Breakfast at the Edge of the Bay, Part 2

Posted on Sat Jul 12th, 2025 @ 3:52am by Lieutenant JG Jean-Baptiste Dorsainvil & Lieutenant JG Jacqueline Holder
Edited on on Fri Jul 18th, 2025 @ 5:23am

1,716 words; about a 9 minute read

Mission: Character Backstories
Location: Fisherman's Wharf, San Francisco, Earth
Timeline: October 11, 2381, Late Morning (After Part 1)

Jean-Baptiste didn't look up when he said his next words, "Tell me more about you."

The attention now turned toward her, Jacqueline looked down at the table for a moment, then up at the sky. "Oh, I don't know what there is to say about me," she said shyly. "I certainly couldn't put anything into words as eloquently as you just did. The way you talk, you sound like you should be a writer. A poet maybe. You make everything sound so beautiful. Even the ugly parts."

JB's laugh was low and close to the chest. He tipped his head forward, forehead almost brushing the rim of his mug.

"Poet?" he echoed, a lilt of disbelief piggybacking on the free morpheme. "I used to think poetry was just the art of saying the simplest thing in the most complicated way possible." He looked up then, his eyes catching hers. "I've got enough ghosts in my head. Stories that play themselves in loops until they're worn thin as old socks. I already know those voices." He leaned back, letting the chair creak under him.

"I don't know yours," he said gently, catching her eyes once more. "That's what I'd rather hear. The words exactly as you say them. No poetry required." He thought maybe he'd provide her with a compass point. "Tell me about Barbados."

"My hometown is really small, too, so I guess we have that in common." She shifted in her chair, bring her left foot up and underneath her, and drawing her right knee towards her chest. As she continued to talk, she hugged her knee with her right left hand while her right traced imaginary lines on the table in front of her.

"I mean, yeah, everyone knows who you are. Family friends. You might say there are certain cliques and stuff, but I don't know the people who worried about that just seemed kind of small to me."

A small grin started to form, turning into larger one. "I have a baby brother. Well, he's not a baby anymore. He's 11, and he's pretty cool. He's good at soccer, doesn't like math. Thinks I hang the moon, which is fun."

"That's a hell of a compliment to live up to. Most of us spend our whole lives trying to get even one person to see us that way." He leaned forward slightly, elbows finding the table's edge. He added, "What's his name?"

"Arnoud." Jacqueline looked around and then leaned forward, meeting him across the table. She lowered her voice as if she was sharing a big secret, "And did I mention he's 11? I'm sure it won't last." She winked at him before leaning back to sit upright, her arms still hugging she held to her chest. "What about you, do you have any siblings?"

JB smiled, recalling the faces of his sisters. "I have two sisters," he replied, still absently thumbing the edge of his mug. "A bit older than Arnoud. Angeline's eighteen and just started university in Paris. Élise is finishing secondary school back home in Bainet." An ineffable energy seemed to crackle in the space between them.

A silence drifted between them, not sharp or awkward, but warm and companionable. It felt less like a pause and more like some small, mutual reverence for the space they were building together.

"And what does Arnoud want to be when he grows up?"

"Oh, let's see, other than a professional soccer player?" Jacqueline had a lighthearted smile on her face as her eyes danced up and to the right as she tried to recall her brother's latest ideas. "Last month he wanted to be a news reporter, because they get to know everything, travel to all of the action, and be famous. But, I think now he's talking about being a mountain guide."

She looked across the table at JB, a deadpan expression on her face. "He's never actually been mountain climbing. Not like on real mountains anyway."

"Mountains, huh", he said, eyes narrowing in a thoughtful squint that softened into something like nostalgia. "At that age, I wanted to be a pilot. Or a volcanologist. Or a professional treasure hunter." His mouth tilted into a wry half-grin. "Depending on the day, of course."

He turned the mug slowly in his hands, as though he were turning over some fragile gemstone he wasn't sure he had any right to touch.

"So... someone out there keeping you tethered?" His voice stayed easy, gently as a hand on a shoulder. "Or are you free to pick up and follow your little brother up some impossible mountain whenever the mood strikes?"

"Other than Starfleet, you mean? I imagine that's enough of a tether for the next eight to eighty years of so... maybe not that long. I'm sure they'll want me to retire before then."

