Peebee, engrossed with her own irritation, found the qualities of the med bay valueless in comparison to the more recent details she's found herself captivated with in recent months. Attentiveness came as more of a spatial quality than one meant to be consistently invested in; the environment always determined what did and didn't deserve her immediate attention.
The only quality she made note of within the medbay was the fact that there was just barely enough space to claim a path where her pacing had a wider expanse in step and stride with the confines of the room than the escape pod. Every one of her pivot and turn motions were made effortlessly while her rambling reigned on before her considerate patience of her company.
"There's no reason for me to be here." She proclaimed, incredulity in tone, "I'm not even a real member of the crew… just a hitchhiker really." Peebee's words fell to a mumble, and continued. There's really is no reason for me to be here—" a short humorless laugh, "—I could just pack up and be on my way and this… physical," the word said with nothing short of disgust, and loud enough that Lexi spared a short glare, "would be a waste of my time—is a waste of my time."
What Peebee lacked—and hoped that no one else knew—was the definitive conviction to swing one way or another; it was never her intention to be faced with the back and forth of wanting to go and knowing she would stay. It was advantageous to invite herself on-board the Tempest, the reasons purely selfish in nature but good-willed at it's very core.
The fact that it came with the expectation of enlistment—as if half the info the Nexus had on her were completely authentic to begin with—was an outrage of its own.
"Are you nervous?" Dr. Lexi T'Perro said, smiling faintly, speaking up amidst Peebee's tremendous efforts to clarify her own standing on board the Tempest.
She considered the question as foolhardy as they came. "Nervous isn't the right word. Annoyed? Maybe. Irritated? Probably. But nervous? Don't count on it." Peebee's affirmation was made with a snort, clearly lacking humor, a halted pace, and a loosely casted accusatory finger towards the doctor, "And don't think I'm here because I want to be."
Lexi stood presently unaffected by her declarations, but rather kept her attention to a datapad in need of the finishing touches of her preparation. "If it helps," Lexi calmly began without looking up, "I take no pleasure in this, it's simply my job. But if you'd like my advice-"
"I don't." Peebee harshly interrupted, arms crossed as a show of defiance. "The last thing I need is some matron trying to tell me how to live my life."
Peebee firmly believed that any unprompted advice was a product of an extremely inflated sense of self and a hardened desire to impose a surrogate legacy, a "seed" they would probably call it. The hope that their banal views on the galaxy would somehow change her into some obedient zealot of the outdated and paradoxical ideals of society was a battle lost across time and space itself.
"Maiden." Lexi corrected. "And my advice-" she reasserted, "-the longer you argue, the longer you stay."
Peebee opened her mouth to protest to be faced with the truth of her statement, leaving her momentarily silent. "Right, whatever." A pause. "Let's get it over with then."
Lexi, in brevity, smiled at the compliance. "Any detailed medical history I should know about? Your medical records on the Nexus aren't as…"
"Tangible? Material? Existential?"
"Thorough."
Peebee shrugged knowing that any existing medical file about her was no more reliable than any other actual documentation about her or her existence within the Andromeda Initiative. Kalinda made sure of that. "As far as anyone is concerned, I'm of health. No chronic illnesses, allergies or any other infirmity for you to dissect into a dissertation."
"So quick to assume that you're that interesting," Lexi said "You never took part in any medications for any period of time before or after arriving in Andromeda?"
"Not a single one-never needed them, never will." Peebee started pacing once again, slower than before but still impatient, "Anything else? I'd love to stay and chat but I have things to do, people to see, remnant to study."
"One or two." Lexi said, working to add the information to the datapad. When finished, she approached Peebee, whose pacing halted in reaction. "Since you adamantly refuse to be regarded as my patient, you can consider the question personal, but it's-"
Peebee's mirthless laugh interrupted her, "No." Her frustration was quick to flare, subjectively placing herself on the higher ground in this situation. Even though she knew there was no reason to waste time or attitude for out of date ideals and preconceptions about who she was, it never failed to push her to the edge when anyone attempted to understand her. "—Good try but if you're trying to get some…" She paused, skepticism showcasing itself in frustrated purse of lips, and bemused waves of hands, "… some elaborate look into my psyche—Not. Happening. The last thing I need is—" another huffed exhale, "Just—no. No personal questions. ."
