Mikali sh'Shar & Ens. Serren Tan - Andorian Blues: The Eye of the Storm, Part IV

[David Adams]

(( Recovery Room, Sickbay, Iana Station, day unknown ))

Mikali sh'Shar was actually awake and reading reports on her PADD when her next visitor came, which made a change of pace. It was nice to not have to wake up to random people in the room with her.

Tan: Knock knock.

sh'Shar: It's open! Or at least, I think it is.

Serren pushed open the door, and with a broad smile, slouched into the couch near her bed.

Tan: Hey. Just letting you know that shore leave is wrapping up soon. I won't be able to keep dropping by like this until we're back here, and who knows how long that'll be. ::His face fell slightly.:: I'm sorry. I wish I could stay longer.

Mikali nodded understandingly. 

sh'Shar: No worries. I'm still in here for a few more days at least, too, so I can't really see you off. We'll just have to catch up when you're done.

Serren seemed slightly relieved, his smile returning.

Tan: Yeah. Definitely.

Mikali put down the PADD on the side of her bed.

sh'Shar: Sorry I screwed up your shore leave.

Tan: Hey, don't worry about it at all. I had lots of fun. And I screw up too, you know. I've been on the ship for three months and in that time I nearly died once, I punched a guy in the head, I faceplanted twice in front of the whole system—

sh'Shar: I saw that by the way. Hilarious.

Serren snickered playfully.

Tan: It was fun. And... look. Everyone makes mistakes, Mikali. It's what you do after screwing up that counts. How you make sure you don't keep making the same mistake, identify the bad pattens in you, and work on fixing them. Sometimes this is hard. Sometimes you don't succeed. Sometimes you might even take a step back. But you keep going, keep growing, keep learning.

It was annoyingly vague, but at least it made sense.

sh'Shar: Okay. So help me learn. In the past, I've been kinda lazy, undedicated, too focused on making myself happy in the moment. But that didn't work. Now I'm too dedicated, too focused on my job. But that didn't work either. What should I do?

Serren considered, tilting his head slightly to one side as he tried to come up with a good answer.

Tan: Well, I'm not good at this kinda stuff, but it seems to me like you seem to focus entirely on The One True Way of doing things. On the Indy, you would just rely on occasional bursts of heroism to coast through. So that was your Way. On the Avandar, you'd bully anyone who threatened your position, so that was your Way. Now... you have no opportunity for heroism and no one to bully, plus crew that are resilient and resist such things, so you have no clear way forward. I think you've focused on your work and forgot that the program is meant to help you fix your life, not work you to death.

O-J had said the same thing. More or less.

sh'Shar: Right. That's why I've been ordered to Mandatory Fun. But the point is... how do I fix this problem going forward?

Serren looked a bit uncomfortable.

Tan: I am not really equipped to answer that. I'm a... as you say, a goon.

sh'Shar: Okay, so let me try another way. What do you think would help?

Another bout of thinking. Followed by an aborted attempt to speak. He abandoned it, then tried again.

Tan: Take and enjoy your days off, but remember that there are no expectations for those days. All they are are... breaks. Breaks from the expectations put on you from everywhere; from your job, to Benna, to your career... even from within. When we it's Mikaliday, it's whatever you want it to be.

sh'Shar digested that as best she could.

sh'Shar: Okay.

Tan: Good. ::He shuffled around, clearly fishing for a change of topic.:: So hey, wanna know something cool?

sh'Shar: Sure.

Tan: As part of your surgery, as your next of kin, I authorized them to remove your prosthetic. I have it here. Want to see it?

The prospect of seeing her disembodied eyeball held little appeal.

sh'Shar: Not really.

Tan: Oh, well, that's going to really undercut the dramatic point I was going to make, so too bad. ::He reached into a pocket, withdrawing a glass jar containing a small grey-brown orb, and set it on the bedside table.:: So check it out.

The eye was bigger than she expected — eyes usually were, they were almost completely recessed into the skull after all — but the condition was shocking. At some point there had been some kind of short-circuit to the device, judging by the blackened scar across the left side of it. From there, a mud-brown stain grew out, rust and corrosion, until a significant amount of the sides and rear of the orb was flecked with rust giving the nominally-smooth sphere a rough texture.

The eye was almost completely corroded through at the rear and it had millions of thin scratch marks all over the rust, as though some furious child had taken to it with a nail.

