"If there's something strange, in your neighbourhood…" Lorna made her way past bed one with an armful of blankets piled ridiculously high. "Ow!" catching her leg on the corner she tripped slightly and struggled to keep the blankets upright before carrying on her way. "If there's something weird, and it don't look good…" setting the blankets down on bed five Lorna tried to remember what she was doing? "Who you gonna call?" she whispered quietly to herself. "Ghostbusters," trailing off she clicked her fingers when she remembered that she was supposed to be prepping the beds for the maelstrom of crew physicals they were carrying out in the morning.
Taking the corners of one blanket and unfolding the material it immediately became her cape, she hadn't decided whether she was a superhero or royalty of some kind.
"Fear not children! For I am the mighty Lorna and I will save your planet from destruction by using my superpower…" she hadn't worked out what her superpower was. "Harnessing unparalleled power!" she finally decided upon. Setting the blanket down on the bed she tucked the corners in neatly. The next blanket became her capote de brega as she, a matador, teased the bull but she quickly lost interest in that and transformed herself into a talented tango dancer. "Ole!"
Tucking the second blanket in Lorna grabbed another, unfolding the material and wrapping it around her head.
"As long as he needs me!" dropping to her knees Lorna tightened the blanket round her face. "Oh, yes, he does need me!" doing her best cockney accent she belted out the old musical song with passion and bravado. "In spite of what you see, I'm sure that he needs me!" The roar of the audience was deafening.
Three beds down, two to go.
Lorna talked herself through the steps of a good blanket tucking, imagining she had an audience of wet behind the ears medical cadets, my goodness those were the days! She'd become distracted again.
"Right! When it comes to making a bed, there is no better way to create a clean, crisp look than a tidy hospital corner." She spoke to her doting audience who were listening to her intently. "What's a hospital corner?" she asked the imaginary Cadets. "The term may sound daunting and trigger visions of well-kept army barracks or neat and tidy hospital rooms. However, when you break it down, making a bed with hospital corners is actually quite easy and not as hard as it sounds." Taking the blanket Lorna continued her training. "Step One: Lay the flat sheet on top of the bed, make sure that it hangs evenly over the sides." She demonstrated thus. "Step Two: Start at one corner at the foot of the bed. Slightly lift the mattress and tuck the hanging fabric along the foot of the bed. The excess fabric should now be hanging on the sides of the mattress." Lorna patted down the material with the palm of her hand and checked that everybody was following.
"Step Three: Grab hold of the excess fabric. Lift it up and place on top of the mattress. The edge of the sheet should form a forty five degree angle with the corner of your mattress." Lorna waited for Cadet Libby to finish writing up her notes. "Step Four: Hold the fabric forming a forty five degree angle. Tuck in hanging fabric along the side of the mattress and let the sheet fall. Step Five: Adjust the edge of the sheet to the corner of the mattress and tuck in. Step Six: Repeat steps two through five on the remaining corners." Lorna took in the pristine bed in front of her, whoever ended up with that bed was a lucky bugger indeed!
All the stations were ready and all the equipment tested, Lorna had been going nonstop since the start of her shift. A coffee and a cupcake were quietly whispering her name over and over again.
"Yes I know I know! Just hang on a minute." Going to the replicator she requested her coffee and Red Velvet cupcake, seeing it appear in front of her she felt the little tingle of excitement she always got when the delectable confectionary appeared. "Come to Mummy," she whispered, sitting at her desk and taking a sip of her coffee.
"Captain Kirk to Doctor Heiland, report to the bridge." Of course she'd just taken the biggest mouthful of sponge as the message sounded out.
"I'mf onMy wayah…!" rolling her eyes at her mangled response Lorna leapt up and grabbed a med kit. Down the hall, turbolift, command deck. Avoid gaggle of Engineers in corridor, second guess yourself as to which direction to go. Yep, Lorna knew this place like the back of her hand. As the door slid open Lorna scanned the area in front of her, seeing Kirk sat in his chair holding his head with one hand made it pretty clear as to why she'd been called.
