Judgement – Man the Lifeboats?
by Commander Chelsea Dunham & Commander Richard Dunham
Post Details
ON:
Rick and Jack were on their 3rd round of drinks and both getting to the serious part of merry and into the edges of drunk now.
It was 'sod's law' that it would be at this moment that Summer and Chelsea would arrive back from their heart to heart, having picked up some 'take-away' from the Italian on the Promenade, on their way here.
"Pizza!" Chelsea announced as they walked in. Then she looked at the table and saw the remains of an earlier one. "Oh.... you started without us" she said, putting hers down beside it.
"There's always room for pizza" said Rick with a slightly alcohol induced giggle. His words only slightly jumbled.
Chelsea made no open comment on Rick's apparent lessened sharpness, save to raise an eyebrow very slightly.
Summer on the other hand, was not hampered by such constraints as sensitivity, politeness or tact. She was used to calling a spade a spade and did so without hesitation.
"DAD! Have you been trying to get Chelsea's fiance drunk?" she accused Jack whose condition had not yet been assessed as he hadn't spoken until now.
"Shummer......" he began to protest his innocence to no avail as his first syllable betrayed him.
"OH MY GOD!" Summer looked at Chelsea with a shocked expression. "What are they *like*?!"
Chelsea lost her battle to control the smirk that had been trying to escape her lips. She grinned from ear to ear and began to chuckle.
"Well at least they didn't come to blows!" she suggested as a weak offer of compensation. "I would never have left them alone.... where did Gran and the others skip off to? We really should remonstrate with them for this negligence." she giggled, sliding into Rick's chair and his arms in one fluid movement.
"You *didn't* beat up my Grampa did you? You bully?" she laughingly accused him as she squeezed him over to make room for her almost in his lap. They all knew only too well that if either of these two were likely to be officious or overbearing it would have been Jack but judging by his happy grin, Adams didn't seem to have taken any such line as he demonstrated with the rest of his protestations.
"Shelshea! I'm hurt.... why would we come to bloshe?" he tried to look affronted but achieved a more comical grimace instead.
"Because you're men and men strut about and have testosterone contests at times like this.... deny it? go on?" she looked right at her surrogate father who looked away and took another sip of his Sunrise.
"I schplaned to Ricky here, that i didn't get to qwescht.... ashk... Shummer'sh fianshay ... or Pekra's, sho i wash under ordersh to do my duty thish time!" he explained carefully and very slowly.
"I seeeeee" Chelsea chuckled. "Did Grammy set you up to it?" she asked, managing to reduce her laughter to a semblance of semi-serious smirking.
"Yesh!" Jack admitted simply, looking a little pinker than his ruddy complexion normally showed. "But, don't tell her I told you. Shhhhhhh!" he put up his index finger to his lips and seemed very serious indeed about this point.
"Okay, I won't but only if you can promise me you didn't bully my Rick!" She spoke as if to a child.
Jack was able to smile without the recent guilty look he'd adopted at being discovered drunk. "NO!" he denied it without qualm until he gave it a moment's thought. "Er... well, only at first!" This seemed to clear his conscience.
"At first? So you did??" Chelsea spluttered, the sparkle in her eyes was missed by the inebriated. "Baby! Did the nasty Admiral bite you?" she made this sound very patronising and stroked Rick's cheek with a grin she couldn't suppress, thoroughly enjoying this pantomime.
Summer looked on with a quizzical expression, lost at first until she realised what was happening. She went to the replicator as they were talking and fetched a round of strong black coffees for the men and some Bajoran tea for herself and Chelsea.
"You two had better sober up! Preferably BEFORE Mum and the Dunhams get back or we'll be having this conversation again, only SERIOUSLY..." she pulled a face at Chelsea, warning her that her sense of humour might not be shared by the *in-laws* if it were to come out that Jack had been picking on Rick.
Chelsea realised her mother was right and grimaced too, picking up a coffee and helping it towards Rick's lips. "Mum's right, if *your* mother sees you like this, I wouldn't want to be either you OR Gramps... in fact we'd ALL be for it!"
Rick was going to defend himself, when his comm badge chirped, he pressed it saying =^= Dunham =^=
A reply said. =^= Ops here sir we a level three security call coming in for you =^=
=^= Send it through to the bedroom =^= Rick got up from his seat, excusing himself politely and kissing Chelsea on the cheek. He made his way to the bedroom of the guest quarters.
