Breakfast Run

Posted on Mon Sep 9th, 2019 @ 8:30am by Lieutenant Commander Jacob "Jack" Devine & Lieutenant Elara Evander

Mission: Down the Rabbit Hole
Location: Officer's Lounge; USS Andromeda
Timeline: MD 5, 0730

"You know, we could be having breakfast in my quarters right about now," Jacob muttered as he followed his TSO into the officer's lounge. The place was not nearly as busy as the galley had a tendency to be and all those presently occupying various tables were officers who were either quietly chatting with peers or deep in the contents of a PADD as they shoveled food into their mouths.

"And miss that view?" Gavin glanced at Jacob then motioned to the windows with a low whistle. "C'mon Jack. Nice view, out in the open, with the potential of meeting others. Much better than the two of us in your quarters no matter how nice they are."

"Fine. Where do you wanna sit?" Jacob glanced at the vacant tables but that wasn't what Gavin had in mind.

"I think I'm going to sit over there with the blonde," Gavin said with a grin. "And her friends."

"Ever the social butterfly," Jacob remarked dryly. "Alright then, I'll grab something from the replicator and join you."

"No, I think not." Gavin turned to look at Jacob. "We spend entirely TOO much time together, Jack. I like ya fine but I don't feel like sharing today. Find your own breakfast buddies." And with a smirk he walked away.

"Traitor," Jacob called after him, but he wasn't serious and the crooked grin on his face said it all. Leave it to Zoomie to drag him out in the open only to abandon him.

Reaching up, Jacob rubbed at the back of his neck then dropped his hand and moved to the replicator to get in line. Breakfast. He was absolutely famished and already contemplating a large plate of eggs and bacon with sausage and pancakes. At the moment he felt like a bottomless pit in need of filling. Judging by the line he wouldn't have to wait all that long.

The headache had not stopped and Elara was thinking that maybe food would fix it. It wasn't like anything she could remember experiencing. It was like a bell that wouldn't stop ringing in her head. It was so loud against the rest of what she felt. She wandered in and joined the queue for the replicator, grumbling a bit at the fact that there was a line. She had decided that the best food to hopefully bring her mind and feelings to a buzz rather than the murmur that was heightened by the high pitched pinging was going to be pancakes. It was going to be the glorious pancake festival -- even if she was the only one attending. "Please tell me that this isn't how it is every morning," Elara spoke up, not to anyone in particular, more just irritated.

"Honestly, this line is nothing compared to the one in the galley," Jacob said, having just made it to the replicator. He turned and looked at the woman behind him. "I mean, if you're in a real hurry you can--" he broke off as his eyes met hers, then stumbled on with, "--go first?" He hadn't meant for it to be a question, he was simply surprised to see her. "El?" Elara. Elara Evander. The last time they'd spoken was sixteen years ago, on Jacob's fourteenth birthday. How had it been so long?

It took her a minute to process and it was like the moment she did, the overwhelming ringing stopped. "Jake?" And she realized she should have known he was there, but it had been so long since they were together. She reached out because she felt the need to touch him, to make sure he really was there. Her hand ran from his upper arm downward until her fingers were on his hand. Thoughts of pancakes were gone and she was absolutely beaming. Growing up with Jake was her happy place in her memories and she could remember how heartbroken she'd been when they'd been separated. She smacked his arm then, getting a little upset, "Jacob Devine, it's been twenty-three years!"

Her exuberance was contagious as it had always been and when Elara lit up, Jacob found himself grinning but it was short lived and he yelped reflexively when she swatted him, his opposite hand coming up to cover the spot on his arm briefly before falling away. "That's not entirely my fault, El. We almost got to meet up in 2374, but then mom got sick and she was afraid for me to go anywhere. When she passed the year after, dad kind of needed me." His head ducked, eyes on the carpet. "Year later, the Luminai destroyed 211 and I lost dad in the attack. Been a little complicated since then."

