The medical office had been reclaimed from subordinates in the name of the Lavenderian Empire and the raven Empress who sat upon its throne deposited her duffle bags in a pile on the floor and set to work.

“Computer, locate Captain Talon.” She asked the ether.

“Captain Talon is in the Ready Room,” it replied.

“Figures.” As quickly as she had arrived in sickbay Lavender left again, glances and some chatter following her. Old Lavender might have glared. New Lavender just let people be people. She couldn’t actually resume her duties until she’d been cleared by the Captain. Her counselling records and clearance to return transferred to a PADD clutched in-hand, she made the journey across the ship from her office to Rebecca’s, smiling at passing crew and finding their confused responses quite amusing.

“Was that Doctor Haigh?”

“Did she SMILE at us?”

The Bridge crew were more used to seeing the extraordinary, and Lavender’s smiles were returned as she crossed the buzzing expanse and pressed the chime of the Ready Room.

“Enter.”

The door slid open with a faint hiss, revealing Rebecca seated behind her desk. The terminal in front of her displayed split screens, each showing the face of a captain—one from Andromeda and the other from Texarkana.

Lavender moved into the room as she had been told to enter, but seeing the Captain was in the middle of it hung back quietly, just far enough into the room that the door would close behind her.

“We’re going to need you running at full capacity,” Rebecca said, her voice steady despite the chaos around her. She shuffled through a stack of PADDs, the plastic edges clicking on the black glass surface of the desk. With a quick swipe of her thumb, she activated one with a trill of electronic sounds. Scrolling through the data, she nodded. “I can have Ensign MacKenzie and a repair crew over there in two hours.”

“Thank you, Becca,” a male voice replied from the terminal.

Becca, Lavender thought. She’d never heard the Captain referred to as ‘Becca’ before. It made sense though. Whoever was on the other end of the line must have known the Captain well, or so Lavender supposed. She waited patiently with PADD in hand.

“I’ll be right with you, Doctor,” Rebecca said, briefly glancing over the top of her computer terminal before returning to the screen. “Okay, captains, I think that wraps things up for now. Any questions?”

“No, ma’am,” a soft feminine voice replied.

“That’s everything,” the male voice confirmed.

Rebecca smiled faintly. “Good. I’ll see you both at P’Jem. Denver out.” The comm chimed as the connection closed, and Rebecca turned her attention to the table, her hands moving absently to organize the clutter of datapads and notes.

“Thank you for waiting, Doctor,” she said, her voice carrying a practiced calm as her gaze met Lavender’s. “What can I do for you?”

“Cleared for active duty again,” Lavender explained as she took a couple of steps forward, hesitating slightly at the pile of PADDs Rebecca was already dealing with. She nearly added, If you still want me, but decided not to at the last moment, largely because, no, fuck that. If Rebecca wanted to bin her she’d have to do it the hard way. She was probably, no, definitely, a better doctor now than before.

“I can just show you this and take it with me I don’t think you need any more PADDs,” Lavender added, looking from the pile to the Captain herself.

Rebecca sighed, reaching for the coffee pot. Steam curled upward as she topped off her mug, the rich scent filling the small room. With deliberate care, she set the pot on the desk with a soft clink, leaning back in her chair. She cradled the cup in both hands, her gaze steady but unreadable.

The silence stretched, heavy and expectant, until finally, Rebecca said, “The Denver needs her CMO.” The words were just vague enough to blur their intent, leaving Lavender unsure if they were a welcome back or merely an acknowledgment that the department lacked its leader.

Lavender’s heart sank a little and a mixed feeling of  perturbation, dread and annoyance took root in her sternum and started to spread. So that’s how it was. Lavender couldn’t be sure, Rebecca was hard to read and she’d always been somewhat distant. But Lavender got enough of the picture, or so she thought in her own mind. She would have preferred a dressing down, at least then she would know where she stood. Surely if Rebecca was happy to see her she’d have said so, in some form or another. She’d even offer some sort of concern over what the doctor had been through? Ambiguity was the worst. Another silence filled the room, one in which Lavender grappled with all the feelings of rejection and humiliation she had dealt with in the past, trying to deal with them now in the manner she had recently been taught rather than how she used to, by loosing both barrels and cementing herself as a disturbed trouble-maker. Despite her best efforts to remain more upbeat and jovial and be less in her own head about things she couldn’t stop her expression taking a cold, hard edge.

