Letter From Home ((Christie))

[ensverityhu]

They hadn’t even opened it… Verity sat down beside the freshwater pool, her shoulders hunched forward as she looked down at the envelope in her hands. Yes, an actual envelope. She had thought that maybe if she asked for permission to come home on paper, in her own handwriting and in Chinese, they might actually answer her this time instead of just sending her a message to reject her request. She ran her fingers over the wrinkled paper. It had been beaten up on its round trip to and from a post office in San Francisco where Verity had a P.O. Box just in case her parents did want to send her anything. Which they never had, not since she had left Seattle and their household without their permission. She hadn’t heard anything from anyone in her immediate family in four years; not even holiday greetings or a birthday card. At least her extended family was still speaking to her...or most of them were. A few had sided with her father and joined in the shunning.

Verity flipped the envelope over. One corner was ripped and lifted, as if someone had started to open it, and Verity hoped that her mother had at least wanted to know what she had to say. But the rip was probably just because of the trauma it had gone through in the mail. Maybe it really had gotten lost in the mail and the return-to-sender was a normal error, or maybe they had moved and…and forgotten to tell her their new address… She sighed and placed both hands over the envelope, not wanting to look at it anymore but unable to throw it away.

They must have heard about what had happened to Vulcan and the Starfleet ships that had gone there, and if they didn’t know about that, well, there was also the incident in San Francisco. Verity understood that they didn’t want to see her, but…weren’t they just a little worried about her? Perhaps just the appearance of the letter had reassured them that she wasn’t dead, and that’s all they needed.

Sighing, Verity set the letter beside the pool, halfway hoping it’d tip over the edge and sink to the bottom so she could forget about it. She trailed her fingertips along the surface of the water, watching the fish dart around the pool. Oh well, it wasn’t like she would have been able to stay there very long anyway… It was better this way.

[christie]

Christie Martinez
Officer's Lounge - Deck 2
Break time[/font]

Christie had some time off at the moment. She had grabbed a snack, but decided to continue exploring the ship. She was still pretty new on board, and though she knew the layout, she wanted to see it all for herself. She wanted to know every inch of the ship, like any good engineer should. She wasn't going off ship for shore leave, so she figured she would spend the time the ship was docked wisely. She had said her good-byes to her family and everything, so why not?

Right now Christie was heading off to check out the officer's lounge. It may actually be a place for recreation, like one would expect a person to go to for said recreation, but Christie was going there to scope it out. You never knew what or where you will need to make repairs on as an engineer, and the officer's lounge was no exception. She wanted to see what kind of devices were in there, what the lighting set up was like, maybe where access ports were for power systems and the like. Christie would be looking for it all and more.

She arrived in the lounge and took a look around as she nibbled on her her peanuts and peanut butter bar. Taking in the place, she noticed it had quite a number of plants. She kinda felt like she had just walked into her old academy dorm. Then she realized that the plants weren't the only thing causing this jar to her senses. Her roommate at the academy was sitting over by the small pool of water.

"Verity!" Christie called, her face breaking into a grin. It had been a few weeks since she had seen her former roommate. She had heard she was also assigned to the Enterprise though, and Christie had hoped to see her around. And now here she was. It felt like being back at the academy again. Here they were, surrounded by plants. Verity had been responsible for the greenery in their room. Christie hadn't minded though, it had given the room character.

Verity had been a great roommate to have. She was quiet and liked to read. They got along pretty well, though Christie had had to work to break through the ice at first. She didn't open up easily. Christie walked over to her friend, and made to give her a small hug. She knew her friend wasn't big on people interaction, but was hoping she was over that with Christie at least. And Verity knew of Christie's friendly nature, so it probably wasn't unexpected. Christie was always hoping she the things she did didn't make Verity uncomfortable, ever since they met. Seems things still hadn't changed.

"How are you?" she asked of the other girl.

[ensverityhu]

Verity was just considering nudging the letter over the edge herself, instead of relying on gravity to do her dirty work, and pretending she’d never written it when she heard someone call out her name. She lifted her head and pulled her shoulders back, wide-eyed for a moment as she looked around. Who…oh, wait, she knew that voice. And that grin. She waved at her roommate, oh, well, ex-roommate now, as a similar expression, albeit somewhat subdued, came to her own face. It really hadn’t been so long since they had been rooming together at the Academy. Everything had snowballed after they had been assigned to the Enterprise, events taking off like something out of a high-action adventure novel. She stood up, leaving the letter where it was, and brushed off her blue jeans. Since they were on shore leave, she hadn’t felt the need to dress in her standard blue dress uniform. Instead, she chose a pair of jeans that were only slightly stained with dirt, a blue t-shirt and a pair of boots that were worn but still sturdy.

