Rivers of Egypt (Part III)
Posted on Mon Sep 7, 2020 @ 6:00pm by Captain Maritza Soran & Lieutenant T'Lul
Edited on on Fri Jan 15, 2021 @ 9:04pm
1,822 words; about a 9 minute read
Mission:
Et In Arcadia Ego
Location: DS5 Counselling Suite
Timeline: MD07 1345
Previously in
"I'm never really off-duty." Maritza managed to find a faint smile. "Comes with the shiny pips."
"Well, Captain, those shiny pips are going to have to be put aside for a little while," the Counselor told Maritza. She leaned back again, this time thoughtfully. "I am sensitive to your desire for privacy. However, you are neglecting your personal requirements both emotionally and physically." She thought again. She needed the Captain's trust for her to follow through on T'Lul's recommendations; however, she also had to make it clear that if the Captain did not do as she requested, that she would take greater action.
"In my professional opinion, Captain, you are what humans would colloquially call a 'ticking time bomb.'"
And now the continuation
"In my professional opinion, Captain, you are what humans would colloquially call a 'ticking time bomb.' Setting a regular appointment schedule with you would draw unwanted attention to you. So, we will not do that at this time. However, you will not work more than ten hours a day barring emergencies and when I say emergencies, I mean something that would endanger the safety of everyone on this station. Whatever you need to do to make that work, you will.
"You will get at least seven hours of sleep per night. It will take thirty minutes to an hour to allow your brain to sleep. That will leave you six hours in your day to do anything except work or sleep. I would recommend immediately programming the holodeck to fly your goshawk, read, or do something else pleasurable. The lone exception is that every day you will write a small report to me on how something in your day made you feel. Every 72 hours, we will have a one hour meeting, as well."
"I beg your pardon?"
"Was something unclear, Captain? Or should I repeat it? I know there was a lot of information there."
If looks could kill, T'lul would have been nothing more than a greasy stain. The shocked disbelief of a moment earlier was gone. "Is that all?"
"Would you prefer that I put this into your personnel file?" T'Lul asked practically rhetorically. "Incidentally, that is another particularly good glare. I bet that works particularly well on non-Vulcans."
No she did not want it in her personnel file. She didn't want anything in there that might hint of weakness. "I learnt it from a klingon." Which was true.
"I suppose you would have, given your history," T'Lul acknowledged. "Tell me, Captain, when was the last time you allowed someone past your walls? To see you vulnerable? Certainly those glares have served a purpose of driving others away."
Maritza flinched as she thought of Geral, and those cosy moments in his holodeck, or his bedroom. Moments that had turned out to be lies. "The last time I let someone in, it turned out he was only there for a bet. To show others that he could." It was not a mistake she was going to make again.
"Before that, then," T'Lul led. After all, there had to be a reason that bet was made and it was likely because the Captain had fought off everyone else prior.
"That would have been Danvers so three years, for non family. And not counting brief calls, I saw my brother after the D'ama, which was two years ago." He'd been in the first flush of romance, and she had selfishly cried about about her own problems instead of listening to him wax lyrical about his new boyfriend.
"Tell me about Danvers and that relationship," T'Lul instructed coolly.
It felt two lifetimes ago. "It was barely a relationship. Six months, triggered by morbid curiosity and righteous fury, and it ended when he quit and I was reassigned. He was the Marine CO on the Regent, and I hadn't really had any contact with marines before then." Maritza looked down at her fingers. "He was very... masculine."
"Why do you say that it was barely a relationship? Six months is not a short period of time. Tell me more about how you met, what attracted you to him, and how he made you feel."
"Six months is a short period of time." Maritza countered. "It's barely time to get to know someone. As for how we met, a holodeck booking mishap. I walked in on his swimming. There were a lot of muscles."
T'Lul nodded at the mention of muscles. It seemed like the Captain might have a type. On the other hand, she disagreed with the Captain's assessment that six months was a short period of time. Her experience and studies showed that after the initial meeting, there was a "honeymoon" stage that lasted three to four months, then an enlightenment stage where couples find that once endearing traits were found difficult or annoying that lasted as long. After that, it was the commitment stage when people firmly identified as a couple and introduced their partner to relatives and tested their relationship with their extended friends and family. But she was not about to argue with the Captain. The Captain clearly had a number of skewed beliefs and she did not have to reeducate her on those misconceptions. "And?" T'Lul encouraged the Captain.