"Wonder what that's about - work i suppose, no rest for the wicked..." Chelsea said and her mother agreed.
"No such thing as truly *off duty* in Starfleet." Summer said as she sipped her drink and continued to encourage Jack to keep sipping his coffee in case the others came back soon.
Rick was out of the bedroom in a matter of minutes, but did not make his way back to the collective group, instead he went to the kitchen. He then re-emerged with a glass of water and two little pills that to Chelsea's professional eye, she would of recognised as detox pills. Rick then knocked them back and followed it up with a glass of water. He then came and sat down with the Adams family.
"That was the Captain of the USS Hagnon" said Rick referring to his mother by her professional title. "They have been ordered on a priority mission by starfleet and have had to leave the station."
"Does that cancel the wedding then? Or are we back to the plan to elope?" Chelsea quipped but with a tone of seriousness somewhere in the back of her comment.
Summer picked up on her daughter's tension and tilted her head slightly, watching her for further clues as to what that was about.
Jack spluttered into his coffee. "ELOPE?? What? After ALL that Rick and I have just gone through to smooth the wedding approval past the Mem-Saab"
"Oh, gramps! You just got drunk together... it was *hardly* an ordeal!" Chelsea rolled her eyes.
"I'll have you *know* we did a lot more than *that*... we only got drunk once the business part was completed. This young man and i have *bonded*!!" Jack declared causing both Summer and Chelsea to almost roll off the sofa in hysterical laughter at the image that portrayed.
Fortunately it was at that moment that Ellie arrived back, flushed and laden with purchases.
"You'll never guess what?" she puffed as she rushed in and dropped the parcels onto the chair. "The Hagnon...."
"... has been ordered on a PRIORITY mission" Chelsea and Summer chorused, completing the sentence and grinning at each other.
Ellie's mouth dropped open. "Oh!" she said, deflated. "You know. Well, help me with all these things.. I have some here that were Kim's but we didn't get time to separate them out before they were gone."
Summer helped her mother and Chelsea went to the kitchen to get Grammy a cup of tea and some cake to restore her.
Rick was suddenly was feeling a little miserable. Actually scratch that, he was beginning to feel downright miserable. His family, his entire close family, had just left him a few days before his wedding, with no goodbye and no farewell. He respected the uniform, he loved job, and he understood that these things happened, but that didn't stop him from feeling depressed about it. Rick buried his fist in his cheek and leaned on it.
Chelsea came back with tea for Grandma and a whole cake which she cut and shared around. She handed Rick a slice and sat next to him, taking his hand in hers and patting it. "Never mind babe. We'll think of something." she smiled at him, unsure how she was going to back that up with a solution but just feeling sorry for him and wanting to be comforting.
Jack looked at Ellie who looked at Summer who shrugged.
"Yeah" said Rick, dragging his despondent response over a couple of seconds. He looked at the cake a little mournfully, he had suddenly lost his appetite, but was not sure that was the effects of stress or the pill he had just taken for detox.
"Awww. Come on.. why don't we go out? That would cheer you up a bit." Chelsea said. "We can go to the Box if you like? Have a nice evening out? Mum? Gran? Gramps? Who wants a night out?" she enthused, hugging Rick and planting a kiss on his cheek as she pulled him up out of the seat.
Rick smiled at the effort and his eyes brightened. "How about the red lion?" he said going for the more diplomatic venue. He wasn't sure going to the box was a good idea with family around and besides the red lion was quieter and bit more sedate.
"Okay, if you prefer... but they don't have Dabo tables and dancing girls." Chelsea pouted. Jack's eyes opened. "Oh really?" he said but noticed the glare he got from his wife and just put his head back down to finish drinking his coffee. He was in enough trouble today.
"I appreciate the sentiment honey, but I'm really not in the mood for Dabo or dancing girls, besides you know that's not my cup of tea, and I don't even gamble. Let's all go have nice drink down the pub."
"Oh alright then, but it can't be said i didn't offer.... I really am the best kind of fiancee.... I even offer to take you on nefarious nights out to cheer you up." she said, still grinning at him. "Question you have to ask yourself is, will i be such an accommodating wife?"
