Kitchen - Day 21 [open/unfinished]

[nurse_cchapel]

Free time on the Enterprise would've been spent by most crewmembers either sleeping or in one of the recreation or exercise rooms. Free time for medical personnel - or at least the Chief Medical Officer and his Head Nurse - was almost always spent sleeping

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[transwarp_beam]

It had taken more than a week of running on a day's worth of food and even less sleep, but at long last there was finally something to show for it. Life support was as close to functioning properly as it was ever going to get, medbay was back in ship-shape, and they were actually beginning to make headway on the regular maintenance requests.

One of said maintenance requests was the repair job on the main kitchens. He distinctly recalled being bribed with food for that one. Hence, it was time to drop by and pay Tony a visit. He paused in the doorway to look around the newly restored kitchen, gratified to see that at least some of his staff apparently knew their arses from their elbows.

Thoughts of mooching food off Tony were derailed briefly by the intriguing sight of Christine Chapel doing something interesting chocolate-smelling with a bowl. Well, it would be impolite of him not to go say hello.

"Alright?" he said by way of greeting. "What you up to?"

[nurse_cchapel]

Mid-verse of folk song number three was interrupted by the Chief Engineer's arrival. Not that it was any sort of interruption to be irritated over. Christine would be perfectly thrilled to bits if this turned into some style of kitchen party, complete with people who really didn't have that much business in the kitchen to begin with and others, who did, trying to kick them out.

Grinning, Christine came around the corner counter and held out the bowl, allowing Scott to see her almost-prepared mix. "Brownies," she answered, an even simpler greeting than his own.

[transwarp_beam]

"Nice." He eyed the bowl thoughtfully, calculating the odds of him getting away with swiping some of the mix. Probably not a good idea. Important life lesson - never aggravate someone who may be willing to feed you in the near future. Instead he leaned back against a convenient countertop and made himself comfortable. "How you doin' anyway?"

[nurse_cchapel]

Christine clicked her tongue in a sort of thinking-ish way, then went back to the counter she'd been working at. She needed more vegetable oil. Adding it, she said, "Oh, you know. Living on a starship. Can't complain." Except for those times, of course, when she could and did.

But this was not one of those times. She gave him a smile. "And yourself, Mr. Scott?"

[transwarp_beam]

"Not bad," he said, "Finally got the ship in working order again. Planning to eat 'til I can't move then sleep for a week."

[nurse_cchapel]

"Well that sounds like a decent enough plan," Christine said. "Mr. Corin's in his office, if you were looking for him." She snorted a little, aiming it more at the brownie mix than the engineer, and added, "Or you can just hang out here, drooling over this until it's finished."

Her friendly jibe made, she stuck the handheld mixer in the bowl and switched it on. Before long, the mix was the consistency she was looking for. Perfect. Killing and disconnecting the mixer, she turned her focus next to finding a pan.

[transwarp_beam]

"What, I can't do both?" Scotty said. He grinned. "I'll go annoy Tony later. Piss him off too much an' he might stop feeding me."

[im_a_donnie]

Chief Engineer Montgomery Scott had requested that Donnie, if he had the time, help out with some things in engineering as they were terribly understaffed. Now usually when being pulled away from his work he was annoyed. But when said work was continued research on spores that could infect and turn one into a sex fiend, a little distraction was welcome

[nurse_cchapel]

"That seems like a valid enough concern," Christine, laughing, said, just as Donnie entered. And, ohh, it was getting to be a real party in here now, even if the newcomer looked terribly ready to work and not at all up for chatting.

"Hello Donnie," she called cheerfully. Someone not looking up for chatting wasn't really a problem that concerned the sort of woman Christine Chapel was. "How are you today?"

[im_a_donnie]

"Good. Fine," Donnie said, preoccupied. He studied the "idiot button." (One person had even referred to it as a "fuck all" button.) Then, as if an idea had come into his head all of a sudden to steal his reverie from him, he faced the nurse and his face alighted, slightly.

"Christy! The angel-nurse! You-uhm...You're making something brown..." he considered the soupy mix while attaching a cord from a hidden wall outlet to his PADD in order the tap directly into the computer program in the kitchen.

He hadn't noticed who the other person was yet, too perturbed with the brown muck in the bowl.

[transwarp_beam]

"Morning, Dr. Beck," Scotty said, amused. "In to fix up the failsafes?" He'd had cause to interact with Donnie a few times. He was a little...odd, but it took all sorts. No-one entirely normal ever signed on for a five-year mission.

[im_a_donnie]

The chief was smiling but, for some reason, when he did it Donnie didn't mind. Perhaps it was because that seemed to be the engineer's default face, unlike others who seemed to smile for diplomatic reasons.

Scotty was often a fan of eye contact, though, a practice Donnie was constantly avoiding. His eyes flickered to his employer's and back to the PADD.

"It shouldn't take long. I-if you're going to be using the oven there's a small chance you could cause a fire and injure or kill us all," he said quickly and glanced back at the brown muck.

A beat. "That was a joke," he explained.

[transwarp_beam]

"Because nothing says humour like fiery death," Scotty agreed, nodding solemnly. The straight face didn't survive long.

[nurse_cchapel]

Christine had to take a pause from pouring her batter into the pan to raise an eyebrow at the physics-loving males who had apparently decided to use her kitchen time as comedy hour, too. "That better have been a joke, or else you're doing the accident paperwork, Lieutenant."

Shaking her head, she continued pouring. "They'll be brownies, by the way, when they're done."

[im_a_donnie]

"Well, technically, in the event of my death or severe disformity that task would be delegated to...uh...the investigators. Probably some random security personnel," Donnie said and, distracted again by the PADD, he proceeded on mounting the stove they were not currently working on in order to reach the sensors and check them by eye.

His tongue was visible as he squirreled about to get a good look at them. He then proceeded to turn the inflammatory off so he could manually set the nozzles off using the sensors.

[transwarp_beam]

"Don't worry about it Chris," Scotty said, waving a dismissive hand, "Worst case, it'll just explode a bit. Nothing a dermal can't fix." He spoke with the indifferent assurance of someone well used to having things explode in his vicinity.