Engineers In Love

 Episode Name:  Engineers In Love

   Written By:  Spider

         Cast:  Barsil, Etena, Isole, Polixenes and Takamura.

  Produced By:  Starfleet

  Directed By:  Spider

     Aired On:  Wed Jul 21 21:52:53 2004

     Stardate:  54256.1

Time: Wed Jul 21 19:47:08 2004

Stardate: 54255.9

The spa has been cleared of all holographic quasi-sentients, and there are two shipfuls of Centaurans lounging around on various chaises and piles of holographic pillows. Barsil, Davos, Keryke and Erisa the Elder all stand near where the door opens into the holodeck, waiting patiently and conversing among themselves.

Coming into the Holodeck to see /two/ ships full of Centaurans is enough to make Isole burst out into tears right on the spot. You sometimes forget just what it is that you've left behind until you walk headfirst into it. Fortunately, the presence of all the others is enough to make Isole's rather abrupt tears very, very happy ones. She leads Magret forward by the hand, bouncing little Erisa in her reboso. "Hi, mom. Keryke. Achine. Hi, Davos. You were wrong! See?" Isole bounces the baby twice in example. Hee.

Etena, too, tears up a little, but she doesn't burst out crying; she's always been a little more reserved than Isole with her displays, and she's got her DTI 'mask her emotions' training now. It drops a little at a time, though, until she's loosed her hand from Isole's enough to allow each of them to hug someone separate while still, in the end, hanging on to one another. "Hi," she tells Keryke, wrapping her arms around her mother's neck. "You, on the other hand, were right." A glance at Erisa the Elder. "And so were you. Thank you."

A long look at Isole, and then the lanky, tall, dark-haired Medical Officer leans over to kiss her cheek. "I was." A pause. "And I do not think I've ever been so happy but to be so. Congratulations, both of you."

In short order, the pair are surrounded by what pretty much amounts to a huge CTC group hug, a tightly-packed group of people hugging and talking and greeting and re-greeting family. It's a happy babble of closely-knit bodies, rather like a school of fish. Barsil's non-cybernetic arm goes around Isole, and, rather without words, he keeps it there, even while everyone else is coming to hug and kiss and greet the pair and their daughter.

"I still love you, Davos. It's okay." Isole leans up to pech the medical officer's cheek in reply, giving him an 'all is very well' smile. "Thank you." She then leans in to give Erisa a hug and a kiss, offering her mother a look at her namesake and grandchild for the first time. This is, of course, a practical ritual. And then she's content, indeed, to settle in against Barsil's side and murmur greetings to the crowd that circles them up. Greetings are exchanged, and hugs too, the occasional kiss, a bit of banter here and there. But mostly, Isole's only too happy to just ... be. She'd probably fall utterly silent if she were allowed to.

Erisa reaches down to touch her namesake's cheek for a moment, and then leans down to kiss her nose. For once, the bombastic Engineer is silent; in the midst of all of these people, while they press to and fro around her, she's overwhelmed, clearly so, by this little miracle granddaughter. It's a timeless sort of moment, and it takes up her whole world for a while.

Magret, like Isole, talks happily enough, sneaking her hand back into Isole's and squeezing tightly. You don't know what you've been missing until it's back in your life, for however short a time. She relaxes considerably after a few moments, happy just to be next to her lover and surrounded by their people.

The chatter, the greetings, the howareyous, they go on for some time, wrapping around Isole and Magret as completely as the hugs do. The CTC does not socialize halfway, after all. It all dies down almost on cue, however, and it's then that Barsil looks down at his daughter and asks, "So." Pause. "Why should we let you marry this girl, Isole?"

Grandmother and grandchild are allowed to bond without much interruption from Isole. She's only too happy to perform minimalist conversation and hold onto Magret's hand. Tightly. When matters start, as they always do for such occasions, Isole musters up her usual pluck enough to make a very textbook sort of answer. "Because I know where you keep the oil can for your hand." Open with a joke. She gives her dad a nudge with her elbow and finally turns her eyes on Magret fully, her expression growing rather vacant with renewed adoration. It's officially the first day of the rest of their lives. "Because it's not your choice anymore, dad. Because as happy as we are to have all of you here today, even if you said no, even if you went away? It wouldn't change how we feel one bit. We want you here, though. All of you. We've dreamed about today for years, now. And you were all here for it. So if you don't let me marry Magret, I'll have to run off again and take her with me. And we'd be sad. But we'd do it. Because our hearts don't have a say in the matter, and our bodies are just along for the ride." Isole looks away from Magret, up to Barsil, then hides her face in his chest briefly.

A ripple of laughter spreads out through the crowd, beginning with Barsil's rolling, rumbling chuckle, and then silence reigns again. As Isole speaks, it becomes an almost breathless silence. If there's one thing Centaurans love, it's a good romance, to the one, and what Isole says? That just... /typefies/ a great romance. There's a collective sigh after she's done talking, and respectful silence for the moment, letting those words have their own space and time to exist and to take up the group's whole attention and thoughts.

It's Davos who replies, "Well said. I suppose it doesn't matter, if we haven't really any say in the matter," and this brings a little ripple of subdued chuckles, as well, "but... Magret. Why should we let you marry this girl?"