“It does,” she responded eventually. Everything else she could think of to say would have been a bad idea.

“If there’s nothing else.” Lavender retracted the padd with her new-gotten clearance. And stood smartly before the Captain waiting to be dismissed.

The captain leaned forward, setting her coffee down gently. “Would you like a cup?” she asked, her tone warmer now, an olive branch extended after her initial coldness. Rebecca couldn’t entirely shake her mild annoyance with herself, she wasn’t sure her earlier response had been fair, nor was she certain how to handle the doctor in this moment.

The change of tack caught Lavender totally off-guard. The hard-set jaw softened and her feelings of dread subsided. All the scenarios that had been running in her head about avoiding the Captain ended abruptly. The change in emotion was almost euphoric. As for coffee, actually she was dying for a cup. She had plenty to get through and, with due diligence engaged not to substitute one substance for another, she did still love a coffee, good and bad alike. Lavender wasn’t sure what her from a few weeks ago would have done in this situation. It occurred to her also that it didn’t actually matter.

“Actually, I’d love one. Thanks.” The Doctor replied with a brightness of countenance only Arin had seen thus far. “It’s been a hot minute.”

Rebecca smiled as she turned over a cup from the tray on the desk and poured a stream of aromatic liquid. She pushed the cup towards Lavender, gesturing to the tray where a decanter of cream and a small container of sugar sat. Rebecca didn’t use them herself but kept them on hand for moments like this.

Once again reclining in her chair Rebecca took in Lavender, studying the doctor. Her manicured index finger tapped softly against the porcelain mug, the rhythmic sound melding with the soft hum of the environmental system.

She hesitated before speaking, carefully choosing her words. “Did you—” Rebecca began, then paused, trying to find the right phrasing. “Have you figured things out?” She didn’t want to pry, but as the Captain she wanted to lay the foundation for Lavender to open up to her if she felt comfortable.

Lavender also was unsure how much to say and looked at the hot, dark liquid in the cup she cradled as if searching for answers in the bitter depths. There was a line between being open and being too open that perhaps was hard to walk sometimes, especially when it came to mental trauma. She looked up again, the overhead lighting of the ready room catching the pale skin of her forehead and making the purple half of her hair almost fluoresce. She was careful not to catch the Captain’s eye. Rebecca was pretty fearsome.

“I’m… on the right path,” she replied, the words carefully assembled. “I should have taken leave after the whole Jem’hadar prison thing but you offered me everything I wanted right there and then. It was… I was careless.”

Rebecca sighed and rose, coffee still in hand. She turned to the window behind her, staring out into the expanse of space, Lavender’s reflection faintly visible in the glass. When she faced the doctor again, her expression was clouded with sympathy. “It’s not easy for a captain to admit a mistake. The crew needs to trust her, to believe in unwavering decisions. But I should have seen that you needed time, recognized the demons you still had to excise. Perhaps the responsibility is mine as much as yours.”

Lavender’s right eyebrow rose slightly. She took a step forward, but maintained a respectful distance.

“I appreciate that Captain, but you’re working under the assumption that I’d let you or anyone else see what I was going through. And I wouldn’t. My staff didn’t, how would they know the difference between between my normal behaviour and something more sinister when they didn’t even know me before? How would you? And let’s face it I look how I look and I am how I am and people are scared of me. Only Arin knew, she saw the P.T.S. in me first hand and what’s she going to do, betray her girlfriend and go up against a superior officer and the C.M.O. to boot? Especially one with a reputation like mine. I’m as much an open book as your typical Vulcan. And that’s… that was part of the problem.

Rebecca sighed and gave the doctor a sympathetic nod. “You don’t exactly have a cuddly reputation, but a prisoner of war camp isn’t something you just pop back from. I should have insisted you take it slowly and talk to the counselor.”

Lavender took a drink from her mug, her eyes visible over the rim staying on the Captain as she did.

