PWD #17: Baselining
Baselining
Summary: Kelsey and Noble go for a swim and discuss their vastly different plans for the future.
Date: 19/12/2012 (OOC Date)
Related Logs: None
Kelsey Noble 
Pool - Battlestar Orion
The floors of the whole room — including the bottom of the pool — are made of poured concrete, and the pool itself is designed to accommodate barriers and other obstacles used to simulate operations in high-pressure environments. A large sign on the aft bulkhead warns visitors that no lifeguards are available, and that swimming is done at each person's own risk.
Dec 19, 2004

Simon Noble just happens to pick the perfect time to visit the pool. His first glance into the room reveals that there is no one there, which is a strong second-place finish to being filled with bikini models, but vastly better than finding it filled to the brim with other annoying members of the Battletar Orion's crew. Deciding he'll take it, Noble steps out of the men's locker room with a towel over his shoulder and walks towards one of the benches. Setting the towel down, he looks across the placid pool and promptly dives it. The water churns in waves while he soars beneath the surface towards the center of the pool. With a splash, he whips his head out of the water and whips the water away from his eyes and lets out a sigh of relief.

When he comes back up there is one Jailbait standing at the edge of the pool in her suit. She watches the guy swimming through to the center with an easy smile, one hand holding the towel to her hip and around her waist. She just stands there in silence, smiling. But there is potential energy that can be felt. She's here for the pool. Kelsey, the Kid Sister PO, is here to make this pool Her Bitch. "Hey," she greets with a lift of her chin.

"Hey back at you, Jay-Bee." Noble replies back at her with a sharp, upwards tilt of his chin. It's a greeting reserved for cool kids and the antisocial alike. Twisting around in the water, he looks up and down the pool until settling back onto her. "You know I could have swore I was the only one in here five seconds ago. You here for the whole pool? You and I gonna have to duel over it?" He's joking. Maybe.

JB. Oh, right. She smirks once more and turns, pulling off the towel and tossing it towards a rack. "Yeah, well, small ship. Gotta learn to share!" She moves to the edge and toes up to the line. "I'm here for the part of the pool I want to use, which is anyplace I intend to go," she dares back. But the young woman stops there. She rocks once to a squat and sails through the air to dive right in and go deep. She swims only a small distance before coming back up with a huge sigh of relief.

Noble wades back a few feet, giving Kelsey the room for her to dive in and enjoy the first moments of the pool. When she surfaces, he bobs softly in the water and looks towards her. "Dang, Jay, you made it look like you know how to swim, which is good for me that I don't have to do any life-saving while I'm in here tonight." He smirks, continually refusing to take things seriously. "So how are you fitting in here so far, everything working its way into place so far? The other kids stealing your lunch money yet?"

She cleans the water off her face with an easy wipe and she treads backwards a bit, leaning with it. This woman looks completely in tune with relaxation. "I was a lifeguard in high school. Swimteam, too. This is the first time I've had a chance to get back into a real pool in more than three years. It feels amazing." She sort-of floats and drifts around, eyes closed, not a care in the world. Kelsey is home. "I'm okay. Friends are slow coming on the Deck, but its okay. I met a whole rack of officers. Apparently when you put on Petty Officer pins, pilots deem you worthy of being acknowledged. I think if anyone stole my lunch money there would be a swarm of very unhappy Viper pilots after them, which is good. Or not. They might just let me deal with it to see how I react, knowing them." She takes a long breath and tilts her head a bit to look at Noble. "You're the zombie killer from the rec room a few days back, right? How- Ohhhh riiiight. I /told/ you the nickname. Sorry." She flashes him a quick smile.

Flashing her an open and honest smile in return, one of Noble's hands slips out of the water with a splash to send a mock salute her way. "Good memory. Yeah, I was the couch hog that almost knocked you over on the way in. It's a little belated, but I apologize for that. Apparently the new game collection that came in from our rotation has brought out all kinds of couch-hogs out of the woodwork like cockroaches."

Leaning back against the water, Noble keeps tilting until he's floating on his back aimlessly, subject to the whims of the pool's mini-waves. "Last couple of deck people I knew got along pretty good with the pilots. I mean, you guys are wrenching and tinkering on their birds, that's got to account for something. I haven't heard anything but good about you so far, so take that for what you will."

"No worries. Crowded room. I just stopped in there to try and be social. I never really left my bunk except for work and food until that night. It was a little overwhelming so I had to escape." Like Noble, she just floats there aimlessly — except this Deckie looks like she might fall asleep. "Its harder as a Crewman. There's a billion of you and nobody notices you. Pilots don't care. They're more interested in the people who can make things happen with their birds. …Not Crewmen." She glances over with the last and seems surprised. "Oh?" Blink. "I- why? I didn't think I was a topic of conversation. Who? What?" Damn you, Noble.

