Bedside Manner

Posted on Sat Feb 9th, 2019 @ 1:43pm by Commander Rita Paris & Lieutenant Asa Dael

Mission: Earthly Visitation
Location: USS Hera, Deck 12, Sickbay
Timeline: 2396

It had been a very eventful shore leave for the Earth girl's homecoming. A night out on the town rediscovering the great melting pot of the Federation all coming together in her home town, which was glorious. A morning surfing on the beach- not the best beach in the world, forget about the universe. But even with small waves and a chill in the air, it was still splashing about in the sea from which all life on her planet had sprung, and she felt a connection to it which she had renewed once more.

A trip to Ohio with Dox had been a homecoming for the little lieutenant, and Rita had been glad she could be there for her. Plus Mnhei'sahe had inherited all of her grandparents old packrat junk, which was all old Earth memorabilia and nostalgia of her homeworld. It meant little to Dox, but she offered to share it with the woman with no past, which meant the world to her. She had yet to have a chance to go through it, but she would schedule some time to do it with Dox, give her a chance to consider memories of her grandparents through material connections.

Couldn't even visit Starfleet Command and be a tourist and not somehow have it turn into a catastrophe. One that had the Captain in the rad burn ward and the entire reality from whence she and Sonak had escaped now... gone. Wiped out by paradox, yet they had remained chronally and dimensionally locked, and they persisted. She'd understood the logic and the reasoning and the fact that it was inevitably going to collapse on it's own, but somehow she couldn't help but feel that she had stood in witness to the death of a universe. Her family, her friends, all of those yet to come were not just gone, they had now never existed.

Rita Paris was now an impossible girl.

There were three of them that she knew of; herself, Sonak and Akira Zhuri still persisted- Rita had checked, and apparently the convoluted nature of her origins was sufficient to enable her to survive the destruction of their universe of origin as well. Cheers, kid. Go make a life for yourself.

After a relaxing vacation in a tropical paradise the El-Aurian rebel had apparently met a particulate lifeform and befriended it when they were both set upon by kidnappers, who brutalized the doctor and apparently planned to sell them to a collector, which sounded ghoulish. They had gotten word out, Dox had arrived like an avenging angel and had decimated the kindappers, leaving them all in critical condition in the brig.

That would have been enough, but back on the Worldship the Baroness had apparently picked up a literal shadow of Death. One that began bonding and blending with the jovial Baroness to transform her into an angry bitter soldier whose shadow murdered those aforementioned broken men who had kidnapped and abused Asa Dael while they screamed, traumatizing poor Dox. A plan had been hatched and a battle for the soul of the Baroness was fought, with even Hera stepping in to save the day. The two were separated, and now Death was a guest of the Hera, although for some reason Rita seemed unable to perceive her.

The ship's surgeon, their frail young physician could, however. With all that had gone on and everything that had come to pass, she was bone tired and it was 04:17. But duties and obligations were what they were, and before her labors were done, the old-fashioned officer in the old-fashioned uniform still had to go see her shipmate and friend, to see how they were. Moving quietly through Sickbay, the Commander made her way to the chief medical officer's bedside.

Looking up through drug lidded eyes, Asa Dael saw Rita sit down to their left. Rita looked weary, which made sense given the hour.

"Rita," they greeted, "Whats going on, are you ok? The EMH just went offline...I...I would help you, but I can't get up..." Asa trailed off and began blubbering tears of anguish and frustration. The doctor was confused, their fear reaction still on high alert leading them to immediately conclude Rita had befallen tragedy and was in peril.

"Shhhh... it's okay, Doc, it's okay. I'd give you the big formal 'Myx Dael and all of that, but it's late and it's been a very long day. I'm okay, I promise, and we can talk all about it later. I just came to check on you," the exhausted executive reached out to pat Asa's hand, then hold it. "It sounds like you had a very perilous encounter with some remarkably bad men."

Gripping Rita’s hand in vice-like fashion, Asa nodded before responding, “Yeah, do I know how to pick a vacation spot or what? Everything was going so great too….I even met someone that for the first time I understood what all the hulabaloo is about when people say they have a crush….but then, they came. And everything got hard and horrible. Why does everything always turn horrible, Rita?” the doctor concluded, turning wide wet eyes towards the Commander, hoping against hope she held some knowledge that could make sense of the day.

Without hesitation, the spirit of the 23rd century answered her young shipmate. “Not everything turns terrible, Asa. Remember all of the horror of Meroset 347? We crippled Hera in that battle, and working with her, we reformed her. She saved my life tonight, mine and the Baroness, and she did it solely because it was the right thing to do. We taught her that. She was a tyrant and a despot and we taught her a better way.”

