Here for my checkup

Posted on 30 Sep 2016 @ 12:16am by Commander Jayla Kij & Vorian Sulvai

3,085 words; about a 15 minute read

Mission: Click Three Times
Location: Sickbay
Timeline: MD 7 : 2055

Here he was, staring at the Sickbay doors once more. This time however it was a different emotion that was giving him concern. Well two emotions really. The first one was hope, hope that the good doctor had found a solution for his rather troublesome problem. While the second one was eagerness? No, that didn't sound right. Excitement? Yes, that was something he felt but it was not dominant. He couldn't actually name it, but made him feel excited and anxious at the same time. And all when he thought about Doctor Jayla and her permanent smile.

She was a refreshing presence, the likes he had not had the pleasure to be around and he liked it. Her presence was certainly more relaxing and numbing than any drug, pill or drink he had ever had. If only the good doctor could bottle that gift of hers into a syringe or concentrate into a pill that he could take. It would certainly make his life more bearable. Though once more, he found himself letting his mind wander to different places instead of actually attending to that which he set out to do.

He looked down to his arms as he was trying to remember why they were not simply idling by his sides. Instead he saw that each hand was holding something. His left hand held some flowers from Betazoid that resembled Terran roses but in two shades of purple and white. Meanwhile his other hand was holding an actual, non replicator, bottle of 100 year old Terran red wine, from a region west of the Black Sea. Yet for some reason he didn't enter the Sickbay. This tended to happen to him outside of duty, when he would simply numb himself and lower his barriers in order to rest his brain and he would so aloof and often careless that he would even forget something as simply as having to pass the door in front of him.

Jayla was still on restricted duty thanks to that dratted concussion. She had wanted to just stay on duty after the yellow alert, but Nurse Lane had chased her off to finish her rest period, and then there was the staff briefing. So, instead, she was coming in midway through Gamma shift to check on her patients. And so, as she approached Sick Bay, she saw Lt. Sulvai standing in front of the doors with a bottle of something and a bunch of flowers. "Good evening," she said with one of her bright smiles, thought it was not quite as bright as usual. "To what do we owe this pleasure?"

Turning to face Jayla, it took him a few seconds to get his bearings straight. "Ah Doctor, I came to collect on your acceptance of my invitation to the lounge. I wish to talk more about my condition if you would be so kind. And with you near me, the lounge might actually be bearable for once." he said trying to return her smile with one of his. "These are for you as a thank you for not declaring me insane of anything. While the bottle is an actual bottle of a very good wine from Terra." he said offering her the flowers.

Her eyes lit up at that. "Oh, that's so sweet!" she declared, accepting the flowers. "Ya know, I don't think anyone's ever brought me flowers before. They'll brighten up my office for sure. I do have some ideas about your condition and as I'm still technically on restricted duty, delaying a couple of hours won't hurt. Or, I suppose it could be counted as working," she added with a cheeky smirk. "I'll just put these in my office and then we can go. Do you want to tag along?"

"Well, the flowers were a wild guess I must admit. I am satisfied that they were well received. It is not often that I actually get things right, social interactions are still a mystery to me." stepping aside to allow her enough room to pass he continue. "And this is not work, one can classify this as merely a scientific exchange of ideas and concepts, with you as my mentor and I your mentee on the subject of neural suppressants. I believe Humans have a saying, ladies first?"

"I'm Trill," she reminded him with a grin, but stepped through the door anyway. She led him through sick bay to her office where she replicated a vase with some water and set the flowers neatly on her desk. "Perfect!" she declared. "Just what this place needed. All right, let's go."

She stopped to tell the head nurse of Gamma shift that she'd be in in a couple of hours and then turned back to Sulvai. "Let's go," she said cheerfully.

Feeling as if he made a mistake he kept quiet as Jayla went about to set the flowers on her desk and finished talking to the Gamma shift nurse before speaking again. At first he offered his hand to her, being as gallant as he could. "I must apologize for earlier. You are unmistakably a Trill, there's no denying that. I can feel both of you radiating at the same time. But I do have a bad habit of using and referring to Human habits and expressions. I've been reading up on them recently."

He offered her the first genuine smile of the day from him, thought it was one of embarrassment more than anything else. Leading her away from the Sickbay to Talons Crew Lounge, where had already reserved in advance a table for two with a good view towards the vast empty space outside of the ship. As they arrived, he politely offered her a chair as he had seen Humans do in old Terran vids. Only after she was seated did he take a seat as well opposite of her, placing the bottle on the table and proceeding to unscrew it.

