Meeting Point
Disclaimer: I still don't own it. Just Marie. But the rest really isn't mine. So I'm not really making a single credit from this. Which sucks. Big time. Cause you see, my account could really use the credits.
Author's Note: I seem to be really good at making dabbles which turn out somewhat longer than a simple dabble. This dabble will be 10 chapters long, and only the last chapter (10) isn't yet written, though 2-9 still need heavy editing before I can post them. I'll write 10 only after I posted chapter 9 as I'm in a dilemma as to what ending would be most appropriate. I'll put up a pole for people to vote in when it comes to that.
Oh and... thanks to FuzzyDeath for her indirect inspiration.
Summary: How far would you go to protect your subordinates? Lieutenant Marie Sansonance thought she knew the answer to that question. Then she suddenly wasn't so sure anymore.
Part 1: Meeting Kirk
The world shimmered before it rematerialized revealing the transporter room aboard the Enterprise and a younger man with piercing blue eyes and somewhat messy light brown hair who seemed to be waiting. Marie glanced at him, taking note of the startled expression in those blue eyes as they scan her from the top of her head, to her toes.
"Lieutenant Marie Sansonance, reporting for duty, sir." The words left her easily when she recognized Captain James T. Kirk. Even Marie knew what he looked like. Her friends often teased her about her lack of attention to men. They claimed she lived like a nun and had no idea what a good looking male should be. It amused her endlessly that they equated good looks with good in bed – for that was the only thing she seemed to remember about the Hero of the Federation.
"You're... Lieutenant Sansonance?" With a sigh, Marie nodded. That's the reaction she always received. It had to due mostly with her height. Standing on the raised transporter platform, her eyes were just barely at the same level as his mouth. Some god, somewhere, had decided to pull a cosmic joke at her expense and everyone seemed either amused or surprised. That might actually explain that temper she called her own.
"It's just that..."
"I'm short." She finished his sentence in a statement of fact as she stepped down from the platform. The top of her head now barely reached his past his shoulder. He seemed to grimace as he realized just how short she was. At the same time, he ignored the spark which lighted in her eyes.
"Well... yes."
"And you believe that your chief of security should be an amazon and not a dwarf?" He had the good grace to wince at her words. She wanted to cry at how predictable he was. That's what they all thought, and just once she wanted to be proven wrong. "I had, perhaps foolishly, hoped that my record would be recommendation enough without needing to prove my abilities just because I don't match your expectations of a security officer." Marie Sansonance, for all of her short stature and seemingly delicate bone structure, was proficient in more than knowing how to bat her eyelashes. Yet every time she took a new post, she would first have to beat nearly her entire staff at hand to hand before being given the respect which was her due as their superior. Her face, finely sculpted with high cheekbones, sparkling blue eyes, framed by glossy black curls, showed a hardness not usually associated with a woman as small and delicate looking as she. Marie had long given up on attempting to relax her mimic; people just wouldn't take her seriously when she smiled or laughed. She had banished those from her face, and only rarely allowed them free reign, usually when alone or with close friends. Only few saw the carefree smile which her mother had loved so much. Her usual expression now was either a scowl or a bland look which never quite managed to hide the keen look in her eyes.
"My apologies, Marie." The smile he flashed her would have made any woman weak in the knees. Marie was not just any woman, and she had two older brothers who used to practice the look on her. So, instead of swooning, as seemed to be expected of her, the muscles around her eyes tightened somewhat.
"That's Lieutenant Sansonance, Sir." Without another word, she picked up her satchel of belongings and the small silver case which had been beamed in with her, and left the transporter room. It was probably a mistake to stalk out on the Captain when he had been welcoming her on board the ship. What probably had been a good idea was to stop an unreformed womanizer from hitting on her.
Having already familiarized herself with the layout of the ship, she easily found her quarters and dropped of her belongings. Had her mother seen how little there was to her name, the woman would probably have died of a broken heart. Quietly, she opened the small silver case, and with drew the only picture of her mother she owned. A single tear ran down her face as she contemplated the smiling blue eyes surrounded by wrinkles of joy and framed by still vibrant black hair.
"Serais tu fière de moi Maman, si tu me voyais aujourd'hui?" Looking at the smiling face, Marie felt more tears run down her cheeks. The picture always seemed to remind her of the last time she had seen or spoken to Maman.
The day was foggy, the waters on the Lac Leman almost hidden as Marie looked out of the second story window of her parents' home in Lausanne. It was the kind of day she loved; the kind of day which seemed mystical, with the way the sun tinted the fogs in a hazy yellow light.
"Marie, what is that?" She turned to see her mother standing in the doorway, holding up her Star Fleet application file.
"I want to join." A sparkle of laughter danced Marie's eyes.
"I
forbid it." Shocked, the sparkle seemed to die.
"But why? It'll be an adventure!" Seventeen year old Marie simply could not understand.
