Life--It's Complicated, Part 2

Posted on Tue 15th Nov, 2022 @ 6:33am by Makila i'Hartelhai & Arik Telsamvi & Lieutenant JG Kellian Michaels

1,851 words; about a 9 minute read

Mission: A Fresh Perspective
Location: Main Infirmary, Deck 83
Timeline: MD (1) 1730

Previously, on SB-109:

Dhuro pinned Kellian with a glare. "You aren't cleared, Lieutenant. I'll send a nurse in here with a hypospray for you. I might want you here for observation overnight, since you clearly breathed in a lot more of the stuff. Get the hold on these two lifted on the security end, or face Dr. Addams' wrath at using her infirmary as a brig and keeping her intern confined for other than medical reasons. I'll leave you all to sort things out."

---

Makila had only nodded at Kellian's words. They'd found a child in the pit. That was horrible, and for some reason the fact that Kellian was distressed made her feel better.

"Thank you," Kellian told Dr. Dhuro as the surgeon left the room.

"Your counterpart thinks us suspect. Do you share that assessment?". Makila's voice was chilly, her anger barely controlled.

"Of course not," Kellian said. "It was a good idea to remove the two of you from the room, so you wouldn't contaminate evidence and could get medical treatment, but the way she did it and the reason she did it..." He shook his head, shot a momentary glance at Arik, and then looked back at Makila. "I'll explain later. She wasn't acting like her normal self. I'm sorry the two of you had to go through that--all of it."

"It was very clear what she felt." Makila growled, not sure why she was so angry at him, but she was. Gently slipping out from under Arik she smiled faintly when he stayed asleep. She approached Kellian slowly and pressed her hand to his chest. Her palm felt the increase in his heart rate, and the caress of his breath. Those were things that couldn't lie; nor could he lie when she was touching him without her immediate knowledge. "You will explain, and you will do so immediately. Then you will tell me every detail of the baby you found."

She could feel alarm and then acceptance from him as he nodded. "Mainly, I feel like a clueless twit," Kellian said. "I honestly did not see that coming. I knew something was bothering her, but she wouldn't talk about it except in a veiled, barbed way. Some of what happened I don't mind telling you right now; if anything, you deserve to know, after the way she treated you and Arik." He paused, and she could feel a thread of fear, quickly suppressed. "But other things...I would feel a lot more comfortable telling you in my quarters or your home. You must know those things if we're going to continue together. This isn't a simple you-and-me-dating thing. I come with--dangerous baggage. It's why I've kept our relationship very low-key and was so surprised that Muffet had figured it out. If I were any other man, I'd have kissed you by now."

"Interesting" she murmured, rather taken by that information. He wanted to kiss her? That was noteworthy, and true given the flicker of fear she'd felt. "Continue"

"From the day I met Muffet Langston, I liked her a lot; I think you would have, too. She is brilliant. She's witty. She has a sparkling personality, and I have no doubt she'll go far in the forensics field. I didn't bother to hide that I liked her because I don't date co-workers. I haven't dated anyone in years, in fact--until I met you.

"One evening a few months ago, there was a forensics lecture being given by a renowned forensic scientist. I was eager to go to the lecture, and so was Muffet. I then had the wild idea to make an evening of it. So we did. We had dinner at Orchids & Jazz, and we danced." Kellian sighed. "That dance told me I was the wrong guy for Muffet.

"First off, she was leading me, because I had no clue how to dance the dance she asked the musicians to play. I had envisioned maybe a foxtrot--if we danced at all. I don't even remember the piece now. Something about having a drink in your hand. And she kept a drink in her hand through the entire dance, which was pretty impressive."

"That's what told me we would never work--aside from the obvious physical differences. Muffet does things like a freight train moving full speed ahead, while I'm still looking both ways before I cross the first street--and then I check again." Kellian shook his head. "I enjoyed most of that evening and could genuinely say that I'd had a good time at dinner and at the lecture, but that was it. That was all I could handle. I never asked her out again. I was friendly at work, but I thought I was behaving just the same as I always had. Maybe I was. And that's part of the problem."

"What problem is that, precisely?" Curiosity was alive in her mind, and Makila was less angry at the man...but her ire was not entirely cooled.

