We Are Not of This World

[Nick Ryder]

"I'm sure of that." Nick said with a nod of his head. "Well, I'm sure a big old house like that should have at least one big old bed. If not, I'll build something. I had to build about 90 beds for the Hope when we were taking the crew of another ship and we already had a full ship from another evac we were helping with. I could make one in about a half hour, forty five minutes if It had to be bigger and fancier. There's still a few of them left on the Hope."

[Alice Ryder]

“Can you make it look like a frog?” Gale asked sounding hopeful.

“I don’t know about a frog shaped bed my love but I can put a frog on it.” Alice said stroking his hair.

[Nick Ryder]

"Frog bed... that sounds like a project." Nick hummed as he looked at the Froggie in his hand. "Be an interesting headboard design. Once I know what kind of woodworking tools I've got, we'll see. In the meantime, maybe your mum can paint something on there." he chuckled as he thought of how many Froggies they've gone though and how Gale loved every single one of them. "That stylized Froggie you drew for him once might work."

[Nick Ryder]

The next morning --

Nick had found and reassembled a couple of the old beds that were still in the house, luckily their 'care package' from the future had brought with it some new mattresses so they didn't have to sleep on sheets and mattresses that were decades old. As much as he was sure Alice wanted to reconnect with the Huntington roots, she didn't want to reconnect THAT closely.

While Gale and Alice slept, Nick made his way to the grounds, a pot of coffee tucked under his arm and a tool box slung over his shoulder, he found what was once a workshop, there were stacks of old pieces of wood and metal. No one had touched it in years, the spiders and other bugs had more than taken up residence, but nothing a quick flame burst couldn't take care of. Finding an old headboard, he set up a couple of shop horses and activated his tool kit. Despite coming from a further future, it WAS his favorite tool kit and it was kept in almost better condition than he usually left it. Angel must have claimed it, because the sticker that had been on it since his Academy class reunion "Engineers Have Big Units", was covered up with a "Creatives do it with anything" sticker, which made him laugh. That was entirely Angel's doing.

It didn't take him too long to shave the boring, square headboard into a more organic rounded shape and with the help of some rusted but still sharp chisels, he managed to create a set of eyes and fairly 'frog' shaped head. Then after spending a couple hours shaping the headboard and a foot board, he had the makings of a 'Froggie' bed for Gale. He would let Alice paint it and the side rail since every can of paint was dried into a worthless cube.

The little project had taken him only a few hours to finish and that included taking time to sit with a cup of coffee and listen to the birds. Every moment he spent in this estate, the more he was positive it was the greatest decision he had made for his family. After finishing some final sanding, he heard the sounds of footsteps outside the workshop. They weren't child feet or Alice's distinctive pattern, even barefoot he knew her walk. It always made him laugh a little that she would walk on her toes, like her feet were so used to being in heels that being flat was a foreign concept.

"Ho there!" a burly man's voice called out.

"Hullo..." Nick said as he popped his head out of the window in the workshop. "How are you good sir?"

"Oh just bloody lovely, thank you... wanted to introduce m'self. M'name's Thaddeus Dent. My mum used to work with the late Missus Huntington back in the day... waay back in the day." he chuckled. "I was a wee lad, barely knee high when the lady of the house passed on and well, I'm hardly knee high and I'm hardly a wee lad."

"That does tend to happen." Nick chuckled and extended his hand. "Nicholas."

"So how are ye related her?" He inquired

"Marriage, my wife. Alice... I took her name. We're kind of progressive that way. Besides, my family's pretty much nothin'." Nick replied. "We just moved in with our toddler, a boy."

"Only one? Lad, you're gonna need to get goin'... still it's a shame how much the family died out during the wars and other... well, it's nice to see it back in the family. I was... going to ask. Do y'need a handyman? Although I can see you're pretty handy there." He noticed the headboard.

"My son is obsessed with stuffed frogs, I think we've gone through a few dozen since he was born, still loves them. He wanted a frog bed, Alice said no, but I think this will look just... smashing in the room I want to set up for him." Nick said as he cocked his head to the coffee pot. "Coffee?"

"Oh if I have any more coffee this morning i'll be floatin' home." Thaddeus said with a boisterous laugh. "Well, I'm kind of between jobs, the local shuttle factory closed and I've been trying to set up a custom shop, like I always wanted to do, but could use some work in the meantime. Heard there was life here again and... would love to come back 'home' as it were."

