Stardate: 70616.22
Title: Under the Table, Part One
Author: Trick London
Scene: Aboard the ship, still in orbit of Bajor: Seven Forward
Time: Following "Smile, though your heart is aching" and "It's Five O'clock in Seven"
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The smile that was glued to February's face began to twist and mutate into a frown of epic proportions.
She had been so determined to hold herself together and not let anyone or anything break through her carefully contrived air of calm.
But then she'd had to wait for the turbolift.
Not just wait, but wait a long time. She was told, upon inquiring what the hell was going on down in Engineering that no one could seem to make the turbolifts move at the moment. That due to the situation down on Bajor nearly all of the ship's power had been diverted to the transporters while Lt. Commander Lair tried to keep up with demand so the away teams could care for the needs of the storm survivors.
First she'd been angry over the way things had gone in Sickbay, and misdirected that frustration into irritation over having to wait for the lift.
Then she became angry with herself most of all, realizing how stupid that was when people down on the planet just below were suffering, dying, or already dead. Her small troubles really should mean nothing in the grand scheme of universal suffering, she told herself now. The fact that they did made her feel even worse.
She was only grateful that the steps she had to take on the stairs to go down to deck seven were descending steps. With her visual issues compounded by the fact that she had barely slept in days, her ailing eyes were bloodshot, angry, and in no mood to even attempt to see peripherally.
She stomped into Seven, looking quite a sight. She wasn't in uniform, she was in fact wearing a very simple white dress. But to accessorize that dress she still wore those ancient and battered pink high top tennis shoes, giving her quite a look, indeed.
*Ah, our February is one like no other.* Trick mused at the sight.
People who tried to greet her as she made her way through the dining room found that instead of her usual soft hello and gentle smile, they were greeted with a glare that had the potential to bore a hole straight through transparent aluminum.
Grace raged within February now. She found herself at the mercy of the symbiont's rantings. She was just too exhausted, sad, and unsure of herself to try to fight them tonight.
From the moment she walked into Seven, before she even looked at him or said a word, Trick London could read her turmoil. Being half Betazoid, he was able to sense it immediately. As strong as the anger radiating from her was, though, it didn't take anyone in the room long to figure out that there was something definitely wrong with Lt. Grace tonight.
"Uh oh, love," Trick said, genuine concern for the tall young officer in his voice. "What's the matter with you?"
*What's the matter with me? What's the MATTER with me? Grace thought at February venomously. *Where do we start?*
February went off on a tirade, her anger fueled even further by the current condition of her best friend, Lily T'Ana. After she'd finished ripping Angus and Trick up one side and down the other and insisting they feed Lily something to try to counteract the effects of the strong drink she'd had on an empty stomach, she also demanded that they bring her one of those drinks, and keep them coming.
"Come on, now, what's that going to help?" Trick asked gently, reaching out for her hand. She grabbed his wrist and turned his hand back toward him, looking for an instant as if she was really about to slap him silly with it.
"Can't hurt!" she slumped into a bar stool and picked Lily's head up from off of the bar, where it was currently resting as she waited for Angus to bring her food. "Lily, honey, don't lay there," she moved Lily's head and rested it on her shoulder, then patted Lily on the top of her dark-haired head. "There you go."
"I love you, February!" Lily exclaimed. "I really, really do. I loved Wen Grace. But you're such a good friend too. I love all the yous!"
"ANGUS!" February raised her voice, and a moment later he appeared with a plate that held a large steak and potato and all the trimmings, a feast he'd hurried to assemble with the help of the on-duty chef. In his left hand, a steaming cup of strong coffee.
"Here, Lily," He set the plate down and began to cut up the meat. He put a piece onto the fork and shoved it into Lily's mouth. "Chew."
She did as she was told, and with this procedure repeated over and over she began to perk up and the giddiness she'd felt earlier started to fade.
"You can't hold your liquor at all can you?" February observed, shaking her head. Lily just kept eating the food Angus was feeding her.
"Oh, and you can, Club Soda Queen of the Alpha Quad?" Trick laughed.
February picked up the hand towel that sat on the bar where he'd been shining up glassware and whapped him in the head with it. He took a moment to fix his hair, then smiled at her again.
"In fact, I'll go and get you a glass right now.""NO, London I told you I want real booze tonight."
"Trills cannot drink to excess without harming their symbiont, February. You know that," he cautioned. Tending bar in as many places as he had, he'd learned a few things over the years. "I'm not willing to help you hurt yourself."
"Then give me all you are willing to," she begged. "Please. Tonight, I just want to forget who I am. Or who I was. Or who I might be tomorrow for that matter."
Angus and Trick exchanged looks. February Grace was one of the first people they'd met aboard the Independence and they knew that something was really getting to her to drive her to the point where she was wanting to break her own personal code by getting plastered.
Trick held up one finger to ask Grace to wait a second and dragged Angus by the collar away from the women for a quick talk.
"We can't let her get drunk." Trick insisted emphatically.
"Why not? Will it kill her, really?"
"Well, it's certainly no good for her slug but that's not the thing. The thing is, if anything happens to this ship, suddenly and without warning, who drives?"
"So even though she's off-duty,"
"Flight controllers on the flagship are never really 'off duty'."
"Synth?"
"Synth."
"Will she know the difference?"
"Let's hope that the sweet young host's tee-totaling ways overrule the memories of that souse of a worm she's carrying around."
"Right."
Trick began to fix February's drink, mixing synthahol and tonic. He made a show of reaching for the real gin as he did so, seeming to pour it into the glass while in fact he was just pouring it into another bottle.
"I'll make her something to eat, too. Might help." Angus added.
"Don't bother," Trick said knowingly. "What ails our young friend is detrimental to the appetite."
"You don't mean,"
"Yeah, I do. She's nursing a broken heart."
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Trick London
Proprietor/Barkeep, Seven
USS Independence