"Now now now, hold up just a second, don't look over at me like that." Noble says, eyes on the ceiling, likely sensing the different angle her voice has taken. "It's not like I have any sort of answers about who said what or boys and who's gonna ask you to prom and what you're going to get for Saturnalia. You haven't been a topic of conversation per se, just hey that Kelsey's pretty good people sort of stuff." One hand comes up out of the water to give her a thumb's up. "So you're so good, so far, Jay. They seem to like you, you should get out more often."

Simon pauses, eyes closing so that he can no longer fascinate himself with the grid layout on the ceiling of the pool, and the way the little scale-like flashes of light play off of it. "So you were a lifeguard? Lifeguard slash crewman? Bit of a dramatic career change, right?"

Kelsey laughs lightly from her float so as not to disturb herself. She turns her head back to relaxed and her eyes close again. "Mmm. Prom." Nice idea. "I find its easier to not ever ask about Saturnalia. Disappointments in the past have sucked so I try not to get my hopes too high. My parents get me little stuff every year but its a really low-key thing for my family. But, heh." Her smile never leaves, not even from her voice. "I'd go out more, but to where? I cover a lot of shifts because people want to go out on the planet. I've got a day set aside next week where I can finally get down there and see the place. It looks beautiful from the Obs Deck, though." Arms glide and she pushes herself twice, getting back into the feeling. "Lifeguard over the summers at the neighborhood pool. Weekends in the Spring. After I enlisted I didn't have muchtime for swimming and I hadn't had time to get back to a pool. …What is it that you do, anyway?" she asks, off-handed.

"I…am one of the many illustrious marines on board. I'm a rifleman, which means that if a heavy pigman, a sapper, a sniper, and someone of higher rank isn't available at the moment then I'll be the one kicked out to freeze my ass off at a guard post. Actually, correction, they won't bother to see if any of the others are available. They ask for a rifleman." Noble replies with a little laugh at the end of the words, letting her know that he's not complaining and that at the very least he's downplaying the importance of his job. "If you see something green and carrying a weapon jogging onto the deck and into a Raptor, you'll have to closely, we all look the same unless our skin's a different color. Same haircuts, too, mostly."

He rights himself, bouncing one one foot to keep himself mobile, though his frame that stands over six feet has little trouble keeping above the water. "When you get down to Piraeus, you should hit Checkpoint Charlie's and get a few beers. Some pretty good times can be had down there, and since we're a military operation you don't have to deal with so many shitbags as you do at a bar just off of base."

"Ah. Marine. 'Dont-call-me-soldier' kinda guy." She continues lazily pushing herself around in a circle. "I sure don't envy you all. I've dated a Marine before. He was a jerk. Not a blanket judgment on your race of humanity, but all his friends were mean, too. It didn't last long." The woman with the rep for endless enthusiasm seems to have found her Zen. "Mm, probably not. I'm not old enough to drink. Its why I cover a lot of shifts. Pay it forward. People go get drunk now and I cover their shifts. Its why I'm working Saturnalia. Let people go have fun and booze it up. No point in me going when I can't even drink. So I just accumulate favors like cash. I have a running tally back in my bunk. So far, since arrival, I've covered eighteen shifts." In two weeks. She probably doesn't have a whole lot of free time.

"Shit, eighteen? Doesn't sound like you're saving up cash, sounds more like you're saving up for a get my ass out of the brig card." Noble comments, turning to look in her direction. She's floating, which makes looking creepy, so he goes back to looking to the wall and keeping her in his peripheral vision. "And no, you're not wrong, a lot of marines are assholes. We're good at getting stuff done, but we're a little short on heart. Give us an opportunity to rough someone up for doing something wrong to, for, on, at, or near a lady and we'll dogpack over and show off, do our stupid shit. We're a bunch of goddamned apes. Having said that, I wouldn't trade any one of them for the world, even the bad ones. They're my apes, I guess if that's any way of puttin' it."

"I'm saving up for whatever I need. I'm trying to get to college when my term of service is up. The more letters of recommendation I can get, the better the school I can apply for. If I never have to cash anything in, that's a lot of goodwill on my part. Stay positive, stay willing. I keep my head in the game and nose clean and out of trouble? I'll be a great applicant. I have a lot of faith." Apparently Kelsey believes in herself quite a bit! Strong confidence is all over that voice. Her rear drops into the water and she slips beneath the surface for a moment before coming slowly back up to look at Noble. "So coming to the defense of us helpless lil women, eh? I suppose there's some honor in the chivalry. tough to argue. Until you meet a woman that doesn't want your help. Or claims she doesn't need it. Out come the claws. Mrrraeooow! Hiss!" She laughs and its the sound of a pure spirit. "So you really subscribe to that Marine Corps solidarity thing? Mister Zombie Assassin?"

