Chapter Text
With luggage in hand and a forced hopeful outlook on the situation at hand, Francine "Frankie" Warren started toward the administration building on Starfleet Academy campus. In the past 24 hours, her second year at the academy was already shaping up to be a lot more stressful than her first, and she wasn't even taking into account the increased workload and more advanced concepts.
During Frankie's first year at the academy, she had been assigned to room with a sweet girl named Jillian who was planning on majoring in warp theory. Jillian was smart, kind, and best of all, a considerate and easy-to-live-with roommate. Thus, when the year came to an end and the faculty sent out surveys asking if the students wished to room with their current roommates in the following year, Frankie hadn't even hesitated to answer yes. She and Jillian had become rather good friends over the course of their first year, and if Frankie could reduce her second-year stress even a little by not having to get used to living with someone else, she would gladly take that opportunity.
Things, however, did not exactly turn out as peachy as Frankie had hoped.
A week before the start of September—and with it, the start of yet another academic year—Frankie had received an email from the academy stating that Jillian had dropped out due to unforeseen circumstances (of which they couldn't spare details) and she was left in the dark when it came to a living situation considering she wasn't yet in her third year, meaning she didn't qualify for a single-person room yet (no matter how good her grades were). Frankie checked her email anxiously over the final week, waiting to see if the housing committee had found her a new room yet—or God forbid, they simply didn't have room for her at all.
Then, at the last minute, Frankie received word that she had finally been placed and was to report to the administration building to find out where she would be staying. She didn't exactly love the thought of having to get used to a new roommate, but the relief of being able to return for another year overshadowed that worry; a worry she could deal with at a later time.
The administration building was packed with students when Frankie entered, which was unsurprising because it was the first day and first-years were always full of so many questions; at least, Frankie was when she had been in her first year.
Knowing that she was going to be in this for the long haul, Frankie found an empty seat in the lobby and pulled one of her medical textbooks out of her suitcase. If she was going to be here a while, she figured she might as well get a head start on her reading. If the previous year had taught her anything about the medical program at Starfleet Academy, it was that you could never be too prepared.
As the minutes turned to hours, Frankie shifted in her seat, her butt beginning to go numb from the uncomfortable chair. She tried to focus on her anatomy review of alien species from the year before (a topic that her classes would start to go into much deeper detail about this year) to take her mind off of the discomfort, but there was only so much that her textbook could do distract her.
Checking her PADD, Frankie noticed that the time was just before 4 pm, meaning that she had been sitting in the admin lobby for approximately two hours. At this rate, there was no way she was going to be able to make it to the student mixer that evening that would kick off the academic year. She didn't mind much, however, considering she didn't exactly have anyone to go with. During her first year, Frankie had been so busy trying not to fall behind in her classes that she hadn't made many friends except for Jillian and one of Jillian's friends, Nyota Uhura. Uhura was a year ahead of Frankie, but she had known Jillian from when they were kids, and thus Frankie and Uhura had become pretty good acquaintances. Frankie wasn't sure she would see much of Uhura if Jillian wasn't around though.
By 4:30, most of the students had cleared out and the admin staff were working hastily to try and get everyone dealt with so they could close up on time at 5. A few minutes later, a short man with grey hair and tired eyes behind thick-rimmed glasses stepped out of one of the many offices and waved for Frankie to step inside.
Letting out a thankful sigh that she was being dealt with before it got too late, she grabbed her luggage, followed the man into the office, and took a seat across from him at the desk.
Before the man even addressed Frankie, he began typing something on his computer; probably to finish up something from the last student he had dealt with. In the meantime, Frankie looked around the small office, taking note of the framed photo of two young children he had displayed beside his computer. Based on the man's visible age, Frankie guessed they were grandchildren.
"Okay." The man finally took the time to acknowledge Frankie's presence. "What can I do for you today?"
"I'm Frankie Warren," she said. "There were some issues with my housing arrangements last minute when my roommate dropped out of the program. I was told to come here to find out my new room assignment."
The man nodded and turned his attention back to his computer. His fingers danced across the keyboard with incredible speed, which Frankie thought was impressive considering how exhausted he looked based on the bags under his eyes.
"Warren . . . Warren . . . Warren," the man muttered as he scrolled down the student list displayed on his screen. "Ah, here we go, Francine Warren, yes?"
Frankie hated the sound of her birth name—she always thought that Francine sounded much too prim and proper—but nodded nevertheless. "That's me." She confirmed.
"Good, good. Okay, room assignment . . . let's see here." The man continued to babble under his breath as he searched for the information he was looking for. "Oh, okay, looks like you've been assigned to room 402 in Building D."
Frankie did a mental double-take to make sure she had heard the man correctly. "Did you say 402?"
"Yes, that's what it says here. Room 402, Building D. Do you know where that is?"
"Yes," Frankie said. She knew exactly where Building D was; it was situated pretty closed to the academy hospital, which actually worked out great considering second-year was when students started their clinical rotations. The building assignment wasn't what was throwing her off; no, it was the room assignment.
