ten_fwd | (no subject)

Rose is on her way to Ten Forward too. She'd just had a shower and changed into something a bit warmer, but nothing fancy or particularly fashionable. Rose is mostly a jeans, t-shirt and hoodie sort of girl.

The ship's a lot chillier than the TARDIS which always seems to be just the right temperature, so Rose made sure to keep her hoodie with her. Another thing about this ship is that it's really, really big. And for all the crew and new guests, it can still feel a bit ... well, lonely.

The Doctor's gone off exploring and she's not quite sure where Jack went off to but she's hoping to find either of them in the bar. That, and possibly mingle with some of the others stranded like her.

She catches sight of Zinda and quickens her pace just a bit.

"Hello," she calls out. "On your way to Ten Forward?"

Zinda's not so lost in her own world that she can't hear the girl calling after her; she wheels about without breaking rhythm and grins down the corridor like she's been waiting for Rose all along.

"You bet I am," she calls back, setting her weight on her heel and waiting. "Hurry on up, sis, this place makes me thirsty as a frog out of water."

She waits until the newcomer gets closer, so she won't be hollering quite so much down the hall. "You meetin' somebody?"

"Not exactly," Rose says as she reaches Zinda. The other blonde has an easy smile and mannerism that makes Rose warm to her almost immediately.

It actually reminds her a little of Jack.

"A couple of friends of mine might be there, but I figured I ought to spend a little time in Ten Forward getting to know the other guests.

"I only got here yesterday."

"Yeah?"

She falls into step next to Rose easy as pie, hands sinking into the pockets of her uniform jacket, dress cap at a jaunty angle on her blonde curls. "Then I guess I'd better buy you a drink! So to speak. Frankly, it's a heck of a lot easier to be real hospitable when you don't actually have to pay for anything, but seems to me it's the thought that counts."

Rose laughs.

It's true about the free food and drink, and she had momentarily forgotten it too. And of course, there was also the rumour that the drink, at least, was all completely synthetic. (Which is a bit rubbish, honestly.)

"It definitely is the thought that counts," she agrees. "Thank you.

"I'm Rose, by the way."

"Well, it's a little selfish," she admits. "I hate drinking alone."

She sticks a gloved hand out to shake, smile going wide and shiny with easy camaraderie. "Zinda Blake. Nice to meet you, Rose. I haven't heard an accent like that in a while."

"Zinda. That's a really nice name. Haven't heard it before."

Rose takes her hand briefly.

"Yeah? I s'pose there aren't many Londoners about." Certainly fewer East-Londoners at that. "Or d'you mean in general, back where you're from?"

The doors to Ten Forward slide open and Rose steps inside.

"Both, sorta."

She follows Rose in, and heads straight for the bar with a firm step: Zinda is a woman who rarely questions where she's going or why, even for something this minimal. "I was posted in England for a while. Got kinda used to hearing it around now and again."

Rose follows along, keeping pace with the other blonde.

"Right," she says, leaning into the bar for a moment, head tilted towards Zinda. She gives her uniform a glance and says, mostly for her own benefit, "You're a soldier, obviously."

She smiles ruefully, shaking her head.

"Weird, you know, I hardly even gave your uniform a second glance."

Has she gotten so used to being out of her own time that everything is what it is already?

"A friend of mine dresses similar. He's got this big fancy coat from the War that he's always wearin'."

"Pilot."

Which isn't entirely the same thing. The Blackhawks were a resistance group, only tangentially related to the official military.

It was a war. Everyone did what they could. But -- "Big coat?"

She thinks for a second, and throws her head back, laughing. "Funny, I met a fella like that just the other day. I don't guess your friend is one of our little group of castaways, is he?"

She nods, amused.

"And his name happens to be Jack Harkness, yeah?" Rose adds, a laugh bubbling up in her throat.

Well, Zinda's gorgeous, and she's got a similar uniform, and they've obviously experienced the same time (even if from different, parallel worlds) so ...

She's not entirely surprised.

"That's right! Captain Jack Harkness."

