You did what?

Posted on 26 Sep 2014 @ 3:25pm by Lieutenant Tuula Voutilainen M.D. & Ensign Jaana Voutilainen
Edited on on 26 Sep 2014 @ 9:01pm

1,320 words; about a 7 minute read

Mission: Episode 06 - Legend of Souls
Location: USS Galileo - Deck 3, Tuula and Jaana's quarters
Timeline: MD 07 - 2000 hrs

[ON]

After a long and frustrating day, Tuula returned to her quarters. She was tired, hungry, angry, frustrated, and in need of a sonic shower, but most of all she wanted to talk to her sister. Jaana had been discharged and told to get some rest before Tuula even had the chance to talk to her. Tuula was worried; the last time she interacted with her sister, Jaana had been in severe pain and fell unconscious right in front of her. Even though she was performing emergency surgery at the time, Tuula felt an urge to rush to her sister's aid, wake her up, heal her injuries, and tell her everything was going to be okay. Instead, she had to keep working as Jaana lay there on the floor of sickbay.

Privately, Tuula questioned whether Jaana was suited for an away team mission. It was not like her to go running through caves, and if this were back home, no doubt their mother would have something to say about it.

"Jaana, I'm home!" she called out as she rolled into her quarters.

Half drugged from the painkillers Jaana lifted up her head from the couch to see where the sound was coming from. "Tuula?"

"Jaana, are you all right?" asked Tuula, quickly rolling herself towards her sister. She sounded terrible and had black rings around her eyes; Tuula could tell right away that she was hopped up on some kind of painkiller. "Did they give you bicaridine?"

"Nopes, something with a way prettier name." she said. "Morpe something"

"Morphenolog?" asked Tuula. "That's the good stuff. Are you ok? Can I get you anything?"

She sat upright. "Well, you can remove those elephants dancing in the room." she rubbed her head with her good arm. "They make a real banging noise with their feet"

"Seeing purple elephants dancing around is half the fun of taking morphenolog," replied Tuula. "I'm going to make some tea, do you want some?"

"That might be a good idea." She sighted. "Men, I feel like I drank too much. Like that night after graduation?"

"That was some night," Tuula said as she made her way to the replicator. "I can't believe you made out with Teemu Lahti out by the campfire; I never realized that guys like that were your type. Computer, two glasses of green tea, hot."

Jaana chuckled. "Like I said, I was drunk. I don't believe he was though." she paused a second. "Poor guy."

"Poor guy?" asked Tuula, incredulously, as she placed the tray on the lap and tried to bring the tea back to Tuula with a minimum of spillage. "He looked like he was enjoying it. Though perhaps it's for the best that you two lovebirds waited for graduation. You and the captain of the hockey team? Those gossipy popular girls would have had a field day."

"It was just a fling, I've never seen him after that day."

"Sure it was," replied Tuula in a teasing tone as she handed Jaana a mug of tea. "But seriously, how are you doing? I was so worried about you when you passed out in sickbay. I thought you were having a heart attack."

"You were with both your arms in some woman's belly. To you that might be normal, but not to me."

"Oh, Jaana, I can't believe you get so queasy about that kind of stuff. It was just a simple surgery to repair some lacerations to her small intestine." Tuula took a sip of her tea. "You missed the real exciting part in sickbay while you were out."

"Simple..., that is what you call simple?" Jaana shook her head, but quickly stopped it as her head hurt more by the action. "What happened?"

"It was just a simple matter of opening up the patient, feeling around in her intestines, and..." noticing Jaana's discomfort, Tuula trailed off. "The commodore came down to sickbay. It was horrible, she was getting in my way, yelling at me, pointing a phaser at me... she was the worst."

"You what?" she looked at her sister in disbelief. "The Commodore was in your way and pointed a phaser at you? The Commodore of this vessel? What did you do?"

"Well, it all started when I told her to go away and let me do my work. I didn't realize it was the Commodore when she first started getting in my way. In the middle of surgery, no less!" Tuula took a sip of her tea; she was feeling distressed just thinking about it. "She pointed a phaser at me and threatened to throw me in the brig, right in the middle of surgery. And then she started screaming at me in front of everyone, saying that I am incompetent and incapable of dealing with emergencies. And then when I called security, she ripped off my comm badge and threw it on the ground. Not that security was any better, some Ensign threatened to throw me in the brig." Tuula's voice was strained as she retold the story of the events of earlier in the day. "I don't know what's going to happen, Jaana. This could be it for me."

Jaana was clearly missing a part of the story. "But why was she so mad at you? What did you do?"

"This patient was her fiance. She saw me operating and... I don't know."

"Well, that makes a lot more sense. I fainted on the sight of your operation. And I didn't even know the woman. Imagine if it's a loved one" Jaana said. "I think you're lucky to still be alive. Or working here."

"Lucky to be alive? Am I the only one on this ship who has heard of surgery?" asked Tuula, rhetorically. "Oh," she interjected, interrupting Jaana before she could respond. "Did I mention the part where I told her to f*** off... in those exact words?"

She shook her head. "You were with your whole arms in her stomach. It looked like a medieval operations instead of a 24th century one."

"Sometimes, even in the 24th century, emergency surgery can get a little messy," countered Tuula.

"A little? Everything was covered in blood!!"

"It was my specialty in the academy, remember?" asked Tuula.

"So? My specialty is astronomy. But you don't see me throw people in space to see how far away a star is."

"Sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do to save a patient's life," replied Tuula. "We shouldn't even let visitors in sickbay at all. I don't know what it is with you people and your shock and discomfort at the sight of a little bit of blood and an intestine or two."

'You know I love you, right. But currently you are really being crazy." Jaana said. "I may not know much about operating, but that definitely didn't look normal."

"I'm being crazy?!" asked Tuula, incredulously. "People are pointing phasers at me in sickbay while I'm trying to operate and I'm the crazy one?"

"If you operated a little less bloody, they might not have."

'Damn it, Jaana, I'm a doctor, not a janitor!" Tuula's irritation with Jaana was starting to overpower her concern for her injured sister. "I don't have time to mop the floor and wash the biobeds when I'm busy saving a life!"

"The world has changed since the time they used that." She pointed at the medical things her sister used in her 19th century holodeck fantasies. She paused for a moment. "But now what? I don't think it was a very smart move to piss off the Commodore."

"Well... I suppose I'll find out soon enough," replied Tuula as she turned towards the bathroom for a much-needed sonic shower. "If security comes knocking, tell them I'm not here."

[OFF]

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Ensign Jaana Voutilainen
Stellar Cartographer
USS Galileo

Lieutenant (J.G.) Tuula Voutilainen M.D.
Medical Officer
USS Galileo

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