Carnival Ambition: The Long Way Around
Posted on 24 Apr 2026 @ 1:38am by Lieutenant Commander Grayson McKinney & Lieutenant Commander Claire Dunross MD
3,297 words; about a 16 minute read
Mission:
The Starfall Carnival
Location: Sickbay
Timeline: Mid-Afternoon, Hours Before the Carnival Opening
He came unprepared.
It was unusual enough that he noticed it twice on the turbolift ride down: once when the doors closed and again when they opened. Both times, he felt the unease of someone who always prepares but had let this one thing slip. He had a reason, and it was a good one. He had carried it with him since the Promenade, since seeing the half-assembled lights and feeling the warmth of a decision already made. None of that needed rehearsal to stay true.
He had two coffees. One in each hand, which was the kind of logistical commitment that made a statement whether he intended it to or not.
Sickbay smelled of antiseptic and recycled air, with the low hum of diagnostic systems running in the background. There were no shadows, nowhere to hide behind any kind of pretense. Claire sat at the secondary console with her PADD and a screen full of manifests, working with the steady focus of someone who would finish the job no matter what, and who had probably expected to be interrupted.
He crossed the deck and set one mug on her console.
She heard the sound and looked up. Her green eyes moved from the mug to him with the calm focus of someone who had already started sizing things up.
He picked up the nearest medical scanner from the console tray, giving his hands something to do, and turned it over once.
"Inventory going well?" he said.
"You're holding that upside down."
He looked at it. He was. He set it back on the tray without comment and picked up his own coffee instead.
"I took the long way back," he said. It was true, but didn’t explain much. "Tactical's been quiet. Thought I'd check on the resupply." He paused for a moment. "And see you."
He hadn’t softened those last three words the way he might have earlier. He let them stand.
Claire set her PADD down, giving him her full attention. That was both helpful and risky. She picked up the mug, took a careful sip, and waited with the calm patience of someone who knew more was coming but wasn’t going to make it any easier.
He looked at her directly.
"The Carnival," he said. "Tonight. The main program starts at nineteen hundred." He paused, taking a steady breath. "I know it’s the kind of unstructured chaos I usually avoid. But I want to go. With you."
The room held its quiet.
He realized, as he often did with inconvenient things, that this moment was the next step in something bigger. Not just the Carnival, but everything from this morning’s mess table on—a day that had left him unguarded and wasn’t letting up.
Something shifted at the corner of her mouth.
"I did tell you to ask me," she said.
"You did."
"And you've apparently spent the day working up to it."
"I took the long way," he said again. This time, she smiled for real, and he decided it was worth saying.
He met her gaze and kept things simple, because that was all the moment needed.
"There's also the matter," he added, "of an outstanding question about my kissing. I thought the Carnival was a reasonable opportunity to start collecting data."
Claire’s fingers stayed wrapped around the mug, the warmth of it pressing into her palms while she looked at him over the rim.
For one suspended moment, she did not answer.
Not because she did not have one.
Because the answer arrived all at once, and she was buying herself the smallest sliver of time to manage it.
There it was again, that quiet directness of his. No tactical retreat. No clever reframing. Just Grayson McKinney standing in Sickbay with tea in his hand, asking her plainly, and then, somehow, making her laugh in the same breath.
Her mouth curved, slow and real.
“A data collection exercise?” she asked, lowering the mug at last. “Very scientific of you. As a doctor, Grayson, I do appreciate proper methodology.”
She looked up at him, as his height forced her to do. He stood there in the sterile, regulation bright white lighting of Sickbay, completely out of place and entirely certain of himself anyway.
Her gaze flicked, briefly, to the paused inventory on her console. Manifests half complete. Supplies still to verify. She ran the numbers without thinking. Time to finish. Time to change. Time to decide if she was really doing this.
“If I’m going to step out on your arm for a night of unstructured chaos, I have a lot to get done before I’m presentable for that.”
Her eyes returned to him, scanning his face. His warm, broad, entirely unfairly handsome face.
And for the first time since they had met, she felt the room shift.
Not subtle. Not theoretical.
Real.
He must have seen it. Of course he had.
