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He notices it in the closing hour of a fairly uneventful shift: One's slim hand moving across the console, fine-boned and capable, and a flash of color so bright he initially mistakes it for the blink of a readout. It shouldn't surprise him so much that One paints her nails—she is, after all, a woman, and susceptible in the ways all humans are to that which glitters—but that acknowledgment is the extent of the overlap between the concepts of Number One and feminine. And yet here she is on his bridge, charting a course with nails the color of a Mojave sunrise, and he's suddenly curious.
"Nail varnish, Number One?" he asks. "Not something I'd have ever expected from you."
She looks sideways at him, her expression inscrutable. "It is not against regulation, Captain."
Chris could kick himself. "Of course not, Number One. Carry on."
The crimson varnish lasts a few more shifts, disappears, and is replaced by turquoise, then black, then gold, then shimmering violet. When they're next on shore leave, Chris thinks, he'll buy her a brand-new bottle, maybe even two.