"Captain Kirk?" she called out.
"Oh hey, hi Doc." Kirk answered giving her a lopsided grin. Kneeling in front of him Lorna gently moved his hand away, revealing quite a nasty gash on his forehead.
"You want to tell me what you've been up to Captain?" she asked as she pulled a dermal regenerator from her kit.
"You have icing on your cheek," Kirk whispered back to her and Lorna wiped at her face hastily.
"Thanks, now what happened?"
"I tripped," Kirk answered reluctantly.
"Tripped?"
"Yeah Lorna, tripped!" Kirk looked at her as if 'you're one to talk' and he had a point. Giving him a quick wink Lorna finished healing his forehead and then pulled herself back up.
"All done, you're good to go Captain."
"Thank you Doctor Heiland."
"Anytime, see you later!" standing up she gave everybody a wave as she left. "Bye everybody!" she shouted to the Bridge and Kirk couldn't believe his ears when the entire Bridge crew all shouted back in unison 'Bye Doctor Heiland!'
Lorna quickly made her way back to the med bay hoping her coffee hadn't gone cold.
She was supposed to be filling out reports but Lorna had zero enthusiasm for work, finding her mind wondering a little more than usual. She didn't normally find herself feeling bored at work, she loved work! Couldn't keep her away! But tonight it was a struggle she wasn't going to lie. Maybe it had something to do with the fact that the crew physicals were actually starting in the last portion of her night shift and she already knew by that point she would be feeling tired and a little fed up. Most were in and out quickly, getting the mandatory physical done as quickly as possible but some crew found it an opportunity to get every little weird thing they'd found on their body recently checked out and Lorna had had enough of checking out weird things.
She span around on her stool a couple of times, letting her head loll back as she did.
Fifteen minutes went by without her actually thinking or moving, at all!
Wondering around the med bay took ten minutes, she'd never noticed the set of drawers over by the decontamination bay before?
"They haven't been there from the start?" Lorna said to herself as she went to open them, seeing that it was equipment for the decon chamber and that one of the sensors was in there when it should have been in the chamber itself, she picked it up and went to put it back. "Nobody puts anything back in the right place!" she grumbled, she was more and more turning into McCoy!
Tripping on her own foot and flailing her arms out, hand slammed into display unit, display unit set off decontamination system, door closed!
"Shit," Lorna stared at the display unit. "Eight hours!" There must be an override or something?! No, of course there wasn't! Now she had two choices, comm McCoy straight away or just wait until he came into work in three hours? She chose the latter, what was the point in waking him just so that he could call her an idiot through a pane of glass for the remaining five hours that she'd be stuck in the blasted thing?!
Three hours later and McCoy was making his way to work, he'd slept well and was feeling particularly chipper, you know, for him! He was looking forward to seeing Lorna, they'd been working different shift patterns so had really only seen one another as they passed by in their quarters, either high fiving or tiredly hugging one another before going to bed. Walking in the hairs on the back of his neck instantly stood on end, looking around he couldn't see Lorna which meant trouble, pure and simple.
"Doctor Heiland?" he called out. "Doctor Heiland?" he repeated stepping further into the medical bay. Seeing her curled up on her side asleep in the decon chamber made him instantly feel sick to his stomach, why hadn't anyone told him there'd been a medical emergency?! Running up to the side he slammed his palm against the console so that he could speak to Lorna inside. "Lorna! Lorna goddamnit!" he shouted. It was then that he noticed she wasn't hooked up to any of the machines, none of her vitals were being recorded. Creasing his brow McCoy second guessed his original assertion that Lorna had been involved a serious incident. "Lorna! Wake up!" he shouted again and watched as bleary eyed, Doctor Lorna Heiland, his Wife (I mean seriously) sat up and gave him an embarrassed wave of her hand.
"Hi Leonard," she greeted him with a tight smile.
"What the hell Lorna?!"
"I locked myself in," she explained.
"On purpose?" McCoy asked.
"Would that make it better?" Lorna thought she had an out.
"No not really," he'd crossed his arms! crap, he'd crossed his arms.
