Lunctime Screaming Match (Miko/Reneé)

||USS Indefatigable
||Observation Room
||TBD
||Day 1

Oh God, did she ever want to run in the opposite direction. It had been a battle for the ages not to drag Reneé to a floor and beat her face back in the labs, and now Miko was off to have lunch with her of all things? If this was how the rest of her time on the Indefatigable was going to be, she might as well just grab a phaser and melt her own brains out right, save the firing squad she’d be facing after murdering her CO some trouble.

Several padds with the results of the tech analysis were stuffed under Miko’s arm as she trudged off to the Observation Room, filled with technical garbage the lieutenant had only been able to skim over briefly before heading off to this idiotic meeting. Given this entire thing would likely be filled with reducing complex technical explanations to simpletonese, it was fitting that she might head into things blind as a bat.

Bloody Rivers. If she ended up killing Reneé then Melissa was next in line. The thought of just how many murder weapons littered the science labs flashed through Miko’s mind as she entered the location where this blasted meeting was to take place. Reneé was already there, the punctual bitch, sitting around waiting for Miko to show up. That trademark glow filled her eyes as she shuffled in behind the marine, plopping the padds down on the table before plopping her ass down in a chair.

“You’re not gonna let me drink on the job here, are you?”, she muttered in a huff, refusing to make eye contact with her former lover.

||USS Indefatigable
||Observation Room
||TBD
||Day 1

Oh God, did she ever want to run in the opposite direction. It had been a battle for the ages not to drag Reneé to a floor and beat her face back in the labs, and now Miko was off to have lunch with her of all things? If this was how the rest of her time on the Indefatigable was going to be, she might as well just grab a phaser and melt her own brains out right, save the firing squad she’d be facing after murdering her CO some trouble.

Several padds with the results of the tech analysis were stuffed under Miko’s arm as she trudged off to the Observation Room, filled with technical garbage the lieutenant had only been able to skim over briefly before heading off to this idiotic meeting. Given this entire thing would likely be filled with reducing complex technical explanations to simpletonese, it was fitting that she might head into things blind as a bat.

Bloody Rivers. If she ended up killing Reneé then Melissa was next in line. The thought of just how many murder weapons littered the science labs flashed through Miko’s mind as she entered the location where this blasted meeting was to take place. Reneé was already there, the punctual bitch, sitting around waiting for Miko to show up. That trademark glow filled her eyes as she shuffled in behind the marine, plopping the padds down on the table before plopping her ass down in a chair.

“You’re not gonna let me drink on the job here, are?”, she muttered in a huff, refusing to make eye contact with her former lover.

"I uh...would let you away with a small drink, Miko." said Reneé weakly as she looked down at the desk. The initial shock of seeing Miko on the turbolift had worn away. Now there was just empty melancholy and a desire for conversation. It wasn't about the conflict of interests given that she was now Miko's commanding officer. It was something else. Something more personal and deeper. Deeper than she was willing to explore at this point.

Rather than let herself just look dumbstruck Reneé decided to take one of the PADDs and skim-read it to at least give the impression that there was no second reason for the lunch meeting. "I trust the facilities in the Science Labs weren't too much of a pain. Like I said they were a low priority and...well what would you like to eat? Anything new with you?" asked the marine with a wavering smile on her lips.

||USS Indefatigable
||Observation Room
||TBD
||Day 1

Oh God, did she ever want to run in the opposite direction. It had been a battle for the ages not to drag Reneé to a floor and beat her face back in the labs, and now Miko was off to have lunch with her of all things? If this was how the rest of her time on the Indefatigable was going to be, she might as well just grab a phaser and melt her own brains out right, save the firing squad she’d be facing after murdering her CO some trouble.

Several padds with the results of the tech analysis were stuffed under Miko’s arm as she trudged off to the Observation Room, filled with technical garbage the lieutenant had only been able to skim over briefly before heading off to this idiotic meeting. Given this entire thing would likely be filled with reducing complex technical explanations to simpletonese, it was fitting that she might head into things blind as a bat.

Bloody Rivers. If she ended up killing Reneé then Melissa was next in line. The thought of just how many murder weapons littered the science labs flashed through Miko’s mind as she entered the location where this blasted meeting was to take place. Reneé was already there, the punctual bitch, sitting around waiting for Miko to show up. That trademark glow filled her eyes as she shuffled in behind the marine, plopping the padds down on the table before plopping her ass down in a chair.

“You’re not gonna let me drink on the job here, are?”, she muttered in a huff, refusing to make eye contact with her former lover.

"I uh...would let you away with a small drink, Miko." said Reneé weakly as she looked down at the desk. The initial shock of seeing Miko on the turbolift had worn away. Now there was just empty melancholy and a desire for conversation. It wasn't about the conflict of interests given that she was now Miko's commanding officer. It was something else. Something more personal and deeper. Deeper than she was willing to explore at this point.

Rather than let herself just look dumbstruck Reneé decided to take one of the PADDs and skim-read it to at least give the impression that there was no second reason for the lunch meeting. "I trust the facilities in the Science Labs weren't too much of a pain. Like I said they were a low priority and...well what would you like to eat? Anything new with you?" asked the marine with a wavering smile on her lips.

A pleasant reply actually welled up in Miko’s throats for a moment, or at least one that didn’t involve snapping at Reneé. The words stayed caught in the lieutenant’s throats, her arms crossing as she stared out quite literally into deep space. There was no reason to get into an actual, pleasant conversation; it could only come back around eventually to every single bitter feeling that was left over from an argument neither woman even remembered. Might as well keep things curt and bitter, save herself all the trouble that looking into those deep blue eyes would stir up in her gut.

“It’s an energy weapon,” she quietly said, completely ignoring Reneé’s questions. “Melissa’s taking it apart now, but we’re pretty sure it’s got some new method of collecting excess radiant energy generated when it fires and feeding it right back into the current discharge. Pretty clever actually - I’d say it boosts output by at least 28%.”

||USS Indefatigable
||Observation Room
||TBD
||Day 1

Oh God, did she ever want to run in the opposite direction. It had been a battle for the ages not to drag Reneé to a floor and beat her face back in the labs, and now Miko was off to have lunch with her of all things? If this was how the rest of her time on the Indefatigable was going to be, she might as well just grab a phaser and melt her own brains out right, save the firing squad she’d be facing after murdering her CO some trouble.

Several padds with the results of the tech analysis were stuffed under Miko’s arm as she trudged off to the Observation Room, filled with technical garbage the lieutenant had only been able to skim over briefly before heading off to this idiotic meeting. Given this entire thing would likely be filled with reducing complex technical explanations to simpletonese, it was fitting that she might head into things blind as a bat.

Bloody Rivers. If she ended up killing Reneé then Melissa was next in line. The thought of just how many murder weapons littered the science labs flashed through Miko’s mind as she entered the location where this blasted meeting was to take place. Reneé was already there, the punctual bitch, sitting around waiting for Miko to show up. That trademark glow filled her eyes as she shuffled in behind the marine, plopping the padds down on the table before plopping her ass down in a chair.

“You’re not gonna let me drink on the job here, are?”, she muttered in a huff, refusing to make eye contact with her former lover.

"I uh...would let you away with a small drink, Miko." said Reneé weakly as she looked down at the desk. The initial shock of seeing Miko on the turbolift had worn away. Now there was just empty melancholy and a desire for conversation. It wasn't about the conflict of interests given that she was now Miko's commanding officer. It was something else. Something more personal and deeper. Deeper than she was willing to explore at this point.

Rather than let herself just look dumbstruck Reneé decided to take one of the PADDs and skim-read it to at least give the impression that there was no second reason for the lunch meeting. "I trust the facilities in the Science Labs weren't too much of a pain. Like I said they were a low priority and...well what would you like to eat? Anything new with you?" asked the marine with a wavering smile on her lips.

A pleasant reply actually welled up in Miko’s throats for a moment, or at least one that didn’t involve snapping at Reneé. The words stayed caught in the lieutenant’s throats, her arms crossing as she stared out quite literally into deep space. There was no reason to get into an actual, pleasant conversation; it could only come back around eventually to every single bitter feeling that was left over from an argument neither woman even remembered. Might as well keep things curt and bitter, save herself all the trouble that looking into those deep blue eyes would stir up in her gut.

“It’s an energy weapon,” she quietly said, completely ignoring Reneé’s questions. “Melissa’s taking it apart now, but we’re pretty sure it’s got some new method of collecting excess radiant energy generated when it fires and feeding it right back into the current discharge. Pretty clever actually - I’d say it boosts output by at least 28%.”

"So the Fergengi are assisting the Breen with upgrading their weapons?" asked Reneé with a rather worried expression. It was the sign of a war-force build up. Sure you upgraded your weapons but you did so at a steady pace. For the Breen to enlist the Ferengi to gain more powerful weapons was troubling. This wasn't natural build-up of systems. The Breen were obviously planning something.

She drummed her fingers against the table as she thought of some more questions that Miko wouldn't avoid. "Do you think you'll be able to see a difference between a ship equipped with this weapon system against a ship without it? Surely they can't have distributed that many units." mulled the marine as she looked at Miko.

"Also, how is your room?"

||USS Indefatigable
||Observation Room
||TBD
||Day 1

Oh God, did she ever want to run in the opposite direction. It had been a battle for the ages not to drag Reneé to a floor and beat her face back in the labs, and now Miko was off to have lunch with her of all things? If this was how the rest of her time on the Indefatigable was going to be, she might as well just grab a phaser and melt her own brains out right, save the firing squad she’d be facing after murdering her CO some trouble.

Several padds with the results of the tech analysis were stuffed under Miko’s arm as she trudged off to the Observation Room, filled with technical garbage the lieutenant had only been able to skim over briefly before heading off to this idiotic meeting. Given this entire thing would likely be filled with reducing complex technical explanations to simpletonese, it was fitting that she might head into things blind as a bat.

Bloody Rivers. If she ended up killing Reneé then Melissa was next in line. The thought of just how many murder weapons littered the science labs flashed through Miko’s mind as she entered the location where this blasted meeting was to take place. Reneé was already there, the punctual bitch, sitting around waiting for Miko to show up. That trademark glow filled her eyes as she shuffled in behind the marine, plopping the padds down on the table before plopping her ass down in a chair.

“You’re not gonna let me drink on the job here, are?”, she muttered in a huff, refusing to make eye contact with her former lover.

"I uh...would let you away with a small drink, Miko." said Reneé weakly as she looked down at the desk. The initial shock of seeing Miko on the turbolift had worn away. Now there was just empty melancholy and a desire for conversation. It wasn't about the conflict of interests given that she was now Miko's commanding officer. It was something else. Something more personal and deeper. Deeper than she was willing to explore at this point.

Rather than let herself just look dumbstruck Reneé decided to take one of the PADDs and skim-read it to at least give the impression that there was no second reason for the lunch meeting. "I trust the facilities in the Science Labs weren't too much of a pain. Like I said they were a low priority and...well what would you like to eat? Anything new with you?" asked the marine with a wavering smile on her lips.

A pleasant reply actually welled up in Miko’s throats for a moment, or at least one that didn’t involve snapping at Reneé. The words stayed caught in the lieutenant’s throats, her arms crossing as she stared out quite literally into deep space. There was no reason to get into an actual, pleasant conversation; it could only come back around eventually to every single bitter feeling that was left over from an argument neither woman even remembered. Might as well keep things curt and bitter, save herself all the trouble that looking into those deep blue eyes would stir up in her gut.

“It’s an energy weapon,” she quietly said, completely ignoring Reneé’s questions. “Melissa’s taking it apart now, but we’re pretty sure it’s got some new method of collecting excess radiant energy generated when it fires and feeding it right back into the current discharge. Pretty clever actually - I’d say it boosts output by at least 28%.”

"So the Fergengi are assisting the Breen with upgrading their weapons?" asked Reneé with a rather worried expression. It was the sign of a war-force build up. Sure you upgraded your weapons but you did so at a steady pace. For the Breen to enlist the Ferengi to gain more powerful weapons was troubling. This wasn't natural build-up of systems. The Breen were obviously planning something.

She drummed her fingers against the table as she thought of some more questions that Miko wouldn't avoid. "Do you think you'll be able to see a difference between a ship equipped with this weapon system against a ship without it? Surely they can't have distributed that many units." mulled the marine as she looked at Miko.

"Also, how is your room?"

Both fists clenched tight at the last question. The hell business was it of hers? She wasn't coming in there anytime soon. Try as she might to focus on the more important matter of the Breen situation, Miko couldn't help but insert an almost venomous tone into her reply.

"It'd take all of two minutes to reconfigure the sensors," she growled back at the marine, "and we'll be able to pick up the new weapons instantly. And furthermore-"

She paused for effect just long enough to make a mistake.

Those bloody eyes. Those damn, stupid, beautiful, deep blue eyes of Reneé's, the ones she wanted to avoid. For a split second Miko looked straight into them, just enough time for the insults forming in her throat to choke up. In an instant her tight, furious expression loosened up, squinting mechanical eyes opening as she stared into those gorgeous blue irises.

No no no, this was wrong. She hated this woman. This beautiful, strong woman, just sitting there like the bitch that she was. A stunning bitch so full of fire and strength, with those amazing arms she'd loved to carry Miko around in. Damnit, she hated those arms, almost as much as she hated those long, ethereal legs, those damn things going up to her bloody useless curves that set Miko alight with a single touch.

"-my room's fine," she murmured quietly as her eyes finally darted away. The lieutenant did her best to hide how red her cheeks had just turned as she began to fidget slightly.

||USS Indefatigable
||Observation Room
||TBD
||Day 1

Oh God, did she ever want to run in the opposite direction. It had been a battle for the ages not to drag Reneé to a floor and beat her face back in the labs, and now Miko was off to have lunch with her of all things? If this was how the rest of her time on the Indefatigable was going to be, she might as well just grab a phaser and melt her own brains out right, save the firing squad she’d be facing after murdering her CO some trouble.

Several padds with the results of the tech analysis were stuffed under Miko’s arm as she trudged off to the Observation Room, filled with technical garbage the lieutenant had only been able to skim over briefly before heading off to this idiotic meeting. Given this entire thing would likely be filled with reducing complex technical explanations to simpletonese, it was fitting that she might head into things blind as a bat.

Bloody Rivers. If she ended up killing Reneé then Melissa was next in line. The thought of just how many murder weapons littered the science labs flashed through Miko’s mind as she entered the location where this blasted meeting was to take place. Reneé was already there, the punctual bitch, sitting around waiting for Miko to show up. That trademark glow filled her eyes as she shuffled in behind the marine, plopping the padds down on the table before plopping her ass down in a chair.

“You’re not gonna let me drink on the job here, are?”, she muttered in a huff, refusing to make eye contact with her former lover.

"I uh...would let you away with a small drink, Miko." said Reneé weakly as she looked down at the desk. The initial shock of seeing Miko on the turbolift had worn away. Now there was just empty melancholy and a desire for conversation. It wasn't about the conflict of interests given that she was now Miko's commanding officer. It was something else. Something more personal and deeper. Deeper than she was willing to explore at this point.

Rather than let herself just look dumbstruck Reneé decided to take one of the PADDs and skim-read it to at least give the impression that there was no second reason for the lunch meeting. "I trust the facilities in the Science Labs weren't too much of a pain. Like I said they were a low priority and...well what would you like to eat? Anything new with you?" asked the marine with a wavering smile on her lips.

A pleasant reply actually welled up in Miko’s throats for a moment, or at least one that didn’t involve snapping at Reneé. The words stayed caught in the lieutenant’s throats, her arms crossing as she stared out quite literally into deep space. There was no reason to get into an actual, pleasant conversation; it could only come back around eventually to every single bitter feeling that was left over from an argument neither woman even remembered. Might as well keep things curt and bitter, save herself all the trouble that looking into those deep blue eyes would stir up in her gut.

“It’s an energy weapon,” she quietly said, completely ignoring Reneé’s questions. “Melissa’s taking it apart now, but we’re pretty sure it’s got some new method of collecting excess radiant energy generated when it fires and feeding it right back into the current discharge. Pretty clever actually - I’d say it boosts output by at least 28%.”

"So the Fergengi are assisting the Breen with upgrading their weapons?" asked Reneé with a rather worried expression. It was the sign of a war-force build up. Sure you upgraded your weapons but you did so at a steady pace. For the Breen to enlist the Ferengi to gain more powerful weapons was troubling. This wasn't natural build-up of systems. The Breen were obviously planning something.

She drummed her fingers against the table as she thought of some more questions that Miko wouldn't avoid. "Do you think you'll be able to see a difference between a ship equipped with this weapon system against a ship without it? Surely they can't have distributed that many units." mulled the marine as she looked at Miko.

"Also, how is your room?"

Both fists clenched tight at the last question. The hell business was it of hers? She wasn't coming in there anytime soon. Try as she might to focus on the more important matter of the Breen situation, Miko couldn't help but insert an almost venomous tone into her reply.

"It'd take all of two minutes to reconfigure the sensors," she growled back at the marine, "and we'll be able to pick up the new weapons instantly. And furthermore-"

She paused for effect just long enough to make a mistake.

Those bloody eyes. Those damn, stupid, beautiful, deep blue eyes of Reneé's, the ones she wanted to avoid. For a split second Miko looked straight into them, just enough time for the insults forming in her throat to choke up. In an instant her tight, furious expression loosened up, squinting mechanical eyes opening as she stared into those gorgeous blue irises.

No no no, this was wrong. She hated this woman. This beautiful, strong woman, just sitting there like the bitch that she was. A stunning bitch so full of fire and strength, with those amazing arms she'd loved to carry Miko around in. Damnit, she hated those arms, almost as much as she hated those long, ethereal legs, those damn things going up to her bloody useless curves that set Miko alight with a single touch.

"-my room's fine," she murmured quietly as her eyes finally darted away. The lieutenant did her best to hide how red her cheeks had just turned as she began to fidget slightly.

"Miko, I know you've not forgiven me." said Reneé as she itched the tip of her nose, looking out towards the viewport. "I just think that if we're going to be working together...living on the same ship we might as well be cordial. I had my reasons for leaving...I just regret never telling you them." Reneé's expression softened as her hand caressed Miko's tenderly.

She didn't hate the woman. She had no real reason to. Reneé wasn't someone to hold that much of a grudge towards people she cared about. "I mean it's not a bedroom but we can still talk like we used to right? Or do I have to seduce you into at least having a pleasant conversation? I'm sure I'd be able to manage. Besides...you still haven't told me what you want for lunch."

||USS Indefatigable
||Observation Room
||TBD
||Day 1

Oh God, did she ever want to run in the opposite direction. It had been a battle for the ages not to drag Reneé to a floor and beat her face back in the labs, and now Miko was off to have lunch with her of all things? If this was how the rest of her time on the Indefatigable was going to be, she might as well just grab a phaser and melt her own brains out right, save the firing squad she’d be facing after murdering her CO some trouble.

