"Follow Up Examination"

[Lexia 0]

Ensign Aidan Driscol

&

Dr. Lexia Tordai

 

Aidan was sitting on Lexia's desk staring absent mindedly into space, thinking about the virus. There had to be a cure, but he supposed it didn't matter that much anymore. It felt good not to be under so much pressure anymore. What he didn't realize was that while he was absorbed in his thoughts his eyes had been fixed on Lexia.

 

Lexia was working on a console, her mind was still racing from her harried sleep and the conversation with Aidan in her quarters. At the thought, her eyes flirted behind her. He was sitting on her desk. She turned, "There are ch-" she stopped herself, it did not really matter. She leaned against the console, noting that he seemed to be off in space somewhere. "Driscol?"

 

From somewhere far away he heard someone call his name. "Huh? Sorry, I was... thinking about the virus. What is it?" In his mind Aidan compared the Lexia he'd seen in her quarters and the one that was standing right in front of him. They were two different people. What was it with him? He needed to focus.

 

She turned back around and began typing on the console. "While you are thinking about it, see if you can solve it..." She logged back in and leaned over the microscopic viewer. The tiny elements of life swam around in the dish below her.

 

Aidan hopped off the desk and strolled over to her casually leaning against the console next to her, his arms crossed in front of him. "Are you ever going to stop that?"

 

"Stop what?" she asked not looking up from the sample. She reached around to adjust the viewer. She sighed, it was like trying to find a needle in a haystack.

"Stop being so... you know, like that." He found it strangely fun to have conversations like that with her. He didn't even know why, because mostly she'd just get annoyed with him anyway, but he figured that this was the only way to get her to... well, to what exactly? Like him?

 

"No, I won't," she said matter-of-factly, her eyes rising tiredly from the micro-viewer. She switched the device off and leaned back against the console, rubbing her temples.

 

"Those things can give you quite the headache; I remember having to stare through them for hours during the academy classes." This was a peace offer, he didn't want to go too far as he was very well aware of the fact that what had happened between them the other day was by no means a guarantee of friendship between them. "But", he hesitated for a moment, " why do you still act like you hate me?"

 

She opened her eyes and looked at him, a true look of puzzlement on her face. "I do not hate you," she walked over to the replicator as she spoke. "Lady Grey, warm." She knew she did not hate him, but that drew the question of exactly how did she feel...

 

Within a few strides he stood behind her making sure he'd keep an appropriate distance between them, but still close enough to possibly startle her when she turned around. "Sometimes... ah, never mind doesn't matter. Coffee, no milk, sugar."

 

She heard his footfalls behind her and turned to face him. "No, what?" she asked. She was tired of playing shadow games. “If a sentence is good enough to start it is good enough to finish.”

 

He sighed as he took his coffee and looked right at her. "Sometimes every word out of your mouth feels like a punch in the stomach." It was the truth, this is how he felt at times, no matter how hard he tried she pushed him away, and then out of nowhere she had told him all these personal things. Was she just playing?

 

"The best defense is a good offense..." she said walking back over to the console. She had assumed her reasons for pushing him away had been made quite clear that night in her quarters. Maybe he did understand and just did not accept how hard it was for her to let him, anyone, close. Or perhaps he did not grasp the point of what she had told him. She sighed heavily, feeling a bit guilty at the pain she knew his mind was suffering. Guilt...what a familiar emotion.

 

"I'm sorry," she turned. Her eyes glanced about the room; Socom had gone off into another Section of Sickbay and Levy was still in her office. "I really am. I know you must be quite confused." Her voice held a steady tone, but it was not harsh.

 

Aidan put aside his cup. "You don't have to be sorry. I mean, it's just confusing, one day you show me this vulnerable side of you, which is a good thing, and the other day it's like that hasn't happened. Makes me wonder if you wish it hadn't." He picked his cup up again, to have something to hold on to, or something to hide behind, something symbolic that said I respect the distance between us.

 

She took the mug out of his hands and laid it on the console. "I'm not sorry it happened, you needed to know. I did not want," she placed her mug beside his and began to walk around the console, hoping she would find the words on the other side. "I did not want you to think that it was something personal against you. Because it's not."

 

Aidan looked down at his hands as she took the cup out of them, strangely aware of her skin against his for a split second. "Lexia?" She placed both her hands on the console and looked at him, noting that he did not call her Dr. Tordai, he did not call her Doc...he called her Lexia. She considered for a moment, looking at him. "Yes, Aidan?"

 

"You didn't tell me so I wouldn't take things personally. You don't care much for other people's feelings, I mean, I know where you're coming from, I'm not trying to offend you... I'm just", he shrugged, "confused I guess." He watched her closely careful not to misread her and to just shut up if she was signaling him to do so in any way.

 

"I used to care," her eyes did not move from his. "Sometimes I would like..." she trailed off, walking around the console, ending the first sentence and starting a new one. "I told you because I needed to tell someone." She came to rest standing in front of him with the console behind her.

 

"Sentences that are worth starting are worth ending, remember? Why me then? Because I walked into your quarters after you had a bad dream?" He didn't like thinking he might just have been some random person, that it could have been anyone. It irked him that he felt like this about the whole thing, too.

 

"No, because you cared." She turned around, not wanting to face him at that moment. "Trust me; most people just avoid me after they meet me. You didn't..."

 

Like when he was in her quarters he walked up to her placing his hand on her shoulder. It was a gesture of reaching out to her more than anything else. He felt that she needed to know she was worth that, despite all the guilt she felt. He said in a soft and calm voice: "Of course I care, how could I not care about someone who's part of my... well, family, I suppose. Someone who's clearly going through a hard time." She leaned back against the console, missing the buttons only barely. "I...I" for once in her life Lexia found herself speechless.

 

Aidan smiled and removed his hand not wanting to overdo things. Not wanting to make her feel embarrassed he changed the topic. "So, what are we going to do about the virus?"

 

Lexia blinked a couple of times, her mind shifting gears. "Now who is changing faces," she smiled, making sure he knew she was joking. Joking....

 

He laughed. "We can talk more when we're off duty; I just thought that you probably wouldn't want Dr Levy or Dr Socom over hearing us. They'd start thinking you had feelings." Aidan followed her lead of joking, but looked at her and hoped he'd made it clear he was not pushing her away.

 

She smirked and stood beside him working. "No, we wouldn't want them thinking that..." She smiled up at him, something telling her that they would know in time.