A Rock and a Hard Place...

[Vakhtang_Dalsazashvili 0]

About 10 days later. . .

 

 

Eva brought Josh up to date on the patients files while glancing at the wall chronometer, anxious to get back on the station. She quickly made her way back to her quarters to change .

 

Eva walked around the station’s promenade, looking for Tang. Spotting him near the coffee shop, she waved and made her way to him.

 

“So what are we doing that requires me to wear comfortable shoes?” she asked.

 

“You’ll see.” He said with a smile, bending down to kiss her on the cheek as she reached him. “Come on, I’ve reserved one of the holosuites.” he told her, grabbing her by the hand and walking towards the suite.

 

She grinned following him. “Better not be another ice fishing trip on Andoria!” she warned him. “My toes were frozen for at least 12 hours.”

 

Tang shook his head. “No, no! Its nothing like that at all.” he assured her as they reached to holosuite. “And that wasn’t -that- bad.” he countered.

 

She narrowed her eyes still smiling. “Yes it was!” she said, reaching the door and stepping into the holosuite. “ Take notes, this gal does not like cold!”

 

Tang nodded and closed his eyes as if taking mental notes. “Doesn’t like cold...Doesn’t like large wild animals with a penchant for slobbering.” he said, opening his eyes. “I learn more and more every time we go out.” he said with a grin.

 

She stepped on her tip toes to kiss him gently. “ Good man!” she answered with a smile. “Ok, what do you have in store for today?” she asked looking around at the empty holosuite walls.

 

“Computer, begin program.” he said. Their surroundings transformed around them. In front of them appeared a large wall of stone and rock, surrounded by a hilly desert dotted with chaparral brush and joshua trees. “Welcome to Joshua Tree National Park on Earth!” he told her. “One of the Earth’s meccas for. . .wait for it. . .rock climbing!” he said, motioning to the crag which now sat before them.

 

Eva closed her eyes for a moment before bursting into a genuine laugh. “You will be the death of me dorogoi.” she said, calling him by the russian pet name Nurse Bellamy had taught her. “ I’m picking the program next time, and it might be a Risan beach where I can rest my poor sore feet.” she added before slipping her hand into his and walking towards the rock.

 

“Bah!” he joked. “That’s no fun.” He took a few steps towards the rock. “Okay so. . .” he began, realizing that he really had no idea on how to rock climb. “So yeah, the umm. . .The goal is to, obviously, uhh, climb to the top of the rock.”

 

She smiled. “And you double checked that the safeties were on? Because I can’t take care of you if I have a cracked skull myself” she said before putting her hand against the rock, trying to figure a way to start climbing.

 

Tang had to think about her question for a split second. “Yeah, they are. Its the beginners program.” he told her. “The safeties cannot be turned off on it.” He motioned to the pair of ropes a meter to his side. “This is where we climb, lapochka.” he said, leading her over to the ropes.

 

She shook her head laughing. “You sound like quite the expert. How about I watch you and try to follow.” she said chuckling.

 

“Ok.” he said. Immediately trying to remember what he had read last night when he was going through the ‘how to’ book he had downloaded onto his PADD. “You take your hook and you hook it on to the bottom of the rope.” he said, doing it as he spoke. And as you climb, there are hooks all the way up the rope that you hook up to so you don’t fall that far if you happen to let go.” he took a deep breath and grabbed the rope, and began climbing.

 

“Oooof.” he grunted as he began to climb. “This is harder than it looks on the holos.” after he made it to the next hook, he unhooked and rehooked and looked down at Eva, who stood about 3 meters below him. “Ok now, you try!”

 

Eva hooked herself to the rope still looking at the wall dubiously. “ Risa is already starting to sound tempting isn’t it?” she asked, hauling herself up the rope.

 

Her cheeks already flushed from the effort, she reached him, unhooking and rehooking herself next to him, her feet against the wall. “I bet I can beat you to the top.” she challenged him, smiling mischievously.

 

Tang returned the grin. “You’re on.” he told her, immediately hoisting himself up the rope further, moving a lot quicker than before.

 

Eva watched him for a second before pulling herself up the rope at a slightly faster pace, having less weight to haul. “Muhahaha” she taunted him, sticking out her tongue.

 

He tried to pull himself up quicker, but to no avail. She was moving up the rope quicker than he could. “See?” he managed to say as the breaths he drew became deeper and more labored. “You’re better at this than you thought!” he said, racing after her, ignoring each passing safety hook as they raced their way to the top.

 

“Yeah, Yeah..” she answered him not letting him slow her down with chit chat. A couple minutes later she hoisted herself up the top of the climbing rock wall. “ Guess who’s owing me a massage for my poor muscles now?” she said smiling waiting for him to reach her, catching her breath.

