Future's Past, Chapter 25
Will and Tasha's apartment, Monday, December 1, 2008
"Welcome back," Will said, holding out cups of coffee to Tasha and Kendall as they beamed down. They had beamed up Miles O'Brien, earlier, and now it was his turn to beam them back to Earth and retrieve his shipmate for the next 24 hours. Will was waiting with his newspaper, a computer tablet with Enterprise specs detailing issues since their disappearance, and two more cups of coffee for O'Brien and himself.
"Thank you!" Tasha smiled, accepting the cup of coffee. The four officers chatted for a few minutes, catching up on ship vs. apartment vs. work schedules for the next 24 hours.
"So, how was your shift?" Will asked, a grin already spreading across his face. He was ready to beam up for his shift, and looking forward to participating in the repairs with O'Brien, who would be beaming up four pieces of tungsten metal to begin installation on the dormant, port engine and retro brakes.
She nodded, trying not to remember yesterday, during her shift on the shuttle. The gravity generator had stopped working, forcing her and Lt. Louden Kendall to pilot the shuttle in zero-gravity back to Earth so O'Brien could beam aboard for a quick repair. She'd been nauseated the entire time, although Kendall had come through with an unorthodox band-aid for motion sickness: A pickle. She hated pickles, but had choked it down, and it did alleviate the nausea until O'Brien could fix the problem. And then she was fine.
Tasha knew Will would tease her about it as soon as she beamed down the next morning for the crew exchange. "My shift was swell," she said.
Kendall smiled, shaking his head. "That's great. . ." he muttered.
"Swell?" Will replied. "Since when do you use terms like 'swell'?"
"I read Lt. Kendall's list of 20th century expressions after gravity was restored," she replied. "Very interesting."
"Those are probably the only, non-profane expressions you've learned, here. Glad to know that. Oh before I forget to mention it, I left something for you in the fridge," Will said.
"Oh, yeah? What is it?"
"Beam me up," Will said into his combadge, and grinned again at Tasha as the transporter beam enveloped him. Within seconds of confirming his safe arrival on the shuttle, Tasha darted to the refrigerator.
"What the hell is this?" she exclaimed, hoisting a small jar of dill pickle spears from the front of the refrigerator, where they'd been situated with two notes, one on top of the other. The first one said, 'bon appetit!'.
Having heard his beloved human's voice for the first time in 24 hours, KC the cat emerged from his hiding place beneath Tasha's bed. She flipped the top note over, and read the second note, which said, 'why is cat hair all over my pillow?'
43rd Place Bar & Grille, Kansas City, Missouri, Dec. 1, 2008, evening
Deanna and Kendall spent their morning tagging along with Tasha as she went on various errands, stopping by her dojo and participating in a "free trial" class, then returning to the apartment, loading up on the first round of "extra things" to drop off at The Rec.
Kim Tobin had taken the afternoon off from work, and after picking up Deanna and Kendall converged on Gary's bar, watching the ballgames with the usual crowd, watched Tasha smooth over another disagreement with an intoxicated patron. She asked him to leave . . . and then she went outside the bar and sat on the curb with him while she waited for his cab.
"He just had too much, tonight," Gary said, as the cab hauled the man away and Tasha came back inside, shivering a bit from the cold. "It happens. Usually it only happens during Memorial Day weekend, though. He has too much to drink and then he remembers Vietnam, and it goes downhill. He lost his job two weeks ago and hasn't found anything, yet. He'll go home, sleep it off, and come back in a couple of days, and he'll be apologetic and be a nice guy, again."
"Well, that was interesting," Tasha remarked, as she walked past Deanna and Kendall.
Will and Tasha's apartment, December 2, 2008, 0100 hours
Gary gave both Tasha and Deanna a ride home after the bar closed. Kendall also was riding with them, but would be returning to the Tobin home instead of sleeping in the apartment. Gary and Deanna would be taking the next shift aboard the shuttle, and Deanna could sense he was a little uneasy about being away from his family for 24 hours, but had a general leeriness about anyone who could read his mind.
"I'll see you aboard the shuttle, tomorrow," Gary said cheerfully. "Well, actually, it's 0100, so it's already tomorrow . . .I'll see you in seven hours."
"Modified sleep schedule," Deanna said.
"Oh, yeah," Gary said, his laughter genuine. "Good night, good morning, or whatever makes you happy."
Deanna and Tasha crept up the apartment stairs, whispering to avoid waking the neighbors. "Didn't seem like a long night, but I'm tired," Tasha said. "Maybe I'm getting accustomed to early morning wake-up sooner than I thought I would."
"You're so much more relaxed," Deanna said. "I sense you're much more at peace,"
"I am," Tasha said.
"Are you looking forward to being back aboard the Enterprise?"
"Yeah, I am looking forward to it," she said. "There are thinks I'll miss here, but only because I'm accustomed to them. I'll miss the people, here—well, some of them. There are some people I won't miss. But it'll be great to see everyone aboard the Enterprise, again."
"You're afraid that people might not respect you if you don't maintain a hard-edged persona," Deanna remarked as they went inside the apartment and hung up their coats.
Tasha shrugged. "I don't know—maybe," she replied. "I worry that I've slacked off on discipline, and that I'll slip up, somehow."