The permeation of her mood settling into the air and Lexi wholly unaffected by it, as if she was a child refusing to do something as trivial as cleaning up after herself. There was no expression made in an effort to engage in pleasantries and not teeming with the frustrations she had initially expected to transpire. Peebee hated it, hated that even without trying, Lexi made her feel small. She remained composed and resolutely observant, as if while Peebee stood there scrutinized by her gaze, Lexi was silently trying to figure her out, picking at small details and drawing long winded psychobabble from nothing.
"If you feel so strongly about it, I won't press you any further." Lexi said unperturbed, retreating without protest to return back to her workspace. "Feel free to return to your escape pod."
Peebee stood nonplussed. She admittedly expected more, wanted Lexi to make her comments that were teeming on the edge of snapping but held back with learned control. Watching her squirm between composure and exasperation would have been worth it.
However, even in Peebee's perplexed state, Dr. T'Perro continued on as if she wasn't even standing there, returning attention to the collection of data organized before her.
Peebee remained in a battle of her own making. The restitue truth that she needed to be here. The physical was an unfortunate prerequisite for any further moves forward and the only obstacle sat in quietly and ignored her.
"You can't just—" Peebee started but couldn't finished, Lexi's curious glance meeting hers. "That's not how—" another full stop.
She bounced between bristling frustration and the feeling that even though the conversation was over it felt as if it would perpetually exist in the air until she found some satisfactory end to it. It was a hollow victory. She was successful in eluding and probing questions or allowing any physical analysis just as she initially came for, but there was something missing, something incomplete. "Ryder won't like it." A voiced thought that she knew better than to use to explain or reason, but used it anyway simply due to a lack of options.
"And Ryder, when the time comes, will see what data I have collected." Lexi said absently, turning away once again. "A full physical is required before you go out in the field on the Initiative's bill—which you are on since deciding to join Nexus efforts."
"A full physical?" Annoyance prevalent in every syllable. Peebee rolled her eyes, then said, "Remind me what that entails again?"
Lexi paused after setting own her datapad down, as if to assess her own degree of annoyance. With a short sigh, she said, "A full physical exam includes checking your head, neck, abdominal area, nails, and limbs. I'll listen to the heart and lungs and to complete the physical, I may draw blood in order to run several laboratory tests to check for any irregularities." Lexi turned to face Peebee, "It's a very simple, non-invasive procedure that takes fifteen minutes or less."
Mulling over the details, Peebee weighed her options; face a physical she would much rather pass on, or miss out on every vault from now until she finally came back for this goddess forsaken physical. The choice was clear. "Let's stick with or less."
Lexi stood from her chair, her smile faint. "Feel free to venture deeper into the med bay when you're ready to get started."
"Right." Peebee said "And don't do that, the smiling thing, makes me think you're trying to be friendly."
"Is it so wrong that I am?" She asked, hands touching at the base of Peebee's neck the moment she was in reach, "Or would you prefer I be rude?" Thumbs and palms checked points up to the base of her jaw until pairs fingers touched just under ears.
"You? Rude?" Peebee said, squirming briefly at the touch but recalling times she's heard Lexi talk on Tempest comms to other members of the crew. She was always kind, worrisome and overbearing, but never rude. "That would be something worth seeing."
"Even if you were my first victim?" Lexi fingers managing the same ministrations along her crest briefly, slight smirk in her features. "Turn your head."
Peebee complied, then said, "probably not, well—it depends."
"Other way, and on what exactly?"
"How good you are at it. Just because you try to be rude, doesn't mean you are or can be."
