Oh Nothing, Really

Posted on 24 Feb 2014 @ 9:02pm by Lieutenant Teth Miir & Lieutenant Olsam Mott
Edited on on 06 Mar 2014 @ 9:02am

3,750 words; about a 19 minute read

Mission: Episode 05 - Solstice
Location: USS Galileo: Sickbay
Timeline: MD 39 0930

ON:

Teth was clean and in civilian clothes again. Soft cotton gray shirt and pants with a single knee-side cargo pocket, indigo colored canvas shoes. He on his way to see Olsam and had considered cleaning the Vulcan robes and wearing them as a joke. He could tell him that he had a spiritual epiphany while he was away and decided to follow the logical ways of the Vulcan people.

He wasn't in the mood to joke, though. That would require energy that he simply didn't have. So he headed to sickbay. The real sickbay since the Galileo wasn't completely off limits anymore. Though Warraquim was a wonderful doctor, he really hoped Mott would be there.

He ducked into sickbay, wondering if anyone was even working there yet.

"Olsam?"

Olsam was definitely leaning over a dead body on the main examination table, and he jumped upon hearing his name. They needed some sort of chime on the door so people couldn't just sneak up on you. He turned around, dressed in a surgical gown and holding a laser scalpel in one hand and a forcep-like device in the other.

"Teth! You've been gone for months!"

"What? No I haven't!" he said, backing away from Olsam slightly.

"I was only gone for a week." he looked over at the body. "Who is that?"

"Well," Olsam said defensively, "it certainly felt like months. Where did you go? What did you do? What did you bring me? Is it food? I'm starving! Oh, huh? Who? Him?" Olsam turned slightly and looked over his shoulder at the cadaver. He shrugged. "I dunno. Some guy."

Teth diverted his attention from the body, it's presence made him nauseated, he could only feel the sensation of a shattering skull.

"I went to Mars and Draylax." he replied, completely disregarding the trips to Utopia Planetia and Vulcan. Officially he never went to either place.

"I think I got drugged while at Draylax, when I came to I had all these head injuries and defensive wounds. I also had pockets full of some kind of political propaganda leaflets and a toy gun."

"That happened to me once, too," Olsam said cheerily, sounding happy to share an experience with his friend. He turned back to the body and entered a few commands into the display on the biobed; the dead body shimmered and disappeared as the holoprojector in Sickbay deactivated. "I'm so happy you're back! I missed you. It sounds like you had a lot of fun! Did those leaflets have the Prime Minister as a Rigellian caricature?"

"The leaflets are strange. I kept them. The have pictured, what I believe to be women with bat like wings and citrus fruits for heads dressed in police garb, kicking infants and children. I must have thought they were important."

He breathe a sigh of relief when the body disappeared.

"Is there any way any of my implants might contribute to hallucinations?"

Olsam began taking off the surgical gown and replacing the medical equipment, speaking to Teth without missing a beat, "Are you experiencing hallucinations?"

"Not presently, but I did a few days ago."

Olsam nodded and picked up a medical tricorder after he'd fully extracted himself from the surgical gown. Without waiting for permission, he detached the sensor wand and began making passes around Teth's head. "It doesn't seem likely that the implants would be causing hallucinations. They're assisting your motor control and autonomic functions, so unless they're malfunctioning... Hallucinations are usually stimulated in the active portion of the brain, so the visual cortex for example. Were you exposed to any psychotropic substances?"

"I don't thank so, at least not in that leg of the trip."

Teth shifted his weight, obviously not comfortable with the conversation.

Olsam replaced the sensor wand and shrugged slightly, seeming to indicate there wasn't necessarily any physiological reason for the hallucinations. "When did you experience them? What did you hallucinate?"

"Oh, it was the beginning of my trip. Just someone who kept talking to me...."

Olsam stared, waiting.

Teth just stared back, blinking hard.

"What do you want me to say? It was nothing worth mentioning."

"I'm waiting for you to answer me," Olsam said. He cocked his head to the side slightly and smiled.

Teth ran his hand through what was left of his hair and tried to think of a lie. But he kept looking at Olsam and remembering what happened the last time he got caught lying to the Bolian doctor.

"I really would prefer not to go into detail about it." he finally said, hoping that he wouldn't push the issue any farther.

"You prefer not to go into detail about anything," Olsam noted. He finished tidying up the medcart next to the examination table and rolled it over into the corner where it clearly belonged, lined up in a row with the others. "You were the one who came into Sickbay concerned about hallucinations. How can I help you if you refuse to cooperate? What if you have a Targellian brain parasite? Golporeen influenza?" Olsam walked back to the examination table, leaned back against it and shrugged. "I guess you'll just die. And upon the torpedo casing, when they launch you off into space, they will scrawl: 'Doctor Olsam Tried To Help Him.'"

