Scenes From The Nexus

Posted on Sun Jun 28th, 2015 @ 6:07pm by Jackson Banning V & Vic & Commander Oralia Zeferino
Edited on on Sun Jun 28th, 2015 @ 6:44pm

Mission: Further Challenges
Location: The Nexus Club

* The Nexus Club *

Vic had been moving at top speed all through the early show. He’d barely had time to look up to see who was in the club for the evening, but now things were hitting the quieter time between shows. Finally, he stopped to catch his breath and have some lemonade. He took a long sip, then grinned at Jackson and Oz. “Hell of a night, Jack.”

“Indeed.” Jackson handed his glass back for a refill. “Jan’ll be happy as a lark.” He looked at Oz’s wine glass. “Care for some more, darlin’?”

"Yes, please," she passed her glass over for a refill and took Jackson's hand in hers. She'd been a lady of leisure for over a day now and intended to remain so for another day, at least. That meant she could drink as much as she liked.

“Certainly.” Vic refilled her glass, then raised his own. “To you Oz, welcome back. I can’t tell you how happy I am to see you because J was driving us all crazy.” He grinned and took a sip of the lemonade.

“Smartass,” Jackson grumbled, but he was smiling. “What he said is right. I was makin’ myself crazy. If Li tries ta drag ya off somewhere anytime soon, me and her will have words.”

Oz smiled happily at Vic, "It's good to know I was missed. And I promise, I am not going anywhere anytime soon. Jackson had good reason to go a little crazy, to be honest."

“He does that when he hasn’t seen you in two hours, to be honest.” Vic smiled.

He paused as Sam returned to the bar. The waited placed a silver ice bucket and empty champagne bottle up on the service area. “Jackson, he said thanks so much. They enjoyed it.”

Jackson nodded. “Good deal.” He turned to Oz. “I sent Suresh a little present as a thank you.”

She twisted around, looking for the culprit at issue. She spied him on the dance floor with a young-looking woman. She turned back to Vic. "He moves quick, doesn't he? We just got back and he has a date? Jeez. I'm not sure even Darwin moves that fast. Any idea who the woman is?"

The sounds of ice cubes scattering across the bar made Jackson wince. “Umm...yeah, I do.” He shot a glance at Vic who was cleaning up the mess where he’d turned over his lemonade. His expression was seriously unhappy.

“Sorry, I didn’t get you did I Oz?” Vic asked as he continued to wipe furiously at the bar.

"No, I'm okay." She watched Vic a moment then asked, "Are you?"

“Yeah,” Vic muttered. He examined the bar and was satisfied. “It’s nothing. Really.” He moved down to the end and cleared away the ice bucket and the empty bottle.

Jackson watched him for a moment, then took Oz’s wine glass and offered his arm. “Let’s go catch the late show, shall we?”

"Sure," she took his arm and let him lead her to his reserved table. "Do you know the woman? Vic didn't seem real happy to see her."

Jackson held her chair for her, then sat down in his own. “That’s not entirely true, honey. He’s glad to see ‘er but not to see ‘er with someone else, you see? He met ‘er here last week and took ‘er out to dinner. I found ‘em at Lao’s and it seemed to be goin’ well. Sadly, duty called which is why I had to drag him away.”

"What duty?" She was suddenly alert, thinking he meant Starfleet duty.

"Nothin’ major,” he answered, “Just some info he needed.” Jackson frowned now. “I don’t get it Oz. He seemed to like her, hell, still seems to. So why didn’t he do anything about it? Oh, you asked who she is. She’s new, in Science. Six of Ten. Rescued from the Collective just three years ago.”

"Ah... I recall getting a memo about her. There's been some incidences with her. Is Vic put off by that, by her being a former Borg or her being at the center of some trouble?"

Jackson shrugged. “Given our line of work? I can’t imagine trouble would shoo him off. Her past didn’t seem to be botherin’ him when I saw ‘em. But...he’s slow sometimes. He took Ophelia out a coupla years ago and nothin’ ever came of it either.”

"If he's in competition with Suresh, he needs to get fast, it looks like. Then again, maybe he's like Darwin: perpetually single." She turned a sappy smile on Jackson, "I'm glad you're not."

“Oh so am I.” A slow smile spread over Jackson’s face. “But not everyone’s as smooth as me.” He glanced past her to the dance floor where Six and Suresh were standing still at the edge, his arms around her. “Except maybe him.”

"Mm...," she frowned, clearly not sure that was a good thing.

