JL | Lt. Evan Merlin & Cmdr. Valeese | "Checking in and out"

Posted on Fri Oct 13th, 2017 @ 6:59pm by Commander Evan Merlin & Commander Valeese Stacker

Mission: The Round Table
Location: Cold Station Theta
Timeline: SD 241710.13

After his meeting with the Captain he was free to wander across the station, provided he'd stop by in the station's sickbay too. So that was where he headed next, even if he took his time to get there. Part of that was because the lift he'd used earlier had now been taken offline for maintenance or something like that, and the one he had to use instead was not in a good mood today.

He continued to marvel at the size the station had become. The CO's current office was only slightly smaller than the old Ops area had been, to name one thing. No doubt the medbay would've considerably increased in size as well. If only to be able to accommodate the huge amount of people serving on the station these days.

As he stepped out of the lift and strolled through the corridors towards the medbay, he wondered if there would be anyone left on the station who had served here thirteen years ago. Probably not, of course, but it was something to look into when he had the chance.

The double doors slid open when he approached and he entered the medbay and looked around. Oh yes, a marked difference indeed. Not only was this room plain huge, it was also very new and shiny. He waved at the receptionist who sat behind the desk. "Hiya," he said cheerfully. "CMO in? Yes? Thank you so very much, dear," he continued without a pause and walked on without slowing down, entering the main area where he knew, or at least felt very strongly, that the Chief Medical would be.

Lunch was probably one of Valeese's most favorite times of day. The custom was relatively new to her people, adopted only in the last thirty or so years and many of her species had chosen to remain traditionalist. It was her thought that it was their distinct loss - how anyone could ever consider shrugging off and turning their nose up at the deliciousness that was a bacon, lettuce, and tomato sandwich with the correct ratio of mayo on toasted bread was completely beyond her scope of comprehension. Of course, her appreciation of taste and things was also relatively uncharacteristic as well - Vorta were normally reserved to the point of repression, rarely sharing anything outside of their own society.

That changed, and quickly. The sound of footsteps made her shell-like ears twitch in their direction and just by listening, her mouth paused near her darling treat, she could discern that the walker was male, tall, old enough to be considered mature, decently built with no infirmities that would make his gait short or anything less than confident and perfect. The only bad thing about this was that he was headed in her direction and she set her food down before she heard the door to her office hiss open. Her head tilted as she observed him, the desk placed strategically close enough to the door so that her vision was still crisp and able to focus on whoever came through, "Hello," She greeted friendly enough, "Can I help you with something?"

The man's eyes lit up when he saw her and he actually breathed a soft 'Wow" before collecting himself. "I'm sorry, I didn't know you were having lunch," he said and smiled. "I can come back in a bit. It's only paperwork, nothing urgent, but thus far I've found that medical officers tend to be quite interested in what they see."

The wow was enough to make her blink, and her fingers rubbed together to rid themselves of any excess crumbs from her toast. At least he'd apologized which left him a chance to continue to curry favor from the surprised and skeptical little Vorta. One of those nymph-like hands was then held out, fingers curling in a silent request for the paperwork, "Try me. I've seen a lot of things in my time, Lieutenant. Most of them completely bizarre and a few that would curl your toes."

"Really?" he said enthusiastically. "How marvellous! I seriously love bizarre things. Maybe we can compare notes one day." He grinned and handed her a PADD which he had, presumably, pulled from a pocket, but which he seemed to conjure out of thin air. Then he placed it in her hand with an elegant little bow. "There you go, my lady, Commander, ma'am, sir. Whichever you prefer." There was no mockery in his voice at all, nor in his face or eyes. He stepped back to let her read, clasped his hands behind his back and looked around as he waited for her to finish.

He was peculiar, more so in mannerism than anything else. She could hear the odd variation of his hearts pounding away in a strange rhythm she'd have more likely reserved for a Klingon than what appeared to be a human. Then again... She could be surprised after all. He liked oddities, in many ways she was one, but he himself was the strangest one of all... At least between the two of them. A pod child, for lack of a better term, he'd appeared from the nebula years before. "Commander... Valeese... Doctor... Pick one." She replied, scanning over the information with her violet eyes a minute or two more before gesturing towards the replicator, "Lunch, Lieutenant? I actually do have questions."