KC emerged from the bedroom and immediately began crying for attention, rubbing up against Tasha's legs until she picked him up and held him as she and Deanna sat on the couch to talk.
"That's normal, after time away from the discipline of a starship," Deanna said. "Believe me, I discussed that in some depth with Captain Picard before we came back. He doesn't like it, but he does understand. I suspect that if he were in your position, he would have as much difficulty returning to a starship as both you and Commander Riker believe you'll have."
"Will's convinced he'll have more of a problem than I will," Tasha said. "I'm sure he'll be fine."
"You'll both be fine," Deanna said. "Have you talked at all about how this has changed your relationship?"
"We talk all the time," Tasha replied. "We talk about everything. I figure we'll have some more time to talk about it, eventually. We just haven't gone there, yet."
"I can tell that you and Commander Riker have been through a lot together," Deanna said. "It's normal to stumble when you traverse between a personal relationship and a professional one."
"We're good friends," she said. "And I don't want that to be viewed negatively."
"As a compromise in the chain of command, you mean."
"Yes!" Tasha replied. "We don't view it that way. We adhered to chain of command and titles when we first arrived here, and finally stopped because it was attracting too much attention. It took awhile, but eventually we just fell into what we're doing now. We're good friends, and already I've begun calling him, 'sir', again."
"How did he respond to that?" Deanna said.
"He didn't. It wasn't a big deal."
"I know that you weren't romantically involved—," Deanna began.
Tasha couldn't avoid rolling her eyes a bit at that remark. Here it comes! People always assume we're dating, but we aren't . . .
"—And that you're only close friends," Deanna continued. "But once you get back aboard the Enterprise, it might be perceived differently."
"So we need to be careful to avoid the wrong impression, is what you're saying."
"Yes," Deanna said. "My worry is that your friendship may suffer because of that forced separation and formality after so much time spent in a casual relationship. It may seem at first as if it will be easy to make that transition. But I want both of you to discuss this. Get those concerns out on the table before you return. Just the two of you."
Tasha paused a few seconds. "I'd figured you'd wanted to be there for that."
"Not unless there's non-resolvable tension," Deanna replied. "The first rule of counseling is to help people to solve their own dilemmas, and assist them when an impasse is reached. Will didn't tell me the details, and frankly, that's not my business. But I can sense that you both have had your share of disagreements, and that your close friendship was very hard won, and won't be easy to change."
"I don't think either of us wants to let go of our friendship," Tasha said.
"I'm not saying that you should let it go," she said. "Only to find a balance. I'm saying that familiarity can lead to tension, can result in a form of bias that you aren't even aware is occurring. Will and I went through a period of that during our first weeks aboard the Enterprise. We finally sat down and talked, privately, where there wasn't a Ten Forward audience. And we were candid, and it was painful, and we laughed about other things, and we found the balance we now have."
"I'd never imagined you two having problems," Tasha remarked. "Other than you wanting to drag him off in one of the caves at Farpoint Station . . ."
Deanna nodded. "You caught that one, didn't you?"
"Oh, it was hard to miss," Tasha replied, smiling.
"Ideally, we should have had the opportunity to speak before we were faced with the Farpoint Station incident," Deanna said. "Then tension that was present there was not very professional. And that's why I want both of you to discuss the changes that are about to occur for both of you. Think about the first time Will decides to skirt around a security procedure so he can bail someone out on another Away Mission."
"Wouldn't be the first time," she said, shaking her head. "He knows how I feel about that."
"He's going to resume his duties as your commanding officer," Deanna said. "And you'll face the same challenges as occurs when one friend is promoted and the other one is not. Any recently promoted Starfleet officer goes through a period of change with friends who now are subordinates. It can be very isolating if it isn't addressed. This is a similar situation, almost akin to a married couple or a sibling relationship. If you want your personal friendship to continue, you must develop an understanding that duty is duty, and personal time is personal time. And even then, you're still an officer and are expected to maintain those delineations even off-duty . . ." Deanna glanced at her watch. "It's already 0200," she said, yawning. "I'm tired, and you're probably exhausted."
"Oh, I'm not that tired, yet. I'm just glad we could talk," Tasha asked, as Deanna sat down on the couch and began situating the extra pillow. "Are you all right on that couch? I'm sure Will wouldn't mind if you slept in his bed. It's probably not as lumpy."
"Actually, it's fine," Deanna said. The thought of sleeping in Will's bed seemed just a bit much for her, especially after everything she'd just been discussing. "As long as I've got a blanket, I'm fine on the couch. And by the way, your cat missed you terribly while you were away. He'd let me pet him, but throughout the night he paced through the apartment. I could feel he was looking for you."
"Why does Will hate cats so much?" Tasha asked, scratching KC's ears.
"I don't know," she replied. "I wasn't aware that he did until I sensed that he and KC didn't get along."
"They aren't best buddies, but they tolerate each other," Tasha said, standing up to go into the bedroom. "Come on, cat. Let's go to bed. I owe you some snuggle time."
Wornall Cafe, Kansas City, Missouri, Tuesday, December 2, 2008
Will Riker was upbeat when beamed back into the apartment that morning, and within a minute, he'd shared the news: Repairs were going so well that they might be able to leave as early as Saturday.
