driftfleet | (no subject)

Who: Beverly Crusher and you
Broadcast: Network - Video
Action: Blue Fish
When: September 1

[There's a strangely familiar cold that has settled in her bones, a dreadful chill that disorients her in the first few moments that she's awake. Her first thought is that something went wrong - very wrong - as they passed through the temporal distortion, but then... as she sits up and takes in her surroundings, the memories all come back in a flood. Atroma has brought Beverly back, a little older, a little blonder, and with a new Starfleet uniform.

Or maybe I never left, she thinks. This is not the Marsiva, these are her quarters aboard the Blue Fish, and none of her things look as if they've been moved. Though admittedly, her memories of Drift Fleet seem distant. By her reckoning, it's been three years since she's seen this room.

Not that "time" really means much, considering what's happened in the past few days.

The communicator rests where she left it on the bedside table. When she picks it up, she finds it's full of unread messages, crewmates and friends wondering where she is, each message sounding more alarmed than the last. With a sinking feeling in her stomach, she checks today's date: September first.]

Damn!

[Immediately, she sends a message to the network, via video:]

This is Dr. Crusher of the... SS Blue Fish. It seems our gracious captors sent me home for a while. I'm back now, and I'm safe, and I'm sorry to everyone who was trying to contact me this month. I'll be on the Blue Fish if you need me.

[There's a pause, as if she's about to say something else, but then she simply gives them a small smile, one that doesn't quite reach her eyes.]

Thank you.

[The feed cuts off and after a moment, she decides to head for the kitchen. Not that she's particularly hungry but - there's a good chance that's where she'll find at least a few of her crewmates.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

It really is good to have you back.

[ especially if it beats what she had going back home - though that is upsetting all on its own but he doesn't feel like it's his place to poke his nose there quite yet.

he pauses for a moment before -- eyeing the chair in front of her questioningly, and takes a seat. ]

[Despite what she left, she isn't exactly thrilled to be here, even if she is happy to see people. So she simply smiles.]

I can make us some tea if you like. Or coffee?

I'm always a coffee person. [ he smiles, for a moment wondering if he should be offering to make it -- but he's the guest here and it could be interpreted as him treating her like an invalid, when really it's just mostly his discomfort with being a bother. ] Thank you. How long were you there?

[Beverly talks as she busies herself with preparing the coffee.]

About three years.

[ he lets that sink in. three years. so many things can happen in three years - who would he have been, three years from now, if he were left in national city? he can't even imagine it, and his life was fairly ordinary. okay, yes, the aliens and superheroes and secret agencies are less commonplace, but still he has an office job, a couple friends, a little apartment...that's a lot more ordinary than traveling through space. ]

That's a lot to handle.

A lot has changed... [Small half-smile.] Not my hair. But that's not the difficult part, not really. I lived through those years as they happened. It's reconciling the two sets of memories that is hard.

[She sighs.]

I don't even know how old I am.

Yeah, it's really confusing.

[ he nods. ]

It's to a lesser extent, but back when I had just met Kitty, we talked about birthdays - she told me her birthday's August 15th, but because of the time skip from the place she was before to here, she thinks she doesn't actually turn a year older until January 10th.

[ he doesn't have a personal experience with this, even though he time-skipped from home to here, he decided that for simplicity's sake, he's keeping his birthday and age in place. they're just numbers, right? ]

Oh I haven't put that much calculation into it. I suppose when none of us are aging it's sort of a moot point.

Do we really know that for a fact though? And, if we aren't aging but are living through this time -- how does that work? [ oh no, nerd mode has been activated, sorry beverly. at least he's not thinking about how scared he is to be off the tourist without any of super friends close by for help. ]

Time passes here, there are sunrises and sunsets on the planets, but if we don't age - [ oh, further support for his virtual reality theory!!! he wants to tell hank about this so bad. ] Is there any way to medically see if we're aging? Cuz a year or two aren't really long enough to see the changes -

[Nerding out is perfectly okay - she's done it herself on more than one occasion.]

Maybe not for you and I, but for the children and teenagers in the fleet, a year or two makes a lot of difference physically.

[ he does it at least 3 times a day. ]

Have you gotten to see it, kids growing up here?

[She can't help but offer a little half smile at that.]

You have met my crew haven't you?

...no, not really. A lot of kids?

[ he's been kind of a bigger recluse than usual of late. ]

[She nods.] Or teenagers.

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