“I did talk to her ma’am. Given my responsibilities on-ship there wasn’t time to work through everything we needed to. Now I have.”

It felt really odd to be this open with the Captain. And yet Lavender felt it was probably the right thing.

“Look, Captain. I hate twee little phrases like everyone learned a valuable lesson” (Lavender intoned this in a rather mocking childish voice), but I’m Admiral Picard if I haven’t. If you want to take some responsibility that’s up to you, I’m putting it on myself. I’m a Doctor for Pete’s sake. I should know where the line is. I should know to follow the advice myself that I dole out to the crew and scare them into complying with for better or for worse. My ambition overrode my better judgement. I know the cause of that now. No, I already knew. I just know where the line is now. And I’m less of a pain in the ass. I told you when you offered me the job that you’ll get complaints about me. You’ll get less now. Happy days.”

Rebecca shrugged, “Well, I won’t tell you how to feel, and I could care less about complaints as long as you keep the crew healthy and alive. You aren’t a counselor.  You aren’t their friend.”

Setting her coffee down she sighed,  “After my mom died my abuela came to live with my father and me.  She served for decades in Starfleet as a doctor.” Rebecca had a warm smile as she stared up at the ceiling thinking back. She once said, “Mija, remember this: healing isn’t just physical. Sometimes, listening and showing compassion is the best medicine you can give.”

Lavender responded to the anecdote with a slight smile, imagining the scene. But her face fell suddenly and for a moment, she was somewhere else. Her brow furrowed and her mouth opened slightly, the perceptive picking up a partially masked look of realisation, as if a bombshell had just dropped in her mind and the evidence quickly hushed up. Lavender gathered herself. Something had just occurred to her. Something big. This was when her years of covering up how she was feeling served her and a new tack was sailed quickly and deftly.

“I know that’s not your point, but as you mention it I’m working on my bedside manner. I’ll never be open and cuddly, but I’ll try to be a bit more… warm…?” The synonym was experimental, as if Lavender wasn’t sure she was capable of it but mooted it anyway. Things turned more serious for a moment. Lavender and the Captain had way more in common than she’d ever thought and not just some Latin or Spanish family. “My mother died too,” she admitted after a brief pause for consideration. “When I was eight. That’s one of the things I was working on while I was away. I never did properly before I joined up. I’m sorry it happened to you. It’s…” she shook her head. “I can’t imagine anything more indescribably shit.”

Rebecca sighed, the weight of shared pain drawing her gaze downward momentarily before she spoke. “It was.” Her voice carried the edge of old anger not yet dulled by time. “It took me a long time not to hate a Cardassian, and if I am being brutally honest…” She hesitated, unsure if she should reveal such a deep-seated secret to a relative stranger and subordinate. At last, she shrugged and finished her thought, “I still do. I know, not very Federation of me, and we were at war, but…” The captain shook her head as if to free herself of the emotion bubbling under the surface.

For a moment, the silence between hung heavy in the air.  Unspoken pain between them. Then Rebecca straightened, her demeanor shifting to something steadier. “Welcome back, Doctor,” she said, the change in tone clear as she pivoted the conversation. “My door is always open.”

Lavender would have loved to continue the conversation. She felt in that moment there was a chance that she and the Captain could even be kindred spirits of a sort. But that door had just closed, for now, and it was the Captain’s to close. She had opened it. Lavender finished the coffee in one and placed the cup down neatly on the tray from whence it had come. Then she stood smartly in front of her C.O.

“Thank you, Captain,” she responded with a respectful smile, waiting to be dismissed. “So is mine.”

Rebecca nodded, “Get your department squared away.  We are about to see action you should expect high casualties.  I hope no fatalities,  but I fear that is too much to hope for.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Lavender responded, simply. “We’ll be ready.”

With a final  nod, “You are dismissed Doctor.”

Padd in hand, Lavender left the ready room. She didn’t stop to consider what had just happened until she was safely closed in the turbo lift and heading back down through the ship’s many decks. This was not for gossip. This was big. And not even including her duties now, given the realisation she had had and kept to herself she had a lot of work to do. Lavender exited the turbolift and headed back towards sickbay, wondering if she’d have a message waiting from Arin when she got there.