"O'Brien and Machias as going to knock out the final retros today, and they'll install them tomorrow," he said. "How was your day, yesterday?"
"It was a good day," Deanna said. "I'm sure Tasha could fill you in." She tapped her combadge and said, "Troi to O'Brien, I'm ready for beam-up."
"O'Brien acknowledged, locking on, beam-up in five, four, three . . ."
"Have a nice day!" Deanna smiled at both of them, then was enveloped in the transporter beam and whisked away to the shuttle, where Gary Tobin already had been beamed up. Deanna would then beam O'Brien to New Brunswick.
Will stared at the space where Deanna had been standing. "What was that about?"
Tasha shrugged.
"I have the impression that we're being baited," he remarked.
"We are being baited," she replied. "She said we need to talk."
His shoulders slumped in mock disappointment. "Do we have to?" he said. His tone was serious but his expression said otherwise.
"Oh, whenever," she replied, unable to suppress a grin. "You want to go get some coffee?"
Wornall Cafe, Kansas City, Dec. 2, 2008, 0845 hours
"So, tell me about the repairs," Tasha asked. They had just found the last available table at Wornall Cafe and settled in for an hour of breakfast and people watching. Now 0845, the morning rush had passed but the place still was busy with stragglers who were sapping every, free minute they could before needing to be at work by 0900.
"The first installations went well, yesterday," Will said. "New liner for the engine cowling, new shaft, and internal blades for the retros. Looks like they'll hold up, well. All we've got left are the externals, and we can leave."
"How soon can he have those done?"
"He and Machias will work on those today," Will said. "He needed to make sure the first installations would work before the last ones would go in. And now they'll work on the biggest pieces, which probably will take most of today, based on what he told me about how easy it was to work with the metal they have access to."
"Is it going to be strong enough?"
"Well, the tests we ran last night looked good. We should be fine."
"How's O'Brien doing, otherwise?"
"What do you mean?"
"Is he getting along all right in New Brunswick?"
"Yeah, he is," Will replied. "Sounds like he and Machias get along very well. They've even been to the pub a couple of times, which is fine. Not like we haven't done the same thing."
"He hasn't had any issues with the authorities?"
"No, I think Gavin Machias took care of that . . . made him a fake ID."
"Are you serious?" Tasha's mouth fell open. "If he gets caught . . ."
"It looked good to me," Will said. "We should have done that, here."
She stared at him.
"I can't believe you, of all people, would have an issue with doing something like that," Will said. "It's a great idea! We should have made some fake IDs for our guests."
"I have an issue with it, because if we'd been caught . . ."
Will drew a deep breath. "You're right," he admitted. "If we'd been caught, there would have been problems."
"I've heard about the Jackson County Jail," she said. "Could you imagine . . ?"
"I don't want to imagine that," he said."
They sat in silence for several minutes, each of them not wanting to initiate "The Talk" they supposedly needed to have. They'd both heard about from Counselor Troi. And the both had chosen to procrastinate as long as possible.
Enterprise stealth shuttle, Luna
Deanna Troi was actually enjoying piloting a shuttle, having done so several times since she'd arrived in the 21st century. She rather enjoyed it, and was now convinced that she'd insist on regular piloting opportunities once they all returned to the 24th century.
But she could cut the tension within that shuttle with a butter knife.
Gary Tobin hadn't given any outward signs that she made him nervous. He'd never said anything, and by his very upbringing, saying something would have been bad manners. He rode in the co-pilot's chair, a post he'd never held before as a petty officer, mostly curious about the various controls and wanting to know how to do the important things 'just in case'.
So she taught him about altitude, about movement, yaw and pitch. She explained how the lack of a port engine was making things interesting, especially while landing on the moon in the relatively shielded valley where they couldn't be spotted by Earth telescopes.
He was polite, genuinely curious and wanting to learn. But his heart was elsewhere, with his family.
"I know you have many concerns that you hadn't allowed yourself to consider before now," Deanna said.
"What do you mean?"
"You know what I mean," Deanna said. "I can sense emotions, remember?"
"That's almost an unfair advantage. I mean, one's thoughts are their own."
"They are," she replied.
"It kind of freaks me out, knowing that you can read my mind," Gary replied.
"Actually, I can't 'read' minds. I'm only half-Betazoid. I can sense emotions, which are stronger than thoughts."
"Still," he replied. "Ever thought about how you'd cope without being able to read emotions?"
"I don't know any different," she remarked. "You raise a very good point, though."
"I don't how I'd do, being able to actually know what someone is feeling, so there we are," he said. "Yeah, I'm concerned about how I'm going to tell my kids, and how they're going to deal with it. Mostly, I'm glad to be going back, though."
Deanna regarded him for a few seconds. "I'm surprised you haven't delved more into psychology," she said. "Into the formal study, I mean."
"I've thought about it," Gary replied. "The job I have on Earth...a lot of what I do is read people, even if I don't possess empathic abilities, there's so much you can pick up on. But I've never had any formal training. I didn't do well in school, so it wasn't something I'd ever considered doing."
"You should consider it. You've already got a good head start," Deanna said. "I know a lot of doctoral psychology students who didn't have nearly the grasp on "people skills" that you have."
"You're buttering me up," he said.
"See?" Deanna replied. "You're as good at reading people as I am."