Teth handwaved the doctor.

"It really isn't very important. I was mostly just curious. I feel pretty confident that it's an isolated incident. I've certainly never had hallucinations before and I probably won't in the future." he concluded happily clasping his hands together and smiling as if that closed the topic entirely.

"I did sustain several deep lacerations right before I got on the shuttle back to Earth. I think I fixed most of the serious damage. But could you be so kind as to go over them with a dermal re-generator?"

Olsam looked only partially mollified as he went back to the medcart line to retrieve the dermal regenerator. Exhibiting uncharacteristic sarcasm, the Bolian eyed his patient while searching out the tell-tale signs of an amateur patch job, "I'd ask how someone sustains lacerations before getting on a shuttle, but I'm sure you'd rather not go into detail about it. It was probably just an isolated incident and not likely to happen again in the future, anyway."

"One doesn't get into a knife fight with Klingons every day." he said, returning Olsam's sarcasm. "They were twins, easily twice my side. I managed to get a knife away from one of them. I kept it."

Olsam rolled his eyes and activated the dermal regenerator; was there anyone more stubborn in the universe than Teth Miir? "A pacifist disarmed a Klingon and fought off another one? I don't remember catching that on FNN..."

Teth sighed, he realized it sounded ridiculous, he would be hard pressed to believe it coming from someone else.

"It's true. I did some hand to hand combat training a few years ago and I may have been aided by whatever psychotropic drug was put in my Romulan ale. I really don't even remember how I got away from them. Only that I kept the knife and was sitting in a transporter station covered in blood. If I didn't have the blood covered knife in my quarters right now I probably would just assume I imagine it. It wasn't what I was promised when I bought the ticket to Draylax."

Olsam just grumbled something to himself and set about fixing the dermal abrasions in earnest. He did so in completely silence; once he'd finished, he replaced the dermal regenerator but stayed on the far side of the room. "Is that my souvenir? The blood covered knife? We could do some forensic analysis. Maybe look into the Klingon's heritage. That's fun."

"No, I got you a holo-statue on Mars. I haven't decided if I should keep the Klingon dagger or not. Maybe I could hawk it to one of the Ferengi vendors at spacedock?"

Teth paused, observing the blatant annoyance and hostility emanating from the normally jovial doctor.

"Why are you upset with me now, Olsam?"

"Well don't make it seem unreasonable," Olsam replied, looking a little distracted. He was torn over whether he should be excited about his present or upset about Teth's constant shiftiness. The Bolian folded his arms and leaned back on a medcart, which shifted a little bit and threw him off balance. "You're more evasive than a Romulan! 'I got stabbed, I don't wanna talk about it.' 'I got beaten up, I've got Borg implants, I don't wanna talk about it.' 'I'm hallucinating on vacation, I don't wanna talk about it.'

"I just want to have a frank relationship. Friendship." He scowled, mad at himself for not saying the latter first. "I tell you everything! Do you think everyone knew I was constipated last week? Nope. Just you. And how about when I misplaced those tissue samples? I didn't tell the head of Starfleet Medical, I told you. I don't want to be stonewalled, like I'm just some guy."

Olsam averted his eyes; now that he'd said his piece, he was really just interested in the present. What kind of statue would it be?

Teth squinted slightly and lowered his voice.

"I just don't want to ever implicate you in anything. You're a good person. I wish my life was free of this "cloak and dagger bullshit" as my late room mate one phrased it, but that's just not how it has played out so far."

"Okay, I don't mind... I mean, if you're going to implicate someone it should be your friends. And your friends aren't supposed to mind. I understand. I don't like it, but I understand." Olsam took a deep breath and seemed to be less grumpy by the time he exhaled. "I got you a coming home present! Do you want it now?"

The caitian took a deep breath and desperately hoped that the gift did not involve some kind of dead sea creature.

"Sure." he tried not to sound too anxious, but failed.

Olsam grinned and shuffled off into a side room, the CMO's office. He opened up a storage cabinet and then waddled back out into the main room, carrying an enormous book as big as his head. "You like to read, so I got you a book. It's a second edition of The Collected Works of Rixxo the Wise, the most famous Bolian philosopher. I bookmarked the section on attaining true happiness for you. My cousin's wife's uncle works at the Bolian Archives and sometimes they sell off extra stock, so I acquired it for you. Welcome home, I missed you! Please take this...it's heavy...."

