself a quick meal and a cup of coffee before heading back on duty. He was double-shifting himself and the pilots, cutting three shifts down to two so they'd always have three pilots at the ready. It was taking its toll already on the squad. Between the flight to the Pandora and now this, they hadn't had much downtime lately. Nick had insisted though. This was his first mission as squad CO and he'd be damned if he let anything happen to the Pandora on his watch.

And so, tired as he was, he almost missed Alex waving at him. It was only the sound of his name that snapped him out of his reverie. He smiled. "Well hello there, Doc."

He paused, realizing the slight awkwardness of their meeting. "Listen, I'm sorry I haven't take time to speak to you. With the murder and everything else, I imagine we've both been very busy."

Alexandra stayed silent for a moment. She felt quite awkward, just as Nicholas did, but she appreciated his honestly, and had no hard feelings towards the guy. On the contrary, she appreciated his honesty. "No worries.", she smiled, "Life happens while we have other plans.", she shrugged.

Nick laughed softly. "That's very true. Would you like to grab a table?"

"Sure!", Alex nodded, "I feel I need a glass of cold water SOS."

"So wow, you must be really in the mix with regards to this murder investigation," he stated as they sat down. "Any suspects yet? I imagine you've had time to go over the bodies?"

"Well, only one of them, unfortunately.", she said. As a doctor, she was used to discussing things like dead bodies casually, yet she was still struck by the two murders, and that someone is apparently trying to frame the Pandora crew for them, "There's been some interesting findings, let's put it that way."

Nick took a bite of the sandwich he'd had replicated. "Sounds stressful. My skills aren't really suited for to helping with the situation, so I admit to feeling a bit useless. My job is to get the Pandora back to Federation space and this is certainly hindering it."

He sighed. "I'm not a fan of feeling unable to help."

"Oh, well... If you might happen to know anything about DNA scans and biosigns, we're always in need of yet another helping hand in sickbay.", Alexandra joked.

Nick chuckled. "Unfortunately, that sounds way over my head. I'm a pilot, not a scientist."

He took another bite of his sandwich. "Has Veronica heard? How is she handling it? Scuttlebutt like this has a habit of making its way through ship's very quickly, I hear."

"Oh, she's doing fine.", she replied, while drinking a huge slurp of her glass of mineral water, "I think she has enough problems right now with adjusting to her new home, she's not really concerned about the murders.", she explained with a shrug, "There's something positive in everything, they say. Sorry, it seems, I'm full of sayings today.", she grinned, "My ex-husband would certainly be much more interested. Aside from warp field theory and rugby, crime fiction is his main interest."

Nick laughed. "The innocence of a child that they can be unconcerned about murders. I envy her. It's all I can think about. I've been double-shifting my squad so that we have more fighters at the ready at any given moment."

"I think that's a good precaution." the doctor nodded. "I'm doing double shifts in sickbay. All my staff feel exhausted. Nurse Jassim is genuinely praying to the Prophets to let her have some free time."

"The waiting is always the worst part," Nick replied. "I've never been a fan of it. I'm not an impatient person, persay, but I prefer actually doing something rather than waiting around."

He chuckled. "At least you technically have duties. Unless my squad and I are needed, I'm extraneous around here."

"Well, maybe not to everyone." Alex replied with a suggestive smile, and looked at the man with similarly suggestive eyes. "I'm technically swamped in work, but I might be able to get some little time off. In that case, how about another drink maybe? Or some holodeck fun?"

Nick gave Alex a genuine smile while looking her straight in the eyes. "I can always make time."

"That's what I like to hear!" she giggled. "Do you like South American cuisine?"

"I'm pretty easy when it comes to food," Nick replied. "Having spent time in the Marines, you learn not to be too picky."

"Right." the doctor smiled and looked at Nick with suggestive eyes. "So, how about some special home-made Brazilian dishes?" she asked with a grin. "I'm not a master chef, but I promise, it's miles ahead of anything they serve at the Marines."

Nick laughed. "The bar is set pretty low for that. I'd be delighted to sample some of your homeland's cuisine. It's been awhile since I tried anything really new."

"Awesome!" Alexandra smiled enthusastically. "Veronica loves my moqueca baiana. That's a fish stew. She calls it 'Mom's in a good mood dish', haha." she laughed.

"So I put you in a good mood then?" Nick asked, winking.

"We can say that." Alex replied with a large, tell-tale smile.

"Well damn," Nick replied. "I'll try and do my best to live up to that lofty ideal."

"Try? You're already doing it quite well." she grinned.

Nick was truly starting to enjoy his time on the Pandora, brief as it had this far been. He blushed mildly at Alex's statement. "I'm glad."

Realizing the time, he stood and offered a slightly sad smile. "I need to be getting back, but keep me posted as to when we can have our date?"

"Definately.", Alexandra nodded, happy that Nick shared her enthusiasm towards the 'project'.

OFF.