"Not a lot else. Literally and metaphorically," she sighed. "His swimming trunks left very little to the imagination and I was..." What had she been? It had been just after the loss of the serenity and she had been smarting at her failure to stop it. They'd saved almost all lives on the ship. But she been the surviving ranking officer, and all the debrief had fallen to her, and all the death notifications, and she'd felt more drained than she'd ever had before. "...In need of a distraction.
"It was purely physical. And then Danvers was accused of being an agent of a foreign power. But once we started digging into things, we found evidence of Admiral Deveraux's double dealings I just kind of went on a crusade. They were trying to frame him, but we managed to turn it around. But after, he quit, and I couldn't. I believe in Starfleet. I wasn't going to give up on it. So I gave up on him."
T'Lul pressed her two index fingers together. Again, the Captain somehow avoided talking about what she felt. She was so close and then it became a narration of what she had done - nothing about how she felt. "Captain, let's go back to something you said. You said his swimming trunks left very little to the imagination and you were.... What were you feeling in that moment?"
Maritza thought back to the moment she'd first seen Captain Danvers haul himself out of the swimming pool. How water had flowed from broad shoulders and down a sculpted chest and stomach that had every abdominal muscle emphasized. How it channeled into that V of muscles at his hips and dragged her eyes further down.
She felt herself going pink and shook herself a bit. "Honestly? Intimidated. I wasn't used to seeing semi-naked men by accident. Or even on purpose." And she'd taken one look at his thighs and lost the ability to breathe.
T'Lul was a bit surprised at this revelation. However, the only indicator was a separation of her fingers and a slight leaning back again. Objectively, T'Lul had to admit that Maritza was attractive. Did she not know it? "Was this your first experience with a man or sex?"
The Captain's face was almost as red as her uniform trim. "Yes." She knew it was late, at twenty seven. But she'd been busy.
"Tell me, what are you feeling right now?" T'Lul asked curiously. Could the Captain even admit embarrassment? Or was she turning red with anger at the prying?
"I do not like these questions." Maritza said tightly. "I do not see the relevance, or why I should share. These are matters I'd rather not talk about."
"I understand that you rather not talk about them, Captain and that you do not like them. However, that is precisely why you must." T'Lul paused for a moment and thought of a question that might help the Captain see a point from her perspective. "Captain, do you explain each decision you make to ensigns? Do you explain the logic of every order that you make?" She answered the rhetorical question, "Of course not. You expect people to obey your orders and to do what you require of them. They do not have to see the big picture because it is irrelevant or unnecessary for them to see it. Would you not agree? The same is true here. You are not required to understand the relevance but you are required to share." She did not threaten the fact that if the Captain did not that the Captain might not be acting as Captain for the foreseeable future. T'Lul figured that the Captain would understand her statement well enough.
Maritza's jaw tightened stubbornly, trying to keep all the things she was thinking and feeling in check. "I do not like discussing my failings. Being reduced to a gibbering teenager when I was close to thirty was not my finest hour."
"I am aware that you do not like discussing your feelings. You've made that abundantly clear. However, what you like discussing is irrelevant, Captain. And what do you mean about being reduced to a 'gibbering teenager'? And why does it bother you?"
"Because that's what it felt like, seeing him then, and talking about it now. Like walking tightrope, one moment of unbalance, and you turn into a giggling idiot," Maritza nearly spat the words. "By that point, I had advanced degrees, passed the bridge officers exam and commanded a starship, if only briefly, and been accepted for a symbiont. I shouldn't have been in any position to get my head turned by a tight backside and a tiny pair of shorts. I was long out of middle school."
Another counselor might have laughed but T'Lul was a Vulcan. She did not allow emotions to surface. "So, you did not like feeling happy or euphoric? All of your degrees and studies have absolutely nothing to do with emotions, Captain. It is quite healthy to have your head turned by a tight ass and a muscular body. It is part of the biological imperative. But I am slightly curious about one thing you just mentioned. You said that you were accepted for a symbiont. However, you do not have one. Why?"
A nasty smile came over Maritza's face. "Because the slugs are a bane on trill society and we need to stop worshiping them and leave them in their pools."
To be Continued…
Lieutenant T'Lul
Chief Pain in the Arse Counselor
DS5
Captain Maritza Soran
CO
DS5
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