Leaving him with that thought, Chelsea told the others she was going to get ready and skipped back to their quarters, promising to be back to collect the party in 30 minutes.
Back in their quarters, Chelsea snatched a quick shower and got ready at double time.
Rick who had got up from his seat moments later, followed on Chelsea's heels, after giving apologies to the room that he to should probably get cleaned up. He left the Adams family to get their stuff together and get ready. As he entered their joint quarters he just caught a blur, that was Chelsea moving rapidly to get showered. Rick gave a quick "Hurry I up I need one too." then went about finding some clean clothes.
Chelsea was as quick as she could and as soon as she was out of the shower she called to Rick to let him know and then went off to do her make up and replicate a fresh dress.
It wasn't long before she was ready to go and by then Rick was too. They set off back to the Guest Quarters to pick up her family. From there, they all went out for the evening and enjoyed a great meal with good company and lots of laughter as they all got to know each other better.
It was almost midnight when the two came back to their quarters. Even before the door had closed behind them, Rick was pulling off his boots. He then made his way to the sofa and with a touch of theatrics collapsed faced first into its cushions. He lay there for a moment head buried in the soft material, his feet hanging off the edge of the opposite arm of the sofa to his head. He made a satisfied "ahhhh" noise.
"Awwww, was it *that* bad babe?" Chelsea laughed and sat on the edge of the cushions perched precariously on the very edge. She poked him softly under his last rib making him involuntarily move over. She slipped into the small gap he'd made and leaned over to massage the tension out of his shoulders.
She found there to be very little there so she added some by getting off the sofa, dropping her dress and shoes in front of the sofa, moving slowly and with a deliberately provocative motion towards the bedroom, dropping more items in a trail as she went.
"Shame you're too tired to follow me..... " she muttered, her voice low and sultry with desire.
OFF:
A JP between:
Cmdr Chelsea Adams
CMO & AXO - DS5
and
Rick Dunham
Lt Cmdr
CAG
by Commander Chelsea Dunham & Commander Richard Dunham
Post Details
| Title | Man the Lifeboats? | |
| Mission | Judgement | |
| Author(s) | Commander Chelsea Dunham & Commander Richard Dunham | |
| Posted | Mon Feb 28, 2011 @ 12:49am | |
| Location | Guest Quarters | |
| Timeline | SD37 : tea-time to bed-time |
Rick and Jack were on their 3rd round of drinks and both getting to the serious part of merry and into the edges of drunk now.
It was 'sod's law' that it would be at this moment that Summer and Chelsea would arrive back from their heart to heart, having picked up some 'take-away' from the Italian on the Promenade, on their way here.
"Pizza!" Chelsea announced as they walked in. Then she looked at the table and saw the remains of an earlier one. "Oh.... you started without us" she said, putting hers down beside it.
"There's always room for pizza" said Rick with a slightly alcohol induced giggle. His words only slightly jumbled.
Chelsea made no open comment on Rick's apparent lessened sharpness, save to raise an eyebrow very slightly.
Summer on the other hand, was not hampered by such constraints as sensitivity, politeness or tact. She was used to calling a spade a spade and did so without hesitation.
"DAD! Have you been trying to get Chelsea's fiance drunk?" she accused Jack whose condition had not yet been assessed as he hadn't spoken until now.
"Shummer......" he began to protest his innocence to no avail as his first syllable betrayed him.
"OH MY GOD!" Summer looked at Chelsea with a shocked expression. "What are they *like*?!"
Chelsea lost her battle to control the smirk that had been trying to escape her lips. She grinned from ear to ear and began to chuckle.
"Well at least they didn't come to blows!" she suggested as a weak offer of compensation. "I would never have left them alone.... where did Gran and the others skip off to? We really should remonstrate with them for this negligence." she giggled, sliding into Rick's chair and his arms in one fluid movement.
"You *didn't* beat up my Grampa did you? You bully?" she laughingly accused him as she squeezed him over to make room for her almost in his lap. They all knew only too well that if either of these two were likely to be officious or overbearing it would have been Jack but judging by his happy grin, Adams didn't seem to have taken any such line as he demonstrated with the rest of his protestations.