Noticing the gathering of feet on the other side of Elara, Jacob quickly looked up. The line was growing and he was holding it up. He turned and ordered an easy ham and cheese omelette and a cup of black coffee. He then took his tray and stepped to the side so Elara could order. "Have breakfast with me, if you're not too annoyed." He flashed her a smile.

"I'm pretty sure that I could never be that annoyed with you," Elara told him. "I know things have been difficult and unexpected...and I'm sorry for that, but I would have preferred for us to go through it all together." She ordered banana and pecan pancakes with some scrambled eggs and some coffee before joining Jacob. "And to have spent time harassing you," she teased with a smile.

"So long as you're pretty sure," Jacob returned with a smirk. Honestly it probably would have been a whole lot easier together. Those times had been difficult with a lot of rough road but they had passed. "I guess you have a lot of harassing to catch up on?" He set his tray down at a vacant table near one of the windows and waited for her to join him so that he sat down at the same time as her.

Sitting down together, she poked at her pancakes and then looked back up at him. "I've missed you, but I'm glad we get to be back together again...unless you're going to be stolen away this time?"

"Nope, got a hangar bay full of birds," Jacob answered as he used the side of his fork to cut off a piece of his omelette. "Nineteen pilots, twenty TSOs, and a whole lotta space." He tucked the bite in his mouth. He wasn't going anywhere. "So, you'll have to put up with me for awhile yet." He paused and looked at her and then with a teasing half smile asked, "When did you shrink?"

Elara crinkled up her nose in response, though a bright smile on her face and in her eyes just the same. "I guess I had to make up for all the times where I was the tallest growing up...so I have two years on you and now you have a couple inches."

"You say that like you didn't enjoy being the tallest." Jacob met her eyes. "If it bothered you that much you could have stopped growing a long time ago, you know." As if she had control over that. He forked another bite of omelette. "So how's your family?"

"Leo...is still Leo, but slightly less annoying and more ignoring," Elara put out there. "We hung out when our leaves last matched up and it was fine, but he still would much rather tinker...or tell someone that their warp core is out of alignment...when he's on a ship that's not even his to watch over..." She shook her head. "Grandpa only talks to me when he wants to tell me to do something, so you know...I can do the opposite," she said a bit cheery but still not pleased about him. "He told me I should have requested an assignment closer to Earth...so he's going to be super thrilled I'm here."

"Maybe he'll be even more thrilled to hear that I'm on this ship too," Jacob put out there a touch slyly. He only met Elara's grandfather once when he was visiting the family on 211, and he was pretty sure the old guy called him a "scamp" once or twice. "As for Leo...he was never really designed with socialization in mind." He picked up his mug of coffee and took a sip, studying Elara with a warm smile as he lowered it to the table. "I still don't see what was so bad about coloring."

Elara rolled her eyes, "I'm fairly sure Leo would be thrilled if we were assigned together forever from now on. Remember, he was all about our parents doing a betrothal and leaving me with your family...which may not have been the worst idea." Even though she loved her brother, he wasn't Jacob...he hadn't been super happy memories before all the bad.

"Life would have sure been different if they had left you on 211," Jacob said, stating the obvious. Of course, had she gone off to Academy in the usual manner she still wouldn't have been there when 211 was destroyed or when he'd found himself orphaned and with no extended family. But they would have had far more memories, a deeper relationship and yet when he looked at her now it was almost like they'd never been separated. And yet they had. He had holes in his life to prove it. Maybe it was that reminder of giddy childhood she brought to the surface? "God I missed you," he admitted, "though I didn't realize how much until now."

"I've missed you too," she beamed at him before taking a bite of her pancakes. Elara took a moment to eat before speaking up again. "Have you been on the Andromeda for long?" she asked. It was easy with Jacob, it very much felt like all those years hadn't passed, which she really thought was a good thing...but they definitely were different people now. Hopefully they could catch up and be just as close still.

"Two days," Jacob answered, now halfway through his omelette. "Just enough time to settle in and start rearranging the furniture." Furniture which included the flight deck and flight break downs as well as the watch set up. "And ruffle many a feather along the way," he mused. "How about you? When did you get here?"

