tampered | i'm in a hurry (and i don't know why).

Entry tags:

i'm in a hurry (and i don't know why).

When; September 8th, mid-afternoon
Rating; PG?
Characters; Kathryn Janeway (

deuterium) & OPEN
Summary; Still cursed, hiding out in Xandu.
Log;

Katie doesn't roll out of bed until mid-afternoon, having not succumbed to the pull of sleep until dawn's light started to creep over the horizon. She'd been determined to stay up as late as possible, afraid that if she went to sleep, she'd wake up as a completely different person. Her dreams were plagued with such thoughts and scenarios, waking up in a body that had a good decade or so to age, being called Captain and asked for directions she didn't have — like her body had returned to what Commander Chakotay had insisted was normal only to have her mind still stuck in the state it was in now.

To the nearest mirror she went, inspecting her image to make sure her features were as they should be, that she was still the woman she thought she was. Curse paranoia was going to drive her mad. (Good thing she wouldn't be Katie for very long, that when she did wake up tomorrow morning, she'd find herself Captain Janeway and not the Ensign that served on the Al-Batani under Tom's father.)

Wanting to avoid another run-in with someone who knew that Katie was short for Kathryn and fought the urge to address her as someone with a much higher authority than she possessed, she ducked out of the apartment and made her way to Xanadu.

She thought about taking her older counterpart's tricorder with her, and while the scientist in her screamed yes, the young woman who wanted nothing to do with a future she hadn't carved out for herself said no. And against her better judgement, she left her phone and combadge behind as well — no pockets to hide the latter, no desire to carry around the former.

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Neil was minding his own business, not cursed this time, which was nice, but feeling in need of some fresh air. Dressed in his new clothes and with a new hair cut -- both thanks to Lucy -- he entered the garden known as Xanadu, walking slowly and letting his eyes drift up and around at the greenery that edged the path and met overhead.

He'd never been here before and had no clue what path he would take when he reached the courtyard. According to the word on the network, he had to be careful not to get lost. His device was in his pocket and Neil hoped that would help if he became stuck.

Edited 2013-09-09 20:35 (UTC)

Katie, on the other hand, didn't bring her device or her combadge with her, and wouldn't mind getting lost. It would give her a legitimate reason for not reporting back to the commander at a decent hour, and after the nightmares that plagued her dreams last night, she was in even less of a hurry to return to the apartment that was apparently serving as a Starfleet base of operations. It was the most unorthodox execution of away mission protocols she'd seen, and something the Academy hadn't prepared her for — but she doubted Starfleet had considered losing people to a quantum flux before. This was likely the first occurrence on record, and while the physicist in her wanted to study it, the woman needed time to adjust to this place and the idea of having been proceeded by an older, higher ranking version of herself before she even thought about indulging her scientist's whims.

She found Xanadu soothing, an easy distraction from the city it existed within. Being in the City itself made her feel too out of place, to the point where she couldn't just tell herself she was strolling down older areas of San Fransisco or Indianapolis, because it wasn't just the buildings that were dated. It was the clothes, the things for sale in shop windows, the way food was prepped and stored, and of course, the technology. To a girl from the 24th Century, it was very off-putting. She'd much rather hang out in the park, where there were fewer reminders of the time difference, of how out of place she was.

"--oop! Sorry!" Katie apologized, having rounded a corner marked by a tall, thick tree a little too quickly.

Neil wasn't cursed for a change, but he looked a little bit different from his usual self. He didn't recognize the woman who practically walked into him and who knew if she'd recognize him? They could have talked over the network, maybe. He didn't think so, though.

"Hey, it's okay," he said with a smile. "I'm fine, you fine?"

Nope. No recognition -- even if the woman she was supposed to be was good with faces and knew more about people she'd never interacted with, much less spoken to, than she let on (thank you, open network feeds), Katie didn't have access to any of those memories. It was as if she'd been re-ripped from her world from an earlier point in time. She knew nothing of that life and the people in it outside what Commander Chakotay had told her, and she took those things with a grain of salt.

"Yes, fine. I avoided falling on my face, so I'd call that a win."

Wow. What a curse this is.

"Nobody fell at all, so yeah, win-win."

Neil stuck his hands in the pockets of his trousers - not his jeans, because he was trying to wear his new clothes, for Lucy's sake - and wondered what to say next. Awkward nineteen-year-old? Yep.

"Nice day, huh?"

And how fuckin' lame was that, McCormick?

