by Zanh Liis and The Doctor
80117.1730
Following His Return
--=Bridge/Sickbay=--
80117.1730
Following His Return
--=Bridge/Sickbay=--
As soon as the door closed behind Rada Dengar, Zanh Liis slumped forward in her chair, holding her head in her hands. The room spun in tight, rapid circles around her.
Clearly, she had been too ambitious in scheduling her first day back on duty.
[Sickbay to Captain Zanne.]
Liis found the accent with which the medical hologram spoke so disarming that she hadn't had the heart to tell him that he was mispronouncing her name.
She cringed as she immediately remembered that she was late for her scheduled appointment. "Sorry, Doc, something came up." She groaned. "Be right there."
[[Understood. Sickbay out.]] The Doctor frowned as he shot a look toward the nursing hologram. "She didn't pitch a fit," he observed. "She's really hurtin'."
After a walk that seemed to take every ounce of strength she had left, Liis slowly staggered into Sickbay.
The Doctor held a hypo at the ready, and his eyes questioned her as to whether she was ready to give in and accept it.
She nodded, conceding defeat.
"A little too gung ho and eager beaver for our own good, I expect." He observed gently as he applied the hypo to her neck and the medication dispensed with a slow hiss.
"Sorry?" Zanh's eyebrows shot up in opposite directions.
"You bit off more than you could chew."
Still, she puzzled at his colorful choice of words.
"Good Lord. You did too much today, Zanne Leeze."
"Zanh Liis." The nursing hologram corrected him immediately. "Zanh rhymes with 'on'. Liis sounds like lease. By definition, a lease is a rental agreement between the tenant and the owner of a property."
Both Zanh and the doctor blinked several times, first looking at each other, and then at the nurse.
"She right?" The Doctor inquired.
"Yup." Liis admitted.
"Well land sakes, why didn't you tell me I was saying it wrong?" He seemed embarrassed.
"You weren't saying it wrong," Liis objected, beginning to relax as the hypo took effect and the spasm in her back subsided. "You were saying it differently."
"Different is wrong when it comes to names. I'm sorry, Captain Zanh."
"Please. So you were a little too busy saving my life on the Alchemy to worry about how to pronounce my name." Liis pressed her hands together and tilted them toward him in a grateful gesture. "I have much to thank you for."
"Just doin' my job, Ma'am. You did have me more nervous than a long-tailed cat in a room full of rockers, for awhile there though." He tapped her on the forehead gently with his index finger. "Don't you go scaring me like that again, missy."
The nurse felt that this was her cue to leave. "If I'm not needed at the moment, I think I'll shut down. Bye bye, Captain."
She deactivated herself and vanished, escaping her discomfort for now but sure that she would be hearing from the Doctor again later about her timing, and tact. Or lack thereof.
"Y'all have to forgive our ENH, her subroutines haven't been fully integrated into the ship yet."
Liis laughed softly, thinking he was making a joke akin to "she's not the sharpest knife in the drawer" or "he's one taco short of a combo-meal," which were both expressions that Dabin Reece had taken great pains to explain to her and Salvek in the past.
"No, seriously. Her program is very limited," The Doctor explained, his tone changing. "In fact, I've been wantin' to talk to you about that, Captain. When you get to feelin' better."
"I'm feeling better now." Liis urged him on, turning her attention to him as he began to scan her with a medical tricorder. She wanted a distraction while he was checking the progress of her still healing cardiac repair. "What did you want to talk about exactly?"
"Well, you see, I can go here and there on the ship. The ENH can't. She's stuck in Sickbay, and she's got no emitter."
Zanh's expression told him that she didn't know what she could do about the latter issue, as it had taken the shaking of heaven and earth to get the emitter that he had.
"I know, I don't expect her to get one." He added hastily. "Still, she is a photonic lifeform and as such I believe she deserves the same right to freedom of movement as I have,"
He continued on, passionate about his cause. "Her gender doesn't figure in, just so's you know. Male ENH's are the same way. I thought that, maybe if we can set a new standard here on the Sera, equal rights for all photonics who are part of the crew." He stopped. He'd said enough to get his point across.