"Frak yeah, I do, but you gotta see it from a different angle. You see, when I first signed on I thought the whole oo-rah thing was laughable and I swore I'd never get in on it, but all of that changed pretty early on." He swims back to the edge of the pool and braces his arm over the edge, as if he's leaning back against a sofa. "I mean, we're peacetime and I give it one in a million that I'll see war when I'm enlisted, but these are people that went through the same hell that I did and if shit ever does hit the fan, these are the people that are going to be down there going through it next to me. We're all the same animal and none of us is any better than the other. At least that's how we see ourselves." He nods his head, satisfied with his explanation.

"You know, I think that's what I heard about you, that you've got a lot of plans for after this next eighteen. As far as I'm concerned? Go for it. I'm kind of doing the same thing, but I don't have really any plans in mind. This hump is going to be one hell of a nest egg, and I'm going into my second leg here. I'm doing the three-year-itch."

Kelsey drifts, treading water as she nears the deeper end. She stretches one leg at a time behind her while treading the other. Listening, nodding, she's adept at doing a few things at a time. "I guess I can see that," the woman finally says. "Like, the chances that I'll see anything more dangerous than an electrical spark in the next twenty four months is bizarrely low. But I don't mind. We don't have that crazy attachment, though. Like me? I tend to be off on my own, doing my own thing. Nobody cares. Its cool. Gives me the freedom to work how I want." She trades legs. "Oh I've got plans til I'm forty, Mister Marine," Kelsey laughs. "I've got my life planned for getting to where I want to be. So far things are working out exactly, if not better, than I had hoped. Like this cruise? Wow. Puts me WAY ahead. The extra cash is just beyond compare. But I couldn't do the whole three years. I'd die. I need my family. Eighteen months is rough enough."

"Well, you guys also don't have to run all over the place with grenades strapped to your chest. When you and everyone around you is covered in grenades, your learn how to trust each other. That's why when we're not wearing grenades we push each other around so much." He replies, lips tugging to the side in a broad grin. "Right, right. This girl I dated back home kind of had the same thing in mind. I guess she spent so long in high school waiting to be allowed to get her feet off of the ground, you know, not able to drive yet, not able to work yet, that when those things finally came she didn't want to spin her wheels in place. I don't know where she is now, but she was a badass. She's probably in the Quorum somewhere by now."

Kelsey laughs easily, nodding. "I get you. Makes sense. Seeing you guys around, you always look so angry. Like someone punched you in the stomach after breakfast. So I guess when you have to be so serious all the time then you need to roughhouse a little more in the off time. That's cool! It actually sounds like fun! If, you know, you're a Marine!" she offers with a grin. Kelseys are not for roughhousing. "Yep! Plans are awesome. Step by step to knocking down the goals. Every time you hit one its like a breath of fresh air, right?" That grin says that she's already hit several. "But its exactly right. You know where you are going, what you need to do to get there. People with plans are dangerous and scary and very deadly with a sharpie pen. Whatcha!" she makes a karate motion as if she were holding the pen.

"WATCHA!" Noble howls out in agreement, which rattles around the acoustics of the pool in a boom that is sure to be heard in the gym. Matching her karate-chop motion, the older marine leans down to dip his head under the water only to come back up again, keeping up with their light conversation. "So…then after this eighteen you're going to become a fighting master? I'm no expert, but that watcha seemed a little off, Jay-Bee."

Kelsey stops stretching and full on giggles herself nearly to a drown at seeing that come back at her. She sputters for a moment, still laughing and wipes the water from her face. "See, I can tell your List Fu is wanting. While my technique may be a little off, you lack the wrist. Too many video games and not enough crossing-out of unlocked achievements." So she HAS played video games. "When my cruise is up? Six months left. I go get my associates. I reprove my GPA back to near four-oh, get a job, apply for a four-year school and go get my degree in CompSci. After that? Masters in Network Theory. It'll be tough, but I think I can get my Masters by thirty-five." Girl cant even drink yet and the next fifteen years are spoken for.

"Network theory? Oh, so you're one of those video gamers that's not a gamer because you were raised by video game systems, but because you're into nerd shit." Noble smirks, calling it out with affection. Nerd. He's too much of a marine to bother with computer science, leaving the detail work for the detail oriented. He blinks and then slowly tilts his head. "Wait, are you K-E-L?" He blinks again. "Oh frakking no, you're not K-E-L are you? You're the one that's been ripping away at my scores for the last few weeks aren't you?"