"Just got here with my bags...but I'm pretty easy about moving...mainly just clothes to put in the closet," Elara told him with a shrug. "I haven't even settled into my labs yet...though I don't anticipate much moving...I do pretty well with standard setups of those kinds of things."

Jacob chuckled. "I didn't mean literal furniture, Sass. I travel on the light side myself. The only thing I have left of value is this," and he pulled a pendant from inside his shirt and showed it to her. He didn't know if she'd recognize it after all these years. It was all that was left of the bracelet she'd given him twenty-three years ago. "And a sketch drawn by a friend along with Freely's gear. But that's it really."

"This is familiar," Elara said as she leaned forward across the table and grasped the pendant. Her fingers rubbed the blue material, not worrying about Jacob's personal space. "Like the ocean..." she whispered. "This used to be a bracelet..."

Jacob was pulled forward by her hold on the stone. It was slightly uncomfortable but mostly amusing. "Yes, it was a bracelet but it has been twenty-three years, El. Mom rethreaded it as often as she could but it was getting too difficult to keep up with so I had her turn one into this. The other stones were kept in a box for safekeeping in my room and when 211 was destroyed... Well, I lost them." He looked up into her eyes, his body leaning forward to avoid his neck being cut by the leather at the back. "It's all I have left."

"You still had a piece of me," Elara said with a small smile. She let it go and thus releasing Jacob as well. "After all of this time." She paused for a moment. "Do you know that I probably drove my parents crazy about that bracelet and only had it a couple of days before I gave it to you? I think I had walked by the shop for months telling them how much I loved it and wanted it even though they said it was too big for me...and here you have a piece of it over two decades later..." It was sweet, but then she started to worry. She sat back in her chair and got quite serious, worry knotting her stomach. "Does this mean that we have to discuss the custody of our child?"

Jacob's eyebrows shot upward in obvious surprise and then almost immediately furrowed. What child could she possibly be talking about? They hadn't seen one another in twenty-three years and they were just children themselves at the time. He looked into Elara's dancing eyes and took in the amused expression on her face. He was missing something. And then it hit him. "Smaug?"

"His name is Pippin," Elara told him. "Maybe we can call him Pippin Smaug Evander Devine." The little dragon that Jacob had given her was all she'd kept for all this time. Things didn't make it through the war, but she'd held that dragon close and carried him everywhere (even when she wasn't supposed to). "I've had him restored...which was not easy to let someone else have possession of him...but he'd gotten quite faded and a bit injured in all the moves." She wondered if he thought she was crazy, what he'd held onto had been something easily taken along through years, but here she was with this small dragon. "He's probably grumpy he's alone in my quarters and without a good perch spot," Elara told him all too seriously.

"But if you called him Smaug Pippin Evander Devine, then his initials would be SPED. How cool would that be?" Jacob grinned. He honestly didn't care what she named the dragon but it was fun teasing her. He caught the seriousness in her expression and it amazed him that after all this time that little plastic dragon meant so much to her. His hand reached up to capture his pendant and as he tucked it away he realized he understood all too well. He had friends since Elara, several in fact. But the connection he had with the young woman across from him could never be duplicated. Not even with Jenn. He wondered, perhaps, if it had something to do with their Betazoid natures. Was it weird to feel so familiar with someone you hadn't seen in person since you were six years old? Maybe? "You know, we could build him a special perch," he offered.

"Just as long as we're agreed Pippin is in there somewhere," Elara told him. "I used to talk to him like I talked to you and think that you could hear me somehow." She went quiet and ate a couple bits of her food before speaking up again. "I might still speak to him...all of the time... I don't know what seems crazier to people, talking to yourself or talking to Pippin." She didn't think it was really that crazy of a thing. She just had never been able to give Pippin up.

Jacob pushed his empty plate to the side and folded his arms on the edge of the table and leaned forward a bit. Ducking his head enough to meet her eyes he said, "I wish I could have heard you back then, El, but I am here now. You can always talk to me." He smiled at her. "Unless you prefer someone who doesn't answer back?" He smirked, attempting to lighten the mood.

