"The Doctor Muses"

[Guest Fiona Weber]

A little clink came from the raktajino mug as it landed on the coaster. Smack on center of the coaster. No, wait. With one finger, she scooted it a few millimeters towards the right. There. That was on center.

 

She kept eight books in the desk's bookcase. All were the same height (and selected for such), and then sorted precisely by author. The two by the same were then alphabetized. Padds were stacked neatly into a dividing unit she'd fallen madly in love with (and with ample cause -- with as much paperwork as she had, she needed something to organize them), and every medical device she kept was neatly in the first drawer, in her immaculately tidy med-case.

 

The janitorial staff, who Weber had heard chatting amongst themselves, rather liked cleaning up the chief's office. Never a thing out of place; all surfaces neat and ready for sterilization, never a crumb on the floor, all trash neatly in the receptacle. "Neat freak", they called her, affectionately.

 

She'd nearly been caught for it a few times. There was a time on Naxos when she'd started absent-mindedly arranging clutter onto her desk into groups of three, then the groups of three into three -- in front of the ship's counselor. And on Soval she'd always done similarly with her food. Three was a good number. Lucky and safe -- two was evil. Couldn't be divided into three evenly, always felt so... alone...

 

Good gods, she was glad she wasn't on the marketplace team today. While she never showed any signs of germophobia during her "spells", she certainly didn't want to learn she had it when she was on some alien world. Most of the time she could self-prescribe (and it was excellent that she was in medical), but when she wasn't near a medical facility... things sometimes got a little bit concerning

 

Fiona headed out to the quiet Sickbay, pulling a bit of the drug into a hypo. Nice part of being the almighty see-em-oh -- nobody asked irritating questions. Nobody asked questions, nobody tried to see what you were doing or why, and unlike being a scientist in the surgeons' domain, you didn't have to have a handy excuse of experiments using the chemical you'd "borrowed".

 

But it didn't happen often enough that she'd actually consider noting it on her file. And it wasn't as if she had some fatal affliction -- nearly everyone had some obsessive-compulsive tendencies. She just happened to have them a little bit more than others. And she didn't ignore them completely -- just left them off the record.

 

Justification, Fiona.

 

Time for a break, definitely -- when her silent conscience was talking, it usually meant that either she needed food or she needed downtime. Considering she'd spent the last five hours in her office cataloging what medical supplies had been used for the Federation's re-entry into the barter system, she couldn't really fault herself.

 

Five hours, really, was about record. Usually she'd never be able to tolerate quiet that long, but Republic seemed to agree with her. It was very quiet in a literal sense -- at least Sickbay was. Only the occasional hysteria -- usually involving children or children-to-be -- and few dramatics.

 

But then, that was why she'd been assigned there. The ship was a good fit for her needs, and Fiona blended into the woodwork. Her most noticeably quality was her hooch production which, naturally, was for medicinal purposes. Aside from that and medical matters, she mainly was able to slip by.

 

So Fiona researched, treated the usual volleys of sprained limbs and coolant-spray-burns, and things were quite pleasant. She only hoped that when they were gone from the bucolic little trade-world, things would stay stable.

 

But... they never did. Silly of Fiona to think they could.

 

Her conscience chided her for the second time in a few minutes. Was she growing optimistic in her old age?

 

The most frightening thought, by far.

Edited June 30, 2008 by Fiona Weber