Coming back to "I.O.U."

Posted on 13 Apr 2016 @ 7:32pm by Petty Officer 1st Class Pieter Van Zyl Ph.D.

826 words; about a 4 minute read

Mission: Episode 11 - Divinum Mundi
Location: Jupiter Station
Timeline: Episode 10, MD93, 0800 hours

ON:

This was technically the day everyone was supposed to report back, but Tyrion felt that, if this was by end of the day it was probably good enough. Besides, he wasn't going far as he was only going down to Earth. He had a surprise planned, and it was time to make good on a promise he had made. There wasn't much time and he had to hurry so he jogged down to Pieter's room and pressed his hand to the chime. Now having moved out a while ago, he assumed he no longer had any access and besides it felt rude to just barge in.

Showing his urgency and lack of patience, Tyrion continued to rap his knuckles against the door, despite better judgement. After all, he knew Piet was deaf and wouldn't hear the knocking to begin with. But in his excitement and hurry, he simply forgot. "Piet!" he called out, "Piet come on....open up!"

Pieter opened the door finally after several minutes passed, looking slightly bewilderd at the interruption made to his day off. He looked at Tyrion expectantly, wondering what the emergency was.

"Can you leave right this minute?" Tyrion asked excitedly, "like...do you have a ready to go backpack with necessities such as water and a camera?" The betazoid was visibly excited and obviously not telling everything. What was the point of a surprise if you told it all in advance?

Eyebrow raised, Pieter looked Tyrion up and down, weighing his options. "Why would I have that? I live on a starship..." he trailed off, wondering what Tyrion was getting at. "Why?"

"Because I have a surprise for you," Tyrion smiled, "but we need to leave, like right now because we don't have much time. Go on go find your camera, I'll get a few bottles water."

Rolling his eyes but admitting defeat, Pieter went deeper into his room. It was a short task for him to retrieve his holo-camera and meet Tyrion at the door once again. As they made their way down the corridor, he took in his old roommates demeanor. "What's got you so excited?"

"Ah now that would be telling, you'll see shortly," the Betazoid promised. "You'll see in a few minutes, when we beam down." He dragged his friend down to the transporter room, then whispered something to the transporter operator. Ushering his friend onto the pad, they waited for transport.

Seconds later they set down near Cape Town, looking out over the Kirstenbosch National Botanical Garden. "Surprise!" Tyrion called out.

Blinking against the sunshine, something he wasn't really used to, Pieter raised his hand to block some of it as he looked out at the garden. Seeing the vegetation and the beautiful colors was one thing, but what really cheered Pieter up from his sullen mood was the fact that he was home.

"Oh...I should've brought some shades," Tyrion realized, casting his friend an apologetic look. "But do you like it?"

Pieter continued to look our at the horizon for a few more moments before turning back to Tyrion and nodding. "I haven't been here in years," he admitted.

"I know... which is why I arranged for this. We've a few hours so we can walk around. I did some digging and discovered you'd not been to your home country in quite some time and since we were docked here, and I owed you bigtime, I arranged for permission to take you here on our last shore leave day. And I heard that today some rare flowers are actually in bloom and you being a botanist I thought you might like to witness that."

Pieter nodded, walking down one of the paths next to Tyrion. "I don't go home very often. Only my father lives here, but we're not very close, so I don't have a reason to come here more than once every few years."

"You don't have to be close to family in order to 'go home' you know," Tyrion commented, then shrugged, "though I'm a fine one to say I suppose as before a few weeks ago I hadn't been home in over a decade." He smiled a little. "Who knows, you might meet someone...what time of women attract you anyways? What sort would you like to go for a walk with?"

Pieter was quiet for a long while, mulling over the question. He couldn't say he had a clear type but there were things he found appealing.

"Smart...shorter than me...blond..." Maybe he did have a type.

"Well who knows." Tyrion smiled. "Anyway I hope you like this...and we can spend a few hours here if you want, or you can be on your own if you prefer. I'm just glad I could arrange this because I owed you, bigtime and I've no other way to repay you."


(truncated post)

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