Posted by Ensign Kalani Kāne (Science Officer) in Alindors Quarters

Posted by Lieutenant Commander Jarred Alindor (Chief Engineer) in Alindors Quarters

Posted by Lieutenant Commander Jarred Alindor (Chief Engineer) in Alindors Quarters
Posted by… suppressed (8) by the Post Ghost! 👻
Life had changed since Kalani and Elizabeth moved in with Jared. Now his quarters was filled was laughter, clothes, toys… and that was just from Kalani. He couldn’t help but feel like things had moved so fast, yet things seemed more perfect than ever. Sitting in the living area the little pitter patter of feet coming from Lizzies room as Jarred got up and began walking to her room as he knocked on her door.

Looking in he could see Lizzie on the floor with her dolls as she was playing with as she hummed something vaguely familiar. “Hey butter bean, you have a moment?” Jared asked as his daughter stopped and looked up.

Elizabeth stopped humming the Federation anthem and looked up at Jarred still holding the newest Barbie doll her daddy bought her last week. Federation Captian Barbie had come with a PaDD, phaser, tiny tricorder and a mini cup of coffee. The large USS Atlantis playset came complete with an Orion, Caitain, several humanoid senior staff, and five redshirt security men. The set up showed the Atlantis was obviously on some sort of away mission. Clothes from around the room were piled into imaginary mountains indicating Elizabeth was trying to create an alien landscape. The ship was buried in a pile of sweatpants as if it crash landed there. “Not right now daddy,” she said with a serious expression on her face. “The counselor Beana Roy has crashed the ship again. The executive officer is lost and we are looking for him. I have two more people,” she pointed to the bed. On it was a Vulcan and Klingon. “I don’t have any of them on my crew right now. Wanna play one,” she asked hopefully. For all his faults, Jarred was a good father. Many nights he sat on the floor moving random objects around using voiceovers that made Lizzie giggle uncontrollably.

“No baby, this is important come here… just a minute baby doll.” Jarred said as he tilted his head and smirked at her. He couldn’t help be love the playful energy of his little girl. Now just wasn’t the time for these adventures.

“But I have the evil Maharanees attacking the crew. See they are all on that mountain ridge,” Lizzie pointed to an eclectic array of stuffed animals and other toys half buried or half peeking among wads of socks or between pillows. “They think they can attack us but we are the best flipping Starfleet in the galaxy,” she said with all the gusto of a vegan trying to convince you fermented tofu and coconut oil tasted like real cheese. “Are you with me,” she said with a happy grin.

“You know anytime you want me to come rescue your team I am there, but right now baby this is very important little one.” Lifting her up her brought her to the edge of the bed and sat down next to her as he shook his head. “No peanut, least not right now. I want to ask you something.” Jared said as he paused wondering how to bring this up. He wasn’t certain how the reaction would be but he knew the time was right to broach this question.

“You… you like Kalani baby right?” he asked her softly as he put his arm around her as he held her close.

“Sure,” she said kinda squirming a bit. At times her Daddy could be so difficult and needed so much attention. For example, she knew her homework was right but each night Jarred needed her to call him over to the table to check it. Lizzie didn’t mind really. Sometimes Daddy’s needed to be told they were the best Daddy ever. Sort of like when she needed him to blow on her scrapped her knee before he put the bandaid over it. Normally she didn’t mind giving him snuggles but right now they were in the middle of a battle. The stuffed squirrel and raccoon, the slinky, and wind up robot were slowly titling on the blanket ready to fall on the intrepid Starfleet officers and Lizzie had to save them.

Two seconds later the first casualty happened. The talking targ let out a grunt and bowled over the first red shirt. The security officer’s body was now buried under the targ and appeared to be fighting for his life as the talking Klingon toy ran through his sound clip. That was it. She could not sit by and let this happen. She loved her daddy but now was not a time for snuggles. It was a time for action. Going into what Jarred called the puddle, Lizzie let her body go boneless so she could slide from beside him to the floor. “I love Kalani. She is super nice and lets me skip veggies when you work late.” It was not that Lizzie didn’t want to give her daddy love but her dolls lives were at stake.

