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

[directives]

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.

Comments

[candothat]

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!"

[deuterium]

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?"

[candothat]

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?"

[deuterium]

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."

[candothat]

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?"

[deuterium]

"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.

[candothat]

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.

[deuterium]

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

[candothat]

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