Several padds with the results of the tech analysis were stuffed under Miko’s arm as she trudged off to the Observation Room, filled with technical garbage the lieutenant had only been able to skim over briefly before heading off to this idiotic meeting. Given this entire thing would likely be filled with reducing complex technical explanations to simpletonese, it was fitting that she might head into things blind as a bat.

Bloody Rivers. If she ended up killing Reneé then Melissa was next in line. The thought of just how many murder weapons littered the science labs flashed through Miko’s mind as she entered the location where this blasted meeting was to take place. Reneé was already there, the punctual bitch, sitting around waiting for Miko to show up. That trademark glow filled her eyes as she shuffled in behind the marine, plopping the padds down on the table before plopping her ass down in a chair.

“You’re not gonna let me drink on the job here, are?”, she muttered in a huff, refusing to make eye contact with her former lover.

"I uh...would let you away with a small drink, Miko." said Reneé weakly as she looked down at the desk. The initial shock of seeing Miko on the turbolift had worn away. Now there was just empty melancholy and a desire for conversation. It wasn't about the conflict of interests given that she was now Miko's commanding officer. It was something else. Something more personal and deeper. Deeper than she was willing to explore at this point.

Rather than let herself just look dumbstruck Reneé decided to take one of the PADDs and skim-read it to at least give the impression that there was no second reason for the lunch meeting. "I trust the facilities in the Science Labs weren't too much of a pain. Like I said they were a low priority and...well what would you like to eat? Anything new with you?" asked the marine with a wavering smile on her lips.

A pleasant reply actually welled up in Miko’s throats for a moment, or at least one that didn’t involve snapping at Reneé. The words stayed caught in the lieutenant’s throats, her arms crossing as she stared out quite literally into deep space. There was no reason to get into an actual, pleasant conversation; it could only come back around eventually to every single bitter feeling that was left over from an argument neither woman even remembered. Might as well keep things curt and bitter, save herself all the trouble that looking into those deep blue eyes would stir up in her gut.

“It’s an energy weapon,” she quietly said, completely ignoring Reneé’s questions. “Melissa’s taking it apart now, but we’re pretty sure it’s got some new method of collecting excess radiant energy generated when it fires and feeding it right back into the current discharge. Pretty clever actually - I’d say it boosts output by at least 28%.”

"So the Fergengi are assisting the Breen with upgrading their weapons?" asked Reneé with a rather worried expression. It was the sign of a war-force build up. Sure you upgraded your weapons but you did so at a steady pace. For the Breen to enlist the Ferengi to gain more powerful weapons was troubling. This wasn't natural build-up of systems. The Breen were obviously planning something.

She drummed her fingers against the table as she thought of some more questions that Miko wouldn't avoid. "Do you think you'll be able to see a difference between a ship equipped with this weapon system against a ship without it? Surely they can't have distributed that many units." mulled the marine as she looked at Miko.

"Also, how is your room?"

Both fists clenched tight at the last question. The hell business was it of hers? She wasn't coming in there anytime soon. Try as she might to focus on the more important matter of the Breen situation, Miko couldn't help but insert an almost venomous tone into her reply.

"It'd take all of two minutes to reconfigure the sensors," she growled back at the marine, "and we'll be able to pick up the new weapons instantly. And furthermore-"

She paused for effect just long enough to make a mistake.

Those bloody eyes. Those damn, stupid, beautiful, deep blue eyes of Reneé's, the ones she wanted to avoid. For a split second Miko looked straight into them, just enough time for the insults forming in her throat to choke up. In an instant her tight, furious expression loosened up, squinting mechanical eyes opening as she stared into those gorgeous blue irises.

No no no, this was wrong. She hated this woman. This beautiful, strong woman, just sitting there like the bitch that she was. A stunning bitch so full of fire and strength, with those amazing arms she'd loved to carry Miko around in. Damnit, she hated those arms, almost as much as she hated those long, ethereal legs, those damn things going up to her bloody useless curves that set Miko alight with a single touch.

"-my room's fine," she murmured quietly as her eyes finally darted away. The lieutenant did her best to hide how red her cheeks had just turned as she began to fidget slightly.

"Miko, I know you've not forgiven me." said Reneé as she itched the tip of her nose, looking out towards the viewport. "I just think that if we're going to be working together...living on the same ship we might as well be cordial. I had my reasons for leaving...I just regret never telling you them." Reneé's expression softened as her hand caressed Miko's tenderly.

She didn't hate the woman. She had no real reason to. Reneé wasn't someone to hold that much of a grudge towards people she cared about. "I mean it's not a bedroom but we can still talk like we used to right? Or do I have to seduce you into at least having a pleasant conversation? I'm sure I'd be able to manage. Besides...you still haven't told me what you want for lunch."

Miko had really thought that maybe, just maybe, she could get a grip on this, that maybe she could get back into the mindset that she needed. Every single thought along those lines fell to shambles when Reneé started caressing Miko's little hand with her strong one, gently massaging an extremity full of veins large from constant stress. That was it. Instantly her whole gut flopped over in her chest cavity, the icy shell around her heart melting into a warm puddle around her feet.

The words reached Miko's ears, but it took what seemed like hours to process. Forgiveness. She'd never forgiven Reneé, but what was there to forgive? She didn't need to stay. It wasn't her job in life to take care of some emotionally unstable bitch that couldn't keep her head straight. Even if that unstable bitch loved Reneé with every ounce of a heart she had left, she had no responsibility to stick around be Miko's little caretaker. Hell, Miko was the one who needed to apologize for putting Reneé through two years of hell with some lonely, miserable excuse for a human being.

Lunch was the farthest thing from Miko's mind as she drifted from memory to memory, eventually latching onto one random thing that seemed so insignificant now yet had been so important way back when.

"Night of the argument we had a date," she spoke up suddenly as her hand slowly twisted to light grasp Reneé's. "Holodeck 2. I was gonna surprise you with a painstakingly crafted recreation of that one restaurant from your hometown you always said you loved."

Miko's face tilted downwards so as to deny Reneé a view of the tears that had begun to streak down her cheeks. "And after dinner I was gonna take you out to the pier where you used to say nighttime was like being in heaven, get on one knee and ask you to marry me."

Silence hung in the air for several more seconds, until Miko snapped out of it enough to whiplash back into Reneé's actual topic. "Pizza would be nice."

||USS Indefatigable
||Observation Room
||TBD
||Day 1

Oh God, did she ever want to run in the opposite direction. It had been a battle for the ages not to drag Reneé to a floor and beat her face back in the labs, and now Miko was off to have lunch with her of all things? If this was how the rest of her time on the Indefatigable was going to be, she might as well just grab a phaser and melt her own brains out right, save the firing squad she’d be facing after murdering her CO some trouble.

Several padds with the results of the tech analysis were stuffed under Miko’s arm as she trudged off to the Observation Room, filled with technical garbage the lieutenant had only been able to skim over briefly before heading off to this idiotic meeting. Given this entire thing would likely be filled with reducing complex technical explanations to simpletonese, it was fitting that she might head into things blind as a bat.

Bloody Rivers. If she ended up killing Reneé then Melissa was next in line. The thought of just how many murder weapons littered the science labs flashed through Miko’s mind as she entered the location where this blasted meeting was to take place. Reneé was already there, the punctual bitch, sitting around waiting for Miko to show up. That trademark glow filled her eyes as she shuffled in behind the marine, plopping the padds down on the table before plopping her ass down in a chair.

“You’re not gonna let me drink on the job here, are?”, she muttered in a huff, refusing to make eye contact with her former lover.

"I uh...would let you away with a small drink, Miko." said Reneé weakly as she looked down at the desk. The initial shock of seeing Miko on the turbolift had worn away. Now there was just empty melancholy and a desire for conversation. It wasn't about the conflict of interests given that she was now Miko's commanding officer. It was something else. Something more personal and deeper. Deeper than she was willing to explore at this point.

Rather than let herself just look dumbstruck Reneé decided to take one of the PADDs and skim-read it to at least give the impression that there was no second reason for the lunch meeting. "I trust the facilities in the Science Labs weren't too much of a pain. Like I said they were a low priority and...well what would you like to eat? Anything new with you?" asked the marine with a wavering smile on her lips.

A pleasant reply actually welled up in Miko’s throats for a moment, or at least one that didn’t involve snapping at Reneé. The words stayed caught in the lieutenant’s throats, her arms crossing as she stared out quite literally into deep space. There was no reason to get into an actual, pleasant conversation; it could only come back around eventually to every single bitter feeling that was left over from an argument neither woman even remembered. Might as well keep things curt and bitter, save herself all the trouble that looking into those deep blue eyes would stir up in her gut.

“It’s an energy weapon,” she quietly said, completely ignoring Reneé’s questions. “Melissa’s taking it apart now, but we’re pretty sure it’s got some new method of collecting excess radiant energy generated when it fires and feeding it right back into the current discharge. Pretty clever actually - I’d say it boosts output by at least 28%.”

"So the Fergengi are assisting the Breen with upgrading their weapons?" asked Reneé with a rather worried expression. It was the sign of a war-force build up. Sure you upgraded your weapons but you did so at a steady pace. For the Breen to enlist the Ferengi to gain more powerful weapons was troubling. This wasn't natural build-up of systems. The Breen were obviously planning something.

She drummed her fingers against the table as she thought of some more questions that Miko wouldn't avoid. "Do you think you'll be able to see a difference between a ship equipped with this weapon system against a ship without it? Surely they can't have distributed that many units." mulled the marine as she looked at Miko.

"Also, how is your room?"

Both fists clenched tight at the last question. The hell business was it of hers? She wasn't coming in there anytime soon. Try as she might to focus on the more important matter of the Breen situation, Miko couldn't help but insert an almost venomous tone into her reply.

"It'd take all of two minutes to reconfigure the sensors," she growled back at the marine, "and we'll be able to pick up the new weapons instantly. And furthermore-"

She paused for effect just long enough to make a mistake.

Those bloody eyes. Those damn, stupid, beautiful, deep blue eyes of Reneé's, the ones she wanted to avoid. For a split second Miko looked straight into them, just enough time for the insults forming in her throat to choke up. In an instant her tight, furious expression loosened up, squinting mechanical eyes opening as she stared into those gorgeous blue irises.

No no no, this was wrong. She hated this woman. This beautiful, strong woman, just sitting there like the bitch that she was. A stunning bitch so full of fire and strength, with those amazing arms she'd loved to carry Miko around in. Damnit, she hated those arms, almost as much as she hated those long, ethereal legs, those damn things going up to her bloody useless curves that set Miko alight with a single touch.

"-my room's fine," she murmured quietly as her eyes finally darted away. The lieutenant did her best to hide how red her cheeks had just turned as she began to fidget slightly.

"Miko, I know you've not forgiven me." said Reneé as she itched the tip of her nose, looking out towards the viewport. "I just think that if we're going to be working together...living on the same ship we might as well be cordial. I had my reasons for leaving...I just regret never telling you them." Reneé's expression softened as her hand caressed Miko's tenderly.

She didn't hate the woman. She had no real reason to. Reneé wasn't someone to hold that much of a grudge towards people she cared about. "I mean it's not a bedroom but we can still talk like we used to right? Or do I have to seduce you into at least having a pleasant conversation? I'm sure I'd be able to manage. Besides...you still haven't told me what you want for lunch."

Miko had really thought that maybe, just maybe, she could get a grip on this, that maybe she could get back into the mindset that she needed. Every single thought along those lines fell to shambles when Reneé started caressing Miko's little hand with her strong one, gently massaging an extremity full of veins large from constant stress. That was it. Instantly her whole gut flopped over in her chest cavity, the icy shell around her heart melting into a warm puddle around her feet.

The words reached Miko's ears, but it took what seemed like hours to process. Forgiveness. She'd never forgiven Reneé, but what was there to forgive? She didn't need to stay. It wasn't her job in life to take care of some emotionally unstable bitch that couldn't keep her head straight. Even if that unstable bitch loved Reneé with every ounce of a heart she had left, she had no responsibility to stick around be Miko's little caretaker. Hell, Miko was the one who needed to apologize for putting Reneé through two years of hell with some lonely, miserable excuse for a human being.

Lunch was the farthest thing from Miko's mind as she drifted from memory to memory, eventually latching onto one random thing that seemed so insignificant now yet had been so important way back when.

"Night of the argument we had a date," she spoke up suddenly as her hand slowly twisted to light grasp Reneé's. "Holodeck 2. I was gonna surprise you with a painstakingly crafted recreation of that one restaurant from your hometown you always said you loved."

Miko's face tilted downwards so as to deny Reneé a view of the tears that had begun to streak down her cheeks. "And after dinner I was gonna take you out to the pier where you used to say nighttime was like being in heaven, get on one knee and ask you to marry me."

Silence hung in the air for several more seconds, until Miko snapped out of it enough to whiplash back into Reneé's actual topic. "Pizza would be nice."

"Pizza it is..." said Reneé faintly now that the mental wind had been knocked from her. She walked over to the replicator and created a pizza with thick, juicy pepperoni parts with a glass of cool water before setting it in front of Miko. Her own meal was a Caesar salad with some lemon-dashed water. For some reason the desire for heavier meals had disappeared over the last few days.

Was it the stress of the job? Being given a million tons of starship and the lives to match? Then again apart from the gym and the fire-fight with the Breen boarding part she hadn't had much chances to work up an appetite. She took a small portion of her salad into her mouth, chewed for a bit and then swallowed before she looked up at Miko.

"Do you know why I left?" she asked her, giving a soft look. "I left because before the Jersey...I had just been in one of the biggest wars in the Quadrant. After that I had to witness the aftermath. Go to planets and act more or less like a force of stability. Going from place to place and seeing destroyed lives. When we met on the Jersey I thought that you could have been something to show that...it wasn't always going to be like the Dominion War. I guess that last fight was just...the straw that broke the camel's back?"

||USS Indefatigable
||Observation Room
||TBD
||Day 1

Oh God, did she ever want to run in the opposite direction. It had been a battle for the ages not to drag Reneé to a floor and beat her face back in the labs, and now Miko was off to have lunch with her of all things? If this was how the rest of her time on the Indefatigable was going to be, she might as well just grab a phaser and melt her own brains out right, save the firing squad she’d be facing after murdering her CO some trouble.

Several padds with the results of the tech analysis were stuffed under Miko’s arm as she trudged off to the Observation Room, filled with technical garbage the lieutenant had only been able to skim over briefly before heading off to this idiotic meeting. Given this entire thing would likely be filled with reducing complex technical explanations to simpletonese, it was fitting that she might head into things blind as a bat.

Bloody Rivers. If she ended up killing Reneé then Melissa was next in line. The thought of just how many murder weapons littered the science labs flashed through Miko’s mind as she entered the location where this blasted meeting was to take place. Reneé was already there, the punctual bitch, sitting around waiting for Miko to show up. That trademark glow filled her eyes as she shuffled in behind the marine, plopping the padds down on the table before plopping her ass down in a chair.

“You’re not gonna let me drink on the job here, are?”, she muttered in a huff, refusing to make eye contact with her former lover.

"I uh...would let you away with a small drink, Miko." said Reneé weakly as she looked down at the desk. The initial shock of seeing Miko on the turbolift had worn away. Now there was just empty melancholy and a desire for conversation. It wasn't about the conflict of interests given that she was now Miko's commanding officer. It was something else. Something more personal and deeper. Deeper than she was willing to explore at this point.

Rather than let herself just look dumbstruck Reneé decided to take one of the PADDs and skim-read it to at least give the impression that there was no second reason for the lunch meeting. "I trust the facilities in the Science Labs weren't too much of a pain. Like I said they were a low priority and...well what would you like to eat? Anything new with you?" asked the marine with a wavering smile on her lips.

A pleasant reply actually welled up in Miko’s throats for a moment, or at least one that didn’t involve snapping at Reneé. The words stayed caught in the lieutenant’s throats, her arms crossing as she stared out quite literally into deep space. There was no reason to get into an actual, pleasant conversation; it could only come back around eventually to every single bitter feeling that was left over from an argument neither woman even remembered. Might as well keep things curt and bitter, save herself all the trouble that looking into those deep blue eyes would stir up in her gut.

“It’s an energy weapon,” she quietly said, completely ignoring Reneé’s questions. “Melissa’s taking it apart now, but we’re pretty sure it’s got some new method of collecting excess radiant energy generated when it fires and feeding it right back into the current discharge. Pretty clever actually - I’d say it boosts output by at least 28%.”

"So the Fergengi are assisting the Breen with upgrading their weapons?" asked Reneé with a rather worried expression. It was the sign of a war-force build up. Sure you upgraded your weapons but you did so at a steady pace. For the Breen to enlist the Ferengi to gain more powerful weapons was troubling. This wasn't natural build-up of systems. The Breen were obviously planning something.

She drummed her fingers against the table as she thought of some more questions that Miko wouldn't avoid. "Do you think you'll be able to see a difference between a ship equipped with this weapon system against a ship without it? Surely they can't have distributed that many units." mulled the marine as she looked at Miko.

"Also, how is your room?"

Both fists clenched tight at the last question. The hell business was it of hers? She wasn't coming in there anytime soon. Try as she might to focus on the more important matter of the Breen situation, Miko couldn't help but insert an almost venomous tone into her reply.

"It'd take all of two minutes to reconfigure the sensors," she growled back at the marine, "and we'll be able to pick up the new weapons instantly. And furthermore-"

She paused for effect just long enough to make a mistake.

Those bloody eyes. Those damn, stupid, beautiful, deep blue eyes of Reneé's, the ones she wanted to avoid. For a split second Miko looked straight into them, just enough time for the insults forming in her throat to choke up. In an instant her tight, furious expression loosened up, squinting mechanical eyes opening as she stared into those gorgeous blue irises.

No no no, this was wrong. She hated this woman. This beautiful, strong woman, just sitting there like the bitch that she was. A stunning bitch so full of fire and strength, with those amazing arms she'd loved to carry Miko around in. Damnit, she hated those arms, almost as much as she hated those long, ethereal legs, those damn things going up to her bloody useless curves that set Miko alight with a single touch.

"-my room's fine," she murmured quietly as her eyes finally darted away. The lieutenant did her best to hide how red her cheeks had just turned as she began to fidget slightly.

"Miko, I know you've not forgiven me." said Reneé as she itched the tip of her nose, looking out towards the viewport. "I just think that if we're going to be working together...living on the same ship we might as well be cordial. I had my reasons for leaving...I just regret never telling you them." Reneé's expression softened as her hand caressed Miko's tenderly.

She didn't hate the woman. She had no real reason to. Reneé wasn't someone to hold that much of a grudge towards people she cared about. "I mean it's not a bedroom but we can still talk like we used to right? Or do I have to seduce you into at least having a pleasant conversation? I'm sure I'd be able to manage. Besides...you still haven't told me what you want for lunch."

