Interlude – Divine Apertures?
by Commander Chelsea Dunham
Post Details
ON:
Ben Kensington looked around himself as he stood on the highest promenade deck and peered over the viewing gallery railing. The sight took his breath away. Upwards he could see the huge hull windows, revealing the sky beyond filled with stars of all sizes in a panorama that went further than the imagination could follow, let alone the eye.
Looking down below him, over the balustrade, he could see several levels beneath with similar balcony and mezzanine areas opening from busy walkways behind. If they were all the same set up as the one he was on, they would extend back to rows of shops, bars, restaurants, entertainment lounges and the like, all swarming with people going about their daily business and leisure.
He had been told there were open areas with grass and landscaping and a waterpark and he was looking forward to exploring all this. It was like a whole new world. Leaving behind his unrequited love for his former CMO on the USS Horatio Nelson, Ben thought wistfully of how much Rani would have loved this place. ~Her loss~ he thought, but without the bitterness that thought seemed to imply. He didn't resent her at all, despite his broken hearted departure for a 'new start' in an effort to forget her. She was still one of his best friends and always would be, it just wasn't meant to go any further, despite all his hopes and efforts to make that happen.
Taking in a deep breath and resolving not to think sad thoughts now he was here, making that new start, Ben slung his med-pack over his shoulder, tugged his worldly belongings (in the form of a huge hover-kit-bag) back towards the turbolift and went in search of the Quartermaster to get details of his allocated quarters.
It was nearly two hours later that, installed in his fresh quarters with a scenic star-view and a suite of his own, Lieutenant Benjamen Kensington reported to Sickbay to meet his new CMO and find out where he was likely to be spending his waking hours.... assuming this facility was as busy as his old ship had been.
Walking in, he took in the surroundings. It was a huge, roomy "Sickbay" that was more of a hospital than a "Bay". "Holy Cr....." he muttered, stopping himself before anyone overheard. ~And there's another of these in reserve for when it's FULL?~ he boggled at the concept of having so many cases you'd have to open an Auxiliary Infirmary as well.
He wondered, in a new recruit's moment of 'what have i let myself in for?' self-doubt, whether he was ever going to be able to be 2-i-C in such a huge department but a very lovely, dark haired, mauve-skinned nurse flashed him a stunning smile with her translucent blue eyes sparkling was all it took! Ben-the-ladies'-man emerged and shoved aside the insecurity and rejection that he'd been feeling lately. His swagger returned.
Smiling back, with his brown eyes deep and mischievous and his dark hair unruly and cute, Ben approached and asked for the CMO's office. He was directed sweetly and felt the shattered pieces of his heart shuffle closer back together than they had done since he'd met Rani. He introduced himself and discovered that by some twist of fate the new interest on his horizon's name was "Ensign Rain Mariz" ~RAIN?~ he thought, temporarily horrified by the coincidental similarity. He recovered his surprised look and forced his smile back to his face.
"Rain?" he spoke the name as if it tasted delicious. "What a beautiful name!" he recovered. "One of my dearest friends is called Rani and I think it's a sign. I hope you and I are destined to be friends too." It was corny and she raised an eyebrow at him making him feel shot down, but her lovely eyes still twinkled and she took the time to accompany him to the CMO's office, leaving him at the door with another of her stunning smiles, so he felt perhaps he hadn't totally ruined everything with her yet.
Thanking Rain for her help, Ben looked at the CMO's doorway and inclined his head. "Is she.... er..... nice?" he whispered. Rain grinned and put her index finger to her lips. "Formidable!" she teased, whispering back. "and she has the hearing of an Andominian Bat". With those two terrifying thoughts, Rain giggled, a perfect sound that sent shivers of feel-good down Ben's tingling spine.
It was thus, a mix of delight and terror, that he entered Chelsea's doorway and stood uncertainly, taking in the office he'd soon be so familiar with it would seem more his home than his quarters.
