| PHD #224: Why We Fight |
| Summary: | Khloe is reminded twice why we fight on — and not just for the sake of fighting. |
| Date: | 08 Oct 2041 AE |
| Related Logs: | None |
| Players: |
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| Pilot Berths - Naval Deck - Battlestar Cerberus |
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| The battlestar's pilots call this place home. Bunks line the walls with grey curtains to cover their sleeping areas. Lockers sit between each pair of bunks and a round metal table sits in the center, furnished with simple but comfortable steel chairs. A hatch at the rear of the room leads to a communal head. |
| Post-Holocaust Day: #224 |
Not even squadron leaders are exempt from putting in CAP time now and again. Four long uneventful hours was celebrated by a shower, and Khloe comes padding in from the head, wearing fatigues sans the boots, with a towel draped over her shoulders and her hair free from its usual regulation braid. She makes a bee-line for her locker, which gets opened.
Stepping in from the corridor, Malone looks a bit more awake now than he probably would have done half an hour earlier, if anyone saw him before he went off to breakfast. Looking around the room for a few moments, he offers a nod to the squadron leader as he notices her, but otherwise keeps silent.
Stepping out of her fatigue pants and into uniform blues in seemingly a two-step motion without tripping or leaning into her locker, it seems the SL was just wearing her fatigues as transitory clothes from the showers to her locker. Rumor has it, Poppy is always in her blues, even during downtimes. Her towel gets thrown over the top of her locker door, and as she pulls her tank over her head, she locks eyes with Malone. The tank top is removed more slowly, as if she were an animal in the wild, aware it was being watched. "Splash," she says in greeting, dropping the tank at her feet and pulling a uniform jacket from her locker.
"Sir," Malone offers, before he takes a few steps further into the room, and over in the direction of his locker. "How are you today?" Asked a bit politely as he glances around the room for a few moments.
"Refreshed from a shower and a brief run," Khloe replies. The sound of her locker closing is Splash's sign that she's no longer potentially unmodest — in fact, her uniform is being buttoned up with the towel back over her shoulders, and her belt and boots are being skidded across the floor by her foot to a waiting chair. "CAP was as exciting as ever. Yourself? Splash, isn't it? Lieutenant Malone."
Malone nods a little bit as he hears that, "Always a good thing, CAP being uneventful," he offers, before he nods a bit, although he pauses briefly at the mention of his rank. "That would be me, yes. And I'm well. Got a good night's, or at least whatever comes close to nights out here, sleep, so things are good."
Khloe finishes buttoning her jacket save for the top two, then slips down into her seat and begins pulling boots on and lacing them up. "You have trouble sleeping?" The SL inquires, glancing up at him quickly. "You should consider adding more exercise to your daily routine. It can help tire you out, even if you think you're exhausted." She makes a throaty scoffing sound as she finds a barely noticable smudge on her boot; a thumb gets licked and she works at it.
Malone shakes his head a little bit, "Not normally, no. However, there's been periods of…" A brief pause, and he shrugs a little bit, "Bad dreams, I guess." He then nods to the part about exercise. "Done that," he offers, with a quiet half-smile.
Khloe raises an eyebrow. "Bad dreams, eh? I know all about that," she says, scowling slightly. She's managed to eliminate the spot. "I'll have to shine these again," she mutters to herself. Finished lacing up her boots, she stands and threads her belt around her waist. Methodical, she is. "Nightmares, or just the ones that wake you up in the middle of the night and make you say 'frak.'"
"A mixture of the two, I guess. One time it's one, the other time the other." Malone shakes his head a little bit, "But then again, that's probably quite normal these days, isn't it?"
Malone nods a little bit, "So far, it's no problem," he offers, after considering that for a few moments. "And no, not considered seeing a chaplain," he replies, expression hardening for a few seconds.
Khloe shrugs lightly. Poppy is known as a problem-solver and not much of an empathizer. "Well, you'll report to me if it becomes an issue, yes?" She pushes up from her seat, heading over to her bunk. Reaching up into it, she produces a stack of reports and various folders, which she takes back to the table.
"Of course," Malone replies, before he opens his locker, a bit thoughtfully. Looking inside for a few moments, shaking his head a little bit, "Now where is it…" he mutters to himself.
