Lt. Robin Hopper: The Subject
Robin Hopper
((Amity Outpost – Grand Mezzanine, Three Stripes Bar))
The drink was no longer symmetrical. As the ice had melted, diluting the synthehol, the layers had begun to separate and the cherries had sunk further into the glass. It now looked rather unfortunate – which, coincidentally, was how Robin was feeling.
It was nearly New Years, and most of her closest Amity friends were not only off the station… they were out of the Quadrant entirely – off to Betazed. The last party she’d attended had also ended with the timeline nearly being irrevocably damaged… and only a handful of people really knew what that experience had been like. In an effort to combat her blues, she had accepted an invitation for a date at the Vulcan-owned bar from Lt. JG Sakir, a medical officer on the USS Kitty Hawk. She had been on the train to the Mezzanine when she’d gotten his message – a medical emergency that required his presence in Sickbay.
She’d already gotten dressed to go out, wearing a thematically-appropriate bandage-dress under a leather jacket, and she was already on the train… She hadn’t been sure if it would be more tragic to go to the bar and drink alone or to simply go home and lie on her sofa with a book, missing the world. So she had gone ahead anyways. Now, she was sitting at the bar, watching her drink fall to pieces as she poked at and stirred it with a little plastic sword.
Looking around the bar, she saw smiling couples laughing over drinks in their booths, a group of friends chatting happily… she sighed, took a long drink, and set her glass down before running a finger along the rim. She looked the other way and saw an odd sight. A dapperly-dressed Cardassian man sitting and writing – no, drawing – something on a pad of paper. He seemed caught up in his work, so it surprised her when he looked up from the pad and looked right at her.
oO That’s… Oo – her first instinct was ‘odd’, but the warm expression on his face at being ‘caught’ looking her way was, in fact – oO …intriguing. Oo
She tipped her glass back, finishing her drink, and hopped off the bar stool – making her way confidently over towards his table, hands on her hips. She cocked an eyebrow as she stopped a few feet away, the drawing on his page not yet visible. She pointed to the glass on his table, ice cubes similarly-melted.
Hopper: I see you haven’t been paying attention to your drink either.
Kizat: Response
Hopper: You seem pretty focused on whatever it is you’re working on there… And I’ll admit you’ve got me curious too.
Kizat: Response
She wasn’t familiar with Cardassians. Few in Federation Territory were, outside of the stories they had grown up hearing. But she had heard the buzz about the new Envoy. She was curious – and lonely. So she took the seat across from him.
Hopper: Lieutenant Hopper. ::A small smile:: You can call me Robin.
Kizat: Response
Hopper: So… What are you doing here? ::Pointing across the table at his pad:: May I see?
Kizat: Response
TBC
