Being the old-school sort of person that she was, or possibly just lacking in lateral thinking, it hadn’t occurred to Lavender as she staggered the last few hundred yards to her new quarters that there were other forms of transportation for the three duffel bags that weighed her down than simply strapping them to her shoulders and using her somewhat limited man-power (or in this case, woman-power) to slog them onward step-by-step. There were, she mused, swearing internally at her own lack of forethought, transporters, there were anti-grav platforms and stretchers, hell there were even medical department lackeys she could corral. But that would be a very old-Lavender thing to do. No, apparently new-Lavender was kinder but may have lost some brain cells while she was away. Still, she was nearly there now. Lavender gave herself a break, one of the many things she’d been taught to do by the nice gentlebeings at Starfleet Medical Counselling and, laughing at herself waddled around the last corner, coming face to chest with the ship’s Chief Scientist. Normally she would have space to stop, but normally she didn’t have three bags adding around fifty percent of her normal bodyweight to her forward momentum and as such she got to experience the delightful cold hardness of his Starfleet badge squarely in the nose.

Farl was not on the ship. At least, in his mind. He’d grabbed a book from his shelf to bring with him to the ship’s lounge for some coffee and a little down time, but he hadn’t made it more than 10 steps out the door to his quarters before he stopped. He’d become so engrossed in the opening chapter that he’d forgotten all about his trek to the lounge. Farl simply stood in the corridor, slowly turning the paper pages of the paperback he gently grasped in his hands. That’s when his comm badge stabbed him.

Snapping the book shut, Farl jumped a little as he tried to figure out why the metal badge was offending him. It was only a brief moment of confusion, however, as the answer was obvious. There were three overstuffed duffel bags floating in front of him. No, that wasn’t quite right. A familiar doctor was laboring beneath them.

“Lavender! Welcome back! Sorry for blocking the corridor, I… I was lost in a story.” Farl waved the paperback in the air, as if that explained why he’d been acting as a new wall blocking the passageway. “May I lend a hand?”

Lavender rubbed her nose, dispelling some pain which was fading fast anyway.

“Farl! Thank you, no no please I was looking at the floor.” Lavender set down two of the bags and took Farl’s badge between pale, be-nailed fingers. “Let me just um, sorry…” she rubbed the com badge clean of her foundation. “Some makeup transference there, can’t leave it or I’d have to give her some blusher and fake eyelashes too and I don’t know where my makeup kit is,” she explained, jokingly. A step back brought her to more appropriate social distance and she let out a charged breath through pursed lips.

“A hand would be… yes, please, thank you. I’m not sure why I’m not using an anti-grav platform for this… I’m moving quarters…”

This felt odd. Previously Lavender would have refused, apologised for the bump and moved on. Now she was more free-of-mind to be open and sociable. As such she didn’t know what words to use and how to phrase things. She’d never said things like this before. The words she was using didn’t seem like her, but then again she wasn’t now sure what her was. They were getting the job done at least.

Shouldering a bag, Farl grinned. “You actually wouldn’t be the first to give my badge a, ah, makeover. My last class at the Academy had a few jokers. I decided to overlook the intrusion into my quarters because frankly, it was pretty funny.” Farl eyed a few of the doors along the corridor, then looked back at Lavender. “Which one is yours?”

Lavender smirked, her approval of Farl increasing by the moment.

“Ummm, up here on the left?” She answered cautiously, hefting the last two bags off down the corridor, powered by a little excitement and a large portion of sheer determination.

Farl nodded and fell into step, following the doctor’s lead. “So you’ll be pleased to know after my horrible injury doing battle with a stylus, I have returned to the standard thumbprint signature. As it turns out, I’m caught up on reports by now anyway, and the Denver has enough excitement that I don’t need to seek it out with frivolous eccentricities like signatures.” Farl frowned at that. “Maybe excitement is the wrong word. I don’t relish battle. But I’ve quickly found myself looking forward to the banality of paperwork between engagements.”

“Well that’s one win at least,” Lavender replied somewhat cordially for her. “I wasn’t in the briefing, but I heard the paperwork time won’t last long,” She shoved back a bag that had fallen forward from her shoulder as she walked. “Bloody Jem’hadar.” Lavender wanted to say more about poking sleeping Dominion bears and other such idiocies but managed to reign in her mouth.

“Likely correct. Not much breathing room these days.” Farl sighed. He hadn’t been directly involved in the war very long, and he already felt he was becoming jaded. Thinking of the impending battle brought on a sense of calm weariness, instead of the stress one might expect.

“No. But then I probably wouldn’t be C.M.O. without this war. That’s a mind-job. Mmm, here we are.” Lavender stopped outside a particular door and, battling with swinging bags thumbed the door release which obliged her with the first glimpses of her new quarters. “Ahhh, it likes me,” she commented sarcastically and marched inside.

As most quarters were on Denver, Lavender’s new space was a single bedroom affair, being composed largely of one big space with an open doorway between living and sleeping areas. To her immediate left as she entered was the entrance to the bathroom. Moving down the left wall was the entrance to the bedroom area and then in the corner a dining table with six chairs set under the windows that spanned the far wall. Also under them along to the right was a comfortable-looking seating area. Moving up along the wall to her right a replicator and a desk with a computer terminal completed the living space. It was smaller than her old quarters which made Lavender exceedingly happy.

