Jeremiah Perez-Romewith Ensign Marika Lenali"Reunion"---“Shit, I’m
so late!” Mari groaned as she glanced at the chronometer. Callum was going to be annoyed with her for stranding him alone with Olivia. Mari slipped on her flats to go with her navy wrap dress and headed out the door.
“Yoooo, Mari! Over here!” Olivia’s voice carried across the bar. Mari could see Callum shrinking in embarrassment in the booth next to her. As she approached them, Olivia let out an appreciative whistle, “Damn mama, look at you!”
They were used to her arriving to happy hour in her rumpled uniform, her hair in a mess of a bun pinned at the back of her head possibly by way of some tool from her lab, having just rushed there from work at the last minute. With a cute dress on and the loose curls in her hair she almost looked like a different person.
Mari laughed, “Me? More like look at you! What, are you hitting the club after this?” Olivia was wearing a tight fitting crop top with an equally tight and very short skirt in a matching print. Mari had come expecting a quiet night out with friends, not a night of dancing on tables. And though her skirt fell just above her knees and the neckline dipped a bit low where the dress tied closed, it looked practically demure next to Olivia’s outfit.
“Nah girl, this outfit is meant to hit the floor after this.” She gave Mari a wink as her friend slid into the booth.
Mari looked at Callum, “How many has she had so far?”
“Two. This is what happens when you’re late!”
“Two? And you’re working on your third now?! Christ, Liv, you should slow down. You’ve only been here thirty minutes! At least put some food in your stomach. Have you guys ordered anything to eat yet?”
“We were waiting for you,” Callum pointed out again.
“Yeah, yeah. I get it. I’ll never get dressed up again. Uniforms only from now on. The universe will end if I’m a little bit late.”
“Don’t be silly, you aren’t
that important. The universe won’t end, but Liv will get sloppy drunk while she waits,” Callum retorted with a smirk.
“I’m not drunk!” Olivia interjected defensively.
Callum shot her a skeptical look and then turned back to Mari, “Besides, you look nice, so it was worth being late.”
“Nice?!” Olivia smacked his shoulder dismissively, “She looks fantastic. Her tits look amazing in that dress!”
Callum lifted an eyebrow in amusement at Olivia’s inebriated enthusiasm and gave Mari a look that said
I told you so.Mari flashed him an apologetic smile and offered her penance, “Appetizers on me this time.”
“Make it appetizers and the first round,” Callum countered, “she’s already insisted I have to dance with her at some point tonight.”
She laughed, “Deal.”
Mari poked her head up above the back of the booth and quickly scanned the room for signs of a waiter when she noticed a familiar face sitting at the bar. “Shit!” She dropped down into the booth trying to turn her face away from him, unsure if he had seen her.
“What’s with you?” Olivia eyed her curiously.
“Remember the Orion rum guy I told you about, the one from the Zorya?”
“Yeah, what about him?”
“He’s at the bar right now.”
“Oooo, I wanna see him.” Olivia stood up conspicuously and looked toward the bar, her drink still in hand. “You never mentioned he was a Gallamite. I didn’t know transparent skulls did it for you.”
Mari reached over and grabbed her arm, trying in vain to pull her down into the booth again. “The other end of the bar, Liv. Please, just sit down.”
“Oh, yeah, that’s much better. Hey, he’s hot! Why are you hiding from him?” Truthfully, Mari wasn’t sure why she was hiding, other than she just hadn’t been expecting to see him. She was caught off guard. Mari didn’t even know he was posted here.
Olivia barreled on, “I mean, you already know you’ve got great chemistry in bed, I think you should totally hit that tonight.”
Mari shot a desperate look to Callum, “Can’t you do something?”
He just gave her a helpless shrug. He’d long since given up on trying to rein in Olivia, especially after she started drinking.
“Did you want to place an order?”
She looked up at the waiter, thankful to be hidden for a second. “Can we get some nachos please? And I’ll take a mojito.”
“And I want another Long Island Iced Tea. Oh! You know what?” Olivia’s eyes lit up as she got an idea, “Can you send a shot of Orion rum over to that guy at the end of the bar and tell him it’s from her? The good looking human, not the Gallamite.”
