#changingthelegacy

Nova looks up from where she’s been chatting with the clerk of a local corner store at the counter when the bell rings, expecting to greet a familiar face, but freezing when she sees the three total strangers.

She and the clerk share a look, thinking the same thing, and while the other goes to greet them, Nova abruptly turns to the snacks.

Daddy. There’s strangers in town. Three of them.

Passing through? His voice is clear as if he were in the room with her, not deep in the woods helping with repairs to someone’s house.

I’m trying to find out now. Nova turns her head slightly to listen better to the people to her right.

Audrey kneels down, cocking her head as she tries to get a new perspective on the mess that remained of a local storefront, cocking her head. She was waiting on Nathan before any Haven-specific interviews started. She’d started hearing rumblings, though, and she really couldn’t wait to find out how Vince and Dave planned on spinning this one if what she was hearing was anything to go by.

She glances around the quiet street. A few curious onlookers, but thankfully, there hadn’t been many people around right here during this. As she takes notice of a shop down the street, though, she hears a familiar sound, turning as Nathan’s truck pulls up.

“I’ll be home soon,” he says with a soft sigh to answer his wife’s concerns. “One last block to cover for the night.”

“Madeline’s hoping to see you before she goes to bed,” Carol reminds him, and he nods.

Madeline needed them both during all of this. Had for the past... coming up on nine years. He respects it, he knows it. “I’ll be home in time. I promise. McCoy out.”

Closing the communicator, he rounds the corner, on his nightly rounds through the streets of San Francisco looking for Hannah. Nine years, and he never missed a single night. He still held out hope...

That’s not Hannah. The teenager that appears, stumbling out of an alley in confusion, gives Leonard pause. “What the hell are you doing out here this late, kid?” And on his own like that? It... reminds him of Rebecca, in a way.

“We’re expecting a convoy from Trill,” Peterson is informing his crew. “They’re not telling me too damn much, just that this is a guest we want to treat with utmost respect, something about a number of important lifetimes.” He’s actually annoyed because he knows that this means he has to actually spend time with a guest instead of doing what he normally does-- staying out of it.

V’Lonn nods. “Understood, captain, shall I have the senior officers join us to meet the arrivals?”

“No, I invited you up here to let you stare while I talk about it.” Peterson narrows his eyes at the Vulcan before remembering... ah, yes, Vulcan. “Go get them, V’Lonn.”

V’Lonn smirks slightly; he does enjoy that the captain doesn’t recall he isn’t very much like a lot of Vulcans. “Aye, sir,” and he goes to get everyone.

Khristyana doesn’t look up when V’Lonn walks into the science bay. “Whatever eet is, I will request someone else step in in my place. Zhis is time sensitiwe work.”

V’Lonn chuckles. “Ashaya, it isn’t a request, Captain Peterson--”

“Can, in zhe words of our niece, screw off, I’m working.” Khristyana leans in to read something on her screen. “Crystal can take my place.”

She’s trying to keep herself distracted with security preparation in the shuttlebay, but she steals a look at her fellow chief of security and sees the same nerves and anxiety in her eyes.

They were going home.

Well, okay, no, they weren’t-- they were going to orbit Xelaya and pick up the ambassador, but they both had family coming up with the ambassador. And the very word “family” brings tears to Talla’s eyes.

She’d wanted to wait to bring Rebekah to the Orville until after she’d settled into her new assignment, so she’d sent her back to Xelaya to live with her father. And then their universe had fallen apart and she’d thought Xelaya was gone, her daughter--

Only, they would be rescued from the universe they’d come to, and her heart had to break all over again knowing she was alive out there somewhere... and they had no way to find her.

And now...

She looks up when she hears Captain Mercer announce the Xelayan shuttle was inbound, and she and Alara leave the bay so the shield can be lowered and allow the shuttle to enter.

Tal took a shuddering breath, pressing herself back against the wall holding her right forearm tightly: too tight, inhumanly tight, but this was just one instance in a sea of them where she was actually lucky to have no nerve endings, no way to feel the pressure other than the gauge in her brain recording each Pascal she applied. The blue liquid had just stopped seeping out of the torn synthetic flesh, but the second she let go it was just going to start all over again.

With a muffled grunt Tal slammed her head against the steel wall behind her - IDIOT! - before sliding down to squat, not noticing the dent she’d put in the wall as her right hand groped through her pockets. Would it look suspicious if she took off her overshirt and used that as a tourniquet? Probably. That sounded like a one-way ticket to land her ass in med bay. Maybe if she just tore her pants, used that until she could get to her quarters, blame the tear on a snag in engineering.... The problem was really going to be creating a clean rip one-handed, since any more leakage might prove doubly as suspicious.

Closed for: @changingthelegacy​ Muse(s): Melinda Pollari, Sylvia Dinkley

“Got asked to consult on another case,” Sylvia informs them both as she sits down. “In Sioux Falls, South Dakota. Some guy-- is she okay?”

Melinda is totally zoned out, fingers resting on the lion’s head ring on her finger, not even remotely listening. Her mind is in Camelot discussing, again, what happened a couple weeks ago with Mordred.