"I'll talk to my wife, we moved here to pretty much have a little... privacy and away time. Where we came from it was wearing on her with people around and once you meet her you'll kind of see why no one left her alone." Nick said with a smile. "But it is a pretty big property, more than I could probably keep maintained on my own."

"I'm excellent with children, I have four of my own and six grandchildren with three more on the way." Thaddeus said with an eyeroll. "My daughter and my youngest son, they are... insatiable with their spouses, every year at least one, if not two, they had twins last summer."

"You're making a good case... I've got six kids of my own, from three different marriages and something like nine grandchildren, but they're on the other end of the galaxy pretty much. So I don't expect them to come around, they've got lives, starships, jobs and responsibilities of their own." Nick said as he sighed and looked at him. "Tell you what, come around later tonight, I'll introduce you to Alice, if she likes you... you've got a job. If she doesn't... I may hire you anyway. Custom shuttles... are kind of my thing too."

[Atticus Hall]

"I can vouch for him if you'd like," a tall man with a very American accent added. "How's it going Thaddeus?" The stranger approached Nick and extended his hand, "Atticus Hall. My family and I live next door."

[Nick Ryder]

"Ah, another Yank in the 'hood." Nick said as he dropped his English accent and smiled. "Well, by next door you mean like three blocks away, at least in the neighborhoods I used to live in.

"Oi Atticus, y'still got that ol' Shuttlepod up on blocks? Could work on it for ye." Thaddeus said with a cock of his head.

"Alright... if you vouch for him, I think you've got a job." Nick said and extended his hand. "I'm kind of considering turning that one barn that was badly converted into a garage into a livery garage and the livery garage into a livestock barn."

[Atticus Hall]

"Okay Thaddeus, knock yourself out. I'm a doctor not an engineer." Atticus looked Nick up and down, "You've got the look of Starfleet about. Served ten years myself. The Polaris was my last ship. It's where I met my wife. She was the XO. When she got pregnant we realized a starship was no place to raise a family so we left. After all there's a need for doctors everywhere. I'm guessing you're an engineer turned command?"

[Nick Ryder]

"Something like that." Nick nodded his head and was happy he had spent some of the night getting their backstory sorted. "Stationed way out on the far outer edges of Federation space. I went from Engineering to a Command and then Intelligence got their mitts on me thanks to my 1st wife and spent most of it in my ready room going over reports and my ship was just a taxi and fire support." he shrugged his shoulders. "Then after the divorce, was assigned out to a couple of worlds that didn't even have names, just numbers that I never remember right because my brain protests the lack of creativity. Then I met Alice about five years ago and after a few close calls, we decided it was time for me to retire and raise our son. She told me the Huntington family had an estate that was sorry state of disrepair and me, being one that loves to restore old things... I jumped at it. Neither of us have been to Earth in years, first time back in a very long time." he chuckled. "Alice was my daughter's Chief Science officer.. so I get it. Just too hard to raise a family in space. Need ground under you."

[Atticus Hall]

"Well, that's one hell of a tale," Atticus replied. There was a sliver of suspicion in his tone. "But, yeah hard to raise a family. Especially when one parent can get reassigned without much warning."

[Nick Ryder]

"Indeed. I think she was also rather homesick, she grew up in London. Won't lie, she's a lot younger than I am and for a young officer to already be 'i'm over this'... better recognize it now than years down the line and be miserable. Our son is enjoying the idea of having a big outdoors area that he can play in instead of a tiny 'park' on our last colony." Nick winced. "And he never had real fish and chips before, food synthesizer fish isn't the same. And that weird freeze dried stuff... like fish jerky. Caitains do like it, give 'em a pack of it and they're like 'this is amazing'. Guess a cat's a cat no matter if they walk on 2 legs or 4."

"Oi... Caitains... we had one in the shuttle factory... great folk, but sometimes it was like workin' with the neighborhood stray cat. If y'see a lil' black an' white, that's Sir Reggie. He'll come around sniffin' for food and then bugger off if you get within a foot of 'im. Cute lil' cat though. An' there's an orange and black one that's Queen Vic. She's friendly, everyone knows the Queen especially if you feed her. And yes I'm talkin' lil Kitty Cats not Caitains." Thaddeus said with a laugh.

"I figured as much. Atticus, maybe once I get the dining room cleared out, all the furniture was just shoved in there, we'll have dinner sometime. It'll be nice to have neighbors we can invite over, Alice and I love to entertain. How old is your little one?" Nick inquired. "Mine's about three going on four."