Lost and Found - ROLL CALL POST

Posted on Tue Jan 9th, 2024 @ 10:15am by Lieutenant J'airesh Mora-Heath
Edited on on Wed Jan 10th, 2024 @ 1:05am

Mission: Season 6: Episode 4: Memory Lane
Location: J'Air's Quarters
Timeline: Current
1319 words - 2.6 OF Standard Post Measure

J'Air woke in the middle of the afternoon, although she couldn't have told you what time it was as her quarters were softly lit with red lighting, the setting for sleep, and there was only a relatively subtle digital readout on one side of her bedhead, reflected in the mirror on the opposite wall, at the far side of the bedroom of her suite. With only one eye open, she glimpsed the reflected time readout, scowled as she tried to work it out backwards - some digital times were more obvious than others when reversed but this one was okay.
It said 15:23.

J'Air rolled over, encasing herself in her sheets and sat up. It wasn't altogether clever it seemed, as the 'caterpillar' mode wasn't the easiest to haul up closer to the bed-head to prop herself up against. She reminded herself that she always did this, always regretted it and always told herself silently not to do it again next time but still, here she was, having taken no notice of her own good advice.

She wriggled upwards in the bed but eventually lost her cool and tore off the sheet, tired of trying to make it let go of her. She was all the more frustrated by the time she was free, that she had the feeling that the cool air that she normally liked to sleep in, seemed to be adding its own jab at her for her foolishness.

"Everyone's a bloody critic!" she muttered grumpily and finally wrested the sheet off, shoved it off, even from the bed and threw it unceremoniously onto the floor. ~It was alright, she'd pick it up later....... ~ She made her way into the sonic shower now that she was up and then shortly emerged from that in a much better mood.

First of all she thought of Chuck. obsessed! she chided herself softly but with no real problem about that actuality. Smiling at the thought of him she wrapped herself in a huge bath-towel and wrapped a smaller towel, fake-turban-style, around her long hair, piling it high.

She looked at herself in the mirror as she sat down on the comfortably padded stool before her dressing unit, pulling out a brush but not yet bothering to begin the fight to drag it through the aforementioned piled up hair. She loved keeping her hair long and had no problems at all with having to pin it up for duty but she usually combed it out in the shower, while the conditioner was still in it, before the final rinse at which point it would normally be forced to submit. Today, however, it didn't matter how much of a fiddle it was, as she knew she was changing shifts tonight and wouldn't be back on duty until the Gamma shift.

Nights! Those were a double sided coin! Usually a bit of a quiet stretch for a nice change but if they went pear-shaped, they would usually make sure to do it in a way that would really make you remember them - hopefully there wouldn't be one of "those" shifts tonight.

J’Air had time to just relax for an hour or two before needing to get some food and, instructing the Main Computer to put on one of her favourite play lists of music she could just enjoy the luxury of a rare, stress-free afternoon off. (or so she thought!!)

Fixing herself some tea (Terran, Lady Grey - orange not lemon - Hot) she pulled on a bath robe and thought about Chuck again. He was quartered on Deck 16 - where ‘the Management' lived! The revered ‘Senior Officers’ and even ‘the CO's entrance level’. That was a bit of a scary idea. J’Air wasn’t all that comfortable just turning up and surprising him - and anyway, that probably wasn't a good idea wherever he was! Marines didn’t do well with surprises, she seemed to have noticed!

She chuckled at the idea and decided to try it one day, but today was set up to be too laid back for anything more energetic than a nice Afternoon Cream Tea. She got up and replicated her favourite snack and then settled down with her music to enjoy it….. and think about Chuck some more. She rolled her eyes at herself and began singing along.

~Anyway!~ she told herself silently returning to the subject of Chuck yet again.
~He might be on duty himself, but then he didn't say that yesterday.... or had he?~ she searched in the memories available but after doing the Delta shift last night, 'the red eye' as someone wittily named it.... then sleeping at an odd time of day since, she wasn't 100% sure. Well, it was best not to wander around the Senior's Deck on an off-chance.

J'Air also knew that Cmdr Sthilg had quarters just half a dozen doors down from Chuck. Chuck had Number 13 in corridor W and the CMO had Suite 7. J'Air loved the number 13, it was the day of her birthday and it seemed like it had always been lucky for her. Her own room was Number 10 but at least it was on Deck 13 so it was still an optimistically numbered location. She was also lucky that it had an actual outer window, rather than a holographic one, like the rooms on the opposite (inner) side of the corridors.

Yes, she was happy with her quarters and preferred to invite Chuck to hers. She liked to host and he was a great 'house guest'. All in all, she was very lucky to have met Chuck and even more lucky that he'd taken a liking to her too. Things didn't always go J'Air's way but right now, life seemed to be being very kind to her indeed!

Taking up a book to read and sipping at her tea, the ACMO (and that was a stroke of great luck too, she reminded herself of how thrilled she'd been to have been appointed to the job and to have the opportunity to study Commander Sthilg will all his amazing accomplishments!) was finding her luck had changed very much from having been pretty dire in the past 5 years, to having become far too good to be true. She was making friends here too. Zac had agreed to introduce her to his fiancee and maybe even arrange a double date. She'd made friends with the Marine Captain whose soup she had stolen... well, he HAD offered it to share, insisted in fact... but he was a really nice guy and she had also met that other nice Marine.... the girl, quite young really but she was often popping into Sickbay to see J'Air and chat. It was all good. She was finding it so good it was hard to believe her luck of late and she was tempted to pinch herself to see if she was actually here and not dreaming this all up.

On reflection in quiet moments like this one, if she hadn't been so happy with Chuck filling her thoughts, she might have wondered if she shouldn't be keeping a look out for this brilliant phase of good luck to change back on her again!

But Chuck's face on the little holograph on her coffee table wouldn't let her do anything but smile like a simpleton and charge on into whatever the future held for her, as long as he was still by her side. She set the holo-vid working and sat there, talking to him. Saying things she couldn’t yet say to his face for fear she might scare him off.

In fact, the very idea that she was someone who talked to HERSELF could probably be something that might start off that whole domino effect! She hushed at once and just went back to her singing along. Nobody would think her totally off her rails for that! ~would they?~