A Physical

Posted on Sun 30th Jun, 2019 @ 12:19am by Lieutenant Commander Dallas Briggs
Edited on on Sun 11th Aug, 2019 @ 12:33am

1,786 words; about a 9 minute read

Mission: A Diplomatic Affair
Location: Main Sickbay
Timeline: MD 5, 0830

Dallas had gone to his department and reported in yesterday. He spent the rest of that day exploring and had gone to the gym. He would rather go to Sick Bay and get his physical knocked out and out of the way so Medical wouldn't have to track him down.

Dallas walked down the corridor on his way to Sickbay with Victoria by his side. "You sure are quiet, what's on your mind?"

"How different a base feels than a ship," Victoria responded faintly, after a crewman passed them, going the opposite way. "It's almost like being on a planet, if I don't flow over to the outside and peek."

She was quiet as her form drifted down the corridor with him. "You know, I don't think you really have to do this whole physical thing. I certainly wouldn't." Though no laughter rang through the air, she made the man remember what it sounded like ... before.

Dallas turned to look at Victoria as they continued down the corridor. She looked as real to him as anyone. “Yes, but it’s a Starfleet regulation that you have to get an initial physical once you transfer to a new assignment and, being Security, I should lead by example and not have Medical hunt me down.” He turned back to make sure no one was watching him talk to himself. “Wouldn’t you agree?”

"I looked in on the CMO last night," she answered, without addressing his question. "You may find she has surprising ways of seeing things. I think you'll like her." There was another silence between them as two people in gold walked toward them, nodding at her husband. After a moment, she said, "It's a little strange being invisible to everyone but you."

“It’s been over a year now, and I still can’t get used to you being a ghost, but I’m glad you are here. I’ll take whatever I can get.” Dallas walked a few more feet, then stopped. “You checked up on the doctor? How did you know I was going to go to Sickbay?” he chuckled as he wondered why Victoria checked out the doctor.

Victoria rolled her eyes. "How long were we married?" she asked rhetorically. "I think I learned enough about you to predict most of the things you'll do." She avoided the question about her snooping, since she probably shouldn't have let that slip.

They reached the Sickbay doors and she nodded toward them. "You go on in. I'll wait out here and avoid any complications, or maybe I'll flow out and look at the stars again. I never get tired of that view."

Dallas chuckled again, “Even as a ghost, you can still read me like a book. You don’t have to wait outside for me. I won’t give you away; besides, who would believe me anyway.” Dallas winked at her before the door slid open in front of him, and he began looking looking around for the doctor.

Her office was easy to spot, and he headed over to it, where he found the doctor busy with work. “Hello, Doctor, is it a good time for a physical?”

"Enter freely, and of your own will," Doctor Addams said without looking up. The office was dimly lit; the doctor was looking down into her desk, and the holographic terminal which appeared to be inside of it. On one side of the room was a display case made of glass, which had its own lighting. The top shelf contained two skulls -- one opaloid and with but a single eye socket; the other having apparently appropriated the missing eye from the first, as it had three -- and what appeared to be shrunken heads. The next shelf held a viola with a remarkable red lacquer and tuning pegs of aged ivory, next to a bow strung with black hair glittering with rosin. "Tell your friend to come in as well," she instructed, still not looking up from her desk.

Dallas looked at the oddities around the office and swallowed. He developed an uneasy feeling deep down inside, "Ah, I'm not sure what you mean by friend, but is there a place where I can speak to you ... alone?"

The Doctor finally looked up from her desk. She regarded Dallas for a moment, silently, then leaned slightly to the left, looking past him and out into the corridor. Her eyebrows rose, and she straightened, looking at Dallas again. Then she looked around the otherwise unpopulated office. Though large by starship standards, and adequate to the needs of an administrator who oversaw the health of more than a hundred thousand sapients, the office was still a relatively small space. "I do not know whom I might dismiss," the Doctor answered at last. "Unless you are referring to Thing?"

The lieutenant turned and looked where the doctor had just looked, but didn’t see anything, so he turned back towards her, “I’m actually talking about all of these things,” Dallas indicated the skulls. “They give me the creeps, so a different room without them would be acceptable.”

