Her Calling: A Pathologist's Story
Just a couple of housekeeping bits.
- Probably the most obvious one, but, disclaimer: I do not own Star Trek, nor do I own its characters. However I do own my O/Cs and have taken existing 'background' characters and brought them a little bit of life.
- This fic does contain some strong language in a couple of the chapters, for the most part though it's kept to the minimum. It also contains some scenes that may be upsetting to some, but I'll endeavour to put a note above the chapter where I think this could be relevant.
- There are medical references and the wide majority of these are factual or in the very least based in fact. I am not a doctor and am by no means qualified in each topic covered. I am studying biomedical science though, so I'm not completely in the dark. If you are medically qualified and would like to correct me/offer advice then I'd be more than happy for your input.
- This is unbeta'd, as such any mistakes are my own, but hopefully there shouldn't be many.
A/N Hi Guys. This is my first ever attempt at fan fiction and I have to say it kinda ran away with me as I've completed the story and it weighs in at 32 chapters. Anyway, the first couple of chapters are a little slow, mainly because I was finding my feet and I felt that I had to set the scene properly. So please hang in there, it's going to get better soon, I promise. :)
1
An Introduction
Elizabeth O'Neil took in the wide space of the shuttle bay as she stepped down out of the shuttle. She looked at the high ceilings and the now locked bay doors. Not for the first time she wondered what she was doing in space and how on Earth she'd managed to get herself onto a Starship, and not just any ship either, the actual flagship of the federation: USS Enterprise. She supposed she should be proud, her posting was practically one of a kind, but a small prickling feeling at the back of her neck and the wriggling of a small bundle of nerves in her stomach clouded the whizz of other emotions she could be feeling.
She shifted position as a crowd began to form around her as new crew members disembarked the three shuttles that had just arrived on the Enterprise from the star base below. From the brief she'd been given, the Enterprise had started its five year voyage approximately 6 months ago and as such much of the crew joining the ship today was a result of transfer requests and a need for a more specific and diverse personnel before entering unknown space. As it was, this particular space station was relatively far out in the quadrant, it was definitely as far away from Earth as Lizzie ever thought she would get.
Hell, until a few years ago you hadn't even been in space, she told herself.
The prickling on her neck intensified a little as she thought about how alike she was to a green cadet springing straight from Starfleet Academy. As it was, she had a bit more experience under her belt in her specialty, but that didn't equate to understanding how a Starship ran. Sure, she'd used her time well at the Academy and made sure she'd been good enough to get a rotation on a Starship, but again, that didn't make it reality. Here she was going to run her own lab with as small a team as she'd ever seen and it was going to be all her responsibility.
The hanger seemed full of people dressed in their Starfleet blacks, having not yet been issued with section colours. Lizzie had done some quick research, she knew who she was going to be working under and who was running the ship. Although given that it was the flagship that had saved the world, she could imagine there were only a few who hadn't heard of Captain James T. Kirk. Speaking to her old CO, she'd found out the chief medical officer was Dr. Leonard McCoy, and that was who her commanding officer would be, given that she was working in a medical laboratory it made far more sense than Commander Spock who headed up the science division. She hadn't dug too far though, Lizzie preferred to pass judgement on her own terms, she felt it was much better to trust her gut and get a feel for a person based on them, not on some random article headed up by Starfleet—you never could trust the media.
She turned to her left causing her ginger plait to tumble over her shoulder. She took in the slight figure of her new found friend stood next to her, her dark hair trimmed in a neat bob. They looked at each other, the woman next to her was a bundle of excited energy.
"Nervous?" It was a sympathetic understanding, not some kind of condescending nonsense some people cared for.
Lizzie gave a small smile, "Maybe a little..."
"It's okay, I feel it to," although the woman next to her hardly looked it.
It was comforting to have a familiar face, even if you'd only known them a couple of days. She and Maria had met on the Starbase below and had stuck to one another like glue upon finding someone they would be transferring with.