"It's okay," replied Jayla, taking the offered seat. "Most cultures have similar customs. Except a few very chauvinistic species and one highly matriarchal one, I think everyone offers ladies first. Well, and Trill. But, as I have noticed, Trill are very strange compared to everyone else. Until I went to the academy, I had no idea that anyone would think it strange for a woman to hold the door for a man or allow him to go first in line or anything. With Trill, it's just polite to always offer to let someone else go first." She shrugged.

Vorian picked up one of the two wine glasses already on the table and began pouring her a quarter of a glass. He handed her the glass before pouring himself the same amount. "Don't drink it yet, we're supposed to give it time to breathe. Or so I read." he said calmly before continuing. "You know, we Vulcans are just as polite as you Trills. We're so polite actually that if there are a hundred people waiting to pass through a door we would let everyone pass first. True our motivation might be that we just want to avoid anyone touching us, but the end result is the same, right?"

She grinned, eyes twinkling with mirth. "Is that the reason Vulcans are so polite?" she said jokingly. "I think next time one holds the door for me, I shall hug him."

"Luckily enough you are a doctor. So you can treat the anxiety attack that will follow that engagement." He grinned back as he picked up his glass and smelled the wine. "You know, while I am pretending what I am doing here with this beverage, in truth I have no idea how much we must wait for this to breathe before we drink it. So, here's to having a quiet pleasant day?" he raised his glass slightly at her.

"In the medical profession, a quiet day is preferable," she agreed, lifting her glass to touch it delicately to his. She gave it a slight sniff, then sipped it lightly. "I don't know much about wine, either, to tell the truth," she added. "I prefer liquor. But this is quite nice."

Vorian looked up for a second as if he was thinking something intently. "Liquor. All right, note made, will be better prepared in the future." he attempted to smile at her as he took a sip from his glass. "This is supposed to be a rather rare vintage I have been told. I for one have no preference in drinks, as long as they get the job done. That is to make me less Vulcan and Betazoid for a while. Have you ever wanted to be anything other than a Trill?"

"I had never thought about it," she admitted. "Once I got to the academy, I liked the attention the spots got- especially from the guys- but before that, I never consciously thought about my species. Except, perhaps to think that domestic felines have the best possible life. I might have liked to be feline as a child."

"I never thought about the domestic felines. If anything I would have wanted to be Trill symbiont, passing through the ages, collecting experiences. As for the Academy, it was a pleasant time. I for one joined at the same time with my brother, so we always had each other. We understood our own pain and interacting with other people was very tiresome."

"It's good to have someone who understands," she replied. "And speaking of your issues, I have some ideas. There are a total of 8 different neural suppressants. The first step is to determine whether or not you're allergic to any of them. Once we've determined which ones are safe, we can start testing. None of them will block everything out, but they should do a better job than sleeping pills and vodka." She grinned to let him know she wasn't scolding.

"Sleeping pills and vodka have their allure doctor, they help me re-enact some old Human scenes from a nation called Russia. You should see how very poetic I end being." he grinned back at her. "But being serious for a second, I thank you for your efforts with my problem. I am hopeful I will be willing to be subjected to as many of them as possible. It would help my brother as well greatly. Our, mother, had long insisted that we are allergic to most if not all Betazoid neural suppressants."

"A poetic Vulcan," commented Jayla with another grin. "I think I'd like to see that. Remind me to give you vodka sometime," she added, sipping her wine again.

"You bring me a bottle of non-replicator vodka and I shall put you to the top of my best friends list! That I promise you solemnly!" he winking at her he continued. "So I have to ask, what made you want to join Starfleet in the first place? And why medical out of all available possibilities."

Oh that wink! It made him even more handsome than he already was. She grinned across the table at him. "The answer to both of those questions is Saraja Jelic, my mentor," she answered. "That woman had the patience of a god. I was a royal terror as a teenager. You see, due to an unfortunate accident, Kij's previous host was killed on a camping trip. I offered to carry Kij back to civilization. But, the memories slowed me down and by the time we got to a medical facility, Kij had already fused to me. Rather than let me die by removing Kij, they decided to just train me.

"I didn't want to deal with the memories, and because of that I ended up getting into a lot of trouble. But, Saraja never gave up on me." She grinned sheepishly. "Finally, after I got drunk and broke into the captain's ready room, she decided to leave me in the brig for the night. And most of the next day. I started listening to her after that. And to Kij, too.

"Anyway, I suppose I just want to help people the way she helped me. Or at least in the way they most need to be helped. As for Starfleet, how else am I gonna see the universe?" she added with a cheeky grin.