Teth took the book and looked at it carefully. It was, in fact, quite heavy. A leather bound cover with the the faint scent of burnt wax and a long dead mold colony. He suddenly felt somewhat lightheaded and decided not to inhale the book's pages so deeply.

Olsam seemed relieved to have the book out of his hands. He motioned toward the CMO's office, figuring Allyndra didn't mind having him temporarily use it. "Do you want some tea? Did you find what you were looking for while you were away?"

"Yes."

He jumped down from the exam table and followed the doctor to the office, disregarding the fact that neither of them were officially authorized there. The tea and guarded conversation seemed strangely appealing.

"Did anything interesting happen while I was away?"

Olsam replicated a pot of tea and all the accoutrement that went along with it, bringing them to the desk for serving. "Anything interesting... Hmm. OH. My plants died! I thought maybe for once I could keep a houseplant alive but I went back to my apartment, and it was dead. Leaves all over the floor. Do you think maybe the mayor murdered it? Mr. Kohl seemed to think the mayor hates me. Do you think it's actually possible for someone to hate me, Teth?"

Teth himself had, on multiple occasions, fantasized about slowly choking the life out of Olsam, and he was his best friend. He could only imagine what kind of rage he might induce in a less patient person. Especially if they are constantly meddling in how you run your town, trying to tell you where you should be planting your roadside shrubbery.

"Of course not." he said with a slight flinch.

"I am actually quite good with plants. What kind of plant was it? Did you remember to water it? Did you overwater it?"

"Water it?" Olsam asked, taking a sip of his tea. The blinking gaze seemed almost completely devoid of intelligence for a moment. "I didn't know I was supposed to water it. It's one of those desert plants. I thought they sucked water out of the atmosphere or something, right?"

"What was it planted in?"

"Well a pot, of course," Olsam scoffed, neglecting to mention the lack of soil in the pot.

The caitian shrugged. "It really depends on what kind of cactus it was, but they all do require water at some point or another. Of course it is possible that they mayor assassinated your plant. Stranger things have happened. I once had a patient who was exacting revenge on his commanding officer, who happened to have an interest in botany, by poisoning all of her plants. Which of course was just property damage. Then he poisoned her and her pet dog- they both lived, but at that point I had to report him. So you should probably keep an eye on your food. You never know."

Olsam gave Teth a discerning look; sometimes he couldn't tell when the caitian was joking. Actually, he could never tell when he was joking. "Are you...kidding? You don't think someone would try to poison me, do you? Everyone knows how much I love food! That would just be so...horrible."

Teth was joking. Mostly. The patient was real and he did try to poison his commanding officer and her pet dog to death after poisoning all of her plants. He seriously doubted the Mayor would do the same, but he refused to break from his monotonous deadpan.

"How much does he dislike you? Because really, it seems like everyone has an attempt made on their life eventually. The longer you stay alive the more likely it becomes. I mean, just look at me. I've had all sorts of people who wanted me dead for various reasons. I always just kind of assumed it was the same for everyone."

"No, I don't think so," Olsam said, though he sounded very unsure. "I don't think he dislikes me... I mean, not enough to kill me. I've never even met anyone who wanted to really kill me. Oh, sure, people say things like, 'Olsam if you say one more thing I'm going to cut off your leg with this laser scalpel.' Or, 'Olsam, so help me God, I will throw you into a reclamation unit if you don't get out of engineering.' Or, 'Sometimes I just wish I could stab you.' Or, 'I wonder what my life would be like if you were dead.'

"But I think that's all just dark humor. Like the time you threatened to rip my eyeball out with that grape peeler. People are just dramatic! No one would actually hurt me."

Despite the language, his apparent sense of paranoia was building to the point that he had grown shifty-eyed.

"Yes, I was definitely joking then." Teth lied, "You probably have nothing to worry about. Forget I even said anything."

"Okay," Olsam said, smiling and almost literally forgetting he'd said anything. He sipped his tea and bobbed his head back and forth a little bit, seemingly distracted by some musical tune only he could hear.

"Have you met petty officer M'Ressa yet? From the science department?" the Caitian changed the topic as he finished his tea.

"Nope," Olsam said promptly. As scatter-brained as he usually was, he had a good memory for names and faces, and M'Ressa wasn't among them. "What does she do? Not stellar cartography, I hope. I hate stellar cartography. Who cares about stars?"

"Thankfully she isn't. She's in the exobiology department, I believe? In truth I haven't discussed that with her all that much. We went on a date before I left. We spent a lot of time together, we ended up having sex. Now seem to be spending all of my free time with her at her apartment in South Africa of all places. I hate the heat and bright sunlight, but her apartment is climate controlled."