"I'm sure I could manage—look forward again." Lexi said, stepping away momentarily to grab a datapad from her desk, and returning. "Cover your right eye, read the first line of numbers."
Peebee frowned at the offered datapad before taking it, shooting a short glare of incredulity, "Really?"
"Yes really. Hold it at arm's length and read it."
One short sigh and free hand over eye later, she hastily read the string of numbers of letters listed. When Lexi commanded the same deed but with a new line of text and a different eye, she did the same without protest. She returned to datapad to Lexi, not without scrutiny in her gaze, who said, "I need you to remove your jacket for the next part of the exam" as she returned the datapad with the rest.
Peebee hesitated, not because of the request, but realizing she didn't want to see was the underlying judgement in Lexi's observations of her. Peebee, even after the passing time, still wanted to be good enough, and earn approval in all aspects of her life from people she claimed not to put any charge in the opinions they harbored of her.
"Peebee? Your jacket." Lexi reiterated after noting Peebee's distrait expression.
"I'm getting to it," she replied mildly. She started with gloves, then buckles of bracer, wanting to divert any ideas behind her earlier hesitation by saying, "Can't wait to see me without it, huh?"
Lexi was unamused by the jest, "Of all the things you have said to me, that may have been the most absurd."
Peebee set the bracer on the medical bed behind her, briefly smirking but continuing to shed her armored jacket. She stood in a black sleeveless crop top with a medium collar that hugged her neck as much as it did the other parts of her it covered.
"Well?" Peebee asked, arms low and open as if she waited for something out of Lexi, a snide comment, a judgmental sneer, but earned nothing but the same calm stare she maintained.
"Turn around, please." Lexi requested, and Peebee complied without comment. "If anything I do hurts, feel free to inform me."
Lexi placed the pad of thumbs into the small of her back, fingers wrapping around waist. Her thumbs traveled higher, pressing into her back, fingers still drifting at her sides.
Feeling the measured touch reminded Peebee of how long it had been since anyone has touched her, intimately or affectionately. Lexi continued the measured touch and pressure along her back while that thought alone resonated with the idea that she simultaneously missed and loathed the touch. It boiled down to comparisons, that which brought Kalinda to mind and the memories that came with it and the distant observations of Lexi she's kept since she set foot on the Tempest.
Dr. T'Perro, by her standards, wasn't all that bad looking. From what she collected, Lexi stood poised, controlled in every setting she was placed in, sharing faint smiles, and gentle reminders between conversational versatility and polite engaging touches—at least when she spoke to someone she enjoyed talking to.
It reminded her of Kalinda, the way she could conduct herself among the higher-class moguls of Thessia's commercial conglomerate, treated it like a cake walk, and took her along for the ride.
She loved it then, going to all those fancy parties, dressing the part, and feeling. even in a room of the highest paid asari in the galaxy, she was still special, different, important, when she easily be considered anything but. It would have been a lie if she said she didn't miss it; long nights out, draped over Kalinda's arm while she talked to matriarchs, and then returning to her luxurious condos for another long near sleepless night.
"Peebee." Lexi said, drawing her attention away from trailing thoughts. When she turned face to catch Lexi in the corner of her eye with a short "huh", the doctor continued, "I said cross your arms." With nothing short than mild annoyance at repeating herself.
She complied, crossed her arms but didn't want her mind to drift too far. The feeling of every thought about Kalinda becoming bittersweet, teetering closer to bitter. "Have you ever been to Thessia? Seen what the cities are like?"
"Once, for schooling," Lexi answered absently, absorbed in the exam. "Why?"
"Just curious," a pause, "I lived on Thessia for a while, in Serrice. Went there initially for another degree, it was my 12th—or 13th—thought I'd try my hand at astrology. Strangely enough, Serrice was the kind of city I would have probably decided to live in once I got old enough, or bored enough. There's always a party to be at, always something new to try, the city is always changing no matter the day or time."
"It sounds eventful. Any reason why you didn't stay?"