“What?” he asked, a thread of something just shy of concern slipping through.
She shook her head, a small smirk tugging at her mouth as she looked down into her tea, buying herself a second more.
“Mmm,” she murmured, “not sure I should keep throwing bold Claire at you today.”
Her gaze lifted again, steadier now, but no less open for it.
He didn’t look away. Didn’t retreat from it.
“Then don’t soften it,” he said, steady, eyes on hers. “What was the thought?”
It wasn’t teasing.
It wasn’t deflection.
Just truth, set down between them as plainly as the tea he’d brought her.
Claire huffed the faintest breath of a laugh at that, something soft and surprised at the edges of it.
“I just had a thought,” she said, her voice dipping a fraction, “that this is either going to end really ugly… or really good.”
A beat, her fingers tightening slightly around the mug.
“And I’m bracing for either.”
Her eyes held his, steady now, no retreat left in them at all.
“Looking forward to the ride.”
Claire finished her inventory, sent off the restock order for Dr Amberlyn to approve, and completed the remainder of her shift with enough time to prepare.
The routine grounded her. It always did. One task finished. One system closed. No loose ends.
Only then did she step into her quarters.
The shower helped. Not to relax, not entirely, but to reset. To put a clear line between the day she had just worked and whatever tonight was about to become.
She stood in front of her open closet for a moment longer than she would have admitted. Not uncertain. Deliberate.
Her hand moved without hesitation in the end.
A soft blue silk blouse, the color chosen with purpose. It caught the light just enough, but more importantly, it made her eyes impossible to ignore.
A navy pleated skirt that fell just above her knees, structured but with movement when she walked. Paired with navy heels, practical enough that she could cross the Promenade in them a dozen times if she needed to, but elegant all the same.
Intentional.
At her throat, a simple chain with a single round white diamond. No excess. Just one point of light.
The perfume came last. A light touch at her wrist, another at her collar. Clean. Subtle. Something that wouldn’t announce itself, only be noticed when someone stepped closer, or when she moved past.
Her hair was left down, worked into soft waves, then drawn back over her left ear. Controlled, but not restrained.
She looked at herself once in the mirror before heading to meet him at the airlock.
He was already waiting when she rounded the corridor bend.
He wore a rust-amber linen shirt, collar open. Dark navy trousers, clean leather belt, cognac cowboy boots. He settled on one heel, hands loose, expression relaxed, present, unhurried, not performing.
He saw the blue first, silk catching the light. Then the rest: skirt in motion, navy heels striking with intent, the single point of light at her throat. Hair down, drawn back. Deliberate, not overdone. It stopped his mind mid-cycle.
He straightened, unthinking.
She reached him. He looked at her fully, without apology, the way he cataloged things he meant to remember. When she was close, the perfume arrived: clean, restrained, the kind that waited until distance had already become something. He noted it, then let it go.
"You look extraordinary," he said.
No qualifier. No addendum. A complete sentence, delivered with the economy he reserved for truth. Something shifted at the edge of her expression. He watched it settle, felt the temperature of the evening change. He offered his arm. She took it, and they stepped through the airlock together.
The station pressed in, warmer air, layered scents from the Promenade. Colored lights glowed along the far concourse. The Carnival, assembled and lit, had shifted from morning scaffolding to something alive, casting arcs of color across the crowd.
He let them walk a few steps into the current before speaking.
"There's something I should have mentioned before we left the ship." His timing was measured; he'd revised the sentence since fourteen hundred. "My family is here. My parents have quarters on the station."
A beat.
"My sister arrived yesterday on a surprise visit from the Academy."
Another.
"They're attending the Carnival tonight."
He kept his eyes forward, not evasive, simply giving the information room to land.
"I mentioned you this morning. Before I asked you." He paused. "My mother suspected something. My sister grabbed on like a bull terrier."
A beat.
"My father’s fine. Starfleet captain. He knows how it goes."
He glanced sideways, reading her expression.
Whatever she was about to say, and he had several hypotheses, the Promenade intervened. Thirty meters ahead, moving through the crowd with the upright energy of a twenty-year-old cadet who had just confirmed a visual, Bríana McKinney spotted them.
