John meets…
By zeilfanaat
Category: Humor/General
Ratings: G or K
Warning: none
Disclaimer: Thunderbirds is not mine. They belong to Gerry Anderson and co. Any characters that are not from the series, are mine. (I highly doubt you'll see any movie-verse characters in here, since I've never seen the movie). Please ask if you want to borrow them.
Summary: Meet John when he meets someone in the canteen of NASA.
A/N: Thanks to white rose01 for beta-reading!
A dark-haired woman wandered into the cafeteria. She had been here once before when she had a job interview. Now she was employed, and finding her way on this first day.
It was very busy in the room. Holding her tray she looked around for a free table. There wasn't any left. Then she saw a man sitting on his own, seemingly engrossed in some article. He looked nice enough. After a brief hesitation she had made her decision and walked determinedly up to the table.
"Excuse me? Can I join you?"
The man looked up in surprise and nodded. "Yeah, sure." He took in his surroundings. "It's a bit crowded today."
"Yeah, I noticed. Is it always like this?"
The man shrugged. "To be honest, I don't know. I hardly ever come here for lunch."
The woman had sat down and looked at her food. She cringed slightly when she noticed just how 'appealing' it looked. The man chuckled.
"And there you have the reason why. Don't worry though, it's edible if slightly strange-looking. Oh, I'm John by the way. John Tracy."
She grinned at his more than accurate description of the food. "My name's Nicole Evers." The blond man smiled at her.
"New here?"
"Now how did you guess?"
"No idea. Of course the map of this facility sitting on your tray is a dead giveaway."
Nicole looked down. "Oh I thought I had put it in my pocket. Oh well. So, what's your job?"
"Laser-communication guy of my team. Been here for about a year or so. What about you?"
"Physicist of no specific team; been here for about five hours or so." She answered dryly. John grinned.
"What's on your program after lunch?"
"Ehm, I'm supposed to find the lab and then find a Art Melchers?" She looked at the man opposite her to see if the name rang any bells.
"Ah, yes. He leads the science department. Interesting fellow. Easy to be around if you get along. Comes across as bald when you first meet him." John thought for a second. "Ok, he comes across as bald anytime." He amended. Nicole chuckled. "Anyway, I'll drop you off on my way back to my room. What time do you need to be there?"
Nicole checked her watch. "At one thirty."
John nodded as he took a sip from his coffee.
"So, why are you here if you're usually elsewhere for lunch?" Nicole asked curiously. John pulled a face.
"My team banned me from my office; they said I'd been spending too much time in there for their liking."
Nicole raised an eyebrow at which John chuckled.
"We each have our moments. At some point in time we're all banned from our own room for a while. Today was just my turn I guess. Tom was here with me for most of the time before remembering he had an experiment running."
Nicole grinned. "Sounds like you're all pretty well in sync with each other."
John shrugged. "We have our moments." Nicole cleaned her plate. The food hadn't been great, but as John had said, it was edible. "Anyway, I think we should head off to the science lab now. You don't want to be late for your meeting."
They walked through the maze of corridors, chatting about her interests and family. Before long they stood in front of a closed door with a large window through which they could see a man sitting at a desk, going through some papers. John knocked on the door before opening it and stepping inside. He motioned for Nicole to follow.
"Hey Melchers." The man who looked to be about thirty looked up disturbed, but his features softened slightly when he saw John.
"Hey Tracy! Heard you were banned from your room. Come to annoy me instead?" He said with a Southern accent.
John smiled. "Much as I'd like to, no. I just met your next appointment." He gestured towards Nicole.
"Hi, I'm Nicole Evers."
"Ah yes. The new physicist, right?"
"That's me."
"Right. Thanks Tracy. Now go and disturb Reno or something. There's rumours flying he's got them chocolate cookies from his sister again."
John smiled. "Thanks for the tip. Ms. Evers. I hope you'll fit right in."
Nicole nodded. "Thanks for the escort."
"Don't mention it." He said, before disappearing, closing the door behind him.
"Now, onto the matters at hand. Ms. Evers, take a seat."
John whistled as walked towards Renato's lab. The man in question looked up as John entered.
"Now Johny-boy, I've seen you return from a forced 'outside-lunch' in many moods; but I don't think I've ever seen you coming back whistling. What happened? Did they serve something good today or something?"
"Nope, the usual. Met someone new. Scientist. I just dropped her off at Melcher's."
"Ah, a woman. Now I understand!"
"I must say, she was much better company than you are at any meal. I mean, do you really need to tuck into every meal as if it's your last?"
"Hey! You never know." Reno quickly defended himself.
"Yeah sure. So, are those cookies any good?"
"They're delicious and you're not getting any." Reno stated. John raised an eyebrow.
"Really? Want to take a guess at who's going to miss coffee in my office tomorrow?"
"Aw man. Don't do that to me Johny-boy. Anything's better than the sludge they give you at the cafeteria!"
John gave him a pointed look, causing Reno to groan. "Man! You really drive a hard bargain. Must have learnt something from having four brothers." He said as he dove into one of his desk-drawers.
John grinned. "Can't say it didn't help." The chemist held out a small plastic box.
"Take two. Should keep you off my back for a while. That coffee tomorrow had better be good. Now shoo. And don't even think about telling the others!" Reno shouted after John's retreating form.
"I won't!" John yelled back with a grin spreading over his face. Just before going into his own office he knocked on the open door of the office opposite his. Kimi Li, the computer-genius swivelled around in his chair.
"Hi John. Took you a whi- Oooh, I think I'm going to pay Renato a visit." Kimi interrupted himself when he saw a smiling John holding a chocolate cookie.
"You might want to pick up Janet and Tom on your way. I promised not to tell you guys." John said with a smirk.
"Got it. Oh, and John? I put the disc on your desk. We can go over the adjustments once I get back."
John nodded and walked into his office. Logging himself into his computer again he smiled inwardly. Not a bad day considering he'd been thrown out of his office. After all, he had taken his own coffee, he'd managed to procure two of Renato's sister's famous chocolate cookies, and he'd had a nice conversation with the new girl, Nicole Evers.
He had surprised himself when he'd felt so at ease with her from the first moment on. Usually he'd be quieter when meeting someone for the first time. She'd seemed quite nice, even though he didn't know much about her. He wondered how she was doing right now.
Oh well, maybe he'd run into her some time. Perhaps at his next ban-day. Or maybe before that. After all, with half of his team working in the science area, it wasn't all that unlikely if he would meet her again.
Satisfied that he'd see this Nicole Evers again, he turned back to his work. He had some new information to go through before Kimi got back.
The End
A/N: I hope you enjoyed it.