Tipping her head back as she laughs, it's not hard to see why the military would use her to plump up recruitments: she's all sparkling blue eyes and tossing hair and carefree delight. Add in an imagined wistful sigh of I just love a man in uniform, and her poster could just about double the sudden willingness of young men to run off and fight for their country. "He's a kick."

And then some.

"But you aren't military, are you?" Rose wears a style of clothing Zinda's unfamiliar with -- slouchy hoody and wide-legged jeans -- and her hair and makeup are a fair step away from military precision, even if she is cute as a button.

Not to mention Zinda'd been under the impression that Jack was from her time. Well -- close enough, anyhow. "Funny how you both ended up here, ain't it?"

"Oh, no, definitely not," Rose says with a laugh. "Just a regular ex-shop girl from the 21st century."

The thought of her being in the military is an amusing one, that's for sure. She's not cut out for something like that. She'll fight someone off if she has to, but being part of a bigger, greater army is not really something she'd ever want to do. There are plenty of much better people suited to it than she.

Nope, space/time-traveling is going to be her occupation for the rest of her life.

"It's lucky, really, that we did," she goes on, now that they're talking about Jack. "I hadn't seen him in a while. We sort of ... lost each other for a bit. I don't think we're from the same time, but ... time's always a bit funny traveling around with the Doctor, so I'm not exactly surprised. I'm just glad to see him again."

"Huh," she says, a little vaguely, but don't think it's rudeness, Rose, she's just lost for a second in thoughts of her own teammates from times gone by -- ones she'll never see again, except she guesses she's the lost one, not the other way around. Tossed out of time and back in again, and even if it doesn't hurt to think about so much anymore, there's still a wistful pull at her heart that tugs every time she thinks of those boys -- her boys.

They reach the bar; she drags out a stool and sits, mulling over Rose's words. "What d'you mean, time's funny?"

There's something cautious behind the overt friendliness that's always a part of her conversation: she'd be interested even if it weren't personal, but, well -- she can't say there isn't something there to pique her curiosity.

"Well, the sort of travelin' I do isn't ... it's not the 'get on a plane and head to Egypt' sort of thing. It's more like -"

Rose isn't sure how best to describe traveling with the Doctor, because it's kind of beyond words.

"It's more like head to Egypt, but we could see Cleopatra. Or see what happens to Egypt after the pyramids have gone and a new race of aliens have settled in. Somethin' like that.

"Time and space are sort of flexible with the Doctor." The Doctor and his TARDIS.

"Cleopatra --?"

Zinda whistles, long and low, and shakes her head in disbelief. "I'm a pretty good pilot, but that kinda travel is a little beyond me. How the heck d'you do it?"

And how come Rose is still here, if she can travel through time and all over creation so easily? It's not that Zinda doesn't like the Enterprise -- quite the contrary -- but if she could go, she probably would.

"He's got this ship? It's a time and space-ship," says Rose, smiling.

She's actually pretty fond of the TARDIS, for what it's worth. The sound of the engines whining and screeching is familiar and exciting, always managing to send little electrical pulses through her like bringing her to life.

It always means that the Doctor's coming, to save the world, or whisk her away.

"Bigger on the inside than it looks on the outside, too."

"So how come you're stickin' around here?"

She misses the Aerie One, the controls of the Citation-X leaping to life under her hands, misses holding it aloft and sending it soaring through the clouds. "If you don't mind my askin', I mean. Seems to me you got a ticket right on out of here."

"Whatever's pulled people here pulled us too," Rose answers. "M'not sure it's even working anymore, and no one'll let the Doctor down there to see whether he could fix it."

They were lucky to land at all, their trip through the time vortex had been so rough. And she remembers the systems shutting down, everything going dark save the emergency lighting, allowing a dim enough glow to let them out.

"But we're workin' on it. And it's not like we could leave everyone else behind."

That's not really a thing the Doctor and his Companion does.

"Uh-huh."

Her mouth twists in thought, and she ponders this for a minute, thinking hard. "So you 'n your friend are plannin' to bring everybody back home, is that right?"