"So, you WERE buttering me up," he remarked.
"I'd hoped to demonstrate that if you look at it this way, we're evenly matched," Deanna said. "You possess more observational skills than I do. And you're right. I do tend to take my empathic abilities for granted. And I admit, I don't know exactly how I would cope without them. But since I'm only half-Betazoid, I can only sense emotions in most people."
"So, if you're half-Betazoid...
"My mother is from Betazed. My father was Human."
"Oh," Gary replied. "So, your mother always knew when you were up to something."
"Well, based on what I've seen, most mothers sense when their children are up to mischief. They can't explain how they know, but they always know. Their challenge is to them ferret out the information once they confront their children."
"But in your case . . ."
"My mother knew I was about to get into trouble before I'd even begun to do it."
Gary shook his head. "So, you never got to even climb the tree, let alone fall out of it, before your mother knew about it."
"Oh, no," Deanna said. "She knew even before I'd begun to walk toward the tree."
"The trouble I could have stayed out of, if my mother had known what I was up to," Gary said. "I wonder if she's . . ."
"Your mother is very much alive," Deanna said. "I checked Earth records. She is still living in Joplin, still very active. And I'm sure she'll be delighted to see you and meet Kim and your children."
"I was the first person from my family to leave Earth for work," he said. "She probably thinks I'm dead, by now."
"You're listed officially as missing in action," Deanna said. "The case hasn't been closed. As far as I know, you've not been listed as dead in any Earth database."
"My biggest worry is that Kim and I might be split up by Starfleet to finish our commitments," Gary said. "Or that our kids would have a huge problem adjusting, or both . . ."
"Starfleet will take all of that into consideration," Deanna said. "Have you thought about requesting an Earth assignment?"
"I didn't know that was an option."
"Yes! It's actually one of the options that are wide open, because they aren't the so-called desirable assignments. But for you and Kim, an Earth assignment would be perfect. You would be able to fulfill your duties, and your children could acclimate. I can't imagine that Starfleet wouldn't take into consideration the decade you both spent here. And there are Federation ports all over Earth. I know there are several in the North American Midwest."
43rd Place Bar & Grille, Kansas City, Missouri, December 2, 2008, 2215 hours
While Deanna and Gary were having hours of conversations aboard the shuttle, Gavin Machias and Miles O'Brien were busily tweaking metal that would make up replacement retro brakes for the port engines.
Will Riker was folding up a soiled tablecloth at Nichols Jazz, where a romantic dinner for two had gone bad, earlier. It seemed to Will like a first date between two people who didn't know each other well before the night began. The night had ended when the lady tossed a glass of SinZin merlot into the face of her date, who'd already come across to Will as a smarmy-variety name-dropper.
Good for her, he'd thought. And I'm glad he picked up the tab before she stormed out.
This was Will's second-to-last shift. His last shift would be Wednesday night. He was supposed to be working Saturday night. But by the time his shift would begin, he'd already be gone, warped 350 years into the future.
Off work by 2200 hours, he initially headed back to the apartment, but found himself moving toward the 43rd, where Tasha was working her second-to-last shift, also. Will hadn't planned to be there, but there he was. A gladly distracted Tasha was glad he was there, and he was glad that she was there. He found the only seat remaining at the bar and propped himself up...and wound up in the midst of an unexpected reunion.
"Oh my flippin' God!" exclaimed a young woman sitting beside him. "I remember you! How are your hands?"
Recognition flashed across Will's face as he recognized the young paramedic who had begged him to go to the hospital after his hands and arms had been burned. She was in plainclothes, off-duty and happily inebriated, evidently with a man sitting on her opposite side.
"I'd wondered what happened to you!" she said.
"My roommate finally took me in, but by then we still had to wait," Will said.
"You should've come with us!" she said, but her expression was sympathetic. "U-Med was in totally fucked gridlock that night. You might have still had to wait, but I'd have given you some morphine and you wouldn't have been stuck in triage . . .I'm Linda. Do you remember Jack? He's my ambulance partner . . ." Will and the other man, a similarly bearded man also in his 20s, nodded greetings at each other.
"It took several weeks, but the burns got better," Will remarked. "And now we're all here, getting drunk."
"Oh, I'm already drunk," Linda said. "Jack owes me lots of liquor after last night's shift from hell. And he will be holding my hair back, later."
"Thanks," Jack replied, not sounding particularly thrilled.
Jack was a deadpan kind of fellow, much like Gary Tobin, only he'd seen so much carnage in his time that he chose to be nonchalant about everything. He maintained that even tone when relating the reasons why he and a co-worker were sitting in the bar on an off night. "I tried to hard to keep a straight face," he said.
But his intoxicated partner, Linda, was having none of it. "Uh, bullshit," she interjected, and continued the story, nearly shouting over the live band playing across the room. "So while we were carrying her down the stairs, she started calling Jesus, you know? 'Oh, lord Jesus save me, help me,' and started leaning sideways, and grabbing her family pictures off the wall, just freaking out . . . and Jack started laughing."
"How could I not laugh?" Jack remarked. "It was funny, in a sick way, but funny."
"Sounded funny," Will added.