Miko had really thought that maybe, just maybe, she could get a grip on this, that maybe she could get back into the mindset that she needed. Every single thought along those lines fell to shambles when Reneé started caressing Miko's little hand with her strong one, gently massaging an extremity full of veins large from constant stress. That was it. Instantly her whole gut flopped over in her chest cavity, the icy shell around her heart melting into a warm puddle around her feet.

The words reached Miko's ears, but it took what seemed like hours to process. Forgiveness. She'd never forgiven Reneé, but what was there to forgive? She didn't need to stay. It wasn't her job in life to take care of some emotionally unstable bitch that couldn't keep her head straight. Even if that unstable bitch loved Reneé with every ounce of a heart she had left, she had no responsibility to stick around be Miko's little caretaker. Hell, Miko was the one who needed to apologize for putting Reneé through two years of hell with some lonely, miserable excuse for a human being.

Lunch was the farthest thing from Miko's mind as she drifted from memory to memory, eventually latching onto one random thing that seemed so insignificant now yet had been so important way back when.

"Night of the argument we had a date," she spoke up suddenly as her hand slowly twisted to light grasp Reneé's. "Holodeck 2. I was gonna surprise you with a painstakingly crafted recreation of that one restaurant from your hometown you always said you loved."

Miko's face tilted downwards so as to deny Reneé a view of the tears that had begun to streak down her cheeks. "And after dinner I was gonna take you out to the pier where you used to say nighttime was like being in heaven, get on one knee and ask you to marry me."

Silence hung in the air for several more seconds, until Miko snapped out of it enough to whiplash back into Reneé's actual topic. "Pizza would be nice."

"Pizza it is..." said Reneé faintly now that the mental wind had been knocked from her. She walked over to the replicator and created a pizza with thick, juicy pepperoni parts with a glass of cool water before setting it in front of Miko. Her own meal was a Caesar salad with some lemon-dashed water. For some reason the desire for heavier meals had disappeared over the last few days.

Was it the stress of the job? Being given a million tons of starship and the lives to match? Then again apart from the gym and the fire-fight with the Breen boarding part she hadn't had much chances to work up an appetite. She took a small portion of her salad into her mouth, chewed for a bit and then swallowed before she looked up at Miko.

"Do you know why I left?" she asked her, giving a soft look. "I left because before the Jersey...I had just been in one of the biggest wars in the Quadrant. After that I had to witness the aftermath. Go to planets and act more or less like a force of stability. Going from place to place and seeing destroyed lives. When we met on the Jersey I thought that you could have been something to show that...it wasn't always going to be like the Dominion War. I guess that last fight was just...the straw that broke the camel's back?"

All Miko could do was shrug slightly as she a rammed a slice of unusually tasteless pizza into her mouth. She hadn't really thought about why Reneé ever put up with her in a long time. Hadn't really made much difference in the long run; all that had ever seemed to matter was that she couldn't put up with the wild emotional instability any longer.

"Yeah," Miko said quietly while slowly shoving another slice back and forth on her plate. "I get that. Kinda." She'd been in the Academy all through the war, while Reneé was out there fighting and suffering; it was hard to imagine just from stories what things had been like out on the front lines.

"Kinda fitting though." Her voice was getting meeker by the second; it had been a good six years since anyone had seen the lieutenant subdued and vulnerable, and that anyone happened to have been Reneé. "I, uh.... I never told you, but... there was this woman I knew, back in London, and she was married, but I...."

The pizza slipped out of her hand as she slumped further in her seat, desperate to make sure the marine couldn't see her crying. "When I told her, she just..... right off the balcony. And when I saw you that first time.... you looked so much like her, you even had the accent... and I just had to.... I just needed to feel like maybe, maybe...."

God, it was so stupid. "Maybe you were really her, and maybe she could forgive me and love me back.... I don't even know. You were just.... so much like her...."

||USS Indefatigable
||Observation Room
||TBD
||Day 1

Oh God, did she ever want to run in the opposite direction. It had been a battle for the ages not to drag Reneé to a floor and beat her face back in the labs, and now Miko was off to have lunch with her of all things? If this was how the rest of her time on the Indefatigable was going to be, she might as well just grab a phaser and melt her own brains out right, save the firing squad she’d be facing after murdering her CO some trouble.

Several padds with the results of the tech analysis were stuffed under Miko’s arm as she trudged off to the Observation Room, filled with technical garbage the lieutenant had only been able to skim over briefly before heading off to this idiotic meeting. Given this entire thing would likely be filled with reducing complex technical explanations to simpletonese, it was fitting that she might head into things blind as a bat.

Bloody Rivers. If she ended up killing Reneé then Melissa was next in line. The thought of just how many murder weapons littered the science labs flashed through Miko’s mind as she entered the location where this blasted meeting was to take place. Reneé was already there, the punctual bitch, sitting around waiting for Miko to show up. That trademark glow filled her eyes as she shuffled in behind the marine, plopping the padds down on the table before plopping her ass down in a chair.

“You’re not gonna let me drink on the job here, are?”, she muttered in a huff, refusing to make eye contact with her former lover.

"I uh...would let you away with a small drink, Miko." said Reneé weakly as she looked down at the desk. The initial shock of seeing Miko on the turbolift had worn away. Now there was just empty melancholy and a desire for conversation. It wasn't about the conflict of interests given that she was now Miko's commanding officer. It was something else. Something more personal and deeper. Deeper than she was willing to explore at this point.

Rather than let herself just look dumbstruck Reneé decided to take one of the PADDs and skim-read it to at least give the impression that there was no second reason for the lunch meeting. "I trust the facilities in the Science Labs weren't too much of a pain. Like I said they were a low priority and...well what would you like to eat? Anything new with you?" asked the marine with a wavering smile on her lips.

A pleasant reply actually welled up in Miko’s throats for a moment, or at least one that didn’t involve snapping at Reneé. The words stayed caught in the lieutenant’s throats, her arms crossing as she stared out quite literally into deep space. There was no reason to get into an actual, pleasant conversation; it could only come back around eventually to every single bitter feeling that was left over from an argument neither woman even remembered. Might as well keep things curt and bitter, save herself all the trouble that looking into those deep blue eyes would stir up in her gut.

“It’s an energy weapon,” she quietly said, completely ignoring Reneé’s questions. “Melissa’s taking it apart now, but we’re pretty sure it’s got some new method of collecting excess radiant energy generated when it fires and feeding it right back into the current discharge. Pretty clever actually - I’d say it boosts output by at least 28%.”

"So the Fergengi are assisting the Breen with upgrading their weapons?" asked Reneé with a rather worried expression. It was the sign of a war-force build up. Sure you upgraded your weapons but you did so at a steady pace. For the Breen to enlist the Ferengi to gain more powerful weapons was troubling. This wasn't natural build-up of systems. The Breen were obviously planning something.

She drummed her fingers against the table as she thought of some more questions that Miko wouldn't avoid. "Do you think you'll be able to see a difference between a ship equipped with this weapon system against a ship without it? Surely they can't have distributed that many units." mulled the marine as she looked at Miko.

"Also, how is your room?"

Both fists clenched tight at the last question. The hell business was it of hers? She wasn't coming in there anytime soon. Try as she might to focus on the more important matter of the Breen situation, Miko couldn't help but insert an almost venomous tone into her reply.

"It'd take all of two minutes to reconfigure the sensors," she growled back at the marine, "and we'll be able to pick up the new weapons instantly. And furthermore-"

She paused for effect just long enough to make a mistake.

Those bloody eyes. Those damn, stupid, beautiful, deep blue eyes of Reneé's, the ones she wanted to avoid. For a split second Miko looked straight into them, just enough time for the insults forming in her throat to choke up. In an instant her tight, furious expression loosened up, squinting mechanical eyes opening as she stared into those gorgeous blue irises.

No no no, this was wrong. She hated this woman. This beautiful, strong woman, just sitting there like the bitch that she was. A stunning bitch so full of fire and strength, with those amazing arms she'd loved to carry Miko around in. Damnit, she hated those arms, almost as much as she hated those long, ethereal legs, those damn things going up to her bloody useless curves that set Miko alight with a single touch.

"-my room's fine," she murmured quietly as her eyes finally darted away. The lieutenant did her best to hide how red her cheeks had just turned as she began to fidget slightly.

"Miko, I know you've not forgiven me." said Reneé as she itched the tip of her nose, looking out towards the viewport. "I just think that if we're going to be working together...living on the same ship we might as well be cordial. I had my reasons for leaving...I just regret never telling you them." Reneé's expression softened as her hand caressed Miko's tenderly.

She didn't hate the woman. She had no real reason to. Reneé wasn't someone to hold that much of a grudge towards people she cared about. "I mean it's not a bedroom but we can still talk like we used to right? Or do I have to seduce you into at least having a pleasant conversation? I'm sure I'd be able to manage. Besides...you still haven't told me what you want for lunch."

Miko had really thought that maybe, just maybe, she could get a grip on this, that maybe she could get back into the mindset that she needed. Every single thought along those lines fell to shambles when Reneé started caressing Miko's little hand with her strong one, gently massaging an extremity full of veins large from constant stress. That was it. Instantly her whole gut flopped over in her chest cavity, the icy shell around her heart melting into a warm puddle around her feet.

The words reached Miko's ears, but it took what seemed like hours to process. Forgiveness. She'd never forgiven Reneé, but what was there to forgive? She didn't need to stay. It wasn't her job in life to take care of some emotionally unstable bitch that couldn't keep her head straight. Even if that unstable bitch loved Reneé with every ounce of a heart she had left, she had no responsibility to stick around be Miko's little caretaker. Hell, Miko was the one who needed to apologize for putting Reneé through two years of hell with some lonely, miserable excuse for a human being.

Lunch was the farthest thing from Miko's mind as she drifted from memory to memory, eventually latching onto one random thing that seemed so insignificant now yet had been so important way back when.

"Night of the argument we had a date," she spoke up suddenly as her hand slowly twisted to light grasp Reneé's. "Holodeck 2. I was gonna surprise you with a painstakingly crafted recreation of that one restaurant from your hometown you always said you loved."

Miko's face tilted downwards so as to deny Reneé a view of the tears that had begun to streak down her cheeks. "And after dinner I was gonna take you out to the pier where you used to say nighttime was like being in heaven, get on one knee and ask you to marry me."

Silence hung in the air for several more seconds, until Miko snapped out of it enough to whiplash back into Reneé's actual topic. "Pizza would be nice."

"Pizza it is..." said Reneé faintly now that the mental wind had been knocked from her. She walked over to the replicator and created a pizza with thick, juicy pepperoni parts with a glass of cool water before setting it in front of Miko. Her own meal was a Caesar salad with some lemon-dashed water. For some reason the desire for heavier meals had disappeared over the last few days.

Was it the stress of the job? Being given a million tons of starship and the lives to match? Then again apart from the gym and the fire-fight with the Breen boarding part she hadn't had much chances to work up an appetite. She took a small portion of her salad into her mouth, chewed for a bit and then swallowed before she looked up at Miko.

"Do you know why I left?" she asked her, giving a soft look. "I left because before the Jersey...I had just been in one of the biggest wars in the Quadrant. After that I had to witness the aftermath. Go to planets and act more or less like a force of stability. Going from place to place and seeing destroyed lives. When we met on the Jersey I thought that you could have been something to show that...it wasn't always going to be like the Dominion War. I guess that last fight was just...the straw that broke the camel's back?"

All Miko could do was shrug slightly as she a rammed a slice of unusually tasteless pizza into her mouth. She hadn't really thought about why Reneé ever put up with her in a long time. Hadn't really made much difference in the long run; all that had ever seemed to matter was that she couldn't put up with the wild emotional instability any longer.

"Yeah," Miko said quietly while slowly shoving another slice back and forth on her plate. "I get that. Kinda." She'd been in the Academy all through the war, while Reneé was out there fighting and suffering; it was hard to imagine just from stories what things had been like out on the front lines.

"Kinda fitting though." Her voice was getting meeker by the second; it had been a good six years since anyone had seen the lieutenant subdued and vulnerable, and that anyone happened to have been Reneé. "I, uh.... I never told you, but... there was this woman I knew, back in London, and she was married, but I...."

The pizza slipped out of her hand as she slumped further in her seat, desperate to make sure the marine couldn't see her crying. "When I told her, she just..... right off the balcony. And when I saw you that first time.... you looked so much like her, you even had the accent... and I just had to.... I just needed to feel like maybe, maybe...."

God, it was so stupid. "Maybe you were really her, and maybe she could forgive me and love me back.... I don't even know. You were just.... so much like her...."

"I did love you." pointed out the blonde who sighed at the story, looking up at Miko with pity and pain. She had taken to mindlessly playing with her food by turning it over and over with the fork as if trying to discover inspiration among the salad. Instead she walked over to Miko and gently slid into her lap and stroked her face, only noticing the tears there and then.

"And part of me still does. But you need to feel things for me, Miko. I'm not this woman. I'm someone else..." she breathed as she held Miko's head to her chest and patted her hair. "Because I've forgiven you. I forgave you a while back. We were angry. Angry people do stupid things. I need you here."

||USS Indefatigable
||Observation Room
||TBD
||Day 1

Oh God, did she ever want to run in the opposite direction. It had been a battle for the ages not to drag Reneé to a floor and beat her face back in the labs, and now Miko was off to have lunch with her of all things? If this was how the rest of her time on the Indefatigable was going to be, she might as well just grab a phaser and melt her own brains out right, save the firing squad she’d be facing after murdering her CO some trouble.

Several padds with the results of the tech analysis were stuffed under Miko’s arm as she trudged off to the Observation Room, filled with technical garbage the lieutenant had only been able to skim over briefly before heading off to this idiotic meeting. Given this entire thing would likely be filled with reducing complex technical explanations to simpletonese, it was fitting that she might head into things blind as a bat.

Bloody Rivers. If she ended up killing Reneé then Melissa was next in line. The thought of just how many murder weapons littered the science labs flashed through Miko’s mind as she entered the location where this blasted meeting was to take place. Reneé was already there, the punctual bitch, sitting around waiting for Miko to show up. That trademark glow filled her eyes as she shuffled in behind the marine, plopping the padds down on the table before plopping her ass down in a chair.

“You’re not gonna let me drink on the job here, are?”, she muttered in a huff, refusing to make eye contact with her former lover.

"I uh...would let you away with a small drink, Miko." said Reneé weakly as she looked down at the desk. The initial shock of seeing Miko on the turbolift had worn away. Now there was just empty melancholy and a desire for conversation. It wasn't about the conflict of interests given that she was now Miko's commanding officer. It was something else. Something more personal and deeper. Deeper than she was willing to explore at this point.

Rather than let herself just look dumbstruck Reneé decided to take one of the PADDs and skim-read it to at least give the impression that there was no second reason for the lunch meeting. "I trust the facilities in the Science Labs weren't too much of a pain. Like I said they were a low priority and...well what would you like to eat? Anything new with you?" asked the marine with a wavering smile on her lips.

A pleasant reply actually welled up in Miko’s throats for a moment, or at least one that didn’t involve snapping at Reneé. The words stayed caught in the lieutenant’s throats, her arms crossing as she stared out quite literally into deep space. There was no reason to get into an actual, pleasant conversation; it could only come back around eventually to every single bitter feeling that was left over from an argument neither woman even remembered. Might as well keep things curt and bitter, save herself all the trouble that looking into those deep blue eyes would stir up in her gut.

“It’s an energy weapon,” she quietly said, completely ignoring Reneé’s questions. “Melissa’s taking it apart now, but we’re pretty sure it’s got some new method of collecting excess radiant energy generated when it fires and feeding it right back into the current discharge. Pretty clever actually - I’d say it boosts output by at least 28%.”

"So the Fergengi are assisting the Breen with upgrading their weapons?" asked Reneé with a rather worried expression. It was the sign of a war-force build up. Sure you upgraded your weapons but you did so at a steady pace. For the Breen to enlist the Ferengi to gain more powerful weapons was troubling. This wasn't natural build-up of systems. The Breen were obviously planning something.

She drummed her fingers against the table as she thought of some more questions that Miko wouldn't avoid. "Do you think you'll be able to see a difference between a ship equipped with this weapon system against a ship without it? Surely they can't have distributed that many units." mulled the marine as she looked at Miko.

"Also, how is your room?"

Both fists clenched tight at the last question. The hell business was it of hers? She wasn't coming in there anytime soon. Try as she might to focus on the more important matter of the Breen situation, Miko couldn't help but insert an almost venomous tone into her reply.

"It'd take all of two minutes to reconfigure the sensors," she growled back at the marine, "and we'll be able to pick up the new weapons instantly. And furthermore-"

She paused for effect just long enough to make a mistake.

Those bloody eyes. Those damn, stupid, beautiful, deep blue eyes of Reneé's, the ones she wanted to avoid. For a split second Miko looked straight into them, just enough time for the insults forming in her throat to choke up. In an instant her tight, furious expression loosened up, squinting mechanical eyes opening as she stared into those gorgeous blue irises.

No no no, this was wrong. She hated this woman. This beautiful, strong woman, just sitting there like the bitch that she was. A stunning bitch so full of fire and strength, with those amazing arms she'd loved to carry Miko around in. Damnit, she hated those arms, almost as much as she hated those long, ethereal legs, those damn things going up to her bloody useless curves that set Miko alight with a single touch.

"-my room's fine," she murmured quietly as her eyes finally darted away. The lieutenant did her best to hide how red her cheeks had just turned as she began to fidget slightly.

"Miko, I know you've not forgiven me." said Reneé as she itched the tip of her nose, looking out towards the viewport. "I just think that if we're going to be working together...living on the same ship we might as well be cordial. I had my reasons for leaving...I just regret never telling you them." Reneé's expression softened as her hand caressed Miko's tenderly.

She didn't hate the woman. She had no real reason to. Reneé wasn't someone to hold that much of a grudge towards people she cared about. "I mean it's not a bedroom but we can still talk like we used to right? Or do I have to seduce you into at least having a pleasant conversation? I'm sure I'd be able to manage. Besides...you still haven't told me what you want for lunch."

Miko had really thought that maybe, just maybe, she could get a grip on this, that maybe she could get back into the mindset that she needed. Every single thought along those lines fell to shambles when Reneé started caressing Miko's little hand with her strong one, gently massaging an extremity full of veins large from constant stress. That was it. Instantly her whole gut flopped over in her chest cavity, the icy shell around her heart melting into a warm puddle around her feet.

The words reached Miko's ears, but it took what seemed like hours to process. Forgiveness. She'd never forgiven Reneé, but what was there to forgive? She didn't need to stay. It wasn't her job in life to take care of some emotionally unstable bitch that couldn't keep her head straight. Even if that unstable bitch loved Reneé with every ounce of a heart she had left, she had no responsibility to stick around be Miko's little caretaker. Hell, Miko was the one who needed to apologize for putting Reneé through two years of hell with some lonely, miserable excuse for a human being.