“So Vic will either deal with the situation and plead his case or let it go.” Jackson shrugged. “My family had a rather colorful way of expressin’ that idea but it’s the truth. He can’t expect her to sit around waitin’ and tryin’ to read his mind.”

"I suppose not." She sipped her wine and held his hand. "Let's not talk about them anymore. Tell me about this egg sac."

Jackson looked sheepish for a moment. “So...ya heard did ya? How much do ya know?”

"Just that Iggy asked about it on the comm the other night." She focused on him and grinned. "So, Mr. Zeferino, what do you know about it?"

“Just about all there is to know,” he answered. “While you were gone it sorta came up when the boys and Iggy got home from the Charu mission. Apparently she let it slip and they were concerned.”

"As we all should have been, if we had known. So they found an egg sac and what?"

“Well, The boys drafted Vic and Reva and went huntin’,” he answered. “And they found both the sac, which Vic had the pleasure of pullin’ out of the jeffries tube, and Iggy’s mate, whose name is Jerry. Both are now down in a habitat in the science center so we don’t have a million little jerry’s runnin’ around the station. That’s the nutshell version.”

"Good, I'm glad they did that. Let's hope they are little Jerrys and not little Iggys. I know that's horrible, but... At the rate she and her progeny can procreate? They'd overrun us."

“It’s a nightmare waitin’ ta happen, darlin’. It could cause panic in the ranks too, so yeah, it’s better to have ‘em contained. Science is gonna have a field day once they hatch though. But when this all started with Iggy, didn’t we discover Patrick isn’t wild about spiders?”

"Yeah, he's not a fan. Funny that Iggy was their nanny for a while," Oz laughed, thinking of poor Patrick faced with Nanny Iggy.

“Now there’s somethin’ I’d like ta see. Ya gotta admit though, a telepathic nanny is the way ta go.” Jackson took her hand and kissed it gently. “I am so glad yer home. You realize, all the kids are away?” He chuckled softly.

"So they are, though having them around has never hindered our love life. I'm glad to be home, and in one piece. Remind me to reprimand Darwin, though," she said.

“Darwin?” That surprised Jackson. “What on earth for?”

"Sedating me! It was like being drunk and trying to think with a brain full of molasses," she grumped. "He needs to not do that again."

“He did that so you could rest till they got ya to a doctor. I saw the injuries when ya called, Oz. If you’d moved too much, you might not’ve made it back to Nelvana. So let the man be. He was worried and had to make a call when you were in danger and Li wasn’t responsive.” Jackson reached over to take her hand. “I owe him one too.”

She held onto her grump a moment longer, even though she knew what Jackson said was the truth. "He's a good man," she agreed.

“He is, and he thinks the world of you. Don’t give him a hard time about it.” Jackson smiled finally. “Just let him.”

"Okay, okay," she held up her hands in surrender and laughed. They sat quietly for a few minutes. "Dance with me?", she asked after a time, when Janice started in on ‘Tender Is The Night’.

“Sure.” He rose and took her hand, leading her the short distance to the floor. “So, Mrs. Banning V, you still have one more day off, what do you intend to do with it?”

"Spend it with my darling husband, doing who knows what. Maybe a holosuite? The Arboretum?" She recalled an isochip Gilroy had given her a while back: it had a holoprogram of Charleston on it. "Let's go to the holosuite." She nodded at him, smiling.

“I think that sounds lovely. Jan’s back so she can spare me for a night, I think. Woody can hang out in case he needs to break up anything.” Jackson kissed her as the music began to fade. “We can go home anytime now. I’ll catch up with Vic later and do the advice thing.”

"Was that a hint, Mr. Banning?" She laughed as they headed for the doors. "Hey, is Woody sticking around sort of permanently now? Because of Janice?"

“It’s Woody, who knows?” Jackson took her hand in his as they walked. “He’s making noise about expandin’ in the Delta Quadrant and lettin’ the rest of the boys handle things everywhere else and I gotta admit it makes sense. The bars and restaurants out here have made us another fortune an’ with the colony goin’ up, there’s bound to be trade in that sector...and so on. So I guess the answer is….we’ll see.”

"OK, we'll see," she walked with him, happily thinking of nothing other than him.

*********************
Sam
Accidentally Bringing Bad News

Vic
Making Sure The Bar Is REALLY Clean

Oz Banning
Lady of Leisure

Jackson Zeferino
Enjoying His Lady Of Leisure