"—And I was saying, 'Ma'am please keep your arms folded across your chest and don't be grabbing at anything while we're carrying you down the stairs,' like I was working the rides at Six Flags or something. And the fire guys were laughing at us, and Jack was laughing at me for NOT laughing. So we got to the hospital, and our battalion chief was waiting for us because he's already gotten a complaint call from her family that we were insensitive and laughing. So we got written up, and up until then I'd had no dings on my record, Jack!"
Jack was unfazed. "We're here to celebrate her first ding," he remarked, and Will had to laugh again at the parallels: The nonchalant, senior medic trying to get his overly serious partner to lighten up. Sounds very familiar, Will thought, glancing at Tasha hauling another tray of drinks up the stairs.
"—Absolutely humiliated," Linda continued, liquored-up and happily running her mouth. "And then couple hours later we got sent on a diff breathing, and she's a psych that we run all the time. She was upset because the sun hadn't come up, yet, so she thought the world had ended. And I'm like, 'Ma'am, the sun comes up later in the fall than it does in the summer'. But she thought it was Rapture, and she hyperventilated and did the whole chest pains and carpal spasms thing. So we transported in just in case she was having The Big One, which she wasn't . . . and we got her to the truck without her grabbing at anything, without Jack laughing in her face, and we were transporting, Jack was driving, and I was in the back with the Rapture woman. So I was giving my radio report, and Jack started singing, 'The sun will come out, tomorrow'..."
Thoroughly entertained by then, Will began laughing in earnest.
"She insists she's not high-strung," Jack said, relaxing one elbow atop the bar counter with his bearded face propped against one hand.
"—And then I started laughing, so I sounded like an absolute idiot on the radio," she said. "Jack humiliates me in public. But we can put up with each other, so it works."
Will raised his glass. "To your first ding, then," he said. "You got it over with."
She had to smile. "I did! To my first ding."
"Cheers," Jack said, and three glasses clinked together.
December 3, 2008, 0115 hours
The band had stopped playing more than an hour earlier, and several of them had joined Will at the bar for a round of drinks, chatting casually and laughing about the Will had been admiring wood-grain patterns on the bar counter when he noticed Tasha standing beside his bar stool. He looked up and smiled.
"Tash," he muttered. "I'm . . . drunk."
"Yes, you are," she replied, grinning back, somewhat entertained by his state of mind. In their 20 months of living together, she'd never seen him actually intoxicated, before. You put two more drinks away even after your EMS buddies carried each other out here, she thought. She placed a cup of coffee on the counter in front of him.
"Here, drink this, and there's more where that came from. You going to be all right?"
"Hope so," he said, sipping the coffee. "Thanks."
"When are you heading home?"
"As soon as I can drink this," he replied.
"I've got another hour here, so if you want to stay and walk back with me, or take a cab, just let me know, all right?"
"Oh, I don't think I'll need a cab," he said. "I'm not THAT far gone." But even as he said it, Will suspected he was in trouble. That initial, giddy feeling of inebriation had descended into seeing four of everything. He decided it would be best if he walked home while he still could, and left as soon as he'd finished his coffee.
"Heading back?" The bouncer, a friendly guy who was as tall as Will and at least 50 kilos heavier, asked Will staggered over the bar's stone doorstep.
"Yeah."
"You all right?"
"Oh yeah," he replied, but it came out in one syllable.
December 3, 2008, 0130 hours
"Hey, Tasha!" The bouncer met her as she was halfway down the stairs with a tray full of empty glasses. The majority of the crowd had cleared out, and now Tasha was left with the usual mess: Hundreds of empty glasses, wadded napkins, the occasional drug wrapper, chewed gum smashed beneath tables, potato chips shattered everywhere . . .
"What's going on?" she asked.
"Hey, Will's sitting on the curb just up the street," he reported.
"He's not passed out in the gutter, is he?" she replied, half-joking as she set the tray on the bar counter and followed the bouncer to the door.
"No, he's just sitting there," the bouncer said. "He sounded like he'd had a few when he left 15 minutes ago. He was walking, so I figured he was fine, but now he's just sitting on the curb."
Tasha didn't grab her coat before going outside, even though a drizzly rain was falling.
"Holler if you need me to help drag him back inside," the bouncer said.
"Thanks, Bob," she replied, and strode about 30 yards uphill, along the sidewalk to where Will sat on a curb with his legs stretched out into the roadway. Although a light rain was now falling, Will was sitting beneath one of the huge, Oak trees that lined 43rd Street, so he was somewhat shielded from the rain. But he'd been there long enough that he was drenched, anyway. The temperature was falling enough that she could see his breath as he exhaled, and was relieved for that. At least he was breathing.
"Will, what's going on?" she stepped onto the road, then crouched in front of him.
"Oh, hi," he said, his voice slurred. "Just resting, just catching my breath."
He's not going anywhere on his own, she thought. "Come back inside, I'll call us a cab when I'm done with my shift."
"It's not—," he began stammering. "This is a big hill, you know."
"The hill isn't that big — oh my God, what happened to your ankle?"
Illuminated by the streetlight, his right ankle was easily twice as big as his left one. He'd evidently shoved his sock down over his swollen ankle, and had also unlaced his shoe.
"I sort of twisted it...had a small inconvenience, but it's nothing, really."
"Bullshit," she said.
