Everyone raise your glasses!

[thenormalsquint]

When; Evening of Tuesday, August 13th
Rating; PG-13, at best. Angela's on her best behavior tonight.
Characters; It's Ginny's birthday party and everybody Ginny knows was invited. Let's handwave that and just show up. BTW, IT'S BLACK TIE. PUT ON YOUR SUITS, BOYS.
Summary; There's no legal drinking age in the City, but who says we can't party like there was one anyway?
Log;

This party was four years coming. The restaurant has set aside a large room just for this event and on short notice too. The food is plentiful and of various cuisines, with even a large selection of vegetarian options for those who prefer that. But of course, there is more alcohol than one has ever seen because Angela knows the people she invited and knows quite a few of them have liquor in their veins instead of blood. Rule of thumb: more liquid than solids every time.

Everything's set and ready for the birthday girl to make her appearance, so for the time being, Angela's flitting around the place dressed in more subdued colors than usual, choosing black because no one gets to stand out more than Ginny tonight, and socializing with the few guests that have shown up already.

Sadly, there are no strippers. Ginny nixed that one hard.

Comments

suddenly i'm made of tl;dr, i'm sorry.

[directives]

[ kathryn envies that about the younger captain, how he's able to flit effortlessly between those casual and professional personas. she hasn't had that luxury. not in recent years, anyway. maybe she used to be good at doing that when she was still a commander, serving aboard a ship within a few lightyears of earth and her mother's home in indiana, but now... quite honestly, she fumbles. she's spent far too much time sheering away the "softer," more malleable parts of herself to make room for this strong, immovable pillar of a woman that her crew could look up to for guidance and strength that she's almost forgotten how to stop being captain janeway and just be kathryn.

that had been one of the focal points of chakotay's argument, even if he'd more implied it than said it outright. and he was right, as much as she wanted to contest his point. she did need to relax and exist without rank or ceremony following her everywhere. which, in a way, made khan's presence something of a blessing in disguise. it was forcing her to be kathryn for very captainly reasons.

the irony's not lost on her. ]

Oh? [ she turns towards him in her chair, resting an elbow on the table so she can drop her chin into her palm. ] I imagine his likeness is more alarming to you than it is to him.

it's more than okay give me everything

[medicos]

I ain't getting anywhere near the guy if I can help it. That's just a whole bag of awkward, but Jim's getting a kick out of it, knowing him.

[ jim is a curious beast, the kind of kid that would poke a sleeping dragon in its sleep with a stick to find out what happens when it wakes up ( which, all things considered, he metaphorically already does on a regular basis, not that bones would consider himself or spock the dragon - but he's just saying ). ]

I told him to be careful. It ain't the same as the old Spock coming in from an alternate reality to ours because of a damn black hole. From what Jim and Spock's been telling me, he's a different guy altogether. He may have my face, but it doesn't mean we're the same kind of person.

♥

[directives]

I don't blame you. [ a few years from now, she'll be able to understand such a sentiment from a very personal point of view. thankfully, she's not far enough along in her own respective timeline to talk about the various shades of possible kathryn janeways and how one of them was so dark, twisted, and bitter, she willingly broke a directive this kathryn's fought long and hard to uphold. ]

Yet, it's your face which casts an illusion of security -- whether it be false or not -- that makes being around him not as uncomfortable as it should be. It's uncomfortable for you, sure, but for Jim... Let's just hope that curiosity doesn't kill the cat.

[medicos]

I trust him, Janeway.

[ more than anyone, really - and bones doesn't put a whole lot of trust in others, particularly when his own trust has been severed after one too many broke promises from someone he used to love. people can be smart, yes, and they can be careful on their thoughts and actions - but they can also be stupid, irrational, brash. bones has a more difficult time now grasping that fact in others, regardless of how prominent his own kind of stubborn is becoming.

but rules always have an exception, or someone who likes to break them - jim is, admittedly, both.

although - that isn't something he likes admitting verbally, or even consciously. because it's makes his situation even more real - that there's no one else he'd trust than the most reckless man he's ever met, who's kept bones around his orbit despite not allowing anyone else to be. there's a joke there somewhere that the universe is playing on him. ]

And the guy didn't shoot holes in him yet. 'm taking it as a sign. Either he's sane or Jim's been behaving himself. [ he's willing to be it's the former, though. ]

[directives]

So do I, otherwise I wouldn't have given him my phaser.

[ that should speak volumes, especially with how tight-lipped she's been about the future, how insistent she's been about her century's temporal prime directive. she's pushing the boundaries of those rules and regulations by allowing someone from the past to hold onto 24th century technology. ]

[medicos]

You gave him your phaser? That's just asking for trouble.

[ hypocritical of him to say, isn't it, after such a bold statement? although it's clear from his tone of voice that he already expects jim to make the most of the gift given to him. he's been working relentlessly in the labs, his little project on the padd in his hands just a taste of what he can and wants to do, the first and foremost being a way out, and the next, matters of security. for all his seemingly nonchalant attitude, jim is a genius and a captain and when it's advantageous for him, he uses both of those qualities to gain the upper hand.

and bones worries, of course. he worries a lot, but given the circumstances, his statement of trusting jim is being put to the test here, useless as it is. he'd trust jim with a medical tricorder and an autosuture if it's going to save lives. provided, of course, that he'd have access to both. in that, anyway, he's similar to janeway. ]

It might be helpful, anyway. He's been talking about recreating a version of it with what he can grab hold of in this place.

