Chapter Two: The Best Laid Plans, Et Cetera …

"So then I thought we'd take a walk around some of the lower corridors," Travis was saying briskly.  "And we can circle back through hydroponics and look at the plants. The evening is all planned out, although I think there's plenty of room for spontaneity if we get bored with it later on. What do you think, Liz?"

Liz, who was on the NX-01's crew roster as Elizabeth Cutler, worked in the science department as the ship's resident "bug lady". She also served as a medical assistant to Doctor Phlox when he was short of help – their association, despite an odd, semi-romantic history, had developed into a strong platonic friendship – and spent most of her off-duty time these days hanging around Travis Mayweather.

At the moment, she was sitting on his bunk with her hands clasped neatly in her lap, looking up at him with a peculiar scrunched-up expression on her face which meant that she was trying to tell him something without actually using any words. He'd gotten pretty good at reading her during the past three months since they'd randomly decided together in the mess-hall that it might be a good idea – livening up both of their social lives – if they were to reach a state approximating "dating". This expression was probably going to be bad news.

"Travis …" she began.

"We don't have to go to hydroponics," Travis said quickly, "if you don't want to look at plants. That's where the spontaneity part comes in."

Liz sighed and shook her head. "It's not the plants," she said.

"We don't even have to take a walk," Travis said. "I just thought it would make a nice change from hanging out in my quarters and having popcorn fights."

"There was only the one popcorn fight," Liz pointed out, smiling slightly.

If he could make her smile with something as transient as the memory of a popcorn fight, things probably weren't as bad as all that. There was probably something wrong with work, or something. They could talk through it. Travis was good at other people's problems, just so long as no one wanted him to provide in-depth information about his personal feelings and experiences, at which he wasn't so good. "It was quite a popcorn fight, though," he said. "I think I've probably still got kernels in unmentionable places."

Liz closed her eyes as though warding off the imagery. "Well, I'm glad to have made some lasting effect on you at least," she said dryly.

Whatever that sentence actually meant, Travis didn't think it sounded good. "What do you mean?" he said.

"I just don't think we're working out," Liz said.

"What are you talking about, we get along great!" Travis said. "You are the only girl I ever met who would have a such a rip-roaring popcorn fight with me."

"The truth is," and she looked away from him as though she couldn't bear to see his face, "there's someone else."

Travis sat down hard on the chair in front of his desk. "Oh," he said heavily.

So not only was she breaking up with him – he'd gathered that pretty quickly, 'I don't think we're working out' being kind of a dead giveaway – she'd already given it a lot of thought and moved on to someone else without bothering to talk to him about it first. Clearly this was nothing that communication could solve; she had made the decision for both of them that there was nothing to be done about whatever problems she had with the relationship, such as it was, and closed the door on it. Slammed shut, without any possibility of his doing anything to stop it.

Travis didn't like it when other people made drastic changes in his life without bothering to talk to him about them first. It was one of the reasons he and his brother had so much trouble getting along …

"That's different, then," he said, trying to keep the dullness out of his voice, trying to still sound like Travis.

It wasn't as though it had been a particularly deep and caring relationship, but it had been a lot of fun, and as far as he could tell there hadn't been anything wrong with it even if there hadn't been much life-changingly right about it either. He thought that it would have had at least a few more months of intimacy and food fights and silly arguments about whose toothbrush was whose before he had to worry about it falling apart.

But evidently Liz and whoever had taken her away from him had other plans.

All right then. He'd find someone else eventually, it was a small ship with lots of women who weren't related to him at all. It was just a slap in the face and he didn't know how long it would take him to recover from it.

And he was clearly more attached to Liz Cutler than he'd previously realized. "So, umm," he said, coming to the realization that this was a conversation riddled with uncomfortable silences and that he, of all people, was carrying most of it, "who?"

Liz blushed and worked her hands together nervously in her lap. "Well … I, uh," she said. It was clear that she didn't want to say.

"Come on, you know I've got a right to know," Travis said. "I mean, you're leaving me for him, I'd kind of like to know who he is."

"Well, you do know him," Liz admitted, "of course you do, we all know everyone on this ship, don't we?"

"Is this what you Earth-people call 'being evasive'? Because I don't think it works very well," Travis said.

"Travis, can't you take anything seriously?" Liz asked suddenly, snappishly.

Well, that was uncalled for. "I am perfectly serious," he told her. "If I were any graver, I would be dead. Now would you please answer the question?"

Liz sighed. "Travis, I …" And she trailed off. "I'm not sure how to say this …"

"So is there not anyone else, you just made that up to make this easier for you?" Travis said, feeling irritated and put-upon, and not particularly pleased that he'd apparently lost his girlfriend to an imaginary shipmate.

"No, there is, it's just that he kind of doesn't know about it yet," Liz explained. She at least had the grace to look guilty.

"So I've been ousted by someone's shadow?" Travis exclaimed. "You're dumping me for the idea of someone else?"

"Er," Liz said, "sort of."

Travis snorted. "Sort of? What do you mean, sort of?"

"Look, Travis, we're just not going anywhere, and if I'm attracted to someone else to the point where I keep comparing you to my idea of him, that's not fair to either of us!" Liz said. "So we're done. All right?"

"Clearly," Travis said.

"And I hope we can still be friends," Liz said.

"Well, Liz, I think we should part on good terms," Travis said truthfully, "but you know, I'm a bit upset about this. I think we should talk about being good friends again after I've had some time to, you know, simmer and sulk and throw my stuff at the walls."

"I'm sorry, Travis." She was already at the door.

"I'm sorry, too," said Travis, when she was gone. He got up and paced for awhile, only to sit down again on his bunk. "Damn it." It wasn't expressive, but he wasn't sure how else he was going to express what he was feeling – he wasn't even sure what it was.

His ego was bleeding, sure. And he'd thought he and Liz were going to have more time together before the inevitable break-up, but it wasn't as though he'd expected them to go the distance. No matter how much fun they'd had together, no matter how much more he'd been hoping to have with her, still, she was just somebody.

There were other fish in the sea. It wasn't like he'd found the fish.

Dissatisfied, Travis decided he was going to go to his special place.

Everything was clearer when you were upside-down.