"I just loosened it up," he said, nodding toward his unlaced shoe.
"Before or after you wiped out?"
"After," he said. "The curb's uneven."
"The curb's been uneven for years," she replied, beginning to relace his shoe so it wouldn't fall off when they hobbled back into the bar. She felt the swelling around his ankle and shook her head. This was a bad sprain, at the very least. I just hope it's not broken, she thought. I wonder what Suravi Bhat is going to say about this one . . .
"You're coming back inside," she said, holding her hands out toward him. "Come on, stand up."
"I can't stand up, that's—,"
"If you can't stand up, it's more than a small inconvenience."
Will and Tasha's apartment, December 3, 2008, 0200 hours
After he spent the next 30 minutes slumped on one of the vacated benches inside with a bag of ice draped over his swollen ankle, Tasha was able to clock out and call a cab for them both. After two attempts to pull him up on her own, she finally was able to get him to his feet and help him limp inside. There was no way they'd be walking back to the apartment. She wasn't even sure she'd be able to get him up the stairs even if they did have a ride back.
"I can't even see straight," he muttered, his voice slurred, as they edged into their apartment building and began navigating the stairs.
"At least that ankle is anesthetized," she quipped. "Sort of."
"It's not hurting much," he said. "It doesn't feel right, though."
"I believe that," she replied. She was walking on his right side, their arms draped across each other's shoulders, providing support so he wasn't putting all his weight on his injured ankle.
"I can't believe I did something like this," he added.
"The drinking part, or the messed-up ankle part?"
"Oh, the drinking part," he said. "The ankle didn't help. I feel like a teenager who's just broken into the liquor cabinet for the first time."
"It just caught up with you," she said. "It happens. I'm just glad you didn't vomit in the cab."
"So what did he say?"
"Who?"
"The cab driver said something when I was lying down on the seat—,"
Tasha kept her voice low so she wouldn't be waking their neighbors. "He said, and I quote, 'If he pukes in my cab, I'll rip his balls off'."
"Ooh," Will said, holding tighter to the handrail. "That would have been bad."
"That's why I kept the window rolled down," she said. "As I said, I'm glad you didn't vomit. But rest assured that if you had, I'd have taken the driver out of commission before he ripped off your balls."
"Oh," Will said, swaying as they lurched down the second-floor hallway toward their apartment. "Thanks for saving my balls."
"Anytime, sir," she said.
"You're already calling me sir, again," he said.
"Yeah, I need to get back into that habit," she said, unlocking the door.
"I wonder what Deanna's going to say," Will said, hobbling inside and tossing his coat onto the floor.
"She's on the shuttle. She's not even here," Tasha replied, then realized what he'd just done. "Did you just toss your coat onto the floor?"
"Yeah, I did," he remarked. "You finally rubbed off on me."
"Go lie down," she said, smiling. "I'm making up another icepack for that ankle."
He limped to the bathroom, then flopped onto the bed without bothering to remove his clothes or shoes. He'd nearly fallen asleep a minute later, she walked into the room with a bag of fresh ice dangling from one hand.
"You left your shoes on, again," she remarked. "I left a glass of water here on your nightstand while you were in the bathroom. You need to drink that before you fall asleep."
"Wonder what she'll say about it, tomorrow," Will said.
"What?"
"Deanna," Will reiterated.
"She doesn't need to know," Tasha said. "It's your business."
"Oh, she'll know," Will remarked. "Even if I hadn't messed up my ankle, she senses everything and calls people on it. I know it's her job and she has that ability, but sometimes it's really irritating, because I'd always thought dragging people's personal business into the open was rude."
"So, tell her that," she said. "I'm sure it isn't the first time she's heard it. I've felt the same way a time or two."
"I tried that once," he said. "And she said I only reacted because I was ashamed of my feelings, or something like that. I've always believed my feelings were personal."
"They are," she replied. "I will tell you, though, that right now, you look like you don't feel very good."
"Everything's spinning—," he said.
"Did you drink that glass of water?"
"Huh?"
"This glass of water, you need to drink it," she said, sitting on the edge of his bed. "Sit up, drink this."
"Yes, ma'am," he replied, taking the glass and taking a sip. "No ice?"
"You don't need cold water. You need fluids."
"Cold water numbs me to how bad the water tastes here."
She shrugged. "That makes a lot of sense," she admitted. "But you still need to drink it."
He sipped half the glass, then contemplated it for a few seconds as she placed the bathroom waste basket next to the head-end of his bed.
"You don't have much confidence that I'm not going to throw up, do you?"
"It's a possibility," she said.
"But the last thing I drank was coffee."
She nodded. "Oh, yeah," she said, as if piling coffee onto everything else he'd ingested had somehow made a difference in his blood alcohol level. The only thing it probably did was perk him up enough so they would make it home without her needing to physically drag him up the stairs. "The last thing you had to drink WAS coffee."
"Oh, I'm drunk," he said. "I'm drunk enough to be embarrassed about it."
"I need to look at your ankle," she said, standing up so she could grab the bag of ice she'd brought in earlier, and had left on the floor by the bathroom. She also grabbed a towel from the bathroom, then went back to the kitchen to get another trash can liner to double-bag the ice. By the time she'd returned, he'd nearly fallen asleep.
