Evasive Maneuvers
Posted on March 12th, 2021 by D'bryn Zoë and Emilaina Acacia

Doctor Acacia wasn’t exactly sure what she was doing. She’d been trained in the art of injuries, cuts, burns, germs, that sort of thing. Normally she left the emotional stuff up to the ship’s counselor, but there was also an inborn part of her that was sensitive to emotions that she couldn’t ignore.

There was something off about D’bryn Zoë that the Doctor couldn’t quite put her finger on. Had the Ensign just been nervous for her first away mission Emily could have understood, but it was definitely something more complicated than that. She didn’t know what to say, only that she felt the need to say something.

The Doctor found herself in front of the door to Zoë’s quarters, hand hovering over the door for a long moment. Was she really doing this? Yes, she decided, and knocked three times. 

Seconds later the door whooshed open, and Zoë’s expression flipped from annoyed to mild surprise when she registered who it was. “Oh, Doctor Acacia, I… I didn’t expect…” She blinked, shook her head. “Sorry; come on in.”

Zoë stepped back, gave a nervous motion of welcome. Once the Doctor was inside Zoë returned to the cup of tea on her table, tested its temperature, took a sip. “What can I do for you, ma’am?”

Emily nodded and gave a, “Thank you,” as she stepped inside, her own expression one of mild surprise as she’d fully expected to have this conversation standing in the hallway. She took a seat at the opposite side of the table, taking a deep breath to calm herself before offering an awkward smile. 

“Well, I was just wondering…” she struggled to find the words, having not had much time to rehearse this conversation in her head, “how you’re feeling? Or… how you’re… how are you?”

In the two seconds it took for her to put on an amiable face and shrug, Zoë racked her brain. Is Doctor Acacia one of the empaths on the crew? Or is my acting just not up to the snuff I thought it was?

She said, “Now that I’m showered and changed, I’m tip-top. The heat did get to me a little bit, but I wasn’t, like… I don’t think I had any symptoms of heatstroke or anything.” Play dumb, Zoë, but not too dumb. “Oh, is this about when I thought I heard you say something when you didn’t? I think I just heard the Captain, or Commander Kuari say something, and the way the sound carried, it sounded like it was you.” Okay, misdirect, but don’t act like you’re misdirecting. “Care for some tea? Or something else?”

Emily hesitated a moment, her expression making it clearer than she would have liked that she didn’t fully believe Zoë. She then offered a warm smile, nodding, “I would love some tea.”

The Doctor allowed a long pause, taking the time to pick her words carefully. She slowly began again, “I suppose I was just worried about you. It felt like there was something on your mind, like… moreso than I would expect. I don’t know,” she already felt a strong urge to apologize for overstepping, but even now she could sense that Zoë’s mind and heart were racing. For good measure she added, “Don’t worry, I don’t bite.”

Zoë made for the replicator. “I mean, my brain was pretty damn occupied with being on a previously-unexplored planet. It was my first time doing that. Got me doing the whole high-school what-does-it-all-mean line of thinking, you know? What kind of tea do you want?”

“Green, please,” Emily watched, then looked down at her hands folded on the table. She knew there was more to it than that, but she wasn’t sure if it was her place to even ask, let alone go digging around in her crewmate’s psyche. She allowed the redirection this time, “I wonder if that’s what Earth looked like far enough in its history. I’m excited to study some of the microbes in the ocean water we picked up. Get any good samples, or were you just surveying?”

“Oh, me? I was just making sure the surveying equipment worked. I think the Captain let me go with the away team because I requested it.” To the replicator she said, “Green tea, steeped at 65.5 degrees Celsius for two minutes.” She took the replicated tea to the table, sat opposite the Doctor, gently slid the cup across the surface. “Sometimes I wish I’d taken a more science-oriented road, but engineer work is second nature to me.” 

As Zoë sipped her tea she thought, Maybe then I’d understand what the hell the Light is and why it does what it does.