Peebee shrugged, "Same reason as any other; got my degree, and after a few months, got bored. Left it behind, never looked back."
"Raise your arms, level to shoulders." Lexi requested, hands coming to examine them as she did her back. She allowed a short silence between them, then said, "Before I went to school on Thessia, I had to learn everything from my mother and father since Omega didn't exactly have a reliable education system." She paused to turn her attention to opposing arm, "But I once had a tutor very early in my maiden years, a dancer for Afterlife and a friend of my mother. She once told me she lived in Serrice, worked for Serrice Technology for decades before suddenly quit because she grew bored of the corporate lifestyle she maintained."
"Vetra said you were from Omega," Peebee scoffed, "but I thought she was lying."
"Why?" Lexi asked, amused.
"Because you're—well you're so uptight."
"I see." Lexi paused, guiding hands along Peebee's arms as a sign that she could let them down, her touch lingering on forearms, chin hovering over shoulder. That touch again, soft, lingering, tempting in some ways, nerve wrecking in others. "The same way that an asari from Port Lerama could be so…"
"—Exciting? Adventurous? Daring?" Peebee said.
"Intrepid." Lexi finished, moving past Peebee to lean over desk, adding a few more details to the awaiting datapad, "You can put your jacket back on."
"If that's your way of showing that you can be rude, it needs a little work. How'd you know I was from Port Lerma?" Peebee shrugged the jacket back over her shoulders, clasped the bracer back around her waist.
"Some files on the Nexus are more accurate than you think."
She scoffed at that,"So, we all done here, or?"
"One last thing." Lexi said, returning to face Peebee.
Lexi's hand encircled Peebee's holding them for a moment, gaze focused on them and pads of thumbs rubbing circles over the back of her hands. She noted the way Lexi touched at her hands, slowly turning them over so palms face the ceiling, treating them carefully. The way she cradled her hands in her palms, thumbs resting on wrists, sparked a sense of comfort. Lexi seemed to linger there, holding her hands, wondering if the downward gaze and soft touch were the beginning of something… unexpected. Logically, her mind knew it was improbable to believe Lexi would succumb to something so intimate, and doubted that Lexi would be harboring some kind of hidden affection for her.
But what if she does?
She didn't assume something as vastly narcissistic as love at first sight, but the making of a crush couldn't have been too far off mark.
"Peebee?" Lexi said, voice softer than before. "Are you nervous?"
"Me? No, of course not. Why? Are you?"
"Your heart rate spiked momentarily. Is there something bothering you?" Lexi asked, and for the first time since she'd grabbed Peebee's hands they locked eyes. Peebee was looking for something in the shimmer of studying irises, wonder what could be hiding in them. She was met with nothing more than growing concern for her hesitation, and realized that Lexi was probably thinking that something was actually wrong rather than an unexplained sense of disappointment in failed assumptions.
Peebee shook her head. "Not at all, just eager to get back to my escape pod. I'm still holding you to that 'or less' part of the fifteen minutes deal."
Lexi smiled at the reminder, but took the moment to left hands drift along her palms making Peebee pause. She was convinced. Dr. T'Perro had to have something harboring something behind all her composure with a move like that, she was sure of it or at least convincing herself that she was. Peebee didn't want to look at the touch as if looking at it would confirm all her suspicions, until she felt a sharp prick on her finger.
"Ow! Shit!" Peebee snatched her hands away from Lexi's grip to tend to newly bleeding finger, "What was that for?"
"Blood sample." She replied nonchalantly, "The physical is now officially over, and you are free to rummage about in your escape pod. Though, I do have to recommend that you take the time to sleep in a proper bed to avoid any future back problems."
"Where were you even hiding the needle? How did you even—" She paused, her anger feigned, "do you normally go around stabbing people without them knowing? Is this a new talent of yours?"
"Not new, no." Lexi said, amusement in tone, "I suppose a few lessons on Omega stuck, even after all this time." She returned to her work station, tending to the newly gained blood sample.
