[color=lightgray][CENTER]━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━[/center][table][row][/row][row][cell] [h3][color=4682b4][i][b]Ash Holloway[/b][/i][/color][/h3][i][b][color=4682b4]Location:[/color][/b][/i] Bus [i][b][color=4682b4]Skills:[/color][/b][/i] N/A [/cell][cell] [right][img]https://i.ibb.co/Wnnd0Wm/Ash-FC-5.jpg[/img][/right] [/cell][/row][/table][CENTER]━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━[/center][/color] Ash took to memory the rundown of their expectations as soon as they all got back to CMB. He still had to report back to Mechanics and continue cleaning up whatever horror had been perpetrated upon the ladies' bathroom therein. He recalled the fact that he had started to clean it once and likewise recalled the tiny amount of relief that he felt when he learned that he was being moved over to the men's bathroom. The irony this time being that, unlike what conventional wisdom might have one believe about the less sanitary habits of the Y-chromosome bearing population, that room was near to pristine in comparison. Still, as fit the ethos of his upbringing and training, every job was important. His work ethic had never taken a hit, even if most other qualities about him had taken a bit of reshaping over the past five years. So he had more to do. This would require him to stay late, which wasn't so much of a big deal except that he was also expected at optional therapy that evening, starting at the same time that the evening meal did. Unless he was bid an enthusiastic farewell from Rivets, or whomever was in charge of his assigned area, with the up-front understanding that he would not be back until the next morning, Ash was going to have himself a late night on his first workday. On the upside, Ash wasn't a huge fan of leaving a job unfinished. On the other hand, he did want to eventually get back to Thana that evening and be in good enough condition to enjoy her company on multiple levels. Taking a mental note of the upcoming few hours, Ash had a half hour to report to Mechanics and receive orders. Then therapy at 1800. Then the uncertainty of work or supper. Unless the issue had been handled in his absence, it was going to take a lot more than a half hour to fix what was wrong with that room. It was the price of being the new guy, he supposed. And it definitely wouldn't be the first time he'd have to skip a regular meal. Though in truth, the entire line of thought was a mix of maybes and supposition. Lacking anything resembling an official answer, nor even the ability to speak with someone who could give him one, all of this was a jumble of facts that, like a jigsaw puzzle, needed to be moved around and fitted together to make a clear image. Things would be more apparent after he got inside and checked in with his superiors. [color=lightgray][CENTER]━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━[/center][table][row][/row][row][cell] [h3][color=dc143c][i][b]Thalia Carmichael[/b][/i][/color][/h3][i][b][color=dc143c]Location:[/color][/b][/i] Bus [i][b][color=dc143c]Skills:[/color][/b][/i] N/A [/cell][cell] [right][img]https://i.ibb.co/5W5GfBs/Thalia-Dark.gif[/img][/right] [/cell][/row][/table][CENTER]━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━[/center][/color] Thalia liked to sit and observe. Usually, this preference was from a distance, safely hidden away someplace with a very low probability of detection. The reasons had been many, though mostly it was a question of survival or to determine if people were hostile without walking up and handing them a questionnaire. Mostly she just let people pass on by, those who were going by. Or she might just move along herself without revealing her presence. But here she was, caught in a bus with a bunch of people, half of whom were acquaintances at best doing anything that she could to take her mind off of the weight that pressed down upon it. Now, what she observed as she sat with her knees to her chest, braced against the unnatural chill of the bus's air conditioning, gave her the slightest amount of pause. Even cracked a little smile despite herself. The people who arrived from the other group, the one with Navy's boyfriend, seemed very much separate from one another. With the exception of the two shaved girls who seemed preternaturally attached, they all appeared to be making an effort to separate from each other. Even the ballerina pulling away from her husband. Maybe it meant something and maybe it didn't, but her observations of these people piqued her interest. It was then that she noticed that Alexander had reached a hand out to her across the aisle. Whether it was a show of solidarity or a man who needed some form of reassurance, Thalia didn't particularly care. She reached out and took his hand, holding it for a number of seconds before giving it a final squeeze and pulling her arm back to herself. Whatever was going on with the others didn't especially concern her. She had a handful of people she could honestly say she gave a rat's ass about, and they deserved at least a token reminder.