Kelsey just sits there with a simple smile on her face, letting Noble talk and talk. In the end she just shakes her head tightly. "Sorry, no. I'm one of those annoying people who just hits A-A-A. Anonymous Actress to your Annoyance." PREEN. "But not so much. After I got my GED I was stuck at home a lot. Couldn't leave. My friend was super awesome and bought me a game system for my birthday. So I got good at a couple games. Got back into shape using one of those games where you dance on the pad? I don't even remember the name. I also played one of those shooters.. Medal something. Uhhhm. I dunno. Had a drumming game. A couple of racing games that were way too complex for me. I still have it at home but its picked up a lot of dust."

"So you're either being framed or I have to find someone with those initials and challenge them down on fight night, whenever that comes back up again. Can I gripe for a moment?" Noble asks, then without a response he starts to gripe. "I was fine a few months ago but with all of these new people coming in I have to fight more for time on the couch in the Rec. It's frakkin' ridiculous and this K-E-L is starting to make me look bad. Mark my words. I'm gonna take this person on and make a public display of whoopin his ass on the games in front of everyone. And, you know, if it's a girl things will be really awkward if she's hot."

Sighing, finally getting that off of his chest, Noble starts to float on his back again. "So, I heard you're kicking all this ass for a kiddo back home. That's really cool. I can support that, so you need anything you let me know, alright?"

"If I find out who KEL is, I promise I'll let you know. Or maybe its actually me andI'm just playing coy to gauge your reaction so when I destroy your DeadHead score next week I can hit pressure points." Pause. "I'm pretty sure I'm kidding, though." She gives him another dazzling smile. But the mention of her daughter has her nod several times. "Yep! My little Melissa! She's a sweetheart. But I think I'm okay. I've got a couple of super pretty officers who might make good dads sorta makin passes. Its fun. But I think I'm okay for now. We'll see how things pan out." She sighs happily. "So what the hell is your name, anyway? Where are you from???"

"How awkward is that? I knew your name and you didn—Noble. I'm Simon Noble, CMC." He replies, brushing his arms against the water so that he floats past her, and as he passes he holds out his knuckles for a fist-bump. "I'm kind of the old expert on TF NOMAD in terms of stuff to do when off the job, who's good for this-and-that, that sort of stuff. You need anything, just remember I'm a shit babysitter, I'm not good with kids, and I'm more than likely to give your kid a mohawk and feed her entire blocks of cheese."

"Pretty awkward," she agrees, hitting the fistbump. "But thanks. I'll try and remember that, Mister Noble. Annnd no worries. Mohawks I can deal with. Feeding my girl a block of cheese might result in me doing similar things to you, though not orally." She says it as primly as possible. "Who told you all this stuff about me anyway?" she says a bit more insecurely. "I'm kinda nervous. Like, does everyone know all this stuff?"

"Oh, that stuff? I can't remember, I just heard somethin' on the wind about you being a go-getter and the word kid came up. Trust me, it's not like everyone's talking about you. Don't feel awkward about it, seriously. It's a small thing and we're all way out of high school here. Like I said, I heard good things, but it's all of that hey who's that new girl variety." He nears the edge of the pool and stands back up again, reaching for the edge. "And please, just call me Simon, or Nobes, and whatever Sera Jane tells you, those are my only names, ya' dig? I'm not getting a nick if I can help it."

Kelsey listens with the same quiet look on her face, a littl trepidation creeping in. "Oh, okay." Still awkward. "Well, uhm, if you hear people bring up my kid again? Remind them that its my business? I might have plans and all, but I wouldn't mind meeting a guy. And, you know, a lot of guys my age? Not okay with a girlfriend who has a kid back home. Its not easy. So, you know." Ahem. She swallows, drifting a little away. "And yeah. Thanks Simon. It was nice to meet you."

"I'll do that, and by do that I mean I really will do that and not just say that I'll do that. But if it's any consolation, the word came down from a girl who threatened to kick my ass if I did something stupid to or around you." Noble replies, lifting himself out of the water. "It's not my business to spread, and I don't know why that girl things I have some rep, because I don't. You're cool in my book." He stands and turns his back to her, walking over to the run that he's hung his towel from.

"It was one of those look, she's got a good head on her shoulders and don't be that dick that fraks it up for her. conversations." He takes the towel to his hair. "You got friends that know who the wolves are, Kelsey. That's a good thing; it keeps the wolves at bay."

Kelsey looks on towards him as he explains all this. She's pretty quiet about it. Probably wanted to work the question in over a longer conversation or something. "Okay, thanks," she says. "I appreciate it." The girl suddenly doesn't seem to have much to say. Nope, silence descends and Kels just watches him.

Whipping the towel off of his head, Noble confirms eye contact with Kelsey. There's a vast distance between the two of them, her in the pool, and he lets only a quiet, awkward moment settle into place. His lip tugs to the side in a little, friendly smirk. "Not that I'm a wolf." He wraps the towel around his waist and starts to walk around the pool. "Alright, Jay-Bee, you keep their heads ringin' you hear?"

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