And with that the door to the shuttle bay opened, revealing a number of personnel who walked forward to face the crowd of new staff. The heads of the people around her mirrored her own as they turned to face the direction of the doors. The newcomers all stood to attention. Despite still feeling weird about the whole military debarkle, her time at the academy had made it second nature. She looked to their uniform sleeves their silver bands stood out against the bright colours of their uniforms, the silver insignia on their chests catching in the light of the shuttle bay. These were clearly the people in charge here. A mixture of serious and friendly faces could be seen, Lizzie noted generally that their body language was open enough, that was good enough for now.
"At ease. Good Morning Ladies and Gents," the Captain began genially, "I'm glad you could make it out this morning." There was a spattering of appreciative chuckles. "Now, as I'm sure you've realised by now, this is the USS Enterprise and I'm Captain James T. Kirk. I'd like to take this opportunity to welcome you to our crew."
As the Captain continued his welcome Lizzie's gaze move down the line of officers, they stood at varying levels of attention. On the end two officers in operations red wore expressions that were following what the captain said, they stood relaxed but straight backed. In contrast next along the line the Vulcan First Officer stood rigidly straight with his hands behind his back. In the centre stood the Captain at ease talking animatedly, but as her gaze reached the man in science blues on the other side of the Captain, she noticed he looked rather bored, apparently he wasn't trying very hard to hide it. Next to him stood a younger man in command gold, wearing an easy going smile. On the end stood another red shirt who was practically beaming at the new crowd and didn't seem to be able to stand still for very long, Lizzie noted he was probably an engineer, none of them seemed to be able to stand still for two minutes.
As she listened to the Captain she felt her nerves edge off into excitement. She was surprised—he was good at this, she'd been on board all of fifteen minutes and she already felt like she could trust him. Lizzie felt like rolling her eyes but refrained from doing so, she figured she should keep a certain level of professionalism until her colleagues could trust her.
"Now I've one last thing to say before I pass you off to your section heads. There's going to be a get together this evening in the mess hall at 2000 hours for you to all get to know each other and meet more of your new crew, so you're all welcome to join.
Now let me introduce you to your new commanding officers."
As he identified them, each officer down the line made a gesture to indicate it was indeed them.
"Lieutenant Uhura—communications. Lieutenant Commander Giotto—security. Commander Spock—sciences. Dr McCoy—medical. Lieutenant Sulu—command. Lieutenant Commander Scott—Engineering.
Now I'm sure you all know what department you should be headed for so if you could make your way to your CO and they'll check everyone's in the right place"
They filtered into lines in front of who they assumed was the right CO. A small doubt in Lizzie made her hope she'd picked the right queue. She stood with Maria and two others in front of McCoy, nervously eyeing the science division queue. She didn't have long to wait before McCoy scowled down at his PADD and spat out the names on his list. As he called out the names they were punctuated by a "Yes, Sir" from each of them.
"Braddock. Hughes. Mendoles. O'Neil. Sanders." There was a brief pause before the CMO again growled out, "Sanders."
When there was no reply a second time McCoy looked up, or rather, Lizzie reckoned glared would be a more accurate statement. As he looked down the line to realise only four of his five new recruits decided to show up, he let out a grumble and what sounded like "god damnit" as he turned sharply on his heel and strode over to Kirk who stood at the head of the room watching the queues and listening to the shouting of names and echoes of "Yes, Sir's" across the deck.
As he watched McCoy coming towards him, Jim briefly wondered what had his friend so riled up, doubtless he was about to find out.
"Alright Bones, what's got your panties in a twist?"
Leonard didn't even bother snapping back, instead he lifted an annoyed eyebrow and settled for a glare at the kid, shoving the PADD towards him.
"Jim, one of these hasn't even bothered to show up," he grouched at Jim, "Sanders, A. There's nothing on here about delayed transport, so where the hell is he?"
Jim considered the PADD for a minute before looking at Bones. "I'll get someone to follow it up, it's probably an innocent reason Bones, it's unlikely anything done just to wind you up."