Tan: That was inside your goddamn head. In lieu of a brain, obviously.

sh'Shar: What... what caused those scratches at the back?

Tan: Oh, that was this thing.

He reached into his pocket and withdrew a second small glass canister. Within was a tiny sliver of metal.

Tan: The surgeons left this in your skull after the whole thing on the Indy. It's a piece of the Helmsman's console. 

sh'Shar: I knew about that. The doctors at the time said they couldn't remove it.

Tan: It turned out that it's shifted over the years, as these things tend to do, which is why they recommended regular checkups and examinations. The wicked thing was scratching your eye every time you moved it. Since the designers didn't anticipate there being a situation where something metal was scratching the back of it, they didn't have any nerves there, so of course you didn't feel it. And of course, the device simply wasn't engineered to deal with that kind of on-going damage, so it eventually failed.

She stared at the broken, rusted thing in curious wonder.

sh'Shar: Damn.

Serren's tone grew a little critical. Just a little.

Tan: The doctor told me that this kind of wear-through takes years, sh'Shar.

sh'Shar: It's been dicky for about that long.

He blew out a long sigh.

Tan: You goddamn idiot. Why didn't you get it checked?

Mikali's eyebrows dropped.

sh'Shar: Hey, I've seen your triathlon performance, so... keep polishing those glass walls of your house, buddy.

Tan: I didn't die out there!

sh'Shar: Alleran did.

Oooh. His face said it all: "She did not just go there."

Tan: Right.

A brief, uncomfortable silence fell over everything.

sh'Shar: If you've still got some shore leave left, why don't you use it properly instead of hanging around with me? ::She glared at him.:: Don't you have some party to go to?

Tan: No. I'm here with you because I care about you, you blue lunatic. I couldn't think of a better way to spend this time. ::Genuinely,:: I'm glad you're alive.

sh'Shar: Well, that makes one of us.

Tan squinted in concern. She always had a dark sense of humour, but he must have been thinking this was something else.

Tan: You know that this whole "succeed or die trying" attitude of yours isn't doing yourself any favours.

sh'Shar: I have to complete—

Tan: Let me spell it out for you: You have to be alive to complete the program! Think about that next time you go and just ignore a serious problem, okay?

There was a pleading edge to his voice that made it impossible to ignore.

sh'Shar: Okay.

He hesitated, obviously having more to say.

Tan: You should know that, uhh, I wasn't the only one notified. Nor Tasha and Carys and the others.

Immediately she knew where he was going with this. Her body stiffened in the bed, antenna jerking upward, becoming twin rods on top of her head.

sh'Shar: Benna...?

Tan: Not exactly. Her other parents. But I'm guessing they told her, because she found out somehow. You scared the hell out of her, you know. She thinks you're dying. They pulled her out of school and everything, getting ready for a high-warp trip to here, but... I think she's back now. I talked to them. Did my best to convince them you were past the worst of it.

Benna. The idea that Benna could have been directly affected by this — been scared by this, frightened — made her whole chest tighten. 

sh'Shar: I didn't-I didn't think—

Tan: You're right, you didn't think.

His tone softened.

Tan: Please take care of yourself from now on. I know sometimes you might feel alone, but there are a lot of people watching out for you.

This much she had come to know.

sh'Shar: I know.

Tan smiled, only a little forced, and only a little concealing something else.

Tan: Okay. I'm going to let you get some more rest — the med-techs say you can't have too many visitors — but I'm just letting you know, the ship could be called to duty at any moment. If I vanish and go quiet for a while, it's just because I'm busy, okay?

sh'Shar knew the perils of serving on a ship.

sh'Shar: Yeah. That's fine. Thanks for dropping by, Spots.

Tan: Thanks for staying alive for me, Blue.

They shared an awkward bed-hug, and then he left her with the rusted metal eye, and the thin sliver of metal, and she wasn't sure what to do with either of them.

But slowly, as she lay there in bed staring at them, a vague idea began to form in her head.

One-Joke needed her to find a new hobby, huh? Well... maybe there was one thing she could do after all.

--

Lieutenant (j.g.) (ret) Mikali sh'Shar

Civilian

ReachOut Project

simmed by

Ensign Serren Tan

Security/Tactical

USS Gorkon

O238704AT0