Her face changed, immediate and guarded.
Grayson saw it happen.
He looked back at Claire.
"That's her," he said, calm, the tone of a man watching a tactical situation develop, knowing his window to shape it had closed.
Claire had very little time to process what he had said before the situation evolved.
Her mind caught on pieces. Family is here. I mentioned you. Before I asked you.
And then—
Movement.
She followed his line of sight and saw it immediately. The energy of it. Focused. Fast. Closing distance with intent that was impossible to misread.
Claire exhaled softly through her nose, the corner of her mouth lifting as she recalibrated in real time.
“Well,” she murmured, just for him, “this just went from zero to a hundred rather quickly.”
There was no panic in it. No retreat. Just a shift.
She adjusted her grip on his arm, not pulling away, not tightening either. Present.
Her gaze flicked back to him, one brow lifting slightly.
“This is the hot sauce one, yes?”
He confirmed it without breaking stride.
“Of course it is,” Claire said under her breath, a quiet note of amusement threading through it. “You are just full of surprises, Grayson.”
There was a soft chuckle in it now, something warmer than her earlier caution, even if her mind was still catching up to the reality of the moment.
First date.
Parents.
Sister already inbound at full speed.
Aye. Why not.
By the time Bríana closed the distance, Claire had settled herself. Not guarded. Not withdrawn. Simply… composed. The same way she stepped into anything that mattered.
Grayson’s parents followed at a far more measured pace, his mother observant, his father carrying the quiet presence of command even in civilian space.
Claire shifted her attention as they approached, releasing Grayson’s arm only when the space required it.
She met Bríana first, because that was where the energy was.
Then the parents.
Introductions moved quickly, names exchanged, hands offered and taken. Claire’s grip was firm, her posture relaxed, her expression open without giving too much away.
And then it came.
“Dunross?”
It landed exactly the way she expected it to.
Claire inclined her head once, small and precise. She was used to that moment. The recognition. The calculation that followed.
Her name had a habit of entering rooms before she did.
“Grayson’s sister, Mairisabel, works for The Dunross Corporation,” his mother commented and then continued. “Are you related to them?”
For the briefest second, Claire thought of RJ. Of boardrooms and strategy sessions and a world she had stepped away from with intention.
She kept the smirk off her face.
“I am,” she said, calm, direct.
No elaboration.
No apology.
Just truth, delivered with the same economy she applied to everything else that mattered.
Her gaze shifted, briefly, back to Grayson, just long enough to let him see it.
You didn’t warn me about this part.
But there was no accusation in it.
If anything, there was the faintest trace of that earlier spark.
Looking forward to the ride.
She chose, deliberately, to give a fraction more.
“But I don’t have any involvement in the business,” Claire said, her tone even, unembellished. “I chose to follow in my mother’s footsteps. Starfleet.”
It was the truth.
The rest of it, the safety net, the quiet certainty that a different life remained available should she ever reach for it, stayed exactly where it belonged. Unspoken.
Captain McKinney remained quiet, his stillness measured rather than distant. His mother watched, not scrutinizing, but reading. Claire recognized the look immediately. She had seen it across conference tables and in examination rooms alike. Assessment without intrusion.
And Bríana—
Claire could feel it building. The questions. The momentum. The inevitability of it.
So she moved first.
She shifted her attention smoothly, redirecting before the first volley could land.
“Bríana,” she said, the name settling easily, as though she had already decided to like her, “have you picked a specialty yet?”
A slight tilt of her head, curious but controlled.
“I heard piloting was a top choice.”
It was intentional.
Engage. Redirect. Equal footing.
And just enough interest to make it clear she wasn’t here to be interrogated without returning the favor.
He heard it when she said Bríana's name.
Not a misstep, if anything, the opposite. She said it easily, head tilted, question poised, redirecting the interrogation before his sister even noticed. Grayson watched, staying out of it. Claire didn’t need him to step in. He knew when someone handled things better on their own.
Something settled quietly in his chest, without ceremony, the way truth always did.