She beamed at him. "You sure you want to offer your services? I know much more exciting topics now...what are your thoughts on the Betazoid bio-luminescent blue orchid?" Of course, it wasn't something that she was going to go on about right now, but it was more fair warning on what topics she might bore him over in the future. When Elara got going on a topic, she'd babble on until someone stopped her...or else she'd just talk to Pippin about it. Normally...it was the latter.

"Their blooms only open beneath the moonlight, if I remember correctly. I've seen a yellow one but I believe they come in other colors as well." Jacob shrugged. "I'm afraid that's about all I know. Mom had a chameleon rose bush back on 211. She picked it up a couple years after you left. I think I showed it to you on one of our comm calls?" That was a good twenty years ago at least. He smiled at her. "And I wouldn't offer if I didn't mean it."

"You're the best, you know that right?" she asked quite seriously. She knew that she couldn't just assume things to be perfectly as they were before, they were both grown adults and more than a decade had passed since they'd last seen each other. Elara found herself falling happily for how easily it was to talk to Jacob and she was a little worried if she blinked or walked away, he'd disappear. "I have yet to be on a ship where I can start my own garden of sorts...chameleon rose is definitely on that list."

"Who's the lovely lady?" Gavin had just dropped off his food waste to recycle and picked up another cup of coffee. He lowered himself into the seat next to Elara and across from Jacob. "Gavin," he introduced himself, "but they call me Zoomie." He grinned at her over the top of his coffee mug. "Bet they call you Beautiful." No sooner had he got the words out than he yelped and turned his head to glare at Jacob. "What the hell was that for?"

"Bad manners and the worse pick up line this side of the universe," Jacob shot back, eyes locked with Gavin's briefly then shaking his head he looked at Elara. "This is my TSO."

"And generally his wingman," Gavin added with a scowl. "You must be special if he's kicking me under the table."

Elara smiled at him. "Good to know he doesn't go around and kick you all the time," she said. Tilting her head she looked between Jacob and Gavin. "I'm Elara...Jacob and I are old friends...and it seems like we've finally found our way back to each other."

"I see, so how old is old exactly?" Gavin inquired with a smirk. "Are we talking old married couple old?"

"You're about to get more than a kick under the table." Jacob glared at Gavin but it only lasted a second.

"So, old married couple old then," Gavin looked at Elara. "Sounds like you could use some new friends. You know, friends as young and good looking as you are."

"Cause apparently I'm old," Jacob said dryly.

"We didn't get to the married part," Elara rambled on cheerily. "Though if my brother would have had his way, we would have been married off before we were teenagers." She paused only for a brief moment. "Though, we do have a child together, even if we can't always agree on his name." Elara didn't know quite why she was rambling, but she was having a hard time stopping. Her thoughts were going a mile a minute and she was fairly sure she should have stopped right after the first statement she'd made. She was blushing, she could feel the heat in her cheeks. "Scoria. Cinder cones. Chameleon roses. Radon. Zooxanthellae. Fog bow." Deep breath and a feeling that she should just fall over and die hit her hard and she found herself looking down before finally saying, "and I should have stopped talking five minutes ago."

"Damn those are awful names to saddle a kid with," Gavin interjected. "No wonder you can't agree. I mean Scoria is kinda cool and maybe Radon or Zooxanthellae if you're feeling imaginative but really, Fog Bow?" He looked at Jacob. "Tell me you were kidding."

"Idiot, those are names of plants." Jacob didn't have to read Elara's mind to read her body language and the way her mouth was just sort of running away with her. It was actually cute in his opinion but the best thing he could do right now was shut Zoomie down before the man went too far. "Elara is our chief science officer and she's always sort of had a thing for plants. We got lost in the base arboretum once when I was five. Just sort of wandered off when our moms were shopping. We had so much fun playing jungle explorers. Elara knew everything about the plants." Granted he knew now that most of what she had told him back then was entirely made up but at five he'd believed every word of it.