If she sounds a little skeptical, well, maybe it's because she is. Heck, if she had a ship that could travel through time and space, she's not sure she'd go around advertising it to this crowd: nice as everybody seems, that's no surety that there's no one here who wouldn't use that information for their own ends.

She knows it sounds impossibly daft, maybe even a fool's mission. If she hadn't experienced it herself, hadn't seen what good saving people can do, she might think the same.

"Yeah. If there's a way to help," Rose says, "there's no harm in trying, especially since we're all in this together. It'd be the right thing to do, innit?"

"Well, there's no harm in bein' an optimist," Zinda says, diplomatically opting to cut the topic off at the pass, and reaching over to give the girl a friendly thump on the back.

The right thing to do is often a lot murkier than Rose seems to think, but there's no gain in pointing that out, either, so why bring her down? There's more than enough of that going around already. "You drink, Rose?"

"Yeah. Yeah, of course."

Rose maintains her smile - and all right, her optimism. She isn't entirely lost on Zinda's less-than-enthusiastic support, she isn't even sure she'd be so optimistic if she'd been with anyone other than the Doctor.

But she's seen things, lived impossible things, and with that kind of experience, it's easier to keep herself hopeful that not only can she and the Doctor get off this ship in due time, but they could help everyone else too. Because that's what the Doctor does.

"I'll have whatever you're havin'."

"Alright, Andrews Sisters," comes an appreciative female voice--belonging to a smiling Japanese teenager with a head of bright blue hair and metal covering her arms like opera gloves.

Said teenager is wearing her usual loud riot of bright colors, including a new neon green in the form of nail polish she's touched up on her toes, and is now waiting on to dry. In the meantime, she's trying to figure out how to go about new hairstyles. She never wears one for very long if she can help it. "Groovy music."

Zinda pauses and turns, gives the newcomer a grinning onceover.

"That's what I say, but somehow, it never does seem to be on jukeboxes anymore."

"It's only ever on specials about the anniversary of something that happened way before I was born, back home," Nori says. "But hey, the Americans had some good tunes. Still do, too. I liked that cartoon the Andrews sisters sang for, the one with the hats? It was cute."

"I always like meeting someone with good taste in music," she grins, before tipping her head down the hall. "You headed to Ten Forward?"

"Yeah, I'm heading to the lounge," she says, nodding. "I kinda like the view."

"Well, then, how about keepin' a single gal company?"

Her smile is all amiability, and she tips her cap, all good-humored ease. "What's your name, sis?"

"For a single gal like you, how could I refuse?" she asks with a grin, hands tucked in the pockets of her jeans; hey, man, replicators can make anything, and Noriko loves punk fashion. Including the kind you do yourself with big safety pins and seed beads.

"It's Noriko. Most people call me Nori, though there was a real short-lived stint in school of KoKo, but that was just a bad idea. You?"

"Zinda Blake. Real nice to meet ya, Nori."

The lounge doors are just ahead, and Zinda strides through them, breezy and confident. She hasn't had the same level of existential crisis here some others have: to her, this is just some extended liberty. She'll get back soon enough, and when she does, she'll explain her absence to Babs and the others.

Hopefully they won't mind being grounded while she's away, but there's nothing she can do about it from here. "That Japanese?"

Years of propaganda leveled at her and her fellow Americans would have made that an uncomfortable realization, before, but she's in a post-war world now, and she's got to say, she prefers it this way. Besides, that wasn't the part of the war she was fighting in.

"Yeah, it is," she affirms with a nod, shameless over her origin and the implications of that in talking to a native American. Noriko has had a long time to get used to the fact that though they are, theoretically, over all that there are still going to be expectations and accusations leveled at her because of how she looks, or how her name sounds.

She doesn't like it, but her only other good option is proving to people without ever bringing up the subject that she's just as deserving of the title of citizen as anyone else. She's earned that. "Born in Tokyo. You?"

"Bit of all over," she says, as she heads to the bar to drag out a seat, motioning to the bartender while she does. "But I'm a true-blue American gal. Most recently, I've been staying in Gotham. Can't say I don't miss the big city feel, a little, but this place ain't so bad."