"Shelshea! I'm hurt.... why would we come to bloshe?" he tried to look affronted but achieved a more comical grimace instead.
"Because you're men and men strut about and have testosterone contests at times like this.... deny it? go on?" she looked right at her surrogate father who looked away and took another sip of his Sunrise.
"I schplaned to Ricky here, that i didn't get to qwescht.... ashk... Shummer'sh fianshay ... or Pekra's, sho i wash under ordersh to do my duty thish time!" he explained carefully and very slowly.
"I seeeeee" Chelsea chuckled. "Did Grammy set you up to it?" she asked, managing to reduce her laughter to a semblance of semi-serious smirking.
"Yesh!" Jack admitted simply, looking a little pinker than his ruddy complexion normally showed. "But, don't tell her I told you. Shhhhhhh!" he put up his index finger to his lips and seemed very serious indeed about this point.
"Okay, I won't but only if you can promise me you didn't bully my Rick!" She spoke as if to a child.
Jack was able to smile without the recent guilty look he'd adopted at being discovered drunk. "NO!" he denied it without qualm until he gave it a moment's thought. "Er... well, only at first!" This seemed to clear his conscience.
"At first? So you did??" Chelsea spluttered, the sparkle in her eyes was missed by the inebriated. "Baby! Did the nasty Admiral bite you?" she made this sound very patronising and stroked Rick's cheek with a grin she couldn't suppress, thoroughly enjoying this pantomime.
Summer looked on with a quizzical expression, lost at first until she realised what was happening. She went to the replicator as they were talking and fetched a round of strong black coffees for the men and some Bajoran tea for herself and Chelsea.
"You two had better sober up! Preferably BEFORE Mum and the Dunhams get back or we'll be having this conversation again, only SERIOUSLY..." she pulled a face at Chelsea, warning her that her sense of humour might not be shared by the *in-laws* if it were to come out that Jack had been picking on Rick.
Chelsea realised her mother was right and grimaced too, picking up a coffee and helping it towards Rick's lips. "Mum's right, if *your* mother sees you like this, I wouldn't want to be either you OR Gramps... in fact we'd ALL be for it!"
Rick was going to defend himself, when his comm badge chirped, he pressed it saying =^= Dunham =^=
A reply said. =^= Ops here sir we a level three security call coming in for you =^=
=^= Send it through to the bedroom =^= Rick got up from his seat, excusing himself politely and kissing Chelsea on the cheek. He made his way to the bedroom of the guest quarters.
"Wonder what that's about - work i suppose, no rest for the wicked..." Chelsea said and her mother agreed.
"No such thing as truly *off duty* in Starfleet." Summer said as she sipped her drink and continued to encourage Jack to keep sipping his coffee in case the others came back soon.
Rick was out of the bedroom in a matter of minutes, but did not make his way back to the collective group, instead he went to the kitchen. He then re-emerged with a glass of water and two little pills that to Chelsea's professional eye, she would of recognised as detox pills. Rick then knocked them back and followed it up with a glass of water. He then came and sat down with the Adams family.
"That was the Captain of the USS Hagnon" said Rick referring to his mother by her professional title. "They have been ordered on a priority mission by starfleet and have had to leave the station."
"Does that cancel the wedding then? Or are we back to the plan to elope?" Chelsea quipped but with a tone of seriousness somewhere in the back of her comment.
Summer picked up on her daughter's tension and tilted her head slightly, watching her for further clues as to what that was about.
Jack spluttered into his coffee. "ELOPE?? What? After ALL that Rick and I have just gone through to smooth the wedding approval past the Mem-Saab"
"Oh, gramps! You just got drunk together... it was *hardly* an ordeal!" Chelsea rolled her eyes.
"I'll have you *know* we did a lot more than *that*... we only got drunk once the business part was completed. This young man and i have *bonded*!!" Jack declared causing both Summer and Chelsea to almost roll off the sofa in hysterical laughter at the image that portrayed.
Fortunately it was at that moment that Ellie arrived back, flushed and laden with purchases.
"You'll never guess what?" she puffed as she rushed in and dropped the parcels onto the chair. "The Hagnon...."
"... has been ordered on a PRIORITY mission" Chelsea and Summer chorused, completing the sentence and grinning at each other.