They were all scientific terms, but Elara wasn't going to correct Jacob when he didn't seem to just exit and drag his buddy with him. Having to be social with someone was one thing or in the lab, but with someone who was Jacob's friend, she'd just not been prepared for that. She'd had a hard time over the years dealing with social situations, it was easier to focus on work and lab things. Those things were easier to focus on. There just always seemed like there was too much going on outside of the lab world. She'd never been good at processing it all. Plants and rocks were easier, even weird fish that lit up because of their biology...so many things made more sense to her than the majority of people who wanted to converse about things that lie outside of the lab. "Jungle exploring and space forts," she said quietly, feeling slightly less embarrassed. She looked back up at Jacob. "Sometimes plants are easier than people."

"Sometimes," Jacob agreed.

Gavin looked at the two of them, a bit of a smirk on his face. "Well, Elara, it was nice meeting you. I've got a few reports to go over." He rose to his feet. "Jack, I'll catch up with you at flight time." Jacob looked up and gave his TSO a nod that was part agreement, part dismissal. Gavin smiled at Elara and then turned and walked away. Over his shoulder he called back, "I want to meet this kid."

"Kid?" Jacob looked confused for half a second then as it all caught up to him he grinned. "Won't he be surprised?" His eyes returned to Elara and he was actually glad that it was just the two of them again. "You okay? He can be a bit much at times." Of course it could have been worse. Zoomie had been known to monopolize the conversation, chatter incessantly, and not get the hints that he was annoying people.

Elara gave him a smile and then looked down. "I'm sorry if I complicated things," she told him honestly. "I only pretend to be good with people..." She supposed that this was why she was still so attached to Pippin. He never cared what she babbled on about and never judged her..or forced her into crowded and loud social situations that she didn't actually want to be in. The quiet of labs were such a sanctuary for her and often times the only time the world around her fell away and there was quiet. "He was nice, though."

"You didn't complicate anything, trust me. I'm liable to get hit with twenty questions when we take our test flight but it's nothing I can't handle." Jacob checked the time, annoyed to find that Gavin's departure was more about their impending flight than any sense of decency. "Some of us pretend better than others but it's all the same underneath." He reached out and captured Elara's hand across the table and gave it a gentle squeeze. "And sadly I have to go." He tipped his head to meet her eyes. "But, maybe we can have dinner together? You know, catch up?"

"I'd like that," she said squeezing his hand before beaming at him. Elara had already decided she wasn't leaving that assignment, even if her grandfather wasn't happy about it, but Jacob there meant that she definitely wasn't going anywhere. She'd waited too long and missed him too much to give up on the opportunity to be back together...also, the science opportunities. So much in her life had changed over the last two decades, with every move...she'd told herself that it was a new adventure...but the only new adventure had really ever been the science. Here Jacob was, so much older (but then so was she), this friendship from her past that she'd been so heartbroken over losing and still thought about every day...and she felt like maybe there would be more adventure than just the science. "Be safe until then?"

"Do my best," he replied, squeezing her hand one more time before reluctantly rising to his feet and collecting his tray. Jacob was about to step away when he stopped to ask, "Your place or mine and what's a good time?" It wouldn't do just to agree to have dinner together if they didn't make proper plans. It would certainly give him something to look forward to.

It wasn't a big question, but it felt like one. "Dinner...time," she found herself saying. Of course that wasn't a time time, which was likely what Jacob wanted. "Eighteen-thirty?" she threw out there. "Is that too late? Too early?" People all ate at different times and she didn't know what his normal was, she didn't think she honestly had a normal. Elara just ate when she remembered to or when it seemed like people were heading that way. "But your place?" She didn't know how she felt about him coming to her quarters, which were completely bare...but also she knew it was silly but she wasn't quite ready to have Pippin and Jacob be in the same vicinity.

He could hear the anxiety his question had created and so Jacob gave her a warm smile of encouragement. "Eight-thirty is fine. I'm not on watch tonight so I'll be in quarters. I'll see you then." At that point it was just best to go and so with a bit of a wave he headed for the recycling unit and then the door. Just before stepping through he turned back to look at her. Tonight would be filled with memories...