Author's note: Greensleeves AU story.
Disclaimer:I don't own Star Trek or anything associated with it, and am not making any money from this. I own all original characters, situations, and locations.
It was early September in San Franciso, although it was difficult to tell with the weather the way it was. The sun beat down as if it were mid-July and there was no hiding from the heat, at least not outdoors. The humidity was high, which was tolerable if you stayed inside. Transport stations were getting higher usage, although the government was encouraging people to take the ground transports as per usual. The weather service promised a break within a couple of days, and, with the amount of grumbling going on, it couldn't come too soon.
Julian Bashir slipped gratefully into the coolness of the Starfleet Academy's medical instruction center's main complex and glanced to get his bearings. He knew the room numbers for his classes off by heart – his memory was phenomenal – but he wasn't sure which wing he needed to be in. He had to cross between buildings, as it turned out, but there was a pedway, saving him from venturing back out into the heat.
The lobby of the main building was a wide, open space with high sky lights, benches lining the curved walls and was currently packed with returning med students, doctors, and other Starfleet personnel, all of whom seemed to be in a hurry to get somewhere. A woman brushed by him, bumping into him, then apologized hurriedly, looking flustered. Bashir assured that no harm was done but she was already rushing off, her expression harassed.
First day back, Bashir thought with a wry twist of his lips. Can't be that bad yet.
A sharp whistle distracted him and he turned toward its source to see someone waving at him over the crowd. Bashir grinned and waved back, threading through the throng to meet up with Fahad el Naser, one of his cohorts. They were in their second year together, and it was good to see a familiar and friendly face.
El Naser grabbed Bashir in a hearty hug. Laughing, Bashir thumped his friend on the back, then released him, grinning.
"Emirates sun agrees with you," he commented. El Naser had been home in the U.A.E. over the summer, while Bashir had remained in San Franciso for the most part, taking a week to visit his parents in England, but not much more. He had landed a work-study program over the summer, which had kept him agreeably occupied. As much as he loved his parents, their overbearing pride at his accomplishments embarrassed him and he could only take so much of it.
His friend was darkly tanned and looked as though the sun and fresh air had done him a world of good. When he grinned, his white teeth contrasted starkly with his dark skin.
"I had a few days at the beach," el Naser agreed amiably. "By the looks of it, so did you."
Bashir grinned.
"One or two," he agreed. He was darker than his usual colouring as well. With the heat in the city, it was difficult to avoid getting a tan.
"With more than one or two ladies, I bet," el Naser said, cuffing Bashir on the arm.
"I never kiss and tell," Bashir replied. El Naser rolled his dark eyes.
"Yeah, right, Jules. Come on, let's get out of here, or we'll be late."
They followed a crowd of people streaming toward the pedway and were joined by a few more classmates as they approached their lecture hall. Bashir listened to the others talk happily about their summer vacations. It would be the last ones they had; from now on, they'd be doing practicum rotations over the summer. Part of him wished he'd taken the summer off, but the opportunity had been too good to pass up, and it would help him get the deep space assignment he wanted when he graduated. Besides, San Franciso had enough to offer in the summer for entertainment. He grinned to himself. Especially the beaches.
They filed into the classroom and claimed seats in the gently curving rows. The lighting in the room was dim and tinged with blue, giving the place a calm aura. The large computer screen on the front wall was blank, and there was no one at the podium yet. As Bashir settled in, the door hissed open and two Starfleet officers came in, both dressed in the black and green of Starfleet medical, both with the silver pips identified them both as physicians. One as a human man, with dark skin and hair, the other either a human or Betazoid woman with blond hair pulled up off of her face and swept behind her head. She began arranging items on the podium, then turned to the class.
"Good morning, everyone. I'm Doctor Erika Vice and I'll be teaching xenogenetics this term. I'd like to introduce Doctor Emile Gagnon, from our xenogenetics research lab here. He has a few things to say to you before we begin. Doctor?"
Gagnon nodded at Vice and Bashir felt his interest piqued. The doctor moved to the front of the class, hands clasped behind his back, and surveyed them all. Everyone settled down quickly, claiming seats and storing bags beneath them.
"As many of you know from your first year, Starfleet medical tests a great many experimental medications and therapies. We also do a lot of research that contributes to the development of these medications and therapies. We're just beginning the testing phase of a xenogenetics project that involves genetic signatures in interracial individuals. We're looking for volunteers to submit to genetic screening. Now, you don't have to have an alien ancestry in your lineage to participate in this. We need control individuals as well, in order to determine base lines for each race. All we require is one comprehensive screening, which takes about an hour to an hour and a half, and a consultation that involves filling out a questionnaire."
He paused, his gaze sweeping across his audience.
"There is absolutely no requirement that you participate for this course. No extra credit will be given. No one should volunteer if they feel uncomfortable with the idea. We only want volunteers who are genuinely interested. And if, if, we found something anomalous in your genome, we would of course provide counseling and any other necessary services. I am leaving the contact information with Doctor Vice. If any of you are interested, feel free to contact me within the next month. We'll be doing our first round of screenings through September and if we don't have enough volunteers, we'll conduct another round in November. We will also be running a scheduled second round in January. If you decide you'd rather wait until the new year, that's fine. Thank you for your time."