Addams stood. "Death need not concern us, for while we exist, it does not; while it exists, we do not. It is the living, not the dead, who are prone to being troublesome." Though, she thought privately, she had known some rather troublesome ghosts in the past handful of years. She passed out of her office and looked to the Corpsman on duty at the front desk. "Youngblood, is there an open examination room?"

"Yes, ma'am," the petty officer replied. "Exam four is currently unoccupied."

"Thank you." Addams led the way down the corridor, stopping at a door marked with "4." The door opened automatically, and she stepped within, glancing back at Dallas. "Let us begin again," she suggested. "I am Chlamydia Adams, of the New York Addamses, Chief Medical Officer assigned to Starbase 109. You are...?"

Dallas followed the Doctor into the room, “This is much better, Doctor. I'm Lieutenant Dallas Briggs of the Texas Briggs. I've transferred here as an Assistant Chief of Security from USS Typhoon. I thought that it might be good to get a physical. Since I lost my leg over a year ago, it continues to give me pain pretty much every day.” He thought about what the doctor said about his friend, and what she meant by that, and then he thought about Victoria.

“What did you mean by ‘Tell your friend to come as well’?” Dallas asked.

Victoria waved at the doctor. "I think she can see me, Dal. Or sense me, perhaps?" She thought about what the doctor said about the dead and the living and conceded that she definitely had a point about the living being troublesome. Since her death, she hadn't met anyone who intrigued her as much as the doctor.

Dallas shot a quick glance back at Victoria, but said nothing as he waited for the Doctor to respond to his question.

"I simply thought I'd heard two sets of footsteps approaching my office," Addams said, waving the question off absently. She wasn't about to discuss her oddities with a complete stranger, even if he did have an invisible friend. "But let's talk about your leg. On the bio-bed, please."

“Sure, Doc.” Dallas did as requested and sat on the bed. He was still a little confused and wondered what the good doctor had said earlier on. He thought about what Victoria had told him and really wanted to ask the doctor more, but perhaps this wasn’t the time ... unless Victoria wanted to push it.

Addams sighed. "And you were doing so well," she lamented. "A dock is a place where Cargo is transshipped, Mr. Briggs. I am a doctor."

Dallas chuckled, “A dock is also what starships can do when they come to a space station and doc is also short for doctor, Doctor.” Dallas also sighed too, “No, doctor, I’m still not doing so well, not since my wife was taken from me way before her time.”

"She got what everyone gets, Mr. Briggs; she got a lifetime." Addams turned her attention to the reason they were in the examination room. A blue light skimmed across his body, and the Doctor instructed the computer, "Display skeletal system from femur head to patella."

Dallas had no idea why this woman had to be so cold and insensitive. After all, he had just met her and she didn’t know anything about him. Nevertheless, he bit his tongue and didn’t say anything else. He just wanted to get this over with.

"Be nice, Dal," his ghost chided. "She obviously doesn't like the shortened term, and she's the one who knows enough to treat any symptoms you ever have, so give her the respect she deserves." She grinned at him, "You really want your doctor to like you. And she's right, of course. Because we think our life together was cut short doesn't mean I was due any more than I had."

She watched the woman's exam prep and frowned slightly. "I don't know if I do you more good sticking around or would do more by moving on." She shook her head and sighed, if a ghost can be said to sigh.

“I know that we are not promised a tomorrow, but I can’t help feeling like Victoria was taken from me too soon,” Dallas said out loud. “Just like I can’t help thinking it’s my fault she’s dead.”

Addams twirled her finger in the air, rotating the hologram, open-pinching to examine specific areas. "Did you kill her?"

Dallas shook his head, “Not that I’m aware of, but what if something I did in the past got her killed? What if they were targeting me and missed, killing her instead. I’m not sure I could live with that.” Dallas looked up at Vick. “I’ll find out and if someone did this, there will be hell to pay.”

"Someone did it, but we've never known why ... and, darling, I think Hell has already been paid in full," Vic said softly. She looked at him with sadness she seldom showed. "It's almost time to move on."

He shook his head, “When they are brought to justice, not before.” Dallas had been secretly investigating the explosion that killed his wife, and he had gathered all the sensor data, all the scans of their quarters, all computer records for entry to the ship before and after. He was digging into it, and he would find out who did it and why. Then, maybe she could finally Rest In Peace.

 

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