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Fort Ramsey; Ontario System; Republic Of Liberty
Virginia unlocked the front door and entered a small suite on the top floor of the Alliance building at Fort Ramsey. She had her laptop bag, a navy suitcase, and her guitar hanging from a strap across her back.
Instinctively, she locked the door behind her, leaving the keys in the turned lock - all the outside world could do now was kiss her ass.
At the door, she immediately kicked off her shoes, set down her luggage, and began unpacking - a routine she'd practiced in the Navy - in less than half an hour she had the basic furnishings of the apartment surveyed, clothes unpacked and put where they belonged, the bathroom stocked with toiletries and medications, and four packs of MREs for 24 hours stacked on the kitchen counter.
Within an hour she was settled in - but what next? For the last days, weeks, she had been on her toes and on her feet, there were all sorts of arrangements to be made, but now she could only wait.
A large cabinet of projectile and laser guns caught her attention - she had always loved guns, and not just for the chance to shoot them - the internal mechanisms and designs fascinated her as well. In less than three hours she had the weapons in the cabinet disassembled, examined and put back together again.
After lunch, though, she needed something to do. Virginia sat down on the simple sofa and opened her laptop on the coffee table and connected to NeuroNET.
She let out a long sigh as soon as the systems connected to the database at Roanoke - her inbox was overwhelmed with service requests, mostly for temporary release from duty for family reasons, there were also several disputes, complaints and other matters.
Virginia reached into her case for her reading glasses and set about dealing with her agency. She hated military paperwork, but at the same time it could always keep her busy for long hours.
As the hours passed, it began to get darker outside the windows - that Fort Ramsey space town simulated the cycle of day and night.
As evening approached, Virginia's thoughts began to slow down as there was no adrenaline in her system to force her to stay awake, and her body decided to make up for the sleep deficit from the past week. It was enough to make her wait more than a minute for the files to be sent, and even the fact that she was still sitting on the couch, that the blue light from the screen was shining in her face, that she was still dressed in her uniform, didn't stop her from subconsciously closing her eyes and falling asleep.
Hours threw themselves by, her sleep left undisturbed. The light outside began to creep in through a glass window that spanned an entire wall, offering an unrivaled view of the fort's interior. Likely being the first peaceful sleep she'd had, in what must have seemed like forever, her senses were evidently more dull than usual.
When her eyes opened, it was clear she'd slumped over and lay down in her sleep. The room was illuminated a dull orange glow, the light outside bleeding in. Her laptop had been moved from her person to the coffee table just in front of the couch. A blanket had also been draped over her carefully. Ensuring neither arm nor foot was exposed, and that a slight portion was curved over an ear. Somebody else was clearly in the room with her, judging by how her computer was moved and the blanket which wasn't here before. A glance at the door revealed the keys she left in were absent, instead neatly placed in a glass bowl on the same table as her laptop.
While perhaps entirely unwelcome, every action which could be observed had been fairly considerate. The air was also laden with two things. The smell of fresh coffee and the sounds of somebody typing. The latter seemed to be coming from the far corner of this living room. The only thing there was an L-shaped desk. It housed Morreti's terminal, a section of the room elevated by a single step, sharing in the same view that the stretch of glass provided. The smell was much easier to locate, there was a tray of food at the bottom-left edge of the table, no doubt placed there for her. It wasn't part of the rations she had brought, too non-standard to have been. A stack of pancakes, showered in syrup and with a tiny cube of rapidly melting butter. It looked like a breakfast course straight from an OSC menu, and it likely was one. The ingredients could have been stolen from a cruise liner's supplies.
The typing stopped, replaced by soft humming. The voice was recognizable.
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Virginia opened her eyes and immediately noticed that something was different in the apartment - not just different, but that there was a stranger here too. Several alarms immediately went off in her head at once and good old adrenaline fully awakened her - she was now ready for anything.
Angrily, she pulled the blanket off of herself, slowly standing up given her usually low blood pressure, and adjusted the uniform she had fallen asleep in.
As a precursor to the storm, she glared at Morreti, "Your people saved my life, fine, you helped me, fine, so now I'm going to do you a favor too and not drag you out of this apartment by your fleece!", Virginia hissed angrily. Anger permeated her voice, and nothing could calm her down besides his immediate surrender and acknowledging his mistakes, "It's normal to knock, to ring the bell when you go somewhere and someone is sleeping there!".
She reached into the pockets of her trousers and pulled out a metal case containing cigarettes and a lighter, and promptly lit one, "Or did you never learn the f**king niceties?!".
The abuse was received with an absolutely blank facial expression. It was as if there was nothing actually wrong being said, just that it was loud. When she'd finally finished and pulled out a cigarette, he spoke up. "I'm sorry." It was the first thing he chose to say, followed by a full minute of silence as he shut his terminal off and stood up to leave.