The CMO looked up. The pleasant looking young doctor before her, his medical-teal-trimmed uniform a little askew, even though it was clearly freshly replicated without a spot or mark on it; his hair having a small rebellion going on, his cheeks a little pink from his encounter with the lovely Ensign Mariz and his lopsided grin, all made an impression of a kid in a sweet shop but who hadn't slept in days and was having trouble taking it all in.
"Chelsea Adams" she stood up and circumnavigated the desk to greet him with her hand held out in welcome. "I'm hoping you're Lieutenant Kensington?"
Ben jerked forward from his hesitating in the doorway and met her halfway across the office, his hand out to take hers, grateful that she didn't seem about to surgically castrate him for being late.
"BEN...." he insisted, unintentionally a little too loudly. "Er... please... just call me Ben" he put it right and lowered his volume back to normal with a deeper blush. ~Dammit! Now she thinks I'm a redneck!~
Chelsea smiled. "Don't be nervous Ben, I don't bite, despite what my staff will no doubt have taken great delight in telling you. I'm afraid my rather unorthodox sense of humour is infectious and I'm certain they'll all have been intent on setting you up with all sorts of horror stories about how I torture new Interns!" she laughed and indicated a chair for him. "Please call me Chelsea. We'll get our own back on them, shall we? Let them think I chewed you out and you can cash in on the sympathy before we let them find out the hard way that we're ganging up on them, just like my last ACMO and I did" she grinned mischievously at him as she approached the replicator.
"Can I get you a drink before we start the pretence of yelling at each other?" she smirked.
"Um.... coffee please, black, sweet." he responded automatically with his drink preference.
Chelsea looked a mix of happy and sad at that, repeated it to the replicator and brought it over together with her own, sitting in the chair just to one side of his. It was a large office with a meeting table at one end but she had chosen the casual comfortable chairs nearest her desk for this meeting.
"My former ACMO, you should know before anyone else tells you, was actually the CMO when I first came here. I came in just like you, new to the station, appointed as ACMO myself. Ryan Milarno was already here. He was, to all intents and purposes, human but it turned out, as his genetics emerged, that he'd been born to a Bajoran mother as a result of rape by a Cardassian oppressor and gradually, first his Bajoran genes began to surface and then finally his Cardassian ones.
Naturally, as anyone would, he had a tough time coming to terms with all that considering that from birth he'd been led to believe he was 100% human and it wasn't until the ridges started to force themselves back out from behind the genetic modification he had been disguised with as a small boy that he accidentally found out his own history.
She shook her head in sympathy with Ryan and sadness at the memories that the telling of his story was invoking in her. "He meant a great deal to me personally." she admitted with a quiet sadness that was so deep and genuine that it gave Ben goose-bumps to hear the sympathy and regret in her voice. He didn't know what to say so he sipped at his drink which was scalding and caused him to wince and put it back down quickly.
Chelsea was snapped out of her memories and back to the present. "Sorry... is it too hot?" she enquired, genuinely worried she'd burned him.
"Ryan used to take his coffee black and sweet and without milk to cool it, it was usually very hot to begin with. I should have remembered to ask for the temperature to be lower." She looked crestfallen. "It was because you take it the same, that started me thinking about the similarities. I'm sorry"
"It's okay" Ben insisted despite his stinging tongue. "I should have asked for it to be ready to drink."
Chelsea rolled her eyes. "You shouldn't have to, that ought to be taken as read. It's just that Ryan used to leave it for ages before he took time to drink it."
"I normally do that!" Ben insisted, not wanting her to take the blame.
Chelsea smiled at his eagerness to please. "I promise to make a greater effort to distinguish you, Ben. You're clearly a very nice guy which you *do* have in common with Ryan, and you take your coffee in the same way but that's where the comparisons stop, ok? It's not fair to have you being asked to step in anyone else's footsteps. You're your own man and Ryan has moved on."