Olsam blinked, narrowed his eyes suspiciously and then suddenly burst into laughter. Teth on a date. Teth having sex. Teth hanging out in some woman's apartment. Hilarious. "You sure are in a funny mood today with all your ridiculous stories. You must have had a good vacation!"

"My vacation was awful. But I am serious. I have no idea what I am doing and have never had a healthy adult relationship in my life. But this feels serious."

"Really? I'm so happy for you! Wait. You had a date, sex and practically moved in before you even went on vacation and didn't say a word about it to me?" Olsam stopped laughing immediately and looked crestfallen. He folded his arms and wrinkled his nose up at Teth. "I don't know why! I mean, it's not like I would have followed you around or anything. Probably. Well, maybe just to make sure you were safe, and then I would have left. She could have been a murderer or had a phaser set to stun, just ready to kidnap you to harvest your organs. Those things happen, you know. Could still happen. How do we know we can even trust her? She sounds shady to me. How much time are you going to be spending with her? Probably a lot. I hate this so much, I'm never going to see you again."

Olsam had gone through a full range of emotions in under a minute and looked exhausted from the effort.

Teth blinked and stared at Olsam, honestly uncertain of what to think of or how to respond to his tirade. He wondered how people could become so emotionally invested in others.

"She's stationed on the Galileo, I seriously doubt she would do anything so brazen while she was aboard. It's not like they just let murderers walk around in Starfleet uniforms to go about their duties as usual. She seems very emotionally stable, in fact. She likes hunting animals so I don't know how to feel about that. I just couldn't imagine myself taking the life of another living being like that. It seems barbaric."

"Hunting animals? Depths of the Great Ocean, who even does that anymore? Is she Hirogen or something? Grow up on an abandoned colony?" Olsam asked, looking revolted. He let out a very dramatic sigh and threw his hands in the air, as if his entire world was coming to an end. "Well, I'll pretty much never get to spend time with you anymore! Oh, I've been through this before. Along comes some barbaric woman and then the next thing you know, you never see your friend again. He's too busy out in the jungle smeared in mud and blood, stalking down some poor defenseless animal."

"I would never go hunting, you know that." he said with an angry feline squint, feeling offended at the suggestion, "And really? You'll never see me again? Did you forget that we will be rooming together? I wouldn't be surprised if you climbed in my bed every night to cuddle."

"Well." Olsam looked shifty eyed, caught. He tried to change the subject. "When do I get to meet her? I think it's pretty important that she receives the Olsam Mott Seal of Approval. So far killing things is working against her, I gotta say. There's some pretty rigorous 'no killing' criteria in the grading rubric."

"Well, maybe it can be forgiven in special circumstances? She is an otherwise kind and friendly person."

"That murders things," Olsam said, before smiling. "Maybe I can overlook it. When are you going to see her next? I'll just come with you." He unclipped his PADD from his belt and opened up his schedule. "I have surgeries for the next two days, and then rounds after... I can do Thursday, though. Or Friday. Or the weekend. Maybe I could work in a lunch on Monday through Wednesday, but you can't size anyone up over just a lunch. Maybe I should just go see her on my own..."

"You will do no such thing. I will introduce you, and if anything I am sure you'll run into her once we deploy. Honestly, you feel more like a mother to me than my own mother ever did."

"Mm-hmm," Olsam said, nodding distractedly. He was very absorbed in his PADD, which he'd used to pull up her personnel file. When he spoke it was more like muttering, as if he were talking to himself. "Bio technologist... Hmm. What kinda excuse can I make up to need a bio technologist? Maybe I can just erase her last physical examination record, call her into Sickbay... No, I don't think that's ethical, is it? Probably not." As the muttered conversation dragged on it was as if the Bolian became less and less aware of Teth. "Maybe just drop by her neighborhood or hypo her with a truth serum..."

"Please don't drug the only Caitian woman who has ever taken an interest in me. Look, I was going to take her to meet my family. Maybe we could all have dinner together? No drugging required."

At first Teth always just thought Olsam was always kidding about drugging people for various reasons. But he was beginning to suspect that the doctor was not jesting at all. He wondered if he should have allowed him to pour the tea.

"Well, I am pretty much family," Olsam said. "I think that sounds like a wonderful idea. And I'll be on my best behavior, I promise!"

OFF:

Lt. JG Olsam Mott M.D.
Assistant Chief of Medicine
USS Galileo

&

Lt. JG Teth Miir
Counselor
USS Galileo

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