Previously!

“Do me a favor and log ‘ruining my day‘ under ‘other duties assigned’. Thanks,” Brennan said, and she–well, she attempted to storm off, but she still had multiple kittens attached, and each one had to be gently unhooked from her clothing as she shuffled out of the barn. Then she stormed off.

“I guess I deserved that,” said Anand, waving one kitten’s tiny paw in her direction as she fled. The kitten sneezed, and discharged a small, crackling bolt of electricity. “YEOWCH!”

“I didn’t see her again before we left, so once I got back to Deep Space 17, I tracked her down so that I could apologize,” said Anand to his empty quarters. He paced and fidgeted as he recorded the message, wrapping and unwrapping the bandage on his fingers that Dr. Ang insisted would have healed his burn by now if he’d just stop fiddling with it.

Ah, shoot! He stopped fiddling with it.

“But for some reason, I couldn’t find her office, and when I found her she didn’t want to meet there anyway, so we met at a bar instead, and–” Anand waved his hands back and forth as he searched for the right phrasing. “We left the bar and passed a very pleasant evening together. Apology accepted, right? Except that she was gone when I woke up the next morning, so… apology not accepted?”

He halted, crossed his arms, and sighed. “Computer, delete message–” A beep of confirmation. “No! Actually, just save it as a draft. I don’t know…”

The computer made an indecisive-sounding burble before complying. “Message to Saffiya Nassar saved.”

For a moment, Anand didn’t move. At least, he stood in place, but he tapped his feet and drummed his fingers on his arms, as if he needed to build up a bunch of kinetic energy in order to make a decision.

Eventually, it worked. “Computer, can you locate Captain Cressida Brennan and tell me whether she’s in range for a subspace call?”

“Captain Cressida Brennan is currently aboard the USS Olympic, headed towards Betazed, and in range for subspace call,” the computer replied dispassionately, waiting for further instructions.

“Oh!” Anand’s eyebrows shot up. She was on Saffiya’s ship? Maybe Saffiya had heard the whole story already, then. How close were those two, anyway? “Well, I guess I’m going to be contacting the Olympic after all.”

To anyone who didn’t know Brennan, the expression with which she answered Anand’s call would come across as something between dour and outright annoyed. To anyone who did know Brennan, that was just her face.

“Captain,” she said with admirable neutrality, not bothering to ask what he wanted, because surely, he’d get to it.

“Uh, Captain,” Anand responded, subconsciously trying to match her tone. “What are you doing aboard the Olympic?”

“I’m traveling,” she said with a light shrug. “The rest is classified.”

Which it wasn’t. But she had discovered that it was a sure way to avoid any question as to why she was on the Olympic, why she was in civilian clothing, and why she was occupying a junior officer suite–though thankfully without any roommate.