OO7 | SPAM

[maytakecenturies]

[Late on Sunday night, T'Pol wanders the Barge. It's not like stalking the quiet halls of Enterprise while the majority of the ship slept: on the Starfleet vessel, there was no avoiding gamma shift or security. Here, she can wander the halls and, more often than not see no one. No one on duty, no one serving the ship or running errands. It still strikes her as strange.

No, not strange. It's just ludicrous. Too many of them trust, even after the absurdity of seeing a hundreds-foot tall....magma creature walk through a tear in reality. (There is a muted, distant part of her that is desperate to study the phenomena. It's almost silenced under the weight of all she learned on the command track in Starfleet.) Too many of them think that the death toll is an acceptable fall back - and though she can't deny it, T'Pol can forgive laziness, either.

She's been watching the antics as the days have dragged on: she can'd deny that the return of her wash room was a welcome change, but the rest? What purpose does any of it serve?

It's as she walks, restless, that she finally stops debating how best to use these abilities and just uses them. Aboard Enterprise, she always kept her door locked fast, but any senior officer had a code to override that lock. There was more than one occasion that she was glad to sleep with both her knife and phaser in reach. So as she strides down a hall, she removes a door with a glance. Maybe if they all fear a little more, they'll manage to instigate something useful - like martial law - on a ship that sorely needs it.

What she should really do, she thinks, is take herself somewhere else. The only thing stopping her from trying tonight is that she doesn't know where her best destination lays: Vulcan is a ruin, and if Sato has taken control of the Empire then it's nowhere that T'Pol wants to be.

The exhaustion sets in after the fourth floor; her pace, brisk at the start, slows to practically plodding. Her eyes are half closed, and she can't remember having this little energy on the Barge - outside of the death toll, at least. That thought sets her teeth on edge, so she pushes it back, and heads for her room.

There, she installs Enterprise's arsenal, and gazes blankly at the mass of phase pistols and rifles before she passes out in her bed. It's probably the best sleep she's had in a very long while.

In the morning, she walks the ship to make sure it wasn't a dream - she's been having far fewer of them, nearly none, since Captain Rogers started insisting on regular meditation with her, but T'Pol has learned to trust little here. Well, okay, she's learned to trust little anywhere.

She doesn't smile when she sees the doors gone, of course she doesn't. But she does lift her chin a little, looking into each room as carefully as she can without being too obvious. Eventually, she makes her way to the mess hall (in her Starfleet uniform, with her old weapons, a knife and phaser, strapped to each hip), and instead of waiting online to find something edible out of the Human line up, she takes a seat at an empty table. In a blink, there is a bowl of plomeek broth in front of her. She hasn't had it - she hasn't had proper Vulcan food at all - in years. The taste is almost enough to give her an emotional reaction.]

Comments

[forgetyourusedtobe]

[Elena isn't that disturbed by the lack of a door in terms of security. There's really nothing dangerous that she keeps in her room except for a few hidden weapons for putting down vampires, and there's also nothing really of value either except person effects that she doesn't think anybody would really be interested in.]

[What she would like back, however, is some privacy.]

[So, here she is in the morning, standing on a chair she brought out from her room, trying to get a sheet to stay hung above her doorway. It's not much, but it's something. She only glances at T'Pol as she's making her way down the hall.]

[maytakecenturies]

[When she sees Elena at work, T'Pol slows and stops just past her cabin, eyeing the sheet. It doesn't reflect on her face, but she is amused.]

That won't provide much security.

[forgetyourusedtobe]

[Elena glances down over her shoulder at T'Pol again.]

Fortunately, that's not the point. I can't just magic back a door, but I'd prefer people not being able to just look in.

[maytakecenturies]

[That gives her pause at least, and she cocks her head to the side.]

Security isn't the point. [Just one more way to be baffled by the people here.] You're that confident in yourself?

[forgetyourusedtobe]

Uh... no? [Elena answers questioningly because she's not exactly sure where T'Pol was drawing that question from. At least not right away.] I mean, there's really nothing in my room worth taking to anybody.

[She hesitates a moment before she emulates a certain other vampire and shrugs a little with a confident smile. Maybe she can be that confident in herself.]

Being a vampire is also its own natural deterrent, too, I guess.

[maytakecenturies]

[If she were not a prisoner, she'd make a study of the Humans - or once-Human - peoples here. Is it the same arrogance of the Humans she's familiar with, T'Pol wonders, or is it just being unused to looking over your shoulder? She can hardly walk down a hall without checking over her own, but somehow she suspects Elena doesn't bother.]

Vampire. [She has a way of making things sound unbelievable. It's not, exactly, that she doesn't believe Elena now, although there is certainly an element of disbelief. Accepting that magic and human fairy tales exist isn't easy.]

What does that entail?

[forgetyourusedtobe]

There are no vampires where you're from?

[Not surprising. They don't seem to be a very common species. Elena finishes hanging up the sheet and hops down out of her chair.]

I have super strength and speed as well as senses. I also heal really fast, so I'm pretty hard to kill.

[maytakecenturies]

Humans have old stories. [Needless to say, she found out it was fantasy and promptly ignored it all.

Still, what Elena describes doesn't sound like fantasy: it sounds like augmentation, and T'Pol is uncomfortably familiar with that.]

Do you require sleep?

[forgetyourusedtobe]

Yeah, but I don't sleep in a coffin or during the day. I sleep at night in a bed like most people.

[maytakecenturies]

[....rewind]

Do vampires usually sleep in coffins?

[whatthewrackspurt]

[Luna climbs up off her bed to go investigate her missing door, catching sight of T'Pol as she goes through the hallway]

I don't mind your borrowing it, but could you please bring it back once you're done?

[maytakecenturies]

[She stops, already tired but not tired enough to halt this mission, and turns back to face Luna. Did she know that was her door? She isn't positive, and isn't positive she wouldn't have taken it anyway once she'd known.]

You can't do it yourself?

[whatthewrackspurt]

I could, but I try not to use excessive amounts of magic on the Barge. I think it makes the rest jealous.

[maytakecenturies]

[She remembers Luna's magic, and her mouth purses just slightly at the memory: she'd rather have less of it in her life, though, so she's not about to argue.]

I didn't mean with your normal abilities.

[whatthewrackspurt]

Oh, you mean borrowing the Admiral's.

Yes, I suppose I could, too. But I think it's a little inconsiderate to borrow someone's magic without asking.

[maytakecenturies]

He didn't ask if we wanted them, before offering.

[whatthewrackspurt]

I don't think he was in a position to ask in the first place.

[maytakecenturies]

Do you pity him?

[whatthewrackspurt]

I think he must be very lonely.

[maytakecenturies]

It's equally as likely that he doesn't hold interpersonal relationships to the same value that you do.

[demolitions]

[Rude. He's just going to put his back the way it was.]

[maytakecenturies]

[She lives to be rude to Humans. Well, when she can get away with it.

When she sees it back in the morning, she tries to vanish it again.]

[demolitions]

[And he'll just put it back, again. But not before saying-]

Go and get your voyeuristic jollies somewhere else, if you don't mind.

[Because yes, he's naked.]

[maytakecenturies]

[Boyd why this. She doesn't quite roll her eyes, but she does lift her gaze toward the ceiling. Humans.

She doesn't respond. Well, not verbally: instead of removing his door, she just turns it into frosted glass.]

[demolitions]

[Hey, thanks for nothing.]