Stardate:70829.1300
Title:The Start of Something Big?
Authors: Ensign Xhian
Scene: Seven
Time: Concurrent with "Cheers, Part Two"
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Ella Briggs frowned. Her conversation with TC Blane ended abruptly, and she'd already chatted to just about everyone else at the party tonight. Now everyone seemed to be busy with other conversations, or they were dancing or eating.
She'd enjoyed the evening, and figured maybe it was time to call it a night. She did have the early shift in the morning and Lair Kellyn did not like it one bit if her officers were late. Even if they replicated a tray of chocolate covered donuts to try to smooth things over. This she knew from first-hand experience.
She was about to exit the bar when a fascinating sight caught her eye.
Ensign Xhian was sitting on the edge of the stage playing a guitar along with the holographic band. She hadn't seen him playing with the live band earlier, so she was curious. She startled him as she interrupted his concentration. "I didn't know you could play!"
Xhian looked up at her with an expression something akin to awe and quickly set the guitar aside before addressing her. "I'm surprised you haven't noticed me playing in my quarters before." Her quarters were not too far from his, in fact. "At times I forget myself, turn the volume up too high and the noise has. . .drawn a crowd." Realizing that she had not walked away yet, Xhian became puzzled. "Is there something you require, Ensign? Something I can assist you with?"
"Oh. Well, I suppose if you wanted to you could assist me with getting another drink."
Xhian's antennae rotated and his eyes narrowed suspiciously."Stratton put you up to this, didn't he?"
"Benjamin Stratton?" Ella asked, indicating their co-worker in Engineering. "I haven't seen him all night, except when he was up on stage with the band. Why?"
Xhian shook his head and said, "Nothing, never mind. Please forget I said anything." as he blushed. He still wondered if Stratton had a hand in this, wanting to ensure he'd win the bet they'd made earlier in the day. But in any event, Ella Briggs stood before him still.
"C'mon, Xhian. You've been here for ages now and I hardly know anything about you. I think we should change that. We work together every day, we should talk more!"
She took him by the arm and led him toward the bar.
"You're a very mysterious man." She sat down on a bar stool and tossed her red curls back over her shoulder. "Where did you grow up?"
"On a Borg cube."
"Oh," her eyes widened. Xhian waited for her to make a hasty exit before they'd even ordered their drinks, but she surprised him by staying exactly where she was. "Well, that's quite an ice-breaker!"
He looked back at her with sad eyes, and then ordered their drinks. "Actually, I was originally raised on an Andorian home colony. There I was just a very young man, with dreams of being an engineer in Starfleet. Or at to least designing equipment for Starfleet. I wanted my ambitions to be more than just the childish dreams everyone said they were."
"How could wanting to be an engineer be a childish dream? And who are 'they' anyway?" she rambled on a little in her usual, bubbly manner. "I mean, 'they' hardly ever seem to do anything worthwhile with their lives wouldn't you say? "They' have a lot of nerve!" It seemed to Xhian that maybe 'they' had said a thing or two to Briggs in her life, as well.
He waited patiently for her to finish speaking, and finally she motioned for him to continue.
"Even when I was a child, I wasn't exactly popular with anyone in general. In fact on a daily basis I was pelted with rocks and rotten fruit by the other children, for not wanting to play with them. So in the end, I basically kept to myself and just studied. I never really longed for anyone's friendship or anything else because I knew I would never gain it ." Xhian explained.
"That's so sad, X. " Ella said as she looked down towards her drink trying to hide the tears that had come to her eyes. "You had no friends growing up at all?"
Xhian gave a soft laugh, "Friends? I don't even think my parents wanted to claim me as theirs most of the time. My mother always used to shun me for not trying to make friends, and not acting like a "normal" child. My father always called my dreams foolish and stupid," he paused, wondering if he should continue. He figured he was in this far, he may as well tell the whole truth. "Father said that I was just a worthless waste of life, and he used to pull on my antennae." She gasped, and put her hand on his arm comfortingly as he added "Daily. But no matter what, I still held on to my dreams."
Ella sat quietly for a moment. Finally she shook her head. "Some people are just not meant to be parents, Xhian. I'm so sorry that things were like that for you." Her eyes held an expression that surprised him. It wasn't pity, it wasn't even sympathy. It was admiration.
"You must be so strong. Look at you, going through all of that and you're still here. A Starfleet officer. Despite how they tried to shoot your dreams down. And then, there was the Bo-" she stopped, not wanting to push him too far. He was just opening up to her, and she didn't want to spook him back into silence. His childhood had been tragic enough- the fact that he'd also been assimilated by the Borg, almost too much for her to imagine one person surviving.
"The Borg. It is all right, you can say it. It is the truth." He raised the glass to his lips and finished his drink.
"Can I ask how it happened?"
He nodded."One day, I was helping my father with some repairs to the house. Suddenly there was so much noise, some commotion out just beyond our settlement. . .I was sent to investigate what was going on," he paused, gauging her reaction. "It was the Borg. After that everything is a blur... I have a few shattered memories of being Borg."
"How did you escape the Collective?"
"There was a crash. We were, I've been told, on some sort of small scout ship. I was actually discovered in the wreckage by a child, barely alive. I was given over to Starfleet. Due to the damage suffered when they tried to remove my Borg implants, they ended up adding some positronic components to my brain. These have allowed me to survive, and to function. But I have very little recall of that time period."
Ella nodded thoughtfully. He expected that after hearing all this she was going to turn away. Make an excuse of some sort as to why she had to go and he would never see her outside of the Engineering department again. But once more, she surprised him. She stayed.
"I feel like my life has been downright boring compared to yours," she announced, and his antennae perked up curiously.
"I doubt that. Would you tell me something about yourself and let me be the judge?"
She smiled, and signaled for Trick to bring them two more drinks. "Sure. Okay."
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The two talked well into the early hours, until Trick declared it was past last call and time to close the bar.
"Oh, gosh. Where did the time go?" Ella shook her head. "And I've got the early shift."
"As do I," Xhian replied. "Ensign, might I see you back to your quarters?"
Ella took Xhain by the arm and smiled at him sweetly. "I'd like that, X. Let's go."
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Ensign Xhian
Engineering Officer
USS Independence NCC-90791
and
Ensign Ella Briggs (NPC)
Engineering Officer
USS Independence NCC-90791