Cerulean Stars - Chapter 114

Chapter 114

Stardate -298334.8 - August 31, 2024 - 11:07:00

“I can’t believe you tried to stop me from examining that boy.” Bashir muttered as they exited the stairwell onto the building's roof.

“We can’t interfere, Julian.” Benjamin reminded the man, taking a moment to check that the door wouldn’t lock behind them before heading towards the edge of the roof.

"I'm pretty sure trading away our uniforms for access to this roof is more dangerous to the timeline than me making sure a boy wasn’t going to die from a punctured lung.” Bashir offered, walking up behind Benjamin to join him in looking down at the walled in chunk of city they were stuck in. “And that's not even getting into whatever happened to our combadges.”

Benjamin winced, moderately sure that last was going to cause a lot of people to be very annoyed with them assuming they ever found a way back to their proper time.

“Hopefully we can hunt down the combadges once we find Dax and Brooks.” He put forward wryly as he scanned the walls for somewhere they might be able to slip through without being noticed.

“I'm not sure how.” Bashir muttered. “It's not like any of us brought a tricorder.”

They hadn’t, but Benjamin was rather hoping Dax might be able to put something together on that front.

“Look on the bright side.” He offered, turning back to Bashir with a grin that he hoped masked just how much trouble he actually thought they were in. “We might be able to catch an actual baseball game before all this is over.”

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Stardate -298334.7 - August 31, 2024 - 11:59:42

Two hours of clothes shopping and forty minutes getting her hair done by a stylist had left Jadzia looking like a relatively normal person, or at least as close to one as a 183 centimeter tall woman with hairline tattoos could look.

It had also somehow left Raine carrying all the bags as they headed to the nearby Datacom store. Something the Asari felt slightly incensed about given the current media connotations to that particular act.

“I look like my sister.” Jadzia muttered unhappily as she brushed a lock of hair away from her ear.

“The preschool teacher?” Raine asked, adjusting one of the bags so it wasn't digging into her shoulder.

“Yes.” Jazdia sulked.

Raine’s lip twitched as she fought back a grin. “The one you said received all the artistic sense in the family and who could practically be your twin?” 

“Yes.” Jadzia repeated in a slightly depressed tone.

“Who we’re banned from ever meeting since you’re afraid we might corrupt her with our daring and dangerous ways.” Raine pressed in the same tone, knowing it would throw the other woman off.

“Ye…” Jadzia began, only to cut herself off mid reply and stop dead to turn an affronted look to Raine. “Why would you say that?!”

Pausing in her own walk, Raine glanced over her shoulder at the Trill for a moment before answering. “Because we've been in the same place for three years and you've never invited her to visit.”

As far as Raine could remember Jadzia hadn't even invited her family to her wedding, something which the Asari had always chalked up to distance and travel time until she'd found out that Trill was only a three to seven day trip from the station.

“Not everyone enjoys traveling as much as we do, you know.” Jadzia muttered testily as she stalked past.

That was enough to tell Raine that there had to be some problem there, and she was absolutely going to dig more when they made it back to their proper time. But for now she would let the subject drop.

It took them nearly five more minutes of walking before they reached their destination, a somewhat stylish storefront that was this universe’s equivalent to an apple store.

“Why were you so set on this place anyway?” Jadzia inquired, staring at the store they had walked a good kilometer to reach with an odd look on her face.

“Datacom bought out Chronowerx five years ago after it went under due to the Cerritos disaster.” Raine explained. “And Chronowerx hardware and system architecture is the closest we're going to find to what we normally work with.”

She was tempted to mess with Jadzia by telling her how that was part of a predestination paradox involving future time travelers. But the Trill was absolutely the type who would want an explanation for just how Raine had known that fact. And there was no way the Asari could think of to explain it that wouldn’t end with the other woman being even more suspicious.

“I continue to be amazed at how much you know about this time period.” Jadzia offered bemusedly as they walked into the store.

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Stardate -298334.1 - August 31, 2024 - 17:15:56

Raine had been waiting in the lobby of the BIS building for nearly twenty minutes by the time Jadzia walked through the doors to join her. And the Asari took a moment to appreciate the rather stylish three piece navy suit the Trill was wearing before she walked over to the others woman.

“So what do you think?” She asked with a smile as she did a twirl to show off the entirety of the little red dress she was wearing.

“Good.” Jadzia admitted as she returned Raine's smile with one of her own. “But I’m moderately impressed that you could pull off that spin, in that dress, with those high heels.”

“Really?” Raine asked skeptically as she took a moment to enjoy the rare chance to stare down at the normally taller woman. “You've seen me dance, I could literally have been out there doing that professionally if I hadn’t wanted to do more with my life then just run around entertaining people.”

The irony of that of course being that she would have probably still ended up on the Enterprise eventually given how many different touring groups the flagship tended to host.

“Emony would have given you a seven out of ten.” Jadzia offered impishly as she walked past Raine towards one of the elevators. “Now come on, we don’t want to keep Christopher waiting.”

Pouting for a moment at the low score, Raine followed after Jadzia.

“Would you believe I used to be afraid of heights?” She put forward, eyeing the shiny metal doors with nostalgia as they waited for the elevator to arrive.

“Not for a second.” Jadzia returned with a shake of her head.

“It’s true.” Raine confirmed as the doors opened and they walked in. “Before Chicago, going to the top floor of a building this tall would have given me a mild anxiety attack.”

She still wasn’t entirely sure if that was a difference in brain structure or just the associated trauma of multiple near death experiences putting the whole thing into perspective. Either way however, she hadn’t had even the slightest problem with heights since it had occurred.

Jadzia turned an odd look towards her. “You know, I think that may be the first time I've ever heard you say anything about your life before arriving in Chicago.”

Raine flinched, trying to think of something to say that wouldn't make it obvious that she was dodging around the issue only to let out a silent sigh of relief when the elevator came to a stop.

“Looks like we're here.” She said, rising out into the hall to the penthouse the moment the doors opened. “Time to meet that Christopher of yours.”

The distinct feeling of Jadzia's eyes boring into her back was almost palpable. But Raine did her best to ignore it knowing the Trill would let the issue drop so long as the Asari made it clear she didn’t want to discuss the issue further.

“He’s not my Christopher.” Jadzia said as she caught up. “He’s just a nice guy, who offered to help me out after we were mugged.”

Raine wasn’t even remotely surprised when the penthouse door opened at their approach since no billionaire worth their stock portfolio wouldn’t have something in place to tell him when guests were about to arrive. What was surprising however, was that it was Christopher Brynner himself that opened the door to greet them.

“Jadzia!” The moderately handsome man greeted, taking a moment to offer the Trill a smile before switching his gaze to the disguised Asari.

“Tina Hanson.” Raine offered with a smile of her own. “Thank you for helping out Jadzia, I dread to think what might have happened if you weren’t there to help her out after the attack.”

She was absolutely laying it on a bit thick with that, but everything she knew about Christopher Brynner said the man had a white knight streak a kilometer long. Though she really wished she could have warned Jadzia just why the man was notable enough to get his name in the Federation’s history books.

After all, it wasn’t every day you met one of the people who stood side by side with Zefram Cochrane on First Contact Day.

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Author’s Notes: If that’s not a line to end the chapter on I don’t know what is.