A/N - Ok, so this story was inspired by a twitter conversation I was having with KathDMD and Limetwist — my dental peeps in all things K/A — about a dental themed K/A story. This idea came to me and wouldn't leave, even as I was concentrating on other things, so it is now written so that my muse will stop beating me up!
On a side note, this is a little different as it involves an OC prominently, which I don't usually like when you want to read about your favourite pairing, but it was necessary for the story, so I hope you will like her. Incidentally, this problem, involving our favourite Princess, I have seen, in varying degrees, on no less than four occasions in my career, so think about that before you go to the dentist next time. (insert evil laugh here!). All dental terminology is there solely for my peeps and shouldn't lose you if you glide over it. No need to pull out the medical dictionary! lol Enjoy!
Set in the VF time frame, before the war is over, and Black Lion was gone.
Disclaimer: I don't own Voltron, just my imagination.
"Oh Andreaaaaaaahhhhhhhh!" came the sing-song voice of the royal physician – one Eric Gorma – to the woman who was currently just finishing up the inventory of the number four medical storage closet.
Andria McShane – the woman in question – glanced up at her colleague and friend and levelled a twisted and slightly exasperated smile in his direction. Whenever the man came to her with that cheeky tone of voice, the results were never good.
"I have a patient coming up to see you. The Princess will be here in a few minutes." Gorma smiled broadly at his number one assistant and head of support staff for the Castle of Lions. Andria blinked in surprise at his announcement. Dr. Gorma was the royal physician and, as such, generally saw to the Princess personally. Even so-called "women's problems" were handled by him.
"To what do I owe the honour, Eric? What are you up to?" Andria's eyes narrowed at the physician and levelled a look to him that told him, in no uncertain terms, that she better get the whole story from him or there would be hell to pay later.
"Oh, nothing to worry about 'Dré. I just received a call from Coran that the Princess showed up for lion practice with a toothache or something of that sort, and one of the pilots is going to escort her here so she can be seen by one of our finest diagnostic professionals." Gorma's smile, if possible, broadened further, and he started to back out of the storage closet and beat a hasty retreat to his office.
Andria huffed an exasperated breath and smiled at Gorma's retreating back. Eric hated dental problems. It was the one thing that seemed to give him the creeps. It always amazed her that he could be elbow deep in someone's intestines and not break a sweat, but someone had a chipped incisor, and he was heading for the hills. "Don't you want to have a look and make the initial diagnosis?" she shouted to his retreating back, trying to get one last dig in.
"Not that kind of doctor." He sang to her again, as the door to his office shut with a firm click.
"Smart ass." She chuckled, as she went to activate the small alcove that held all the castle's dental equipment.
Although not a doctor, Andria was typical of most medical people in that she wore many hats and was well versed in a multitude of disciplines. Currently in her late forties, the self proclaimed "Jack of all trades, master of none", had started at the castle as a midwife, and had even been one of the several people present at the Princess's birth. Andria had then expanded her skills to include surgical assistant, trauma first responder, dental care technician, chiropractor, and physiotherapist. She first met Eric Gorma then, as a new intern, and the two of them struck up a friendship that had lasted ever since. They had worked so well as a team, in fact, that they had stayed on at the castle, even after their rotations were over, and had become part of the medical team responsible for the health of the King and his court.
Being in the castle had been a mixed blessing when the initial attacks from Doom had first occurred. Andria had left fairly early on to be with the women and children in the caves and Eric had left with Coran and the Princess to an unknown destination. Andria had lost all contact as she, like all the others, struggled to survive and thrive despite the constant threat of invasion and domination from Doom.
It wasn't until the new castle arose and Voltron once again flew in the skies that Andria had come back to the castle, and brought a troop of medical support staff that she had trained to provide relief to the people injured during their years in the caves. She had been thrilled to learn that Gorma had survived, and he had been ecstatic about her return, the help that she had trained, and their level of competence.
He had despaired that he would ever see her again.
They had spent her second night in the castle getting very drunk, and getting caught up on each other's lives. Of course, there were things that were still to difficult to discuss, but Andria had been pleased that Eric had married Bella, his sweetheart from before the war, and had three beautiful children, who he had shown to her proudly in the picture on his desk. The suffering had profoundly changed both of them and the way they worked, trying to help people as best they could, in their own way, with almost no supplies or equipment. He had seemed changed in temperament from before, but hadn't they all been changed by this war? Andria was just happy to see, after five years of working together again, that Eric had started to get his light hearted, saucy attitude back again, if only around her, and only at certain times.
Everyone saw Eric Gorma as a grave, intense, and serious man of medicine. Andria McShane knew differently.