"It will kill you... your spirit. By the time they are done with you, there won't be much left of Marie Antoinette Sansonance."
"I won't be like papa, if that's what you're worried about." A bitter laugh broke free from her mother, and the lines of old gall gathered about the eyes of the older version of Marie.
"You won't have a choice."
Marie had left for San Fransisco the next day, her mother refusing to see her again. Not even when illness began to claim the older woman, did she relent. Now, some 13 years later, Marie was beginning to understand just what her mother had meant. Marie Antoinette Sansonance had become Lieutenant Sansonance, and the sparkle of laughter which had died that die, never quite managed to return to the way it had been.
Swallowing hard, she wiped the tears from her face, and steeled her features back into her professional blandness. Once she was certain of her composure, she placed the picture onto the small sideboard and left her quarters, walking down the corridors like a woman with a mission. That mission was called sickbay and her medical.
When she stepped into the spotlessly clean main area, she could see no one. Neither nurse nor doctor seemed present, and before she could call out, she heard voices coming from an open door at the end of the large room.
"... spiteful little devil! I don't know what's wrong with her. You'd think I tried to strangle her, or something equally horrifying." The first voice Marie heard belonged to the captain, and she suspected it was her he was complaining about. Who else had wounded his pride in the last hour?
"What did she do? Refuse your advances?" The other voice sounded annoyed to say the least, and had it not been for the sarcastic tone aimed at the captain, she might have walked out again immediately.
"She just walked out and let me standing there looking like an idiot." Marie winced slightly at the words, wondering if she should go interrupt, or just walk out and come back later.
"What did you do Jim?"
"Nothing!" A heavy silence seemed to ooze out of the room as Marie inched closer. "Well... not much."
"Not much with you normally means a minor skirmish where women are concerned." the captain's answer was mumbled, and even the other man seemed to think so. "What was that?"
"Just drop it Bones."
"That's what I thought." A hand on her shoulder startled Marie and she turned to find herself facing a pair of amused brown eyes.
"Don't mind the captain." The woman whispered. "He's always like that." the nurse winked at Marie, then drew her back towards the sickbay doors with a wicked looking smile. Louder and with a very professional tone , she asked: "May I help you?"
Blinking a moment, Marie fought for, and found her composure before answering in a similare tone of voice. "I'm here for my medical. Lieutenant Marie Sansonance."
"Right this way please. I'll inform Doctor McCoy." As Marie followed the brunette, she had to suppress a smile of almost malicious glee as the two men fell silent. As they passed the CMO's office door, Marie did not dare peek in through the half open door, but she and the nurse shared an amused look.
"I'm Alexis Crevecoeur, by the way."
"French?"
"Belgian. What about you?"
"From Lausanne. Papa was from Bruxeles and Maman from Paris." Both the brown and the blue eyes lit up with a mischievous realization. It was more the common language than the common origins which caused that reaction. They were interrupted from speaking futher by the same gruff voice she'd heard in the office.
"Lieutenant Sansonance." With a slight parting nod for Alexis, Marie turned to face the doctor. The picture in the official file did not do him justice. Not as tall as the captain, but somewhat bulkier, he looked like a gangster from the american 30s. A kind of Al Capone. All that was missing was the hat and tommy gun, and a bottle of whiskey. The slow Southern drawl wasn't quite hidden by the prevalent growl of irritation apparent in his very posture.
"Doctor McCoy?" Marie's examination of the doctor was returned inch for inch. If he was surprised at her stature, he hid it better than the Captain had. Then again, like her own, the scowl on his face had probably become second nature, and very little would ever shake it loose.
"If you please." He gestured at the bio bed, and with a curt nod, she nimbly hopped up as he pulled out his medical tricorder. The scan was completed in an almost belligerent silence – which suited her just fine. Knowing what the next few weeks held for her, she suspected that she would become a near permanent fixture here as one by one, her subordinates learned their place and she had to bring them here to fix broken noses, sprained wrists and bruised egos. The last one the doctor would probably aggravate instead of cure. With a mental shrug, Marie turned her attention back to the man scowling at the instrument he was holding.
"I hope I didn't brusque the captain too much." She wasn't certain, but it seemed that a smile had tugged on the doctor's lips at her words.
"He'll survive."
With a wave of his hand and a nod, he dismissed her and Marie gladly walked out. As security officer – as chief of security especially – she would spend more than enough time in Sickbay. It was something of an occupational hazard.
Author's Note: the French above translates as: "Would you be proud of me, Mom, if you saw me today?"
I also wanted to do the conversation in the Flashback in French (with the translation in the A/N) I just wasn't sure how much French would be too much. Or to put it differently: How much could I get away with? a) an occasional sentence or word? b) entire conversation? c) no French at all.
Remember that Alexis is also a native French speaker, so this is important for future chapters. And I don't want to put you off with something like that. =)
Normal posting schedule will be Tuesdays and Thursdays. I'll try to stick to that.
Cheers
Canna