She's going to hate it come tomorrow morning when she's as she should be, especially once she recalls spending the majority of her Saturday flirting shamelessly with Captain Kirk. Her younger self didn't always make the best choices, and there were many things Kathryn wished she could take back -- like all those summers spent glued to her textbooks instead of enjoying family time when her father wasn't off world on assignment in deep space.

"I don't know; does this constitute as a nice day for this place? It's only my second day, so I wouldn't really know. It seems nice, but it's very possible I'm just overlooking the bad parts."

That's Captain Jerk to Neil. The guy wasn't very patient with him and became a bit patronizing during the one network conversation they've had. As for regrets? Doesn't everyone have some of those?

"I think it does, 'cause nobody's died." He paused. "As far as I know..."

That was the thing about the City. It was unpredictable and who knew what the Hell was going on, really, from one moment to the next? Neil didn't glue himself to the network, so sometimes he missed things.

"Second day? Wow. You're like... new new."

Her eyebrows shoot up in sudden alarm. "Dying's common here?"

New and unused to the crazy that's considered to be the City norm. (As new as someone who was cursed out of her mind and believed herself to be new could be, anyway.)

Oooops.

"Well, no, not really all that common, it just, you know..."

She doesn't know, McCormick. Get your shit together.

"It's a saying, like... Ha-ha, nobody died, so it's a good day..."

You are the lamest dickhead ever...

"Still, that means that people do die here. I know there's curses and what-not, but I didn't think any of those involved death."

That's one thing she has in common with the person she'll grow to be: A vehement disdain of death.

"They do, yeah, but then they come back to life or... something like that. They strike a bargain with the gods who... aren't in charge anymore, so maybe the whole thing is kinda fucked up now."

Wow. That was informative, Neil.

"Really fucked up is more like it." Captain Janeway would never swear like that in public. Ensign Janeway doesn't much care. "Even if the person does come back, they still have that experience to carry with them. Does this place even have trauma counselors to help people deal with the post-traumatic stress of some these curses?"

As she can tell, he doesn't mind her swearing. Swearing is almost a second language for him, though he's tried not to swear around his boss, Lucy, or Penny, because it makes her face a bit red...

His expression turns to surprise.

"Trauma counselors? This isn't a resort, you know. It's some kinda prison experiment or a trap or something. I don't think they care if it makes us feel like shit..."

Captain James T. Kirk and his officers--the ones who haven't been transformed into children for the weekend--might be some of Starfleet's finest, but they were wholly unprepared for the great task of babysitting a tiny genius. Pavel's fear of the strange city he has found himself in abated as soon as he was fed properly and received a good night's sleep and nothing, not even trained Starfleet officers, can keep his curiosity in check.

That curiosity has led him back to Xanadu. The garden is full of all kinds of plants and insects and tiny animals that don't exist in Russia's urban areas. There are trees to climb and small creeks to splash across. Best of all, the garden lacks the frightening, milling masses of humanity that crowd the rest of the City. Pavel hasn't been away from his babysitters long enough to wonder if they might be worried and, for the moment, he's sufficiently preoccupied to forget about finding his parents. It's a good day.

The boy spies Katie when he's halfway up a young birch tree. Because she's his friend--she gave him ice cream, of course she's his friend--he shouts to get her attention. "Katie! Hello!"

That, she could relate to. The City was strange and new and wrong in so many ways. Perhaps her older self had been more equipped to deal with the setting and scenario, but she was fresh out of the Academy and had only been off-world a handful of times, and those had been as a civilian accompanying her father on missions. Most of those had been to Mars, which hardly counted for anything. She wasn't prepared to deal with this, much less deal with being told she's essentially broken, needs repairing, and should be this older, more refined model of herself that's as foreign to her as rock & roll is to a Vulcan.

She's pleased to see Pavel, waving at him once she spots where he's at on the tree, shading her eyes from the sun peaking in through the leaves with one hand.

"Hey! How'd you get up there?"

No one has told Pavel about who he will become; as far as he knows, no one here has ever met him. It's still frightening--being on a planet without his parents or a way home can hardly be anything but--but many people have been kind to him and it's easy to forget that this isn't a brief vacation.

He slides down to the tree's lowest branch. What the child lacks in natural grace he makes up for in easy confidence; there's no apparent danger of falling (and, even if there was, the fall would only be far enough to bruise his ego). With no small amount of pride in his tree-scaling accomplishments, Pavel replies, "I climbed! Do you know how to climb trees?"

