Balance is in the Eye of the Beholder

Posted on 19 Nov 2014 @ 5:31pm by Commander Norvi Stace & Petty Officer 3rd Class Ellsworth Hudson

1,801 words; about a 9 minute read

Mission: Episode 07 - Sojourn
Location: USS Galileo - Deck 2, Stace's Quarters, 02-3417
Timeline: MD -18 - 10:52 Hours

ON:

On the transit back, Stace had decided to attempt to organise her life a little more efficiently for their next tour of duty. She wasn't known to have a scatter brain; nor did she conduct herself with any of her subordinates in such a manner, but from time to time she could act a little disorganised. But she thought that she had better iron-out the creases while they still went largely unnoticed, and one thing that had bugged her during this last mission was something that a certain quartermaster could hopefully assist with.

"I'm not saying that everyone who sits down at the table would notice. But I certainly do. And it's my table! I'm the one who sits down at it the most. Look!" Stace's fiery hair whipped across her shoulders in its tight ponytail as she plonked herself down on the chair on the opposite side of the table to Hudson who stood, blank-faced, staring at her. She pushed the left side of her face flush on the glass table top and closed her right eye, squinting her left as she focused on the opposite side of the room. "It's... uneven, see? Wonky, even. To my mind, it feels like a ski slope but the spirit level can't detect the fault."

"A ski slope," Ellsworth repeated, looking from the table to the newly christened lieutenant commander. He felt like he probably shouldn't argue with her - he'd been on plenty of ski slopes and none of them had looked quite like the flat surface of the table - but that would probably just be another mark on his personnel file. "Um... Well. Uh, I could... I can measure it? The slope, I mean."

While she wasn't looking, he let uncertainty pass across his face. He wasn't even very good at keeping the ship's inventory in order, much less dealing with special requests. With the way things went for him, he'd probably somehow end up smashing the table into a thousand pieces.

"I don't need it measured," the Trill replied with a subtle frustrated lilt to her voice, not aimed at the quartermaster but the situation in general, "I need it fixing! It simply just won't do!" She looked up to him with warmth in her eyes and then her head, cocking to the other side, smashed down against the surface again. "It isn't straight! I know that much. I can feel that much. I just need help with it. Can you? Could you?"

She squinted her eye across the room again and then lifted her head up. "I don't mind if we try to roll a bunch of socks up to prop one of the legs up, it just needs something!"

Ellsworth squatted down until he was at eye-level with the table's surface. It looked plenty level to him. Maybe she had some kind of vision problem? Inner ear issue? Maybe the whole ship looked unbalanced to her for all he knew. Or maybe Trill were so sensitive to balance that they saw things others, including sensors, just couldn't perceive. Regardless, a rolled up bunch of socks seemed like something of an inelegant solution.

"I'm sure we can do something to fix it," Ellsworth said cheerily, feeling a little less intimidated after he decided she was probably just a little bit off in the head cuz he'd known plenty of people like that.

The young quartermaster stood up, put his hands under the tabletop and lifted to test its weight; the table barely moved. He frowned down at it and gave it another try, yielding much the same results. What was this thing made out of? He didn't think he was that weak. His small frame didn't exactly lend itself to a great deal of muscle mass, but he put enough work into keeping it in shape that he ought to be able to move a table at least.

"Maybe we should start with some very thin rubberized non-skid cushions and build them up until it looks level to you? I can replicate a few of them - sometimes we use them to keep cargo from sliding around in the cargo bays," he said.

The Trill stood up from behind the table and placed her two hands on its glass top. "It even feels off-kilter..." she then trailed off, her eyes widening. "Actually, what if it's not the table itself but the deck beneath it? That could have sunk, right? Or one of the plating dented a little."

A quick, silent flashback of her and Crewman Mailla of Operations, dancing in their pyjamas after a drunken night of tequila and blasting music, shot into her mind. She blushed, but only slightly, as her face subtly betrayed an embarrassing thought. She remembered, in her cups, that as she clambered onto the glass table, hairbrush in hand, it jarred beneath her weight as she almost took a tumble. Regaining her balance quickly, she thought nothing more of it as she unsuccessfully pitched her voice into the top note of the song she was attempting to screech. Her eyes widened as she quickly changed the subject.

"Um... you know what, Crewman. I actually think that there might be nothing wrong with it after all. I mean, you can't see anything wrong with the table, can you?"