"I'm sorry" Ben offered, thinking the sadness in Chelsea's eyes and tone when she spoke of Ryan meant something he could understand and that reminded him of himself and Rani.
"It's okay." Chelsea smiled, guessing what he was thinking. "I didn't finish the story.... Ryan and I *did* think we had a future once, and we were very much in love at first, but it wasn't meant to last and we're both at peace with that now. Ry has a lovely new girlfriend who adores him and I'm the luckiest woman in the universe because i've found the most awesome man alive and somehow managed to trick him into thinking he loves me too!" she smirked, making light of the depth of her love for Rick.
At the mention of Rick, Chelsea's cheeks and complexion took on a soft pink tint and her whole features softened with love. "Life goes on, Ben. Sometimes we think it's over but there's an ancient Bajoran expression: *When the Prophets close a door, they open a window somewhere else* and I was lucky enough to have a second chance at happiness."
Ben looked at the transformation of the face of the CMO. Her long dark hair was pinned up, away from her face and neck, as hygienically as a medical officer and surgeon's must always be, and her dark eyes which could change from *impenetrable brown* to soft *green&amber* pools were transient. Her slightly raised, soft but clear Bajoran nose ridges were capable of looking fierce if she frowned and she could obviously look every bit the authoritarian if she had to, but like this, with love softening her features and radiating from her eyes at the thought of the Squadron Leader who held her heart, she looked as if she couldn't bite the top off a jelly-sweet.
Aware of the change in Ben's reaction to her, Chelsea figured her expression must have changed. "Sorry, I didn't mean to bore you with my personal life...." she began.
"NO.... no, it's fine... really! It helps. I mean to know that you're hum.... er... not unapproachable.. i mean... " He stopped. "Shall i get a spade?"
Chelsea laughed. "No need, it's not a deep hole. I *am* human... at least half of me anyway. And I never want to be unapproachable to any of this department. I believe the day I do that, i will lose all effectiveness as a CMO and as a Department Head and as myself." she explained.
"Cool" Ben replied, relieved. "I'd like you to know that I came here to escape a relationship that didn't work too but in a similar way, the lady and I have remained close friends." He admitted, her candour having inspired the same in him too.
"...but I'm heart-broken it couldn't have become more." He went on. "I came here to see if I can find any of those *open windows* you mentioned, although where I come from it's said to be something God does, to close doors and open windows......I guess we all attribute wise old sayings to whichever Deity is Omnipotent in our society and upbringing."
Chelsea nodded in understanding and agreement. "Indeed. And I'm sorry it didn't work out for you."
"Don't be sorry." Ben shrugged, a little more bravely than his heart really felt yet. "If it opens a better path then I'll be glad it worked out this way!" he brightened, thinking of soft mauve skin and a stunning smile whose owner he was *so* going to get his own back on.....
~Andominian Bat? She's soooooo in trouble, that one.. I'll give her 'rain' - it's gonna thunder and lightening in her world before i've done!~ he thought to himself with an inner smile.
".... and just so you know, *they* did tell me you were scary, actually... but I didn't believe it.... " he lied to Chelsea, grinning with that charming lopsided smirk.
Chelsea laughed again and he joined in. "We're going to get on fine, Ben. Welcome to the Medical department and to DS5. Shall we start yelling now? Just so they think they got you into trouble and they can start to feel guilty?"
Ben grinned again. "Hell yeah! If you don't mind?" his face filling with mischief and enjoyment. ~She's right. I *AM* going to fit right in here! I *LIKE* her!~
"Well, WITH ALL DUE RESPECT COMMANDER..... " he began raising his voice with a very impressive tinge of defensive annoyance.
Chelsea raised an eyebrow and nodded in silent approval. "RESPECT? LIEUTENANT? DO YOU KNOW THE MEANING OF THAT WORD? LET ME TELL YOU HOW WE DO IT *HERE*... " she replied loudly, sounding furious and then lowered her voice and spoke to him in an undertone for a moment or two. "Don't let let anyone get the full conversation, we want to keep it a mystery that will have them trying to work out how to ask you what happened. She smiled wickedly.
