A walk about - OTA

[primeverdeen]

Prim had promised Killian that she wouldn't stop seeing her friends, and she hadn't seen him or Fatima or... well... almost anyone for a while now. She didn't want to go out. Didn't want to see people or deal with people. But she had promised.

She was still wearing her father's hunting jacket. She almost never took it off, since Katniss left. She was carrying a rather grumpy buttercup with her.

She headed for the lounge, figuring there would be people there. Maybe her friends. If not, well, at least she tried. Right?

She went back to that bench where she had first arrived, where she had been sitting when she had first found out that Katniss was here too. Tears slid down her face as she took a seat.

Some small part of her thought that she should eat, but it was easy enough to ignore. She'd been feeding Buttercup and Lady. But...

She could never be angry at their mother, the way Katniss was. At least, not anymore. Because.... now she understood.

ota

[chaotica]

Cambridge really hates it here.

He supposes, on some level, this is mostly petty spite. Starfleet ships aren't that different, really; while one might have a more informal atmosphere, and another goes purely on ceremony, and another contains families and the other just a scattering of scientists, they all have certain commonalities, in atmosphere and content. For example, most ships are more like each other than they are like Starfleet Medical, where Cambridge spent twelve years before being assigned to Voyager.

But, he hates it anyway. There's something missing in the atmosphere, and while the gel packs on Voyager don't have a smell of sorts, he imagines that there's a scent of ozone that's not there that should be. The uniforms look all wrong, and Cambridge resents it every moment, from bustling, bright ensigns to non-coms repairing open conduits.

Eventually, he settles on working on unsolved archaeological mysteries from the last few centuries. Alien, not human. It's at least something to do, and it's well within his area of expertise. Part of the time, he works in Ten-Forward, at a table with a handful of PADDs, frowning fiercely, cross-referencing. "No," is what he says to anyone who approaches him. Without looking up from the PADD.

The rest of the time, he works in his quarters, which he has to himself. And when he works like this, so intently, he doesn't care much for the organization of his room. Things end up on tables, on the floor. At one point he kicks a pair of pants aside, towards the doorway. Unfortunately, the next time the door opens and closes, the cloth gets in the way. So the ankle of the pants sticks out into the hallway, like a flag.