"So, what are you doing with the rest of your day?" She asked. A deliberate move to bring the subject back to the present. The here and now. Talking about her brother and tethers were too close to bringing up the memories she had left home to forget.

He felt the deflection in her words the same way a sailor senses a shift in the wind. He could have pressed, slipped a question in there, but something in her posture--her foot tucked under, her arms curled protectively--told him it wasn't a door she was prepared to open.

"Well," he said, a playful lilt snaking through the word. "I was supposed to take part in a holodeck training sim this afternoon. I also had to finish some work with a lab partner. But--" he lifted one hand in a soft, theatrical gesture as if presenting a magic trick--"would you look at that?" My entire schedule just vanished into thin air."

He grinned at Jacqueline with a glint in his eyes, watching for her reaction.

"Unless," he added, becoming conspiratorial, "you have responsibilities, that is."

She dropped her knee from her chest and put both feet on the ground and placed her palms on the table. "Don't you dare! You have responsibilities," she exclaimed in mock reproach.

"Though why you scheduled such a busy day after such a challenging morning is beyond me. Where does 'take a nap' fit in there?" She asked with a smile.

"A nap?" he repeated, leaning in even closer. He grinned, adding, "Don't tell me you're one of those."

Jacqueline also leaned forward, her eyes narrowing as her gaze met his, daring him to judge her. "One of what?" She asked, her words laced with a mocking sweetness.

His breath caught, just slightly, the way a chord hangs after a final strum. For a moment, he wasn't in that sunlit café anymore. He was somewhere behind her eyes--following the sharp glint of mischief, the warmth that radiated out from her, the quiet places she kept just out of reach.

JB's fingers stilled on his mug. The world outside seemed to flatten into soft shapes and drifting sound, all background to the sudden, unshakable gravity between them.

He let out a small breath, almost a laugh, his voice dropping into something hushed and steady. He had completely forgotten her question. "There's a Cary Grant marathon starting at noon. The Rialto on Seventeenth, over in The Castro--old place, velvet seats, all that charm. North by Northwest, Arsenic and Old Lace, The Philadelphia Story,"

He tilted his head, his eyes anchored to hers, like he was afraid to blink and lose her altogether.

"Any chance," he asked, softer now, "you'd want to disappear into a dark theater with me for a few hours?"

Jacqueline hadn't heard of Cary Grant, and what she guessed were movies, but she was tempted. "And what about your work?" She asked seriously, though a large grin was forming on her face.

"The training sim can wait," he said, voice smoothing-out into a low and steady line. His eyes never left hers, as if he were willing her to step with him into some fragile new orbit they were building. "And the lab? We're ahead of schedule anyway."

He let go of the mug he'd been playing with and flashed a small, almost self-conscious smile--like he was letting Jacqueline in on some half-kept secret.

"I've never skipped a single class or missed a deadline since I set foot at Academy," he added, softer now, confiding something precious. "Not once. But today..." He let out a quiet breath, leaning forward until the space between them felt charged and intimate. "Today, I think I'd rather learn you."

There was an intensity about Jean-Baptiste that Jacqueline was uncertain about. She couldn't decide if it was genuine or a game he played. Still, she hadn't connected with many people at the Academy yet, and here he was looking to spend an afternoon together even though they had just met. She couldn't help but appreciate the spontaneity of it all.

"So who is this Carey Grant?" She asked.

"He's an old Earth film star. Charming in a way that feels impossible in today's universe. He always had that half-crooked smile, the one that looked like he knew a secret about you before you even opened your mouth." He paused, his eyes catching hers again--searching. "He could make you believe that love could fix anything. Or at least make the mess worth it."

A seagull wheeled past the terrace, its shrill cry an imagined signal telling JB to hurry up and kiss her.

"Come with me," he said, almost on a breath. it was the most earnest and honest request he'd ever made.

She'd been running excuses through her head, thinking of reasons not to go, even trying a few out on her new friend, but none them seemed to stick. Here he was asking her again, more pointedly this time. She was running out of ways to deflect to his offer.

She smiled again and nodded. "Sure. Why not?" She replied, finally giving him an answer.

---

Cadet 1st Class Jean-Baptiste Dorsainvil
Cadet
Starfleet Academy


Cadet 1st Class Jacqueline Holder
Cadet
Starfleet Academy

 

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