Lunch was the farthest thing from Miko's mind as she drifted from memory to memory, eventually latching onto one random thing that seemed so insignificant now yet had been so important way back when.

"Night of the argument we had a date," she spoke up suddenly as her hand slowly twisted to light grasp Reneé's. "Holodeck 2. I was gonna surprise you with a painstakingly crafted recreation of that one restaurant from your hometown you always said you loved."

Miko's face tilted downwards so as to deny Reneé a view of the tears that had begun to streak down her cheeks. "And after dinner I was gonna take you out to the pier where you used to say nighttime was like being in heaven, get on one knee and ask you to marry me."

Silence hung in the air for several more seconds, until Miko snapped out of it enough to whiplash back into Reneé's actual topic. "Pizza would be nice."

"Pizza it is..." said Reneé faintly now that the mental wind had been knocked from her. She walked over to the replicator and created a pizza with thick, juicy pepperoni parts with a glass of cool water before setting it in front of Miko. Her own meal was a Caesar salad with some lemon-dashed water. For some reason the desire for heavier meals had disappeared over the last few days.

Was it the stress of the job? Being given a million tons of starship and the lives to match? Then again apart from the gym and the fire-fight with the Breen boarding part she hadn't had much chances to work up an appetite. She took a small portion of her salad into her mouth, chewed for a bit and then swallowed before she looked up at Miko.

"Do you know why I left?" she asked her, giving a soft look. "I left because before the Jersey...I had just been in one of the biggest wars in the Quadrant. After that I had to witness the aftermath. Go to planets and act more or less like a force of stability. Going from place to place and seeing destroyed lives. When we met on the Jersey I thought that you could have been something to show that...it wasn't always going to be like the Dominion War. I guess that last fight was just...the straw that broke the camel's back?"

All Miko could do was shrug slightly as she a rammed a slice of unusually tasteless pizza into her mouth. She hadn't really thought about why Reneé ever put up with her in a long time. Hadn't really made much difference in the long run; all that had ever seemed to matter was that she couldn't put up with the wild emotional instability any longer.

"Yeah," Miko said quietly while slowly shoving another slice back and forth on her plate. "I get that. Kinda." She'd been in the Academy all through the war, while Reneé was out there fighting and suffering; it was hard to imagine just from stories what things had been like out on the front lines.

"Kinda fitting though." Her voice was getting meeker by the second; it had been a good six years since anyone had seen the lieutenant subdued and vulnerable, and that anyone happened to have been Reneé. "I, uh.... I never told you, but... there was this woman I knew, back in London, and she was married, but I...."

The pizza slipped out of her hand as she slumped further in her seat, desperate to make sure the marine couldn't see her crying. "When I told her, she just..... right off the balcony. And when I saw you that first time.... you looked so much like her, you even had the accent... and I just had to.... I just needed to feel like maybe, maybe...."

God, it was so stupid. "Maybe you were really her, and maybe she could forgive me and love me back.... I don't even know. You were just.... so much like her...."

"I did love you." pointed out the blonde who sighed at the story, looking up at Miko with pity and pain. She had taken to mindlessly playing with her food by turning it over and over with the fork as if trying to discover inspiration among the salad. Instead she walked over to Miko and gently slid into her lap and stroked her face, only noticing the tears there and then.

"And part of me still does. But you need to feel things for me, Miko. I'm not this woman. I'm someone else..." she breathed as she held Miko's head to her chest and patted her hair. "Because I've forgiven you. I forgave you a while back. We were angry. Angry people do stupid things. I need you here."

Miko simply sat there utterly limp as Reneé settled into her lap, staring ahead blankly even while her face was being nudged into the marine's chest. Couldn't even remember how many times she'd been silently crying right next to Reneé in bed without the other woman even knowing; this was just yet another incidence of her fragile mental state shattering to pieces. There were a lot of moments like that.

For a while she just sat there, pondering what Reneé had said about having feelings for her, not just for what she'd lost in Erin. Any words the Asiatic scientist might've been able to vocalize got stuck as uncertainty gripped her teetering mind. Feelings weren't something she'd considered much, even when she decided to propose; Reneé was nice to be around, fun in bed and a lot like Erin. That'd been all she ever thought of it; to ponder something deeper, something more meaningful, something that might have been mutual the whole time without her knowing it...

Without even realizing it, Miko slowly slipped her hands around Reneé's neck, gently pulling herself up eye level with the marine. Only one way she knew to deal with these terribly uncertain things, really - scientific testing of theories. Her current theory was that exactly what might be stirring in her gut could best be determined by seeing just how much the long-forgotten taste of Reneé's lips set her mind on fire.

With a soaking wet face she leaned in to test that theory.

||USS Indefatigable
||Observation Room
||TBD
||Day 1

Oh God, did she ever want to run in the opposite direction. It had been a battle for the ages not to drag Reneé to a floor and beat her face back in the labs, and now Miko was off to have lunch with her of all things? If this was how the rest of her time on the Indefatigable was going to be, she might as well just grab a phaser and melt her own brains out right, save the firing squad she’d be facing after murdering her CO some trouble.

Several padds with the results of the tech analysis were stuffed under Miko’s arm as she trudged off to the Observation Room, filled with technical garbage the lieutenant had only been able to skim over briefly before heading off to this idiotic meeting. Given this entire thing would likely be filled with reducing complex technical explanations to simpletonese, it was fitting that she might head into things blind as a bat.

Bloody Rivers. If she ended up killing Reneé then Melissa was next in line. The thought of just how many murder weapons littered the science labs flashed through Miko’s mind as she entered the location where this blasted meeting was to take place. Reneé was already there, the punctual bitch, sitting around waiting for Miko to show up. That trademark glow filled her eyes as she shuffled in behind the marine, plopping the padds down on the table before plopping her ass down in a chair.

“You’re not gonna let me drink on the job here, are?”, she muttered in a huff, refusing to make eye contact with her former lover.

"I uh...would let you away with a small drink, Miko." said Reneé weakly as she looked down at the desk. The initial shock of seeing Miko on the turbolift had worn away. Now there was just empty melancholy and a desire for conversation. It wasn't about the conflict of interests given that she was now Miko's commanding officer. It was something else. Something more personal and deeper. Deeper than she was willing to explore at this point.

Rather than let herself just look dumbstruck Reneé decided to take one of the PADDs and skim-read it to at least give the impression that there was no second reason for the lunch meeting. "I trust the facilities in the Science Labs weren't too much of a pain. Like I said they were a low priority and...well what would you like to eat? Anything new with you?" asked the marine with a wavering smile on her lips.

A pleasant reply actually welled up in Miko’s throats for a moment, or at least one that didn’t involve snapping at Reneé. The words stayed caught in the lieutenant’s throats, her arms crossing as she stared out quite literally into deep space. There was no reason to get into an actual, pleasant conversation; it could only come back around eventually to every single bitter feeling that was left over from an argument neither woman even remembered. Might as well keep things curt and bitter, save herself all the trouble that looking into those deep blue eyes would stir up in her gut.

“It’s an energy weapon,” she quietly said, completely ignoring Reneé’s questions. “Melissa’s taking it apart now, but we’re pretty sure it’s got some new method of collecting excess radiant energy generated when it fires and feeding it right back into the current discharge. Pretty clever actually - I’d say it boosts output by at least 28%.”

"So the Fergengi are assisting the Breen with upgrading their weapons?" asked Reneé with a rather worried expression. It was the sign of a war-force build up. Sure you upgraded your weapons but you did so at a steady pace. For the Breen to enlist the Ferengi to gain more powerful weapons was troubling. This wasn't natural build-up of systems. The Breen were obviously planning something.

She drummed her fingers against the table as she thought of some more questions that Miko wouldn't avoid. "Do you think you'll be able to see a difference between a ship equipped with this weapon system against a ship without it? Surely they can't have distributed that many units." mulled the marine as she looked at Miko.

"Also, how is your room?"

Both fists clenched tight at the last question. The hell business was it of hers? She wasn't coming in there anytime soon. Try as she might to focus on the more important matter of the Breen situation, Miko couldn't help but insert an almost venomous tone into her reply.

"It'd take all of two minutes to reconfigure the sensors," she growled back at the marine, "and we'll be able to pick up the new weapons instantly. And furthermore-"

She paused for effect just long enough to make a mistake.

Those bloody eyes. Those damn, stupid, beautiful, deep blue eyes of Reneé's, the ones she wanted to avoid. For a split second Miko looked straight into them, just enough time for the insults forming in her throat to choke up. In an instant her tight, furious expression loosened up, squinting mechanical eyes opening as she stared into those gorgeous blue irises.

No no no, this was wrong. She hated this woman. This beautiful, strong woman, just sitting there like the bitch that she was. A stunning bitch so full of fire and strength, with those amazing arms she'd loved to carry Miko around in. Damnit, she hated those arms, almost as much as she hated those long, ethereal legs, those damn things going up to her bloody useless curves that set Miko alight with a single touch.

"-my room's fine," she murmured quietly as her eyes finally darted away. The lieutenant did her best to hide how red her cheeks had just turned as she began to fidget slightly.

"Miko, I know you've not forgiven me." said Reneé as she itched the tip of her nose, looking out towards the viewport. "I just think that if we're going to be working together...living on the same ship we might as well be cordial. I had my reasons for leaving...I just regret never telling you them." Reneé's expression softened as her hand caressed Miko's tenderly.

She didn't hate the woman. She had no real reason to. Reneé wasn't someone to hold that much of a grudge towards people she cared about. "I mean it's not a bedroom but we can still talk like we used to right? Or do I have to seduce you into at least having a pleasant conversation? I'm sure I'd be able to manage. Besides...you still haven't told me what you want for lunch."

Miko had really thought that maybe, just maybe, she could get a grip on this, that maybe she could get back into the mindset that she needed. Every single thought along those lines fell to shambles when Reneé started caressing Miko's little hand with her strong one, gently massaging an extremity full of veins large from constant stress. That was it. Instantly her whole gut flopped over in her chest cavity, the icy shell around her heart melting into a warm puddle around her feet.

The words reached Miko's ears, but it took what seemed like hours to process. Forgiveness. She'd never forgiven Reneé, but what was there to forgive? She didn't need to stay. It wasn't her job in life to take care of some emotionally unstable bitch that couldn't keep her head straight. Even if that unstable bitch loved Reneé with every ounce of a heart she had left, she had no responsibility to stick around be Miko's little caretaker. Hell, Miko was the one who needed to apologize for putting Reneé through two years of hell with some lonely, miserable excuse for a human being.

Lunch was the farthest thing from Miko's mind as she drifted from memory to memory, eventually latching onto one random thing that seemed so insignificant now yet had been so important way back when.

"Night of the argument we had a date," she spoke up suddenly as her hand slowly twisted to light grasp Reneé's. "Holodeck 2. I was gonna surprise you with a painstakingly crafted recreation of that one restaurant from your hometown you always said you loved."

Miko's face tilted downwards so as to deny Reneé a view of the tears that had begun to streak down her cheeks. "And after dinner I was gonna take you out to the pier where you used to say nighttime was like being in heaven, get on one knee and ask you to marry me."

Silence hung in the air for several more seconds, until Miko snapped out of it enough to whiplash back into Reneé's actual topic. "Pizza would be nice."

"Pizza it is..." said Reneé faintly now that the mental wind had been knocked from her. She walked over to the replicator and created a pizza with thick, juicy pepperoni parts with a glass of cool water before setting it in front of Miko. Her own meal was a Caesar salad with some lemon-dashed water. For some reason the desire for heavier meals had disappeared over the last few days.

Was it the stress of the job? Being given a million tons of starship and the lives to match? Then again apart from the gym and the fire-fight with the Breen boarding part she hadn't had much chances to work up an appetite. She took a small portion of her salad into her mouth, chewed for a bit and then swallowed before she looked up at Miko.

"Do you know why I left?" she asked her, giving a soft look. "I left because before the Jersey...I had just been in one of the biggest wars in the Quadrant. After that I had to witness the aftermath. Go to planets and act more or less like a force of stability. Going from place to place and seeing destroyed lives. When we met on the Jersey I thought that you could have been something to show that...it wasn't always going to be like the Dominion War. I guess that last fight was just...the straw that broke the camel's back?"

All Miko could do was shrug slightly as she a rammed a slice of unusually tasteless pizza into her mouth. She hadn't really thought about why Reneé ever put up with her in a long time. Hadn't really made much difference in the long run; all that had ever seemed to matter was that she couldn't put up with the wild emotional instability any longer.

"Yeah," Miko said quietly while slowly shoving another slice back and forth on her plate. "I get that. Kinda." She'd been in the Academy all through the war, while Reneé was out there fighting and suffering; it was hard to imagine just from stories what things had been like out on the front lines.

"Kinda fitting though." Her voice was getting meeker by the second; it had been a good six years since anyone had seen the lieutenant subdued and vulnerable, and that anyone happened to have been Reneé. "I, uh.... I never told you, but... there was this woman I knew, back in London, and she was married, but I...."

The pizza slipped out of her hand as she slumped further in her seat, desperate to make sure the marine couldn't see her crying. "When I told her, she just..... right off the balcony. And when I saw you that first time.... you looked so much like her, you even had the accent... and I just had to.... I just needed to feel like maybe, maybe...."

God, it was so stupid. "Maybe you were really her, and maybe she could forgive me and love me back.... I don't even know. You were just.... so much like her...."

"I did love you." pointed out the blonde who sighed at the story, looking up at Miko with pity and pain. She had taken to mindlessly playing with her food by turning it over and over with the fork as if trying to discover inspiration among the salad. Instead she walked over to Miko and gently slid into her lap and stroked her face, only noticing the tears there and then.

"And part of me still does. But you need to feel things for me, Miko. I'm not this woman. I'm someone else..." she breathed as she held Miko's head to her chest and patted her hair. "Because I've forgiven you. I forgave you a while back. We were angry. Angry people do stupid things. I need you here."

Miko simply sat there utterly limp as Reneé settled into her lap, staring ahead blankly even while her face was being nudged into the marine's chest. Couldn't even remember how many times she'd been silently crying right next to Reneé in bed without the other woman even knowing; this was just yet another incidence of her fragile mental state shattering to pieces. There were a lot of moments like that.

For a while she just sat there, pondering what Reneé had said about having feelings for her, not just for what she'd lost in Erin. Any words the Asiatic scientist might've been able to vocalize got stuck as uncertainty gripped her teetering mind. Feelings weren't something she'd considered much, even when she decided to propose; Reneé was nice to be around, fun in bed and a lot like Erin. That'd been all she ever thought of it; to ponder something deeper, something more meaningful, something that might have been mutual the whole time without her knowing it...

Without even realizing it, Miko slowly slipped her hands around Reneé's neck, gently pulling herself up eye level with the marine. Only one way she knew to deal with these terribly uncertain things, really - scientific testing of theories. Her current theory was that exactly what might be stirring in her gut could best be determined by seeing just how much the long-forgotten taste of Reneé's lips set her mind on fire.

With a soaking wet face she leaned in to test that theory.

A sigh left Reneé's lips as mouths connected. Her hand moved up to cup Miko's face once more as she kissed the woman ignoring the fact that the pizza she had replicated for the scientist was getting cold. However right now she was content to comfort Miko in any way she could at this point and simply sat in her lap as she broke probably a dozen rules doing so.

Reneé broke the kiss before pecking Miko's nose playfully. "You are amazing. You always have been. It was fun but...if we are going to do this again I need to know that it's because of me and not from a memory. This time I've got nowhere to run or hide. Please? Just...think about it than do what you did to the young marine captain and shove her against a bulkhead."

||USS Indefatigable
||Observation Room
||TBD
||Day 1

Oh God, did she ever want to run in the opposite direction. It had been a battle for the ages not to drag Reneé to a floor and beat her face back in the labs, and now Miko was off to have lunch with her of all things? If this was how the rest of her time on the Indefatigable was going to be, she might as well just grab a phaser and melt her own brains out right, save the firing squad she’d be facing after murdering her CO some trouble.

Several padds with the results of the tech analysis were stuffed under Miko’s arm as she trudged off to the Observation Room, filled with technical garbage the lieutenant had only been able to skim over briefly before heading off to this idiotic meeting. Given this entire thing would likely be filled with reducing complex technical explanations to simpletonese, it was fitting that she might head into things blind as a bat.

Bloody Rivers. If she ended up killing Reneé then Melissa was next in line. The thought of just how many murder weapons littered the science labs flashed through Miko’s mind as she entered the location where this blasted meeting was to take place. Reneé was already there, the punctual bitch, sitting around waiting for Miko to show up. That trademark glow filled her eyes as she shuffled in behind the marine, plopping the padds down on the table before plopping her ass down in a chair.

“You’re not gonna let me drink on the job here, are?”, she muttered in a huff, refusing to make eye contact with her former lover.

"I uh...would let you away with a small drink, Miko." said Reneé weakly as she looked down at the desk. The initial shock of seeing Miko on the turbolift had worn away. Now there was just empty melancholy and a desire for conversation. It wasn't about the conflict of interests given that she was now Miko's commanding officer. It was something else. Something more personal and deeper. Deeper than she was willing to explore at this point.

Rather than let herself just look dumbstruck Reneé decided to take one of the PADDs and skim-read it to at least give the impression that there was no second reason for the lunch meeting. "I trust the facilities in the Science Labs weren't too much of a pain. Like I said they were a low priority and...well what would you like to eat? Anything new with you?" asked the marine with a wavering smile on her lips.

A pleasant reply actually welled up in Miko’s throats for a moment, or at least one that didn’t involve snapping at Reneé. The words stayed caught in the lieutenant’s throats, her arms crossing as she stared out quite literally into deep space. There was no reason to get into an actual, pleasant conversation; it could only come back around eventually to every single bitter feeling that was left over from an argument neither woman even remembered. Might as well keep things curt and bitter, save herself all the trouble that looking into those deep blue eyes would stir up in her gut.

“It’s an energy weapon,” she quietly said, completely ignoring Reneé’s questions. “Melissa’s taking it apart now, but we’re pretty sure it’s got some new method of collecting excess radiant energy generated when it fires and feeding it right back into the current discharge. Pretty clever actually - I’d say it boosts output by at least 28%.”

"So the Fergengi are assisting the Breen with upgrading their weapons?" asked Reneé with a rather worried expression. It was the sign of a war-force build up. Sure you upgraded your weapons but you did so at a steady pace. For the Breen to enlist the Ferengi to gain more powerful weapons was troubling. This wasn't natural build-up of systems. The Breen were obviously planning something.