Ben nodded enthusiastically. "BUT.... " he interjected over-loudly, pretending she was still lecturing him, unheard.
"NO BUTS... *THIS* IS HOW IT'S GOING TO BE... " she raised her own voice again, lowering it afterwards, keeping up the drama. "That ought to be enough to get them curious. We don't want to over do it. Now how about you slam out?" she muttered, smirking at him.
He grinned from one ear to the other. "K..." he muttered, standing up and offering her his hand. "I'm going to like it here" he agreed. "Thank you."
"And I'm going to like having you in my department, Ben. Welcome!" she grinned back. "DO I MAKE MYSELF CLEAR? LIEUTENANT KENSINGTON?" she finished loudly.
"PERFECTLY CLEAR!" He yelled back. "MA'AM" he spat the last with what sounded like real resentment but as he turned to storm out, he winked at her and saluted silently.
Chelsea returned the acknowledgement and watched him put on a show of pushing a chair over on his way to storm out of the door and across sickbay back out into the corridor beyond. He couldn't *wait* for when he would report back for duty later. He could imagine the questions and the looks on their faces!
Best of all, Rain was going to feel SO bad.. he'd see to that... at least until he could get her to go to dinner with him to make it up to him. ~mwahahaa~ he thought as he strode happily up the corridor, taking in the sights and sounds around him, a newly invigorated mischief-making soul on the loose.
~Watch out DS5. Kensington has arrived!~ he thought, very pleased with his new 'opening window' so far.
OFF:
Lt. Cmdr. Chelsea Adams
CMO - DS5
and
Lt. Ben Kensington
ACMO - DS5
(NPC'd by jools)
by Commander Chelsea Dunham
Post Details
| Title | Divine Apertures? | |
| Mission | Interlude | |
| Author(s) | Commander Chelsea Dunham | |
| Posted | Tue Jun 29, 2010 @ 12:12am | |
| Location | Sickbay | |
| Timeline | SD 22 |
Ben Kensington looked around himself as he stood on the highest promenade deck and peered over the viewing gallery railing. The sight took his breath away. Upwards he could see the huge hull windows, revealing the sky beyond filled with stars of all sizes in a panorama that went further than the imagination could follow, let alone the eye.
Looking down below him, over the balustrade, he could see several levels beneath with similar balcony and mezzanine areas opening from busy walkways behind. If they were all the same set up as the one he was on, they would extend back to rows of shops, bars, restaurants, entertainment lounges and the like, all swarming with people going about their daily business and leisure.
He had been told there were open areas with grass and landscaping and a waterpark and he was looking forward to exploring all this. It was like a whole new world. Leaving behind his unrequited love for his former CMO on the USS Horatio Nelson, Ben thought wistfully of how much Rani would have loved this place. ~Her loss~ he thought, but without the bitterness that thought seemed to imply. He didn't resent her at all, despite his broken hearted departure for a 'new start' in an effort to forget her. She was still one of his best friends and always would be, it just wasn't meant to go any further, despite all his hopes and efforts to make that happen.
Taking in a deep breath and resolving not to think sad thoughts now he was here, making that new start, Ben slung his med-pack over his shoulder, tugged his worldly belongings (in the form of a huge hover-kit-bag) back towards the turbolift and went in search of the Quartermaster to get details of his allocated quarters.
It was nearly two hours later that, installed in his fresh quarters with a scenic star-view and a suite of his own, Lieutenant Benjamen Kensington reported to Sickbay to meet his new CMO and find out where he was likely to be spending his waking hours.... assuming this facility was as busy as his old ship had been.