"Good, because the minute he gets up here, he's gonna be doing gammas for a week."
Jim just handed the PADD back to his friend, "Well, we'll find out soon enough. I'll comm you when I find out".
Granted it was annoying when someone failed to show, but more often than not there was a genuine reason for delay, Bones just happened to be in a foul mood because it meant showing the newbies round, and he hated having to do what he deemed 'babysitting'. As he turned to comm someone to make enquiries McCoy had returned to his recruits, probably preparing to terrorise them. Kirk shook his head gently.
Lizzie and the others had stood in silence waiting for McCoy to return. As he did he looked up and down the line. The others CO's were just finishing up with their new charges. The doctor looked towards Commander Spock who seemed to know what the doctor wanted and gave an almost imperceptible nod.
"Right then, let's go. The name's Doctor McCoy, you need me it's that or McCoy, doctor or sir. You got that?"
As they followed him through the doors and into the shining white corridor they all answered in the affirmative.
"Good," he muttered before continuing, "I've gotta give you all a quick rundown of the place. First we're headed to the quartermaster to get you your room assignments and uniforms sorted."
He led them to the end of the corridor to a turbolift. As they all entered McCoy called out "Deck 8". They stood in silence and exited the lift following him down the corridor. It wasn't long before they entered a large room that that was cut off by a long counter top, behind it stood a man in a red shirt with a friendly ruddy face.
"Hello McCoy, these your new 'uns?"
"Yes that would be them, Thatcher, sort 'em out for me would ya."
He smiled, "I think we can sort something out, how about some names then?"
After a moment Lizzie realised the others weren't going to go first, so to prevent catching what would clearly be McCoy's ire at holding him up, she stepped forward.
"Hi," she smiled. "O'Neil, Elizabeth."
"Nice to meet you," he said then he started scrolling down his screen to the side of the counter, he lifted his head up before turning behind him to grab a bag. He passed it over the counter to her and read out her room number. She thanked him and stepped back. The process repeated for each of them, Lizzie listened and tried to learn the others names.
Best to get them now, save learning them all later.
She knew Maria, then she added Tessa Hughes and Jamie Braddock.
The quartermaster smiled at them warmly once again as he finished up, "you lot are lucky there's only a few of you, it's a nightmare when all the engineers get in here on the first day. Now before I forget all the codes to your quarters are 0000 then you can set them to what you want when you get there."
"Alright, let's go before Spock get antsy with the schedule."
McCoy gave them a quick overview of the ship, pointing out the mess hall, the main recreation rooms and gym. For all his surliness, McCoy was good enough to inform them that each of the sections tended to have a favourite rec room and that there were some that were shared by all.
As they reached the end the doctor had told them where the crew quarters were (as it turned out they were conveniently only a few decks away from the sickbay and medical labs). He finished his tour outside the doors of sickbay.
"Okay I think that covers everything, the rest you'll pick up as you go. Meet in the sickbay at 1000 hours for induction. Dismissed."
And with that he turned around and walked into sickbay grumbling incoherently. And Lizzie was sure that he snapped something at an engineer laid up in a far bed.
Lizzie turned to Maria and gestured back in the direction of the turbolift, "Shall we?"
Maria nodded and the other two recruits went with them. They chatted a little in the lift. Getting to know what jobs the others would be doing. Maria was a nurse, mousy haired Tessa was an orderly and the tall guy Jamie was also a nurse.
When it came to explaining her role as a biomedical scientist, Lizzie was greeted by small looks of confusion as to why she was grouped with those who would be working in sickbay, and not with other science officers. She offered the simple explanation in favour of the long one.
"I work in the medical lab, or pathology. The samples that are taken in sickbay, I test them or grow them and organise blood for transfusion".
They seemed to understand after that. She was unsurprised because, to this day scientists like herself went unknown. Hospital staff didn't know and neither did the patients or the general public. She supposed that some thought it was easier that way, but it had always been a frustration of hers not to be taken seriously. In some things she was more qualified than a real doctor, so why question her judgment or blame lab staff for when something went wrong?