The man whirled around, grinning and with twinkling eyes. "Hah! Told you. Haven't met a medic yet who wasn't interested. Even His Old Stiffnes who used to work here way back when was interested, and he was actually the most un-curious Vulcan I've ever met. Well, of course back then he was the only Vulcan I'd met, but compared to others since then-" He coughed and straightened. "Sorry about that. My mouth has a tendency to run off on its own when I'm not watching. You mentioned lunch. Excellent invention, lunches. I'll have what you're having." That was his standard reply whenever anyone invited him for breakfast, lunch or dinner. In that way, he was exposed to a far wider variety of foods than he'd usually encounter. Some of the things he'd eaten had been quite surprising, too. Sometimes surprisingly delicious, sometimes surprisingly awful. But the delight was always in the surprise itself.

Blinking, Valeese let him have his strange little monologue until he paused about food and chose to pick the delightful morsel laying on a plate in front of her. Her eyes flit down to it, studying the seductive way bacon peeked out from under the bread and lettuce leaves. "Bacon, Lettuce, and tomato on wheat, toasted... With mayo." A gesture of her hand indicated that he was welcome to help himself to her replicator. It would give her a chance to watch and study him a bit longer before she cast a verdict on her two-hearted visitor. "Anyway... You were saying... Doctors find you interesting. To be honest, and I'm not one to judge, but I'm trying to figure out what you are."

He already stood near the replicator, quickly relayed the order and picked up the plate containing the sandwich after it materialised. When he turned back, he was still smiling, but now there was a hint of sadness in his eyes. "That makes two of us, doctor." He strolled over and sat down on the other side of her desk. "I cannot deny there has been that fleeting hope that you would be able to find out. I do believe your people are from the Gamma Quadrant, if I'm not mistaken? There are many races there that nobody in the Alpha Quadrant has ever encountered." He dispelled the momentary cloud which had settled on his features with an airy shrug. "Ah, Commander Valeese Doctor, the universe is a woundrous place, full of mysteries… And if my identity remains one of those, I suppose that makes life more interesting still." He grinned. "So, what do you like to know?"

The young Vorta perched her chin atop her hands as she watched him in an almost cat-like fashion. He was graceful, seemed to float, almost as ethereal as the Stenellis - but he certainly wasn't one of them. No blue or turquoise or gray. No sign of those magnificent glowing spots that dotted their otherwise porcelain skins. No ridges, no bow of his forehead, no sharp teeth. Evan, whatever he was, wasn't a male Stenellis. He was dual hearted, a rhythm that continued to make her ears hone towards the sound reverberating in his chest, and appeared very much human... And he hadn't aged. "Normally I would say that you're an El-Aurian and centuries old. According to your charts you should be about fifty-four... You don't look a day over maybe thirty-five... Forty." Valeese's brows moved as she took in the bigger picture, readjusting her posture as he sat down across from her, "Your have two hearts where most of the humanoids have one. Except the Klingons. But that's more an eight-chambered conjoined set of hearts, and you're most certainly not a Klingon, but you could be a hybrid where the ridges have been bred out. Then again," Her hand rolled on her wrist as she thought out loud, "Where did the additional extra organs go, or is there something I'm missing?"

He had taken several bites of the BLT while the doctor mused aloud a list of what he was not, and nodded his appreciation of the food. "Don't let your sandwich get cold, it's really good," he said with a smile. It seemed to be his turn to fill in some of the blanks, so she could eat while he talked. "I don't seem to have aged much since I arrived here. A couple of months ago I ran into a former classmate from the Academy, well, not really 'ran into', he has brilliant reflexes, that man. But anyway, he said I hadn't changed a bit. That's actually where I got the name 'Merlin' from." Another of those airy waves brought him back to the subject at hand. "But, not Klingon as far as I know. No Klingon DNA as far as I could tell. Actually, seems mine is a triple helix, so that's an odd thing in itself." He shrugged with another grin. "So, basically, I just don't know."

