|
|
Post by lizzycalvino on Sept 12, 2010 17:32:51 GMT -5
The Venia. Lizzy was in the perfect position to admire the beauty of the vessel because of her knowledge of architecture and engineering. Whoever had designed the ship had done a great job. There was almost a familiar air about it, something that made it instantly feel like she knew the ship and made it feel like home. She couldn't place it, but she was sure she would soon enough.
Huffing her big duffel bag up to the sleeping quarters, she dumped it in her room with an oof, just about managing not to trip through the doorway. She'd unpack later, for now she wanted to explore, discover the ship, see where she would be working for the next however long. Engineering was going to be where she spent most of her time, so she decided to find there first, using her sense of direction and common sense.
Walking through the door, she shoved her hands in her pockets, looking around at the room. There were several other people in there working away. She could a pretty blonde woman tapping away at a computer in her office, her eyes focused on the door, and another just as lovely blonde, tossing her long hair over her shoulder and letting out a laugh, a wrench in her hand. Wow. Was this really engineering, or had she mistakenly walked into the backstage area of a fashion show?
It was then that she heard a loud crash and almost jumped out of her skin, slapping her hand to her chest in surprise, trying to stop her heart from leaping out from behind her rib cage. A man had gone sprawling onto the floor, sending a box of tools flying in the process, and Lizzy instantly ran over to check that he was okay. At the same time, the blonde descended upon him too, her words full of surprise and worry.
"Oh my God!" Lizzy let out a gasp when she realised who the man was, "Will?!" |
|
|
|
Post by William Blake on Sept 12, 2010 17:37:49 GMT -5
Will hadn't meant to make a complete idiot of himself. In fact, he'd been fairly content having a nice conversation with Natalie, making her laugh always brought a smile to his face. Then, he'd made the mistake of leaning back a little to see who had just entered engineering and had almost had a heart attack. Instead, however, he'd lost his footing and fallen over backwards, taking a tool box with him
He made an awful racket as his body and the tools all went clattering to the ground, and no sooner had he dared to open his eyes, his vision was filled with not one, but two women, one blonde and one brunette. His present and his past in one room. Oh boy, oh boy.
"Lizzy?!" he replied in an equally surprised tone, completely flabberghasted by her sudden appearance, "what the hell?!" |
|
|
|
Post by Natalie Blake on Sept 12, 2010 20:51:17 GMT -5
The day so far had been pretty relaxed. Natalie had spent half of her shift down in engineering simply chatting with Will. Even though they'd already established how they felt about one another, their was still so much to learn. She'd admitted to her fear of rats, and, being Will, he'd gone off and made a joke out of it, which she couldn't help but laugh at.
She heard the door to engineering open and glanced around, having only just enough time to catch a glimpse of a beautiful brunette woman before Will went crashing to the ground and regaining her attention. "Jesus, Will, are you all right?" she asked, honestly concerned as she rushed around to kneel beside him. He'd managed to pull a tool-box down with him, and as it had been open at the time there was no telling what might have happened.
It took her a moment to notice that the woman she'd watched coming in had rushed over as well, and at first she thought it was just an act of good-will, coming over to see if he was all right--but then Will called her by name. Natalie's eyes shot up to Lizzy's face, and she took in the woman's practically flawless appearance a little apprehensively before speaking.
"So I take it you two know each other?" she asked, keeping her voice clinically nonchalant. No need to jump to conclusions. Just because they know each other doesn't mean anything. Maybe they were classmates or something. She scoffed mentally. And if you believe that, I've got a bridge I can sell you, really cheap. |
|
|
|
Post by William Blake on Sept 13, 2010 9:40:15 GMT -5
After getting over the initial shock, he looked at both the women again, trying to find some words that made a little more sense that both the exclamations that he'd let burst from his mouth. "I'm fine, I'm fine," he said quickly, waving them both off as he clambered back onto his feet, drawing back up to his full height. He offered Natalie a hand, pulling her back up as well, Lizzy standing of her own accord. The tall brunette in heels looked like a giant in comparison to Natalie.
Will heard the tone in Natalie's voice and he immediately stopped himself from saying something that could get him into trouble with her. Her voice was too strained for her not to be interested in this. After all, he was the one who was hardly ever phased, and yet one look at Lizzy had sent him flying. "Yes, uh, Natalie, this is Lizzy, we went to college together," he said, keeping some handle of the English language as he spoke, "Lizzy this is Natalie."
Christ this was awkward. Both of the women were going to know that there was something he hadn't said in their introductions. How it should have gone was 'Natalie, my girlfriend, meet Lizzy, my ex, who the last time I saw her, was throwing a hair dryer across the room at my head.' How swell.
"What are you doing here?" |
|
|
|
Post by lizzycalvino on Sept 13, 2010 11:10:05 GMT -5
Lizzy snapped her wide open mouth shut, surveying the situation between Will and Natalie quickly. She let out an 'ooh' as Will clambered onto his feet, automatically reaching out to help, then quickly pulling her arms back when she saw the look on Natalie's face. It had turned sour the moment her name had left Will's lips.
Uh oh.
His introduction was awful, but Lizzy got the message loud and clear. First day on the ship, first hour in fact, and she'd already bumped into her ex and his new girlfriend. Wow, usually her clumsiness didn't come with bad luck, but apparently today it did. "Yes, hi," Lizzy said, deciding to take over, offering Natalie her hand, "Lizzy Calvino, I'm the new engineer." Or, at least, she was supposed to be. It didn't look like anyone knew she was coming.