Vorian rose his eyebrow at her story, taking a bit by surprise by it. "Fascinating, out of all the people on this ship, you are the last person I would have expected to have a history of being a trouble maker. I am surprised, which doesn't happen that often." Paying more attention to her lips he lowered his head, shaking it slowly before looking back at her, even letting out an uncharacteristic short laugh.

"You are rather dangerous my good doctor. Your smile is most certainly weaponized, it tends to distract and confuse anyone that pays too much attention to it." his own lips forming a warm smile. "I wish I could smile as easily as you do. I've been trying to teach myself how to smile for a while now. Still sometimes I do it without thinking and I can't understand how that occurs. But when I do smile consciously, I do get rather opposite reactions. I think I may have scared one of the junior engineers in Main Engineering when I smiled at him, because he has been avoiding me as if I wish him harm."

"A smile is supposed to be natural," she replied. "Just something you do when the mood strikes. It's not something you can practice. Just let it come when it does. Or, hang around with me a lot; you'd probably pick it up awfully fast if you keep spending time with me." She grinned. "I'm infectious," she said mischievously.

A grin appeared unwanted on Vorian's lips. "Smiling does not come natural to Vulcans my good doctor. In case they didn't teach you this lesson at the academy, but Vulcans are physically incapable of smiling. On Vulcan that is a well known fact." His grin turned into a smile, without any intent on his part. Placing his hand over his mouth he continued. "It would seem you are drawing the Betazoid in me to the surface. This might be a record of how many times I smiled without consciously trying to. You really are infectious."

And to think, Jayla had thought maybe he needed reminding about being Betazoid. "I told you," she laughed. "I'm a disease."

"This might be the first time I am actually eager to get infected and not seeking a cure." he finished his glass and then refilled his glass and hers. "If we keep this up I might not even need neural suppressants anymore. All I have to do is make sure I keep all my assignments around the Sickbay. Or actually get sick on a regular basis."

She giggled. "I'm not sure that would be a good idea," she said. "You could always switch to medical I suppose."

He nodded approving her proposal. "You might be right doctor. I should switch to medical. I mean, sentient beings are similar to machines and ships. I could even use my old trusty repair kit, I have a spanner that is just small enough to allow me to properly fix those valves around someone's heart." he winked at her again and took a sip of wine. "Would you like to eat something? I apparently allowed you to distract me from this important inquiry."

"No, I'm fine," she answered. "I ate not too long ago. I was actually about to go on duty when we met in the hall. I'm still on restricted duty, so I thought, hey, why not come in during Gamma shift for a couple hours so I can get to know them a bit better. I hardly see them except when we have triage drills. And speaking of which, I shouldn't have any more of this, either," she added, holding up her wine glass, but taking a sip anyway. "After this one."

"Well if you do wish to get to know the Gamma shift, how about you take advantage of your off duty hours and teach me all about allergies to neural suppressants? I offer myself as a subject for the demonstration if you would have me." he winked at her mischievously. "We would be just two off duty officers playing doctor in the Sickbay."

Jayla very nearly made a joke about playing doctor, but decided against it. Instead, she only grinned. "That is a great idea," she said, drinking the last of her wine and setting down the glass. "I can always give myself some perhadrazine to counteract the alcohol. I don't need the captain busting me for drinking on the job. You ready?"

Finishing his own glass, Vorian got up and offered his hand to Jayla to gentlemanly help her up as well. "I am always ready doctor. Even when I am not." he grinned at her.

She returned the grim and, although the idea was strange and foreign to Trill, accepted his hand as she stood. "See?" she said as they headed out of Talons and towards sick bay. "You have a nice smile, as long as you're not trying."

His smile had not faded as he walked her towards the Sickbay. "The smile is only there because the proper conditions are met, such as your ever cheerful and smiling presence. Also helps that it is rather quiet right now on this deck."

"Such a charmer," commented Jayla with another grin for him. "Is it quiet? I wonder if that means everyone is sleeping. Or maybe there's a party to which we weren't invited."

He looked down at her surprised, raising his eyebrow. "We not invited to a party? Why you are the most radiant presence on this whole ship? And me? I am the heart of any party, my sense of humor is supposed to be legendary. I have it on good account, from the only two people I talk to in Engineers."

Jayla laughed. "I know!" she said. "I think it must be the most boring party ever."

Nodding in agreement he stopped in his tracks. "You know, that does present me with an idea my good doctor. How about we have our party? We'll invite only the most interesting and fun people on the ship. Me, you and of course Kij is also invited."

"Of course!" laughed Jayla as they continued down the corridor.

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