"The Friendly Doctor"

[Guest Fiona Weber]

Back on the station, prior to shipping out...

 

Fiona sat with a glass of scotch whiskey in one hand and a battered padd in the other. The padd looked like it'd seen action. It had scorchmarks on the plastic casing. Gouges scored the parts that didn't show signs of burning. It would have been just as easy to have a replacement brought in, but she'd had that particular padd for a long time, and she was the type to hold on to relics with emotional ties. After all, it had survived along with her through quite a lot, and maybe, somehow, if she rid herself of the padd, the survival luck might vanish with it.

 

The temp. quarters had a nice view. She'd managed to get into one of the blocks that wasn't directly bordering the docking ring, so the view to open waters was unimpeded.That was nice. When stars went nova she could watch the explosion, or when some new enemy came careening to take out the base, she'd have a good view. Comforting thought -- it was better to watch Imminent Peril on its approach rather than first learn of it when your quarters were blown to bits.

 

But no one liked pessimistic doctors, now did they? No, doctors were supposed to be frisky, happy individuals whose greatest faults were that they had to call you in for routine physicals at inopportune times. And if you were dying, then you wanted someone perky to tell you everything would be all right up there with the Great Bird.

 

And there she went with the negative thinking again. Counselors didn't catch it. No; no, when you went into the shrink's, you gave a polite, small smile. You didn't want to be too cheery, of course -- that in itself was a red flag. And you didn't want to set them off; definitely not.

 

God, she hated counselors.

 

She went back to looking at the stars, swirling the remaining few cc's of scotch around. Pessimism was easier on the conscience -- it let you get away with more if you could just chalk your actions up to the fact that "it was bound to turn badly anyway". Speeding things along was a nice thing to do. When events happened quicker than without intervention, people had less time to feel about it, which was normally a plus. Something that was proven by medicine -- if you hurried along the course of a disease, it'd be out of the patient's system, and they'd be happier faster. The same principle could be applied to so much.

 

This new ship... Republic... she'd heard a bit about it from various sources. It was one of those names you'd heard bandied about for eons, even if you didn't know exactly who was aboard it or what it had done. Commanded by a Caitian, exec'd by a Bajoran, and... who was the second officer again? Like she could remember after one look at the roster. She'd worry about them after she'd gone through the physicals list of doom. She'd learned enough to know what to think about bringing for "thank you for hiring me" gifts. Catnip and earrings.

 

But that wouldn't be proper, now would it be?

 

Of course not.

 

So she wouldn't.

 

Slugging down the remainder of the shot, she picked up her duffle, making her way to the shuttlebay. There were other Republic crewmen that were getting ready to head out as well. Fiona played a nice social person when she wanted to, and it would behoove her to do that now.

 

She was going to be the friendly doctor, after all.

Edited February 26, 2007 by Fiona Weber

[STSF_KBear 0]

She was going to be the friendly doctor, after all.

 

 

WHY Does this line Scare me?

 

KBear