"I thought you were going to take your shoes off," she muttered, then turned on the light.
He scrunched his eyes closed. "Why the hell did you do that?"
"I need to see what happened to your ankle before I put ice on it," she said.
"I hurt it, is what happened."
She had already taken off his left shoe, and was working on his right one. Already, his ankle was beginning to swell over the shoe's edges. She loosened the shoe's laces as much as possible, and for once was grateful he was so drunk that he couldn't feel much pain when she slipped the shoe off, and peeled off the sock after that.
"Oh no . . ." she muttered.
"Is it bad?"
"Yeah, it's bad," she said, eyeing the reddened, swollen mass erupting, mostly on the side of his foot, but also beginning to bruise and swell on the inside edge. He'd done some substantial damage to that ankle. "I hope you didn't break it. Can you feel this?" she pinched each of his toes, watching to make sure that the nail beds turned pink again after she let go of each of them, and they did. Good capillary refill. That's good. He's at least got distal circulation, she thought.
"Yes, I feel all the little piggies," he said.
She smiled at the reference, glad he at least was being a happy drunk. "That's great," she said. "How about this?" she pushed on the upper edges of his tibia bone, just below his knee. "Does that hurt when I push here?"
"No, my knee's not hurt," she said.
"It wasn't your knee I was checking," she said. "How about this?" she dragged her fingernail across the sole of his foot, from his heel to his toes, and as he should have, the toes flared out and his foot reflexively flexed up, away from the stimulation.
"Why are you tickling my foot?" he said. "That hurt!"
"Just checking your reflexes," she said. "They look all right."
"They didn't teach anything about reflexes in the first aid training I got."
"I had the basic tactical medicine class," she said. "It focused on keeping someone alive if you're under fire, or you're otherwise trapped and can't be evacuated. So we learned more than basic first aid."
"So, is it broken?"
"I don't think so," she said. "But I won't know until Ensign Bhat can check it out."
He looked at her. "Can it wait until tomorrow?"
"Yes, it can wait until tomorrow," she said, suspecting that he didn't want Bhat to see him when he was intoxicated. "Keep the ice on it. I'm going to get you some ibuprofen. It'll help with the swelling."
"I took some earlier," he said.
"How much?"
"Uh, four of them," he said. "While I was in the bathroom."
"800 milligrams. . .well, if that doesn't help, I don't know what will," she said. "In the words of LaDonna at the Rec, you've boogered yourself up."
"Great . . ."
"But I don't think any long bones are broken. You're moving everything and you didn't yell when I touched the other ends of your tibia and fibula," she said. "But the short bones in your foot and ankle . . .that's a different story. You could have fractured one of those. I have no way to tell until the swelling goes down."
"That's why you were pushing on my knee," he said, struggling to converse through the fog of alcohol still enveloping his mind. "But you might need to repeat all this when I'm sober, because nothing makes sense, right now."
"I believe that," she said, turning off the light, and disappearing into the bathroom for a few minutes. She figured he'd be asleep when she re-emerged, and as she crawled into her bed she didn't like the elevation of his leg. She took the pillow off her bed to elevate his leg more.
"Will, I'm moving your leg up some more," she said. "Hold on—," he now had her pillow, plus the two that Tasha had raided from the couch (including the one Deanna had been using), elevating his right ankle and foot. She draped the towel over his ankle, then gently lowered the bag of ice onto it.
"That all right?" she asked.
"Yeah," he replied. "Actually, what I said earlier about nothing making sense? I take that back. You're the only thing about this place that made any sense the whole time we were here."
Somewhat surprised, she sat on the floor by the edge of his bed, not sure how to respond. He's drunk, she thought. He won't remember much about this tomorrow, until he tries to get out of bed and figures out it hurts to walk.
"I mean it," he said. "I'm glad that if I had to get stranded 350 years ago, I was stranded here with you. We all need someone in our lives who isn't afraid to call us on the parts of our personalities that need work, you know?"
"I bet that was tough to say," she finally replied.
"Nah, it was easy to say, especially after everything I had to drink."
"Liquid courage," she remarked.
"Yeah, but what I said also happens to be true," he said. "I just never said it until now. And I'm going to stop while I'm ahead, primarily because I'm about to pass out."
"OK," she said, finally laughing, standing up to get into her own bed. "Good night."
"Good night, Tash," he replied.
Will and Tasha's apartment, Wednesday, December 3, 2008, 0815 hours
"So, what happened, last night?" Deanna said, her expression somewhat smug. She had just beamed down from the shuttle. Tasha was awake, having showered and gotten dressed. Will was still in the bathroom. He'd been in there for a while, having been roused by Tasha about one hour before Deanna's arrival.
Deanna initially stepped into bedroom to knock on the bathroom door, just to let Will know that she'd arrived in the apartment, that Gary had arrived safely back at his house, and that O'Brien and Machias were now aboard the shuttle to begin final installations.
"All right, thanks," he said through the door. "I'll be out in about 10 minutes."
"Take your time," she said, then turned to leave the room, but not before she noticed something about his bed. A minute later, she returned to the main room, where Tasha was standing in the kitchen and staring out the window.
"You must have had . . . quite the talk," Deanna said. "There's a towel and a wet spot on Will's bed."
Tasha turned and stared at her. "What?" she said, perplexed.