Ellsworth had picked up on some feelings of embarrassment and couldn't help but mentally eavesdrop. He got a few flashes of the drunken Trill swaying on top of the table before deciding it wasn't appropriate to be 'listening' to the ship's second officer. However, that didn't really stop him from grinning at her, the sort of grin that was barely suppressed, like when you had a secret you could hardly keep to yourself. Sometimes, it was hard being a Betazoid.

In quick succession, the young man's boots carelessly slid off his feet and he stepped up on to a chair. His lithe form continued on to make the rest of the ascent on to the tabletop, standing in approximately the same position where Norvi had been dancing. He was small and light enough that the table didn't protest too much at bearing his weight.

"No, I don't really see anything wrong with it," Ellsworth reflected, turning his attention from her to the table. He frowned slightly and used his socked feet to tap the surface, pressing down in a few different spots. "Maybe some of the underlying supports have been...warped...from weight strain. Sometimes that happens over time if you replicate a bunch of heavy serving dishes and that sort of thing." He placed his hands on his hips and looked down at her with an exaggerated, almost cheeky, smile. "We could probably requisition a new one for you, if you'd like? These recycle back into the replicator pretty well so it's really not much of a waste."

Narrowing her eyes onto him, the sudden realision of his telepathic abilities came to the forefront of her mind. She knew never to accuse one of an intrusion but stopped short as it jarred her. Perhaps it was the blackness of his eyes bearing down on her so heavily from above that prompted her mind to make the connection, but his change in demeanour after her embarrassing thought lingered on her memory a little longer than she cared. No matter how blatant the mischievous trouble maker was being she still couldn't bring herself to admit the situation.

"Whatever you think is appropriate, Young Mr. Hudson," she managed to respond through clenched teeth. "But I wouldn't want to intrude on your time any further. We all have our responsibilities... and our downtime. It'd be a shame to encroach. Regardless of what you get up to in either."

"I get up to a lot," Ellsworth said with a shrug, seeming somewhat unapologetic about what he assumed was a reference to his downtime activities. As more than one person had pointed out this was a small ship and news traveled fast, but he was working on being unconcerned with what others thought. "But you're right, lieutenant commander, there's a lot to be done with the cargo for quarantine protocols and whatnot. But I'm glad I could help you with the mystery of the unbalanced balanced table."

Taking more freedom than he knew was appropriate, Ellsworth moved through the five positions of classical ballet atop the table, feeling the familiar strain in each of his legs as he fancifully went through the movements. The table did indeed bend a bit beneath him, lending credence to the Trill's concerns, but he knew the in-built supports would hold him indefinitely if necessary. Without warning he bent his knees then launched himself into the air, deftly avoiding the ceiling as both feet left the table top at the same time and landed on the floor in concert as well. He gave a short bow to Norvi and smiled broadly, silently chiding his inability to keep his mouth shut or to even act somewhat professionally around the ship's officers. Going from Risa to this was still proving...difficult.

"I'll send someone around with a new table and get this old one taken care of," the young Betazoid said, turning slightly to give the table a friendly pat. He bent down to collect his boots and began stuffing one foot in after the other, chatting all the while. "I wish enlisted quarters were big enough to have a table. Is there anything else I can help you with, Lt. Cmdr. Stace? I've got some jumja-flavored dessert rations leftover from orange alert. Do you like jumja? Nobody on Starbase 84 wants to trade for them, so they're just gonna go to waste..."

"I haven't tried it in this lifetime," Stace replied curiously. "Yvaine found it a little too sweet, but we differ so much when it comes to personal preference. Why? Don't you like it?"

It had been a while since a delicacy she remembered from previous hosts had crossed her table that she hadn't sampled for herself. And she was somewhat intrigued. "If you organise the table for me, then I'll make the dessert. Fair's fair."

At first, Ellsworth looked slightly suspicious. He didn't sense any ulterior motive, but he'd become more cautious lately than he had been before. Was his little table-ballet stunt crossing the line? Was he about to be entrapped in some sort of corruption scandal, receiving gifts-in-kind for doing his job? But eventually he relented. He did like his sweets...

"Okay, it's a deal," he said with a still slightly uncertain smile.

Stace nodded regally at him. "Then it's settled."

OFF:

PO3 Ellsworth Hudson
Quartermaster
USS Galileo
[ PNPC - Mott ]

AND

Lieutenant Commander Norvi Stace
Chief Science Officer & Second Officer
USS Galileo

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