 

Tang managed to hoist himself onto the top of the ledge, completely out of breath and flushed from the climb. “I think I’ll be taking a massage too.” he said, panting. He sat at the edge of the ledge as he caught his breath, looking down towards bottom of the rock they had just scaled, when suddenly, it hit him. . .He hadn’t read about how to get down off the top of the rock after he had climbed it.

 

“What?” she asked, seeing his expression change. “ Don’t tell me you have no idea how to get down?” she guessed, looking down at the floor below them.

 

He looked at her, then back down to the ground. “No, no. Getting down is easy. . .” he lied. You see, you just. . .climb down, just like you climbed up.” it sounded logical, at least.

 

“Climb.. down.. isn’t that an oxymoron?” she asked pulling out a water bottle from she had clipped to her shorts, taking a large gulp of it before offering it to Tang.

 

Tang took the water from Eva and took a gulp of it himself. “Well, there’s a technical term for it. I just don’t remember what it is. . .” he thought for a moment. “Rappelling, I think its called.”

 

“Uh huh” she answered. “ Remind me why I’m stuck on top of a wall again?” she asked, grinning at him.

 

“Because you climbed to the top of it, duh.” he said sarcastically, giving her a peck on the cheek. “Now, lets get back down.” he stood up and grabbed the rope. Slowly but surely, he began to let himself down off the side of the rock. “See?” he told her. “It’s easy. Just like this.”

 

“Don’t fall” she warned him, not entirely trusting holodeck safeties. She secured the water bottle back , keeping her eyes on him, before grabbing the rope with both hands pushing her feet against the wall.

 

Tang’s hands were already beginning to burn ‘Perhaps you should have worn gloves, idiot’ he thought to himself as he lowered himself a little further. They obviously were not doing this right, but they were stuck now.

 

“Good thing I am not needed in surgery this week, because I don’t think there will be an inch of skin left on my palms.” she called out to Tang below her.

 

Tang waited for Eva to catch up with him. In the time it had taken them to climb up the rock, the two of them had made it not even a third of the way down. Tang did not know how he was going to be able to make it all the way down. As Eva reached him, a he put a hand over to steady her wobbly decent. “I got you, lapochka. We’re almost all the way down.” he peered down. “At least almost half way down.” he corrected himself.

 

Hooking her rope next to him to take a moment for her sore hands to rest, she looked at him. “I think we’re doing this wrong.” she said stating the obvious. “What if we tried pushing ourselves off from the wall, like a swing or something and hooking the rope back up lower?” she ventured, trying to figure out if that would simply bring them crashing down to the bottom of the rock wall.

 

Tang thought about that for a second, before unhooking and attempting the maneuver as Eva had described it. It worked like a charm, Tang let the rope slide through his hands as he slid down. As his legs came back towards the rock, he attempted to grasp the rope in order to stop himself, only to be met with the agonizing pain of rope burn against his already raw palms. He began falling to the floor uncontrollably, unable to right himself. He landed with a thud, a softer thud then what it should have been due to the holosuite safety protocols, but a still a fairly hard thud nonetheless.

 

“Tang!!” she said, trying to see what had happen, still stuck half way up the wall. “ Are you alright?” she asked,a little panic in her voice.

 

He looked back up at Eva, allowing himself time to catch his breath, as he had had the wind knocked out of him. “I’m fine.” he managed to get out. “Maybe next time, we just end the holo suite program as opposed to trying something stupid like I just did.”

 

“Hold on” she said. “ I think I know what you did wrong” she added pushing herself off the wall, using the strength of her legs. She quickly made it down almost to the ground before her momentum brought her back against the wall a little more suddenly than she expected. “Ahhh!” she yelped as her feet tangled themselves in the rope dangling below. “ Help?” she asked finding herself stuck in the rope a meter above the ground.

 

Tang managed to haul himself up off the ground, his back feeling the effects of the fall. He limped over to where Eva hung helplessly in the rope. He wrapped his arms around her tightly, supporting her body weight. “Computer, end program.” he said. Their surrounding abruptly disappeared, and the rest of Eva’s weight that was being supported by the rope transferred into Tang’s arms, which were too weak to really be of any use. He fell backwards, managing to support her enough so that she fell directly on top of him.

 

As they hit the floor, Eva rolled on her side, not wanting to crush him. “Ow!” she said, before turning to Tang who was lying next to her and bursting into an uncontrollable laughter. Holding her ribs that were hurting from laughing too much she managed to take a breath and talk. “ One word..” she stopped, laughing again. “ Risa!” she finished before crawling to kiss him.

 

Tang attempted to laugh, but his body ached too much to even attempt. “I don’t think I like rock climbing.” he managed to say, looking up at her and smiling.

 

She grinned before wincing as she put her sore hands to the ground to get up. “Come on, I know a good doctor that can patch us up.” she said trying to help him get up.