Doctor to Doctor, Part 1 of 2

Posted on 11 Nov 2018 @ 2:46am by Lieutenant Lake ir-Llantrisant & Commander Marisa Wyatt

1,861 words; about a 9 minute read

Mission: Episode 17 - Crystal of Life
Location: USS Galileo-A - Deck 3, Counseling Office
Timeline: MD -180 - 1000 hours

[ON]

This was the appointment Marisa dreaded most. She had nothing against Lake, or counselors in general. She was one. Or she had been, until Kreanus. But she needed to be cleared to go on away missions, and to stay on the Galileo-A. And she needed to prove to herself that she had finally worked through what happened.

She stopped outside the door to counseling and took a deep breath, checked the time to be sure she wasn't late, then walked in. "Hello. I'm Marisa Sandoval and I have an appointment."

"Lieutenant Sandoval," replied the aforementioned Chief Counselor, Lake ir-Llantrisant. From behind his desk, Lake quickly rose to his feet out of habit and decorum, and he said, "Yes." There were layers upon layers of meaning audible in that one word. However, the expression in his dark eyes were impassive. Lake's eyes didn't tell if he was talking about Marisa's medical history and restrictions, or if he was talking about their shared history in an anonymous support group. Lake had come to learn about Kreanus, but also Marisa had come to learn about the time Lake had nearly tried to kill himself and his ex-husband, years back.

She recognized him from one of her mandatory group counseling sessions. What had he called himself then? She didn't want to remember. This was definitely going to be interesting.

"Please," Lake insisted, "have a seat wherever you like." --Stepping out from behind his desk, Lake gestured to the fainting couch, to the arm chairs in the corner, and even to his own chair behind the desk-- "Can I get you anything to drink?" he offered.

She chose the armchair. "Water with lemon, please." They already knew some of each other's darkest secrets, and she wasn't sure if it would end up being a good thing or a bad one. "Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, you walk into mine," she said, misquoting the old earth vid, Casablanca.

As he made his way to the replicator, the move reference flew well over Lake's head, but he managed to parse out the meaning of you and he managed to parse out the meaning of mine. From the ship's computer, Lake requested the citrus water for Marisa and a new blend of fermented tea for himself. "Hmm," Lake vocalized, mostly to himself. Carrying the water over to Marisa, Lake asked, "Have you taken claim of this new Galileo already?"

She took the drink and sipped it. "Taken claim or been claimed? I'm not quite sure which."

"By my understanding, we were --all of us were-- rejected by Captain Saalm when we applied," Lake remarked in his own way to question the premise of Marisa's question. Tentatively, he took a sip from his tall glass, and smacked his lips briefly, assessing the flavour profile to determine if he would keep drinking this particular blend. He eyed the glass again, examining the colour too. Without further delay, Lake lowered himself into the armchair facing Marisa. "Didn't you have to claw your way aboard Galileo," Lake asked, "like the rest of us?"

"Yes and no. I applied and was rejected, yes. But I did not reapply. In my profession as a scientist and professor, if you apply for a position and are turned down, you don't bully the person into reconsidering. That's one of the best ways I know to get blacklisted." She shook her head. "I was actually looking at leaving Starfleet and going back into archaeology. I had an offer to work on a current project." She took a sip of her water. "Commander Ban contacted me. He said he'd been asked to be First Officer aboard a ship and would I mind if he put my name forward to fill the Chief Science position and I said he could." She paused for a moment before continuing. "It was then that I learned Capain Saalm was the commander. I still had to interview with her and be accepted, but I didn't have to reapply. I would not be here otherwise."

"What was it about Galileo," Lake asked, "that lured you away from your archaeology project, as a scientist and professor?" He was curious, genuinely curious, about Marisa's view of this ship and crew. Some days, he was still looking for more reasons to augment his own motivation for signing up for this tour of duty. Lake's curiosity came across through his engaged posture and a sparkle in his dark eyes. It was only at the end --only on the words scientist and professor-- that Lake's discomfort and discontent with that world slipped through the cracks.

"Exploration. When I'm teaching, I'm in a classroom, or occasionally in the field. I enjoy that, but there's something almost addictive about going out into the unknown. I love finding new worlds with ancient civilizations. There's still so much we can learn about those who came before us. Like with the Schofield. Finding that pyramid and learning that some ancient race built it to allow the inhabitants the time they needed to develop their own civilization is fascinating."

Slowly recoiling back into his armchair, Lake vocalized an, "Hmm," and looked down at his knees. He wiped away a bit of lint with a couple of light swats with the back of his hand. "I think I was being interrogated while the discoveries were happening," Lake flatly remarked.