She was pulled from their thoughts as the group made their way along deck five. They looked left and right for their door numbers and upon finding hers Maria let out a little squeak, "look we're right next door!"
Lizzie smiled at her new friend, grateful to have someone new nearby, "That was a stroke of luck!"
They waved to Jamie and Tessa as they carried on down the corridor. Maria spoke first, "Meet you out here at 0950?"
"Sounds good to me."
They punched in the codes to the doors. And stepped in. It was quite a small room, but Lizzie hadn't been expecting any different. In fact she'd prefer small and cozy to large, cold and empty any day. There was a desk, a bed and a small sofa with a little table. She hauled her bag over to the bed, and took off the rucksack she'd brought her few personal items in. It was just gone 0900, so she had just under an hour to sort her bits and pieces out. First things first. She pulled out the items from the bag she'd been given. It contained everything she'd need, her new uniforms, spare pair of boots, blacks, etc.
She picked up the science blue top. It was hers. She'd been imagining this moment over and over but it still didn't quite feel real. She thumbed the shiny insignia, with its little carved out medical cross in the middle. She pulled it on over her blacks. As she pulled up the sleeves she ran her fingers over the singular cold silver band at the wrist. Lieutenant. She shivered a little.
She packed the clothes into the small wardrobe and took out her few civilian outfits from her own bag. Having emptied the sack she placed it into the reprocessor unit as directed.
Lizzie took out a few photos from home, placing them on the desk and table, before tucking the rucksack into the bottom of the wardrobe. Lizzie set the new code to the door before propping herself on the end of the bed. Looking at the chronometer in the wall it was 0946.
Nearly time to go. She went to the bathroom. She was sharing it with Maria, the door to the other woman's room on the opposite side of the tiled floor. Passing back through her room she called for the lights to turn off before stepping out into the shiny corridor of the ship to wait for Maria. It was moments before she too stepped out and they headed off together to sickbay.
The four of them stood just inside the doorway, a little uneasy. Most of the staff in the bay had all given the friendly smiles, some even waved and it wasn't long before they saw McCoy walking towards them a PADD in hand. Another man was strolling along next to him with a bounce in his step. He was taller than McCoy with dark skin and short frizzy hair.
McCoy looked up, "Good you know how to be on time. Let get started."
Before he could move the other man jumped in, "Hang on McCoy, I haven't even got to say hello yet!"
McCoy rolled his eyes with an exasperated sigh. The man rolled his eyes back before introducing himself.
"Dr Geoffrey M'Benga, but you can call me Geoff. And you are?" They each said their names and he smiled before turning back to McCoy saying, "you're good to go".
McCoy jabbed back with a sarcastic drawl, "Why thank you, M'Benga".
He led them round the sickbay, identifying most of the important areas and stock cupboards. M'Benga seemed to lead the human side of things, introducing them to all the staff that they encountered.
"My office is just through there", McCoy said pointing, "It's always open." He didn't sound as gruff just then as he had up to that point.
"You'll be shadowing alpha shift for the rest of the week and after you're settled you'll join the normal rotation." He checked his PADD before reading out, "Mendoles you'll be with Chapel, Braddock you're with George and Hughes you're with Bridge."
And with that he turned and walked back to his office. Lizzie was a bit surprised how fast he moved, she didn't get a chance to catch him before he was gone.
"Dr M'Benga", she caught his attention before he left, "McCoy didn't give me any direction."
He smiled, "No worries Ginger, you new for the lab?"
Lizzie nodded, trying to keep her surprise at the nickname under wraps.
"You're with me," M'Benga smiled again.
He had a certain energy that seemed almost chaotic but simultaneously trustworthy, it was a combination she'd never encountered before.
"Guessing you're actually going to want to see your lab?"
"That would be fantastic," she smiled back at him.
