The Stories this House Could Tell

Posted on Sat Jul 6th, 2024 @ 3:28pm by Lieutenant Commander Bonnie "Bon-Bon" Durnell & Commander Dean House

Mission: Character Development
Location: Earth - Washington DC
Timeline: Pre-Lost in Space

Last time...

She looked around and noted the time. "Go ahead and make yourself comfortable. Mi casa es tu casa. I'm going upstairs to change for the service. We have about an hour. " Her mind had left behind the machine and how they had arrived and was now focused forward on getting through the ceremony, the act, of saying goodbye. It was all she could do to put her head down and keep moving forward.

Since she was going to that, Dean took it upon himself to start slowly walking around looking at everything. Trinkets, pictures, books, heirlooms and the like. The decor, influences on that and who might have done the influencing.

Now...

As she traversed the stairs, she allowed her hand to linger on the ivory banister railing and it's smooth outer layer. There was a 4.23 centimeter crack about five stairs up where she had taken a fall at the age of 11. It was her own fault for rushing while carrying a disassembled micro-transducer to show her papa when he returned home. He of course eventually feigned his fascination in the project and suggested she focus on other things, but as she came down the stairs she took the tumble and all focus shifted to her care.

She noted the pictures up the stairs, each one telling a story. Some moved, displaying a short repeating video, most were of her Mama and Papa from before she, herself, were born. Bonnie tried not to linger. The house was full of memories she was not prepared to deal with. They were still hitting hard despite her attempt to steel them away. Hell it had only been a year or so since she had told her Papa she was going back to Starfleet. The familiarity was somehow still there, almost as if her Papa were standing at the bottom of the stairs once more, calling up to her.

She opened the door to her room, entered and promptly tripped over what looked like an Egyptian Canopic jar. Her body landed with a soft thud, heard throughout the first floor of the house. Thinking of Dean she called out, "I'm okay!" Once she came to her feet and looked around she could see her Papa had practically turned her room into a storage space for various items. Stacks of old parchment and such lined one wall.

She could only shake her head as she disrobed from her standard uniform and pulled open her closet doors to look for something a bit different. Deep within her closet, buried behind disassembled parts and tinkered with items, Bonnie found her mother's black dress with the angled transparent panels and side spit hem that came all the way to Bonnie's waist. She had always felt it displayed too much of her legs and chest, especially if she were to fall, and the bodice area was too tight.

Sighing, she spent the next half an hour making up her face and donning the Black dress, matching it with a pair of black low rise heels and finishing off the ensemble with a large brim matching black mesh hat. She took a long look in the mirror and barely recognized the woman looking back. Her papa would say she was the spitting image of her mother, but Bonnie could never see it. "I'm as good as I'm going to get." She said with another sigh, before walking out and heading beck down the stairs, slowly, taking each tread carefully in heels.

Dean has spent his time walking around looking at a number of those things after Bonnie had disappeared fully upstairs. Not really touching anything, though there was the hand wave as if he had done so, depending on the object. Stopping and looking back to the stairs from where he now stood hearing her coming.

Stopping at the last step, she paused for dramatic effect. Her smile held her innocence as she awkwardly said, "Ta-da" and struck a pose. Then forgetting she was in heels, she took the last step and her heel landed wrong, twisting her sideways. She lurched out for the banister but missed on her way down. But she did not hit the floor...

Dean had managed to procure a suit, not his dress uniform he was going to go with. It was tasteful, the usual black, however, he went with the dress shirt color of a dark violet or royal blue, however one want to see it in the light. There was a reason he did that. Black tie still. Giving Bonnie the best smile he could, "You look, he'd like it." And of course, as par for Bonnie some kind of glitch. She did not hit the floor because Dean pushed farther to what he usually does, in most situations. Or at least.. most haven't seen anyway. Catching her up against him, looking to her, "I can rip those heels off."

Blushing, and grinning awkwardly, Bonnie replied after brushing the hair out of her face. "The heels go with the dress." And then she quickly realized how bad that particular combination of words sounded so stumbled through a retraction, "Not that I meant, that's not, no I meant simply that the dress matches the shoes. I would prefer flats, safer, more stable."