In from CAP and with just a moment to spare for a stop at the head to take a leak and run a washcloth behind his neck, Evan's still flightsuited when he returns to the bunks. He looks as though he hasn't gotten much sleep, recently, drawn, with dark circles under his eyes, but all the same there's an upbeat sparking behind the dark green gaze, and he seems altogether up, despite the first hints of a nosebleed glinting at the threshold of a nostril.
Khloe is about to begin pouring through her papers, which at a glance appear to be flight performance records, when she notices Evandreus. There's a tilt of her head as if she's not quite sure what she's seeing. "Bunny, you look like hell," the Knights' new SL says in his direction. "Rough shift?"
Malone looks over in Evan's direction, offering the man a nod and a half-smile. He keeps silent though, not saying anything at the moment.
"Huh?" Is the Bunny losing his hearing, too? Nah, it just takes him a little moment to get his thinkmeats to process what he just heard, eyebrows cocked upward in minged surprise and puzzlement, "No? It was fine. You sure know how to make a guy feel pretty, Pops," he banters back with a bright grin just in time to feel that trickle of blood reach his top lip, his brows furrowing as he lifts his hand to it and pulls it away only to see it smeared with red. "Hells damn it," he mutters, going to his locker for a towel.
Khloe pushes out of her chair, brows knitting in a disapproving scowl. She follows after Evandreus, waiting until he claims his towel before attempting to peer at his face. "Talk to me, Lieutenant. You don't look well," she says to him, her normal clipped commanding alto, a little softer, but still reasonably authoritative. She's not barking at him, in any case.
Malone pauses a little bit as he keeps his attention on Evandreus for now. "You okay there, Bunny-man?" he asks after a few moments of pause, sounding a bit worried for the moment.
Pressure applied, Evan strikes out for a chair on which he can settle and tip his head back a ways, ending up looking up into the Captain's eyes, the side of his mouth visible from underneath the towel drawing into a pale smile. "I'm fine. The Evans were in a mood last night, is all. If they weren't being carried and walked, they'd make sure you heard about it."
"The Evans?" Khloe may know Bunny's callsign, she may know him by sight, and she may have statistics on how many CAPs and other missions he's run in the past month. But she has no idea that he's an adoptive father. "I don't understand."
Malone keeps quiet for now, listening to what's being said now. Turning to glance back towards his locker, and what might be found inside it.
"Evan and Evan," Evan explains, 'cause, well, that clears just about everything up, doesn't it? "Mama Astra's youngest. Twins. Newborns. She doesn't have her guy around to help, y'know? I figured she could use someone. And seeing as how if it weren't for me they'd -probably- still be in there…" he grins cheekily over his own professed ignorance of human biology.
Khloe considers Evandreus' words as she continues to watch his face. "Astra. Astra… Astra Koios? I remember reading a report, she gave birth on a Raptor after being rescued." She sniffs lightly at the air - perhaps a quiet snort. "So you've chosen to get involved with this woman, eh? Well, it looks like 'fatherhood' is kicking your ass. Do me a favor, Bunny — when you get cleaned up, check in to Sickbay and have the doctors give you a once-over. All right?" She claps him on the shoulder lightly.
Malone keeps on looking through the locker again, shaking his head a little bit, "Now where did I put it… Oh there…" Finally pulling out what looks like a photo album of some sort now.
Leaving Evandreus' side, Khloe goes back to her paperwork. But before sitting down, she looks over to where Malone has been rummaging around in his locker. "What are you after, Splash?"
"Memories," comes the quiet reply from Malone. "My old photo album. I like to bring it out once in a while so I won't forget old friends and family." He shakes his head a little, "Been a while now…"
This stops Khloe in her tracks. She was flipping a page over when she just freezes, apparently touched by Malone's gesture. She doesn't show much in the way of emotion facially, but she's certainly been given pause. "That's…" She nods slightly. "You do that, Mister. We honor their sacrifice, their loss, by serving. By carrying on."
Malone nods a little bit as he hears that. "And not laying down to give up," he offers a bit quietly.
"So say we all," Khloe declares, nodding slightly. She looks down at the papers splayed out in front of her. Slowly, she begins gathering them back up into their folders. "I think I'm going to go for a walk, and do this paperwork somewhere else," she comments quietly. "Have a good night, Lieutenant."
Malone nods, "Enjoy your walk, sir," he offers, before he looks around a bit, "And take care…"