Rebecca’s boots sounded softly upon the carpet outside the rows of guest quarters.  She glanced down at the pad in her hand to consult the information before stopping at a door and pressing the chime.

On the other side of the door Doctor Lavender Haigh placed her pad down on the little table by the chair and moved toward the door, pressing the manual release. Teal and red uniforms came face-to-face across the threshold and Lavender looked at the woman in front of her with barely any expression at all, save a couple of fluttery blinks from her false lashes in the new, bright light of the corridor. The purple in the hair that sat around her shoulders clashed violently with Rebecca’s.

“Captain. Can I help you?”

Rebecca nodded, “I think so… I hope so.”

Lavender couldn’t help but look mildly surprised by this. As far as she was concerned she was just a passenger on this voyage, being taken back to some Starfleet outpost somewhere for the reassignment she had been headed for when her previous ship was destroyed. She supposed it might be some medical thing, perhaps having a Doctor about who wasn’t on staff could be useful. She nodded.

“Tell me.”

“Well, our former Chief Medical Officer turned out to be a Cardassian spy.  I am sure you met Doctor Lorsa. She’s a fine doctor, but she’s young and as a orthopedic surgeon she’s not exactly a generalist. I’m thinking you might be looking for a job. What do you say? You want the CMO job?”

More blinking. If the Captain showing up at Lavender’s door wasn’t surprising enough… This didn’t strike the M’talan as a conversation one had in a corridor. She watched a crewman walking by.

“Come in for a minute.” Lavender gestured with her head and turned without really waiting for a response. The quarters were very standard for guest quarters and were lacking in any personalisation as was to be expected for temporary accommodation. It was meticulously tidy, not because Lavender was a tidy person by habit, more because she felt that a Lieutenant Commander would not and should not have messy quarters. Next to the pad Lavender had been reading on the table was the only personal touch, a baby plant of some kind. Lavender took her seat again and offered the one adjacent to the Captain.

“Sorry, you’ll have to give my brain a moment to catch up with my ears,” Lavender drawled, wrapping her spidery hands around a hot mug of something. “Sorry, no manners. Can I get you a drink?”

“Thank you, but no. I’m on something like my tenth cup of coffee for today.” Rebecca replied.   She glanced around the quarters with her hands clasped behind her back.  She was an engineer by trade, but since the war she had steadily acquired a more military demeanor. 

The only nod to any personalisation in the room was a small juvenile potted plant that sat on the little table next to where Lavender had been sitting. It seemed to have pride of place, like it was being watched, or nurtured. Otherwise the room was entirely standard, to be expected for temporary quarters. Lavender seemed to be going over things in her mind, she looked towards Rebecca but not at her, bobbing her head in a sort of mental ritual of acceptance, her mind processing the request presented.

Lavender had been labouring under the impression her first Chiefdom would be on a ship or facility somewhat less modern and prestigious than a Nova class. Her mind was committed to the chain of events that had her being dropped somewhere safe, a starbase perhaps, for reassignment and processing, at least a brief respite for some counselling and assessment before returning to the fray. She decided to air her thoughts to the other woman present.

“I figured Starfleet would have me riding some junk Miranda for the rest of the war,” she explained in her typically back-streets manner. “You know, drop me off at starbase whatever, get assessed, processed, distressed, various other things ending in ‘essed’ and eventually show up on some rig running supplies to the front treating grazed knuckles and insomnia. So this is a surprise.” There was a brief pause. “I mean I guess you read my dirty secrets in my personnel file and think I’m up to the task, right?”

“I looked it over but honestly I’m not a doctor. The fact of the matter is is we need someone to lead the medical department, and you are the most qualified person on this ship to do that.” 

Rebecca crossed her arms and stared out the window for a long moment. “This is the nature of war.  It tests officers and the cream rises to the top. You’re never ready when this is pushed on you.  You think I was ready to be the XO of this ship after Wolf 359 broke me?  I had left Starfleet,  but I got pulled back in to fight the war with the Klingons. You think I was ready to take over this ship when the last captain was killed at Tyra?  I get your hesitancy,  but your services are needed. You’ll either bend or you will break.”

Lavender couldn’t argue with that. She liked a person to be direct. She respected the Captain now because of it, not because of her rank, she respected the rank pretty much no matter what, but now she respected Rebecca, because she knew her a tiny bit and that tiny bit, she liked. The cards were down, the stakes were laid bare. Lavender had a small idea what the ship and it’s crew had been through. This wasn’t touchy-feely Earth mollycoddling, this was the Real Thing. That suited Lavender down to the ground.

