Ensign Lyra Voss: Getting to Know You
Sarah Terry
((Outside Brew Continuum, San Francisco District, Starbase 118))
The sounds of her own fingers tapping the sides of this stupid mug were starting to drive Lyra slightly batty, but she also couldn’t make herself stop the nervous tic. It was tapping or pacing. Well, sometimes it was both. But either way, it wasn’t great.
The whole situation was pushing her social anxiety to a new level. One - she owed Wyn a coffee. Two - the Wyn she owed that coffee to was (kind of) twelve years in the past. Three - she barely knew Commander Foster (who definitely *was* but also sort of *wasn’t* that Wyn). Four - the coffee place she had suggested meeting at was actually closed when she got there a few minutes ago. Five - she didn’t like coffee anyway. Six - well… okay, maybe there wasn’t a six, but the preceding five were enough to deal with. She was halfway through concocting an elaborate plan that involved tying the mug to a branch in one of the trees that lined the walking path, taping a note to it, and running away, when she heard a voice behind her and spun around.
Foster: ?
Voss: ::startled and awkward:: Hello! Hi. Hi, I… yeah. Thanks for coming.
Foster: ?
Four help her. Time to fall back on a Betazoid’s one true power in times of strife - unfettered honesty.
Voss: Sorry, I’m just… to be honest, I’m still kind of reeling about the whole last mission. But I wanted to talk to you because I feel like we spoke for fifteen minutes, and then went back in time and became slightly-trauma-bonded friends, and now it’s like I know you and don’t know you, and either way, I stole your coffee and broke your mug, so I have a new mug, but I’ve been pacing up and down this whole street and most of the stores are still closed as they clean up from the storm, so I don’t know where we’d find coffee but… Mug.
She held out a tall, hand-thrown mug with sides that flared out at the top and an elegant curved handle that ended in a stamped potter’s mark. It was washed in shades of navy glaze. She hoped it wasn’t weirdly warm from how tightly she’d been clutching it.
Foster: ?
She finally managed a self-conscious smile, as she put her hands on her hips just to have something else to do with them.
Voss: Yeah, look, this is all… I’m adjusting. ::she laughed:: But uh, I don’t suppose you know any other coffee shops nearby? Or we could just wander?
It didn’t take long to realize that Wyn didn’t just know *any* other coffee shop - he knew *all* the other coffee shops in the district. But the combination of the massive clean up project after their inadvertent hurricannado and the fact that it was slightly late in the afternoon for some coffee shops meant they continued to strike out. They had walked nearly into the Promenade when Lyra saw a sign she’d never noticed before. She immediately stopped walking.
Voss: Wait… we have a Quark’s? Since when?
Foster: ?