"I didn't just turn up out of the blue to give this one a heart attack," she said, letting out a nervous sort of laugh as she gestured to Will, looking between the two of them. "Uhhh," she brushed her hair from her face, feeling awkward. "Well, I just came to have a peek at where I'm working, so I'll let you guys get back to whatever you were doing." |
|
|
|
Post by Natalie Blake on Sept 15, 2010 23:28:31 GMT -5
When Will announced that he was fine, Natalie rocked back on her heels to give him more room to get up, and took the hand he offered her to get up. She felt a little uncomfortable, dwarfed by the both of them as she was, but she managed to brighten her expression a bit. She had exes, after all. It wasn't like she could really get mad at Will for having a few of his own.
However, her previous discomfort at meeting Lizzy must have been more obvious than she'd given it credit for, because Will suddenly looked wary and Lizzy looked somewhat embarrassed. To try and cover for herself, she took the brunette's outstretched hand casually and shook, offering her a weak smile. "It's nice to meet you, Lizzy. I'm Natalie Fairholm."
It was hard not to smirk a little when Lizzy started apologizing, but somehow Natalie managed. "No, no, it's fine. I tend to over-react a lot, don't take it personally. Actually, it's probably good that you showed up when you did. I really do have to fix that stupid console." She sighed a little more heavily than she needed to. That bloody piece of machinery was going to be the death of her.
"You don't have to leave if you don't want to," Natalie assured her, waving a hand through the air dismissively. "I'm sure you two have a lot of catching up to do, hey? I'll, uh, just leave you to it then." She then turned and traipsed over to what she had to work on, carefully avoiding Will's eyes as she passed him.
Jealously. It was such a stupid emotion. She had no reason to be jealous, absolutely no reason at all. After all, Will had told her he loved her. Even if he'd loved Lizzy at some point, he loved her now. So why did she feel nervous at leaving the two of them alone together? |
|
|
|
Post by lizzycalvino on Sept 16, 2010 8:26:43 GMT -5
"Nice to meet you too," Lizzy said, appreciating that Natalie was at least trying to make it seem like Lizzy didn't have to walk on egg shells around her. As for over-reacting, "no, I'm sure that's not true," she said, "in fact, yours was nothing in comparison to this one over here," she gave Will a quick dig in the arm, trying to lighten the mood a little.
Natalie made a hasty retreat, whether working on the panel was just an excuse to extract herself from the awkward situation or not, Lizzy couldn't blame her. After all, she had just tried to get out of it herself. "You don't... have... she began, but Natalie had already walked away, avoiding looking at Will completely. Boy had she put her foot in it. Will's too.
"I am so sorry," Lizzy said to Will as soon as Natalie was out of ear-shot, "honest to God, I didn't know you were here, I mean, I haven't seen or heard from you in over four years, how could I-"
"Don't worry about it, Liz," Will quickly interjected. He didn't need anything about the past being brought up here, not while he knew Natalie was probably still trying to eavesdrop.
Lizzy bit her bottom lip in the silence, trying to decide what to do, "well, I only came to look around, see who the CO was."
"That would be me."
"Great," so he should have known she was turning up. Could have saved him the surprise at least. "Well, boss, I'll leave you to do damage control." She cast one last glance at Natalie before turning and walking out. |
|
|
|
Post by William Blake on Sept 16, 2010 8:54:46 GMT -5
Will watched Lizzy leave then ran a hand over his face. Everything had been fine up until two minutes ago when his past had walked through the door, now Natalie was avoiding his gaze and he had a feeling he had a lot of explaining/making up to after that conversation. If only he hadn't fallen over, if he'd just stayed cool then it probably would have been all right.
After taking a moment to collect himself, he walked over to Natalie, looking sheepish. "Hey," he said, she'd already started work on the console. "Sorry about that," he said, pulling out a word which didn't usually exist in his repetoire (sorry), "got kind of caught off guard. At least you can take the piss out of me now if you want, cartwheeling arms and everything." He offered her a small smile, not sure how she was going to react now that Liz was gone. |
|
|
|
Post by Natalie Blake on Sept 17, 2010 21:42:59 GMT -5
Not wanting to play the obsessive-girlfriend, Natalie did her best to tune Lizzy and Will's conversation out. Apparently, though, she needn't have bothered, because a few minutes later Will approached her, looking rather embarrassed. Pretending not to notice is chagrined expression, she leaned in to tweak the innards of the console and pushed her hair back in annoyance as it fell into her face.
It was as she straightened up to search for a hair-tie that he spoke, and she paused, her own face growing a little abashed. "I--no, Will, I'm sorry. I could have taken that far more gracefully than I did..." she trailed off, shrugging a little before offering him a small, apologetic smile. "Really, it's fine. You don't have to say anything. And I'm not going to kick your butt over something so trivial."
Digging in her jean-pocket Natalie unearthed an elastic and pulled her hair back carelessly, twirling it into a haphazard-bun. Will was still standing there, seeming unsure as to whether he was actually forgiven or not. Not that it was exactly his fault. He technically had nothing to feel guilty about, unless he had intentions of hooking up with Lizzy again, though Natalie doubted that were the case.
"Really, don't sweat it. It's cool. Go. Vamoose!" she chided, smiling a little. "Go and do whatever it is you Chief Engineers do. |
|