Kellian sighed. "Imagine yourself being the only one of your species on an entire starbase where you're going to be assigned for years. You were found, adopted by, and loved by human parents, and humans are what you imprinted on--but your species is very different from human. Problem is, humans don't ask you out for dates. You think that, to them, you're hideous. Then, out of the blue, a human male you've become friendly with at work asks you out on a date and dances with you.

"She has such a wonderful, inquisitive, witty personality, it never occurred to me that no one here had ever asked her out in all the time she's been assigned to 109. Is this starbase full of idiots? It never occurred to me that I might be one of her very few friends. I was certain she must be amazingly popular. How could she not be, with a personality and intelligence like that?

"I was wrong. She was amazingly lonely. And now, I'm one less friend she'll allow herself to have. I can't even comfort her and help her through this because I'll just remind her of her pain. It's tearing me up inside, Makila. I led her on without meaning to. I don't know what to do to make things better."

"Maybe you can't make things better. But you're also not responsible for her reactions to things." Makila sighed a little and raked her fingers through her thick curls. "How do you know that's what her personal situation is? How do you know that she hasn't tracked down her species and decided she didn't want to walk that path? Maybe she had offers offers of friendship and she didn't realize they were offers of friendship. Not everyone is arachnaphobic, many people are fascinated by spiders. That fascination can certainly be off putting if you're a giant spider. Elements, I knew what she was and I wasn't expecting her to look how she looked because I've never actually MET an Arachnae."

"I know because we talked about it during dinner."

"The key is in your words, Kellian, the friends she allows herself to have. You can do nothing to change that, because that is a personal choice that each individual makes. My father doesn't trust, because he's been 'the enemy' for so long he forgets that he can have friends. Maybe she just decided not to try to do so because she was unhappy with some aspect of herself, maybe she's more angry than lonely because she's trying to pretend to be something she's not, maybe she burned her bridges in the past and didn't find it worthwhile to try again in any serious fashion. Maybe maybe maybe...we could drown in a sea of maybes and not be any closer to an accurate explanation of her motivations. I don't know her, so I could continue to throw out guesses, those things motivate many people of many species."

"You may have hurt her feelings by not expressing undying love or asking her on another date, or doing whatever it was that she was expecting you to do. But it also seems to me that she had chances to speak her mind before now and didn't take you up on it. She did not have to respond in such an inappropriate fashion, and you are not responsible for it. You are only responsible for your own journey, where ever it might lead you."

Kellian nodded. "I wish she had told me how she felt before. I'd like to have at least been honest with her about how I felt, so she could have looked for opportunities elsewhere. But I can also understand her not wanting to talk to me about it, because who does? No one wants to be firmly rejected by someone they like and had hopes for." He sighed. "So, anyway, that's the why of what happened earlier. The other thing--we need to talk about that, too, but not here." He cleared his throat. "Maybe in a night or two, after Dr. Dhuro releases me?"

"I'll hear you out, you know that I'm a sucker for a good story" Makila grumbled with the quirk of a smile on her lips. The treatment for the fungus had made her sweat an abominable amount and she was desperate for a bath.

"I don't know if it's a good story, but it is a story," Kellian agreed.

She chewed on her lip and smiled a little before her attention was stolen by a hypospray being beamed in to the treatment tray. She took it in nimble fingers and examined it. A human dosage of the antifungal, and without missing a beat she pressed it to Kellian's throat. "Might as well get started, I don't want you to have to linger here."

Kellian winced and coughed as the medicine went in. "Ugh. Is it supposed to feel like hot smoke in my throat?"

Makila wisely didn't share that her reaction to the drug was more violent. She'd begun coughing so hard that the sensation had actually made her vomit. It had not made the best impression on young Arik.

Kellian made a face and turned faintly green. He cleared his throat. "Now it feels like something crawled into my lungs, died, and burnt to ashes." He grimaced and coughed more. "I think you and Arik should go. I'll see you in a day or two, okay?"

Knowing how she'd felt, she nodded slowly. Then she walked to the replicator and spoke quietly to it in Rihannsu. A cup materialized, with an amber liquid in it. She took it to him and pressed it into his palms. "Sip it" she instructed "It will help with the...side effects" Only then did she shake Arik gently. His eyes snapped open in an instant and fear turned to relief as she offered him her hand. "Come." She would lead him out of the cell by the hand, without a glance back at Kellian.

 

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