“When I first arrived here I was scared and lonely and in over my head. I was a hundred years behind the times, what use could I possibly be to the future?” Rita spelled it out plainly, with no pretense. “Yet here I am, First Officer. And it is clear to me that I am needed here, and that the universe put me here as some sort of cosmic design. So despite how horrible it was to be torn from everything and everyone I knew, good still came out of it. So, not to make light of all of the bad that happened… but there is good, Asa.”

“You are a good person and I won’t lie to you- bad things are going to happen to you and the people that you care about over the course of time. The key is finding what good comes out of it. In this case, you and your friend being kidnapped led to us saving the Baroness and Death from a terrible fate, which we might not have otherwise noticed until it was too late.” The buxom blonde clasped the frail physician’s hand in both of her own. “So don’t let it beat you down and make you a cynic just yet, They-Who-Will-Outlive-Us-All. You have a very long journey ahead, and your belief in the good in people and the universe can’t wither and die just yet. Otherwise you are liable to end up like those old fuddy-duddies you ran away from to avoid becoming, hm?”

With a bark of laughter, Asa replied, “Well that would be a fate worse than death, so no, we can’t let that happen quite yet. Not until at least 3000. Some whipper snapper calls me an elder at 800 and I’ll box their ears.”

After taking a moment to process what Rita had said, Asa looked up, “Wait, what? The Baroness and Death were in trouble? I think I missed that….is it related to why the Captain is in the radiation ward? I…I must have missed a lot in a few hours….”

“Sounds like story time to me…” the weary woman expressed with a smile, and she began relaying the tale of all that had transpired during shore leave on Earth, or at least the parts of it of which she was aware. To her credit, Rita was an engaging storyteller, and when she was through, she had brought Asa Dael up to speed on current events. When she finished, she offered a small smile.

“Which brings us to the present, with me visiting my doctor in their own sickbay to check on them and make sure they are okay,” Rita patted the bed where Asa’s leg was parked. “This… tends to be an exciting career, Myx Dael. As soon as you think you’re used to it, the rules change and the universe throws another curve at you that you never could have expected, as evidenced by the stories I just related. But the universe is not unkind, and there will always be wonders amongst the dangers and heartbreaks. I promise you that.”

“I know,” Asa replied in a small voice, “Today was just a really bad day. Sounds like it was a hard day all over. Would….would Sonak object if I asked you to stay here and hold my hand for a while? I don’t want to be alone yet, but I don’t want to intrude on your time with your spouse…But you are probably tired too, never mind, I’m sorry…”

The young doctor was a well-known cuddler on the ship and seemed to seek physical contact with others by instinct. Through the course of their conversation Asa had continued to hold Rita’s hand as if it were a lifeline to sanity, but upon realizing the hour and how tired Rita must be, Asa let go and steeled themself for a night alone in a biobed. They were determined to not be weak, to not cause more heartache and imposition to their friends, and to show they could handle the challenges of this life….to not be a child. None of that resolve meant they would enjoy the recovery process they knew they were to undertake, but as the old proverb went “the only way out is through sometimes.”

After taking a deep, steadying breath, Asa concluded, “I’m not really alone after all though. The EMH will pop up if I ask him to. I’m safe and sound on the Hera.”

It was unclear who the last sentence was meant to convince, Rita, or Asa themself.

Feeling the young individual let go of the deathgrip they had been maintaining on her hand, Rita Paris too was very grounded in physical reality, having spent far more time than she cared to as an immaterial energy form. Thus when she was stressed, she tended to grip things with that same desperation, trying to anchor herself to the physical world, to hold herself firmly in a universe that seemed determined to hurl her hither and yon. Sonak was already well aware of her status and whereabouts, so there was no conflict there.

Thus while it might not seem proper, and it certainly was not something the chief medical officer tended to ask of the first officer, Rita Paris thoroughly understood the request. Thus she stood and edged onto the bed.

“Scoot over, shorty,” the fulsome First Officer advised, as she slid onto the biobed, getting her arm behind Asa Dael’s head. As the larger mammal, she suspected that the androgynous El-Aurian would likely cling to her form. Given that they were asexual as well, she would view it not unlike comforting a young one after a trauma. She herself had been this shaken in the past, but she had Sonak. Asa Dael had no one, so Rita Paris would see them through the night.

As expected, Asa turned onto their side and nestled into Rita, clutching at her uniform with both hands.

“Thank you, Rita,” they said, then after a moment of thought, “Computer, privacy screen please.” It wouldn’t do to have the first officer's authority diminished by being seen cuddling the chief medical officer.

As Rita’s warmth sank into Asa’s bones, the woes of the day caught up to both prone figures. Asa felt their breath begin to deepen in a sleep pattern, but wanted to voice a final thought before sleep claimed them.

“Rita, just so you know, you are one of those wonders the universe uses to counter the bad. Love you.” That said, Asa was asleep in the next breath.

As for the aforementioned wonder of the universe, she was already snoring gently, arms encircled protectively about her charge.