Walking in, he took in the surroundings. It was a huge, roomy "Sickbay" that was more of a hospital than a "Bay". "Holy Cr....." he muttered, stopping himself before anyone overheard. ~And there's another of these in reserve for when it's FULL?~ he boggled at the concept of having so many cases you'd have to open an Auxiliary Infirmary as well.
He wondered, in a new recruit's moment of 'what have i let myself in for?' self-doubt, whether he was ever going to be able to be 2-i-C in such a huge department but a very lovely, dark haired, mauve-skinned nurse flashed him a stunning smile with her translucent blue eyes sparkling was all it took! Ben-the-ladies'-man emerged and shoved aside the insecurity and rejection that he'd been feeling lately. His swagger returned.
Smiling back, with his brown eyes deep and mischievous and his dark hair unruly and cute, Ben approached and asked for the CMO's office. He was directed sweetly and felt the shattered pieces of his heart shuffle closer back together than they had done since he'd met Rani. He introduced himself and discovered that by some twist of fate the new interest on his horizon's name was "Ensign Rain Mariz" ~RAIN?~ he thought, temporarily horrified by the coincidental similarity. He recovered his surprised look and forced his smile back to his face.
"Rain?" he spoke the name as if it tasted delicious. "What a beautiful name!" he recovered. "One of my dearest friends is called Rani and I think it's a sign. I hope you and I are destined to be friends too." It was corny and she raised an eyebrow at him making him feel shot down, but her lovely eyes still twinkled and she took the time to accompany him to the CMO's office, leaving him at the door with another of her stunning smiles, so he felt perhaps he hadn't totally ruined everything with her yet.
Thanking Rain for her help, Ben looked at the CMO's doorway and inclined his head. "Is she.... er..... nice?" he whispered. Rain grinned and put her index finger to her lips. "Formidable!" she teased, whispering back. "and she has the hearing of an Andominian Bat". With those two terrifying thoughts, Rain giggled, a perfect sound that sent shivers of feel-good down Ben's tingling spine.
It was thus, a mix of delight and terror, that he entered Chelsea's doorway and stood uncertainly, taking in the office he'd soon be so familiar with it would seem more his home than his quarters.
The CMO looked up. The pleasant looking young doctor before her, his medical-teal-trimmed uniform a little askew, even though it was clearly freshly replicated without a spot or mark on it; his hair having a small rebellion going on, his cheeks a little pink from his encounter with the lovely Ensign Mariz and his lopsided grin, all made an impression of a kid in a sweet shop but who hadn't slept in days and was having trouble taking it all in.
"Chelsea Adams" she stood up and circumnavigated the desk to greet him with her hand held out in welcome. "I'm hoping you're Lieutenant Kensington?"
Ben jerked forward from his hesitating in the doorway and met her halfway across the office, his hand out to take hers, grateful that she didn't seem about to surgically castrate him for being late.
"BEN...." he insisted, unintentionally a little too loudly. "Er... please... just call me Ben" he put it right and lowered his volume back to normal with a deeper blush. ~Dammit! Now she thinks I'm a redneck!~
Chelsea smiled. "Don't be nervous Ben, I don't bite, despite what my staff will no doubt have taken great delight in telling you. I'm afraid my rather unorthodox sense of humour is infectious and I'm certain they'll all have been intent on setting you up with all sorts of horror stories about how I torture new Interns!" she laughed and indicated a chair for him. "Please call me Chelsea. We'll get our own back on them, shall we? Let them think I chewed you out and you can cash in on the sympathy before we let them find out the hard way that we're ganging up on them, just like my last ACMO and I did" she grinned mischievously at him as she approached the replicator.
"Can I get you a drink before we start the pretence of yelling at each other?" she smirked.
"Um.... coffee please, black, sweet." he responded automatically with his drink preference.
Chelsea looked a mix of happy and sad at that, repeated it to the replicator and brought it over together with her own, sitting in the chair just to one side of his. It was a large office with a meeting table at one end but she had chosen the casual comfortable chairs nearest her desk for this meeting.