She drummed her fingers against the table as she thought of some more questions that Miko wouldn't avoid. "Do you think you'll be able to see a difference between a ship equipped with this weapon system against a ship without it? Surely they can't have distributed that many units." mulled the marine as she looked at Miko.

"Also, how is your room?"

Both fists clenched tight at the last question. The hell business was it of hers? She wasn't coming in there anytime soon. Try as she might to focus on the more important matter of the Breen situation, Miko couldn't help but insert an almost venomous tone into her reply.

"It'd take all of two minutes to reconfigure the sensors," she growled back at the marine, "and we'll be able to pick up the new weapons instantly. And furthermore-"

She paused for effect just long enough to make a mistake.

Those bloody eyes. Those damn, stupid, beautiful, deep blue eyes of Reneé's, the ones she wanted to avoid. For a split second Miko looked straight into them, just enough time for the insults forming in her throat to choke up. In an instant her tight, furious expression loosened up, squinting mechanical eyes opening as she stared into those gorgeous blue irises.

No no no, this was wrong. She hated this woman. This beautiful, strong woman, just sitting there like the bitch that she was. A stunning bitch so full of fire and strength, with those amazing arms she'd loved to carry Miko around in. Damnit, she hated those arms, almost as much as she hated those long, ethereal legs, those damn things going up to her bloody useless curves that set Miko alight with a single touch.

"-my room's fine," she murmured quietly as her eyes finally darted away. The lieutenant did her best to hide how red her cheeks had just turned as she began to fidget slightly.

"Miko, I know you've not forgiven me." said Reneé as she itched the tip of her nose, looking out towards the viewport. "I just think that if we're going to be working together...living on the same ship we might as well be cordial. I had my reasons for leaving...I just regret never telling you them." Reneé's expression softened as her hand caressed Miko's tenderly.

She didn't hate the woman. She had no real reason to. Reneé wasn't someone to hold that much of a grudge towards people she cared about. "I mean it's not a bedroom but we can still talk like we used to right? Or do I have to seduce you into at least having a pleasant conversation? I'm sure I'd be able to manage. Besides...you still haven't told me what you want for lunch."

Miko had really thought that maybe, just maybe, she could get a grip on this, that maybe she could get back into the mindset that she needed. Every single thought along those lines fell to shambles when Reneé started caressing Miko's little hand with her strong one, gently massaging an extremity full of veins large from constant stress. That was it. Instantly her whole gut flopped over in her chest cavity, the icy shell around her heart melting into a warm puddle around her feet.

The words reached Miko's ears, but it took what seemed like hours to process. Forgiveness. She'd never forgiven Reneé, but what was there to forgive? She didn't need to stay. It wasn't her job in life to take care of some emotionally unstable bitch that couldn't keep her head straight. Even if that unstable bitch loved Reneé with every ounce of a heart she had left, she had no responsibility to stick around be Miko's little caretaker. Hell, Miko was the one who needed to apologize for putting Reneé through two years of hell with some lonely, miserable excuse for a human being.

Lunch was the farthest thing from Miko's mind as she drifted from memory to memory, eventually latching onto one random thing that seemed so insignificant now yet had been so important way back when.

"Night of the argument we had a date," she spoke up suddenly as her hand slowly twisted to light grasp Reneé's. "Holodeck 2. I was gonna surprise you with a painstakingly crafted recreation of that one restaurant from your hometown you always said you loved."

Miko's face tilted downwards so as to deny Reneé a view of the tears that had begun to streak down her cheeks. "And after dinner I was gonna take you out to the pier where you used to say nighttime was like being in heaven, get on one knee and ask you to marry me."

Silence hung in the air for several more seconds, until Miko snapped out of it enough to whiplash back into Reneé's actual topic. "Pizza would be nice."

"Pizza it is..." said Reneé faintly now that the mental wind had been knocked from her. She walked over to the replicator and created a pizza with thick, juicy pepperoni parts with a glass of cool water before setting it in front of Miko. Her own meal was a Caesar salad with some lemon-dashed water. For some reason the desire for heavier meals had disappeared over the last few days.

Was it the stress of the job? Being given a million tons of starship and the lives to match? Then again apart from the gym and the fire-fight with the Breen boarding part she hadn't had much chances to work up an appetite. She took a small portion of her salad into her mouth, chewed for a bit and then swallowed before she looked up at Miko.

"Do you know why I left?" she asked her, giving a soft look. "I left because before the Jersey...I had just been in one of the biggest wars in the Quadrant. After that I had to witness the aftermath. Go to planets and act more or less like a force of stability. Going from place to place and seeing destroyed lives. When we met on the Jersey I thought that you could have been something to show that...it wasn't always going to be like the Dominion War. I guess that last fight was just...the straw that broke the camel's back?"

All Miko could do was shrug slightly as she a rammed a slice of unusually tasteless pizza into her mouth. She hadn't really thought about why Reneé ever put up with her in a long time. Hadn't really made much difference in the long run; all that had ever seemed to matter was that she couldn't put up with the wild emotional instability any longer.

"Yeah," Miko said quietly while slowly shoving another slice back and forth on her plate. "I get that. Kinda." She'd been in the Academy all through the war, while Reneé was out there fighting and suffering; it was hard to imagine just from stories what things had been like out on the front lines.

"Kinda fitting though." Her voice was getting meeker by the second; it had been a good six years since anyone had seen the lieutenant subdued and vulnerable, and that anyone happened to have been Reneé. "I, uh.... I never told you, but... there was this woman I knew, back in London, and she was married, but I...."

The pizza slipped out of her hand as she slumped further in her seat, desperate to make sure the marine couldn't see her crying. "When I told her, she just..... right off the balcony. And when I saw you that first time.... you looked so much like her, you even had the accent... and I just had to.... I just needed to feel like maybe, maybe...."

God, it was so stupid. "Maybe you were really her, and maybe she could forgive me and love me back.... I don't even know. You were just.... so much like her...."

"I did love you." pointed out the blonde who sighed at the story, looking up at Miko with pity and pain. She had taken to mindlessly playing with her food by turning it over and over with the fork as if trying to discover inspiration among the salad. Instead she walked over to Miko and gently slid into her lap and stroked her face, only noticing the tears there and then.

"And part of me still does. But you need to feel things for me, Miko. I'm not this woman. I'm someone else..." she breathed as she held Miko's head to her chest and patted her hair. "Because I've forgiven you. I forgave you a while back. We were angry. Angry people do stupid things. I need you here."

Miko simply sat there utterly limp as Reneé settled into her lap, staring ahead blankly even while her face was being nudged into the marine's chest. Couldn't even remember how many times she'd been silently crying right next to Reneé in bed without the other woman even knowing; this was just yet another incidence of her fragile mental state shattering to pieces. There were a lot of moments like that.

For a while she just sat there, pondering what Reneé had said about having feelings for her, not just for what she'd lost in Erin. Any words the Asiatic scientist might've been able to vocalize got stuck as uncertainty gripped her teetering mind. Feelings weren't something she'd considered much, even when she decided to propose; Reneé was nice to be around, fun in bed and a lot like Erin. That'd been all she ever thought of it; to ponder something deeper, something more meaningful, something that might have been mutual the whole time without her knowing it...

Without even realizing it, Miko slowly slipped her hands around Reneé's neck, gently pulling herself up eye level with the marine. Only one way she knew to deal with these terribly uncertain things, really - scientific testing of theories. Her current theory was that exactly what might be stirring in her gut could best be determined by seeing just how much the long-forgotten taste of Reneé's lips set her mind on fire.

With a soaking wet face she leaned in to test that theory.

A sigh left Reneé's lips as mouths connected. Her hand moved up to cup Miko's face once more as she kissed the woman ignoring the fact that the pizza she had replicated for the scientist was getting cold. However right now she was content to comfort Miko in any way she could at this point and simply sat in her lap as she broke probably a dozen rules doing so.

Reneé broke the kiss before pecking Miko's nose playfully. "You are amazing. You always have been. It was fun but...if we are going to do this again I need to know that it's because of me and not from a memory. This time I've got nowhere to run or hide. Please? Just...think about it than do what you did to the young marine captain and shove her against a bulkhead."

Saying Miko's mind was frazzled from the kiss was making a cosmic understatement. Every second that Reneé whispered to her as she nuzzled against marine's face was a second where Miko's vision filled with more fireworks and dazzling lights than a Federation Day celebration. The closest thing she could manage to a smile crossed the lieutenant's lips as they drifted on and off of the other woman's cheek.

"Amazingly screwed up," she muttered only half joking as her arms slid down to wrap around Reneé's abdomen. In another time of place her hands might've slid under the marine's shirt and started caressing the tight, finely sculpted abs underneath; right now all she cared to do was pull the other woman in as tightly as she possibly could.

Miko's oh-so-slightly wrinkled forehead gently rubbed against Reneé's as she leaned over to whisper in the marine's ear. "Not sure if I ever was horribly attracted to that marine captain herself." She smiled and softly kissed Reneé's ear, one hand rising hold the marine just underneath her shoulder.

"But I might be crazy for this one blonde colonel I just met."

||USS Indefatigable
||Observation Room
||TBD
||Day 1

Oh God, did she ever want to run in the opposite direction. It had been a battle for the ages not to drag Reneé to a floor and beat her face back in the labs, and now Miko was off to have lunch with her of all things? If this was how the rest of her time on the Indefatigable was going to be, she might as well just grab a phaser and melt her own brains out right, save the firing squad she’d be facing after murdering her CO some trouble.

Several padds with the results of the tech analysis were stuffed under Miko’s arm as she trudged off to the Observation Room, filled with technical garbage the lieutenant had only been able to skim over briefly before heading off to this idiotic meeting. Given this entire thing would likely be filled with reducing complex technical explanations to simpletonese, it was fitting that she might head into things blind as a bat.

Bloody Rivers. If she ended up killing Reneé then Melissa was next in line. The thought of just how many murder weapons littered the science labs flashed through Miko’s mind as she entered the location where this blasted meeting was to take place. Reneé was already there, the punctual bitch, sitting around waiting for Miko to show up. That trademark glow filled her eyes as she shuffled in behind the marine, plopping the padds down on the table before plopping her ass down in a chair.

“You’re not gonna let me drink on the job here, are?”, she muttered in a huff, refusing to make eye contact with her former lover.

"I uh...would let you away with a small drink, Miko." said Reneé weakly as she looked down at the desk. The initial shock of seeing Miko on the turbolift had worn away. Now there was just empty melancholy and a desire for conversation. It wasn't about the conflict of interests given that she was now Miko's commanding officer. It was something else. Something more personal and deeper. Deeper than she was willing to explore at this point.

Rather than let herself just look dumbstruck Reneé decided to take one of the PADDs and skim-read it to at least give the impression that there was no second reason for the lunch meeting. "I trust the facilities in the Science Labs weren't too much of a pain. Like I said they were a low priority and...well what would you like to eat? Anything new with you?" asked the marine with a wavering smile on her lips.

A pleasant reply actually welled up in Miko’s throats for a moment, or at least one that didn’t involve snapping at Reneé. The words stayed caught in the lieutenant’s throats, her arms crossing as she stared out quite literally into deep space. There was no reason to get into an actual, pleasant conversation; it could only come back around eventually to every single bitter feeling that was left over from an argument neither woman even remembered. Might as well keep things curt and bitter, save herself all the trouble that looking into those deep blue eyes would stir up in her gut.

“It’s an energy weapon,” she quietly said, completely ignoring Reneé’s questions. “Melissa’s taking it apart now, but we’re pretty sure it’s got some new method of collecting excess radiant energy generated when it fires and feeding it right back into the current discharge. Pretty clever actually - I’d say it boosts output by at least 28%.”

"So the Fergengi are assisting the Breen with upgrading their weapons?" asked Reneé with a rather worried expression. It was the sign of a war-force build up. Sure you upgraded your weapons but you did so at a steady pace. For the Breen to enlist the Ferengi to gain more powerful weapons was troubling. This wasn't natural build-up of systems. The Breen were obviously planning something.

She drummed her fingers against the table as she thought of some more questions that Miko wouldn't avoid. "Do you think you'll be able to see a difference between a ship equipped with this weapon system against a ship without it? Surely they can't have distributed that many units." mulled the marine as she looked at Miko.

"Also, how is your room?"

Both fists clenched tight at the last question. The hell business was it of hers? She wasn't coming in there anytime soon. Try as she might to focus on the more important matter of the Breen situation, Miko couldn't help but insert an almost venomous tone into her reply.

"It'd take all of two minutes to reconfigure the sensors," she growled back at the marine, "and we'll be able to pick up the new weapons instantly. And furthermore-"

She paused for effect just long enough to make a mistake.

Those bloody eyes. Those damn, stupid, beautiful, deep blue eyes of Reneé's, the ones she wanted to avoid. For a split second Miko looked straight into them, just enough time for the insults forming in her throat to choke up. In an instant her tight, furious expression loosened up, squinting mechanical eyes opening as she stared into those gorgeous blue irises.

No no no, this was wrong. She hated this woman. This beautiful, strong woman, just sitting there like the bitch that she was. A stunning bitch so full of fire and strength, with those amazing arms she'd loved to carry Miko around in. Damnit, she hated those arms, almost as much as she hated those long, ethereal legs, those damn things going up to her bloody useless curves that set Miko alight with a single touch.

"-my room's fine," she murmured quietly as her eyes finally darted away. The lieutenant did her best to hide how red her cheeks had just turned as she began to fidget slightly.

"Miko, I know you've not forgiven me." said Reneé as she itched the tip of her nose, looking out towards the viewport. "I just think that if we're going to be working together...living on the same ship we might as well be cordial. I had my reasons for leaving...I just regret never telling you them." Reneé's expression softened as her hand caressed Miko's tenderly.

She didn't hate the woman. She had no real reason to. Reneé wasn't someone to hold that much of a grudge towards people she cared about. "I mean it's not a bedroom but we can still talk like we used to right? Or do I have to seduce you into at least having a pleasant conversation? I'm sure I'd be able to manage. Besides...you still haven't told me what you want for lunch."

Miko had really thought that maybe, just maybe, she could get a grip on this, that maybe she could get back into the mindset that she needed. Every single thought along those lines fell to shambles when Reneé started caressing Miko's little hand with her strong one, gently massaging an extremity full of veins large from constant stress. That was it. Instantly her whole gut flopped over in her chest cavity, the icy shell around her heart melting into a warm puddle around her feet.

The words reached Miko's ears, but it took what seemed like hours to process. Forgiveness. She'd never forgiven Reneé, but what was there to forgive? She didn't need to stay. It wasn't her job in life to take care of some emotionally unstable bitch that couldn't keep her head straight. Even if that unstable bitch loved Reneé with every ounce of a heart she had left, she had no responsibility to stick around be Miko's little caretaker. Hell, Miko was the one who needed to apologize for putting Reneé through two years of hell with some lonely, miserable excuse for a human being.

Lunch was the farthest thing from Miko's mind as she drifted from memory to memory, eventually latching onto one random thing that seemed so insignificant now yet had been so important way back when.

"Night of the argument we had a date," she spoke up suddenly as her hand slowly twisted to light grasp Reneé's. "Holodeck 2. I was gonna surprise you with a painstakingly crafted recreation of that one restaurant from your hometown you always said you loved."

Miko's face tilted downwards so as to deny Reneé a view of the tears that had begun to streak down her cheeks. "And after dinner I was gonna take you out to the pier where you used to say nighttime was like being in heaven, get on one knee and ask you to marry me."

Silence hung in the air for several more seconds, until Miko snapped out of it enough to whiplash back into Reneé's actual topic. "Pizza would be nice."

"Pizza it is..." said Reneé faintly now that the mental wind had been knocked from her. She walked over to the replicator and created a pizza with thick, juicy pepperoni parts with a glass of cool water before setting it in front of Miko. Her own meal was a Caesar salad with some lemon-dashed water. For some reason the desire for heavier meals had disappeared over the last few days.

Was it the stress of the job? Being given a million tons of starship and the lives to match? Then again apart from the gym and the fire-fight with the Breen boarding part she hadn't had much chances to work up an appetite. She took a small portion of her salad into her mouth, chewed for a bit and then swallowed before she looked up at Miko.

"Do you know why I left?" she asked her, giving a soft look. "I left because before the Jersey...I had just been in one of the biggest wars in the Quadrant. After that I had to witness the aftermath. Go to planets and act more or less like a force of stability. Going from place to place and seeing destroyed lives. When we met on the Jersey I thought that you could have been something to show that...it wasn't always going to be like the Dominion War. I guess that last fight was just...the straw that broke the camel's back?"

All Miko could do was shrug slightly as she a rammed a slice of unusually tasteless pizza into her mouth. She hadn't really thought about why Reneé ever put up with her in a long time. Hadn't really made much difference in the long run; all that had ever seemed to matter was that she couldn't put up with the wild emotional instability any longer.

"Yeah," Miko said quietly while slowly shoving another slice back and forth on her plate. "I get that. Kinda." She'd been in the Academy all through the war, while Reneé was out there fighting and suffering; it was hard to imagine just from stories what things had been like out on the front lines.

"Kinda fitting though." Her voice was getting meeker by the second; it had been a good six years since anyone had seen the lieutenant subdued and vulnerable, and that anyone happened to have been Reneé. "I, uh.... I never told you, but... there was this woman I knew, back in London, and she was married, but I...."

The pizza slipped out of her hand as she slumped further in her seat, desperate to make sure the marine couldn't see her crying. "When I told her, she just..... right off the balcony. And when I saw you that first time.... you looked so much like her, you even had the accent... and I just had to.... I just needed to feel like maybe, maybe...."

God, it was so stupid. "Maybe you were really her, and maybe she could forgive me and love me back.... I don't even know. You were just.... so much like her...."

"I did love you." pointed out the blonde who sighed at the story, looking up at Miko with pity and pain. She had taken to mindlessly playing with her food by turning it over and over with the fork as if trying to discover inspiration among the salad. Instead she walked over to Miko and gently slid into her lap and stroked her face, only noticing the tears there and then.

"And part of me still does. But you need to feel things for me, Miko. I'm not this woman. I'm someone else..." she breathed as she held Miko's head to her chest and patted her hair. "Because I've forgiven you. I forgave you a while back. We were angry. Angry people do stupid things. I need you here."

Miko simply sat there utterly limp as Reneé settled into her lap, staring ahead blankly even while her face was being nudged into the marine's chest. Couldn't even remember how many times she'd been silently crying right next to Reneé in bed without the other woman even knowing; this was just yet another incidence of her fragile mental state shattering to pieces. There were a lot of moments like that.

For a while she just sat there, pondering what Reneé had said about having feelings for her, not just for what she'd lost in Erin. Any words the Asiatic scientist might've been able to vocalize got stuck as uncertainty gripped her teetering mind. Feelings weren't something she'd considered much, even when she decided to propose; Reneé was nice to be around, fun in bed and a lot like Erin. That'd been all she ever thought of it; to ponder something deeper, something more meaningful, something that might have been mutual the whole time without her knowing it...

