Abby knelt at the edge of the stage, one hand on the ledge as she dropped down to the floor below, forgoing the stairs as she approached the rising rows of her military policemen and the SRT. The meeting was ending and, as much as she'd have liked to run after not a few of the people departing now, and track down one or two more? The immediate priority was her people, the security contingent for the Copernicus, and ensuring everything they needed to walk directly into their duties. Abby held up her arm, wrist turning swiftly to rally everyone to her.

In all, Abby presided over a platoon-sized contingent now alongside SRT Bravo. Sergeant Davis and the other three MP squad leaders would be working up their own patrol and duty schedules, with First Sergeant Larson, in essence, on duty and on call for the next three years. This was just an informal meet, a few questions fielded about shift timing and weapons issue, with Abby taking the chance to reiterate she was available 24/7 for any reason - well, not including hauling their asses back to their rooms if they got into some homemade hooch. They'd just be rotting where they dropped then, unless a buddy could be bothered to scrape them off the floor.

That earned some laughs, a few grins, but Abby knew that deep down, most of her people weren't happy with the suspicious eyeballing they felt sure they'd be getting from the other crew members, no matter Sergeant Davis' tongue-in-cheek joke about MIB and storm troopers. These were [i]damn[/i] good men and women, professionals all, and dedicated to the bitter end. Every last MP standing there had risked their lives at some point just before Copernicus' launch, braving the poisonous environs of the Change and the ravenous Kind to recover hundreds of men, women and children, fighting like hell for every last precious human life. 

They deserved better. Abby wished she had better to give them, but human nature was what it was. And in general, it was a bitch.

So she gave them what she had: reassurance, order, some measure of normalcy in a world that was anything but. This was a short meeting, only a few minutes really, but the Auditorium was nearly cleared out completely by the time they were done, and Abby dismissed her teams to the proverbial four winds. She didn't wait long as they dispersed, before heading back to her own private room. 

In the space of her quick walk, Abby had already prioritized in her head, the stops she had to make after this briefing, and they were not a few. But the small "waking gift" she'd managed to put together made that first decision for her. 

The door slid back with a slow [i]hiss[/i] and a click as it latched within the wall, a familiar sound Abby found oddly comforting, like the creak of a door hinge that became a part of an old home's character. The private room aboard this ship was like everyone else's, but of course in its particulars, like no other. Now that Michael was asleep, she'd pushed the bed back into a single, opening up the small space - though she would have [i]far[/i] preferred the company of her son to some extra leg room. Neatly made with comforters of ocean blue and turquoise, her bed was positioned beneath her portal, glowing softly now with a wintery scene. Fluffy thick snowflakes fell languorously in a forest turned bare brown, after autumn let her brilliant gown of foliage fall away. The barest indentation of a well-worn forest path could be seen winding into the trees and into the growing dark, not yet trodden this day though inviting intrepid booted feet nonetheless.

Abby grinned as she turned toward the built in desk where the small tin plate was set, from this morning some honest-to-God fresh fruits, blackberries and raspberries and even a few cherries shining like jewels among a cushion of brazil nuts and macadamias and walnuts. Her whole family smiled back at her in approval from the photographs in those simple black wood frames, set along the back of her desk. Her parents and her brothers, aunts and uncles and cousins and even an ancient black and white photograph of her great, great grandparents on her Mom's side. Times boating and waterskiing on their lake camp, defiantly-worn Christmas sweaters and a rare and mammoth brown trout brandished with toothy grins outside a Minnesotan ice fishing shacks - the very best of her world and her past.

There were even books on the shelves above the desk too - real books, some literary classics and some definitely not-so-much - all surrounding a clear glass case preserving a Kirby Puckett-signed baseball she'd bought for Michael when they visited Cooperstown.

All these much-loved mementoes abided in her thoughts, much as they did her room. Every last one of them was gone now, irrevocably, from the winter's forest path to the enormous family she still loved and missed with all her heart. But unlike so many aboard the Copernicus, Abby didn't see them as memories to mourn, remembrances to turn her thoughts maudlin or melancholy. [i]Far[/i] from it. These reminders were the pillars that upheld her purpose, her reason - the keepsakes that pointed toward the promise of every last good and decent thing that the future might yet hold.

Though the present would have to do [i]just[/i] fine for now. She would have loved to change out of her ACUs into some 'civilian' clothes, but her day wasn't over yet and that would just have to wait. Abby took up the plate carefully in both hands, her tablet tucked carefully under her one arm before she walked back out her door and down the hallways she'd gotten to know [i]pretty[/i] well by now. 

Outside Gavin's lab door, Abby thought about announcing herself, seeing if OLGA was... Oh wait, if she'd heard right (and who in the auditorium not functionally deaf hadn't?), OLGA was off chatting with Mr. Bach. Frankly, she wasn't entirely sure the good geneticist wasn't a touch peeved with her at the moment anyway. This plate of precious freshly-grown fruits and nuts really had been procured on the sly before the briefing as a gift, but it might do as a tasty little [i]mea culpa[/i] as well.

Abby held her finger over the laser pad entry, waiting for the second it took for the recognition of her near limitless ship access and for the door to slide open. Simply showing up on Gavin's proverbial doorstep all unannounced and such wasn't likely to put him in a better mood if he really was irked with her, but better to ask forgiveness and all that...

She caught sight of the scientist in the dimmed light of his numerous LED panels. Sure, the hoodie and vintage jeans and those Converse low tops weren't exactly the typical look one might expect for the towering genius of a Nobel Prize nominee, but was a welcome sight to her eyes nonetheless. "[i]Good[/i] morning Gavin... Well, sort of. All right fine, that was entirely rhetorical, but this isn't: just how pissed [i]are[/i] you with me, for that shite answer I gave you in the briefing?"

Abby held out that tin plate of fresh fruit and nuts before her, a wide and ridiculously hopeful smile on her face. "And just how much of a difference would it make, if I promise I come bearing gifts that might go well with your coffee - and a few real answers too?" 

That bright smile dimmed just a little though, the gravity of what she had to say taking root. "Though if I could get a cup of that blessedly fresh-brewed coffee? I might promise you some damn good reasons as well."