"You heard it," Deanna began, but sensed that Tasha was genuinely shocked by her observation.
"The ice bag must have leaked," Tasha said, walking into the bedroom. "There WAS a leak in the outside bag. Dammit!"
"As I was saying, there's a towel and a wet spot, in the middle of the bed," Deanna said, nonplussed by Tasha's exclamation, nor by the dripping, plastic bag that Tasha held up off the bed.
I thought she could read my mind, Tasha thought. Surely she doesn't think . . .she DOES think that! Deanna Troi has as filthy a mind as I do.
"This is what remains of a bag of ice that had been on his right ankle last night," Tasha said, wadding the dripping bags in her hand before dropping them onto the towel that Will had evidently moved onto the center of the bed when he'd gotten up to continue his misery in relative privacy within the bathroom. "I had a towel there to prevent his ankle from being 'burned' by direct contact with the ice," she continued. "He sprained his ankle."
"So the bag of ice was meant for . . ."
"Relief of the swelling and bruising and discomfort," Tasha said, her expression turning smug. "He must have tossed the towel aside when he got out of bed and hobbled into the bathroom. You know, I'd have never pegged you to have a dirty mind!" She was unable to prevent a grin from emerging through her initial outrage.
"Well . . ." a flush rose to Deanna's face.
"Yes, I'm telling the truth," Tasha said.
"I know you are," Deanna replied. "So, is he all right?"
"I guess," she replied. "He's in the shower, and unless I hear a thud, I'm not going in to check on him. But last night, his ankle was THIS big," her hands mimicked the size of a cantaloupe.
"How did that happen?" Deanna exclaimed.
"The curb won," Tasha said. "I've already called Kim's house, and Suravi Bhat is on her way over here. Kim's going to drop her off on her way to work."
"But how did it happen?" she pressed, suspecting there was an amusing story to accompany this latest, 21st century adventure. And she was right.
December 3, 2008, 0930 hours
Bhat had seen worse ankle injuries, but that had been with 24th century medical technology at her disposal. This morning, Will Riker was slumped on the couch in his apartment, with his swollen, bruised, right ankle propped onto a table in front of the couch. Bhat's medical tricorder scanned his ankle and told her what she needed to know: This injury was relatively contained, with no evident fractures. But he'd shredded multiple ligaments, and the injury was hours old.
"You've got a second-degree lateral sprain, which isn't horrible, but it must have taken quite a blow," Bhat said, swallowing an impulse to chastise him for his delay in contacting her for treatment. This was why she was on the Away Team, after all, to deliver medical treatment.
"So, how did this happen?" she asked, instead.
Will glanced at Tasha, who raised her eyebrows at him. Deanna sat on the edge of the couch beside him.
"I stepped off a curb," he said. "Just a misstep."
Bhat believed the first part, but knew there was more to it. "It wouldn't have anything to do with the 0.06 blood alcohol level still present in your bloodstream at—," she glanced at her watch. "—0930 hours, would it?"
"Maybe," Will admitted.
"Well, if that's the case, then it serves you right," Bhat said, her tricorder now switched to treatment mode. The handheld medical 'wand' that Bhat brought for wound repair began humming as it mended the torn ligaments, gently positioning the shredded fibers into their anatomically appropriate positions so they would heal properly.
"I'm repairing the torn ligaments," Bhat continued. "You need to stay off the ankle for another half-hour until the swelling has abated. Hopefully I'll ensure that by allowing the headache and nausea you also have—and aren't admitting to me—to abate on its own with oral hydration. I think you've earned that misery."
"I've earned and paid," he muttered.
"I'm reading another substance in your bloodstream . . .looks like a propionic acid derivative of some kind . . ."
"Ibuprofen," he said.
She raised her eyebrows. "Well, that is an older remedy, effective against the swelling, but stresses the kidneys too much to be recommended anymore," she said. "I think you've stressed your kidneys enough. You need to drink some water. The tap water here contains innumerable, small toxins, but will do to flush your system, so I would recommend you do the same "bottoms-up" routine that you did to such excess last night, water only. No more than 32 to 48 ounces within the next four hours. I am also giving you a thiamine booster."
"So, how long until I can walk on it?"
"You'll stretch it after half an hour, then more therapy, and then after another half hour you should be able to stand and have full mobility," Bhat said. "The swelling needs to dissipate slowly. If reabsorption occurs too quickly, it could disrupt the intercellular sodium-potassium pump and this could result in—,"
Will sighed. "Gesundheit," he muttered.
"I beg your pardon?"
"My hung-over mind is having difficulty comprehending medical gobbledegook," he said.
"That serves you right, too," Bhat replied, not missing a beat.
Will looked toward Deanna, seeking a sympathetic advocate. But the amused look she gave him in return told him otherwise. "What?" he said.
"I wasn't going to say anything," she replied.
"You didn't need to," he remarked, tapping his temple with one of his fingers. He could feel she was empathetic toward his predicament, but also a bit entertained by it. Even in the bathroom earlier that morning, she swore he heard giggling emanating from the living room where Deanna and Tasha were waiting for him to hobble out of the bathroom.
Deanna nodded toward Tasha, who then moved in for the pre-arranged kill.
"Would you like a pickle, sir?" Tasha asked.