Following a White Rabbit

Posted on Thu Sep 1st, 2011 @ 6:24pm by Lieutenant Torrna Maliya MD & Lieutenant Commander Aral Aix

Mission: Tomorrow's Arizona
Location: Sickbay, U.S.S. Arizona
Timeline: Following 'Relics'

Maliya had not been in Sickbay at the time Darek Halsey performed his act of 'sheer brilliance'. Thankfully she hadn't been in Sickbay at the time, else she would have shot the 'bright' Intelligence officer. What the fuck was he thinking? Thankfully the Kid had the idiot of the Intelligence office out of her sights, and the Kid himself was busy with the drones. But just a look at the state of her Sickbay made her feel furious. If he ever mentioned it to her, she would damage him, the idiot.

Anyone with half a brain knew better than to so much as glance at the furious CMO. They side-stepped her quietly scurrying about their business.

Aral Aix entered Sickbay alone, his face red with burn marks and one hand held in the other protectively. He looked about for a familiar face and the only familiar face in his field of vision was that of Dr Torrna Maylia, the Chief Medical Officer, and across her face was written thunder. Presumably her ill disposition had something to do with the small circular perforations that littered the starboard bulkhead and various wall mounted LCARS displays.

"Have you been redecorating, Nose?" Aral asked lightly as the doctor proceeded towards him, her anger seeming somewhat mitigated by hippocratic concern.

The look she shot him would send many a person cowering, "You know, for insults, I thought you had a better arsenal, Spotty. What with the worm in your gut and all." she quipped back as she lead him over to a functioning bio-bed, "What the hell did you do to yourself?"

"Borg plasma conduit shorted on me." To say that Aral Aix had half a brain was incorrect, his physiology contained a quantity of neural tissue roughly equivalent to three human brains. "It wasn't an insult," he brushed her concern away, "and anyway, I'm in agony here. Would you mind?" He opened his hands as if he were about to receive water the remains of the skin of his right palm had had torn away and now covered the left, the remainder of his hand was a mixture of black and red.

She helped sit him on the bed and did a quick scan of him first to make sure which sedative to give him. Then she fished out a proper sedative and pressed it into his neck, "Pain should subside in a second." she said as she scanned his hands first. "Spotty, aren't...Intelligence Officers, supposed to be...well...intelligent?"

Aral raised an eyebrow. "I would hope so, but given Starfleet Intelligence's record they're probably below engineers and medical officers on the IQ ladder." Starfleet Intelligence's failure to notice the Dominion build up in the Kelandra sector had been little short of scandalous.

"Well, then we have the low on the IQ list one as our Head of Intel." she grumbled as she began to use a micro-suture on his hand. "He had this bright idea of emptying a huge round of projectile ammunition into those two drones that are working with Callai now. Some old style weapon of Earth. That's what redecorated my Sickbay." she explained through gritted teeth, "Stupid idiot..."

Aral chuckled. "Bullets would do nothing to those things. Nor would any phaser." He paused, "It would take a ground use projectile missile with a tricobalt warhead to do any damage to one of them and that would probably cause a hull breach or a deck collapse." He shook his head feeling the effect of the sedative as his limbs and head began to feel impossibly light.

"You know, even I know that." she chuckled, then her features softened and she quietly asked, "Are you as uncomfortable with having them onboard and doing all these modifications to the ship as I am?"

"I don't know what to think of it." Aral replied. "It is insane." He paused. "But then again, insanity is the only sane response to this insane universe we find ourselves in." He looked around the Sickbay, which had been minimally augmented by Borg technology.

She finished suturing his hand then started using the dermal regenerator, "If worst comes to worst, do me a favor?"

"What's that?" Aral asked innocently through the clouds of sedative that were pulsing through his brain.

"End me....I'd rather walk that path than become one of them." she nodded towards the drones. "Please." her blue-grey eyes imploring, it was one of the fleeting moments of softness and weakness that was rarely seen with Maliya.

Meeting Torrna's eyes Aral nodded sincerely. "I will." He paused. "But don't return the favour in any circumstance."

She chuckled, "Deal." with that said she turned her attention to his other hand.

For someone as un-Doctorly as Maliya, her touch when administering help to people was always very gentle.

"The first duty of the host is to preserve the symbiont, in whatever state." He paused. "The old bastard doesn't think it will come to that though."

She looked up at him, "I know how you guys regard your slugs. If it comes to that, I'll keep you in an induced coma until I can find you a suitable host." she said with determination. "One of my oldest friends is a joined Trill, believe me, she hammered that knowledge into me with a painful sledge."

Aral nodded, dizzily. "Did you ever Alice in Wonderland, an old terran novel?"

"I haven't read many Terran things. It sounds like a children's book." she replied as she sutured up his other hand. "Why?"

"A girl called Alice walks down a rabbit warren and finds herself in an upside down world. Twelve impossible things before breakfast, there's a tea party and a mad hatter, a red queen, a philosopher cat and some stolen tarts." Aral blathered incoherently.

She pinched his shoulder slightly, "Why are you telling me this? What's the point?" she asked, trying to snap him back to the time and place as she finished with his other hand. Only thing remaining was his face.

Aral waived his now cured hands around the sickbay. "We're Alice. We've followed the white rabbit down a rabbit hole and we're here... in wonderland trying to survive." His literary allusion lost some dramatic effect as half way through his sentence Torrna had grabbed his head to treat it with a dermal regenerator.

She held his chin gently and stepped closer, eyes focused on his burns, "You love metaphors don't you, Spotty?" she chuckled softly.

"At times like this, it's hard to describe the universe without them." He replied quietly.

The burns on his face disappeared quickly, "So, what you're saying is, madness is the only way to deal with madness?" she asked softly.

"No... you're awfully close Nose... madness is the only sane response. Any other response would be mad." Whether Aral was commenting on Maliya's physical proximity or question was unclear.

Maliya chuckled and gave in to an impulse, slipping a hand to the back of his head, she stepped closer and planted her lips on his in a firm kiss. As quick as she did it, she pulled back, and looked at him, "Tell me if you felt that?"

"I felt it." Aral replied a smile creeping across his face in response to the bodily contact. Having realised he had been fully healed before he was kissed he clamboured down from the bio bed and approached Torrna taking each of her hands in his as he kissed her on the cheek. "Who is to say what's possible here in Wonderland?"

She chuckled at the gesture, "There could be something to the fight mad with mad approach, Spotty. Sometimes you geeks do make a fair point." with that said she stepped aside and began sorting out through the instrument tray, not at all contemplating on what she'd just done on impulse.

She rarely thought about her impulsive actions, until it was too late that is, usually. When Torrna turned around Aix was gone, although she could've sworn he'd left his smug grin.