Tobie Hutchinson
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Contents
General Information
Physical Description
Lean and lanky, Tobie is a long, lithe line with little in the way of curves or softness in her body. Her face is more often described as ‘sweet’ rather than beautiful with large dark eyes and button nose. There are creases around her eyes that tell a story of some hard times, lines at the corners of her lips that hint at just as many laugh lines. Tobie’s hair is long and straight- so far into brown that it’s nearly black.
Personality
On first impression Tobie is a picture of your standard Starfleet grist for the mill: polished, tidy, unassuming, forgettable face from a forgettable colony. She has a smile and a handshake for just about everyone she meets. A squeaky clean track record with a history of precise, well documented reports and what do you have? The underestimated Ms. Hutchinson. Once one gets to know Tobie they find the quirks and cogs that make her tick, from her tendency to be a little OCD to the way that she can’t help but brighten considerably any time Rosie is brought up in conversation. Most of her feelings are internalized and tapped down in an attempt to stay on top of her game: always moving, always thorough, always in control. It’d been assumed incorrectly before that Tobie wasn’t much of a fighter, not understanding how Tobie chose to operate. Only one person ever got her angry enough to rant and scream. She’s one of those disturbingly quiet folks who will smile as they dog you repeatedly until they get their point across. Likewise, she’s been known to be just as polite before diving into a fist fight for the sake of a friend. After all, you can take the girl out of the colony, but you can’t quite take the colony out of the girl. The process of healing is a long one, as long if not longer as the act of forgiving. Tobie has made great strides on both fronts, though she still has a long way to go. She still hasn’t truly forgiven herself of whatever involvement that she may have had in the death of her son or the ending of her marriage. Being a mother once again is both has taken her back to some pretty dark places filled with fear, anxiety and heartache, though she’d gladly suffer through it all to have Rosie in her life. The child is the absolute apple of her mother’s eye. ‘Hutch’ as her ex-husband Dean is known by holds the next spot closest to her heart. As she’d been told by her previous ship’s counselor if they could ever let go of all the things that came before they’d have a wonderful life together. It’s glaringly obvious to everyone around them that they still love each other, she just can’t quite reach for him yet.
Family
Spouse - Dean
Children - Rosemarie(4), Evan(Deceased)
Father - Jonothan Ramos
Mother - Emery
Brother(s) & Sister(s) - Janie
Other Family - Bert Cicelo (cousin)
History
Childhood
The first 18 years of Tobie Lee Ramos’s history could have come straight out of any third generation colonist’s journal. She was a farm girl raised on 30 acres of cows, cotton and country folks all racked up in the same go-nowhere rut as every other living soul on Catlia. Like her mother and her grandmother before her it was surmised that she’d be tied to the homestead as soon as she was married off right out of school. Born there, toil there, die there: all under the same great oaks. Miss Tobie Lee, however, had a different life in mind.
Prior to Starfleet
Sure enough, she married her high school sweetheart: a great big bear of a man named Dean Hutchinson. Instead of pooling their monies to build an extension onto her father’s land, however, the newly wed Ramos’s bought a second hand rust bucket of a cargo tramp called the Oleander. It spent six months sitting in Tobie’s father’s west field (which they lived in as that was her father’s unfunny idea of justice) before it was repaired enough to even break atmo. Within the year, however, not only was the Oleander operational, but thanks to some clever campaigning Ramos & Family Shipping was an actual working business. Tobie handled the business end of the deal as Hutch couldn’t make three credits without spending eight. Hutch did most of the grunt work and flew until he got around to teaching Tobie how to.
By then they were enjoying very private picnic dinners on the floor of the Oleander’s cockpit with a colicky son. True, their meals were mostly freeze dried or reconstituted as the ship’s kitchenette never really did get fixed- and if they did manage to scrape together enough for wine it was drunk out of coffee mugs- they had a home that went with them where they wanted to go. And they only had to return to Catlia when and if they wanted to- or that was the plan.