His mother's hand found his arm, a brief, unhurried pressure she reserved for things she approved of and would not announce. She kissed his cheek. His father caught his eye for a second, Edson McKinney, a man who had learned to compress a sentence into a look after thirty years of command.
His parents withdrew with the practiced ease of two people who had navigated McKinney situations for decades.
His father’s hand found his shoulder on the way past, a firm press, released without a word. The most expressive gesture in the senior McKinney’s repertoire, which made it matter. His parents drifted into the crowd, reading the moment for what it was. Bríana’s exit was less graceful, more honest: she caught Grayson’s eye, rolled hers in the way only a younger sibling could, then turned to follow.
Which left the two of them.
The Carnival had been building toward something, light pooling at the Promenade’s edges, the crowd shifting in response to a signal no one could name but everyone felt. The ambient noise softened, and something shifted.
Grayson moved behind Claire.
His hands found her waist, unhurried and sure, chin tilting toward her ear. She was warm through the silk, her perfume now exactly as intended, close, unmistakable. He noticed both, then let them fade.
The first light surged.
Gold fractured upward along the station’s curve, streaking fast, a single, brilliant point of light cutting from one tier to the next before dissolving in a cascade. Then another, then a dozen. The promenade ceiling became a layered sky, meteor light falling in controlled waves, color splintering off glass and metal, the crowd stilled, and gazing upward.
Every sightline tilted upward.
He leaned down.
"Don't look up yet."
She didn't.
He turned her, just enough, one hand at her waist, the other gently at her jaw, with the care of someone who’d been planning this since breakfast. He kissed her as he’d meant to from the first time she told him to ask: no apology, no performance, none of the softening he might have used on another day. Slow. Thorough. The kind of kiss that answered the question left hanging since oh-seven-hundred.
Above, the meteor shower peaked. Light swept across the Promenade, gold into white, white into color, reflections alive on every surface.
Neither looked up.
Somewhere in the tier above, Bríana McKinney stopped walking.
She stood at the railing, hands resting, looking down at the concourse. Her expression was its own, neither the grin from introductions nor the eye-roll from moments ago. Something quieter, warmer, only hers.
She stayed three seconds.
Then she turned and walked on.
When the kiss ended, Grayson stayed close. The Carnival moved on, unhurried, indifferent to what had just changed between two people at its heart.
He looked at her.
"Initial data," he said, "is very promising."
Claire did not step away.
She stayed where she was, close enough to still feel the warmth of him, the echo of it settling through her in a way she had not entirely prepared for.
A breath left her then, softer than she intended. Not unsteady. Just… released.
Her hand lifted, almost without thinking, fingers brushing along the line of his collar where it had shifted, a small, precise correction. Something to anchor herself. Something familiar.
“The initial findings are… compelling,” she said quietly.
Nothing more.
Her gaze drifted upward as the meteor shower reached its height, light fracturing across the Promenade in gold and white. She took it in, but only briefly, the spectacle failing to hold her attention for long.
Not when—
She looked back at him.
A thought settled, clear and unresisted.
She was glad.
Glad that what had first drawn her to him had been checked, held in place instead of acted on. Glad they had taken the time, measured and deliberate, to understand one another before stepping into this.
There was still more to learn. More to test. More to uncover.
But this—
This had a foundation.
Not the kind built on impulse, on collision and momentum she had mistaken for something more before.
This was different.
Another breath, quieter now.
“We should find something to eat,” she said, the faintest smile returning.
“I haven’t eaten since breakfast…”
A beat, her gaze steady on his.
“And you’re tempting enough,” she added, voice low, a trace of that Highland lilt slipping through, “but my stomach will be rather cross with me if I just go and devour you, aye?”
Claire slipped her hand into his as they turned toward the line of vendors, letting the current of the crowd carry them into the glow and noise of the Carnival.
She knew, with the quiet certainty she trusted more than most things, that the day would end.
But this—
This would not pass unnoticed.
It would settle.
Held.
And later, when the work resumed, and the ship reclaimed them both, she would remember it exactly as it was.
End Log
LtCmdr Claire Dunross, MD
Asst Chief Medical Officer
&
LtCmdr Grayson McKinney
Chief Tactical Officer
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