“Good, I was hoping they’d be smaller,” she commented to Farl, dragging her bags inside and dumping them in front of the desk. “Big open living areas make me on edge.”

Farl’s gaze swept the room as he stepped inside. He gestured to the dining table. “And here I thought you were planning to host game night. Already have the seating ready to go.”

“Game night,” Lavender said experiementally. “Hmm…” Was that a step too far? Lavender made a note to ask Farl about it later, if there was an opportunity.

“At the risk of prying, may I ask what about big spaces bothers you? My species gets teased for liking small quarters… something about Earth felines and boxes? But I wouldn’t say we dislike open areas.” Farl met Lavender’s eye before she spoke. “I am prepared to rapidly change the subject, if you’d prefer. I have a joke about James Kirk locked and loaded.”

“Oh! Um,” Lavender said as she moved about the space, craning her neck to take in the various new crannies and features of her quarters, before turning her attention back to Farl. She appreciated the out he’d provided her. In that moment Lavender decided she liked Farl. Not that she hadn’t before but that had somehow been rendered so irrelevant by her post-traumatic stress as to not cross her mind. Now, things were different.

“I’m not used to them,” she explained with a shrug, deciding that now was probably one of those times to be open, seeing as how he had asked and that meant it wasn’t an over-share. “Lived in pretty pokey run-down places when I was a kid, we couldn’t afford anything else (because of my Dad’s gambling habit went unsaid). Small room on Earth before I joined the fleet, shared room at the Academy then I was on an Excelsior before here which is like living in a garden shed. At least, that one was. And I wasn’t chief bitch then, no fancy quarters privileges. Small just feels more secure to me. More cosy. Big spaces are cold and imposing. Makes me nervous.” Lavender looked about again for a moment before hastily adding “Hey, uhhhh, stay and test the replicator with me? If you want to? If you’d like to, I mean.”

Farl let out a snort at ‘chief bitch’ before he could stop himself. “Sorry, ah, your self-deprecating humor. Not your story. I appreciate you sharing. I think I understand. In perhaps a similar vein, I don’t like when big spaces are filled in an attempt to make them smaller. It always ends up being too lavish, and… show-offy.” Farl winced. “Just seems like a waste of space AND a rude display of wealth.”

Farl took a step towards the desk and deposited the last bag next to the others. “Let’s test away! Shall we run them through the ringer, or keep it light?”

“Well, I did promise to eat three times a day so I probably should have something,” she explained, earnestly. “Arin would probably disapprove of the replicator cuisine but between you and me I can’t often taste the difference.” Lavender approached the replicator and ordered a small portion of Nachos Grande with Guac and sour cream on the side and a glass of Lime juice and soda. “Have whatever you fancy, food, drink, you’re very welcome,” she told him, moving away from the replicator and hoping she was doing an okay job of being hostess. It wasn’t something she was practiced at. “I don’t tend to eat a lot but please, whatever you fancy.”

Pausing to consider his level of hunger, Farl weighed the options. He hadn’t had much luck getting Starfleet replicators to make Caitian food of a quality worth consuming. But, his time teaching at the Academy had afforded him plenty of opportunity to sort out which human foods agreed with him, and which prompted him to hastily retreat to the privacy of his quarters.

“One cuban sandwich, and a glass of still water.” Farl retrieved his order from the replicator, and sat down at the table. “There are multiple varieties of soda, yes?” Farl asked, gesturing to Lavender’s drink. “I tried one once. Orange-flavored, I think. It was delicious… but it caused me to burp for over an hour. Never experienced that in my life before. I guess carbonation and Caitians don’t get along… ” Farl chuckled. “I feel like there’s a joke in that rhyming alliteration somewhere, but I’ve got nothing.”

Lavender smiled from her spot opposite him at the table.

“Me neither,” she confided. “In this case this is soda water which is a slightly different thing. But still very capable of carbonating Caitians quite completely, coincidentally.” She grinned. “That’s what alliteration is, right?”

Farl’s chuckle grew to a full laugh. “Yeah, you nailed it.” Leaning back in his chair, he took a pause from his sandwich. “You’ve sparked a memory from teaching at the Academy. Nothing specific, just; you know those jokers I mentioned? In my last class? Well, the found out I’m actually the fourth Farl Ferrus in my family. Actually, that’s kind of a joke too. Anyway, several students liked to work the word ‘fourth’ into every paper and assignment they submitted. It became a competition of sorts: how many times could they use the word without it becoming a detriment to the assignment. Some of them were quite good at it. I suppose, being aspiring scientists, they should be adept at writing. Anything to spice up a journal entry or research paper. Can’t imagine too many people reading them for fun, you know? But we nerds appreciate jokes too.”

Lavender smiled as she listened. So this is what it felt like to be pleasant and open. She wasn’t quite sure how she was going to integrate this new outlook into her, it still felt somewhat alien. But not pushing everyone away was starting to feel pretty good. Lavender considered again how so much of her doing so had been based on her perceptions of others and of herself, not the reality of the situation. She couldn’t think of a germane story to counter with from her time at the Academy, most of it would have been boring or depressing, so she just smiled and asked a question here or there, listening to Farl’s anecdotes and taking in some of the warmth with which he spoke of his students.