Prompt 54: "I made reservations." (Doctor/OC, Zimmerman Family)
Episode: Post-"Endgame"
Author's Note: My OC is based on Dolly Parton, just like Vic Fontaine in DS9 is based on Frank Sinatra. The song "When Life Is Good Again" by Dolly Parton is available on YouTube.
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There was one traditional remedy for the Doctor's broken heart that his colleagues hadn't tried yet, mostly because it didn't come naturally to any of them. Haley had spent almost her whole life in Lewis' quarters, and Lewis and Reg were not exactly sociable themselves. So when the four of them ventured out one night to Jupiter Station's public holosuite – specifically to Papillon Bar – it was something of an adventure. Lewis fidgeted with his collar, Reg kept a tight hold of Haley's storage cylinder, and the Doctor talked nonstop.
"Goodness, it's crowded in here. I'm so glad I made reservations. I don't usually care for country music, you understand, but I've read some excellent reviews of this place. Lieutenant Paris recommended it. It's supposed to be on par with Vic's Las Vegas Lounge on Deep Space Nine for both technical sophistication and charm, although the latter, I suppose, is subjective … "
Lewis elbowed him to shut him up as the blue velvet curtains drew back. The Doctor rolled his eyes, but shut up anyway.
They were sitting in what looked like a classic American small-town bar from the 20th or 21st century, with wooden walls and furniture, bottles gleaming on the shelves behind the counter, arcade games along the wall, and a pool table that Tom Paris surely appreciated. Normally this wasn't the Doctor's scene at all, but he was intrigued by the odd touches of glamour: the stage with its blue velvet curtain, for one thing, or the glittering disco ball on the ceiling. It looked to him like the environment of someone from humble roots who dreamed of something bigger, or perhaps had already found it and preferred to come back home instead.
The Doctor sat up tall in his chair, craning his neck to see over both organic and holographic audience members, curious as to what the performer would look like. Lewis, sitting next to him, did the same. Reg activated Haley, who materialized with a look of nervous excitement on her face.
The house lights went down, making everybody gasp, and a moving spotlight turned on instead. By the time it swung around to light up the stage, a woman was sitting there on a high stool with a guitar on her lap. A drummer, a keyboard player and a bass guitarist stood behind her, but it was impossible to look away from her for long.
"Thank y'all for coming." She smiled. "I'm Butterfly St. James, and may I say, it is such a delight to be here, as always. Ready to make some noise?"
The audience roared.
Like the bar, Butterfly was sparkling in some places and weathered in others. She looked like a human woman somewhere between forty and sixty, with feathery blonde hair, a square jaw and a long nose too plain for conventional beauty, but her smile was so bright and her eyes so warm, it hardly seemed to matter. Her jeans were a washed-out blue and fraying at the hems, but the jacket she wore was shimmering white silk, and so were her high-heeled boots. She wore a brooch on the collar of her jacket in the shape of a blue morpho butterfly, and when she and the band launched into their first lively, foot-stomping song, the Doctor could have sworn it flapped its wings.
Haley clapped and bounced like a small child. Reg had a look on his face somewhere between terror at the loud noise and awestruck fascination with the quality of the program; he was tracing a beer glass ring on the table as if he'd never seen anything like it. Lewis leaned back with his eyes half-closed as if to say, Eh, I've seen better, but the Doctor was almost positive that the rhythmic foot-tapping under the table came from him.
As for himself, he was enjoying the music more and more with every song … until the moment his enjoyment turned into something else.
"This one," said Butterfly, during one of the quieter moments of the show, "Goes out to all our veterans comin' home from the war, as well as those of you missing somebody. It was written over three hundred years ago, during a dark time in our history, and it's called "When Life Is Good Again". Now I may be younger'n I look – a lady never tells - but I've seen enough to know what a hard road it was for some of ya, and maybe still is … " Her kohl-lined eyes sought out several people in the audience, not just the obvious ones – a Bajoran with a walking stick, a Starfleet officer with a bionic eye, a Cardassian so thin that even his spoon-shaped forehead ridge looked brittle – but quite ordinary-looking people, with a compassionate glance. The Doctor's virtual heart nearly skipped a beat when those eyes rested on him and his family. How much could she see? "And I'm here to tell y'all, even if it don't feel like it right now, that life can be good again. And when it is, I hope we'll be ready to let it happen."