“Sure. And I’ll be right back with your order.” The waiter turned and left while Mari gaped in shock.
“No! Wait, no! Please don’t do that!” She called after the waiter, but he was halfway across the noisy room already. “Rel! I hate you, Liv.”
Her friend sipped the half full drink she had in her hand and smiled, “Trust me, I did you a favor.”
–
Jer glanced up from his mini-Padd, a half page of overly dramatic dialogue pending to be saved or discarded. A novel that would probably never be written. “A what?”
“Rum. From Orion” the bartender repeated, two fingers still on the shot glass. “From the persons over there” he indicated with his head over at a group of humanoids, two women and a man. They did not look familiar at first, however there was something about the short blonde that shied her face away that gave him a sense of her perfume. An odd sensation.
He smiled and toasted his shot towards the group then downed it, realising mid-swallow. Orion Rum. That perfume.
He coughed violently, very unsexy-like and placed the shotglass back on the table, then looked over at the group again. Probably looking like a mole under deck lighting. “Hey”
Olivia stood and started gesturing wildly as an invitation to join them. “Enough!” Mari became very firm with her friend now, “Liv, if you sit down, I’ll go talk to him.” Olivia happily sat back down in the booth and took another swig of her drink.
She slid out of the booth and looked at Callum, “Do not, under any circumstance, let her out of this booth.”
She could see the mirth in his eyes, but he didn’t poke fun at her, instead he just nodded solemnly. Mari went on, “I’m serious, Callum. If you do, it will be on you and I will find a way to get you back and it will be very unpleasant.”
“I won’t let her out, I promise.”
“Good.”
With a small, resigned sigh, Mari crossed the room to the bar and took the seat next to him, jumping right into conversation without a proper hello. “I know I promised not to make you drink that stuff again, but my friend is well on her way to a hangover tomorrow morning and she decided it was a good idea to send it over for me.”
The waiter slid her mojito over the bar to her. “Your food will be up in a minute, do you want it here or at the table?”
“Table please.” He nodded and trotted off to serve some other customers.
“Anyway, I’m sorry. She’s a mess, but she means well.” Mari took a nervous sip of her mojito.
"So..hi" Jer added carefully, dragging the word out as he took in what was happening. "How? Why are you here i mean?"
Mari gave a half shrug. “I was reassigned. You know how it is. I didn’t know you were here though.” She couldn’t really talk about what she was doing here even if she wanted to, which she didn’t really.
She noted the padd on the bar, “Sorry if I’m interrupting. I can leave you alone. I’m sure Olivia will be satisfied to have seen me talk to you at this point. Hopefully it will shut her up anyway,” she joked, wondering if it was a mistake to have come over here in the first place.
Jer awkwardly switched the padd off and pocketed the device. "No, no. Its nice to see a familiar face. I haven't seen one in a while."
"Excuse me? Can I have another IPA and two shots of that rum" he said calmly to the bartender who nodded in return.
Turning his attention back to Mari, he smiled awkwardly "you know I never expected to see you again"
“Then I suppose you’re either very lucky or very unlucky, depending on your perspective.” She grinned, but didn’t ask which it would be.
"I guess we could ask Olivia. She seems to know all about me" he smiled, and accepted the drinks as they were placed before them. "You look good by the way"
She blushed, more at the fact he knew she had told her friend about him than at the compliment. She contemplated explaining but didn’t think that would make it any better, so she let it go by.
“Well, according to her, my tits look amazing in this dress, so she’d probably say you’re lucky. But then, I think she’d say anything to get rid of me and be alone with Callum.” She cast an amused glance back at the table before looking back to him, sneaking a peek at those blue eyes she remembered so well. “And you look good too. How do you like it here?”
Jer snuck a glance at her chest, then back up, remembering details. "It's no starship. To be honest I kinda hate it here. I fly cargo shuttles between that mess in orbit and the ground. But, until I pass my recertification, I guess I will get the kilometers in and enjoy the night life"
He downed the shot and grimaced. "God, I hate that so much. What is wrong with us?"