Friendship aside, Andria was not above needling him for beating a hasty retreat, and was thinking up possible ways to do so when the Princess of Arus quietly walked into the outer waiting area, accompanied by none other than the pilot of the Black Lion himself, Keith. This caused Andria to be surprised once again, as the captain of the Voltron Force was often just as busy as the Princess herself, and his presence was certainly not required for such a simple task as escorting their monarch to the infirmary. Still, Andria buried her curiosity and went out to greet the young woman that she had known, literally, since her birth.
Andria brought the Princess into the dental alcove and got her seated comfortably. "So Your Highness, what seems to be the problem?"
"My front teeth, on the top are really throbbing. The gums are swollen and are really painful to touch. I was having problems eating this morning and Coran told me I should come and see you to have it looked at. It is really starting to ache constantly!" Allura looked like she was close to tears, her big green eyes drooping in an effort to control her reaction to her discomfort.
"I hope you can help, and that it's not too serious. I think that I might be coming down with something. And please, Andria, just call me Allura. We're in here alone, after all." Allura waved her hand absently to the empty room.
Andria grinned at her princess and nodded. She really did like this young woman a great deal.
"Well then, Allura, let's have a look at the area and see what we can do." After putting on her gloves and mask and tipping her back in the chair, Andria gently pulled her lips away from her teeth and regarded the swollen gums that surrounded Allura's top incisors. While the soft tissue was definitely edematous, Andria did not see any visible causes for the gingiva to be that swollen in such a defined space. The back teeth and gums looked great. The bottom teeth in the front seemed to be fine as well, although there was a small, reddish area in between two of the incisors, although not as bad as the top teeth. Either way, Allura hadn't had any of those problems two months ago, when she had come in for her exam and her biannual rinse with the hydroxyapatite remineralization compound. Allura was usually very conscientious about her oral health.
"Allura, has there been any change in your head and neck area in the past few weeks? Have you hit your mouth when in combat or maybe even accidentally?" At Allura's headshake, Andria thought about it some more. "Any changes in routine? New toothpaste? Floss? Mouth rinse? New foods that you have tried?" Again, Allura shook her head, no. "Well, it is looking like a mystery. I'm going to take some scans of the area and show them to Dr. Kay. Maybe she will be able to shed some light on it."
Dr. Francis Kay was an orthopaedic surgeon, a neurologist, and the castle's dental consultant on tricky and difficult cases. Unfortunately, there had been an emergency about two hundred kilometres away in a village and some of the people had been buried in a rockslide. Dr. Kay had been dispatched to render medical assistance for the fractured and crushed bones that had resulted and she wouldn't be able to come back for at least another two days, until the situation could be brought under control.
"Oh, please don't bring her back here just for me." Allura pleaded. She had seen the vid of the poor people who had been caught under the rocks, and the pain they were enduring. Allura did not want to take the doctor away from people who truly needed her skills.
"Not to worry, Allura, I'll just send the scans to her computer and get her opinion. I already know what I want to do next, but I want her to see if she likes my treatment plan as well." Andria brought over a digital three-dimensional scanner, much like the old fashioned CT scanners of long ago, and gently scanned the upper and lower jaws of the princess to see into the bone. A quick look at the scans confirmed what she had suspected. There didn't seem to be any fracture of the bone or any infection of the teeth anywhere. The scans looked absolutely normal.
"Allura, I'm going to call Dr. Kay and see if she has a moment to see these and talk to me. Is the Captain still waiting for you? He can come in to keep you company if you wish."
Allura smiled and nodded. "I told him to leave; that I would call if anything was serious, but the Commander is very stubborn about a great many things. He said he would wait."
"Being too stubborn to submit is what kept us all alive and free in the caves, Allura. I suppose that he has the right to be, just like the rest of us." Andria smiled broadly and went to tell the waiting Commander that he could go in, and keep his Princess company.
Andria went into her small office and sent the scans to the surgeon, along with a request to contact her immediately. Sure enough, a call from Dr. Kay came through just a few moments later. Andria had been hesitant about disturbing the doctor if she was in surgery, but medical requests that involved the planet's monarch were not something that would be put off if she was free to take the call. After going through some pleasantries, Dr. Kay reviewed the scans again and confirmed that the bone and teeth looked normal.
"I don't know what to tell you, Andria." Dr. Kay said with a puzzled look at the scans again. "You can't see any loss of the alveolar ridge or any thickening of the periodontal ligament. There doesn't seem to be any pathology at all. It could be viral, but it's in such a small area, and I haven't seen anything like this. The edema is usually much more bulbous, and the tissue tends to slough more. Maybe it's just as simple as food being trapped." Andria nodded in agreement.
"The Princess says she hasn't eaten anything new that would account for this, but I know the men of the Voltron force are popcorn fanatics when they have movie nights. They've come here in the past to get me to remove some husks before. I was planning on anaesthetizing the area and debriding the sulcular area to see if that helps."