He slides down just as Katie moves to climb up there with him in spite of the fact that she's wearing a dress. She moves up the tree with ease, settling herself on that same branch, side pressed to the trunk, skirt tucked under her legs as to not give anyone who passes down below a free show. Growing up in rural Indiana -- at least, the 24th Century's version of rural anywhere on Earth came with perks. Such as climbing trees with her sister as a kid and having a father who encouraged her to enjoy the great outdoors instead of staying inside studying all the time.

She just took her studying with her up the tree and did her readings from the highest branch she could reach.

"I think I'm going to go with yes," she says once she's situated on the branch. "I do indeed know how to climb trees."

The boy is absolutely delighted by Katie's willingness to join him in the tree (and, of course, impressed by her skills). She's exceptionally cool for an adult. He perches next to her, feet swinging idly.

"Where did you learn?"

"My father. He's really rugged and big into the outdoors."

A rare breed of admiral, one who insisted that his daughters learn to enjoy an appreciate the natural wonders that Earth still had to offer when it was so easy to get swept up into the technological advancements of the 24th Century.

Chekov doesn't know what rugged means; this does not, however, sound like either of his parents, who are very happy in their technologically-enhanced spheres of existence.

"Does he climb with you? My papa does not. He says that climbing is for monkeys.

"Yeah, he did. He and my sister both." Katie swings her legs back and forth. "Do you have any siblings?"

"Big sister, or small sister? I have none. If I had one, I would chose a small sibling."

Unfortunately, another run-in seems to be what fate has on its mind. This young Ensign certainly knows her foremost as Captain - he's been successful in doing so, but there's still a conscious effort that goes into his calling her Kathryn. Luckily, he's been apprised of the situation, so he's certainly going to be mindful of what he says.

Xanadu is a locale of interest - its climate seems to be isolated from the rest of the City's, and he hasn't been able to find out what's controlling it just yet. It's also a nice reprieve from the curse-riddled City for a late morning walk, where he's taking things in via visual observation. His tricorder is, of course, tucked safely away rather than out where anyone could just see him using it.

He hadn't been expecting or intending to come across her, but there's a familiarity to her that strikes him as soon as he spots the younger-than-usual woman on the path up ahead. In context, he's pretty sure why that is. With an internal reminder to himself to be careful about what he says and how he says it, he offers her a friendly, small smile.

"Morning."

She won't take kindly to being addressed as either. Captain's a rank she's yet to achieve, a position high on the Starfleet ladder than she wants to climb at this point. She's content with being a scientist, with having a life outside of what she does for a living. She doesn't think she'd be able to maintain that were she a captain, especially in the situation Commander Chakotay claims they're in. (Spoilers: She's right. She doesn't. She can't. She won't.) As for Kathryn, that's something only her father and superiors call her.

That would make him the second person to see that in her, albeit with a heads up. Spock had recognized her immediately, whereas Chakotay had argued with her for a good few minutes before getting her name out of her. It wasn't until Janeway was on the table did he even know who she was. Later, that was going to sting a little.

This one mastered the art of Poker Facing early on. Maybe it's genetic.

"Hey," she says, matching that smile. "More afternoon than morning, but if you're of the late-sleeping variety, the I suppose you're right from your own perspective. Good morning, if that's the case."

"Afternoon, then." He gives a little shrug. "Xanadu keeps a more leisurely pace than the rest of the City - actually, it's discordant from the rest of the environment in a lot of ways. It seemed to fit, somehow."

Despite having a pretty good idea of what's going on, he doubts that confronting the matter headfirst is the way to go. Not that he's exactly looking to withhold anything, but this Kathryn Janeway is certainly not the same person under whose command he serves. Somehow, he doubts that making assumptions about who she is at this early point in her career - in her adult life - is fair. She's not yet the person that he knows, which means that she's a separate person he has to deal with as an unknown.

After a moment, recognition sets in. Commander Chakotay had made sure she knew what Harry looked like so she didn't freak out if she bumped into him at the apartment, and that smile quickly becomes an unhappy frown. In a way that mirrors her elder self in a way she's blissfully unaware of, she stands straight, lifts her chin up, and crosses her arms over her chest.

"Did he send you to keep an eye on me?" He being the commander, of course. She did walk out without her combadge and cell phone.

Well, there that is.

"No."

It's a quick and straight response, and he puts his hands up along with it. The gesture is there to convey that he's completely out of whatever went on between the young Captain and the Commander.

"I haven't been sent by anyone, I promise. I'm honestly just curious about the variance in the climate in this area, and... it was also nice to step out of the epicenter of al the curses for a while."

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

i'm in a hurry (and i don't know why).

i hope this is okay... :)

very okay! ♥

hurrah! ♥

:)

:D

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