Taking up his suggestion that she enjoy her food, Valeese did just that. Bite one was the heaven she knew it would be and her eyes nearly rolled into the back of her head as she savored the sweetness of the tomato as it blended with the saltiness of the bacon and luxury of the mayo and... Back to reality she went the moment he began to speak. Somewhere along the evolutionary chain, Vorta had begun breeding on their own again. Things like taste, though not spoken of, became an actual thing again... And she was thankful. "I could always take you apart and put you back together again..." She mused out loud, pausing only when silence pervaded after the retort, "Doctor's humor, I assure you. I have no interest in dissecting you."

"Excellent!" the man exclaimed with twinkling eyes. "Though I have no doubt that it would be a fascinating experience, a once in a lifetime experience, so to say, I do have little interest in being dissected." He finished his sandwich and licked the mayo from his fingers. "You could always take a full scan, if you're inclined. If the station's records haven't been purged during the overhaul, you might even find the original ones made when I arrived here, give you something to compare them with. It's not quite as effective as dissecting, but it's the best I can offer short of bequeathing my body to science."

If the crew thought she was strange and to be avoided at all costs, the mad-hatter sitting across from her was certainly a saucer short of a tea set. This was something that Valeese was absolutely certain of, and with no small amount of evidence beginning to mount to back her claim to boot. "Yes. Yes of course." She nodded, watching him rid his fingers of mayonnaise, "I can arrange for those scans to be done at a time that benefits both of us, if you'd please. Maybe we can get to the bottom of your..." She paused, searching for the word as she idly toyed with a bit of lettuce, "heritage?" Gamma Quadrant. Her portion of space... Through the nebula... Had it been that he'd passed through the Ascendancy's little worm hole some thirteen years earlier? Had it been that he squeaked past during a time when Empress Psy'Daio and her men weren't looking? Xue'Daio would have been... Seven. Just a baby. What great event had happened that wasn't coming immediately to mind? It would puzzle her until she remembered, and that wasn't saying that there was much of anything to remember. If that had been the case, then he was lucky indeed to have come out and headed towards the station and not further into the nebula like the poor Vindicator had.

The man – despite the uniform he wore, many people found it hard to think of him as an officer, at least during their first encounters – nodded as he sprang to his feet. There was something childlike in his enthusiasm, and it was only belied by a layer very few people actually got to see – an ancient look deep inside his eyes. It hinted at experiences buried so far down that none of them ever rose to the surface, but they had left their mark, if one knew where to look.

"Sounds like a plan," he said, moving the chair he sat on back to its proper place. "Would you like me to make an appointment with the desk lady? Receptionist, I mean."

"Yes. Please do." Valeese offered him a smile as he sprang to his feet, and briefly wondered if treating him for a hyperactivity disorder would quell his paradoxical need for sudden movement. It was beginning to leave the normally steadfast and unfazed little Vorta with a feeling of nervousness. "And do come back if you just so happen to remember something, anything, of value to your case. We'll solve it yet."

"I will." He smiled a charming smile. "Maybe over another lunch, sometime." On the way to the door he shoved the empty plate back in the replicator, where it disappeared with a soft hum. He halted just in front of the door, which slid open at his approach, and turned back. The smile had vanished. "Yes, there is one odd thing. A strange sense of familiarity when I saw the station in its current form. All the time when I was here back then I had the feeling this place ought to be bigger than it was. And now it is. Weird, huh?"

Just when she thought it was safe to begin to relax, and settle back into her food, his voice chortled again... Only this time it was far less manic than it had been in previous bits of their conversation, "Very," she replied, narrowing her eyes in thought, "An odd sense of deja vu, no doubt." But it was something more, given his proclivity for the strange, it would always be something more.

"Ah… One of the most dangerous phrases in the universe, 'no doubt'. Have a nice day, Commander Doctor Valeese." And with that, and another bow, he was gone.

And when she was certain he was gone, and only then, did the Vorta allow herself to relax back into her now chilled meal. Still good. Still perfect.

---

Commander Valeese
Chief Medical Officer
Cold Station Theta, SB-1170

Lieutenant Evan Merlin
Chief Strategic Operations
Cold Station Theta, SB-1170