A Return From Medically Induced Exile

Posted on 25 Jan 2015 @ 7:45pm by Lieutenant Teth Miir & Lieutenant Olsam Mott

2,915 words; about a 15 minute read

Mission: Episode 07 - Sojourn
Location: USS Galileo - Deck 3, Quarters 03-1305 JO
Timeline: MD-26: 0500hrs

ON:

Lt. Miir stared into the mirror. He was midway through a battle with a laser-trimmer and his desire to make himself appear more like a Starfleet officer and less like a nomadic mountain dweller. He had a meeting with M'Ressa for tea for the first time since his release. He didn't want to walk into her quarters only to be mistaken for the walking dead. But in spite of this, he still sighed and wondered if his short, patchy facial hair growth was even salvagable at all.

Olsam sauntered into the bathroom stark naked, a giant smooth blue mass without the slightest regard for modesty pushing and shoving to make room for himself in front of the mirror. He'd been stuffed into that stupid storage locker/isolation ward for so long that he was dangerously close to growing some hair. Ordinarily he have been first and foremost concerned with greeting his best friend since they hadn't seen one another following his release, but he was more worried about the presence of hair. He'd be damned if anyone on this ship was going to question his virility and masculinity.

"Good morning," he grinned, shifting his eyes slightly to look at Teth in the mirror. He began opening a small bag he'd brought with him, searching for the vibrorazer without really paying much attention to what he was doing. "I missed you."

Teth stopped, silently turning off the trimmer and placing it on the counter. He started to turn to face Olsam, only to notice his lack of clothing. The Caitian cringed visibly. An anachronism of Victorian values in modern times. He dramatically turned his back on the Bolian to once more face the mirror.

"I miss people knocking before walking into the bathroom naked."

For a minute Olsam looked like he was going to cry but then he just shrugged it off and smiled again. "So you did miss me! What did you do while I was gone? Did you eat alone? Did you stare out the observation lounge windows, wondering if I was going to pull through? Did you go to the holodeck to try to cheer yourself up but then shut down the program cuz it's just not the same without your best friend?"

Although it seemed ridiculous - Teth was such a prude - Olsam reached over and grabbed a towel to wrap around his waist. He struggled several moments to get the ends to meet and then tuck one corner between the towel itself and his waist. But some miracle, perhaps divine intervention on Teth's behalf, it held. Barely.

"Actually," teth said, walking out of the bathroom and toward the replicator, "I spent most of my time in a medically induced coma. Where did you go?"

The caitian programmed a cup of hot fish juice and inhaled deeply as a mug of smelly, oily broth materialized in fron of him. He had never been so happy as the day that Starfleet started integrating Cardassian cuisine into the replicator menus. Who knew that there were so many ways to eat fermented fish?

"Oh, they put me in medical quarantine for six days," Olsam said, leaning incredibly close to the mirror to inspect his head and face for hair. "I don't really even know why! I heard someone say something about..." He suddenly grew quiet, then his head appeared around the corner, and he whispered, "...an interphasic parasite." He disappeared again and began speaking at normal volume. "They said it had something to do with a mixup in my pre-departure lab work, but have you ever heard of them messing those things up? Not me. The whole thing was just weird. Do you think it was some kind of experiment? Put me in isolation for six days and see if I go crazy?" The vibrorazor activated but then immediately shut off; his head appeared around the corner again. "What medically induced coma?"


Teth sipped the fish juice. Pure joy in a cup, he wondered if this was how humans felt about coffee.


"I had Meningitis Regulathanae... it only effects Caitians and Kzin. Sort of causes your nervous system to start breaking down. Luckily I had a seizure while in sickbay, consoling a patient. They caught the whole thing before the damage was completely irreparable. Haven't you noticed that I haven't been around for the past week or so?"

"I've been quarantined!" Olsam shouted from the bathroom. "A real quarantine! They stuffed me in a supply closet, put up a forcefield and wouldn't let me out for six whole days. On days one and two, I thought maybe it was some horrible joke you were pulling on me. But by day three, I figured out you'd never do anything like that to me."

"Right." Teth said, shaking off embarrassment as he followed his roommate, his memory was still somewhat spotty in spite of assurances that it was fully recovered. But he didn't question it, at this point anything was better than being in sickbay.

The vibrorazor activated again and ran for a few moments before shutting off again. Olsam sauntered into the living room, heading for the bedroom to change for his shift. "Meningitis Regulathanae... Huh. Where did you pick that up? Have you checked in with your family? Maybe they were infected before you left Earth. Or maybe someone is trying to kill us!"

