What's Past

Posted on 18 Jul 2013 @ 3:37pm by Ensign Marjorie Horne & Commander Andreus Kohl

1,017 words; about a 5 minute read

Mission: Episode 03 - Frontier
Location: USS Galileo - Deck 4, Sickbay
Timeline: MD 08 - 1115 hours

[ON]

There was a standard check list for coming aboard. Everyone in Starfleet knew it by heart. Marjorie was good at getting everything done, but not in the right order. Next on her list was a check up in sickbay. Stepping on Deck 4, Marjorie made her way to see a doctor. The doors opened for her and the sterile smell of the room hit her. Stepping inside, she looked around.

Not seeing around immediately, she loudly called out, "Assistance!"

From the passageway connecting the Intensive Care Unit to the other compartments in Sickbay, Andreus Kohl came sprinting. "What hurts?" Kohl asked automatically. He didn't study the incoming patient right away. He looked around for the Emergency Medical Hologram or any of the medical staff, and when he didn't see them, he took a good look at Marjorie. The face before him stopped him in his tracks and he stood a good five paces away from her. "What?" he asked. "Mags?"

Marjorie squinted at him trying to think back to where he would have met her. He was familiar. Then the nickname gave it away. "Cadet Kohl," she said more surprised to see him. "You graduated!" The last time she'd seen him was during academy training many years ago. He was still handsome as before, but she didn't understand why he was in sickbay.

At Marjorie's exclamation, Kohl bleated out an amused laugh. "Don't sound so surprised," he remarked in good humor.

Marjorie took his words to heart and adjusted her tone. Only, he didn't mention how she should react. Surprise wasn't right. Thinking about it, most people appeared happy over graduation. Settling down to project a smile, Marjorie continued, "I didn't get to see it. It's been a long time since the academy or Vulcan."

Fiddling with a tricorder, Kohl twirled the device between his hands. He returned her smile with a creeping smile of slow recognition. "The L-Langon Mountains, yes," Kohl said. He continued to fidget with his fingers, but his expression remained impassive. "Haven't thought about that in years."

'Years?" Marjorie repeated. "Feels like it happened only days ago." She shook away the thought. Their academy survival class was conducted on Vulcan with two other groups. The instructors weren't prepared for the reports the class submitted upon their return. Joining Starfleet meant there was a chance your training turned into the real thing.

"Cadet Kohl, I didn't think you were studying medicine," Marjorie noted tilting her head to the right and she trying to remember back what his focus of studying was.

"If you're going to see me as I was then, you'd better call me 'Gangplank'," Kohl said blithely. He swept a hand to his right, gesturing that Marjorie should follow him to an available biobed. As Kohl lead the way, he said, "But, you're right, I was majoring in Diplomacy when we met. And now I'm going to survey your health history and perform a physical assessment as part of your preventive health care."

The bio-bed was a little tall for her liking, but she stood next to it all the same. Gangplank's age was extremely near hers and she knew she hadn't had time to study a whole new field. He could be more of a field medic, she decided. "Were you unhappy? Pipe always seemed unhappy," she asked referencing team gamma's cadet field medic. Marjorie didn't remember much about Pipe other than he was always shouting at everyone, especially after team beta was recovered from the criminals.

"He was born unhappy," Kohl wryly remarked. Standing on the other side of the biobed, he gave it a couple of pats. "I'm going to need you to hop up. The sensors in the mattress can't read you from there," he said. He turned to the left and checked on the tools prepped on the equipment tray. Kohl palmed a slim tricorder and accessed LCARS to review her medical records. "I wasn't unhappy in diplomacy," Kohl answered, finally. But he didn't give much more than that. "I wasn't unhappy at all."

Marjorie jumped up on to the bed, not sure what else to say. Trying to go over social etiquette in her head, the woman debated on how much she should ask of him before it was rude. But curiosity got the best of her, and she asked very directly, "Why medicine?"

"I'm not sure anymore," Kohl replied without much delay. The question didn't discomfit him, but his answer did, a little bit. "The decision made sense at the time. I had a rationale and it seemed logical, but I can't remember what it felt like to be the same person who made that decision. At the core of it, I suppose I was at a place in my life where I needed drastic change. Medical was the only career change that absolutely necessitated a trip back to the Academy."

Listening to his answer didn't give Marjorie much closer on the question. She didn't relish her time on Earth, nor did she have an desire to go back and start over. Of course, there experiences had been very different. "I would have done anything to stay away from the academy," Marjorie shook her head. "My graduation couldn't come soon enough."

Kohl approached Marjorie with a slim medical tricorder in one hand, and a flashing sensor probe in another. "Why was that?" Kohl asked in obvious puzzlement.

She wasn't sure how to respond. Her days at the academy were awkward to say the least. Almost no friends, constant work, and graduation was the payout at the end. But there was another reason she worked hard to stay away and that she wasn't willing to give up yet. "Because the closest I ever got to any classmates was on Vulcan," she responded hoping he'd understand her implication. "I was hoping it would be different out here."

"I think you find," Kohl remarked sardonically, "Galileo is the epitome of different."


[OFF]

Ensign Marjorie Horne
Operations Officer
USS Galileo

and

Lieutenant Andreus Kohl
Chief Medical Officer
USS Galileo

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