Ellie's mouth dropped open. "Oh!" she said, deflated. "You know. Well, help me with all these things.. I have some here that were Kim's but we didn't get time to separate them out before they were gone."
Summer helped her mother and Chelsea went to the kitchen to get Grammy a cup of tea and some cake to restore her.
Rick was suddenly was feeling a little miserable. Actually scratch that, he was beginning to feel downright miserable. His family, his entire close family, had just left him a few days before his wedding, with no goodbye and no farewell. He respected the uniform, he loved job, and he understood that these things happened, but that didn't stop him from feeling depressed about it. Rick buried his fist in his cheek and leaned on it.
Chelsea came back with tea for Grandma and a whole cake which she cut and shared around. She handed Rick a slice and sat next to him, taking his hand in hers and patting it. "Never mind babe. We'll think of something." she smiled at him, unsure how she was going to back that up with a solution but just feeling sorry for him and wanting to be comforting.
Jack looked at Ellie who looked at Summer who shrugged.
"Yeah" said Rick, dragging his despondent response over a couple of seconds. He looked at the cake a little mournfully, he had suddenly lost his appetite, but was not sure that was the effects of stress or the pill he had just taken for detox.
"Awww. Come on.. why don't we go out? That would cheer you up a bit." Chelsea said. "We can go to the Box if you like? Have a nice evening out? Mum? Gran? Gramps? Who wants a night out?" she enthused, hugging Rick and planting a kiss on his cheek as she pulled him up out of the seat.
Rick smiled at the effort and his eyes brightened. "How about the red lion?" he said going for the more diplomatic venue. He wasn't sure going to the box was a good idea with family around and besides the red lion was quieter and bit more sedate.
"Okay, if you prefer... but they don't have Dabo tables and dancing girls." Chelsea pouted. Jack's eyes opened. "Oh really?" he said but noticed the glare he got from his wife and just put his head back down to finish drinking his coffee. He was in enough trouble today.
"I appreciate the sentiment honey, but I'm really not in the mood for Dabo or dancing girls, besides you know that's not my cup of tea, and I don't even gamble. Let's all go have nice drink down the pub."
"Oh alright then, but it can't be said i didn't offer.... I really am the best kind of fiancee.... I even offer to take you on nefarious nights out to cheer you up." she said, still grinning at him. "Question you have to ask yourself is, will i be such an accommodating wife?"
Leaving him with that thought, Chelsea told the others she was going to get ready and skipped back to their quarters, promising to be back to collect the party in 30 minutes.
Back in their quarters, Chelsea snatched a quick shower and got ready at double time.
Rick who had got up from his seat moments later, followed on Chelsea's heels, after giving apologies to the room that he to should probably get cleaned up. He left the Adams family to get their stuff together and get ready. As he entered their joint quarters he just caught a blur, that was Chelsea moving rapidly to get showered. Rick gave a quick "Hurry I up I need one too." then went about finding some clean clothes.
Chelsea was as quick as she could and as soon as she was out of the shower she called to Rick to let him know and then went off to do her make up and replicate a fresh dress.
It wasn't long before she was ready to go and by then Rick was too. They set off back to the Guest Quarters to pick up her family. From there, they all went out for the evening and enjoyed a great meal with good company and lots of laughter as they all got to know each other better.
It was almost midnight when the two came back to their quarters. Even before the door had closed behind them, Rick was pulling off his boots. He then made his way to the sofa and with a touch of theatrics collapsed faced first into its cushions. He lay there for a moment head buried in the soft material, his feet hanging off the edge of the opposite arm of the sofa to his head. He made a satisfied "ahhhh" noise.
"Awwww, was it *that* bad babe?" Chelsea laughed and sat on the edge of the cushions perched precariously on the very edge. She poked him softly under his last rib making him involuntarily move over. She slipped into the small gap he'd made and leaned over to massage the tension out of his shoulders.
She found there to be very little there so she added some by getting off the sofa, dropping her dress and shoes in front of the sofa, moving slowly and with a deliberately provocative motion towards the bedroom, dropping more items in a trail as she went.
"Shame you're too tired to follow me..... " she muttered, her voice low and sultry with desire.
OFF:
A JP between:
Cmdr Chelsea Adams
CMO & AXO - DS5
and
Rick Dunham
Lt Cmdr
CAG