“Hey, you ordered them this time. It’s all on you.” Mari grinned and picked up the as yet untouched shot of Orion rum in front of her and quickly tossed it back. She followed it up with a much more palatable gulp of her mojito to chase away the god awful flavor of the rum.
“I haven’t drank Orion rum since…” she contemplated when the last time had been, “I think it was that night actually.” Mari vividly recalled kisses filled with desire and tasting of rum. She blushed and awkwardly rushed on, “Of course I got transferred here pretty suddenly and things have been different since then.”
Jer smiled awkwardly as the memory surfaced, almost tangible for both of them. “You know…it’s nice to see a familiar face…” he glanced over at her friends then back at her “Are you sure I am not keeping you from your friends?”
Mari looked back at the table and answered hesitantly, “No, you aren’t keeping me from them,” she straightened up a bit, suddenly realizing that maybe his question was a way to end the conversation. “But maybe it’s me that’s keeping you from something, I mean, I can get back to babysitting my drunk friend and leave you be,” she concluded with a wry grin as she stood, feeling a bit foolish. She hesitated once more and added sincerely, “But honestly, it’s nice to see you too.”
"I haven't seen anyone I know in months…might be more. Starfleet is kind of like high school. You mean to stay in touch, but…" he took a sip of his drink. "Nevermind, sorry. That sounded pathetic.”
“No, it doesn’t sound pathetic.” Mari paused, trying to sort out if he was hoping she would go or stay. “Fuck it,” she finally muttered and leaned forward to flag the bartender down.
“What can I get you?” he asked as he approached the pair.
“Have you got that by the bottle?” she asked, pointing to the beer in front of Jeremiah.
“Sure, but it’s better on tap.”
“No, that’s ok, bottle’s fine. Give me two.” He shrugged and retrieved them. The glass bottles rattled against each other almost musically as he set them on the bar in front of her. She grabbed them and looked at Jer, tilting her head towards the door, “Come on. Finish that pint and come with me.”
Jer looked amused but slightly puzzled, then downed his pint and stood up hastily “Yes ma´am”.
Mari led the way, snaking between patrons and tables until they escaped the bar. The cooler night air outside was a welcome relief from the stuffy atmosphere inside. “Thought we could use a change of scenery. And I want to show you something. This way.” She beckoned him down the path and across a kind of courtyard into a park-like area. Following a footpath, she brought him to a clearing with a full view of the horizon where they found a bench. The moon was joined in the sky by the ringed planet and something about the atmosphere gave the dark sky a slightly purple hue, which made it almost look like a deep violet velvet. Mari held one of the beers out to him and smiled, “Best view on the planet.”
He grabbed one of the beers without taking his eyes off the sky, then joined her on the bench. He had flown into orbit a hundred times, but he rarely took the time to enjoy the view from down here. “It really is….I didn’t even know about this park. You seem to know this place better than me…..which says something about how often I go out. How did you find this spot? Take your dates here?”
She laughed dismissively, “Like I’ve had time for dates. No, that’s me over there.” Mari pointed to the nearest building. “My quarters are there, so I can see the park from my window. Honestly, the view is about the only thing I like about this place. Seems like you like it here about as much as me, so I thought maybe it would help a little to know about this spot.” She gave him a small smile before taking a sip from her beer.
“Thanks” he said, taking a sip of his beer. “It does. You know…help”
“Good, I’m glad,” she took another drink. “And you know,” she went on, still looking at the sky, but with a bit of a smirk as she teased, “if you wanted to know if I was dating someone, you could have just asked.”
"Just curious" he added simply, his eyes fixed on the sky. "I also took a break from …people"
“I suppose that explains sitting at a bar with a padd,” she snuck a glance at him. Jer smiled. "I like to look important "
Mari laughed, probably the first comfortable, easy laugh since they had started talking in the bar, actually. “Oh, is that it? Well, I recommend you practice your ‘I’m too busy to listen to you’ scowl and then you’ll be all set.”