The fourth levels of the cadet housings buildings were almost exclusively reserved for third and fourth years due to the fact that the rooms were bigger, with more amenities and often, private rooms.
Frankie was just about to triple-check that she had heard the assignment correctly but stopped herself at the last minute, deciding that she could use a slight win after the stressful week she had had and didn't want to ruin it by possibly alerting the staff member to a possible error.
"Does it say how many roommates I have?" Frankie asked. "Or who they are?"
The man sighed heavily, most likely frustrated with the fact that she was requesting additional details when he still had about two or three more students to deal with after her before the waiting room became completely empty.
"It doesn't specifically state who your roommates are, probably due to the fact that the system hasn't registered that yet. It can take up to 48 hours for that information to load after placement, and yours was done only last night," the man said. "What I can tell you is that you have two roommates."
"Two?" Frankie questioned. "It must be a big room."
"Yes, it appears you've lucked out, Miss Warren." The man forced a smile in an attempt to get Frankie out of his office as quickly as possible. "Is there anything else I can assist you with today?"
"No, thank you." Frankie shook her head.
"Splendid." The man ripped a piece of paper from the notepad on his desk and quickly scribbled down four numbers. "This is the code to get into the room. You will be sent an official email with the code sometime tomorrow, but until then, use this. Have a wonderful evening."
"You as well." Frankie took the paper from the man before standing up and exiting the office with her bags in tow.
Frankie was unable to stop thinking about how lucky she had gotten while she made her way across campus to Building D. On the way, she passed the bustling student mixer on the quad, which was already packed with students dancing to the loud music. Frankie, however, just wanted to get settled into her room, take a shower, and get a good night's sleep for her first day of classes the next day.
Once inside her building, Frankie rode the elevator up to the fourth floor. With a ding, the elevator stopped a few short seconds later and the doors slid open. As she stepped out into the hall, she noticed that the floor was very quiet; most likely due to the fact that everyone had already settled in and were out on the quad getting drunk.
As she approached the doorway of room 402, Frankie suddenly felt nervous. Would her roommates be inside? Would they be nice? Not only did she have to worry about getting along with one new roommate, but now it was two new roommates.
Unwilling to let herself agonize over things out of her control in the hallway, Frankie punched in the four-digit room combination and let herself inside. Immediately, she was greeted with a dark room.
Tapping the tiny control panel beside the door to turn the lights on, Frankie was awestruck by the sight of the room. The first thing she noticed was the size, and man, was it big. Way bigger than her room had been the year before.
In the middle of the room was a decently-sized dining table with four chairs. To the left of the table was the kitchen, which was outfitted with a full-sized fridge, an oven, and a replicator. To the right was the living room, which held a couch, a single armchair, and a pretty impressive television. Finally—and most importantly—Frankie was relieved to see that the rooms were, indeed, private. On one side of the room, both doorways were left open, one of which was the bathroom and the other being a bare-bones bedroom. On the opposite side, two doors remained shut, meaning that the other two roommates had most likely already set up their personal items inside.
"Hello?" Frankie called into the seemingly empty room. She glanced in the direction of the closed doors, waiting to see or possibly hear the first sign of her roommates, but there was no indication that anyone was there.
Assuming that her roommates had gone down to the mixer with everyone else, Frankie welcomed the moment of privacy and headed for the unclaimed bedroom beside the bathroom and began to unpack her belongings.
While loading her clothes into the closet and setting up her various personal effects, Frankie perked at every little noise from the hallway, expecting her roommates to barge in at any moment. She would be lying if she wasn't worried about being the third wheel, considering the fact that the other inhabitants of the room had chosen bedrooms directly next to one another and had seemingly gone out together. All she could do was try to make a great first impression when the time eventually came and hope that she got along with whatever women she would be living with.
Once her bedroom had been outfitted with her belongings, Frankie stepped out into the common area again and decided to take a closer look around the place. As she made her rounds, she quickly realized that one downside to having private rooms was that there wasn't much left out in the open that she could use to gauge the type of people her roommates were.
The only things that Frankie could find around the room were inconspicuous items such as food in the cabinets and books on the dining table. Even the books didn't say much about their owners, however, because they were just standard textbooks. The one thing Frankie was able to learn was that at least one of her roommates was in the medical field as well, which was evident by the Advanced Interplanetary Diseases textbook.
Flipping open the textbook to a random page, Frankie scanned the material quickly and inhaled sharply. Whoever owned this textbook must have been a year or two ahead and very smart because, while she considered herself rather intelligent, even she was having trouble understanding what the textbook was trying to teach.
Closing the book back up again, Frankie decided that she had done enough attempted-snooping for one evening and that she was starving and in need of a hot shower.
So, after using the replicator to cook up a steaming plate of garlic parmesan pasta—a meal that her mother did flawlessly and that reminded her of home, even if this replicator version didn't hold a candle to her mother's—Frankie gathered her bathroom supplies and set off for a shower.
