gotta get down for a mingle

[redactions]

Who: The crew of the SS Heron and visitors.
Broadcast: nope.
Action: Aboard the SS Heron.
When: After returning to the ship.

[ finally back on the right ship, except the corridors are all mysteriously cold and the ship seems smaller. Thanks, Atroma. New crew, visitors, starters in comments ]

Comments

[redactions]

[ The joke is right there, not that great at friends. Only had one, the others are filtering in. For a man who thinks he's a wreckage, homeless, and empty, he sure has his own gravity. ]

James Barnes. I was in the army; I'm from 2014. Friends call me Jim.

[ He holds out his hand for her. ]

[dancingmd]

[With a pleased smile, she shakes his hand, her grip firm and sure. While he may not be that great at friends, she's always happy to make a new one.]

Beverly Crusher. I'm a doctor in Starfleet, from the year 2370.

[Which, of course, he already knows, but it's part of the game.]

[redactions]

So that's outta the way. How long have you been here?

[dancingmd]

Since the beginning of March. You came later, right?

[redactions]

I've been here six months — time's a little funny. June?

[dancingmd]

[The mention of June brings some somberness to her demeanor. That was a difficult month for her, to say the least.]

So you came when we first found the Iskaulit. Did you... did you happen to be on the Marsiva with a man named Julian? Julian Bashir.

[redactions]

No, I talked to him briefly. He disappeared, didn't he?

[dancingmd]

[She nods, her brow furrowed with worry.] But I don't know where to. I thought he went home, back to our universe, but now I'm not so sure.

[redactions]

​[ Frowning, ]

What makes you think that?

[dancingmd]

I don't know... [shaking her head] some of the things Diamond was saying to people, back on the Marsiva. And of course, I know she's there to meddle with our minds and so everything she says should be taken with a grain of salt but... they keep saying the winner of this gets to go home. So what about the rest of us?

[redactions]

What about all the others who disappear? Doesn't mean they're all winning, some of 'em ain't even here long enough to make an impression.

​[ He shrugs. ]

'Course, that's assumin' we know how the audience or the Atroma work. Personally I think they're lyin' to us about that. None a'the cameras on the Marsiva worked at all. I've looked at this ship inside and out and there ain't no microphones anywhere. They could be foolin' us. But it's too damn easy — pardon my French — to pull this from the outside and convince us it's real.

[dancingmd]

[Pardon his French? But he's not speaking French. It may be a dying language but she still has picked up enough from Picard to know when it's being spoken.]

I've thought of that too. Then again, if they have the ability to pull us out of our universes, their form of watching us may just be entirely different than we're imagining. Either way, we don't know what's really happening to the people who leave.

[redactions]

I'd rather not speculate.

​[ He's never been an optimist, and after meeting the Winter Soldier there's only so many horrors his mind can conjure. ]

[dancingmd]

I'm sorry.

[It's nearly impossible for her not to speculate, especially when it comes to Julian.]

We can talk about something else. Like... What did you mean when you said "pardon my French?"

[redactions]

[ He makes a bit of a face. ]

It's a colloquialism -- I swore in front of a lady, so that's used to say excuse me.

[dancingmd]

[She sucks in her lips to keep from laughing, but the twinkle in her eye is irrepressible.]

Don't worry, I can handle a few damns and hells, and some other things besides.

[redactions]

And a few others besides, I'm bettin', but that don't make it right.

[dancingmd]

[Idly, she wonders if he has met Nightingale yet.]

Because I'm a woman, or because it is rude to curse in general?

[Her tone isn't accusatory at all... This sort of thing is so genuinely out of her realm of experience that she is mostly just curious.]

[redactions]

Rude to curse in general. You'll pardon me, ma'am; I am a soldier.

[dancingmd]

No need to apologize... You'd probably do well in Starfleet, you know. I only wanted you to know I wasn't insulted. And well... I found that particular colloquialism funny because I was imagining what Jean-Luc would have to say about it.

[redactions]

Nobody French I met seemed ta mind.

[ He's positively glowing at affirmation — though it's probably even ruder to tell Beverly her world is fictional. There's so many here, he's not surprised some might bleed into the others. ]

[dancingmd]

[Yes please, let's not give her an existential crisis on top of everything else. ]

Ah, but you see, French is a dying language by my century, so Jean-Luc can get... Protective of his mother tongue.

[redactions]

... Your Captain?

[dancingmd]

[Beverly nods. Then, simply, because he knows, he has seen how much Jean-Luc means to her:]

I miss him.

[redactions]

[ Quietly, ]

Sorry.

[ a beat ]

I know how hard it can be.