"Sounds like a plan, McShane. Let me know if the situation doesn't improve." Both women smiled at the old camaraderie. Francis Kay was a force of nature, even in her eighties, and had been one of Andria's gurus and role models, working tirelessly in the caves to keep people alive and useful. They had called each other "McShane and O'Kay" when they had worked together during that time, and all that Andria had learned about dentistry, she had learned from her.
"I'll be okay if O'Kay's on the job." Andria smirked, using the old phrase. They both signed off, and Andria got back to her patient.
She came back to the chair to find Allura laughing softly with the commander, his eyes focused on her own and a smile gracing his normally stolid features. He seemed to be doing a good job of distracting the Princess from her pain, so she chose to completely ignore the way his hand had held hers only a second before, or the way he stood very closely to her and brushed the hair on her temple behind her ear, like a gentle caress.
Yes, all those things were irrelevant to the problem before her and she could safely ignore all the connections that were happening in her brain with every step she made to the pair. The Captain's blue eyes stared hard at her, no doubt realizing that she may of seen something he didn't want her to see and trying to gage her reaction and thus his own.
Andria refused to be intimidated by the very intimidating Captain. She was old enough to be his mother and she didn't hold to all the traditions and rituals that came with being a royal. It was very hard to care about trivial things, like bloodlines and protocols and silverware matching, when you were trying to throw a rock accurately at a rat, so you could have meat in the stew the next day. Her own family was only about four generations removed from the royal line – Allura and herself shared a great grandmother on her mother's side – but that didn't mean anything if you were unfit to lead. She had been beyond relieved when she had seen that Allura had inherited her father's ability to be the leader that her people needed.
Andria had a great respect for the young monarch – she was smart, compassionate, and had a real grasp on the reality that her people had endured during the bombardment before Voltron. She also was an integral part of the protection of the planet by being Blue Lion's pilot. Andria had no doubt in her mind that the young woman was happy with the Captain's presence – both here and possibly elsewhere as well, and that was enough for her.
"Thank you for coming in to keep the Princess company, Captain" Andria spoke directly to Keith, smiling and motioning to the waiting room door. "I can take it from here, but if you want to wait in the lounge again, we shouldn't be more than an hour." She kept her voice light and kind, to let him know that she would not have a problem with him staying.
Keith's tense pose and stare continued for a heartbeat more, then slowly relaxed. His lips came up in a small, brief smile, before he quickly nodded his head slightly to her and turned to the princess to smile and wave absently to her. "I'll be right outside." He said softly to her before striding to the door and letting it close softly behind him.
Andria turned to Allura again and gave her the same smile as she seated herself on the chair beside her patient. "I spoke to Dr. Kay and she agreed with my course of treatment. I'm going to give you some anaesthetic to numb up your gums, and then I'm going to go around each tooth, underneath the gums slightly, and see if you have anything stuck there. If not, then you might have a viral infection in the area, and I'll give you a rinse to use for the next few days to treat it." She waited for the princess to nod her consent, and then put her back so she was once again lying back down.
Andria misted the anaesthetic on the front gums and gave a small spray to the nerve bundle behind the central incisors. She watched in amusement as Allura's face relaxed to one of relief, eyes closing as the medication took effect, and her pain went away. A quick prodding of the tissue confirmed that everything was numb, so Andria picked up a fine tipped explorer and gently inserted it under the lip of tissue not attached to the tooth or bone. So much technology, and sometimes it comes down to a metal pick, she thought with a mental snort.
As she went over the area, she did notice something stuck around the teeth in multiple areas. It didn't seem to want to move, however. Andria narrowed her eyes in concentration and reached to replace the explorer with a thin bladed instrument, in the hopes of gripping whatever was so clearly stuck underneath. A little more pressure, and she was able to pull something out, along with some blood from the disturbance. Andria wiped the instrument with some gauze and stared at the long, dark filament. It was like nylon, or thread, or… Andria's eyes widened and bit back a choke when she realized what it was.
This was definitely not viral.
Purposely blanking her mind, she continued around all the teeth in question, inside and out, until nothing else could be found. She then proceeded to check the rest of the mouth, including the slight red patch on her bottom gums. It merely confirmed what she already suspected. There was just one thing more.
"Allura, you said that you thought that you might be coming down with something? Why do you think that?"
Allura opened her eyes and blinked a moment to think. "Oh, my throat was a little sore this morning, but it feels much better right now. Why? Do you think that I should see Dr. Gorma?"
Andria blew out a breath through her mask and swallowed a little nervously. "Well, how about I check your throat first and see if this is something that the doctor needs to see." Allura nodded and opened her mouth again wide so Andria could look at the back of her throat.
Andria didn't have to go very far back to see what she thought she might find. She took a quick picture to show the princess, and then put her upright to discuss her findings.
