Strength Made Perfect - Chapter 6

A Star Trek: Voyager Short Story
By Adrian Hilton

Celes walked into Sickbay. "Crewman reporting as ordered, Doctor."

"Ah, Crewman Tal." The Doctor put down his PADD. "This shouldn't take long. Have a seat."

Celes parked herself on the edge of a bed, noticing that the Captain's bed was empty. "Did you discharge the Captain?" she asked the Doctor, who was checking out his tricorder.

"No," said the Doctor with an undercurrent, overcurrent and through-current of annoyance, "she decided to have a break from getting better." He raised one eyebrow at the tricorder reading. "It looks as if your immune system is back to normal. Impressive. With a body as resistant as yours, you'll be working in the right place."

"When do you want me to start work here?" Celes peered over at the tricorder screen but couldn't make much sense of it. "Marla's taken over from me in Astrometrics."

"It depends," said the Doctor, presenting her with a PADD. "How good are you at exercising common sense?"

"Okay, I guess." The PADD appeared to contain about three years worth of medical lecture notes. Celes felt her heart sink a little, but rallied. "Actually, probably better than most."

"Judging by our senior staff I'd have to agree," said the Doctor waspishly. "Common sense isn't. Anyway, if you wish, you can start today. Two conditions."

"Which are...?"

"Number one: use that common sense and don't over-work. You're still recovering from your accident. Just because you're in Sickbay doesn't mean that collapsing from exhaustion is a good idea."

"Understood. Number two?"

The Doctor's tone softened slightly. "While you're working here, you'll be learning how to practise medicine. I'll be your teacher. But understand that you're teaching me too. When Kes was here, she taught me that there was more to the medical profession than simply curing and repairing everything." He handed Celes another PADD. "I'm led to believe that you're one of the best healers of souls on board."

Celes blushed. "First lesson, Doctor. Don't believe everything you hear from Billy Telfer."

"Noted." He handed her a third PADD. "These should give you enough reference material to make a start on your studies."

"Studies?" said Celes weakly, scrolling down another formidable list of xenobiological injuries and diseases.

"Kes wasn't Starfleet," the Doctor reminded her, "and Mr. Paris is a pilot and Lieutenant so medicine is not his speciality. If there's one thing I've learned in the past six years, it's that the crew can't count on having me around forever. I've been folded, spindled and mutilated more times and by more lifeforms than I care to count. I'd be negligent in my duty to the crew if I failed to have a deputy in Sickbay."

"You want me to be able to take over from you in case you're ever damaged or lost?" asked Celes, worried. The ogre of responsibility was charging towards her, club raised. It looked rather like Commander William Riker...

The Doctor nodded. "Not that I'm planning to retire suddenly, you understand, but one never knows. Especially when Mr. Paris and Mr. Kim are conducting their pranks. Therefore I expect you to study for a commission as a Starfleet medical officer. 'Ensign Tal' has a nice ring to it, don't you think?"

"Hey now Doctor, slow down a minute," protested Celes. "I couldn't even do a Crewman's job in Astrometrics. What makes you think I'm good enough to be a medical officer?"

"My professional judgement," said the Doctor in tones that brooked no argument. "Now, let's do an inventory of the equipment to get you familiar with it."

"Making the most of things while it's quiet?" asked Celes, hopping off the bed and following the Doctor to the supply cabinet.

"First rule of Sickbay," admonished the Doctor. "Never use the 'Q' word."

"Oh, okay. What's the second rule?"

"Air goes in and out, blood goes round and round. Any variation on this is a bad thing..."

An hour later the pair had been through all the supplies with a few impromptu tutorials thrown in. The Doctor was putting his pride and joy, the critical care bed, through its paces and Celes was making more rapid notes. She hadn't yet worked out when she was going to have time to read them.

The pair were momentarily startled when the Sickbay doors opened to admit a pair of casualties. Celes was more startled than the Doctor, mainly because one of the injured was Marla and the other (being more or less held upright by Marla) was Alex Ayala.

"Please state the nature of the medical emergency," said the Doctor, gesturing for the pair to sit.

"Uh... sporting accident?" offered Marla, still supporting Ayala. The Lieutenant's normally swarthy face was an unhealthy shade of what Celes's interior designer had referred to as "apple white". Marla looked better, but had sustained a nasty gash on her forehead.

The Doctor handed Celes a medkit. "Celes, if you treat Crewman Gilmore over there, I'll see what's wrong with Lt. Ayala." Celes took the hint and pulled her friend over to a far corner of Sickbay.

"Marla!" Celes hissed. "What happened? And what's this about a sporting accident?" She ran the tricorder over Marla's wound. "Just what have you been up to?"

Marla had the grace to look sheepish. "You remember what I told you about Alex?"

"You're going to have to be more specific than that," said Celes, cleaning up the cut. "In the past three months you've told me pretty much his entire life history -- twice -- not to mention more biological details than I'm strictly comfortable with."