"It's pretty unlikely that this was an attempt on our lives." the Caitian said as he hit recycle on the replicator. The empty mug vanished into a shimmering flash. He made his way to the desk and crawled on his hands and knees, in desperate search of his left boot that had been evading him all morning. "Really though, wouldn't an assassin pick an easier and more effective way to kill us?"

"Maybe," Olsam mused, disappeared into the bedroom for several long moments. When he re-emerged, he was dressed in his uniform and ready for the Alpha shift. The clothing change had also given him time to think about the motivation for trying to kill either one of them. He imagined Teth had plenty of enemies, but Olsam Mott? Nope. No one hated him enough to kill him... Probably. "They could have wanted it to look like an accident! There was something weird about that lady from Starfleet Medical, the way she was talking to me. Maybe she thinks I'm after her job! Maybe she's trying to knock me off with some top secret interphasic parasite! I'm like a big blue petri dish..."

Teth glared incredulously at his room mate. He wondered about the Bolian's childhood and what exactly happened to his during his formative years that lead to such neurosis.

"How is your relationship with your family these days, Olsam?" he said with authentic concern in a low voice. The question was a cliche one, but surely there must be some source for his ceaseless paranoid.

Olsam fixed Teth was a suspicious look; it was the first time he'd ever inquired about his family, and that was always, always a loaded question coming from a counselor. He smoothed down his uniform, avoided eye contact and kept his reply short, perhaps the biggest indicator of anything being wrong as he never kept anything short.

"Fine. It's just fine."

"Really?" the Caitian said with a slight scowl, his tone was almost mocking.

Teth narrowed his eyes and his pupils turned to unnervingly tiny slits. Channeling his inner pretentious counselor, his ears turned up to sharp points at the top of his head. And in that moment he had the single most smug feline expression ever to be had. It was a glare that could cut through the core of the most battle hardened Klingon and make him wimper like a frightened Ferengi.

"Why don't you tell me a little more about them."

It was not a question.

"Uh, well, um... My mom, Olba, and dad, Mo, and co-father, Zipok, are all on Bolarus...or...at least I assume so. Zipok may be on a run somewhere. He's a crystal steel freighter captain," Olsam rambled, beginning to fall into a familiar rhythm of talking about his family. "Gwidon, Hars, Darz and Harsana are all on Bolarus with their families... Dorin is on a dig somewhere in Cardassian space... And. Uh. Well. I don't.... I guess I don't really know what Korvin, Kot, Alba, Darazana and Vado are doing. I haven't spoken to them."

Olsam suddenly clammed up, folding his arms in front of him and putting a semi-hostile look on his face. He'd thought Teth wasn't a very nosy counselor, like the rest, but apparently he'd just been biding his time...

"Ok," Teth said putting his hands up and backing away, "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to intrude. I was just curious."

The counselor quietly disappeared into the bathroom again, trying to make some kind of order out of the frizzy chaotic mop that was the remainder of his hair. A once proud, beautiful, and luxiorious maine was hacked off in a moment of panic and stupidity.

"I mean... it's just kind of odd. You're usually a very friendly person. Very outgoing, a great friend and an advocate for your patients. I just find it odd that you aren't closer to your family."

Olsam nodded along, smiling, as Teth checked off all his good qualities. But the remark at the end made him frown. His big blue frowning head popped around the corner of the bathroom doorway, and he stared at the back of Teth's head.

"Well! I'm close with some of them. Mostly. I mean, maybe one...or two.... You aren't close with everyone in your family, either! Maybe not everyone approves of someone becoming a Starfleet doctor, refusing to marry, not having children, eschewing the family business, rejecting the insistence of becoming a banker or a lawyer or a freighter captain." He huffed. "But I think I've done very well for myself. I've saved a lot of people! So what if I'm not married with children and a stupid Bolian job?"

Teth just blinked and had always assumed that Olsam would have just been a civilian doctor had he never joined starfleet. In fact, the caitian had difficulty imagining the round, blue man in any other field. What else would be possibly do? Become an accountant? He shook off all the distracting thoughts to focus on the point of his friend's rant.

"So would it be fair to say that some of your relatives disapproved of your life choices?"

"That's putting it mildly. You know what I'm like. Now imagine seven versions of me sitting in a room, all complaining about the same thing at the same time." Olsam held his hands at his temples, as if just thinking about it was bringing on a headache. "They never shut up about it when I go home. 'Olsam, you're a doctor, the least you could do is find a wife!' 'Sixteen grandchildren isn't enough, you're not doing your part, Olsy-snookums.'" His lip curled up and he cut his eyes to look at Teth. "Surely your family doesn't agree with all your decisions... There's enough tension in that house to cut it with a knife."

Teth nodded in agreement, and really, there was little else he could do.