She actually wasn't sure how to bring up what she had discovered. Not telling Allura was out of the question, yet it was a very sensitive subject that had to be handled very discretely if she was reading the situation right. There was also the admittedly evil part of her that wanted to go into her office alone and laugh hysterically for a few minutes. She sighed a little in regret. She would never share the information with anyone — even Gorma — but she really wanted to.
"Allura, I went around your gums and I did find a foreign object – or rather foreign objects – surrounding your teeth underneath the gum area. My guess is it has been there for a day or so, which is why your gums swelled up the way they did. I removed the objects and rinsed the area with an antibiotic solution to help speed up the healing. It should feel better by the time the anaesthetic wears out."
"Thank you, Andria. I feel very relieved. But what did I have in my gums, anyway? I don't want a repeat of this visit."
Andria coughed a little and struggled to find her voice for a moment before facing the Princess again. "Allura, before I tell you, I think that you should look at this picture that I took of your soft palate. Please tell me what you see."
"It looks like a bruise, maybe? What are all those dots?" Allura asked, bewildered.
"That, Allura, is called soft palate petechiae. It is indeed like a bruise. Notice how the little dots are all in a concentrated area? That is caused by a round or oval shaped object firmly hitting your soft palate repeatedly in the same area." Andria looked pointedly at Allura and let her mind fill in the blanks.
She looked at her a little confused for a moment, repeating the explanation to herself for a couple of seconds before her eyes went wide and snapped up to meet Andria's face, to read the confirmation in her nod. Her hands instinctively went over her mouth and her face flamed brightly with embarrassment. Her eyes closed in humiliation and Andria reached out to grasp her upper arm and give it a squeeze in reassurance.
"So… the objects you found underneath my gums…" She couldn't finish the sentence that she choked out, but Andria didn't need to answer as she pulled the tray into Allura's line of vision and let her see the gauze that had several curly black hairs deposited onto it.
Allura looked ill. Actually, she looked like she wanted the floor to drop away and swallow her whole, but mostly she just looked devastatingly embarrassed. Andria's heart went out to the girl. Not only had she found evidence of what should have been a very private moment, but it had been made very apparent to her today who the moment had been shared with. It was also apparent that this relationship was not common knowledge or probably even approved of.
That part didn't bother Andria in the slightest. She was woefully ignorant of castle gossip anyway, but she would be damned if anyone thought that the Princess's personal life was any business but her own. Not in her hearing, anyway. Andria touched Allura's hand, and waited for her to look at her before she started to speak.
"Allura. This was meant to give you an explanation as to why your gums and throat were sore." Andria then proceeded to delete the photo and threw the gauze into the incinerator beside her chair. "I have to write up your dental chart, but really, nobody around here reads that part of your medical file, and I can make it sufficiently technical that only someone who knows what they are looking for will have a clue. Besides, as the ruler of Arus, your file is VERY privileged information, only open to a select few, even here in the castle." Andria squeezed her hand and smiled at her reassuringly. "Nobody will ever hear anything from me, of that you can be sure."
Allura looked up at Andria and smiled slightly through the tears that had started to form in her eyes. Andria's assurances had calmed her down, but it did nothing to stem her horrible feeling of embarrassment at the whole thing. Andria rubbed her arm in sympathy but grinned a little at her.
"Chin up, Allura. You are not the first person that I've seen with this condition, and I daresay that you won't be the last. You are your own woman and you certainly have nothing to be embarrassed about or apologize for. It will be funny to you in the future, although I'm sure it's not at the moment. Try not to worry about anything. Although…" Andria paused a moment and bit back a grin. "You may want to tell the commander to trim himself though, so it doesn't happen in the future."
Allura choked back a laugh and rolled her eyes at her. She got up from the chair then as Andria escorted the Princess back to her waiting Captain, who rose instantly as she approached and looked at her with curiosity, when he noticed her flushed skin when she looked at him. Andria closed the door on them and wondered what their next conversation was going to be like. She smirked at the thought of the Captain's next visit and how he would be around her at that time.
As she started cleaning up the operatory, she mentally went over her plan. Gorma would never read the chart after she gave him the verbal diagnosis of a gingival infection. Dr. Kay might be trickier if she got curious about the case, but Andria was certain, if it came down to it, that she could put the physician off with a word about the Princess's privacy. Kay wouldn't push if she asked her not to do so. No one else had the authority to read the files other than them, so the rest was up to her and her very fluent grasp of "dentaleeze" to finish up the paperwork.
As she walked over to her office after the clean up, to write her report and put the incident behind everyone, she couldn't help but think that Captain Keith Kogane was really a very lucky man.
Ok, I know, but really, with an oral theme, I couldn't resist! Please be kind in the reviews! lol