Without even realizing it, Miko slowly slipped her hands around Reneé's neck, gently pulling herself up eye level with the marine. Only one way she knew to deal with these terribly uncertain things, really - scientific testing of theories. Her current theory was that exactly what might be stirring in her gut could best be determined by seeing just how much the long-forgotten taste of Reneé's lips set her mind on fire.

With a soaking wet face she leaned in to test that theory.

A sigh left Reneé's lips as mouths connected. Her hand moved up to cup Miko's face once more as she kissed the woman ignoring the fact that the pizza she had replicated for the scientist was getting cold. However right now she was content to comfort Miko in any way she could at this point and simply sat in her lap as she broke probably a dozen rules doing so.

Reneé broke the kiss before pecking Miko's nose playfully. "You are amazing. You always have been. It was fun but...if we are going to do this again I need to know that it's because of me and not from a memory. This time I've got nowhere to run or hide. Please? Just...think about it than do what you did to the young marine captain and shove her against a bulkhead."

Saying Miko's mind was frazzled from the kiss was making a cosmic understatement. Every second that Reneé whispered to her as she nuzzled against marine's face was a second where Miko's vision filled with more fireworks and dazzling lights than a Federation Day celebration. The closest thing she could manage to a smile crossed the lieutenant's lips as they drifted on and off of the other woman's cheek.

"Amazingly screwed up," she muttered only half joking as her arms slid down to wrap around Reneé's abdomen. In another time of place her hands might've slid under the marine's shirt and started caressing the tight, finely sculpted abs underneath; right now all she cared to do was pull the other woman in as tightly as she possibly could.

Miko's oh-so-slightly wrinkled forehead gently rubbed against Reneé's as she leaned over to whisper in the marine's ear. "Not sure if I ever was horribly attracted to that marine captain herself." She smiled and softly kissed Reneé's ear, one hand rising hold the marine just underneath her shoulder.

"But I might be crazy for this one blonde colonel I just met."

"Try not to get too involved." teased Reneé as she gently squeezed Miko's nose with a grin on her face. "But honestly, I'd want us to work. Despite there being at least a dozen rules and regulations saying we shouldn't even attempt it. However we've both had tough lives and frankly us fighting is only going to serve to make it tougher. So...lieutenant...can you give your colonel a break so she can at least make up everything to you?"

||USS Indefatigable
||Observation Room
||TBD
||Day 1

Oh God, did she ever want to run in the opposite direction. It had been a battle for the ages not to drag Reneé to a floor and beat her face back in the labs, and now Miko was off to have lunch with her of all things? If this was how the rest of her time on the Indefatigable was going to be, she might as well just grab a phaser and melt her own brains out right, save the firing squad she’d be facing after murdering her CO some trouble.

Several padds with the results of the tech analysis were stuffed under Miko’s arm as she trudged off to the Observation Room, filled with technical garbage the lieutenant had only been able to skim over briefly before heading off to this idiotic meeting. Given this entire thing would likely be filled with reducing complex technical explanations to simpletonese, it was fitting that she might head into things blind as a bat.

Bloody Rivers. If she ended up killing Reneé then Melissa was next in line. The thought of just how many murder weapons littered the science labs flashed through Miko’s mind as she entered the location where this blasted meeting was to take place. Reneé was already there, the punctual bitch, sitting around waiting for Miko to show up. That trademark glow filled her eyes as she shuffled in behind the marine, plopping the padds down on the table before plopping her ass down in a chair.

“You’re not gonna let me drink on the job here, are?”, she muttered in a huff, refusing to make eye contact with her former lover.

"I uh...would let you away with a small drink, Miko." said Reneé weakly as she looked down at the desk. The initial shock of seeing Miko on the turbolift had worn away. Now there was just empty melancholy and a desire for conversation. It wasn't about the conflict of interests given that she was now Miko's commanding officer. It was something else. Something more personal and deeper. Deeper than she was willing to explore at this point.

Rather than let herself just look dumbstruck Reneé decided to take one of the PADDs and skim-read it to at least give the impression that there was no second reason for the lunch meeting. "I trust the facilities in the Science Labs weren't too much of a pain. Like I said they were a low priority and...well what would you like to eat? Anything new with you?" asked the marine with a wavering smile on her lips.

A pleasant reply actually welled up in Miko’s throats for a moment, or at least one that didn’t involve snapping at Reneé. The words stayed caught in the lieutenant’s throats, her arms crossing as she stared out quite literally into deep space. There was no reason to get into an actual, pleasant conversation; it could only come back around eventually to every single bitter feeling that was left over from an argument neither woman even remembered. Might as well keep things curt and bitter, save herself all the trouble that looking into those deep blue eyes would stir up in her gut.

“It’s an energy weapon,” she quietly said, completely ignoring Reneé’s questions. “Melissa’s taking it apart now, but we’re pretty sure it’s got some new method of collecting excess radiant energy generated when it fires and feeding it right back into the current discharge. Pretty clever actually - I’d say it boosts output by at least 28%.”

"So the Fergengi are assisting the Breen with upgrading their weapons?" asked Reneé with a rather worried expression. It was the sign of a war-force build up. Sure you upgraded your weapons but you did so at a steady pace. For the Breen to enlist the Ferengi to gain more powerful weapons was troubling. This wasn't natural build-up of systems. The Breen were obviously planning something.

She drummed her fingers against the table as she thought of some more questions that Miko wouldn't avoid. "Do you think you'll be able to see a difference between a ship equipped with this weapon system against a ship without it? Surely they can't have distributed that many units." mulled the marine as she looked at Miko.

"Also, how is your room?"

Both fists clenched tight at the last question. The hell business was it of hers? She wasn't coming in there anytime soon. Try as she might to focus on the more important matter of the Breen situation, Miko couldn't help but insert an almost venomous tone into her reply.

"It'd take all of two minutes to reconfigure the sensors," she growled back at the marine, "and we'll be able to pick up the new weapons instantly. And furthermore-"

She paused for effect just long enough to make a mistake.

Those bloody eyes. Those damn, stupid, beautiful, deep blue eyes of Reneé's, the ones she wanted to avoid. For a split second Miko looked straight into them, just enough time for the insults forming in her throat to choke up. In an instant her tight, furious expression loosened up, squinting mechanical eyes opening as she stared into those gorgeous blue irises.

No no no, this was wrong. She hated this woman. This beautiful, strong woman, just sitting there like the bitch that she was. A stunning bitch so full of fire and strength, with those amazing arms she'd loved to carry Miko around in. Damnit, she hated those arms, almost as much as she hated those long, ethereal legs, those damn things going up to her bloody useless curves that set Miko alight with a single touch.

"-my room's fine," she murmured quietly as her eyes finally darted away. The lieutenant did her best to hide how red her cheeks had just turned as she began to fidget slightly.

"Miko, I know you've not forgiven me." said Reneé as she itched the tip of her nose, looking out towards the viewport. "I just think that if we're going to be working together...living on the same ship we might as well be cordial. I had my reasons for leaving...I just regret never telling you them." Reneé's expression softened as her hand caressed Miko's tenderly.

She didn't hate the woman. She had no real reason to. Reneé wasn't someone to hold that much of a grudge towards people she cared about. "I mean it's not a bedroom but we can still talk like we used to right? Or do I have to seduce you into at least having a pleasant conversation? I'm sure I'd be able to manage. Besides...you still haven't told me what you want for lunch."

Miko had really thought that maybe, just maybe, she could get a grip on this, that maybe she could get back into the mindset that she needed. Every single thought along those lines fell to shambles when Reneé started caressing Miko's little hand with her strong one, gently massaging an extremity full of veins large from constant stress. That was it. Instantly her whole gut flopped over in her chest cavity, the icy shell around her heart melting into a warm puddle around her feet.

The words reached Miko's ears, but it took what seemed like hours to process. Forgiveness. She'd never forgiven Reneé, but what was there to forgive? She didn't need to stay. It wasn't her job in life to take care of some emotionally unstable bitch that couldn't keep her head straight. Even if that unstable bitch loved Reneé with every ounce of a heart she had left, she had no responsibility to stick around be Miko's little caretaker. Hell, Miko was the one who needed to apologize for putting Reneé through two years of hell with some lonely, miserable excuse for a human being.

Lunch was the farthest thing from Miko's mind as she drifted from memory to memory, eventually latching onto one random thing that seemed so insignificant now yet had been so important way back when.

"Night of the argument we had a date," she spoke up suddenly as her hand slowly twisted to light grasp Reneé's. "Holodeck 2. I was gonna surprise you with a painstakingly crafted recreation of that one restaurant from your hometown you always said you loved."

Miko's face tilted downwards so as to deny Reneé a view of the tears that had begun to streak down her cheeks. "And after dinner I was gonna take you out to the pier where you used to say nighttime was like being in heaven, get on one knee and ask you to marry me."

Silence hung in the air for several more seconds, until Miko snapped out of it enough to whiplash back into Reneé's actual topic. "Pizza would be nice."

"Pizza it is..." said Reneé faintly now that the mental wind had been knocked from her. She walked over to the replicator and created a pizza with thick, juicy pepperoni parts with a glass of cool water before setting it in front of Miko. Her own meal was a Caesar salad with some lemon-dashed water. For some reason the desire for heavier meals had disappeared over the last few days.

Was it the stress of the job? Being given a million tons of starship and the lives to match? Then again apart from the gym and the fire-fight with the Breen boarding part she hadn't had much chances to work up an appetite. She took a small portion of her salad into her mouth, chewed for a bit and then swallowed before she looked up at Miko.

"Do you know why I left?" she asked her, giving a soft look. "I left because before the Jersey...I had just been in one of the biggest wars in the Quadrant. After that I had to witness the aftermath. Go to planets and act more or less like a force of stability. Going from place to place and seeing destroyed lives. When we met on the Jersey I thought that you could have been something to show that...it wasn't always going to be like the Dominion War. I guess that last fight was just...the straw that broke the camel's back?"

All Miko could do was shrug slightly as she a rammed a slice of unusually tasteless pizza into her mouth. She hadn't really thought about why Reneé ever put up with her in a long time. Hadn't really made much difference in the long run; all that had ever seemed to matter was that she couldn't put up with the wild emotional instability any longer.

"Yeah," Miko said quietly while slowly shoving another slice back and forth on her plate. "I get that. Kinda." She'd been in the Academy all through the war, while Reneé was out there fighting and suffering; it was hard to imagine just from stories what things had been like out on the front lines.

"Kinda fitting though." Her voice was getting meeker by the second; it had been a good six years since anyone had seen the lieutenant subdued and vulnerable, and that anyone happened to have been Reneé. "I, uh.... I never told you, but... there was this woman I knew, back in London, and she was married, but I...."

The pizza slipped out of her hand as she slumped further in her seat, desperate to make sure the marine couldn't see her crying. "When I told her, she just..... right off the balcony. And when I saw you that first time.... you looked so much like her, you even had the accent... and I just had to.... I just needed to feel like maybe, maybe...."

God, it was so stupid. "Maybe you were really her, and maybe she could forgive me and love me back.... I don't even know. You were just.... so much like her...."

"I did love you." pointed out the blonde who sighed at the story, looking up at Miko with pity and pain. She had taken to mindlessly playing with her food by turning it over and over with the fork as if trying to discover inspiration among the salad. Instead she walked over to Miko and gently slid into her lap and stroked her face, only noticing the tears there and then.

"And part of me still does. But you need to feel things for me, Miko. I'm not this woman. I'm someone else..." she breathed as she held Miko's head to her chest and patted her hair. "Because I've forgiven you. I forgave you a while back. We were angry. Angry people do stupid things. I need you here."

Miko simply sat there utterly limp as Reneé settled into her lap, staring ahead blankly even while her face was being nudged into the marine's chest. Couldn't even remember how many times she'd been silently crying right next to Reneé in bed without the other woman even knowing; this was just yet another incidence of her fragile mental state shattering to pieces. There were a lot of moments like that.

For a while she just sat there, pondering what Reneé had said about having feelings for her, not just for what she'd lost in Erin. Any words the Asiatic scientist might've been able to vocalize got stuck as uncertainty gripped her teetering mind. Feelings weren't something she'd considered much, even when she decided to propose; Reneé was nice to be around, fun in bed and a lot like Erin. That'd been all she ever thought of it; to ponder something deeper, something more meaningful, something that might have been mutual the whole time without her knowing it...

Without even realizing it, Miko slowly slipped her hands around Reneé's neck, gently pulling herself up eye level with the marine. Only one way she knew to deal with these terribly uncertain things, really - scientific testing of theories. Her current theory was that exactly what might be stirring in her gut could best be determined by seeing just how much the long-forgotten taste of Reneé's lips set her mind on fire.

With a soaking wet face she leaned in to test that theory.

A sigh left Reneé's lips as mouths connected. Her hand moved up to cup Miko's face once more as she kissed the woman ignoring the fact that the pizza she had replicated for the scientist was getting cold. However right now she was content to comfort Miko in any way she could at this point and simply sat in her lap as she broke probably a dozen rules doing so.

Reneé broke the kiss before pecking Miko's nose playfully. "You are amazing. You always have been. It was fun but...if we are going to do this again I need to know that it's because of me and not from a memory. This time I've got nowhere to run or hide. Please? Just...think about it than do what you did to the young marine captain and shove her against a bulkhead."

Saying Miko's mind was frazzled from the kiss was making a cosmic understatement. Every second that Reneé whispered to her as she nuzzled against marine's face was a second where Miko's vision filled with more fireworks and dazzling lights than a Federation Day celebration. The closest thing she could manage to a smile crossed the lieutenant's lips as they drifted on and off of the other woman's cheek.

"Amazingly screwed up," she muttered only half joking as her arms slid down to wrap around Reneé's abdomen. In another time of place her hands might've slid under the marine's shirt and started caressing the tight, finely sculpted abs underneath; right now all she cared to do was pull the other woman in as tightly as she possibly could.

Miko's oh-so-slightly wrinkled forehead gently rubbed against Reneé's as she leaned over to whisper in the marine's ear. "Not sure if I ever was horribly attracted to that marine captain herself." She smiled and softly kissed Reneé's ear, one hand rising hold the marine just underneath her shoulder.

"But I might be crazy for this one blonde colonel I just met."

"Try not to get too involved." teased Reneé as she gently squeezed Miko's nose with a grin on her face. "But honestly, I'd want us to work. Despite there being at least a dozen rules and regulations saying we shouldn't even attempt it. However we've both had tough lives and frankly us fighting is only going to serve to make it tougher. So...lieutenant...can you give your colonel a break so she can at least make up everything to you?"

"Mmmmm..... maybe." For the first time in years Miko smiled with genuinely playfulness, her fingers twirling up a handful of Reneé's soft hair as she kissed the marine just one more time. "You'll have to earn that break of course, but I think you'll find plenty of fun ways to do that."

With a contented sigh she rested her head against her boss' shoulder, closing her still-wet cybernetic eyes in a warm feeling of security that she hadn't felt in far too long. Miko truly could've fallen asleep in Reneé's arms right then and there if the fact that their shifts still wouldn't be ending for some hours wasn't at the back of her mind.

"So, are having dinner or is duty about to be eschewed all over the floor?", she asked with a satisfied grin.

||USS Indefatigable
||Observation Room
||TBD
||Day 1

Oh God, did she ever want to run in the opposite direction. It had been a battle for the ages not to drag Reneé to a floor and beat her face back in the labs, and now Miko was off to have lunch with her of all things? If this was how the rest of her time on the Indefatigable was going to be, she might as well just grab a phaser and melt her own brains out right, save the firing squad she’d be facing after murdering her CO some trouble.

Several padds with the results of the tech analysis were stuffed under Miko’s arm as she trudged off to the Observation Room, filled with technical garbage the lieutenant had only been able to skim over briefly before heading off to this idiotic meeting. Given this entire thing would likely be filled with reducing complex technical explanations to simpletonese, it was fitting that she might head into things blind as a bat.

Bloody Rivers. If she ended up killing Reneé then Melissa was next in line. The thought of just how many murder weapons littered the science labs flashed through Miko’s mind as she entered the location where this blasted meeting was to take place. Reneé was already there, the punctual bitch, sitting around waiting for Miko to show up. That trademark glow filled her eyes as she shuffled in behind the marine, plopping the padds down on the table before plopping her ass down in a chair.

“You’re not gonna let me drink on the job here, are?”, she muttered in a huff, refusing to make eye contact with her former lover.

"I uh...would let you away with a small drink, Miko." said Reneé weakly as she looked down at the desk. The initial shock of seeing Miko on the turbolift had worn away. Now there was just empty melancholy and a desire for conversation. It wasn't about the conflict of interests given that she was now Miko's commanding officer. It was something else. Something more personal and deeper. Deeper than she was willing to explore at this point.

Rather than let herself just look dumbstruck Reneé decided to take one of the PADDs and skim-read it to at least give the impression that there was no second reason for the lunch meeting. "I trust the facilities in the Science Labs weren't too much of a pain. Like I said they were a low priority and...well what would you like to eat? Anything new with you?" asked the marine with a wavering smile on her lips.

A pleasant reply actually welled up in Miko’s throats for a moment, or at least one that didn’t involve snapping at Reneé. The words stayed caught in the lieutenant’s throats, her arms crossing as she stared out quite literally into deep space. There was no reason to get into an actual, pleasant conversation; it could only come back around eventually to every single bitter feeling that was left over from an argument neither woman even remembered. Might as well keep things curt and bitter, save herself all the trouble that looking into those deep blue eyes would stir up in her gut.

“It’s an energy weapon,” she quietly said, completely ignoring Reneé’s questions. “Melissa’s taking it apart now, but we’re pretty sure it’s got some new method of collecting excess radiant energy generated when it fires and feeding it right back into the current discharge. Pretty clever actually - I’d say it boosts output by at least 28%.”

"So the Fergengi are assisting the Breen with upgrading their weapons?" asked Reneé with a rather worried expression. It was the sign of a war-force build up. Sure you upgraded your weapons but you did so at a steady pace. For the Breen to enlist the Ferengi to gain more powerful weapons was troubling. This wasn't natural build-up of systems. The Breen were obviously planning something.

She drummed her fingers against the table as she thought of some more questions that Miko wouldn't avoid. "Do you think you'll be able to see a difference between a ship equipped with this weapon system against a ship without it? Surely they can't have distributed that many units." mulled the marine as she looked at Miko.

"Also, how is your room?"

Both fists clenched tight at the last question. The hell business was it of hers? She wasn't coming in there anytime soon. Try as she might to focus on the more important matter of the Breen situation, Miko couldn't help but insert an almost venomous tone into her reply.