Christie had been all Verity could have hoped for in a roommate. When she had arrived at the Academy, one of Verity’s biggest worries was about what kind of roommate she was going to get. She had been nervous that she was going to get some sex-crazed loon or a manipulative girl who was going to attempt to turn her into some oppressed lackey…which probably wouldn’t have been that hard back then. It was difficult to believe, but she had had even less of a backbone back then. Now she had a very quiet stubborn streak…somewhere. But luckily, Verity’s fears had been all for nothing. She had arrived with her suitcase and her two plants, and there had been Christie, friendly, kind and amazingly patient when it came to getting Verity to say more than a few words. It was probably due to Christie that Verity was now willing to branch out a little more; Christie had shown her that not everyone was going to fuss at her and try to force her to do what they wanted.

Verity hugged Christie back, sincerely happy to see her. “I’m fine,” she answered as she pushed a lock of stringy, unruly hair back behind her ear. It was true, in fact. She was relatively reconciled to the fact that her parents didn’t want to see her, so she was, in fact, fine. She smiled at Christie, unable to not be affected by the other young woman’s warm personality. “And you? I see you’ve been raiding the ship’s kitchen,” she said with a small grin, her eyes darting to the peanut butter bar Christie was holding. A random thought crossed her mind.

“Oh, and I went back to our room and rescued the plants, in case you go back and notice they’re missing.” She didn’t want Christie visiting their old room at the Academy and assuming someone had snatched all the plants. The room had been something of a small-scale greenhouse, although not nearly as warm. “They’re in my room here, if you’d like any of them.”

[christie]

Christie Martinez
Officer's Lounge - Deck 2
Break time[/font]

Christie was glad Verity accepted the hug. Christie always worried she was going to push a bit too much with the girl and she didn't want to make her uncomfortable at all. She still felt nervous about this, despite Verity having long since warmed up to her. But Christie couldn't help it, it was just part of who she was. Everything worked out in the end though, so Christie relaxed her unnecessary worry. And once again, it felt good to be around her old roommate. Like she hadn't left everything of her old life behind on earth. Being here with Verity was a nice taste of the familiar in an otherwise strange new world. The plants helped too.

They broke and Verity responded to Christie's question, though seemingly halfheartedly with a simple 'fine'. She returned the question though, before Christie had much time to ponder on the matter and asked how she was, plus commented on her snack. Christie grinned.

"Yeah, it's my break right now. Then it's back off to main engineering to continue work. And I'm great! Love my new job and my cute little uniform." she said, doing a little pose to show off her red mini-dress of a uniform. She noted Verity was out of uniform and surmised that she was probably not working today at all, so she went casual. Christie on the other hand was just coming off of work, and would be returning later, so she was, of course, in full uniform.

Verity then mentioned the plants they had in their old room. Christie could remember the forest that had been their little area of the dorm. She had enjoyed the plants though, they had made the place look better. Her new room here on the ship looked barren by comparison. The walls were all bare, and so were the few shelves she had, except for a picture frame that cycled through a bunch of pictures on it's screen.

"Well, I don't have anything left in the old room, so I probably won't be going back to it." Christie told her, "Which is good, because I don't think I'd like seeing it without the decor." she added with a smile. Going back and seeing the room as bare as her current one would have been a lot to take. The end of an era, and all that. She was just too used to that place being covered in leaves and vines that seeing it otherwise would have been sad. Christie was glad to have her memory untarnished and could look back at it happily.

"I might take you up on that offer though. My room on board the ship is kind of pathetic looking really." she said with a smirk. "It could use some greening up with the Verity touch." she grinned. Christie took another bite of her nut bar and her eyes drifted off of her friend toward the pool where the other girl had been sitting when Christie had arrived. She noticed a small bit of paper sitting on the edge near the water. She swallowed the bit of nut bar she had taken in, and then nodded over at the paper to indicate it.

"What's that?" she asked the girl, wondering if she knew what it was. She must have known it was there, she had been sitting near it after all.

[ensverityhu]

Verity ducked her head a little when Christie posed, modeling the operations uniform. The uniforms were nice enough, but Verity always felt somewhat uncomfortable in hers. It was far too short, and she walked around forcing herself to not tug at the hem all of the time. Really, wouldn’t it make more sense for them to have slightly longer uniforms? They had probably been designed by men…which was fine, but she still wanted a more modest uniform! “I’m glad you’re having a good time, and the uniform looks great on you,” Verity said, smiling. Verity wasn’t any sort of fashion guru, she was actually rather pathetic when it came to choosing outfits, but she could see that Christie’s dark hair and her complexion went really well with the bright red dress.