"What does that mean?" Noriko asks, brow quirked as she follows along and takes a seat--she perches on it a bit strangely, one leg tucked up under her, but it gives her the extra startup force if she has to push off fast. And yes, that really is always on her mind.

"I hear it a lot, but nobody ever really explains farther than saying that they are one and I'm not."

"Well, I don't know about you, but for me, it means I was born 'n raised there. I never lived anywhere else until I went to Europe to fly with the Blackhawks."

It comes with an easy shrug, a roll of her shoulders. Her citizenship is one of the few things Zinda never has to question about herself, even now.

"Ah. I moved," Nori replies. "Left Japan when I was thirteen, hopped a military transport to the States. Made my way up the east coast from there, until I hit New York City. I'm naturalized."

She doesn't shrug, and her biceps are tighter than normal. "Truth be told you're lucky you don't have to go through it."

"Well, not quite that, nope."

It's sorta non-committal, but she's got no idea whether it's harder adjusting to a time or place. What she does know is there's no use in making it a competition -- not any day, but especially not this one. "We're all stuck in the same place now, though. I'd say that's worth a drink."

Her hand's already in the air, and she's leaning over the bar with one arm pressed against it, like an overly-enthusiastic student, before she thinks, and gives Noriko a guilty glance. "Hey, you old enough to drink?"

These days, it's not exactly something she can tell about a person right off the mark.

"Legally, no," she says. "At least not by my world standards. But practically I've been drinking since I was fourteen."

She's been doing a lot of things that she technically, legally shouldn't have done or even been able to do. But if you're desperate enough, there's always someone willing to take you up on a proposition, whether or not it might get them arrested.

He doesn't know about one in particular, but there is a captain in Ten Forward tonight.

Steve has had an interesting couple of weeks on-board, which has left him in a less-than-social mood. But when your dead best friend suddenly shows up claiming he's been HYDRA's POW for the last 70 years, that's to be expected. He's stuck to the few faces he already knows: Nat, Clint, his roommate Andros, and a small handful of others, which means Zinda's lucky to catch his eye at all.

Then again, when you wear the uniform like she does, not catching his eye would be a miracle. He can hear the sweet strands of a familiar tune as she strolls past, a visceral memory pulling his insides back to 1944 while the rest of him is swiveling to find its source in the here and now. You'll have to forgive the gawping, Ms. Blake. Steve's seeing you through the smoke-in-a-shotglass haze of an old burned-out watering hole, somewhere in Europe.

Well, now. Everybody just hold the phone. Zinda's no stranger to stares: she gets 'em on the street and used to get them at work and everywhere in between, but you don't get to be a Blackhawk or a Bird of Prey if you shrink away from something so benign as unsolicited attention, and normally she doesn't pay it any mind. It's no skin off her back if somebody wants to look; heck, if she can improve their day, that's peachy by her.

It's just that, well. Normally? She's not getting gawked at by someone who looks like he could make a solid living as the model for those old Greek and Roman statue carvers.

She'd caught the motion of him swiveling out the corner of her eye, and once she gets to a table -- she'd been aiming for the bar another few feet away, but maybe this table, right here, just happens to, oh, seem like a better choice all around -- she pauses. Looks back over her shoulder.

And winks, broad and amiable, deliberately, right at him.

"Careful, sugar. If you don't close that pretty mouth of yours, somethin's liable to fly right into it."

Edited 2014-07-19 01:34 (UTC)

There is a brief moment where the super soldier's brain malfunctions, because increased stamina, dexterity, a faster burning metabolism, and advanced healing apparently don't make up for more than two decades of social awkwardness. His eyes widen, a deep blush crawling up his neck. He quickly diverts his eyes, like he's gazing upon the Madonna.

"Sorry, ma'am," he blusters, clearing his throat. Suddenly his collar is a little too tight. "I shouldn't have been staring. It was impolite."

He glances up through his eyelashes, but quickly returns his focus to the table. He fingers a fork, looking for all intents and purposes like he wants to crawl under the table and die.

