"The Nice Doctor Has a Drink"

[Guest Fiona Weber]

"Nice snake," the man to Fiona's left commented, and she glanced down at her pet.

 

"Thanks," she offered noncomitally, and went back to her drink.

 

"Come here often?" he asked, and inwardly, she sighed. It wasn't like Starfleet officers really, ever were somewhere frequently, was it? But he didn't know; she was in civilian clothes. Tight civilian clothes. The type that screamed "tramp", and that she was proud of it.

 

"No," she replied, and he frowned.

 

"Odd," he answered. "Could have sworn I'd seen you here before." And now it didn't sound like a pickup line.

 

"Maybe you have." It was possible. Camelot had its share of... upstanding Starfleet personnel. Yes, that was it.

 

"Ah. Starfleet."

 

Realization dawns, thought she, but hesitated a moment, thinking back to if she had seen him before replying. "Yeah."

 

"Oh. Yeah. I work here in a restaurant."

 

Whoopdedoo for you. "That's nice. Flip burgers? Clean out fry vats?"

 

He looked her over for a moment, then finally walked off, clearly feeling rejected and likely peeved. Good. Saved her the effort of running him off.

 

Fiona wasn't doing all that well. Not at all, in fact.

 

It hadn't just been something to do with that... virtual reality nonsense of the wormhole aliens. No, if anything, that sort of... madness... seemed more like normal for her. But no, it was Starfleet life -- this life...

 

Not supposed to be here at all, Fiona.

 

And she couldn't go back, either.Republic was all she had.

 

She was sitting in a bar, waiting to go back to a ship's sickbay and deal with two pregnant women, a shipload of officers needing physicals, and little children who fell down and scraped their knees.

 

God, now she wanted to go back to the glamour. The excitement. The danger.

 

A moment's thought. Dangerous thoughts. Thoughts she shouldn't have been having.

 

The excitement of science, of course. The danger of experiments.

 

They might have been able to fool all of Starfleet, she thought, bitterly, but all the altered records in the world would never be able to fool her.