[fin] Early Morning Delivery

[Nyota Uhura (Emmy)]

It had been precariously tilted against the wall of the C Deck corridors, half-hidden behind a bulkhead. When Nyota picked it up, she found a smudge of something along the lower edge of the PADD. Cautiously lifting it to her face, she sniffed - and then nearly sneezed.

Spices. Maybe it was one of the cooks, dropped after a long shift or something.

It took her a little while to track down whose it was. There was a password on it, and the owner hadn't used the age old trip of tap and a pen to make a label. Took some finnicky computer work, but she finally figured out that it belonged to James Colburn, the chief cook for the ship. She meant to return it right away, knowing very well how vital someone's PADD could be to a person, but work, as it tended to do, distracted her.

Nyota wasn't sure what time it was when she finally got around to returning the PADD. All she knew was that the computer told her James Colburn was in his room and she was tired and wanted to get to bed. She was suppressing a yawn as she pinged the door to let Ensign Colburn know someone was at his door.

[James Colburn]

James was soundly asleep when his dreams began pinging. Waking with a start, he looked at his clock and processed two things. First, someone wanted him at the door. Second, it was 0400. Why now? What blew up?
Then Ensign Stevens began moaning. "Computer!" James hissed. "Shut that thing up! Then let whoever it is know I'm coming."

He moved to the living area as he put his robe on. 0400 was a darned unusual time to be visiting, and if it was some night-shift Petty Officer asking if they should cook eggs with oil they'd be on the next asteroid. He paused a minute at the mirror. Sleepy, messed up hair, bit of 5-'o-clock Shadow, but not altogether bad. Finally he opened the door. "Yeah?"

[Nyota Uhura (Emmy)]

Not bad appearance, no, but still surprising to Nyota who hadn't been expecting to be greeted by someone who looked like they'd just rolled out of bed. "Uh, I'm sorry," she stammered the apology for whatever vague reasons he was upset, "I just - I found this earlier today, and wanted to give it back to you as soon as possible." She offered the PADD to the man.

"I didn't mean to interrupt...whatever it is that you were doing."

[James Colburn]

Ooh, nice one X-lax. It was a lady. James assumed a rather sheepish grin. "Sorry about that. Just catching up on sleep. Some of those cooks must've come from plumbing school!" Stepping out of the room, he accepted the PADD from her. No tag, but the smell of exotic spices made it undeniable: This was his extremely-important work PADD, with all the cookbooks on it!
"How in the name of Sam Hill did this get off like that?" Rather concerned, he checked it over. Not finding anything odd, aside from the missing tag, he looked back at the lady. "Thanks for bringing it by. If this PADD walked, you'd all be on spam for the next month! Where was it, anyway?"

[Nyota Uhura (Emmy)]

Sleep? What time was it, anyways?

Giving him a smile, she said, "Well thank goodness I've saved us all from the endless spam! It was in the hallways just outside the kitchens. Looked liek someone - you, I suppose, had accidentally dropped it."

[James Colburn]

That's right. Some NCO ran right into him just outside the kitchens. The PADD probably fell out of his pocket then.
"Yeah, I remember now. Well, a crisis averted isn't a crisis, eh?"

Try as he might, her face just wasn't coming to him. "Y'know, ma'am, I don't believe we've met. My name's James, and they made me head honcho in the kitchens."

[Nyota Uhura (Emmy)]

Nyota caught his drift. "Nyota Uhura; I have the poor luck of being the assistant to the head of comm."

[James Colburn]

"Pleased to meet you, ma'am." James lifted his hand to where his hat brim would normally be, an old habit he didn't want to shake. "Any particular reason it's so bad?"

[Nyota Uhura (Emmy)]

"It's not really bad - just a lot of work. As in, I just finished for the day," she explained, running off a hunch that it was some kind of ungodly hour.

[James Colburn]

"Uff-da. Some hours. Still, I've got two shifts of my own, so we're in the same boat that way." Suppressing a yawn, James began searching for another topic before it was too late. Conversations at early morning tended to have this strange style to them, and avoiding it was usually good.

[Nyota Uhura (Emmy)]

Avoiding them, or just ending the conversation. Seeing how he was yawning and she was suppressing some yawns of her own, the latter seemed the better option. "I best let you get back to sleep,then - I've just rescued the ship from a month of spam, I'd hate to cause them to have burnt toast tomorrow." Or today. Whatever time it was.

[James Colburn]

"Allright. Thanks again for bringing this by. And hey, at breakfast, go ahead and make any request. I'm not as fast as the slots, but it'll get done right!"

[Nyota Uhura (Emmy)]

"No problem at all - and I'll hold you to that!" she told him with a broad smile that was covered by a hand as a yawn broke through. "Good night!" And with that she scurried away to find her own bed.