"Didn't deter you last time around" he took a sip and let the words hang in the air. "I didn't mean to ignore you after…I just hit a rough patch and I wasn't really looking for a girlfriend"
She gave a half shrug and took another drink before answering, “I wasn’t asking to be anyone’s girlfriend, so don’t worry about it.” Mari picked at the label on her bottle, lost in her own thoughts for a minute, “Do you ever feel like you’ve spent so long chasing ghosts you don’t know how to be with people anymore?”
Jeremiah looked up, the expression on his face a mixture of understanding and apprehension. "All the time"
Nodding slowly, she commented quietly, “I had a feeling maybe you did.” Her fingertip lifted the corner of the label a bit more as she explained, “It didn’t deter me last time around because a ghost doesn’t keep the bed warm, and I thought that was enough. Maybe it was enough then, but it’s not anymore. It’s too hard facing an empty bed in the morning these days. Maybe that’s why I’m here on this god-forsaken starbase. Maybe this is some kind of purgatory and I have to find my way back to the living, like Mish’pah. I don’t know.”
She gave a nervous, self-conscious chuckle at revealing more of herself than she had intended. “Sorry. Clearly, I shouldn’t be allowed to drink and philosophize.”
Jer smiled and motioned for her to sit. “I am no better, I just write my stuff down because I have no one to tell it to”
“And who the hell is Mish´pah?”
“Mythology, from back home. Goddess of the sun and shepherdess of the dead into the afterlife. The story goes she was killed by her brother and every night she goes into the afterlife and comes back every morning. I’m not really religious, but it feels very apt these days.” She settled comfortably on the bench next to him and asked, “So what kind of things do you tell your padd then?”
He considered this Mish´pah and how it felt too close to home. “How when people meet me, they mourn”. He wasn't sure whether he had ever discussed his family with her…most of their time together was a blur after all. “People don't see
me”
“Who do they see?” Mari gave him a curious look, since he was the only person she knew in this situation, she wasn’t sure why people saw someone else.
“Where are you from?” he asked curiously. “Everyone” he said while spreading his arms wide ”knows the name Rome”
“Rome…” her brow furrowed a bit as she tried to recall what she should know about the name, “I mean, I may have heard the name during the Academy.” She shrugged, “Sorry. My people are kind of isolated, or they were…” she wasn’t sure how to explain, so she left it at that.
He chuckled, then caught himself, “sorry…did not mean to laugh at that…it’s just. You don’t have a clue about where I come from, and I have not even a clue where you came from. No wonder I like you. To each other, we are only…us”
“And here I thought it was my irresistible personality,” she grinned jokingly. “It is nice though, just to be, without the pressure of living up to any expectations of the past.”
He sipped of his beer and nodded. Feeling rude to let her remark go unanswered he raised his bottle “to no one else”
Lifting her bottle, she tapped her bottle to his with a chuckle, “I’ll drink to that.” She took a long drink. “You know, maybe it wasn’t such a bad thing Olivia forced me to go talk to you.”
He raised an eyebrow “someone forced you?”
“I mean, not that I didn’t want to talk to you,” she flushed as she realized how it sounded, her cheeks going distinctly more silvery, “I just didn’t know if it would be weird. Maybe you wouldn’t want to talk to me or I’d look like a crazy woman or whatever.” She took another gulp of her rapidly emptying bottle in an effort to stem the embarrassing flow of words from her mouth.
“Who wouldn’t want to talk to you?”
“Most one night stands, I find.”
“I am sorry we didn’t speak….again, you know”
“That’s not what I…” she sighed, feeling like she was messing this up, “How about we start over. No more apologies. I knew where to find you if that’s what I had wanted. But I wasn’t in the right place either. How about we just be here now?” Mari offered him a hopeful smile, “I mean, I don’t know about you, but I’m enjoying this.”
“I agree…” he took a sip of his beer, and made an animated fuss over it being empty as a result “so Mari, how about we head back in, I grab us another round and perhaps, if you are not too scared, you can introduce me to your friends?”
She drained the last of her beer and held up a finger, “I’ll introduce you on one condition, don’t judge me based on them.” Mari grinned, only half joking.