[sb118-khitomer]Lieutenant Charles Matthews - "Dramatic Much?"
Shakeel Hussein
((Beta Module, Commercial Sector, Roberto’s Robotic Curios, DS33, Alpha Isles))
Matthews looked down at the blooming bit of tech, before looking back at the Doctor and shaking his head again, this time with the addition of a deep sigh being released.
Charles: I don’t know how or why Alix has ended up on the Khitomer but when I left the Astraeus it was… I don’t know… left there too.
Ohnari: What did you say to her when you left...?
Charles: We spoke, briefly. She had to release my medical records to you. That’s how she found out I was leaving.
Charlie wasn’t always receptive to how people conveyed emotions but even he could see the look on her face.
Ohnari: Well...that was certainly a choice....how'd she take it?
Charles: Maybe it wasn’t the right choice… I wanted to tell as few people as possible---
oO I don’t like being the centre of attention. I don’t like the focus… and I didn’t need people to try and talk me out of it. Oo
Charles: She came storming into my Office in the Security Suite, ripped into one of my Officers and demanded answers.
oO Stereotypical Alix. Oo
Ohnari: So...you're lack of telling her directly seemed to hurt...hmmm. I know I've been prying, but...did you two, you know, start on the Astraeus or....
He shook his head. As he recalled his history with Alix, a part of him wanted to smile, but a greater part of him prevented it from happening.
Charles: We met at the Academy. She was hogging the labs. Or bugging me for the lab. One of the two.
Ohnari: Wait, hold on. That is when you met? And then...what? "Somehow" She's followed you twice??
Charles: Yeah. I graduated before she did. I was sent to the Astraeus. When she graduated, she was sent to Denali. Somehow, she ended up on the Astraeus too. I left it, she ended up here as well… It’s a little weird now you mention it.
As Matthews pondered on the coincidental nature of his and Alix’s postings, Talia did something that surprised him. She turned, facing him directly and stopping him in his tracks, and placed her slender hand on his shoulder. He looked down at the hand before looking her back in the eye.
Ohnari: Charles, sweetheart...you're a bit of an idiot. ::holding up a finger to stop the protest:: Look man, if you've truly left those feelings behind? I respect that. However, if you have not welded that door shut....there is no way the Gods would continue to shove the two of you together, across the academy and two whole starships, without something meaning to stick. Even if it's a conversation.
Charlie pursed his lips and bit his tongue. This was not the usual Doctor and Officer conversation and, whilst he found her perfectly pleasant, albeit easily excitable by shiny objects and prone to not watching where she was going, this topic was starting to piss him off.
Charles: Look… Talia… there is a lot to this that you don’t know. It isn’t black and white. Some of it is pretty damn grey.
Ohnari: Response
Matthews shimmied, wriggled, and moved himself away from the Doctor once he’d freed his shoulder. Turning away from her, he found a cabinet full of weird mechanical gizmos to focus on, and stared at them, trying to figure out what each one might actually do. In the end, with him deciding that they all looked like can openers, he let his head drop with a sigh.
Charles: I’m--- sorry, Doc. I don’t mean to snap.
Ohnari: Response
Charles: Maybe they’re still there--- the feelings. I don’t know.
Ohnari: Response
Lifting his head, he turned to face the Chief Medical Officer.
Charles: To use your analogy, I held the door open for Alix. At the Academy, we--- you know--- and the next morning I wanted to discuss being more. I opened that door and she walked through it, only the direction was out of my quarters and back to her own dorm. When I left the Astraeus, I decided the past stayed with it. I had to…
oO Good God, dramatic much?! Oo
Ohnari: Response
TAGS/TBC
---
Tactical Officer
USS Khitomer NCC-62400
A240012CM1