“Not going to Starbase, no processing, Doctoring here, run the department, don’t screw up. Gotcha.” Lavender returned. “I’m not going to lie I’m not in the best shape right now after the whole Dominion Prison episode, but who is? I’m not some mother figure who’s gonna dote on the kiddies, you’re gonna get complaints about me. But I can run your Sickbay and do it well. Just because I figured I’d get a shit deal doesn’t mean I won’t step up when a good one lands in my lap.” She stood and moved towards the Captain, her hands still clasping the hot mug, and regarded her new C.O.

“I want the job.”

“It’s yours, but it wouldn’t hurt for you to have a conversation with the counsellor. Being a POW is something I have not experienced,  but I cannot imagine it doing anything for your mental health. What is the old adage? Physician heal thyself?”

“Yes ma’am, I will.” Lavender wasn’t the sort of Doctor to avoid the treatment she needed. She had plenty of bravado but not the sort that couldn’t admit she had problems.

Rebecca nodded, “Very well. I will make a note in the ship’s log.”

“Pleasure doing business with you, Captain,” Lavender responded with her typical levity. “You’re welcome to stay a while and get acquainted but I’d put Latinum on you being far too busy.”

Rebecca smiled, “Not at the moment. All my reports to Command are done, the XO is running things, and I’ve solved the CMO issue.  However,” she looked around.  “I’ll let you get settled.  Contact Commander Jeter for assignment to crew quarters.  However,  if you are comfortable here I think an exception can be made. We probably won’t be getting too many guests anytime soon.”

“Actually,” Lavender said quickly, “I’d like to get an assignment. Makes it feel… official. Oh and if there’s a strange power drain from crew quarters it’s me replicating literally everything I own that the Jem’Hadar blew up from my last ship. Fortunately I saved and backed up all my patterns. The orchids I’ll have to grow from scratch though. Took me years. Fuckers…”

“That is… unfortunate.  I have never been very good at growing things.  Much better at killing them if we’re being honest. In high school I killed a cactus.” Lavender smiled and took a slug from her mug.

“Orchids are easy,” she said smacking her lips a little from the drink, “humidity, some light, water them once every three weeks. The tricky part is getting them to grow the direction you want. Kinda like children. You have kids, don’t you?”

“Yes. Twins, and a step son.” Rebecca said with a smile despite herself. “The twins are here with me… Ethan…” she hesitated and swallowed.  “Ethan was on Starbase 75 when Betazed fell to the Dominion.  I don’t know the fate of him or his father.”

Lavender grimmaced. “Brutal.” She wasn’t sure what else to say. Caring about ones’ family was not something she could relate to.

“To put it mildly,” Rebecca said. “How about you?”

Lavender took her place in her chair once again and looked at her baby orchid for a moment. “My family are all dead, in Prison or total deadbeats… …who by now are probably in prison.” She said, the unfeeling matter-of-fact in her voice almost certainly a deflection of any pain these facts may have brought her. “All my friends on the Manitoba were killed, never met anyone who wanted me around long enough for kids. I’d be a crap mom anyway. More the mildly-psychotic cool Aunt kinda vibe I’d say.” She looked at the Captain again, her face unreadable. “Not that I have any brothers or sisters. My asshole murdering father might have spawned something by now, not that I give a shit.” This sat in the air a moment and Lavender’s lip-rings danced as she wiggled them with her tongue.

“So happy families, you might say, all kindness love and joy,” she intoned with trowels of construction-grade sarcasm.

Rebecca smirked, “I can only imagine. Well I have had officers above and below me over the years who didn’t have a family or one that was a problem and we became their surrogate family.” She shrugged, “We do kind of function as a family.  We don’t get to choose each other and depend on them for our survival.”

“Very wholesome…” Lavender commented, perhaps slightly mockingly, before she could stop herself. She cleared her throat. “I told you you’d get complaints about me… I’ll look out for you all, don’t worry. Just don’t expect a pleasant smile and a chit-chat first thing in the morning…”

Rebecca shrugged,  “Not everyone has a cheery disposition.  As long as you do your job you won’t get any complaints from me.”

Lavender nodded once.

“Thank you Captain. If you don’t mind I’ll see about that quarters allocation now, I’d like to get started as soon as possible.”

“Of course,” Rebecca said. She headed for the exit. Pausing at the open door she looked back with a wink. “Welcome to the family Doc. I’ll see you around.” With that the captain was gone.

Lavender watched the door for a few moments in thought, smiled, and went back to her pad.