Isn't he just a peach? He flushes and goes all confused with his words and tone, like he's plum forgotten how to string a sentence together, and she thinks it's about the sweetest thing she's ever seen.

The flattery in it doesn't exactly hurt, either. And neither do his manners -- ma'am, as she lives and breathes, while he glances down at the table in a floundering of what looks a hell of a lot like shyness, and apologizes for being impolite, as if she hasn't spent the greater part of her adult life letting catcalls go unheard and ignored. And that was before moving to a modern city, where it seems like nobody's got any kind of filters or inhibitions at all.

She holds off on drawing out a chair at the table she'd picked, considers for less than a full heartbeat's worth of time, and then saunters on over to where he's sitting, leaning a hand on the back of a chair and smiling down at him, as warm as he is embarrassed. "You know, I might consider it a compliment."

At least, she does now, after seeing his reaction at getting caught. "What's your name, handsome?"

Edited 2014-07-19 15:41 (UTC)

He won't admit to the swell of nerves when he sees her turn back, lifting his eyes just enough to watch her walking over. As soon as that hand comes down on the empty chair, Steve's eyes snap up to Zinda's face -- partly because she commands attention, and partly because he doesn't want to get caught staring dumbly at any of her other virtues by accident.

He hasn't felt this on the spot since he was fingered for lifting a fresh box of pencils from his teacher's desk back in freshman year of high school. For the record, he was framed.

"You might?" he stammers, feeling the heat in his neck creep all the way up to his ears now, collar impossibly snug. He tries to become one with the chair, and fails at it completely. "My name?"

Get it together, Rogers. His brow gathers, Adam's apple bobbing. He gets to his feet because it's the right thing to do, hand moving down his chest where a tie might be if he were in full dress. "Captain Steve Rogers, ma'am."

"Captain, huh? It's practically gettin' to be a barracks in here."

The poor fellow looks like a frog caught in the headlights of an oncoming car, and Zinda guesses she probably shouldn't find it endearing, but she'd be hard-pressed to say otherwise.

...A frog that stands about a full head taller than her, making her tip her head back to look him in the eye after she follows the track of his hand down his chest and stomach.

Well, can't blame a girl for looking, and he sure is nice to look at. Just watching him straighten his shoulders tosses her right back to the days of military-issue tents and officers' clubs that weren't much more than the abandoned shell of some unlucky public house. He makes her think of day dresses made out out of rationed fabric, and the Blackhawks, sitting around a campstove, trading jokes and laughing away the darkness that sat all around them, waiting.

That breezy, sunny grin flashes again, all amusement, and she sticks out her hand to shake. "Zinda Blake. I flew with the Blackhawks, resistance squadron. Which branch d'you hail from, Captain Steve Rogers?"

Edited 2014-07-23 15:24 (UTC)

He laughs good-humoredly in response to her joke, rubbing the back of his neck as an excuse to tug surreptitiously at his collar. He notices, maybe five seconds after the fact, the way her eyes wander, but he's still working out whether he imagined it or whether he should feel smug when she extends her hand, taking him a little off guard.

"Flew with? Not 86th Infantry?" he asks, taking her hand. He doesn't pussyfoot around with shaking her hand; the uniform is enough to merit his respect, but there's rarely a time where Steve will treat any lady differently than anyone else. "US Army, ma'am. Though my specific branch is, uh, complicated."

If she's a Blackhawks pilot, he might have pegged her for the wrong place and time. The likelihood she'll know Colonel Chester Philips is not that high, so he reaches for the more recognizable name. "Right now I'm working with S.H.I.E.L.D., you heard of it?"

"Sorry, soldier," she says, breezy, shaking his hand with a firm grip before releasing it to plant her own back on her hip. "Not ringin' any bells, but these days, that's no surprise. Hey --"

She nudges a chair at his table with the toe of her boot, and grins at him. "This seat going wanting? Never knew an Army man to keep a gal standing when they could be sitting down like civilized folk. But if you want to hear about the Blackhawks..."