Since he had his arm around her for cuddles the only thing that could reach the poor man under the targ was her foot. Trying to toe the evil Maharanees out of the way she pointed her foot but was too far away to do anything but swipe the air

“Stop little one.” Jarred’s voice became firm as he looked her over. She would know this tone, this was her daddy’s stop whatever you are doing and freeze like he is a t-rex and you better pray he can’t see you tone.

Lizzie stopped mid swing and let him pull her up next to him again. She knew he really needed her to pay attention by the sound of his voice. The tone also told her that she was not in trouble. Since he came into her room this also added to the mystery of what he wanted to talk about. Every adult with a kid knew that making something sound interesting got a kids attention and Jarred did this perfectly. “Whatcha wanna talk about daddy,” she said moving under his arm she snuggled up tight to his body.

“Baby this is important, I want to ask you, would you like her to be your new mommy? Cause I would love to ask Kalani to marry me. If I do that then it makes her your new mommy, but I don’t want to do any of this without you feeling okay. So how do you feel about Kalani being your new mommy?”

Lizzie looked up at Jarred as if carefully scrutinizing his words. His face seemed serious but he wasn’t smiling. He actually looked nervous to her. Lizzie would help him feel better. “Really,” she said in a soft and tentative tone. She could not imagine why her daddy wasn’t jumping up and down like she felt inside. She had to show her daddy this was a great idea. “I love Kalani but I am not sure she is always happy,” Lizzie said softly as if she wasn’t sure that was the right answer. “Sometimes people will ask who my mom is and Kalani can only say she is with me or say that she is your girlfriend. If she joins our family she will be able to say she is my mom or that she is your wife. I think that would make her happy. It would make me happy.” Biting her lip Lizzie thought hard about her next question. “It would make me really happy,” Lizzie butt wiggled down from next to him. “Can we ask her now,” she took Jarred’s hand and pulled at him trying to get him up from the bed.

Lizzie

“We can’t go this second baby, she is working. I want to make sure you understand what this means. It doesn’t mean she replaces your birth mom. She just is going to make her role in our lives official is all.”

“Now, about asking her… I did have a plan but I need you to help me little one. Do you think you can help me plan a party? I want to get people together and we can ask her at a big beautiful party. We can get you in a dress… food dancing music. What do you think peanut?” Jarred said softly, smiling as he did knowing she loved parties whenever they could.

His words made her smile falter a little bit, yet Lizzie had a lot of practice pretending things didn’t bother her when they did. Lizzie wasn’t sure exactly what Jarred was talking about. Her smile turned to what Jarred called her thinking face with her lips closed in a straight line and her eyebrows slightly raised showing she was thinking. His sentence didn’t make sense to her. Why say Kalani was going to be her mom when her Daddy just said she could not be her real mom? In situations like this when she was confused her PaPa always told her to start with what she did understand and go from there. So that is what Lizzie did as she asked another question. “Isn’t she allowed to just live with us without it being official? Why does it have to be official,” Lizzie looked at him a little nervous. She wasn’t wiggling anymore. The word official seemed scary or a curse word. When PaPa used it talking about work her NaNa would often say she didn’t want to hear about it anymore. Aunt Lucy and Uncle Peter would roll their eyes and make that weird adult snort or use their fingers to air quote things that had to be official. A few times she heard her Daddy and PaPa yelling about making things official or needing them to be official before he left. Lizzie had been so excited but now her Daddy was using the word official and looking at her as if he as worried.

Lizzie

Jarred paused as he listened to what Elizabeth said, his face sunk as he took a deep breath, “Official baby… official is just a grown up term in some ways. There is though importance in the term, it means that I want to live with Kalani till I grow old and grey like papa. It also means that Kalani, who loves you with all her heart, wants the entire galaxy to know that you are her daughter. That she loves you and she is your mommy. Official maybe a grown up term, but it simply means we are going out of our way to love someone so much, we just want the entire galaxy to know that these are the people we love.” he said hoping that this made sense to her. He wasn’t quite sure how else to explain a topic like this, but he felt the need to elaborate more.

