Posted by Captain Alexander Cochrane (Commanding Officer) in Ready Room - The More Things Change… (Tag Lt. Creed)

Posted by Lieutenant Celina Creed (Chief Tactical Officer) in Ready Room - The More Things Change… (Tag Lt. Creed)

Posted by Captain Alexander Cochrane (Commanding Officer) in Ready Room - The More Things Change… (Tag Lt. Creed)
Posted by… suppressed (2) by the Post Ghost! 👻
Alex watched the shuttle leave, and as it cleared the forcefield into the void of space beyond their own kind of reality, Alex took a deep breath and then exhaled slowly. Creed was gone… and Alex was going to miss his friend. He looked down at the garment bag laid across his arm and shook his head.

“I just know that a$$hole gave me that damn coat.”

A few minutes later he stepped out onto the bridge and looked at the duty officer. “Have Lt. Rodri-, er, Creed come to the Ready Room immediately, please.” and he walked into his office.

Looking around, his eyes fell on the gold ox so prominently displayed. Alex smiled and moved some things and opened up space on the wall directly below it. He unzipped the garment bag, shook his head and smiled. It was the coat. The one from the ball. Floor length. Black and red, but the kind of red that screamed at you. With a wholly obnoxious fur collar. The coat would be more suited to a mid-20th century Earth profession centered around directing prostitutes from an alley than the Captain’s office of a starship. Cochrane hung it on the wall and stepped back. “Creed… you really have no taste in clothes.” he said softly and chuckled. Yes… he would miss his friend indeed.

Cochrane, CO

Celina walked up to Cochrane’s door and her hand paused on the control. She knew what she was getting into with Jack since the day she locked him up in the cell on Orion yet still there were days she wondered if somehow, someone had not dropped her on her head as a small child. Looking down at the image in her hand, she let out a half sigh, half laugh before palming the access panel.

Entering the room, she walked straight to Cockrane’s desk with a stride to which her father had called walking with a purpose.

“Okay tell me how this man is even working,” she asked setting the picture on Cochrane’s desk and taking a seat with a grin. Dropping into the seat she leaned back comfortably as her CO looked at the picture. It was a scene of Jack, sitting at a beach bar with two drinks. The drink in his hand was a whiskey. The one next to him was an amber shot with a lime and a shaker of salt next to it. “You know he is toying with me. Tequilla shot,” she rolled her eyes with a half laugh. “He is rubbing it in that he is on a beach somewhere and I am stuck here,” she waved her hand about the room.

Celina Creed.

Cochrane looked at the picture and then jerked his thumb at the wall behind him. “Yeah… he got me too. I really am going to miss him… but my aim is improving.” he said flatly.

He set the holo down and then leaned back and looked at Celina. “So? How are you holding up? Still want to burn Intel to the ground for yanking him off the ship so quick?”

Cochrane, CO

Celina bit her lip as she contemplated his question. Cochrane’s comment was meant to be light-hearted mainly because Jack wasn’t really gone. He was only gone as people were gone on away missions yet still it was weird not to have him roaming the halls, covering random shifts, and seeing him on the bridge. Her pause was not about how she was feeling. It was the situation. Jack and his damn secrets. He was like one of those Russian nesting dolls. You lifted off the lid and there was another doll inside. No matter how many layers you pulled back, there was just another doll waiting to be opened. Her pause was because Celina contemplated the innermost doll she knew existed at Jack’s core. That doll was revealed that night when she had input the five-digit code 00720. That code had cemented her to Jack far more than the diamond on her third finger. It had also set the course for why Jack was now hanging out like a lounge lizard in every picture he sent Celina.

“Screw that,” she let out a full-bodied laugh that shook her whole body. “I got a kind size bed two nights a week by myself. Chick flicks and hen chatter with my mother and abuela’s without a groan or him backing out of the room making me come up with an excuse about an ion storm screwing up the reception,” she let her voice hang for a second. “It’s literally the best of both worlds. All the fun of being married but all the perks of the dating life.” Cochrane could tell easily that she was calm and relaxed with the situation. “Besides,” she gave him a sly half grin, “I’m off the hook calling him sir…in public.” Her cheeks turned slightly red before she looked away and stood up heading towards the cabinet she knew held some booze. It was the perk of being married to the ex-XO. Command staff as tight as they were meant both Cochrane and Creed knew where the liquor was in each others office. “Am I going to find clean glasses or should I brace myself,” she joked opening up the door to the cabinet.

Celina Creed

“The glasses are always clean. You should know that.” and he chuckled. “And make it two. Second bottle on the left.” He watched Celina rummage around. The Tactical Officer and he jadn’t been close, but he knew her well enough.

“And you do, of course, know that I know you are trying to put on great front… right? Simple transfer or not… he isn’t here. You’re Catholic… who’s the patron saint of trying to put one over on your Captain when you should know better?” and he smiled.

Cochrane, CO

“You my friend are thinking of Jude. Right now,” she set the glasses on the table with a clink “I am praying to My boys Josh and Tony.” Pouring a drink Celina knew her abuela’s were dropping to their knees suddenly consumed with the feeling their grand daughter’s soul needed saving. A smirk lifted one corner of her mouth imagining their face if they had heard her reduce the two saints to nicknames.

Pouring a measure of the liquid for both of them she slumped back in the seat. “Jack is like wraith. He May not be in the room but always on the perifery ,” she threw back the shot like a pro.

“I am glad that coat found its way to your quarters and not mine,” she let out a full bodied laugh

Celina Creed