That grin goes crooked and she reaches up to tug her hat down over one eye, winking cheerfully at him with the other. "Buy me a drink and I'll tell you all about 'em. Best damn squadron a gal could ask for, even if they were a buncha rowdy troublemakers still wet behind the ears."

Her slander is said with deep fondness, and it's an out and out lie, anyhow: Bart and the others were already battle-hardened warriors by the time she managed to fight her way into the group, and there's nothing and nobody she misses more.

Still. Treating them like the reverent dead would just have pissed those boys off, and war stories are better with a drink in hand and good company -- particularly if that company is a tall drink of all right and a vet who'll know where she's coming from.

Edited 2014-08-13 19:50 (UTC)

Jiminy Cricket, she could charm pictures off the wall. It's not just the way she tugs her cap and tosses him a wink, though that'll have his brain on hard reboot for the next ten minutes at least; it's the steel in her shake and the casual insults off her tongue, tempered with a familiar fondness that has Steve grinning dumbly without realizing it, caught in the moment and her sharp eyes.

...Until the knock of her boot against the chair leg registers, and he realizes he looks about as smart as a sack of potatoes. His Adam's apple bobs and he comes to attention, practically jumping away from his seat to help her into hers.

"Uh, no, the seat's free," he rushes, pulling it out for her, a shy smile tilted away from her face. Part of him is glad he doesn't have to stumble through inviting her to join him for a drink, and another part of him is a little lost for how to proceed now. He doesn't get much practice after the initial invitation. "You know, I do want to hear about the Blackhawks. Even if you are Air Force."

The jab is light and good-humored. "What are you drinking?"

"Not that, either," she grins, but she takes the seat while she does so, because he's been nice enough to pull it out for her, like a real, honest-to-goodness gentleman, and here she'd been thinking they were an extinct species. "'Less you count Wojska Lotnicze i Obrony Powietrznej, that is. That's where Bart started out, dog-fightin' Krauts -- 'scuse me, the Germans, old habits die kinda hard, don't they? -- 'til one day he took six of 'em down only to find they'd bombed the house his brother and sister were in."

Her shrug is a roll of shoulders and a twist to her mouth. "I bet you can imagine how well that went over with old Bart."

Whose name, she thinks, was never actually Bart, and certainly not Hawk, not with his background, not with the accent he carted around and his burning fury towards von Tepp. "Anyhow, he went and rounded himself up a squadron of his own to help out the Allies -- that's where we came in."

There's a second where she studies him, the way he holds himself, the cut of his hair and the straight slope of his shoulders, and despite his clothing, she could just as well be looking back at any one of those young Army men from a muddy, frozen field in Poland or a smoke-filled warzone in France. "As for that drink; whatever they've got that's got a kick to it -- though I warn you, most of the time, I kick right back."

She's a no-nonsense kind of gal, and Steve likes that. It reminds him of Peggy, those sharp instincts and a soldier's carriage; but there's another part of her that reminds him of Natasha, especially when she's done with her story about Bart. That cool, slick confidence, the way she fires off the information with hardly any remorse. He catches himself staring again, admiring and examining in the same breath, glancing down as he moves back to his seat.

"I wish I could say that's the first time I've heard a story like that," he says, with a slow, sad shake of his head. "The war took a lot of innocent lives. I'd like to tell you I remember the Blackhawks, but with the way this place is maybe you fought with a different set of Allies than I did. You've probably never heard of the Howling Commandos, have you?"

Drink. Right, he was getting her a drink. He jumps back up, shaking the cobwebs from his brain. This is downright embarrassing, Rogers. He forces a laugh, reaching again for the back of his neck. "Thanks for the warning. Sorry, I guess I just wasn't expecting to see a fellow vet this far out here. Let me see what they've got, I'll be right back."

He nods politely, and moves to the bar. Not much here has the kind of kick Zinda's probably used to. It all tastes good, but it won't leave you humming when you're done. At least, that's most of the selection here, not all. After a brief conversation with the barkeep, Steve comes back with two glasses of some ruby red liquor that smells like tequila and goes down as smooth as Tennessee whiskey.