Posted by Civilian Allison Fleet (Civilian) in Rovan Moor: Arrival to the Athena

Posted by Lieutenant Junior Grade Rovan Moor (Engineer/Pilot) in Rovan Moor: Arrival to the Athena

Posted by Fleet Captain Ghubari Koraia (Captain) in Rovan Moor: Arrival to the Athena
Posted by… suppressed (3) by the Post Ghost! 👻

Snip

The return ping sounded, it wasn’t loud but it was the audible ping that personal messages created. Rovans’ eyes opened almost before the sound had died away. It was years of training as a fighter pilot, he thought, the state you rested in yet were alert and needing to be in the cockpit at a moments notice, not wiping sleep out of your eyes. He also knew it was the pure expectation, the excitement of hoping that Allie was going to respond some how.

Moving to the console he leaned forward and brought up the message, all at once slightly disappointed that it was only text, but at the same time elated that finally, he had managed to contact her directly, and she had responded directly. His yellow eyes skimmed the message while his mouth formed a gentle smile, he could tell by the brief message that she had been rather late. Closing his eyes, Rovan remembered one or two occasions when Allison had done the same on the Genesis. A late night of watching old Earth movies or the latest Ktarian music festival documentary had meant both of them had often slept in. Although to be honest, the Ktarian metabolism meant that he needed far less sleep than Allie did, he had just lost time watching her sleep.

That thought made his smile drop slightly, but only in thought. He had watched her sleep. Lain awake for a time before she awoke after the two of them had fallen asleep together on the couch, and watched her content sighs and soft snores. Even stroked her hair softly as she had moaned from a nightmare. Then, in the morning he had pretended to wake with her, and laughed as the two of them rushed to get ready for duty, Allison brushing her hair frantically and grabbing her shoes as they left whichever quarters they had been in. His smile returned as he understood that he had always loved her, even if he didn’t know it.

Rovan keyed the comm and sent one simple vid message back, knowing she had already left for the day. “Hey Allie, I’m hoping you had a great day. I’m sorry for making you late, I was thrilled to get your message back. I know our times are going to be tricky to work out for a bit, but I’m including my Duty Roster in this message. Maybe that way we can find the best time to call. Maybe you should go and see Harris, I want to see you again soon, need to. I’ve already messaged him, so maybe we will both get a nice surprise hmm? For now, I have to go sleep. Duty calls soon but, you have no idea how much of a smile I am going to be carrying with me now. I love you Allie, goodnight.”

Sending the message, Rovan stood and yawned, and moved back to his bed. Not long afterwards, and he was sleeping soundly, a small smile on the edges of his lips.

Lt j.g. Rovan Moor
Engineer/Pilot

– Several Hours later–

Allison returned to her quarters from a long day of re-training and assessment. She flopped down on her bed and nearly fell asleep without even taking off her shoes, but then she remembered the fact that she got a message from Rovan that morning. Immediately, she bolted up into a sitting position and half jumped half fell off her bed and almost ran over to her desk. “Computer, check for new messages!!” she exclaimed, leaning forward. There was one new message, and she hastily opened it, letting his words play.

When the message was finished, she was nearly jumping in her seat as she scanned her eyes over the schedule he had sent her. From what she could tell, he was a couple hours behind her, which meant it would probably be a few hours before he was home. Shit. She couldn’t wait up for him to be awake so they could talk!! She got up, aggravated. Seriously, so close and yet… They still couldn’t talk. It was 4 hours till he would be finished his shift! It drove her crazy all day and her superiors had been somewhat aggravated with her for her lack of attention the whole day, but she had been so busy remembering and thinking. “Computer, play back Rovan’s message from earlier,” she instructed the console, and she played through the entire other message, picking up on small details her mind had missed in the absolute reeling fit of shock it had been entrenched in the first time she listened.

She paced for a bit. “Computer, begin recording,” she turned to the console and slid into the seat, leaning forward. “Hey, Rovan!! I miss you like crazy! You wouldn’t believe how crazy this re-certification stuff is. Oh, man, there’s so much I want to tell you, so much I want to ask!” she pulled back slightly, taking a breath. “I miss you…” she muttered, annoyed by the whole situation. She had so much energy, suddenly, and there was a visible tension in her posture. “You made me late this morning,” she finally settled, releasing a long breath. “I’ve looked at your roster, and I’m afraid there’s not much I can say. On all the days up til my final assessment and assignment, you’re got evening duty that crosses over with me getting home… and I’m already in enough trouble for being distracted today I don’t think it’d go well if I was exhausted from staying up for a comm call. I’m afraid we’re going to have to stick to these until…” she trailed off, sighing lightly.

“Is there an arboretum on the Athena? I’ve heard it’s a pretty big ship. Here’s to hoping their arboretum has some moon-blossoms. Or a slightly too-small bench,” she chuckled lightly, a reminiscent smile coming over her face. She pulled up the last message he had sent her and gazed into his yellow eyes. She remembered waking up beside him on the couch several times, and the smile became slightly warmer. “How are you settling in onto the Athena? You mentioned the XO was from Galdor in your first message. I kinda didn’t absorb that the first time through. Honestly that’s… pretty awesome. Have you met her yet?”