She nodded, understanding Christie’s sentiment. Going back to the dorm room had been her way of officially saying goodbye to her Academy days. They had been fantastic, really, and she liked the person she had become while she was there much better than the person she had been before the Academy, but now she was an ensign on the Enterprise. People dreamed of being here, of working in this place. She could hardly believe that she had been assigned here, but she was grateful for it every day. This ship was beautiful, and the captain, although young and a little reckless, seemed very capable of commanding the crew of the sleek vessel.

Verity self-consciously covered her mouth with her hand as she laughed. “Oh no, I don’t think it’s a touch,” she said, shaking her head, “I’m such a sucker for plants, and they just take over, it’s sort of like they have a mind of their own…” Any time she went out into San Francisco and found a plant shop, they had wound up with a new plant. Luckily most of them were small since Verity didn’t want the room to be too incredibly crowded with green things. Eventually she had had to take over a spot in the greenhouse for the exotics and any other leftovers that just wouldn’t fit in the room. Anyone was capable of turning a room into a greenhouse if they were as nutty about plants as she was. She had always been surprised that Christie hadn’t finally gotten fed up with the plants and thrown some of them out. “But you’re welcome to whichever ones you want.”

“Oh…” Christie had noticed the letter. Verity bit the inside of her bottom lip. She wanted to lie and say that it was nothing, that it wasn’t hers and how did it get there, but she was a horrible liar and Christie would be able to tell. Still, she didn’t really want to drag Christie into the family drama. The other girl already knew about the situation; she had told Christie about it eventually back at the Academy, but it seemed silly to bring it up again. Yet unavoidable. “It’s a letter I sent to my parents.” She gave a small shrug, as if it didn’t really matter. “It was returned. Most likely a fluke in the mail system or something.”

[christie]

Christie Martinez
Officer's Lounge - Deck 2
Break time[/font]

Christie smiled at Verity when she said she looked good in the uniform. It was probably the strangest uniform in Earth's history, especially considering navel and military uniforms. It did look good though. Perhaps that had been the point. They went around, meeting all sorts of different sentient lifeforms. Perhaps the whole idea behind the uniform was to look good while they did this. Make themselves easier on the eyes and all. Well, that was the only thing Christie could come up with to explain Starfleet's fashion over function approach to uniform design. But, she wasn't complaining. She looked good, and she bet Verity looked good in it too. Though she doubted her friend would admit it, Christie could picture her in her blue uniform and knew it would be true.

Christie was happy about the offer for a plant. Her quarters needed sprucing up badly. It was very dull in there, and Christie was used to seeing the greenery all over. While she didn't intend to emulate their old academy room in full, she would like to have a little something. It was a sad thing to move on in life to the next chapter. Christie was now about to say good-bye to her old life on Earth and the academy and being able to see her family, so she could travel around space on a starship. She'd miss the fun times of her past, but new there would be more to come. A nice plant in her room would, however, me a nice reminder of those fun times. A small piece for the purpose of nostalgia, kinda like a empathic time machine; sending her emotions to the past and letting her enjoy them once again. Well, she was probably putting a lot of responsibility on a small plant, but it would at least make her quarters look less drab.

Christie responded with a confused look to Verity's worried expression as she looked back around at the small piece of paper. What was that about? Well, clearly it was about the paper, but why did it have her worried? Verity seemed to make a decision and Christie got her answer. Ah, so it was something to do with her parents. Christie knew that Verity's relationship with her parents wasn't exactly perfect, but returning a letter? She also knew Verity pretty well and wasn't buying her feigned indifference on the matter. Especially after her lip chewing worry. She wouldn't call her out on it though, but instead went for a different approach.

"Well, of course it was a fluke in the mail system! Nobody sends paper letters anymore, the people probably didn't even know what to do with it! Probably mixed up the addresses and sent it back, instead of to your parents. You should send e-mail next time." Christie said to her, giving her a little smirk and hoping to reassure her. She wasn't exactly sure how effective she would be, but she hoped a lot. Verity didn't need the stress of how her parents might feel about her right now, with all of the changes to her life she had to make. Christie wished Verity's parents would knock off the nonsense, let her be herself, and realize that she was a wonderful person. They can't control her forever and she was happy doing what she was doing here. Didn't they want her to be happy?