"It'd take all of two minutes to reconfigure the sensors," she growled back at the marine, "and we'll be able to pick up the new weapons instantly. And furthermore-"

She paused for effect just long enough to make a mistake.

Those bloody eyes. Those damn, stupid, beautiful, deep blue eyes of Reneé's, the ones she wanted to avoid. For a split second Miko looked straight into them, just enough time for the insults forming in her throat to choke up. In an instant her tight, furious expression loosened up, squinting mechanical eyes opening as she stared into those gorgeous blue irises.

No no no, this was wrong. She hated this woman. This beautiful, strong woman, just sitting there like the bitch that she was. A stunning bitch so full of fire and strength, with those amazing arms she'd loved to carry Miko around in. Damnit, she hated those arms, almost as much as she hated those long, ethereal legs, those damn things going up to her bloody useless curves that set Miko alight with a single touch.

"-my room's fine," she murmured quietly as her eyes finally darted away. The lieutenant did her best to hide how red her cheeks had just turned as she began to fidget slightly.

"Miko, I know you've not forgiven me." said Reneé as she itched the tip of her nose, looking out towards the viewport. "I just think that if we're going to be working together...living on the same ship we might as well be cordial. I had my reasons for leaving...I just regret never telling you them." Reneé's expression softened as her hand caressed Miko's tenderly.

She didn't hate the woman. She had no real reason to. Reneé wasn't someone to hold that much of a grudge towards people she cared about. "I mean it's not a bedroom but we can still talk like we used to right? Or do I have to seduce you into at least having a pleasant conversation? I'm sure I'd be able to manage. Besides...you still haven't told me what you want for lunch."

Miko had really thought that maybe, just maybe, she could get a grip on this, that maybe she could get back into the mindset that she needed. Every single thought along those lines fell to shambles when Reneé started caressing Miko's little hand with her strong one, gently massaging an extremity full of veins large from constant stress. That was it. Instantly her whole gut flopped over in her chest cavity, the icy shell around her heart melting into a warm puddle around her feet.

The words reached Miko's ears, but it took what seemed like hours to process. Forgiveness. She'd never forgiven Reneé, but what was there to forgive? She didn't need to stay. It wasn't her job in life to take care of some emotionally unstable bitch that couldn't keep her head straight. Even if that unstable bitch loved Reneé with every ounce of a heart she had left, she had no responsibility to stick around be Miko's little caretaker. Hell, Miko was the one who needed to apologize for putting Reneé through two years of hell with some lonely, miserable excuse for a human being.

Lunch was the farthest thing from Miko's mind as she drifted from memory to memory, eventually latching onto one random thing that seemed so insignificant now yet had been so important way back when.

"Night of the argument we had a date," she spoke up suddenly as her hand slowly twisted to light grasp Reneé's. "Holodeck 2. I was gonna surprise you with a painstakingly crafted recreation of that one restaurant from your hometown you always said you loved."

Miko's face tilted downwards so as to deny Reneé a view of the tears that had begun to streak down her cheeks. "And after dinner I was gonna take you out to the pier where you used to say nighttime was like being in heaven, get on one knee and ask you to marry me."

Silence hung in the air for several more seconds, until Miko snapped out of it enough to whiplash back into Reneé's actual topic. "Pizza would be nice."

"Pizza it is..." said Reneé faintly now that the mental wind had been knocked from her. She walked over to the replicator and created a pizza with thick, juicy pepperoni parts with a glass of cool water before setting it in front of Miko. Her own meal was a Caesar salad with some lemon-dashed water. For some reason the desire for heavier meals had disappeared over the last few days.

Was it the stress of the job? Being given a million tons of starship and the lives to match? Then again apart from the gym and the fire-fight with the Breen boarding part she hadn't had much chances to work up an appetite. She took a small portion of her salad into her mouth, chewed for a bit and then swallowed before she looked up at Miko.

"Do you know why I left?" she asked her, giving a soft look. "I left because before the Jersey...I had just been in one of the biggest wars in the Quadrant. After that I had to witness the aftermath. Go to planets and act more or less like a force of stability. Going from place to place and seeing destroyed lives. When we met on the Jersey I thought that you could have been something to show that...it wasn't always going to be like the Dominion War. I guess that last fight was just...the straw that broke the camel's back?"

All Miko could do was shrug slightly as she a rammed a slice of unusually tasteless pizza into her mouth. She hadn't really thought about why Reneé ever put up with her in a long time. Hadn't really made much difference in the long run; all that had ever seemed to matter was that she couldn't put up with the wild emotional instability any longer.

"Yeah," Miko said quietly while slowly shoving another slice back and forth on her plate. "I get that. Kinda." She'd been in the Academy all through the war, while Reneé was out there fighting and suffering; it was hard to imagine just from stories what things had been like out on the front lines.

"Kinda fitting though." Her voice was getting meeker by the second; it had been a good six years since anyone had seen the lieutenant subdued and vulnerable, and that anyone happened to have been Reneé. "I, uh.... I never told you, but... there was this woman I knew, back in London, and she was married, but I...."

The pizza slipped out of her hand as she slumped further in her seat, desperate to make sure the marine couldn't see her crying. "When I told her, she just..... right off the balcony. And when I saw you that first time.... you looked so much like her, you even had the accent... and I just had to.... I just needed to feel like maybe, maybe...."

God, it was so stupid. "Maybe you were really her, and maybe she could forgive me and love me back.... I don't even know. You were just.... so much like her...."

"I did love you." pointed out the blonde who sighed at the story, looking up at Miko with pity and pain. She had taken to mindlessly playing with her food by turning it over and over with the fork as if trying to discover inspiration among the salad. Instead she walked over to Miko and gently slid into her lap and stroked her face, only noticing the tears there and then.

"And part of me still does. But you need to feel things for me, Miko. I'm not this woman. I'm someone else..." she breathed as she held Miko's head to her chest and patted her hair. "Because I've forgiven you. I forgave you a while back. We were angry. Angry people do stupid things. I need you here."

Miko simply sat there utterly limp as Reneé settled into her lap, staring ahead blankly even while her face was being nudged into the marine's chest. Couldn't even remember how many times she'd been silently crying right next to Reneé in bed without the other woman even knowing; this was just yet another incidence of her fragile mental state shattering to pieces. There were a lot of moments like that.

For a while she just sat there, pondering what Reneé had said about having feelings for her, not just for what she'd lost in Erin. Any words the Asiatic scientist might've been able to vocalize got stuck as uncertainty gripped her teetering mind. Feelings weren't something she'd considered much, even when she decided to propose; Reneé was nice to be around, fun in bed and a lot like Erin. That'd been all she ever thought of it; to ponder something deeper, something more meaningful, something that might have been mutual the whole time without her knowing it...

Without even realizing it, Miko slowly slipped her hands around Reneé's neck, gently pulling herself up eye level with the marine. Only one way she knew to deal with these terribly uncertain things, really - scientific testing of theories. Her current theory was that exactly what might be stirring in her gut could best be determined by seeing just how much the long-forgotten taste of Reneé's lips set her mind on fire.

With a soaking wet face she leaned in to test that theory.

A sigh left Reneé's lips as mouths connected. Her hand moved up to cup Miko's face once more as she kissed the woman ignoring the fact that the pizza she had replicated for the scientist was getting cold. However right now she was content to comfort Miko in any way she could at this point and simply sat in her lap as she broke probably a dozen rules doing so.

Reneé broke the kiss before pecking Miko's nose playfully. "You are amazing. You always have been. It was fun but...if we are going to do this again I need to know that it's because of me and not from a memory. This time I've got nowhere to run or hide. Please? Just...think about it than do what you did to the young marine captain and shove her against a bulkhead."

Saying Miko's mind was frazzled from the kiss was making a cosmic understatement. Every second that Reneé whispered to her as she nuzzled against marine's face was a second where Miko's vision filled with more fireworks and dazzling lights than a Federation Day celebration. The closest thing she could manage to a smile crossed the lieutenant's lips as they drifted on and off of the other woman's cheek.

"Amazingly screwed up," she muttered only half joking as her arms slid down to wrap around Reneé's abdomen. In another time of place her hands might've slid under the marine's shirt and started caressing the tight, finely sculpted abs underneath; right now all she cared to do was pull the other woman in as tightly as she possibly could.

Miko's oh-so-slightly wrinkled forehead gently rubbed against Reneé's as she leaned over to whisper in the marine's ear. "Not sure if I ever was horribly attracted to that marine captain herself." She smiled and softly kissed Reneé's ear, one hand rising hold the marine just underneath her shoulder.

"But I might be crazy for this one blonde colonel I just met."

"Try not to get too involved." teased Reneé as she gently squeezed Miko's nose with a grin on her face. "But honestly, I'd want us to work. Despite there being at least a dozen rules and regulations saying we shouldn't even attempt it. However we've both had tough lives and frankly us fighting is only going to serve to make it tougher. So...lieutenant...can you give your colonel a break so she can at least make up everything to you?"

"Mmmmm..... maybe." For the first time in years Miko smiled with genuinely playfulness, her fingers twirling up a handful of Reneé's soft hair as she kissed the marine just one more time. "You'll have to earn that break of course, but I think you'll find plenty of fun ways to do that."

With a contented sigh she rested her head against her boss' shoulder, closing her still-wet cybernetic eyes in a warm feeling of security that she hadn't felt in far too long. Miko truly could've fallen asleep in Reneé's arms right then and there if the fact that their shifts still wouldn't be ending for some hours wasn't at the back of her mind.

"So, are having dinner or is duty about to be eschewed all over the floor?", she asked with a satisfied grin.

At that Reneé swung her legs off of Miko and sat at her seat before settling in front of her meal. "As tempting as that is...I think we should take this slow. Not so much to get to know one another but given the critical situation on the colony and now this weapon thing? We need to be focused on the now. After our shifts we could talk some more and rest together. I think we'll both welcome some sleep after all our work. Don't you think?"

||USS Indefatigable
||Observation Room
||TBD
||Day 1

Oh God, did she ever want to run in the opposite direction. It had been a battle for the ages not to drag Reneé to a floor and beat her face back in the labs, and now Miko was off to have lunch with her of all things? If this was how the rest of her time on the Indefatigable was going to be, she might as well just grab a phaser and melt her own brains out right, save the firing squad she’d be facing after murdering her CO some trouble.

Several padds with the results of the tech analysis were stuffed under Miko’s arm as she trudged off to the Observation Room, filled with technical garbage the lieutenant had only been able to skim over briefly before heading off to this idiotic meeting. Given this entire thing would likely be filled with reducing complex technical explanations to simpletonese, it was fitting that she might head into things blind as a bat.

Bloody Rivers. If she ended up killing Reneé then Melissa was next in line. The thought of just how many murder weapons littered the science labs flashed through Miko’s mind as she entered the location where this blasted meeting was to take place. Reneé was already there, the punctual bitch, sitting around waiting for Miko to show up. That trademark glow filled her eyes as she shuffled in behind the marine, plopping the padds down on the table before plopping her ass down in a chair.

“You’re not gonna let me drink on the job here, are?”, she muttered in a huff, refusing to make eye contact with her former lover.

"I uh...would let you away with a small drink, Miko." said Reneé weakly as she looked down at the desk. The initial shock of seeing Miko on the turbolift had worn away. Now there was just empty melancholy and a desire for conversation. It wasn't about the conflict of interests given that she was now Miko's commanding officer. It was something else. Something more personal and deeper. Deeper than she was willing to explore at this point.

Rather than let herself just look dumbstruck Reneé decided to take one of the PADDs and skim-read it to at least give the impression that there was no second reason for the lunch meeting. "I trust the facilities in the Science Labs weren't too much of a pain. Like I said they were a low priority and...well what would you like to eat? Anything new with you?" asked the marine with a wavering smile on her lips.

A pleasant reply actually welled up in Miko’s throats for a moment, or at least one that didn’t involve snapping at Reneé. The words stayed caught in the lieutenant’s throats, her arms crossing as she stared out quite literally into deep space. There was no reason to get into an actual, pleasant conversation; it could only come back around eventually to every single bitter feeling that was left over from an argument neither woman even remembered. Might as well keep things curt and bitter, save herself all the trouble that looking into those deep blue eyes would stir up in her gut.

“It’s an energy weapon,” she quietly said, completely ignoring Reneé’s questions. “Melissa’s taking it apart now, but we’re pretty sure it’s got some new method of collecting excess radiant energy generated when it fires and feeding it right back into the current discharge. Pretty clever actually - I’d say it boosts output by at least 28%.”

"So the Fergengi are assisting the Breen with upgrading their weapons?" asked Reneé with a rather worried expression. It was the sign of a war-force build up. Sure you upgraded your weapons but you did so at a steady pace. For the Breen to enlist the Ferengi to gain more powerful weapons was troubling. This wasn't natural build-up of systems. The Breen were obviously planning something.

She drummed her fingers against the table as she thought of some more questions that Miko wouldn't avoid. "Do you think you'll be able to see a difference between a ship equipped with this weapon system against a ship without it? Surely they can't have distributed that many units." mulled the marine as she looked at Miko.

"Also, how is your room?"

Both fists clenched tight at the last question. The hell business was it of hers? She wasn't coming in there anytime soon. Try as she might to focus on the more important matter of the Breen situation, Miko couldn't help but insert an almost venomous tone into her reply.

"It'd take all of two minutes to reconfigure the sensors," she growled back at the marine, "and we'll be able to pick up the new weapons instantly. And furthermore-"

She paused for effect just long enough to make a mistake.

Those bloody eyes. Those damn, stupid, beautiful, deep blue eyes of Reneé's, the ones she wanted to avoid. For a split second Miko looked straight into them, just enough time for the insults forming in her throat to choke up. In an instant her tight, furious expression loosened up, squinting mechanical eyes opening as she stared into those gorgeous blue irises.

No no no, this was wrong. She hated this woman. This beautiful, strong woman, just sitting there like the bitch that she was. A stunning bitch so full of fire and strength, with those amazing arms she'd loved to carry Miko around in. Damnit, she hated those arms, almost as much as she hated those long, ethereal legs, those damn things going up to her bloody useless curves that set Miko alight with a single touch.

"-my room's fine," she murmured quietly as her eyes finally darted away. The lieutenant did her best to hide how red her cheeks had just turned as she began to fidget slightly.

"Miko, I know you've not forgiven me." said Reneé as she itched the tip of her nose, looking out towards the viewport. "I just think that if we're going to be working together...living on the same ship we might as well be cordial. I had my reasons for leaving...I just regret never telling you them." Reneé's expression softened as her hand caressed Miko's tenderly.

She didn't hate the woman. She had no real reason to. Reneé wasn't someone to hold that much of a grudge towards people she cared about. "I mean it's not a bedroom but we can still talk like we used to right? Or do I have to seduce you into at least having a pleasant conversation? I'm sure I'd be able to manage. Besides...you still haven't told me what you want for lunch."

Miko had really thought that maybe, just maybe, she could get a grip on this, that maybe she could get back into the mindset that she needed. Every single thought along those lines fell to shambles when Reneé started caressing Miko's little hand with her strong one, gently massaging an extremity full of veins large from constant stress. That was it. Instantly her whole gut flopped over in her chest cavity, the icy shell around her heart melting into a warm puddle around her feet.

The words reached Miko's ears, but it took what seemed like hours to process. Forgiveness. She'd never forgiven Reneé, but what was there to forgive? She didn't need to stay. It wasn't her job in life to take care of some emotionally unstable bitch that couldn't keep her head straight. Even if that unstable bitch loved Reneé with every ounce of a heart she had left, she had no responsibility to stick around be Miko's little caretaker. Hell, Miko was the one who needed to apologize for putting Reneé through two years of hell with some lonely, miserable excuse for a human being.

Lunch was the farthest thing from Miko's mind as she drifted from memory to memory, eventually latching onto one random thing that seemed so insignificant now yet had been so important way back when.

"Night of the argument we had a date," she spoke up suddenly as her hand slowly twisted to light grasp Reneé's. "Holodeck 2. I was gonna surprise you with a painstakingly crafted recreation of that one restaurant from your hometown you always said you loved."

Miko's face tilted downwards so as to deny Reneé a view of the tears that had begun to streak down her cheeks. "And after dinner I was gonna take you out to the pier where you used to say nighttime was like being in heaven, get on one knee and ask you to marry me."

Silence hung in the air for several more seconds, until Miko snapped out of it enough to whiplash back into Reneé's actual topic. "Pizza would be nice."

"Pizza it is..." said Reneé faintly now that the mental wind had been knocked from her. She walked over to the replicator and created a pizza with thick, juicy pepperoni parts with a glass of cool water before setting it in front of Miko. Her own meal was a Caesar salad with some lemon-dashed water. For some reason the desire for heavier meals had disappeared over the last few days.

Was it the stress of the job? Being given a million tons of starship and the lives to match? Then again apart from the gym and the fire-fight with the Breen boarding part she hadn't had much chances to work up an appetite. She took a small portion of her salad into her mouth, chewed for a bit and then swallowed before she looked up at Miko.

"Do you know why I left?" she asked her, giving a soft look. "I left because before the Jersey...I had just been in one of the biggest wars in the Quadrant. After that I had to witness the aftermath. Go to planets and act more or less like a force of stability. Going from place to place and seeing destroyed lives. When we met on the Jersey I thought that you could have been something to show that...it wasn't always going to be like the Dominion War. I guess that last fight was just...the straw that broke the camel's back?"

All Miko could do was shrug slightly as she a rammed a slice of unusually tasteless pizza into her mouth. She hadn't really thought about why Reneé ever put up with her in a long time. Hadn't really made much difference in the long run; all that had ever seemed to matter was that she couldn't put up with the wild emotional instability any longer.

"Yeah," Miko said quietly while slowly shoving another slice back and forth on her plate. "I get that. Kinda." She'd been in the Academy all through the war, while Reneé was out there fighting and suffering; it was hard to imagine just from stories what things had been like out on the front lines.

"Kinda fitting though." Her voice was getting meeker by the second; it had been a good six years since anyone had seen the lieutenant subdued and vulnerable, and that anyone happened to have been Reneé. "I, uh.... I never told you, but... there was this woman I knew, back in London, and she was married, but I...."

The pizza slipped out of her hand as she slumped further in her seat, desperate to make sure the marine couldn't see her crying. "When I told her, she just..... right off the balcony. And when I saw you that first time.... you looked so much like her, you even had the accent... and I just had to.... I just needed to feel like maybe, maybe...."

God, it was so stupid. "Maybe you were really her, and maybe she could forgive me and love me back.... I don't even know. You were just.... so much like her...."

"I did love you." pointed out the blonde who sighed at the story, looking up at Miko with pity and pain. She had taken to mindlessly playing with her food by turning it over and over with the fork as if trying to discover inspiration among the salad. Instead she walked over to Miko and gently slid into her lap and stroked her face, only noticing the tears there and then.