Evan was about two when he started getting ill. It started with seizures that came on without warning: no fever, no fall, no bumps to the head. Half of the doctors that he was taken to insisted that it was something on ship that he was having a reaction to. The other half thought that it was something genetic and poured over Hutch and Tobie, their parents and so on with a fine tooth comb. Neither set turned up anything useful. By the time that Evan was three in addition to the seizures, he started losing motor control. He couldn’t walk or feed himself. By four he couldn’t see.
As far as they were in debt at that point trying to cover Evan’s care, there was no way that Hutch could stop hauling. Neither could Tobie keep Evan on ship as he simply couldn’t be cared for properly in as limited a facility as the Oleander had. Tobie took her son back to Catlia to live with her parents. In the coming two years Hutch visited as often as he could, funneling as much as he could back home for treatments, but it didn’t make a difference. Evan still died just short of his 6th birthday.
It took three months for Hutch get home. By then there was enough blame and animosity built up between the two of them over who was where and who did more that an all-out war broke out between the couple. Hutch took the Oleander and left. Tobie left Hutch walking papers with his parents and left as well, leaving to stay with her cousin Bert on Earth until she got her wits about her. Even when she did, Tobie had no intention of living in Blue Springs again. It had too many ghosts.
Starfleet Career
Applying to the Academy was Bert’s idea- even if it started as a joke that she could either try for that or a commercial pilot’s license, but either way she had to get off of his couch eventually and see the world some. She struggled pretty evenly through most of her classes, relying on tutors to get her through what wasn’t covered in her previous schooling. Many of Tobie’s teachers went above and beyond to help her get her head above water and acclimate, but properly mourn and heal.
By graduation Tobie had been pegged as someone to keep an eye on, because she’d gotten a hearty dose of competition into her veins and she was rearing to get back off world again. It served her well through her cadet cruise aboard the USS Wyoming: an utterly unremarkable exercise in boredom. The Trippe was much more Tobie’s speed, being both a smaller ship and a much more dynamic pace.
While there Hutch contacted Tobie about selling the Oleander. Since her name was still on the deed, he needed her to sign the deal. After some grousing on behalf of everyone involved, she agreed to meet with him long enough to sign over the papers. Once they got together Tobie found that he was selling the Oleander not because he was in trouble, but that his parents were and he had nothing else to give them. She was able to convince her parents to help Hutch’s so that he didn’t lose his ship.
Meeting up with him again did more than just reopen some wounds that she was still trying to heal from, it reminded Tobie of why she’d fallen in love with him in the first place. They began speaking again- slowly at first- then seeing each other in passing for old time’s sake. Romance even sparked anew during a shoreleave spent together, though was short lived. Not long after coming together again Tobie found herself pregnant again. Both of them were terrified of what might happen to the baby as they still didn’t know what had happened to Evan. Tobie had the Trippe’s CMO go over all of her tests again, but once again nothing could be find. Still the doctor followed the pregnancy closely just to be sure that everything was on the up and up.
Hutch backed off for some time- unwilling to connect emotionally again until after Tobie began sending him lengthy reports and images of a healthy baby girl that she named Rosemarie. He still wasn’t sure of himself, but neither was Tobie. Even with the two new starts at a life that they’d been cheated of, neither one was truly ready to let go of the past yet.
Aboard the USS Augusta Tobie was brought on to act an assistant chief operations officer under Lt. Bailey Aspers. Less than six months into the cruise Lt. Aspers was killed in duty, leaving Tobie as the acting Ops chief until a replacement could be sent their way. In an unorthodox move Captain Annie Fleming decided to keep Tobie as department head, saying that ‘if she could manage an infant and a department in the wake of a disaster, clearly she was cut out for the job’.
Service Record
U.S.S. Wyoming, Cadet Cruise
U.S.S. Trippe, Operations Officer
U.S.S. Augusta, Assistant Chief Operations Officer
U.S.S. Augusta, Chief Operations Officer
U.S.S. Nakatomi, Executive Officer