She got up and paced for a few moments, then sat down again. She fan her hand through her hair from front to back, tousling it a bit. “About what you said about us…” she let out a long breath. “I’m honestly not sure what you said, but I think I got the gist,” she said as she leaned forward so that her eyes would be clearer in the visual footage. “I want there to be an us. I don’t know if it will be right away if I get onto the Athena. But who knows what will happen when we see one another’s faces once more… I know I keep saying it out loud, but I miss you terribly. I wish I didn’t have all this bloody training and I could take a magical transporter that took me all the way to the Athena, and especially right all the way to you. I love you, Rovan… I knew in my heart that I loved you before I got injured, but I know in my head now. And it hurts to be so far away…”

Allison leaned back and closed her eyes for a few moments. “I love you, Rovan. And I want to see you soon. Allison out.” She sent the message, then got undressed and crawled into bed, exhausted but elated.

Allison Fleet

After his own shift had ended, Rovan had been invited to the ships lounge for a drink in celebration of a fellow officer’s birthday. Being fairly new Rovan had at first declined, but after a few more invites from his team he had finally relented and agreed to a drink. Of course when asked why he was so set on only having one drink, he hadn’t told them he was restless to return to his quarters so that he could see if Allie had messaged him. Instead, he feigned fatigue from the busy day they had just had, as well as catching up on sleep from his trip to the Athena. The invites and camaraderie were appreciated, truly. Rovan had felt alone himself the last several months and he knew it as taking him time to get back into the groove of being in Starfleet. Being free, as he was on the mission, had been tempting and intoxicating. But it was a dangerous freedom.

The one drink and toast completed, the doors to his quarters opened to Rovan entering, already undoing his tunic to shower and change. A day working in the depths of a ship like the Mythology wasn’t always clean work and he knew that after a quick shower and change, he would feel much more awake. Glancing at his desk as he walked by, he grinned to see the light blinking that a message was waiting for him. “Hey you,” he told the console, “I’ll be right there.” Being after midnight for Allie, and knowing how busy she was at Starfleet, Rovan didn’t rush to answer it. He would be able to take it in much more when he didn’t have other things to attend to.

Stripping off as he went, he made his way bare chested to the bathroom and dropped his tunic over the back of a chair, scratching absently at the hairless and scale like skin on his chest, rubbing the muscles underneath. Only moments later his trousers had joined the tunic, and he was in the shower humming some odd tune to himself that he had heard the lounge band playing, he didn’t know it, but it was an ancient earth tune, played on a tenor saxophone and composed by Henry Mancini with the rest of the band playing a soft accompaniment in the background. It was very catchy.

“Computer, play message,” he said a short while later as he slid into the chair at his desk, a bowl of Ktarian eggs with dill weed beside him. Taking a spoonful of the dish, he watched and listen as the message played, his yellow eyes shifting side to side as he watched Allie’s movements, his mouth curling to a grin as she spoke. Then, finishing the bowl and drinking a large glass of water, he pushed it to one side and watched it again, eager for every glimpse of her, every twitch of her lips and face as she spoke. Once his second viewing was done, Rovan wiped his mouth with his fingers and adjusted his loose, open necked shirt slightly. It was loose enough to show the scales like skin on his chest. “Computer, begin recording a message.”

“Hey, Allie!! I miss you like crazy too. You have no idea how much time I spent today thinking about you. Well, maybe you do going on your message. You make sure you pay attention though, I can’t have you thrown out to the farm again for daydreaming like some bookworm! So, today I was a little late home from shift. One of the team, NE Wallowitz had a birthday today and they wouldn’t accept that I was a bit tired so, they dragged me to the lounge then held me down and forced me to drink something nasty. Wallowitz seemed to like it, he called it Grappa I think. It was terrible stuff and if we ever get offered it, we are not having it, trust me.” Rovan paused her and looked at the camera, and smiled suddenly.

“Do you know how good it is to do this? To make this video for you and know that when you wake up, it’ll be there for you? It’s about, 2am in the morning for you now so just a little bit longer and you’ll be awake. I understand what you mean about the messages, you have important things to get done so you can come back to me, and you will, I just know it. Sometimes you just have to trust in these things, you know? I checked out the ships specs, and yeah, she has three arboretum’s in fact. There is one large one on the saucer section, and two smaller in the engineering hull. I haven’t visited any yet but I’m going to check with the groundsman for a few things. Just wait until you are here, I’m not going to say any more. ” Here Rovan paused and reached to the side, taking a drink for a moment before putting it down again out of shot.

“I want there to be an us as well, I know what you mean. About what you felt in your heart before you knew it in your head. I was thinking, those nights we fell asleep on the couch watching shows? I used to wake early, make sure you weren’t having nightmares. I know now that I felt it too. I miss you Allie, I keep saying it too, because I do. You will see me soon, it won’t be long and you’ll be stepping off the transporter pad onto the Athena, I know it,” he tapped his chest, not where the human heart would be, but lower down and on the opposite side slightly. “Right here in my heart. Goodnight Allie, sleep tight. I love you.”

With that Rovan switched off the recording function, and sent the message. Moving to the replicator he made himself a Ktarian chocolate pudding with hokey pokey ice cream, then relaxed on the couch and brought up a show on the view screen. One show, and he would take himself to bed and bring himself a little closer to another message from Allie.

Lt j.g. Rovan Moor
Engineer/Pilot