To The Table

<<<OCC : This post and the two that follow are written in a monlogue style and should be read as if the speaker is addressing an unseen audience.>>>

I was sitting in the middle of the Promenade - well, not really in the middle of, you know, because that could be inconductive to the pedestrian travel that's always headed back and forth. I can't really say I was bored, but I'm glad you came along to keep me company. It's always good to see a friendly face. I'd ask where you came from, but I guess that's the same trite question that gets passed around from person to person all the time around here.

It's not that much of a pretty scene when I get bored.

Well, I guess if you're going to twist my arm, I'll tell you what I mean. I hope you don't think I'm that beautiful, indirect type that will answer you with a questionable glance, or a gleam in my eye - I mean let's get practical, right. Hold on, let me get another sip of this um, what's it called - that's right, Throat Razor ala Tokath.

Mmmph. Anyway, like I was saying. See I was a lot different several years ago. See these three pips here on my collar ? Yeah, there's a reason you only see two. You would have seen three a few years ago and while it's embarrassing, things happen, you know, and I don't mind talking about just about anything. My therapist told me that it would always help me in life to air out the things in my head so that they don't get so crammed up in here that they explode out like they did. I really could have caused some serious damage.

Hold on, am I getting ahead of myself ? I think I was talking about the Passageway. It was a great little ship, to be sure, and I distinctly recall loving every inch of it. Nebula class, nice and compact crew; a great group of folks that really shouldn't have ended up the way we did, but hey, who's to say ? Damn; I'm rushing the story again, aren't I ?

It was about a decade ago, give or take a canine year. I was the Chief Medical Officer of the Passageway at the time I met Lieutenant Jacob Chandler. He was unlike any man I have ever met. Not just because I had never met a Caitian before, but because he was him. He had the soul of a poet, eyes of fire, and a voice that could melt the hardest heart to liquid. Deep and husky, when we met, I didn't really think that much of him. To tell you the truth, I was a little bit put off by the man. I mean, as a Caitian --a pretty well built one at that-- it seemed to me that those large, intimidating claws, the sharp, canine teeth and the general bulk he carried about him, should command a presence of some sort. That someone that big and furry should also demand a certain fear factor upon first contact. Well, Jacob was none of these things. He had the stature for a security officer, but he didn't really seem to carry himself like one. I think that's why he was also our counsellor. I know, I know, an odd mix, to be sure, and you can't imagine what some of the crew said about him after their first visits with them.

It was while some of the junior, less experienced crew came to me asking about him that they were expressed fear. It was strange to me, because from the moment I met him, I never felt any of that from him. I didn't even look at him twice when I gave him his first medical exam.

He shifted uncomfortably on the biobed, furred chest exposed, yak-like hair hanging about his shoulders, and asked me, "Are you all right, Doctor," in the soft, husky voice of his. I didn't even look at him before I told him that I was fine, removed the scanner from my pouch, pointed it at him, then began to scan him.

"You're empathic," I noted aloud and on my tricorder's screen simultaneously.

He craned his neck a little to get his face into my line of sight, keeping his mouth shut and his gaze fixed on me. I remember he had those little worry ridges over his eyes that he got later on when he was especially concerned for me. I closed my tricorder and looked into his eyes. I got tripped up. Never happened before and I swear to this day I do not know how it happened. I have never been so affected by a look on anyone's face, and I do not think I ever will be again. He just looked so . . . caring. It was like he wanted to see if there was anything he could do for me -- and here I was, performing a routine crew check-up on him!

The words could barely come to me as my tongue tripped languidly over the language, "Is there something you--" "Need," he asked me, his voice deep, hushed. He breathed in deeply. "Not anymore," he said, keeping his gaze trained on me and raising up to his full seated height now that I was looking him dead on.

"I was waiting for you to speak to me, Doctor." He inclined his head to the device in my hand, and continued, "Instead of your tricorder." I know it sounds like I was some silly schoolgirl, but I really felt like the room was spinning. Like the whole universe had converged upon the two of us, in the sickbay of the USS Passageway, lost in space, star chart less but intrepid. Like the stars and planets and spatial phenomena had all stopped to turn and peek at what was happening in my sickbay. And just like that, the moment was over. I remember distinctly knowing that it was Rhee that ended the moment, because it is Rhee that is so ever presently prone to feelings of déjà vu.

Personally, I think that has something to do with our isoboromine levels or his anyway. But I asked the first thing I could think of as my mind returned to the here and now as my mind filtered back down to the here and now from its sojourn in the epiphanical omniscience of that warp ten moment.

"Have we met before," I asked, feeling my forehead knit itself together into my rough Trill approximation of Klingon cranial ridges.

"Never," Jacob told me.

I thought *Well that was okay*. I have no idea what that meant, but it is another one of those things I distinctly remember thinking at that moment. Aloud, what I said was so Starfleet, so atrocious, that it can only have come from Damson. Damson is the one who is less experienced, less mature, that science minded upwardly mobile woman who reverts to space age cheerleader type behind closed doors and in our dreams. We dream separately, you know that ? Damson and Rhee. I mean, during the day we are as separate as lock and lock, day and day, glue and glue ingredients, but let me tell you -- can you imagine dreaming two different dreams and waking up remembering both of them? Heaven forbid I should have to sleep somewhere hot. Two nightmares -- the thought alone is a nightmare.

Where are you going ? Oh, okay never mind. You want some of this scone ? Alright. In any case, where was I ?

Oh, I told him, "You're fine, Lieutenant. You're free to go."

I have to hand it to Jacob (and I would if I still could); he handled it better than any man -- anyone at all, for that matter -- would have. It was like someone flipped a switch behind his face, because suddenly he changed from Counsellor slash personal life Jacob to Lieutenant Commander Chandler.

"Your file is wrong," He told me in that same beautiful voice.

"What?" I asked him, shaking the cobwebs from my mind as I turned to load his update into the ship's computer, cursing myself silently for having said such a stupid, careless thing.

*All for the best.* I thought. Better not to get involved with someone on board -- especially someone of differing rank, I lied to myself. He was zipping up his tunic by now, and strained slightly to get the zipper over his broad chest without catching any of the wiry hairs of his chest as he told me, "I'm a Lieutenant Comm-an-der-erg, now," he pressed.

I spun on a dime. "My file says you are a Full Lieutenant."

As he pulled his hair back into a more regulation pony tail, he told me, "I was promoted a week ago, Damson." Needless to say, that space age cheerleader deep down - well, deep up anyway -- inside me shivered at his saying my name. I will hand this one to myself, because outwardly, I didn't miss a beat.

"Your file is wrong," I said sardonically to him, letting the tricorder hang limply in my hand. His eyes glinted as he said the word.

"Dead." He gestured to his collar. "I certainly wouldn't risk wearing an extra pip and losing my second one for impersonating a higher ranking officer, Commander," he said, stressing the latter part of my rank for --well, I still do not know what for.

"Thank you," he said, adding, "by the way."

"No problem," I told him, speechless save those two words. As I watched him leave, I felt something in the pit of my stomach pull at me, and I stood my ground, determined not to let anyone destroy my command over myself, my sickbay, and any given situation. I could have kicked myself for it. It was only then that I realised that that wrenching in my stomach was more likely than not Rhee kicking Damson for it. I suppose that was fitting.

[To be continued]