Marisa sobered. "You were. I'm sorry. I was fortunate to stay with the doctor."

"Yes," Lake replied and he nodded at Marisa. For a moment, just a moment, their eyes met and Lake silently acknowledged Marisa's expression of sympathy. He could acknowledge it with his eyes, but all he could manage to say was, "Well." After that, Lake looked down as if he didn't trust his hand to raise his cool glass of tea to his lips. He stared at the glass as if his eyes were tractor beams, guiding the beverage to his shuttle bay of a mouth. He took a sip and then he said, "Discovery comes with a cost." He left it at that, making no effort to diffuse the tension.

"If you ever need to talk about it, I'll listen," she said quietly. And then, to give him some respite, she went on. "So, lieutenant, how did you get on get aboard the Galileo?"

Snorting a soft laugh to himself, Lake slouched in his chair and crossed his arms over his chest. A frowning kind of smirk changed his whole face. "Do you want to know?" Lake asked her. The rising of one eyebrow, and his timbre, suggested there would be a price. There would be a burden of knowledge. At times, it confused Lake, the way he related to Marisa. In one breath, he found her far too pompous or maybe self-important, and yet in the next, he felt easy with her, as if he'd known her from childhood. Knowing she would understand what he meant, he reaffirmed, "Between these hallowed walls, do you really want to know?"

"The Captain shot me," Lake answered. His intonation couldn't have been more matter-of-fact. He had never met the Captain Lirha Saalm who had launched the first Galileo. Today's Captain Saalm, today's ex-con, was the only one he knew, and so nothing she did could much surprise him. "Before I met her," he explained with some amusement now, reveling in the telling of it, "before I ever heard of this ship, she stunned me and dragged me out into a hall way, and she left me for dead. And I was naked."

Marisa raised an eyebrow. "And what is the rest of the story?"

"I was--" Lake started to say, and he rubbed at his forehead with the pads of his finger, "I was life-modeling for Captain Saalm's sister. Me and another officer were, back on Earth before the Captain's trial. Saalm tracked her down, and she read the situation wrong. Evidently I committed a taboo in Orion culture, because she shot me just for being there. By the time I fully understood what happened, Saalm had been sentenced to prison anyway."

"That's...quite a story. I believe you, but it's quite a story. I don't think I could compete with something like that." Nor did she want to. "I'm surprised she didn't shoot you when she saw you again."

"Hm," Lake said and his dark eyes considered the ceiling. "I hadn't thought about that," he murmured as he drew his mind back to his second meeting with Lirha Saalm. "To be fair," he supposed aloud, "I was wearing my uniform to my interview. And. Captain Saalm was probably in a different frame of mind with her shiny new pardon and commission." He squinted briefly, trying to decide if he believe what he said, and then he blinked. Lake snapped his attention back on Marisa. "What frame of mind are you in," he asked bluntly, "serving with people you met on Kreanus?"

She nodded once in acknowledgement of his change of topic. "I'm not thinking of killing anyone, but I'm not over it yet," she said, just as bluntly. He already knew how she felt, so there was no reason to sugar-coat it. "Being around people who had similar experiences helps." She leaned forward, one eyebrow raised. "And you? What frame of mine are you in?"

"We can keep talking about me," Lake said very slowly to make his point about Marisa's own sudden change of topic, "and I can log this as my own counseling session." --He sipped from his tea-- "I can invite you back again for your counseling session later, if you prefer?" he offered as genuinely as he could muster.

"I am no longer allowed to do any counseling, so anything I do is strictly as a friend."

Lake nodded at that offer slowly, and he admitted, "I could use that. I could use a friend." --He crossed his legs, folding his left ankle over his right knee-- "Aside from Commander Blake, maybe Allyndra, I'm still finding my way with the senior staff. I don't know if there's cliques or if we're all free-floating particles."

"Many on the senior staff were friends on the old Galileo," Marisa said. "So they naturally gravitate to each other. Some...seem to be looking for companionship." She shook her head. "I don't have any friends here, either." Not yet, anyway. "I'd be happy to be your friend." She gave him a wicked smile. "We already know each other's darkest secret, so we've got that between us."

"Precisely," Lake replied. The curl of his lips and the bounce in his tone gave away how overly-amused he was by this prospect. "We already know the things we hate about ourselves," Lake said. "All that remains to be seen is if we have any interests in common? Anything at all?"


[OFF]

To Be Continued


Lieutenant Lake ir-Llantrisant
Chief Counselor
USS Galileo-A

Lieutenant Marisa Sandoval
Chief Science Officer
USS Galileo-A

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