She then caught her breath and stood tall once more. "You are looking spiffy. Was I upstairs so long you were able to replicate a suit, or..." He was sturdy, his shoulders squared and his hair combed. "You clean up well." She commented.

Dean gave a look upwards at his hair's direction, "Combed isn't my style. I thought it'd be more respectable this way but...I can't do it." Messing his hands round in his hair to get it back kinda spikey but a natural spike push in the front.

She giggled and shook her head at his rebellious nature, one of his more endearing qualities. Her attention then shifted as she entered the kitchen. "I spent a lot of years in this house." She ran her hands over a scanning device sitting in parts on the dining room table, which sat next to a relic encrusted in rock, with a shiny gold inlay. "So much potential will go unfinished." She commented with Dean at her back.

He was following, "I don't doubt it, you can tell." Watching her interactions, which is what gave it away. "That's not true."

She shrugged, "Life in space does not allow one to return home as often as they should. Even with Transwarp Beaming which hopefully becomes a thing." She looked around the living room, lingering on a beam of light illuminating a stream of dust. "Particle filtration must be turned off." She commented aloud before an amusing thought entered her mind.

"You know I kissed my first boy right there on that couch. Our teeth collided. Kinda hurt actually." She felt her teeth with her tongue as she recalled feeling the pain. "The walls in this house hold so many stories, if you'll pardon the bad dad pun."

"Well yes, I realize that, but when you are here it can be worked on." Looking around with her as well, not saying anything about the dust. "Oh, did you now," then making a face. "Ouch.."

Looking around she noted the staircase, a constant in her past for accidentals. As was the coffee table before her Papa moved it two inches closer to the fireplace. In fact many of the obstacles which had caused her to question luck throughout her life were in this house. Her Papa was only able to safeguard so much before realizing the task was futile.

"Can I offer you anything to drink before we head out?" Her mind was still on the house and her past, but lessons about guests and manners were still forefront. She entered the kitchen and approached the replicator.

Dean shook his head, even if she couldn't see it at this point. "No, thank you," digging into pockets to pull out a flask. Following her into the kitchen. He wasn't about to say 'heads up,' or the like. He knew her well enough. Instead just coming over and holding it out, "How about you, a little one?"

She eyed that flask and debated internally the effects within. She, was a light weight, always had been. Alcohol, at least the real stuff, tended to turn her into a menace to society very quickly. But she was also in the mood to burn a few memories from her brain cells and so took the offered flask and downed a large swig.

Whatever was within, instantly burned her jaw and the back of her throat and she reeled from the intensity. Her eyes fluttered and her nose scrunched up as though she were about to sneeze. Her hand waved in front of her face rapidly, as if fanning the flames away. "Gah, what in the world is in that?" She then turned to the replicator and pressed the button, "Water, chilled, quickly..."

The water appeared containing ice and Bonnie grabbed the glass, both hands and downed it which helped very little. Things that didn't bother Dean and his ability to withstand a great many thing, bothered Bonnie to no end. Taking a breath, "You trying to kill me or get me drunk?"

His lips pursed together a little bit watching her, mostly to stifle the majority of the laugh. Shaking his head and taking the flask back before she could throw it or something.

Just watching her, amused at the moment, Dean took another swig, then capped it and put it away. "Something carbonated would help better than the water. Water that fast can agitate the stomach and up it comes." Giving a tap where the flask was, "Aldebaran whiskey. Got it from Guinan, the bottle, a number of years ago."

She rolled her eyes, an involuntary reflex, "Well, thanks a lot Guinan." Bonnie exclaimed before glancing at the chronometer, "Oh shit! Is that the time? We gotta go or we're going to be late for the service." She stepped towards the door, grabbed his hand and pulled.

"Well she.....Eep!" Good thing he had put the flask away already. Being yoinked by her. "Calm down, we have site to site transporters."

She stopped long enough to regain composure. "Right, right, but you know... you know me well enough to know I'd be late to my own funeral with my luck. Besides the services should be just across the park on the grounds outside the Smithsonian. It's still quite a walk from the transport pad. So... let's go." She ushered.

"That shouldn't be much of an issue, I mean..I suppose I could just carry you if you want." Grinning as he moved with her, ready for transport.

TBC