Polixenes goes home.

Polixenes has left.

Takamura steps into holodeck 1 from the Dream Factory.

Takamura has arrived.

There are two ships worth of Centaurans packed together, all standing much closer together than humans would find comfortable. Isole and Magret are in the center of that group, with Barsil -- the captain of the CTC -- standing next to Isole, his arm wrapped around her waist. A solidly-built Centauran woman with Isole's jaw and cheekbones holds Erisa cradled to her, and a solemn-faced tall, lanky Centauran male with a medic's cross tattooed over and around his right eye stands on Magret's other side. Magret is the current focus of attention.

There's a long moment wherein Magret just looks at her partner, taking a deep breath and staring at the red-headed holoprogrammer whose hand she holds. "Because Isole's right. We fit together. We're riveted onto one another, soul to soul, and there's nothing that anyone could do about it anyway. So why try? Because I don't /work/ without her. Because everything works, no matter how bad it is, if I have her with me. Because you only get one love of your life, and if you happen to have known her since she was chasing you through the cargo holds and stealing your favorite blankie at naptime, all the better." She laughs a little there, and tears finally start coming. "Because you can't slow this down, let alone stop it. And neither can we. And surrendering to the inevitable movements of Fortune has never been such a wonderful thing."

Isole straightens up slowly, sneaking a glance back in Magret's direction now that she's speaking and the spotlight is off Isole such as it is. She remains quite focussed on what Magret has to say, her smile feathering into a wider, sunny vision of its usual lopsided wry. Do not look directly into the Isole, you may go blind. She nods her head in vigorous agreement with what Magret says in conclusion, then gusts out a smitten sigh. Yep. Just like that.

Takamura tries to slip into the holodeck as quietly as possible. Staying towards the back for the moment, he shifts around to get a look at the happenings. Meanwhile, he hands fiddle with his uniform making subtle adjustments.

"Well, given that we're powerless to stop it no matter what, and I don't imagine anyone here would even if we could," and Barsil offers a baleful glance about at that, as if jokingly daring anyone to even try to speak a word of dissent, "you might as well just kiss one another and be done with it. What already is, we now make official, and so on, and so forth, powers vested in me, Captain of the CTC Hernes, et cetera, so on, kiss her already, what are you waiting for?"

Formality: not a big CTC trait.

A long, slow sigh from Magret, relief -- like she's been holding her breath for years and just now has let it go. She does not, however, need to be told twice. There's no mad attack, however: she takes her hand from Isole's, and raises both, one cupping each side of her wife's face. There's a long moment of silence, and she almost laughs aloud, staring at her, before leaning in for a kiss that somehow (impossibly so) in the middle of a group of tightly-packed Centaurans, ends up with Isole being dipped.

The CTC'ers? Once the kiss commences and the dip occurs? They cheer. The place erups with whoops and hollers.

Some things, you just need to get right. This is one of those things. Stepping away from Barsil reluctantly -- but not too reluctantly, mind you -- Isole takes the entire half-step she's got to her person and comes to stand in front of Magret almost bashfully. It's really sort of amusing if you know much about Isole's past. She peers down at the hem of her skirt for a long moment before looking back up into Magret's eyes again. When the kiss happens, Isole's hands snake up around Magret's shoulders and hold on tight, right through the dip. Yep. And maybe her fingers twitch a bit. Because it is, for the record, one heck of a kiss she's receiving. The cheering doesn't even phase her. Kissing the wife, now. Yes. Cheering. Also kissing the wife.

When on Alpha Centauri, do as the Centaurans do. Takamura begins to cheer also, smiling broadly at what appears to be the end of the ceremony.

It is, for the record, a kiss for the ages, at least in the world that consists entirely of Isole and Magret. When Magret begins to pull her partner back up to a standing position -- it takes a while -- the crowd just sort of parts, again, like a school of fish, they sort of instinctively follow the pattern. They know what's next. Magret, flushed and dizzy, pushes a handful of hair out of her face, grabs onto Isole's hand, and shouts, "Computer, arch!" before dashing toward the appearing doorway. Takamura is offered a brief grin in passing as she runs for the door.

"Mom, you have the baby, I love you, bye-now!" Isole manages to sputter that out once she's straightened up by Magret. Now is the ever important 'race to someplace private', and Isole isn't about to lose ground to the mob, should one decide to form behind them. She, likewise, runs for the door behind Magret, laughing wildly and delightedly. Whee! "Hi, Hiroshi! Bye! Meet my family!" They're the large throng of Centaurans behind her, apparently.

Takamura dodges Magret and Isole as they dash out of the holodeck. He quirks a brow, but shrugs it off as a cultural thing he's not familiar with. "Congratulations!" He calls after them.

Takamura's congratulations ride like a surfer on the front end of the sonic wave that follows the pair out of the holodeck. One can only imagine Security's reaction to the reports.

"Sir, there's a mob of Centauran Tradesmen chasing those Dream Factory girls around the Mall Ring. I would have arrested them, but I think they were cheering, and the women looked happy enough... "