The One You Tell First

Posted on Mon Feb 18th, 2019 @ 7:03pm by Lieutenant Commander Mnhei'sahe Dox & Lieutenant Mona Gonadie

Mission: Recovery Trek
Location: Flight Control office
Timeline: 2396

It was late and the Flight Control Office was closed down officially, but Lieutenant Mnhei'sahe Dox knew that Ensign Mona Gonadie was in her lab putting in some overtime on one of her amazing projects. The two had recently gone past their initial attraction to form a strong and growing relationship. But Mona knew Dox and Doctor Asa Dael had plans this evening to bring dinner to one of the Hera's more interesting occupants, the literal manifestation of Death, herself.

The three had become unlikely friends and Dox and Dael were bringing Death forgotten information about her former, mortal life that night. So Dox knew that Mona was planning to work late. But something had been revealed at that dinner that Mnhei'sahe knew she had to talk to Mona about.

As Asa waited, supportingly in the corridor, Mnhei'sahe anxiously walked in to the Flight Control Office. As the doors wooshed behind her, Dox called out. "Mona, are you here?"

The brightly plumed aviatrix stepped out of her testing area wearing a suit and helmet trailing at least a hundred cables behind it but the tone in Dox's voice was slightly alarming to her so she ignored the experiment and hit a large red button to shut it down and pulled open the velcro in the front to step out of the suit and leave it on the testing floor.

"I am. What's wrong?" she asked, still trailing a few cables looped around one foot that she had to shake off.

It was absolutely adorable to Mnhei'sahe, and she smiled in spite of herself in the moment. "I'm sorry. I... There's something I need to tell you. Something... something happened at dinner."

And now Mona was full on panicked. "Oh no... You met with Death and now... You're dying, aren't you? Please tell me you're not dying. I don't want you to die." She clung to Dox for dear life, in the hopes that that would keep her from dying on her.

"Imirrhlhhse!" Dox cursed in Rihan in a panic, realizing how stupid it was for her to have not clarified that in advance. "Oh God, no. No, no, no. Oh, I'm so sorry. That was so stupid of me. No, No, I'm not dying. I'm not dying, Asa's not dying, nobody's dying. No dying, I promise. I am so sorry."

Hugging back just as tight, it was about the worst possible way to start the conversation. "I am so sorry, Mona. No. I'm... I'm okay. It... It might be my career that could die, but I'm okay."

"Death has killed your careeeeeeeerrrrrrr......" Mona wailed, burying her face in Dox's shoulder.

Turning deep green with embarrassment, Dox did her best to calm her love down. "No... No, no, no. Death didn't kill anything. I promise. It's not like that." As she spoke, she softly ran her hand down the back of Mona's head as she brought her voice down to a soft whisper.

"Shhhh... It's okay, Jhu Dhael. It's okay." Mnhei'sahe tried calling Mona down as she called her the Rihan term for 'Angel Bird'. "Just calm down. I'm sorry. Just breathe."

Mona breathed deeply and nodded, tears in her eyes. "Ok... Ok... I'm breathing..." She then looked deep into her love's eyes. "Minay... What happened then?" Minay came through the UT as both a pet name and as a Miradonian word meaning 'nightfeathers'.

Putting her hand on Mona's cheek, Dox replied. "You remember the man I told you about. The Romulan man I remember from when I was a little girl, Dralath tr'Rul? She... Death told me what my mother wouldn't about him, Mona. She... she told me that he's... he's my father."

Mona's eyes slowly went wide at that revelation, then she covered her mouth with one hand. "That means... You're actually fully Romulan... And... Oh Minay... That's wonderful, but... What will Starfleet think?"

Biting her lip slightly, Dox continued. "Romulan... isn't a problem. But... when Asa repaired the damage to my DNA, every test they did said my father was human. We... we believed that they tried to repress my Romulan DNA when I was a girl, but Asa repaired it."

As anxiety twisted her stomach, Dox stepped back slightly to take a breath. "But.... this proves that I'm not part anything. But my DNA still has human traces in it, Mona. And... I don't know why,but that means that they... I was genetically modified. Altered even worse then what we thought was just damage before. And that's... that's Illegal."

She looked into Mona's eyes. "I don't care that I'm Romulan. But genetic modification was made illegal over a century ago in the Federation. I'd... It means I'm not allowed to serve in Starfleet. Asa thinks they can still... fix it somehow... but if they can't... I might be dishonorably discharged from duty."

"No... No..." Mona scrunched up her face in thought and waggled a finger in the air. "There's precedent on this. I remember studying this... Your modification wasn't to enhance you, but I assume to hide you. To cover something up. Also, you haven't made it a crutch or flaunted it in any way. Also, with the level of manipulation that would be needed to evade Asa's scans, it would have had to have been very early and possibly done before you were even born with very advanced techniques, hence definitely not something you even knew about, hence complete deniability on your part. And I know the Captain would never abandon you."

"I have to go tell her next. And Asa agrees with you... but... but I don't know." Dox wanted to believe both her friend waiting in the corridor and the woman she loved standing in front of her but she was afraid.

"But... no matter what she says... I... I had to come to you first. I'm not going to give up. Not on this ship or this crew. And in a million lifetimes, never on you. But you needed to know what could happen. You're the one I tell everything first from now on." Dox pulled herself back up, nodding as she spoke.

Mona pulled Dox into another tight hug. "Everything will be fine, Minay. I know it will. And I'll be with you the whole way."

Putting her head softly on Mona's shoulder, Dox softly replied. "You're here. Everything already is."