Peebee found herself hesitating again, with Dr. Lexi's attention no longer on her she thought she might start missing it. Lexi turned out to be different from what she expected.
"Right, Whatever." Peebee's final word before leaving med bay and out of the attentions of Dr. Lexi and upset simply at the fact that she was smiling. If there was one thing she hated, it was feeling as though she had given something up. Dr. Lexi had taken something from her in that moment and she couldn't quite understand what.
Lexi considered first impressions to be timeless. They served as an infinitely existing point of reference, the comparative differences in people that could be believed to come from a sense of familiarity. Their regards of you get better or worse because of the impact caused by simply being present in their life. Empirically, Dr. Lexi's first impressions were usually good, finding herself often met with respect. It became clear, over time, that it may have been solely due to her title of doctor that sanctioned her results; who she was became a secondary footnote in any first impression especially now.
Between those who try to impress, fit as many medical buzzwords as if it was normal part of their vocabulary, take the time to ask outlandish medical questions, or get a quick prognosis of their most recent bodily irritation, there was little room for small talk.
In truth, Peebee was, in a way, interesting. It wasn't the product of study that she made note of her behavior well before they encountered one another in a private setting. In truth, simply hearing about Peebee had initially deterred her. Peebee clearly has issues not only with commitment, but something beyond that. She would be the trouble marker, Lexi recalled saying to herself, the kind of trouble that spread among others if they were susceptible to hair brained ideas and momentary periods of temporary excitement.
But she hated the thought the moment it surfaced, knowing better than to lay judgement so quickly. Though her experience within the physical made it hard not to presume, she saw the glimpses of something different in her.
When Peebee left after the completion of her physical, Lexi caught herself replaying the short test part by part more for novelty than purpose. What continued to capture her attention were the reactions bred from the pulse check.
The Tempest crew, even with some lingering misgivings about doctors, treated her with respect. When it came to check-ups and periodic questions between missions they held a very simple means to an end attitude, one very similar to Peebee's, but knew that she was only doing the job she was given. As the persistent outlier, Peebee faced her with an unexpected level of disdain, going so far as to very openly preach exactly how she felt about the whole situation. In a way, it was honesty, though emboldened by contempt.
She knew, the moment she began the test, that often times patients perceive things different from what they are. Some touches in normally intimate places overlaying with a typical procedure often bred confusion. It had surprised her to see and sense that confusion in Peebee, to noticed the small discrepancies in her mannerisms as a reaction. As a doctor, she knew better than to indulge something so trivial knowing that it led down a path she didn't want to traverse in the near future.
But what was unexpected was the unprompted sharing of minor personal details. Even as she sat in the med bay, she idly recalled the glimpse into one of Peebee's past lives before Andromeda. Professionally, discussing a patient's personal life usually came as small talk during check-ups, shared to pass time or fill always silences that often enveloped the med bay. Lexi always showed genuine interest in knowing more, considering the personalities and mannerisms of her patients essential to treating them with the best care, but often kept herself at arms-length. In that moment, she shared details about herself to instill a sense of comfort in Peebee, allowed her to feel as though she wasn't giving away a piece of her past, but simply participating in a conversation. Or so she told herself.
A part of her wanted to decipher exactly why Peebee shared something with a degree of duality, a sense of freedom among the consideration of an end game. Perhaps in all her adventuring, Peebee simply wanted to weigh all her options, see all she could, before making a decision that she would be content with.
"Unlikely." Lexi mused aloud to herself, the idea that Peebee would invest in something more finite was a joke in itself. She was beyond deciphering the mystery that Peebee so adamantly surrounded herself with.
It reminded her of past love interests, where she never restricted herself in terms of species, they all usually surrounded themselves in mysteries, checkered pasts, dark stories, a brooding sense of self that charmed her. Finding their affections to be tempered by commitment issues and their ability to be honest lacking, she often fell out of love as quickly as she fell into it.
With the grievances of her past still ringing familiar, she forsake the idea of anything beyond a professional relationship.