[directives]

I can always put it back together if he manages to disassemble it beyond repair. [ their power cells were different and far more efficient than anything they had access to in the 23rd century, advancements granted to them by new worlds entering the federation and sharing technological achievements that any of their scientists had yet to stumble upon. it was one of the things she loved the most about first contact, and she has more experience with first contact situations than anyone in starfleet, including the desk jockey brass who stepped off the decks of ships in order to be in charge of that department. ]

There are other ways in which my crew and I might be able to help, but I need to sit down and re-examine a few things first. I'm well aware of the fact that Starfleet doesn't exactly exist here, and that our situation is a unique one, but our situation back home was its own brand of unique, as well. [ she hasn't told anyone that they're lost, not even kirk. ] Five years is a long time, and I've managed to avoid breaking the Prime Directive. Each time I've bent it... That's been a difficult choice to make. Handing my phaser over to your captain isn't something I did very lightly. Granted, I was intending on passing it to him with a bit more ceremony. [ as it had been holstered to her thigh when she arrived. that proved to be more uncomfortable than it was worth, though she would've endured the discomfort with a straight face, smile, and perfect posture had the situation been more dire.

kathryn leans back in her chair, crossing her legs and resting one arm on the table as if she were sitting in her chair on the bridge instead of in a chair in at a table in a fancy restaurant. ] I'll be blunt; I'm stubborn and I've got one hell of determined streak -- one some aboard my ship would be quick to call ruthless. I'd take that as a compliment. Chakotay may want nothing more than for me to sit back and relax, to look at being here as the shore leave he the Doctor have been trying to get me to take for the past five years, but much like your captain, I don't believe in no win scenarios.

I understand what he's doing, likely better than anyone else here, and I'm going to support him. Even when you and Commander Spock may not, even when you believe it to be in his best interest to stop.

( OOC | E-MAIL REPLYING FROM WORK. APOLOGIES FOR ANY HTML GARBLE AND THE TEXT WALL OF TL;DR. )

[medicos]

[ in contrast, bones leans further into the table, arms resting on the flat surface and hands clasped around his glass as he listens to her. his eyes are turned away, however, and pinned to the picture of jim walking around the party and chatting up with friends and strangers alike, being the life of the party that he is. even in such a state of relaxation, bones' eyes are trained to watch every single one of jim's actions to make sure that he's fine. that he's not eating anything that'd make him fall to the ground in less than five seconds flat, that he's not accidentally insulting anyone.

that he's happy, despite the situation they're involved in. ]

Whatever Spock and I talk about when it comes to Jim is just that. We talk. We don't get along, aside from the fact that it's in our best interests to keep Jim alive and safe. [ in fact, that stunning conclusion in itself is what started this non-friendship in the first place - and then some. ] Something that I think you already no doubt know about us.

[ he pauses, watching with a small, crooked smile on his face as jim says something to ginny that makes her flustered and embarrassed before he stalks off to bother someone else. it's perhaps very telling, though, that bones has come to that conclusion with regards to his relationship with spock ( or the lack thereof ) and can talk about it with only a scowl on his face to accompany his words. death certainly changes some things, although not by much ( he still hates spock, and he's later on, he's going to hate him further by making a perfect tasting cake like the smug little shit that he is ). ]

But I know enough about the guy to know that's got a stubborn streak a mile wide, just like you. He'd do the same in your stead. So I wouldn't ever tell that idiot to stop. He'd take it as a challenge to go further. That's not exactly what I want, either.

[ boldly going where no one's gone before, right? it's a knowledge gained, of course, from being friends with him for so long, from peeling off all the defences jim has put up around him and seeing the boy who wants so desperately to be a man, to be acknowledged by someone that he's not just some fluke, that he's meant for something special. bones would be an idiot to deny jim that, although he does it so very well then jim's ego needs to be punctured once or twice before it balloons into somethng he can't control any further. ]

I take the lesser of two evils if it means I can still keep an eye on him if he does something stupid again. [ a beat, then an eyebrow raise at janeway's direction. ] Doesn't mean I'll stop telling him when reckless starts becoming stupid and stupid starting turning into life-threaning. S'my job.

[ maybe not necessarily as his chief medical officer - but as his friend. ]


( OOC: no worries! also sorry for the wall of text, oops. )

[directives]

[ kathryn arches an eyebrow in a very vulcan like fashion at that "we don't get along" comment, but her expression otherwise remains impassive. with the exception of sharing what khan did in her timeline with kirk and making the offhand confirmation here and there in regards to their counterparts having done the same thing in her timeline as they did in theirs, she hasn't said a word to any of them about what became of any of them. even if she would like to see the look on mccoy's face were she to tell him he's still alive and kicking in 2375, an admiral and still driving everyone at starfleet medical batty.

there's a lot of stubborn at this table with the man who refuses to die and the woman who told the borg collective to sit down, shut up, and do things her way.

she chuckles, her lips curling upward slightly. ] I suppose that's something else he and I have in common. [ taking failure as a challenge to not only succeed, but excel at succeeding. kathryn shakes her head. ] You know, I never realized how much I was like James Kirk. I always thought that Picard [ not that you know who that is, bones, unless you're familiar with his family's winery ] or Riker would take the cake on Kirk similarities, not an eager, ambitious ex science officer.

[ boldly going where no one's gone before. she tells herself that on bad days, when her guilt's eating away at her and threatening to cast her back into the depths of the void where it nearly swallowed her whole: she's boldly going where nobody in starfleet has gone before, seeing through with one of the core principals of the federation. she did what she had to, she made the right choice, she did what starfleet would have done. that didn't mean she would ever stop feeling bad about it. that guilt would likely haunt her long after she got her crew home. ]

Good. He needs that. [ friendship, the reassurance that someone cares, and not just because he's the captain. ] To be completely honest, I envy him for having that.