"Ouch!" Marla winced as Celes dabbed at the cut. "Sorry. Think back a couple of weeks to the party chez Delaney."

"Oh, okay." Celes searched her memory. "It's a little hazy..."

"That would be B'Elanna's homebrew," agreed Marla.

"...but didn't you say something about him being uncomfortable dating someone who worked for him?"

"Right," confirmed Marla. "So the moment I start work in Astrometrics -- or rather, the moment I come off my first shift -- guess what happens?"

"You find him on your doorstep professing undying love and affection?" guessed Celes, finishing off her repairs with the regenerator.

"Well, he was a bit shy at first, so it wasn't the doorstep so much as my bed. But I had no complaints once we got going." Marla's expression was that of the cat that had not only got the cream but had figured out how the refrigerator door lock worked.

"And here's the tricorder thinking that your vital signs were symptomatic of heat exhaustion and nervous trauma," smirked Celes. "So how come you ended up with a bang on the head? And as for his injury -- I'm not sure I'm old enough to know what happened there."

The pair looked over to where Alex Ayala was still curled around his thinking parts, refusing (in his lucid moments) to let the Doctor near him.

Marla twitched in sympathy. "You know how if you don't do something for a while you get out of practice?"

"Yes... what did he do?"

"It wasn't him," admitted Marla. "I was enjoying myself so much -- well, come on, my first non-solo flight in six years -- that on the third time around I kind of lost focus and came down on the wrong part." Celes winced. "Quite hard, now I think back to it. I was so mortified when it happened, I fell off the bed..."

"If you've broken my coffee table with your thick skull, the new one's coming out of your replicator rations," said Celes with mock severity. She looked over at the Doctor again. "You'd think that the Doc would be better at helping an injury like that. Male solidarity and all that."

"You forget," said Marla wryly, "that his attachments are only 1s and 0s. On the plus side, it's much easier for him to run virus scans on them..."

"Crewman Tal?" The Doctor beckoned her over. "The Lieutenant doesn't seem to want treatment and is refusing to divulge the cause of the accident. Maybe you will have better luck than I did. Call me if there are any problems." He returned to his office.

Celes pulled out a blanket to cover Ayala's quietly whimpering body. "Are you OK?" she asked gently.

"No," he moaned. "Kill me now."

"I really don't think Marla would like me if I did that," Celes said with a small laugh in her voice. "It's the first time I've seen her really happy since -- well, ever. What took you so long?"

"Can't date someone who works for me," muttered Ayala.

"Well, it didn't stop the Captain and Commander!" said Celes indignantly. "If they can make it work, why couldn't you? Anyway," her tone softened, "you did it eventually and that's what counts."

"What makes you think that the Captain and Commander are...?" The thought was clearly too painful for Ayala in his current condition.

"Please." Marla had joined them. "Adjacent rooms? Hand-holding on the bridge? Those smouldering looks?"

"Plus that whole monkey thing," supplied Celes helpfully. "Ask anyone around the ship with a double-X chromosome. Seven doesn't count. You're right, Marla, men never notice a damned thing."

"Anyhow," said Marla. "I'd better go before the Doc throws me in the brig for assaulting a security officer." She caressed Ayala's cheek. "See you later, lover."

Ayala groaned once the door had shut behind her. "I'll be dead before the week's out."

"Possibly," admitted Celes with a twinkle in her eye. "But you'll die happy."

She joined the Doctor in his office. "Now I guess there's all sorts of forms to fill out, right?"

"Walk before you can run, Crewman." The Doctor presented her with a PADD holding an excrutiatingly detailed form. "I did it while you were with Mr. Ayala. Look it over so that you know how to do it in future, but this time I thought that we would each do what we were good at."

Celes worked out the compliment and blushed. "I did okay then?"

The Doctor smiled, an expression that Celes rarely saw on his face. "I think that you'll work out fine in Sickbay, Crewman Tal."

Celes winced. "Please Doctor, call me 'Celes'. Seven called me 'Crewman Tal', and whenever I hear those words I automatically think I'm in trouble."

"'Celes' it is." The Doctor looked thoughtful. "It's not only in name that you're like Kes, you know. There's a lot of strength in you -- you just need to learn to tap it. Mr. Tuvok might not be the teacher for you, but we'll find a way..."

Chakotay stirred, and felt the unusual hardness of the bed. With a few blinks and a yawn he was awake, getting his bearings.

The quarters were familiar, though it took a few seconds for him to remember exactly why. Then the memories washed back and he knew where he was -- and why he was there.

He checked his chronometer. Another hour until the start of his shift. Carefully he pushed the blanket away and lightly padded to the replicator. The rarely-used keypad and screen baffled him slightly, but it didn't take long to find the "most recently ordered" list. A quiet beep and hum produced a large mug of gently steaming coffee.