She began to sing and play softly, with only the simplest accompaniment from the band. Her voice couldn't be more different from those of the classical soprani the Doctor sang with sometimes. It was raw, untrained and bittersweet, like the champagne he'd drunk once when his program was uploaded into Seven's cortical node. For the first time in three years, the thought of Seven didn't hurt him. He was too busy committing every second of this song to his memory files.
As a new hologram, he'd loved opera because the emotions in the songs were obvious. It had been difficult for him to read his shipmates' social cues sometimes, but never Mimi's in La Boheme or Rodrigo's in Don Carlos. Bittersweetness was new to him. Butterfly's song lyrics were full of hope, but it was the elusive sort of hope that someone – a long-term patient or perhaps a veteran, like she'd said – would cling to, even if it never came true. The aching uncertainty of it was something he could never have appreciated when he was younger, but now he listened without so much as breathing.
The idea had been for him to go to a bar and get drunk on music, since he couldn't get drunk on alcohol, but he'd never expected it to affect him like this.
Far too soon, the song was over. Butterfly blew a kiss at the audience to wild applause, put down her guitar on the chair, and got up. "Now I'mma take a couple minutes, if that's okay. I don't get thirsty, but even us holograms like a break. Take it from here, guys?" she said to her bandmates, who began playing some calm instrumental music while she hopped off the stage and disappeared into the crowd. Fans swarmed her at once, and she laughed and chatted with them as if they were old friends. She was much smaller than she appeared onstage, high heels, big hair and all, and the Doctor found himself absurdly worried about losing sight of her.
"Is she still there?" He caught Lewis' sleeve. "Do you think it would be appropriate to talk to her? Oh, I'd better not. She looks terribly busy, I'd hate to impose."
"Ugh, you're worse than a teenager," was Lewis' only reaction.
"Um … Doc?" said Haley. "I don't think that's such a good idea … She's a Felix creation, you see."
"Who's Felix?" asked the Doctor.
Reg winced. Lewis scowled.
"The only other programmer so far who can create sustainable self-aware holograms," said Haley. "The author of Vic's Las Vegas Lounge. He and Lewis are kind of … rivals."
"Hah! I wouldn't go that far," Lewis snorted. "To be my rival, he'd have to be my equal, which is far from true. He wastes his talent on frivolous entertainment when he could be using it to save lives, like my EMH's do."
Reg and Haley exchanged commiserating eyebrow raises, as if they'd heard all this a hundred times before. Knowing Lewis, they probably had.
"Let me guess," the Doctor retorted. "He's more famous than you?"
"That's completely beside the point!"
"Save my seat, please." That settled it. No petty rivalry of the old man's was going to stop him from striking up a conversation with whomever he liked.
He took a deep, symbolic breath, straightened his jacket, got up from his chair, and began worming his way through the crowd with apologies to right and left (and the occasional elbow). Please, God, if You exist, he thought. Don't let me say anything stupid.
By the time he reached Butterfly, he almost bumped into her. She looked him up and down with one flicker of her eyelashes and smiled.
"Hi!" She held out her hand, not sideways, but palm down.
"Miss St. James?" He took the cue and bowed over it. Her fingertips were callused, exactly like a real guitarist's. Her nails were painted candy-apple red. "Delighted to meet you. You have a magnificent voice."
"Why, thanks! What's your name, sweetie?"
Why did I ever stop searching for a name again? "Emergency Medical Hologram, Mark One. My friends call me Doctor."
"My, my." Her eyebrows shot up. "Not much room for that on an autograph card, is there? You're the one from Voyager. Author of Photons, Be Free?"
"That's correct."
The Doctor glowed with anticipatory pride. Had she played it? What did she think? Could it be he was about to exchange ideas with a fellow hologram on the issue of equal rights, which was so important to them all?
"Felix sent it to me," she said, grinning. "I near about decompiled myself, laughing so hard!"
And with a final pat of the Doctor's arm, she whirled away to greet her next fan.
/
Lewis, Reg and Haley watched from their table like spectators at a play, nudging each other and trying not to laugh, as the Doctor drifted back to them with the air of someone who had just been knocked over the head.
"I have no idea what just happened," Lewis drawled, "But I find it hilarious."
"Nice one, Haley," Reg whispered into the young woman's ear as she sat beside him. "He'd n-never have talked to her … if n-not for you."
"He takes after Lewis, that's all," Haley whispered back, every photon shimmering with joy from the closeness and the compliment. "Sometimes they just need a little help."