It didn’t take more than a high school science class to begin a basic deduction as to the nature of a thing. You gather data, you extrapolate theories based on that data, yada-yada-yada. For a moment she ruminated on that data: until today the Light’s behavior, while astounding, had been consistent, predictable. Receiving a memory from the Light felt almost no different from remembering one of her own forgotten memories: a sudden, Oh yeah, but with fresh emotional impact. What she felt today was…

Oh shit, you’re pondering around someone you’re more-than-fifty-percent sure is empathic. Divert!

“Do you double up on science work, alongside medical? Or does the Medical department usually study micro-xenobiology? If that’s even a term.” Zoë smirked. “I’m so elbows-deep in engine parts that I don’t really know the inner workings of the other departments.”

Emily couldn’t help but stare quizzically as Zoë rode some sort of emotional rollercoaster, doubling the Doctor’s certainty that something was up. She took the tea with a polite thanks, taking a sip before answering the question, “I’m actually a medical researcher, my specialty is exoimmunology. I study immune systems, especially of people with genetics from more than one planet, as well as diseases not originating on Earth. So, you know, I love a good microbe, some unique DNA,” she chuckled, “My office is in the Medical Research Lab, just next to Sickbay.”

The Doctor took another sip of her tea, smiling, “My older sister is actually a Starfleet engineer. I have a lot of respect for you guys, keeping the lights running,” Emily mused, “but I was mostly on the away team for the same reason as you, adventure.”

Emily stared at her hands for a long moment, wondering if she should press Zoë or let it be. The conversation had turned pleasant, the away mission still fresh on both of their minds. She certainly didn’t want to stir anything up for Zoë, but her curiosity threatened to get the better of her. 

“Well, you guys keep us running, so the respect is mutual.” Zoë sipped. “You think you’ll try to be on the away team on the ice planet too?”

“Probably,” Emily mused. She thought for another moment then pressed, her expression sympathetic, “Are you sure you don’t want to talk about what’s bothering you?”

Ah, damn it, she is empathic. Zoë started to speak with a trailing, vocal-fried, “I…” then stared for a long moment at the minutely-undulating surface of her remaining tea. At last she said, “I mean, we don’t really have enough time to really get into it before we need to go back, but the short version is daddy issues.” She squinted into the middle distance. “That’s only the tip of the tip of the iceberg, and it’s a whole lot more complicated than that, obviously, but that’s the main gist of it. And it’s pretty fresh too. Like, right-before-boarding-the-Minerva-to-rendezvous-with-the-Atlantis-fresh. So I can be full-on triggered by just thinking about him for a microsecond.”

“But don’t worry too much about that. I have a regular therapist and he knows all about it. Some days are just easier than others, you know?” Another sip. “Plus, I’m generally anxious, and falling on my ass in front of everybody on that beach didn’t really calm the ol nerves.”

Emily blinked, sipped her tea, then nodded sagely. She couldn’t relate, but it wasn’t something too out there to understand or believe, “Sorry for prying,” she said softly, “but I’m always here if you need to talk. I was anxious when I first started here, too.”

Waving a pshaw hand Zoë said, “Oh, don’t be sorry. And I appreciate that; I’ve never really grown accustomed to the practice of building a ‘support system’, but it doesn’t hurt to start.” She gave a grim chuckle. “Though it’s funny: so far the only people I’ve socialized with are the Captain, and then the two people who gave the ship the hot gossip of the century.” With a frown she added, “Sorry, that’s probably a sore subject.”

“Oh, Ammora?” Emily smirked, holding out a bit on how she really felt, “I didn’t expect to be the center of ship gossip, but here I am. I’m sure he’s a great friend if he likes you,” unintentionally implying he doesn’t like her, “I’m not too sore about it. I’m hoping he grows into his role. It just takes time.”

“Doesn’t it ever,” Zoë said. “Speaking of which, we might be due back at the grindstone here in a minute. Maybe we should do this again sometime, huh?”

Emily finished off her tea, getting up to take the cup to the replicator for disposal. She smiled and nodded as they headed for the door, “Yes, thanks for having me. I know I’ll see you around but I hope we can chat again.”

With that, the two headed out the door and towards the turbolift to return to duty.