hormonal imbalance

[warpfairy]

They study Klingon. They work out a sleep schedule. They approach Betazed.

They are two days away from the system when Isabella notices something - troubling.

She takes longer than usual to compose herself that morning, and emerges from the living quarters with carefully measured steps, and avoids eye contact.

"Do you," she asks Lalita quietly, "have the ability to fly this class of ship?"

Comments

[warpfairy]

She likes collecting them!

She's not as good at sending - actually, her only unusual talent in this matter is blocking people from peering into her thoughts - but she can do a little. As feedback.

[dream_me_up]

Ooh, feedback. He appreciates feedback.

[warpfairy]

He can have lots, especially if he does lovely things with it!

[dream_me_up]

Of course he does.

[warpfairy]

Good good good good. Lovely things.

Her excess hormones are, in the background, winding down their cycle.

[dream_me_up]

Yes. Lalita can tell.

(He recognized pon farr from experience.)

[warpfairy]

That is interesting! Isabella is interested in this fact when she finds it.

When the last of her little problem is out of her system, she is abruptly no longer impelled to stay awake. She drops her head onto his chest and falls instantly asleep.

She talks in her sleep, in a mix of her native languages.

[dream_me_up]

That is sweet. He snuggles her for a little while.

But he's slept a lot more recently than she has, and now that they're not having near-continuous sex, he thinks maybe it's time to check on their navigation. He gets out of bed, attends to his badly neglected personal grooming, and then heads for the captain's chair to use the ship's computer.

[alicornucopia]

They are parked in interstellar space. There is a course entered to Betazed, ready to resume whenever the order is entered; it will take them another two days to get there at reasonable warp. The proximity alarm is operative and will beep at them if any debris or hails or distress signals make their way to the Prometheus.

[dream_me_up]

He double-checks the navigational calculations on the course to Betazed. He uploads his collection of Klingon operas to the ship's library.

He daydreams. Idly, he looks at files in the temp folder where he stored the intermediate numbers for his navigation checks.

[alicornucopia]

There they are, behind some minor encryption, along with a few drafts of Isabella's personal files: diaries with dates, "processing" files, a text file entitled "polarbear".

[dream_me_up]

Breaking minor encryption is not much more of an effort than breathing. He barely notices he's doing it.

The diaries are obviously personal, but what about the polar bear?

[alicornucopia]

The polar bear file appears to be the first half of an essay of unpopular, pseudonymous political opinions.

[dream_me_up]

...That wakes him up.

He closes the file and restores all the encryption.

[warpfairy]

Isabella goes on sleeping, peacefully oblivious, uttering nouns. She's on a string of Vulcan plants at the moment.

[dream_me_up]

Lalita snuggles up again.

[warpfairy]

Snuggles!

Isabella has been awake for a week; she sleeps for fourteen hours. Then she wakes up, rested, clear-headed, and stark naked with very tangled hair.

She sits up slowly and looks around her, organizing her memories of the last seven days.

[dream_me_up]

In the interim, Lalita has gone back to sleep, for his first full six hours since the week began; he is curled up next to her, also stark naked.

[warpfairy]

Okay then. She'll pick out an outfit, quietly, and take it into the bathroom, and take a shower, and come out wearing it, and then resume course for Betazed.

[dream_me_up]

Lalita wakes up just as she is doing the last thing.

He puts on a pair of trousers and goes to see what she's up to.

[warpfairy]

"Hello," says Isabella. "And thank you."

[dream_me_up]

"You're very welcome."

[warpfairy]

Her cheeks go a little green at that. "We'll be there in just under two days."

[dream_me_up]

"You blushed!" he observes delightedly.

[warpfairy]

"That is physiologically possible," she says delicately, "but I can neither confirm nor deny, lacking a mirror."