He looked into the bedroom, seeing that Kathryn appeared to be still asleep. The mop of red hair was the only sign that the lump under the blankets was his Captain. It was the work of a moment to place the coffee on the bedside table before Chakotay retreated to the bathroom. He didn't think that the coffee would have the chance to go cold.

It was difficult to get access to the sink. Any number of bottles and pots covered all available flat surfaces except the floor. Most of them were half-full, many of the contents looked the same but they all smelled different. Chakotay briefly considered removing about half of them to the recycler, but his instinct for self-preservation held him back. Instead he splashed water on his face as best he could and rubbed at his chin. Time to shave.

He had only recently returned to blade and foam from the standard Starfleet beard repressor pills. For a couple of weeks he had endured the amused glances from the crew as a variety of scars had appeared across his face. Most of them had now faded, but he still needed intense concentration to avoid adding to their number. He pulled the razor, brush and soap from his wash bag, lathered up, and pressed blade to skin.

Ten minutes later the ritual was over, and he was fur- and scar-free. He ran a hand over his chin again, nodded approvingly and returned to the living room.

With no stirring from Kathryn, he was dressed within a few minutes. The couch was restored to its original condition, a few stray items picked up, and he had run out of things to do. He looked back into the bedroom.

The coffee cup was where he had left it. Closer inspection, however, revealed that the coffee had evaporated.

Impressed, he gently nudged the sleeping lump.

"Mmph?" Two sleepy eyes blinked at him. "That was never ten hours."

"Ten hours, seven minutes." Chakotay directed her attention to the bedside chronometer. "Twelve hours if we're counting time in bed."

Kathryn managed a smirk. "But not if we're counting time resting... I'd have slept better with someone to warm the bed, you know."

"No," Chakotay corrected her. "You'd have got even less rest."

"And so would you." Her nose twitched. "Ah, coffee." She grabbed the mug and took a long swig -- of air. Chakotay watched, amused, as her expression changed to disappointment.

"That's not a nice trick, Commander." She pushed the mug back at him. "I want that full of coffee in thirty seconds or I'll bust you down to Crewman."

Chakotay laughed and headed back to the replicator.

"I suppose you're going to make me go back to Sickbay now," she called after him.

"Of course I'm not," he called back over his shoulder. "Coffee, black," he instructed the replicator.

There was a puzzled pause. "You're not?"

"No." The coffee arrived with a beep and whir.

"So I can stay here as long as I want?" Kathryn's voice dripped with suspicion.

"Of course you can. But you'll be in Sickbay within one hour." Chakotay returned to the bedroom, trying to avoid spilling coffee over the carpet.

"I will?" Kathryn was sitting up in bed now, and reached gratefully for the mug. "It's too early for riddles, Chakotay."

Chakotay eased himself onto the end of the bed. "What's the first thing that the Doctor will do when you get back to Sickbay, Kathryn?"

"Give me a very grumpy look and make an acid comment about ignoring the doctor's advice," she said.

Chakotay acknowledged the point. "Then?"

"He'll scan every single cubic millimetre of my nervous system to find out how much damage I've managed to do to it with a night's sleep."

"And what will he see?"

"He'll see the regeneration from a full night's sleep, and -- ah!" A truly evil grin spread across Kathryn's face, to match the one on Chakotay's face. "You devious, twisted man."

"And the sweetest thing," agreed Chakotay, "is that medical confidentiality forces him to keep it secret."

"Chakotay, I could kiss you." Kathryn drained her mug in triumph.

"We established that last night," Chakotay reminded her. "Among other things."

Kathryn held out her arms. "Take me to Sickbay, Commander."

"Gladly, ma'am." Chakotay swung her up out of bed and made for the door. "I forgot to ask last night -- what changed your mind?"

"I'm sorry?" Kathryn looked up at him with an arch expression.

"For six years you've kept us apart, no doubt for the best of reasons. But why change now? Not," he added, "that I mind the change one bit."

"Crewman Tal," Kathryn told him. "Talking with her yesterday, it was very clear that the entire lower deck crew think that we're getting it on."

"And they're right -- now, anyway." Chakotay elbowed the door panel. "Your point?"

Kathryn sighed. "If the crew already thinks we're a couple, there's no longer any point in resisting temptation for the sake of crew discipline. Not unless you're heavily into masochism, anyway."

They stepped out into the corridor. Chakotay was looking thoughtful. "That's exceptionally clear thinking, Kathryn."

"I try," she said modestly. They set off down the corridor.

"You've overlooked one thing," Kathryn reminded him suddenly.

"I have?"

"Regulations allow the Doctor to disclose medical information to the highest-ranking officer if he thinks it may affect the running of the ship."

"You're saying that he's going to tell Tuvok?"

"Yep."

"No," said Chakotay, striding towards Sickbay. "I didn't overlook that at all."

FINIS
Adrian Hilton, April 2002

Back to Chapter 5