Lizzie looked at Jarred never taking her eyes off him as she listened. The one thing she loved most about her Daddy was when she asked him things he always put it in a way she understood. He took the scary words she didn’t understand and made Lizzie feel safe. There were a lot of other words that she had not understood lately but she would ask her Daddy about them later. Right now he was talking and she liked when they had grown up conversations like this. It made her feel like they were Booster Gold and the Blue Beetle again. It was a game they played sometimes because the pair were a team. Her Daddy told Lizzie once that she was They were silly and fun often making fun of Batman, which was her Papa, when he became too grumpy. Booster Gold was an inventor so he was her Daddy. Blue Beetle was Lizzie because she had a special suit. Together they could defeat anything. It was then she started to think about the necklace Jarred gave her. It has a blue stone and she could only wear it on special occasions which was why it gave her imaginary suit its special powers. Lizzie hoped her Nana had packed that with the rest of her stuff.

Blinking she as nodded Lizzie snuggled up next to her Daddy as she stopped daydreaming. “Yes I am listening, Daddy,” she said looking up at him waiting for Jarred to continue talking.

“For me, and I am sure for Kalani too peanut… becoming official this way is an act of love. It is a way to show this love, Lani and I tell you we love you all the time, and Lani tells you she loves us all the time as well. I know you feel the same. When one gets married it though is a way to do more than just say you love someone. It is an act of love. It is an act to so vows, which are simply promises, to love and honor me, and I her… and those same vows apply to you. You become a daughter to both of us, and she gets to show you how much she loves you by going through with a wedding little one.”

“So can I say a vow at the wedding too,” she asked with a very serious expression on her face. “I know what I would say.”

“I would tell everyone that I am the luckiest girl ever. That I have a mommy and daddy that love me and protect me and make me feel special,” she said so serious it might have sounded funny coming from someone so young. Lizzie hoped the way she said it sounded grown up enough. She could tell this was a serious conversation. Lizzie wasn’t sure what honor was but she hoped that saying her Daddy and Kalani made her feel special would show that she honored Kalani too.

Kissing the top of her head he pulled her in very close to himself as he took a deep breath, he didn’t know if this was getting through to her as he tilted his head to look at his daughter. “So, does that at all help explain why I want to do this with her, and why I hope she wants to do it? Why I want you to help me… this is our way of showing we love each other to one another, to everyone we love, and to the whole galaxy a whole… we are a family, we are the Alindors.”

Alindor, CE

“No we Booster Gold and the Blue Beetle. That means we can do anything,” she held out her fist as Jarred had taught her.

“Daddy,” Lizzie took a deep breath and bit her lip for a second. She was really nervous asking him this but since her Daddy was talking serious this was a good time. “Can Kalani join our team. I know Booster Gold and the Blue Beetle are a pair but if Kalani is going to be in our family officially,” she used the word hoping correctly, “she needs to be part of our team. Can we make her Poison Ivy? She liked plants and Kalani sure likes plants,” Lizzie looked around that room. Lizzie had no idea who poison ivy was but all the boys thought she was cool. Lizzie thought Kalani was cool so this would be the perfect addition to the Alindor super power team.

“Baby… Poison Ivy is a villain, how about she be… Miss Martian? She is green and super strong… she can be our league of super friends you, me, and Kalani… the Dynamic Trio!”

“It also works because I learned in school that blue and yellow make green.” Lizzie’s smile was big. She was so proud of herself. She liked to show her Daddy how smart she was. “You are yellow. I am blue. Kalani is a mix of the colors because she is green.”

“Aren’t you a smart little puppy, yes that’s right baby.” he said as he pulled her close and kissed the top of her head as he cuddled tightly with her.

“So when can we tell her she gets to be officially an Alindor,” Lizzie said wiggling down from where they were sitting. The more and more she thought about the idea the more excited Lizzie was getting. “Can we go wait outside her office until she is done from work?”

