Test Drive #8 - Ten Forward and the Enterprise Concourse

[ten_fwd_mods]

Note: Starting next month, Test Drive Memes will be moved to our new meme comm, ten_fwd_meme! This is the last TDM for ten_fwd_ooc, but all past memes will still be linked here and we will still announce when a new TDM goes up. Last month's TDM is over here and has some still recent threads you can tag as well.





Option 01. Ten Forward: You know how you were standing there, back in your home world, just minding your own business?

Time to forget all about that.

You're suddenly standing in the middle of a very large, lively bar filled with many different faces and many different smells, sights and sounds. Happily, you're not alone — in fact, you're surrounded by people who seem to be as confused as you are... and some of them look a little, well, unusual.

This is Ten Forward, the Enterprise's off-duty lounge; feel free to get acquainted with your fellow travelers and try to find somebody who's in charge, or ask some questions of the person nearest you, throw a fit, stage a coup... maybe do a little exploring? Others might call it the USS Enterprise, but for the foreseeable future, you'll be calling it home.





Option 02. The Enterprise Concourse: Perhaps you did decide to do a little exploring. You're currently on Deck 4, where the ship's stores are located. This may be a starship, but it has been designed to be a home for officers, civilians, even families with young children. Though there are replicators on every deck, there are just some things you can't get from them, and so you come to the concourse. Perhaps you're in the market for some fancy perfume, or you want to get your hair done at the salon; maybe you're interested in shopping some of these strange alien fashions, or you just want to relax at the spa and get a massage. It's like a miniature mall without the Cinnabon, so pick your favorite store or stall and spoil yourself.


[OOC: There isn't a lot of information about the store(s) on the Enterprise, so we're taking some creative license and so should you! Maybe there is a Cinnabon there after all. Q may not appreciate food and beverages the way we do, but he does appreciate a good joke. Who wants to go shopping at the space mall?]

Comments

[suggests_flowers]

"I'm pretty sure you can call me 'Laura'. It is my name."

And they were, once, rather a lot to each other, though he hadn't called when the Atlantis Expedition had been recalled, and she hadn't sought him out. That doesn't stop her missing him: the way he laughs, that smile, the way her name sounded in his adorable accent. That doesn't stop seeing him again hurting, because she wonders how different things would have been if she'd still been on Atlantis and they hadn't been trying to conduct a relationship across two galaxies.

Little wonder it didn't work out.

He looks just as startled to see her as she felt, and he looks ... older, too, though it hasn't been that long. It's Atlantis. The war. What it costs.

"It's the USS Enterprise, Carson," she says, a hint of her usual teasing laughter in her voice. "Don't you recognize it?"

[atadiscoverer]

"Enterprise?" He's looking around, frowning... It did look somewhat familiar... Sort of. Like something he saw on TV years ago...

"Is this a new SGC ship?"

Of course, the laughter gets him, and he can't help but grin slightly, embarrassed at whatever faux pas he's done that's caused her to do that. Carson was pretty oblivious to most common things; a downside to spending all your young adult life in University, studying to the level Carson has...

Laura always found something to tease him for.

[suggests_flowers]

He shouldn't take it too seriously. Laura teases everyone, especially her friends: Carson, Rodney, Katie, the other girls from poker, the members of her gate team. Her smile's a little apologetic at the look on his face, but she never meant anything by it. Still doesn't.

She'd meant the joke to gently introduce the truth to him, that they've found themselves in some alternate reality where Star Trek is real. She'd forgotten how little of so much pop culture he knows, though she knew, once, about that and why it was, because he'd spent so much time working and studying and becoming her best he could be.

She'd loved that about him, once.

Now, she bites at her lower lip and sticks her hands into her pockets, lifting her shoulders a little.

"Uh. No, no, it's not."

She licks her lips.

"So you know that ... thing about how there are multiple realities out there and different versions of events have happened in each of them? We're ... kind of in the one where Star Trek is real."

[atadiscoverer]

"Star Trek?" He frowns slightly. "With Captain Kirk and that?"

Of course, he's aware about multiple realities. This isn't the first time the SGC's fell afoul of them. Oh, Rodney would love this...

"How did we... Get here?"