Post 269: Come As You Are

Stardate:70630.1830
Title: Come As You Are
Author: February Grace
Scene: The Bridge
Time: Concurrent with "Beneath the Surface"
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February sat at the helm, half asleep. She had worked a late shift for science overnight and then started her normal alpha shift at the helm three hours ago. She was burned out, exhausted, and ready to escape the bridge as soon as possible.

Her eyes ached, and her head too. She'd been having a harder time seeing than usual, but hadn't yet gotten to Sickbay to talk to the doctor about it. She'd noticed definite changes over the past few weeks, but with all that had been going on they seemed to her as if they should be the least of anyone's worries. She felt that if she'd gone to Sickbay, she'd only have been in the way.

Besides, until yesterday there had been someone in Sickbay who had made it clear that he didn't want to see her there, and she couldn't risk running into him. Not until she had begun to pull herself together.

February looked around at the assembled crew, and noticed that Lair Kellyn was fidgeting in her chair at the engineering station. Her hands moved across the panel, but not with their usual efficiency. She seemed to be a woman with a lot on her mind.

"So, everyone is invited." Lily T'Ana announced, rotating in her chair at the science console and addressing all on the bridge. "The house is huge. There's more than enough room for all the senior staff, and if we need more rooms, I can always alter the program."

"This is your parent's beach house, you said?" February asked. If this was a holo-reproduction of the house that she remembered Wen having visited several times, it was more of a palace than a house.

"That's the one. Right on the beach overlooking the Pacific Ocean. I figure it's a good place for people to get to know each other."

"Sounds like a human female bonding ritual," K'Pajek observed, his voice a low growl.

"Not at all! In fact, I heard that Trick and Angus plan to come by and host a poker game for the guys inside the house. While the women retreat to the beach, watch the sunset and talk, maybe over a bonfire. Okay, so that part is female bonding but come on! Who knows when we'll get two solid days of shore leave again? We should take advantage of it, right?"

"True, that." Zanh Liis looked up from the padd she'd been typing on for more than two hours now. Reports to Starfleet; the bane of her existence. She moved to the replicator.

"Hot coffee- black. . .and I might remind you all that this shore leave is contingent upon orders from command. If they wiggle their finger one way or the other, vacations are history. So you ought to make haste and enjoy the time," she sipped her coffee, knowing she wouldn't get anywhere near a holodeck for a good long time to come. "While you can."

"I don't suppose," Lair asked softly, "that we could bring our daughter? Not to the 'ladies night' festivities of course. But just maybe to, I don't know, play on the beach awhile? I don't think she's ever done that before."

"Please, bring Arie along, she's welcome to come. You could hunt sea shells."

"Thanks, Lieutenant." Kellyn smiled to herself at the thought of Salvek and Arie on the beach together, perhaps building castles in the sand.

"I'm heading into the deck as soon as my shift ends, in. . ." Lily checked her chronometer again, "twelve minutes."

She felt very strange today. Excited, almost giddy. For the past day all she'd been able to think of was one thing, or more correctly, one person. She couldn't focus. Her thoughts were scattered, fragmented. The person dominating her thoughts was Angus MacDougal.

"Lily!" February raised her voice slightly. "Did you hear me?"

"What?"

"Where is your head, woman? I swear you have the attention span of a gnat today." February's eyebrows shot upward. "That isn't like you at all."

"I don't know what is with me today," Lily replied, blinking several times in a row. "I've been a little foggy ever since I took that poke."

"Poke?" Zanh Liis turned to the science officer now. "What poke? Why didn't I hear about this?"

"It's nothing, Captain, really." Lily seemed somewhat embarrassed. "I was initiating an information transfer down in engineering. Attempting to bypass some relay systems in order to download a large amount of information from science to engineering. All the new Bajoran maps. Apparently, someone was working on something nearby, and a small charge went through the panel I was working at. Commander Salvek and I both took a little shock."

"Did you say Salvek too?" Lair Kellyn rose from her station and approached T'Ana. "When exactly did this happen?"

"Yesterday in the morning, before the ceremony. I- I'm sorry Lt. Commander Lair I assumed that your husband would have told you about it."

"Knowing Salvek he likely thought it was nothing." He always had a tendency to minimize whenever he'd had any kind of injury no matter how large.

"Vulcans," February chimed in. "Their arm could be off and they'd keep insisting it's just a flesh wound."

"Well Lily, you might as well head out. Go and get your program ready." Zanh gestured to the lift. "If there's anything that the people around here deserve right now, it's a pleasant distraction. But if you continue feeling 'foggy' I want you to get a full medical work-up. Understood?"

Lily T'Ana didn't hear. She seemed to be humming softly, a song that February couldn't quite make out from her position across the bridge. It was quite apparent that T'Ana's mind was otherwise engaged. Grace could never recall having seen Lily quite this way before. It was almost as if. . .*Uh oh.* February thought. *She mentioned Angus before she zoned out. Yikes.*

"Lily, did you hear that?" She tried again. "The Captain dismissed you."

"Oh, thank you!" Lily jumped out of her chair and headed for the doors to the lift. "I hope to see you all there on the beach. Don't forget your swimsuits!"

"Wow. She's, er, quite a bit happier than one usually finds her to be." Windsor remarked from the security station, shaking his head.

"Nothing wrong with that." Zanh remarked, picking up her report in progress and sighing; knowing that her work was far from over. "After the past few weeks, we could do with some happy around here."

February just hoped that "happy" was how her friend would end up, when it came to her evolving relationship with Angus MacDougal.

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Lt. February Grace
Helm/Flight Controller
USS Independence NCC-90791