DL | CDR Valeese, CWO Parsuv (NPC) | "Midnight in the Heart of the Station"

Posted on Thu Sep 20th, 2018 @ 8:04pm by Commander Valeese Stacker & Warrant Officer Parsuv

Mission: Lacuna
Location: Deck 681 | Cold Station Theta

The thing that stopped him was the sound of a door opening; it shouldn't have done so, because deck 681 was in the heart of the pod slung between the station's upper levels, and lower section inhabited by main engineering. There was the occasional foot traffic here, for the deck housed crew quarters for the intelligence department. At this hour, however, the on-duty shift was already in place. There was no need for anyone to be out and about. Blinking impassively, he looked up-and-down the corridor and saw nothing. He shrugged, selected another blueberry from his bowl, and walked on - crossing, as he did, a four-way corridor junction.

Sleep. She needed sleep. The only way she could sleep was knowing that everything was as it should be. No lurkers in the shadows, no Nausicaans, no Orions, Romulans, Breen, whatever the hell could be laying in wait for a chance to reach out and pluck her, them, any of them, away from the station. Valeese had never been nervous. She'd never felt the need to keep her head on a constant swivel - not even after the initial attack on made on her by the Bajoran civilian engineer that day, months ago, on the promenade. Those bruises had well healed - the fresh ones from her kidnapping were still so new and raw and it was becoming blatantly obvious that there had been several deep lacerations levied against her psyche... Not to mention the newly confirmed life she held as a secret within her.

Good news? Bad news? Depended on who and how you asked. She'd be fine - but for the moment what she required was sleep and sleep came so easily in the arms of the person she should have been avoiding most, weaning the connection that shouldn't have been. That should have been the kindest reward she could have given Stacker for rescuing and creating new life with her; his freedom.

SMACK!

There was something wet on her neck, sliding the line of her throat towards her clavicle. More of it lay on her arms, her hands and worse, she was pressed up against something that seemed to breathe. She'd been on autopilot - her nose down and eyes studying her feet. The fact she knew the way back and forth to Stacker's quarters should have been alarming to her, but she'd allowed herself the complacency of finding comfort in it. And now? Mild panic. "Parsuv!" Valeese barked in surprise, clearing her throat and hopping backwards sharply.

"My apologies, Commander," Parsuv was sputtering in surprise. It seemed that with each step he took he could feel blueberries popping underfoot, and it pained him slightly. Blueberries were something he'd been introduced to, years ago, by a then-Technician James Stacker. Not being native to his homeworld or its colonies, they were something of a delicacy. Now he was caught between a feeling of loss, and indignation at having walked into the station's chief medical officer. He brought the bowl upright, seeing that there were still a handful of blueberries inside, backing away a little more and seeing just how many had been scattered across the carpet. It was ... upsetting, to say the least.

The Vorta's head shook as she stood there, plucking a squished berry from her arm and reaching, slowly, to rid herself of the one stuck to her neck, "I didn't see you. I didn't think anyone would be around here at this time..." She was beginning to babble, shaking her head as she looked around for somewhere to begin to dispose of the mess. Of course there wasn't a replimat to be found. It was a Gods forsaken corridor, not quarters. "Didn't mean to screw up your midnight snack, but really... Why the hell were you lurking the halls?!" Maybe it was irritation that she'd been caught, that she'd screwed up twice and the blueberry munching Kelpian could have been something far more malignant and nefarious, or the fact she realized she out ranked him and could likely chase him away from asking too many questions...

... Like just what the fuck the Chief Medical Officer was doing down so close to Intel in the middle of the night.

Of the two of them, he was the more easily-settled. So while she was babbling and demanding answers he stood there and tilted his head, looking down at the pale-skinned Vorta adorned with an interesting shade of blue that dribbled down under her collar and threatened to turn patches of her clothing an even darker hue. "I believe, as humans would say, you 'were on autopilot', Commander?" he said. He had no eyebrows to raise; had he had them one would have likely been up by now. Certainly her evident babbling and the very fact that she was rattled were enough to warrant such a look. "As to what I was doing, I was heading to crew quarters. They are farther down this deck," he added, gesturing in his Kelpien-like way with one hand cradling the underside of the bowl. A decidedly less-full bowl.

"Yes. Yes I know where they are." Valeese nodded sharply, her own embarrassment creeping into over drive. It could have been worse, she decided. The scent of the fruit informed her that it wasn't something more innocuous running down her neck and arms. "I believe I was... Shouldn't have been, but I was." Silence punctuated for a long moment. The Vorta staring up at the tree-like Kelpian and the Kelpian blinking back down at her as they each tried to figure out the situation in their own manner. "Blueberries." She finally sighed, shaking her head. "Good choice. Healthy snack." Damn Kelpians and their stoic nature. They were like the love children of Vulcans and Terran crawdads minus claws and decidedly inedible. "I'll leave you to it."

"Commander, if I may," he said, before she could turn. "We are quite far from the medical section. Are you lost? I'm certain a query to the main computer would set you straight." In hindsight it was inevitable that he'd take notice of her presence in the intelligence section: they were, after all, only four decks below the watchfloors and just around the corner from the station intelligence officer's quarters. She also seemed a little ... unnerved, he concluded. Yes, that was the right word.

A thin onyx brow shot up at the question, and her eyes narrowed ever so slightly in thought. Flipping his bowl and booking it was always an option - a poor one, but an option - but she ignored it. "Commander Stacker was feeling a bit under the weather and requiring a sleep aid. Instead of running the risk of him falling asleep in the halls, I offered to treat him in the privacy of his own quarters." She replied, feeling the lie pour off her tongue. It was bitter, but it worked... And maybe it wasn't so much a lie as it was a half-truth. One of them was having trouble sleeping and she was was headed to his quarters to remedy that situation. Parsuv didn't need to know that she'd simply be crawling into bed and allowing the burly Ghost to become her personal cocoon and that would be the so called medical treatment prescribed for just such an ailment. "I just wasn't expecting to encounter someone else, let alone with a bowl of blueberries, at this time of night."

"Well, recent events have been trying on all of us -" came the reply, hands spreading a little apart. The intelligence chief's rugged condition, by the end of things, hadn't gone unnoticed. Whether any less-knowledgeable personnel in the department had seen it as well was something he did not know, and did not comment or speculate on. "- and I know the commander took it quite personally. I'm not surprised he's ill, in fact, after how little sleep he got." He cocked his head to one side, eyes taking in her blue-skinned condition. "But I apologize. I should let you go, ma'am. I doubt you want to smell like a blueberry all night long."

"He's a good man, Parsuv. He'd take it personally if someone stole a cracker from the lounge if he thought he could keep it from happening." The guard began to quiet, allowing her to talk as normal as possible with the Kelpian, "He'll be back up and running in no time. He just needs some good sleep and little distraction." Valeese offered him a small smile, "You're right that I'd like to clean up a bit. More importantly, I'd like to tend to the Commander. Enjoy the rest of your evening, Parsuv."

To... Damned... Close...

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Commander Valeese
Chief Medical Officer
COLD STATION THETA, SB 1170

Warrant Officer Parsuv
Deputy Chief Intelligence Officer
COLD STATION THETA, SB 1170