"My former ACMO, you should know before anyone else tells you, was actually the CMO when I first came here. I came in just like you, new to the station, appointed as ACMO myself. Ryan Milarno was already here. He was, to all intents and purposes, human but it turned out, as his genetics emerged, that he'd been born to a Bajoran mother as a result of rape by a Cardassian oppressor and gradually, first his Bajoran genes began to surface and then finally his Cardassian ones.
Naturally, as anyone would, he had a tough time coming to terms with all that considering that from birth he'd been led to believe he was 100% human and it wasn't until the ridges started to force themselves back out from behind the genetic modification he had been disguised with as a small boy that he accidentally found out his own history.
She shook her head in sympathy with Ryan and sadness at the memories that the telling of his story was invoking in her. "He meant a great deal to me personally." she admitted with a quiet sadness that was so deep and genuine that it gave Ben goose-bumps to hear the sympathy and regret in her voice. He didn't know what to say so he sipped at his drink which was scalding and caused him to wince and put it back down quickly.
Chelsea was snapped out of her memories and back to the present. "Sorry... is it too hot?" she enquired, genuinely worried she'd burned him.
"Ryan used to take his coffee black and sweet and without milk to cool it, it was usually very hot to begin with. I should have remembered to ask for the temperature to be lower." She looked crestfallen. "It was because you take it the same, that started me thinking about the similarities. I'm sorry"
"It's okay" Ben insisted despite his stinging tongue. "I should have asked for it to be ready to drink."
Chelsea rolled her eyes. "You shouldn't have to, that ought to be taken as read. It's just that Ryan used to leave it for ages before he took time to drink it."
"I normally do that!" Ben insisted, not wanting her to take the blame.
Chelsea smiled at his eagerness to please. "I promise to make a greater effort to distinguish you, Ben. You're clearly a very nice guy which you *do* have in common with Ryan, and you take your coffee in the same way but that's where the comparisons stop, ok? It's not fair to have you being asked to step in anyone else's footsteps. You're your own man and Ryan has moved on."
"I'm sorry" Ben offered, thinking the sadness in Chelsea's eyes and tone when she spoke of Ryan meant something he could understand and that reminded him of himself and Rani.
"It's okay." Chelsea smiled, guessing what he was thinking. "I didn't finish the story.... Ryan and I *did* think we had a future once, and we were very much in love at first, but it wasn't meant to last and we're both at peace with that now. Ry has a lovely new girlfriend who adores him and I'm the luckiest woman in the universe because i've found the most awesome man alive and somehow managed to trick him into thinking he loves me too!" she smirked, making light of the depth of her love for Rick.
At the mention of Rick, Chelsea's cheeks and complexion took on a soft pink tint and her whole features softened with love. "Life goes on, Ben. Sometimes we think it's over but there's an ancient Bajoran expression: *When the Prophets close a door, they open a window somewhere else* and I was lucky enough to have a second chance at happiness."
Ben looked at the transformation of the face of the CMO. Her long dark hair was pinned up, away from her face and neck, as hygienically as a medical officer and surgeon's must always be, and her dark eyes which could change from *impenetrable brown* to soft *green&amber* pools were transient. Her slightly raised, soft but clear Bajoran nose ridges were capable of looking fierce if she frowned and she could obviously look every bit the authoritarian if she had to, but like this, with love softening her features and radiating from her eyes at the thought of the Squadron Leader who held her heart, she looked as if she couldn't bite the top off a jelly-sweet.
Aware of the change in Ben's reaction to her, Chelsea figured her expression must have changed. "Sorry, I didn't mean to bore you with my personal life...." she began.
"NO.... no, it's fine... really! It helps. I mean to know that you're hum.... er... not unapproachable.. i mean... " He stopped. "Shall i get a spade?"
