Starship: Resistance - ON HOLD

Chapter Fourteen

 When Adlai walked into the lounge, ten minutes before the meeting for the semi-official War Games team was meant to start, she was surprised to see that Levi and Rowan were already there. Rowan stood at the stove, making what Adlai was pretty sure were poached eggs, while Levi went back and forth between the toaster, where he was heating up bagels, and the coffee machine.

Neither of them had noticed Adlai come in, and they spoke in voices too soft for Adlai to hear. As she watched, though, Rowan forked off a bit of the white from one of the eggs onto her spatula and offered it to Levi. Levi bent down, grinning, and took a bite. When he straightened again, there was a bit of egg white stuck to his nose, and Rowan burst into laughter, her expression more carefree and unguarded than Adlai had ever seen her.

And then Levi noticed Adlai standing in the doorway and put a gentle hand onto Rowan's shoulder, whispering into her ear. Briskly, Rowan squared her shoulders and scraped the eggs onto a platter to serve, her expression becoming, once more, shuttered and guarded.

"Morning, Fletcher," Levi said easily. "What kind of coffee do you usually take?"

Adlai blinked, startled. "Uh, just black, I guess," she said hesitantly, completely baffled by what she had just seen. "Thanks."

Levi grinned and turned back to the machine. "Chai latte, right Rowan?"

Rowan jumped, then turned to him, watching Adlai uneasily out of the corner of her eye. "Yes, thanks," she said emotionlessly. "Uh, breakfast's almost ready. The bagels done?"

"Yeah," Levi said, just as the toaster popped. Quickly, once the coffee machine was on, Levi sliced the bagels in half and plopped them onto a plate. Once the bagels were on the plate, Rowan spread avocado onto one half of each, scooped an egg onto each one, and grated cheddar cheese onto the tops of the eggs. Levi set the top halves of the bagels onto the whole combo once she'd prepped the bagels.

Adlai, frowning a bit, plopped herself onto the couch and turned on her tablet, which she'd brought out, but she couldn't concentrate on what she was meant to be doing. Instead, she watched Rowan and Levi out of the corner of her eye.

Soon, Ripple wandered in, and her gaze immediately went to Rowan and Levi, and she smiled ever-so-slightly. "So," Ripple said, plopping herself down next to Adlai. "They're totally doing it."

"What?" Adlai asked, but she wasn't surprised. She had more or less come to that conclusion already.

"Rowan and Levi. Totally doing it," Ripple remarked casually, tucking her legs up beneath her. "They're good for each other, though. Be interesting to see how that works out." And she lapsed into silence without another word.

Slater and Santiago were next to arrive, and neither of them seemed to notice Rowan and Levi's odd behavior. Ripple and Adlai exchanged an amused look, but neither of them said a word. Instead, they sat back and waited for everyone else to come.

Levi brought over coffee for each of them–both of them took it black, apparently–then retreated to the kitchen, once more. In the kitchen, Rowan had taken a pan of bacon out of the oven and added a couple of pieces of bacon to each bagel sandwich.

Tess wandered in with Gerrit after a bit, the two of them deep in conversation about something scientific that Adlai had never heard of, and that she only understood one word in ten of. After they arrived, it was like the floodgates had opened, and soon there were nineteen people in the lounge, which had become a bit cramped, and Adlai knew all but two of them. She was pretty sure one of the two guys was from Falcon squad, and the other one was from Jaguar, but she couldn't have even guessed at their names.