"As you get to know me better, Doc, you'll find I'm all about equality." Zanh answered quickly. "In all honesty, though, I don't know how much of our resources your unique mobility programs are already taking up, and so I can't promise you that we can divert more to duplicate them for the ENH. Especially considering we have more medical staff arriving soon."
She put her hand on his shoulder. "But I promise you, I will talk to Lair and Salvek about it the first chance I get. You can also feel free to ask them yourself. Tell them that you brought it up to me first and we'd like to see what it would take to incorporate the subroutines into her program so that she can use the OHD's and move about the ship as you do."
The Doctor bowed at the waist. "Thank you kindly, Ma'am. I do appreciate your taking the matter seriously."
"Of course I do. You're members of my crew. You deserve as much of my help as I can ever give you."
She watched as he frowned a little, looking over his tricorder readings.
"You've inflamed all your repair work back there, doing heaven knows what." He gestured toward her spine with his tricorder. "I want you to lay off the physical activity, until I clear you otherwise, got it? No more gardening."
She saluted. "Understood."
He applied another hypo just above her collarbone on the left side, and then another to the base of her spine in the back.
"I've given you some anti-inflammatory medication, to help your back. And something to increase your lung capacity, and the oxygenation of your blood a little," He looked at her sternly. "You were in stasis for awhile, Zanh Liis. I want you to remember that you need to focus on your breathing during your recovery. Work on taking deep breaths."
The look on her face told him that the reason she'd been taking shallow breaths was because the deep ones still hurt.
"It'll get better. Soon." He patted her hand gently. "I promise. Check in with me again tomorrow." He ordered. "Anything else I need to know about before I let you scamper out of here?"
"No, but there is something I'd like to ask you. As a personal favor."
The Doctor was intrigued and folded his arms, waiting expectantly. "Shoot."
"I'd like you to think about choosing a name."
He laughed. "I don't need one. Doctor works just fine."
"I know, you're a man of great heart and little ego." She replied. "But, you have to understand. You're a member of my crew, Doctor, and I could no sooner go on calling you 'The Doctor' than I could tolerate you calling me 'the female'."
She looked at him sideways, swinging her feet casually as she sat on the edge of the biobed. "Doesn't have to be fancy. Just something that we can call you that reminds you, all the time, that we don't just consider you a series of beams of light and OHD's." She squeezed his hand. "You're one of us."
"I'm the sum of my parts. Nothing special."
"So, I'm only flesh and blood and nothing more I suppose?"
"No, I," He stopped. He was losing this argument, and rapidly.
"Luminous beings are we, not this crude matter." Liis said softly, flexing her fingers and staring down at them. "A wise old being said that once in a story I read. It stuck with me."
"Well, the Bard of Avon wanted to know what was in a name, and I'm inclined to agree with him."
"A medical hologram by any other name would still be photonic?"
"Exactly."
"Very well." She rose from the table. "The choice is yours. As I said, it was just a request."
"I'll think it over," he replied at last. "Fair enough?"
"Fair enough."
"Now, you get back to quarters and take a nap between now and that shindig of yours tonight," he insisted. "Don't make me type up the order."
"I won't." She was far too exhausted to argue. "I'll see you there, won't I?"
"Captain,"
"Don't make me type out the order," she echoed playfully, slowly moving to the exit.
"There's a place at my table set for each member of the Alchemy's command staff. I expect to see you seated in yours tonight, along side every other officer to whom I owe my life."
-=/\=-Zanh Liis
Commanding Officer
USS Serendipity NCC-2012
and
The Doctor
Long-Term Medical Hologram
Commanding Officer
USS Serendipity NCC-2012
and
The Doctor
Long-Term Medical Hologram
Serendipity/Alchemy