"You'd been under a lot of pressure lately and I didn't want to wake you. I'm not good with people, so there's things I clearly don't understand." There was a visible limp to the way he walked, despite how painfully hard he was trying to conceal it when taking the step down. The fight had ended poorly, but at least the ship was still in one piece, more importantly its Captain wasn't dead.
Since it would take him a fair bit of time to clear the distance to the door, he conceded as he went. "Please don't let my absence of manners ruin your meal. I've spent too much time to myself to remember certain faux pas. I'll issue you your uniform later today, and when I do I'll ring the bell like a guest. I intended for this place to be yours anyway." Once he arrived at the door frame, he held onto it so he could keep weight off his bad leg and would then let himself out if not interrupted.
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Virginia blinked her eyes in surprise - she had not expected such a quick and absolute victory. This calmed her down somewhat visibly. She folded her arms across her chest and watched as Morreti limped towards the door, perhaps overcome with some regret. After all, he had risked a lot to save her and her crew, not to mention their relatives.
"Morreti...", she said aloud, sighing when she saw him in the doorway, "I'm still mad, but I thank you for what you did for me and my men.". She took a long drag from her cigarette and after a short moment added, "I'll see you later, okay? There are some things to be discussed.".
Stopping for a moment so he could look back at her, he seemed glad that she'd at least partially forgiven the offense. But there was only one thing he felt like saying in response to all of that. "I'd do it again." This was accompanied by a faint smile and a softness to the tone she'd not heard from him before. Everything about how it was said and how he behaved while saying it evoked sincerity. He really would do it all over again.
When she mentioned meeting later and talking about things, he nodded and then limped the rest of the way out.
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Virginia waited until Morreti came out of her apartment and locked the door behind him. She took a long drag from her cigarette and blew out another puff of smoke as she calmed her prematurely frayed nerves. She simply needed to keep tabs on the people who came into her personal space and take note of them.
The freshly brought coffee was a small consolation and she could definitely use it. The butter pancakes looked tempting too, but she wasn't hungry in the morning so she stored them in the fridge until she could reheat them later for lunch.
After her traditional breakfast of a cup of coffee and a cigarette, and before she decided to do the next part of her daily agenda, she finally took a shower, washed her still blood-smelling hair, and changed into a clean uniform that didn't look like anyone had slept in it for two days. T-shirt, pants, and turtleneck, that was her favorite style, and all still in the Hellfire Legion colors.
She then sat down at her laptop and continued her paperwork where she had dropped off the previous evening. She quickly finished leave slips and filed them into the database, made notes of the reported disciplinary infractions and sent them to the responsible senior officers, and finally resolved to look over the Chief Engineer's report on the repairs, replacements and modifications needed on Roanoke.
The entire document was hundreds of pages and diagrams, with exhaustive justifications of what needed to be done and why, and she had completely lost track of time.
When he returned during the later half of the day, he did as promised. The bell was rung as if he were a regular guest. To his surprise, the door opened nearly immediately. It was the quickest reception he'd ever been entitled to. He was staying off his bad leg less than before, likely a result of pain killers ensuring he could function with more speed. His right hand was clenching a duffel bag, no doubt containing her freshly issued uniform.
His eyes silently asked for permission to enter, and when she stepped out of the way to allow it, he took the hint. Something was on his mind though, and he was compelled to ask her once she'd shut the door behind him. "You don't think any less of me after this morning, do you?" There was a hint of vulnerability to his voice. It revealed that he cared about what the answer was going to be. And that he might even be hurt if it were negative.
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Virginia folded her arms across her chest and pouted her lips, "I'm still pissed if that's what you're after, but I've cooled off a bit. It was extremely uncomfortable experience, to put it politely.". She was already heading towards the living room before she turned to look at him and her gaze stopped on his shoes, "And please - take your shoes off, I want clean floors and carpets in here.".
With those words she made her way into the living room and asked, "Tea or coffee? I also have powdered lemonade if you're feeling adventurous.", and she picked up the tray and began preparing refreshments for the meeting. She dumped out some long-life biscuits onto the plate, supposedly buttery from what it said on the tin they were in, but she did not smell or taste any butter flavor in them herself. "I'll need to discuss my future and the future of my people with you. Something tells me adjusting to the new reality is going to be harder than that damned ship takeover.".
Politely, he nodded and neatly left his shoes by the door. Though they were spotless and part of his current dress uniform, he saw no reason to protest. This was her personal space now anyway. "Coffee's fine, thanks. But you didn't answer my question." Not wanting to be rude when asked about preference of beverage, he answered first and asserted himself second. When remaking how he'd been left hanging, his tone was firm.
He obviously didn't appreciate how he was expected to help sort through logistics of the integration, after also helping with the takeover directly, while his counterpart refused to answer a direct question.