"And part of me still does. But you need to feel things for me, Miko. I'm not this woman. I'm someone else..." she breathed as she held Miko's head to her chest and patted her hair. "Because I've forgiven you. I forgave you a while back. We were angry. Angry people do stupid things. I need you here."

Miko simply sat there utterly limp as Reneé settled into her lap, staring ahead blankly even while her face was being nudged into the marine's chest. Couldn't even remember how many times she'd been silently crying right next to Reneé in bed without the other woman even knowing; this was just yet another incidence of her fragile mental state shattering to pieces. There were a lot of moments like that.

For a while she just sat there, pondering what Reneé had said about having feelings for her, not just for what she'd lost in Erin. Any words the Asiatic scientist might've been able to vocalize got stuck as uncertainty gripped her teetering mind. Feelings weren't something she'd considered much, even when she decided to propose; Reneé was nice to be around, fun in bed and a lot like Erin. That'd been all she ever thought of it; to ponder something deeper, something more meaningful, something that might have been mutual the whole time without her knowing it...

Without even realizing it, Miko slowly slipped her hands around Reneé's neck, gently pulling herself up eye level with the marine. Only one way she knew to deal with these terribly uncertain things, really - scientific testing of theories. Her current theory was that exactly what might be stirring in her gut could best be determined by seeing just how much the long-forgotten taste of Reneé's lips set her mind on fire.

With a soaking wet face she leaned in to test that theory.

A sigh left Reneé's lips as mouths connected. Her hand moved up to cup Miko's face once more as she kissed the woman ignoring the fact that the pizza she had replicated for the scientist was getting cold. However right now she was content to comfort Miko in any way she could at this point and simply sat in her lap as she broke probably a dozen rules doing so.

Reneé broke the kiss before pecking Miko's nose playfully. "You are amazing. You always have been. It was fun but...if we are going to do this again I need to know that it's because of me and not from a memory. This time I've got nowhere to run or hide. Please? Just...think about it than do what you did to the young marine captain and shove her against a bulkhead."

Saying Miko's mind was frazzled from the kiss was making a cosmic understatement. Every second that Reneé whispered to her as she nuzzled against marine's face was a second where Miko's vision filled with more fireworks and dazzling lights than a Federation Day celebration. The closest thing she could manage to a smile crossed the lieutenant's lips as they drifted on and off of the other woman's cheek.

"Amazingly screwed up," she muttered only half joking as her arms slid down to wrap around Reneé's abdomen. In another time of place her hands might've slid under the marine's shirt and started caressing the tight, finely sculpted abs underneath; right now all she cared to do was pull the other woman in as tightly as she possibly could.

Miko's oh-so-slightly wrinkled forehead gently rubbed against Reneé's as she leaned over to whisper in the marine's ear. "Not sure if I ever was horribly attracted to that marine captain herself." She smiled and softly kissed Reneé's ear, one hand rising hold the marine just underneath her shoulder.

"But I might be crazy for this one blonde colonel I just met."

"Try not to get too involved." teased Reneé as she gently squeezed Miko's nose with a grin on her face. "But honestly, I'd want us to work. Despite there being at least a dozen rules and regulations saying we shouldn't even attempt it. However we've both had tough lives and frankly us fighting is only going to serve to make it tougher. So...lieutenant...can you give your colonel a break so she can at least make up everything to you?"

"Mmmmm..... maybe." For the first time in years Miko smiled with genuinely playfulness, her fingers twirling up a handful of Reneé's soft hair as she kissed the marine just one more time. "You'll have to earn that break of course, but I think you'll find plenty of fun ways to do that."

With a contented sigh she rested her head against her boss' shoulder, closing her still-wet cybernetic eyes in a warm feeling of security that she hadn't felt in far too long. Miko truly could've fallen asleep in Reneé's arms right then and there if the fact that their shifts still wouldn't be ending for some hours wasn't at the back of her mind.

"So, are having dinner or is duty about to be eschewed all over the floor?", she asked with a satisfied grin.

At that Reneé swung her legs off of Miko and sat at her seat before settling in front of her meal. "As tempting as that is...I think we should take this slow. Not so much to get to know one another but given the critical situation on the colony and now this weapon thing? We need to be focused on the now. After our shifts we could talk some more and rest together. I think we'll both welcome some sleep after all our work. Don't you think?"

With a small sigh Miko nodded in agreement, slumping in her chair again now that Reneé wasn't plopped in her lap. Probably better anyway to not have even more adrenaline added to a situation that already had off-the-wall stress. She half-smiled while turning back to look at the marine, perhaps not quite so averse to eye contact anymore.

"I'll go handle the.... stuff, with the Breen tech. Analysis. Thing." From the way Miko's knees wobbled as she stood up and shakily reached for a couple of padds, it was clear the heart-melting bliss of feeling Reneé's tongue lapping against her own continued to keep her insides in a state resembling goop.

"Don't, uh.... don't suppose I could beg the boss lady for a goodbye kiss?"

||USS Indefatigable
||Observation Room
||TBD
||Day 1

Oh God, did she ever want to run in the opposite direction. It had been a battle for the ages not to drag Reneé to a floor and beat her face back in the labs, and now Miko was off to have lunch with her of all things? If this was how the rest of her time on the Indefatigable was going to be, she might as well just grab a phaser and melt her own brains out right, save the firing squad she’d be facing after murdering her CO some trouble.

Several padds with the results of the tech analysis were stuffed under Miko’s arm as she trudged off to the Observation Room, filled with technical garbage the lieutenant had only been able to skim over briefly before heading off to this idiotic meeting. Given this entire thing would likely be filled with reducing complex technical explanations to simpletonese, it was fitting that she might head into things blind as a bat.

Bloody Rivers. If she ended up killing Reneé then Melissa was next in line. The thought of just how many murder weapons littered the science labs flashed through Miko’s mind as she entered the location where this blasted meeting was to take place. Reneé was already there, the punctual bitch, sitting around waiting for Miko to show up. That trademark glow filled her eyes as she shuffled in behind the marine, plopping the padds down on the table before plopping her ass down in a chair.

“You’re not gonna let me drink on the job here, are?”, she muttered in a huff, refusing to make eye contact with her former lover.

"I uh...would let you away with a small drink, Miko." said Reneé weakly as she looked down at the desk. The initial shock of seeing Miko on the turbolift had worn away. Now there was just empty melancholy and a desire for conversation. It wasn't about the conflict of interests given that she was now Miko's commanding officer. It was something else. Something more personal and deeper. Deeper than she was willing to explore at this point.

Rather than let herself just look dumbstruck Reneé decided to take one of the PADDs and skim-read it to at least give the impression that there was no second reason for the lunch meeting. "I trust the facilities in the Science Labs weren't too much of a pain. Like I said they were a low priority and...well what would you like to eat? Anything new with you?" asked the marine with a wavering smile on her lips.

A pleasant reply actually welled up in Miko’s throats for a moment, or at least one that didn’t involve snapping at Reneé. The words stayed caught in the lieutenant’s throats, her arms crossing as she stared out quite literally into deep space. There was no reason to get into an actual, pleasant conversation; it could only come back around eventually to every single bitter feeling that was left over from an argument neither woman even remembered. Might as well keep things curt and bitter, save herself all the trouble that looking into those deep blue eyes would stir up in her gut.

“It’s an energy weapon,” she quietly said, completely ignoring Reneé’s questions. “Melissa’s taking it apart now, but we’re pretty sure it’s got some new method of collecting excess radiant energy generated when it fires and feeding it right back into the current discharge. Pretty clever actually - I’d say it boosts output by at least 28%.”

"So the Fergengi are assisting the Breen with upgrading their weapons?" asked Reneé with a rather worried expression. It was the sign of a war-force build up. Sure you upgraded your weapons but you did so at a steady pace. For the Breen to enlist the Ferengi to gain more powerful weapons was troubling. This wasn't natural build-up of systems. The Breen were obviously planning something.

She drummed her fingers against the table as she thought of some more questions that Miko wouldn't avoid. "Do you think you'll be able to see a difference between a ship equipped with this weapon system against a ship without it? Surely they can't have distributed that many units." mulled the marine as she looked at Miko.

"Also, how is your room?"

Both fists clenched tight at the last question. The hell business was it of hers? She wasn't coming in there anytime soon. Try as she might to focus on the more important matter of the Breen situation, Miko couldn't help but insert an almost venomous tone into her reply.

"It'd take all of two minutes to reconfigure the sensors," she growled back at the marine, "and we'll be able to pick up the new weapons instantly. And furthermore-"

She paused for effect just long enough to make a mistake.

Those bloody eyes. Those damn, stupid, beautiful, deep blue eyes of Reneé's, the ones she wanted to avoid. For a split second Miko looked straight into them, just enough time for the insults forming in her throat to choke up. In an instant her tight, furious expression loosened up, squinting mechanical eyes opening as she stared into those gorgeous blue irises.

No no no, this was wrong. She hated this woman. This beautiful, strong woman, just sitting there like the bitch that she was. A stunning bitch so full of fire and strength, with those amazing arms she'd loved to carry Miko around in. Damnit, she hated those arms, almost as much as she hated those long, ethereal legs, those damn things going up to her bloody useless curves that set Miko alight with a single touch.

"-my room's fine," she murmured quietly as her eyes finally darted away. The lieutenant did her best to hide how red her cheeks had just turned as she began to fidget slightly.

"Miko, I know you've not forgiven me." said Reneé as she itched the tip of her nose, looking out towards the viewport. "I just think that if we're going to be working together...living on the same ship we might as well be cordial. I had my reasons for leaving...I just regret never telling you them." Reneé's expression softened as her hand caressed Miko's tenderly.

She didn't hate the woman. She had no real reason to. Reneé wasn't someone to hold that much of a grudge towards people she cared about. "I mean it's not a bedroom but we can still talk like we used to right? Or do I have to seduce you into at least having a pleasant conversation? I'm sure I'd be able to manage. Besides...you still haven't told me what you want for lunch."

Miko had really thought that maybe, just maybe, she could get a grip on this, that maybe she could get back into the mindset that she needed. Every single thought along those lines fell to shambles when Reneé started caressing Miko's little hand with her strong one, gently massaging an extremity full of veins large from constant stress. That was it. Instantly her whole gut flopped over in her chest cavity, the icy shell around her heart melting into a warm puddle around her feet.

The words reached Miko's ears, but it took what seemed like hours to process. Forgiveness. She'd never forgiven Reneé, but what was there to forgive? She didn't need to stay. It wasn't her job in life to take care of some emotionally unstable bitch that couldn't keep her head straight. Even if that unstable bitch loved Reneé with every ounce of a heart she had left, she had no responsibility to stick around be Miko's little caretaker. Hell, Miko was the one who needed to apologize for putting Reneé through two years of hell with some lonely, miserable excuse for a human being.

Lunch was the farthest thing from Miko's mind as she drifted from memory to memory, eventually latching onto one random thing that seemed so insignificant now yet had been so important way back when.

"Night of the argument we had a date," she spoke up suddenly as her hand slowly twisted to light grasp Reneé's. "Holodeck 2. I was gonna surprise you with a painstakingly crafted recreation of that one restaurant from your hometown you always said you loved."

Miko's face tilted downwards so as to deny Reneé a view of the tears that had begun to streak down her cheeks. "And after dinner I was gonna take you out to the pier where you used to say nighttime was like being in heaven, get on one knee and ask you to marry me."

Silence hung in the air for several more seconds, until Miko snapped out of it enough to whiplash back into Reneé's actual topic. "Pizza would be nice."

"Pizza it is..." said Reneé faintly now that the mental wind had been knocked from her. She walked over to the replicator and created a pizza with thick, juicy pepperoni parts with a glass of cool water before setting it in front of Miko. Her own meal was a Caesar salad with some lemon-dashed water. For some reason the desire for heavier meals had disappeared over the last few days.

Was it the stress of the job? Being given a million tons of starship and the lives to match? Then again apart from the gym and the fire-fight with the Breen boarding part she hadn't had much chances to work up an appetite. She took a small portion of her salad into her mouth, chewed for a bit and then swallowed before she looked up at Miko.

"Do you know why I left?" she asked her, giving a soft look. "I left because before the Jersey...I had just been in one of the biggest wars in the Quadrant. After that I had to witness the aftermath. Go to planets and act more or less like a force of stability. Going from place to place and seeing destroyed lives. When we met on the Jersey I thought that you could have been something to show that...it wasn't always going to be like the Dominion War. I guess that last fight was just...the straw that broke the camel's back?"

All Miko could do was shrug slightly as she a rammed a slice of unusually tasteless pizza into her mouth. She hadn't really thought about why Reneé ever put up with her in a long time. Hadn't really made much difference in the long run; all that had ever seemed to matter was that she couldn't put up with the wild emotional instability any longer.

"Yeah," Miko said quietly while slowly shoving another slice back and forth on her plate. "I get that. Kinda." She'd been in the Academy all through the war, while Reneé was out there fighting and suffering; it was hard to imagine just from stories what things had been like out on the front lines.

"Kinda fitting though." Her voice was getting meeker by the second; it had been a good six years since anyone had seen the lieutenant subdued and vulnerable, and that anyone happened to have been Reneé. "I, uh.... I never told you, but... there was this woman I knew, back in London, and she was married, but I...."

The pizza slipped out of her hand as she slumped further in her seat, desperate to make sure the marine couldn't see her crying. "When I told her, she just..... right off the balcony. And when I saw you that first time.... you looked so much like her, you even had the accent... and I just had to.... I just needed to feel like maybe, maybe...."

God, it was so stupid. "Maybe you were really her, and maybe she could forgive me and love me back.... I don't even know. You were just.... so much like her...."

"I did love you." pointed out the blonde who sighed at the story, looking up at Miko with pity and pain. She had taken to mindlessly playing with her food by turning it over and over with the fork as if trying to discover inspiration among the salad. Instead she walked over to Miko and gently slid into her lap and stroked her face, only noticing the tears there and then.

"And part of me still does. But you need to feel things for me, Miko. I'm not this woman. I'm someone else..." she breathed as she held Miko's head to her chest and patted her hair. "Because I've forgiven you. I forgave you a while back. We were angry. Angry people do stupid things. I need you here."

Miko simply sat there utterly limp as Reneé settled into her lap, staring ahead blankly even while her face was being nudged into the marine's chest. Couldn't even remember how many times she'd been silently crying right next to Reneé in bed without the other woman even knowing; this was just yet another incidence of her fragile mental state shattering to pieces. There were a lot of moments like that.

For a while she just sat there, pondering what Reneé had said about having feelings for her, not just for what she'd lost in Erin. Any words the Asiatic scientist might've been able to vocalize got stuck as uncertainty gripped her teetering mind. Feelings weren't something she'd considered much, even when she decided to propose; Reneé was nice to be around, fun in bed and a lot like Erin. That'd been all she ever thought of it; to ponder something deeper, something more meaningful, something that might have been mutual the whole time without her knowing it...

Without even realizing it, Miko slowly slipped her hands around Reneé's neck, gently pulling herself up eye level with the marine. Only one way she knew to deal with these terribly uncertain things, really - scientific testing of theories. Her current theory was that exactly what might be stirring in her gut could best be determined by seeing just how much the long-forgotten taste of Reneé's lips set her mind on fire.

With a soaking wet face she leaned in to test that theory.

A sigh left Reneé's lips as mouths connected. Her hand moved up to cup Miko's face once more as she kissed the woman ignoring the fact that the pizza she had replicated for the scientist was getting cold. However right now she was content to comfort Miko in any way she could at this point and simply sat in her lap as she broke probably a dozen rules doing so.

Reneé broke the kiss before pecking Miko's nose playfully. "You are amazing. You always have been. It was fun but...if we are going to do this again I need to know that it's because of me and not from a memory. This time I've got nowhere to run or hide. Please? Just...think about it than do what you did to the young marine captain and shove her against a bulkhead."

Saying Miko's mind was frazzled from the kiss was making a cosmic understatement. Every second that Reneé whispered to her as she nuzzled against marine's face was a second where Miko's vision filled with more fireworks and dazzling lights than a Federation Day celebration. The closest thing she could manage to a smile crossed the lieutenant's lips as they drifted on and off of the other woman's cheek.

"Amazingly screwed up," she muttered only half joking as her arms slid down to wrap around Reneé's abdomen. In another time of place her hands might've slid under the marine's shirt and started caressing the tight, finely sculpted abs underneath; right now all she cared to do was pull the other woman in as tightly as she possibly could.

Miko's oh-so-slightly wrinkled forehead gently rubbed against Reneé's as she leaned over to whisper in the marine's ear. "Not sure if I ever was horribly attracted to that marine captain herself." She smiled and softly kissed Reneé's ear, one hand rising hold the marine just underneath her shoulder.

"But I might be crazy for this one blonde colonel I just met."

"Try not to get too involved." teased Reneé as she gently squeezed Miko's nose with a grin on her face. "But honestly, I'd want us to work. Despite there being at least a dozen rules and regulations saying we shouldn't even attempt it. However we've both had tough lives and frankly us fighting is only going to serve to make it tougher. So...lieutenant...can you give your colonel a break so she can at least make up everything to you?"

"Mmmmm..... maybe." For the first time in years Miko smiled with genuinely playfulness, her fingers twirling up a handful of Reneé's soft hair as she kissed the marine just one more time. "You'll have to earn that break of course, but I think you'll find plenty of fun ways to do that."

With a contented sigh she rested her head against her boss' shoulder, closing her still-wet cybernetic eyes in a warm feeling of security that she hadn't felt in far too long. Miko truly could've fallen asleep in Reneé's arms right then and there if the fact that their shifts still wouldn't be ending for some hours wasn't at the back of her mind.

"So, are having dinner or is duty about to be eschewed all over the floor?", she asked with a satisfied grin.

At that Reneé swung her legs off of Miko and sat at her seat before settling in front of her meal. "As tempting as that is...I think we should take this slow. Not so much to get to know one another but given the critical situation on the colony and now this weapon thing? We need to be focused on the now. After our shifts we could talk some more and rest together. I think we'll both welcome some sleep after all our work. Don't you think?"

With a small sigh Miko nodded in agreement, slumping in her chair again now that Reneé wasn't plopped in her lap. Probably better anyway to not have even more adrenaline added to a situation that already had off-the-wall stress. She half-smiled while turning back to look at the marine, perhaps not quite so averse to eye contact anymore.

"I'll go handle the.... stuff, with the Breen tech. Analysis. Thing." From the way Miko's knees wobbled as she stood up and shakily reached for a couple of padds, it was clear the heart-melting bliss of feeling Reneé's tongue lapping against her own continued to keep her insides in a state resembling goop.

"Don't, uh.... don't suppose I could beg the boss lady for a goodbye kiss?"

"A little one." teased Reneé who pecked Miko's forehead. "Go on, let's do some work. I've got reports to get to."