"Naturally." the Caitian finally conceded, "Every family has conflict, Olsam. If it makes you feel any better, the kind of discourse you're experiencing is quite common. I have a great many patients who complain about their families pressuring them into settling down and having families of their own."

"Yeah, but not Bolian patients," Olsam said, slumping his shoulders. "It's like the greatest sin in Bolian society to go against the grain, to neglect the group for your own personal gain. To be..." He swallowed, hard. "...selfish. And you've never met Momma Mott... She's, uh. Persuasive."

"Persuasive in what way?" Teth said, stepping aware to make a cup of tea. Catnip tea that he had smuggled onboard the in his sparse and compact luggage.

"Mostly she just never stops talking until she gets what she wants," Olsam said, sinking down into a chair with a huff. "I think humans call it... Uh. Filibustering? She just goes on and on and on. She once talked to me for 17 straight hours, following me from room to room, just to get me to go on family vacation with them instead of attending a medical symposium on Rigel III. Sometimes I just leave the comm on and walk out of the room when she calls me on subspace. I don't think she even notices. I mean, can you believe that? Someone who just goes on and on and on about things, yammering without end about the most ridiculous things? Over and over, repeating themselves, until you feel like your head is going to burst! How can someone live like that?"

"I couldn't imagine what that must be like." the words slid through his teeth, his voice betraying no sense of sarcasm. The sarcasm only became palpable in the way he narrowed his eyes at Olsam. He was already wondering how he would survive his tour on the Galileo without garroting the good doctor in his sleep.

"Have you ever told her how it makes you feel when she speaks over you like that for hours at a time?"

Olsam laughed. "Are you serious? I don't tell her anything. I learned a long time ago it's better to just be quiet and nod your head, as difficult as that may be."

"I can relate." Teth said dryly.

Things suddenly began to make sense, and the counselor hoped desperately that he would never have to meet his room-mate's family. He didn't think he could handle so many Bolians at once. The continuous, very loud, very boisterous interactions between them would be exhausting to any outsider. Especially one with such sensitive ears as a Caitian.


"I really am sorry to hear that you have such difficulty with your family." Teth continued, "Of course you met my family. They certainly have plenty of strange tendencies of their own. Really, I always felt like my crewmates were more of a family that my actual family. Except for R'lara, of course."

"I feel the same way, usually," Olsam agreed, eventually falling silent. "Shoreleave is coming up... I should probably go visit them. Or maybe I can come up with an excuse not to go. I think my cousin Rixx is having his birthday party or something, I'm sure my mother is expecting me to attend, but I'd have to go all the way to Bolarus IX just to see someone blow out some candles and then they'll all just keep talking and talking and talking and my mother will go on and on and on about, 'This is my son, he's a fancy Starfleet doctor.'"

"How long has it been since you've visited Bolorus IX?" Teth inquired, "Maybe you should go back and just not visit your family. There is something to be said for being around your own kind without necessarily being with family. You can go home and get lost in the crowd."

"Not that long," Olsam said, evasively. He coughed and mumbled the remainder. "Just like 12 years."

"Twelve years?"

Teth sounded incredulous, but it had been several years since he had bothered to visit Cait. In fact, he didn't even *like* cait, and only went there for funerals and weddings. That is, when he was available. His Starfleet duty had lead him to lead a life of relative solitude. Yet on the Galileo, he suddenly found himself almost smothered with constant contact with others.

Even thinking about it he could feel the cold palpitations of his heart, an empty rattle in his chest. His stomach replaced by some twisted ethereal void. No matter what he did or where he went, he was continuously surrounded by people. He suddenly found himself feeling increasingly claustrophobic. A part of him wanted nothing more than to run to the nearest airlock and launch himself into space.

But he had other things to attend to that he felt were more important. Many patients to see and evaluations to file.

He took a deep breath and counted backwards from ten.

"That is a bit of a long time." Teth said with a refocused sense of calm, "Your family must worry about you."

"It might be all they do. You'd think I was the head of the household or something, the way they all get together and chit-chat about me. On and on and on... There's no privacy in my family. None. And I can't stand it! It's like living with a roommate who can't mind his own business. It's no wonder I haven't been back to Bolarus in so long. Sometimes..." Olsam lowered his voice. "...sometimes, I don't even answer their calls."

"That makes a lot of sense, actually." the counselor sounded relieved.

"It doesn't matter, cuz I've got my own family here on the ship," Olsam said, grinning at Teth and looking like he was about to hug him at any minute. He'd probably run, like usual. But he'd get him eventually. After all, he couldn't stay awake forever...

OFF:

Lieutenant Olsam Mott, M.D.
Assistant Chief Medical Officer
USS Galileo

&

Lieutenant Teth Miir
Counselor
USS Galileo

RSS Feed