Post 238: Welcome Back Home

Stardate:70621.1600
Title: Welcome Back Home
Author: Lily T'Ana
Scene: Transporter Room
Time: Directly following "Daybreak"

As Lily walked through the doors of the transporter room, she realized that she had never seen such a motley and exhausted looking bunch of crew members in her life. Her heart went out to each and every one of them. To those she knew well, she made personal gestures of greeting and several came over to her after debriefing procedures.

One such officer was Simon Biggs.

"How are you, Simon?" Lily asked. "I so wanted to go down on the away teams but with circumstances with the Captain it was just impossible."

"Oh, I'm okay. How is the Captain, Lieutenant? We didn't hear a whole lot and we were so busy down there."

"Busy? That's got to be an understatement. I made new maps of the land, Simon. I know it was bad." she said sympathetically.

"It was just awful, I have never seen such a sight before in my whole life. But I never stopped worrying about the Captain!"

Biggs seemed so genuinely torn between his duty and his feelings for the Captain, that Lily's eyes welled up with tears. She grabbed Simon and just gave him a hug. He felt the sincere emotion in the embrace. He could feel in her hug such angst because of the choices she had to make at such a critical time as this.

He hugged her back as if to say "It's okay Lieutenant I know where you had to be."

"He is going to be okay then?" Simon asked again.

"Yes. We convinced him to have the heart replacement, which you probably heard the rumors about, and he is healing up rather nicely." Lily said to him as she started to compose herself and stepped back and gave Biggs some space. He didn't seem to feel uncomfortable at all. In fact, it seemed like everyone coming aboard needed a little bit of 'comforting'. Lily thought to herself that it wasn't so bad to have the human part of herself come out once in awhile. In fact she rather liked helping others.

"You know how stubborn he is anyway," she added. "Someday we will go to Seven and have a few drinks and the stories I could tell you about R.J. Gilmore. A little heart replacement surgery is NOT by any means going to keep him down for long!"

Biggs started to laugh heartily.

"You are the second person in the last half hour to make me laugh Lieutenant, I guess laughter is the best medicine after all." Biggs said, as he once again thought of the shapely, mysterious guest Starfleet had sent to assist the crew. She was a funny one!

"We have a Dr. Ashlyn Trind coming aboard to handle the post-away mission counseling." He leaned in toward Lily and said almost in a whisper, "I think she is a shrink, she talked about using the dog Blane found on Bajor as a good therapy dog."

Simon looked around like a secret agent with his head looking left to right to see if anyone heard what he was saying. Lily kept her head down and giggled at Simon, but not at what he said.

"I'll keep that info on the low down then, Biggs." Lily hugged him again and went off to welcome others back from the away teams. She offered her help and assistance to them in any way possible. She also updated them on the Captain's health and progress since his surgery. They were all very happy to know he was mending well. Soon he would be able to have visitors.

Lily had some time now and found that she was famished, so she thought she might swing by Seven and see what was on the menu and see how Jeaq was, her favorite quasi-French waiter.

He had been pouting, she'd heard of late because the last time Lily and February Grace were in Seven, he felt ignored and since he was one of the very first ones who welcomed Lily aboard she wanted to make sure she said hello. Maybe February would want to come along. . .

Lt. Lily T'Ana
Science Officer
USS Independence