He led her down the corridor to where McCoy had pointed towards his office, they passed it by and continued down the short corridor before taking a right onto a connecting corridor. There was a door at the end.
"So, are you going to the get together tonight? It would be nice to get to know you guys a bit better."
Lizzie hadn't been sure about going, she could get a little nervous in crowded spaces, but she thought she ought to try, she wanted to get to know the people she was going to be living with for nearly five years.
"Yeah, I thought I'd show my face."
They reached the door and it slid open. Lizzie easily recognised the other side of it as a small specimen reception.
"Good to know some things never change," she said quietly as she looked around.
M'Benga smiled, "Nope not even on a Starship"
They stepped through into the reception. They donned lab coats, as they went in. The room split off in two directions to the left M'Benga showed her the transfusion lab and then to the right they stepped into the biochemistry labs, the quiet hum of the machines filled the air, there was a younger man to one side of the lab, he was loading up a few samples. Lizzie knew he must be Michael because her team consisted of only two other people.
He finished what he was doing and looked up. Lizzie smiled at him in greeting and he held out his hand, "So you must be my new boss, I'm Michael Johnson, but everyone calls me Mike."
Lizzie responded in kind, "It's great to finally meet you, I'm Lizzie O'Neil"
Mike looked at M'Benga, "Alright M'Benga, escaped from McCoy's clutches?"
"Yes," he grinned, "But alas it is only temporary, I will have to abandon poor Ginger here shortly. Is Lozzer still here, I'll introduce them before returning to his lair."
Lizzie held back a laugh, their humour infectious, M'Benga turned back around the bench and headed for another doorway.
Lizzie recognised it as the micro lab, there was another doorway at the end of the room that she guessed would lead to a level 4 containment lab. Stood near the middle of the room was a young woman with long light brown hair tied up in a ponytail. She was streaking a plate at the counter.
They approached the bench waiting for Lauren to complete the plate. The flame of the Bunsen flickered slightly: despite the progression of technology there still wasn't a way to do a streak plate without a Bunsen burner, sterile fields killed all the bacteria within it—which would thereby render the whole process pointless because it would be dead before it could grow. The young woman covered the dish and turned to them, she grinned at Lizzie.
"Hi. I'm Lauren."
"Good to meet you, I'm Lizzie O'Neil"
They forwent the handshake both knowing it wouldn't be sensible given the environment. Lauren spoke again, "I'll come meet you and Mike when I finish up here."
"That sounds like a great idea."
Lizzie and M'Benga headed back out towards the specimen reception. "Thank you for showing me, I thought for a moment I was going to have to wander in here alone."
"No problem, I'd never let that happen. I remember my first day here. All that time at medical school, even Vulcan didn't quite prepare me for coming here."
Lizzie made a mental note to ask him more about Vulcan at a later date.
"Well thanks all the same, and I hope to see you later."
"See you later, Ginger"
And with that he took off his lab coat and disappeared through the door.
Lizzie went to the coat pegs in the wall on her side of the counter. There were five pegs. Three empty, there was one blue coat and one green coat hanging up she looked at the blue one she was wearing and compared it to the other hanging up. She supposed the blue was for if someone came down from Sciences. Green was reserved for medical staff. The green coat had embroidery on the front. It had her name on it.
"It's for you," the voice of Mike came from behind her. He and Lauren were standing next to each other
"For me?" Lizzie felt a bit slow.
"Yeah take that one off, that's just some rando visitor one. This is yours." He took it down off the peg and she pulled off the one she had on. Taking it from him carefully she pulled it on and did it up, the dark green covering up the bright blue of her shirt.
Looking up Lauren grinned in approval, "Much better."
Lizzie smiled at them both. Her coat matched their own, they'd gone out of their way to make her feel welcome
"Thank you, that... means a lot."
"No better way to settle in than having your own coat."
She looked down to her left side. Under the Starfleet insignia, embroidered in white read, Lieutenant Elizabeth O'Neil, Pathology, USS Enterprise. This was going to be a good team, she could feel it.