Lizzie Alindor

“Now… well I was thinking of something more grand my love, maybe we get everyone to meet us tonight in the small lounge that we love and care for. I think Nana and Papa can help us decorate and we can get them all together and ask her while wearing nice dresses and pretty suits… how does that sound little one?”

Alindor, CE

“Yes,” she jumped up and threw her arms around her daddy’s neck hugging him. “I love getting dressed up fancy. Nana can do my hair and I can wear those fancy high heels Kalani got for me when we went shopping.” The longer Lizzie was on the Saracen the more she liked it. It was fun going shopping and doing things with her daddy and Kalani. The shoes were the newest thing that had thrilled her. Until Kalani, her nana had always bought what her Papa called sensible shoes. They were flat and didn’t make any noise like the fancy shoes Kalani and her Nana wore. The shoes she and Kalani found were all sparkles and made the clicking sound when she walked. It was a far cry from any high heel except to a four going on five year old. The clicking sound she loved was from a one inch block attached at her heel but to Lizzie they were as fancy as any teenager. She had been so excited to wear them and this would give her the chance. Glancing at the time, Lizzie looked back at jarred. “Can we go now and ask her so we can plan the party?”

Lizzie Alindor

“Yes, go to Nana and Papa. We have a few hours till her shift ends, I got some people to call…” Jarred said as he kissed his little girl on the head as he patted her off her bed. He knew it would take a while to put his plans in motion, but there was something he felt he needed to do first.

Exiting Lizzie’s quarters Jarred made his way to the desk as he pulled the chair back slowly. The ship luckily ran on the same time as all Federation facilities. It made times easier if everyone followed a standard time. This meant he should find who he needed awake if he was lucky.

Bringing up the directory Jarred waited, it could be a few moments as the subspace request took it’s time to reach the intended target. It wasn’t after a few minutes he her the familiar ring that let him know that his target had accepted.

“This better be important K-bell, you’re mom was almost ready to go to the Klingon restaurant and I don’t like missing my gagh.” came the answer from Robert Kane, Kalani’s father as he looked surprised to see Jarred instead of his daughter. “Jarred.” he said quickly, he didn’t seem to excited once he realized who it was on the other end. “Can I help you? Is Kalani okay?” he asked as he looked at Jarred with a discerning look.

“What I can’t call? Come on I am hurt, you know you love me Mr. Kane I growing on you.” Jarred said as he smirked slightly as he took a deep breath. He didn’t have time to ask make this take long and he could already feel his stomach lurching slightly. This was a big step, he couldn’t back away from this moment. It set into motion everything.

“Yes… I need something.” Jarred said, the silent tone from Robert let him know the joke wasn’t nearly as funny as he thought it was. “I need you to come to the ship in a week, but before that… I need to ask something. I am… utterly in love with your daughter sir, and in a week I plan to propose to her. I want you here and I want your permission, but to be honest sir I don’t care if you say no I will ask her to marry me. I really just hope you will say yes cause I know I will feel much better about all of this if you do.” Jarred said, he wasn’t passive in anyway and as intimidating as Robert could be Jarred wasn’t a pushover himself.

“That all?” Robert said as he looked at Jarred with a sharper stare as the silence seemed to stagnate. Jarred nodded as he took a breath readying for a barrage of demands but found himself shocked at the words next. “It’s about damn time, a year together and you two should have been talking about this much sooner.” Robert replied as Jarred felt his jaw drop.

“Is… that a yes sir?” Jarred asked, he was trying hard to compose himself but he wasn’t certain how to take this. He somehow expected something far worse here.

“Yes, now… I will tell Halia, but I am not missing Gagh, she will want to call you. Prepare yourself, if you were worried about me she… well she is much more fierce than me.” Robert said as he had the smallest hint of a smile as he clicked off from the call leaving Jarred sitting in a stunned silence.

From behind him, the sound of steps could be heard. He was sure it had to be Lizzie and his parents as he looked back to see who was entering.

Alindor, CE