The class murmured their thanks as well as Doctor Gagnon left. Bashir turned to el Naser and raised an eyebrow curiously. His friend shrugged, looking amused, but there was no time for discussing their thoughts. Vice had turned on the computer screen and had begun checking the students against her registration list. Bashir pulled out two padds quickly, and fished around for a stylus, raising his hand without missing a beat when his name was called. He turned one padd to the readings they had been assigned for this first class and opened a blank file on the second one, settling in for the first lecture of his second year.
"Jules!"
"Shan!"
Bashir rose from the bench in the atrium of one of Starfleet Academy's sprawling science buildings when he spotted his old friend. Tanner jogged over to him and he picked her up in a hug, laughing. She hugged him back gleefully.
"How are you?" she demanded when he released her.
"Good, good. You?"
"Fine," Tanner replied, brushing a stray strand of hair from her eyes. "Come on, let's get out of here, find somewhere quieter."
They left together and conscientiously took the ground transport through the city, walking a couple blocks in the heat to their favorite cafe. It was quiet inside, which was a relief, since neither of them wanted to sit on the patio in the sweltering heat. Most of the tables were unoccupied during the afternoon lull. A young Bolean man sat in a corner, intently reading a padd and absently stirring a cup of fragrant tea, and two teenage girls sat in a far booth, giggling about something over their milk shakes.
"How about this weather, eh?" Tanner muttered, fanning herself irately with a padd.
"You got too used to the Martian summer, I think," Bashir replied.
"Well, it beats this," Tanner said, flashing him a grin as they claimed a table away from the other patrons. The waiter came around, took their order, and vanished again. "Mars is all right. Wouldn't want to live there. But it beats Welsh weather, too."
"At least you get some sunlight on Mars," Bashir joked, to which Tanner rolled her eyes. "It couldn't have been that bad. I've been to Mars. It's nice."
"Oh, it's fine," Tanner replied, waving a hand dismissively. "Terraformed weather, you know. Pretty dull. But it's nice enough. Good place to visit, but too close to Earth for the long-term."
"I understand that," Bashir replied. Like him, Tanner's goal was a deep space mission. Starfleet was full of people who were willing to stay in the Federation core. Bashir was happy to let them do it if it meant he could travel farther, live somewhere that most humans didn't.
The waiter came back with their drinks and food: iced tea and scones for Bashir, iced coffee and salad for Tanner.
"How was your first day back?" she asked, and Bashir grinned. It felt like she hadn't been gone at all, now. He had known her since they had been nineteen, both of them competing for a place on the Academy's racquetball team, both of them hell bent on outdoing the other. It had pleased Bashir to no end to find someone with his skill level at the game, then had delighted him even more to realize that Tanner was one of the smartest people he'd ever met. He knew she'd been happy about it, too. Although she was more used to it from growing up with intellectual parents, Bashir knew it was still difficult at times, and it was easy to forget there weren't others like them. Tanner's parents were both prominent in their fields of engineering and mathematics, and Tanner had inherited their intelligence. Bashir didn't quite know where his own intelligence came from, although he'd never said so aloud.
"It was all right," he replied. "Busy. Oh, and medical is doing some xenogenetics research project they need volunteers for." He filled her in on the details and Tanner looked interested.
"Are you going to do it?" she asked, sipping her iced coffee. Bashir spread jam on his scones as he nodded, flashing her a sly grin.
"I'd love to know if any of my ancestors were getting up close and personal with any Vulcans. Or Betazoids."
Tanner rolled her eyes, pointing her fork at him.
"You're such a man, Jules," she complained. Bashir laughed. More than once, his parents had asked him why he didn't date her, and Bashir knew Tanner's parents had asked her the same question. He had wondered about it himself; they had a lot in common and were great friends, but in the end, friendship was all they wanted from each other. He'd never been dissatisfied with that, and Tanner hadn't been, either.
"You say that like it's a bad thing," he replied, arching an eyebrow at her.
"You know what you're going to find?" she asked. "Human, human, human, all the way back."
"Probably," he agreed. "They're taking volunteers from anywhere, if you're interested."
Tanner shrugged.
"Maybe," she replied, biting into her salad and chewing thoughtfully. "Although, I would find human all the way back, too. And if I didn't, I wouldn't want to know about it."
Bashir laughed.
"There's nothing wrong with being human," he replied. "I bet it seems exotic if you're a Betazoid or an Andorian, or something."
"I like being human just fine," Tanner replied.
"Enough about school," Bashir insisted. "Tell me about Mars. Did you meet any nice young men?"
"God, you're as bad as my mother!" Tanner exclaimed. "Kevin says he gets it, too, and even Meg. And yes, I met several nice young men, none of whom I dated or did anything else of any significance with, Julian Bashir."
"Bah, you're no fun," Bashir teased.
"Just because I'm not a womanizer…"
"If you were a womanizer, I'd definitely expect you to tell me about it," he replied, then yelped lightly as she kicked him under the table.
"Incorrigible," Tanner muttered.
"You love me anyway," Bashir replied. "Now, come on, I really do want to hear about Mars. Tell me everything."