After shutting and locking the door, just in case one or both roommates came home while she was in the shower, she noticed that the bathroom remained empty. No one had set up their things yet.
Wanting to be as polite as possible, Frankie took up as little space as possible with the reminder that the one bathroom needed to be shared by three people. Once her few items were made at home, she placed her pyjamas on the counter beside the sink, undressed, and turned on the shower.
The warm water felt like heaven after a long day of travelling, sitting in a packed waiting room, and unpacking. After spending much too long scrubbing away the remaining stress, Frankie turned off the water and wrapped herself in a towel.
Staring at herself in the mirror, she combed through her auburn hair with her fingers and checked to see if any blemishes had cropped up among her many freckles.
After drying off and changing into her nightshirt and sleep shorts—which were slightly too short, but from her experience, female roommates rarely ever cared if anyone walked around in underwear or even completely nude—she brushed her teeth, removed her makeup, and got ready to head to bed.
Just as she opened the bathroom door and let the steam from her shower seep into the common area, a familiar-sounding series of four electronic beeps came from the hallway and the front door swung open.
Straightening up, Frankie realized that having just come out of the bathroom wasn't exactly the best way to meet her roommates for the first time, but she didn't really have much of a choice.
The first thing that alerted Frankie to something being off was a man's laugh. Had one of her roommates brought a guy back to the room on the very first night? While Frankie wasn't one to necessarily judge, she did think that was a rather bold move. Now she was unsure if then was the best time to introduce herself or if she should maybe wait until the morning.
Before she could flee to her room, however, two figures stepped into the dimly lit room. Frankie froze in place. They were both men . . . and there wasn't a single woman in sight.
Now Frankie was worried that her room was being broken into on her very first night. While her mind raced with a million different possible scenarios about what the hell was going on, the men continued to converse and laugh with one another, completely unaware of her presence.
The first man was tall with dirty blonde hair and the most brilliant pair of blue eyes that probably ever existed. The second man was even taller than the first with messy brown hair and, as Frankie noticed when he spoke, a rather noticeable southern drawl.
The first thing that crossed Frankie's mind after eyeing up the men was that they were both quite a bit larger than her and that she would be no match should it come to fighting them off.
So, instead of having to resort to her lacking physical skills, Frankie decided to use the people-skills that she liked to think she was well versed in.
Frankie hoped that the two men had simply stumbled into the wrong room by accident and that this was all a simple misunderstanding. But then again, if this was any sort of accident, how had the men possessed the entry code for the room? How had they gotten inside in the first place?
The many possible explanations quickly became tangled in Frankie's tired mind and instead of continuing to try and work anything out for herself, she simply decided to figure out what exactly was going on by talking to the men.
"Ugh . . . hello?" Frankie gave a timid wave.
Both men stopped in their tracks as their smiles that indicated a good time at the mixer immediately faded.
"Well, hello there." The first man with piercing blue eyes greeted, taking immediate notice of Frankie's short shorts. "Are you here for . . .?" He gave a head nod in the direction of Frankie's room. "Man, what a dog. Getting some on the first night?"
Frankie furrowed her brows, confused. "Am I here for who?" She questioned.
"Oh, fuck, I don't remember the guy's name." The man turned to his friend. "Who was the guy who was supposed to be moving in with us?"
The other man thought for a moment, his eyes never leaving Frankie. "Umm . . . it started with an F . . . Frank-something?"
"Yes!" The first man snapped his finger with recollection. "Are you here for Frank-something?"
Suddenly, everything made sense. There must have been a mix-up with room assignments and some guy named Frank or whatever was supposed to have gotten the wonderful fourth-floor room and Frankie was supposed to be somewhere else. Unfortunately for her, this was not the first time her male-sounding preferred name had caused incidents of this nature. In high school, after insisting that her name on her school file be changed from Francine to Frankie, she had accidentally been placed in the boys' section of health class. Boy, was that an interesting half-hour before the teacher had realized the mix-up.
Frankie let out a knowing chuckle. "Sorry, guys. I think there's been a mistake. I'm not here for your roommate. I am your roommate."
Both men stared back at Frankie, oddly silent even though it looked like they each had about a million things they wanted to say.
"You're Frank?" The first guy gawked.
"I'm Frankie."
Silence fell over Frankie and the two strangers while they just stood in place, unsure of what to do or say next. Eventually, Frankie took charge of the situation and assured the two slightly tipsy men that she would be out of their hair as soon as possible.
"I'll go back down to the administration building tomorrow and sort this out," Frankie said as she headed for her room. "Sorry for the confusion. Have a good night."
With that, Frankie closed her bedroom door on the two shocked men and exhaled. Just when she thought that she had gotten through all of her housing stress, there was this.
Of course, the room on the fourth floor with private bedrooms was too good to be true. Well, at least she had enjoyed it while it had lasted, however short that may have been.