Chelsea laughed. "No need, it's not a deep hole. I *am* human... at least half of me anyway. And I never want to be unapproachable to any of this department. I believe the day I do that, i will lose all effectiveness as a CMO and as a Department Head and as myself." she explained.
"Cool" Ben replied, relieved. "I'd like you to know that I came here to escape a relationship that didn't work too but in a similar way, the lady and I have remained close friends." He admitted, her candour having inspired the same in him too.
"...but I'm heart-broken it couldn't have become more." He went on. "I came here to see if I can find any of those *open windows* you mentioned, although where I come from it's said to be something God does, to close doors and open windows......I guess we all attribute wise old sayings to whichever Deity is Omnipotent in our society and upbringing."
Chelsea nodded in understanding and agreement. "Indeed. And I'm sorry it didn't work out for you."
"Don't be sorry." Ben shrugged, a little more bravely than his heart really felt yet. "If it opens a better path then I'll be glad it worked out this way!" he brightened, thinking of soft mauve skin and a stunning smile whose owner he was *so* going to get his own back on.....
~Andominian Bat? She's soooooo in trouble, that one.. I'll give her 'rain' - it's gonna thunder and lightening in her world before i've done!~ he thought to himself with an inner smile.
".... and just so you know, *they* did tell me you were scary, actually... but I didn't believe it.... " he lied to Chelsea, grinning with that charming lopsided smirk.
Chelsea laughed again and he joined in. "We're going to get on fine, Ben. Welcome to the Medical department and to DS5. Shall we start yelling now? Just so they think they got you into trouble and they can start to feel guilty?"
Ben grinned again. "Hell yeah! If you don't mind?" his face filling with mischief and enjoyment. ~She's right. I *AM* going to fit right in here! I *LIKE* her!~
"Well, WITH ALL DUE RESPECT COMMANDER..... " he began raising his voice with a very impressive tinge of defensive annoyance.
Chelsea raised an eyebrow and nodded in silent approval. "RESPECT? LIEUTENANT? DO YOU KNOW THE MEANING OF THAT WORD? LET ME TELL YOU HOW WE DO IT *HERE*... " she replied loudly, sounding furious and then lowered her voice and spoke to him in an undertone for a moment or two. "Don't let let anyone get the full conversation, we want to keep it a mystery that will have them trying to work out how to ask you what happened. She smiled wickedly.
Ben nodded enthusiastically. "BUT.... " he interjected over-loudly, pretending she was still lecturing him, unheard.
"NO BUTS... *THIS* IS HOW IT'S GOING TO BE... " she raised her own voice again, lowering it afterwards, keeping up the drama. "That ought to be enough to get them curious. We don't want to over do it. Now how about you slam out?" she muttered, smirking at him.
He grinned from one ear to the other. "K..." he muttered, standing up and offering her his hand. "I'm going to like it here" he agreed. "Thank you."
"And I'm going to like having you in my department, Ben. Welcome!" she grinned back. "DO I MAKE MYSELF CLEAR? LIEUTENANT KENSINGTON?" she finished loudly.
"PERFECTLY CLEAR!" He yelled back. "MA'AM" he spat the last with what sounded like real resentment but as he turned to storm out, he winked at her and saluted silently.
Chelsea returned the acknowledgement and watched him put on a show of pushing a chair over on his way to storm out of the door and across sickbay back out into the corridor beyond. He couldn't *wait* for when he would report back for duty later. He could imagine the questions and the looks on their faces!
Best of all, Rain was going to feel SO bad.. he'd see to that... at least until he could get her to go to dinner with him to make it up to him. ~mwahahaa~ he thought as he strode happily up the corridor, taking in the sights and sounds around him, a newly invigorated mischief-making soul on the loose.
~Watch out DS5. Kensington has arrived!~ he thought, very pleased with his new 'opening window' so far.
OFF:
Lt. Cmdr. Chelsea Adams
CMO - DS5
and
Lt. Ben Kensington
ACMO - DS5
(NPC'd by jools)