"Then no, it was accident."
"How long does it have left?" he asked, crossing his arms and shaking his head at her.
"Five hours," cringing Lorna waited for his response. McCoy stood and stared at her, my god he found her beautiful. Frustrating as hell but beautiful nonetheless.
"Just try to stay out of trouble alright?" he told her.
"Leonard! What else am I going to do in here?!" Lorna laughed loudly as she waved her hands in the air, demonstrating her point perfectly by knocking a bunch of medical equipment off a table and jumping when it went clattering across the floor. McCoy just walked away.
Five hours later Lorna squeezed herself through the barely open door and legged it to the toilet, ignoring McCoy, Kostas and everybody else around her! Sulking back she replicated a coffee and picked up a crew physical PADD. She saw that McCoy was stood next to her, smirking. She really disliked it when he smirked.
"What are you standing around for? We've got crew physicals to get through!" shaking her head at him disappointedly she pointed her finger at him. "You're really starting to bunk off," she told him seriously as his eyebrow arched ridiculously high and he barked with laughter. "It's a good job there's somebody around here who actually gets anything done!"
Three weeks later they found themselves on a planet, as you do when exploring deep space.
"What are we doing?" Lorna spoke out the side of her mouth.
"Don't."
"I'm just saying," McCoy rolled his eyes.
"Don't say it," he answered.
"We wouldn't be stuck here watching Captain 'look at me I've got my big boy pants on' Kirk argue for diplomatic immunity if he hadn't of stuck his..."
"Lorna!" McCoy growled.
"Nose in where it doesn't belong," she finished and then creased her brow. "What did you think I was going to say?" She knew what he thought she was going to say.
"Don't toy with me woman, I'm tired, dirty and in need of a drink." Lorna hid the smirk creeping at the corners of her mouth.
"I love you you know?" She told him and she watched as his edges softened.
"I know," he replied and then taking her hand he made his way towards Kirk. "Jim, we getting out of here?" Kirk turned to the pair and gave Lorna a wink.
"Where's your sense of adventure Bones?!" Without missing a beat McCoy turned to Lorna and then back to Kirk.
"Do you see me sat on a porch in Georgia Jim?" Kirk glanced at Lorna when McCoy wasn't looking.
"Is he tired?" Lorna shook her head. "Is it something I said?" She really wanted to say yes.
"I think he's getting a cold," Lorna excused herself quickly and returned to McCoy who was muttering to himself in the corner. "How about when we get back we have a nice long shower, I'll make us dinner, your favourite and you can beat me at poker?" She had him! The twinkle in his eye told her she had him.
"You'll let me win huh?" He asked.
"Every hand," she brought her lips up to his ear so she could whisper. "And for added shits and giggles let's make it strip poker, how does that sound?" McCoy couldn't even play it cool.
"Sounds damned perfect to me." He answered breathlessly.
"Guys!" They both turned to Kirk who was waving them over. "We can leave!"
"Lord have mercy," McCoy mumbled.
Later that evening when Lorna had nothing but a pair of aces concealing her... pair of queens (see what she did there) she smiled at McCoy.
"Your move Cowboy," McCoy grinned.
"I call," putting his cards on the table in front of him he asked Lorna what she had.
"I've got nothing," she lied, throwing her hand away she sat back and laughed. "Just what the Doctor ordered I'd say!" she commented, checking her manicure casually.
"You know I'm starting to think it ain't half bad Kirk getting us in scrape or two every now and again, you know, if this is the result." He was already pushing his chair back and approaching her with purpose.
"You're encourageable." Lorna teased.
"You're delectable."
Lorna had the place to herself. Ah the night shift, her old and trusted friend.
"Take good care! Of my business! Everyday!" She was trying to grow her fringe out but the only thing she'd achieved was to have the blasted thing in her eyes all the time. Kostas had suggested she clip it back but she thought it made her look like a toddler and when she asked if it did Kostas couldn't lie.
She looked like a five foot four toddler! Whipping her head to one side to try and get it out of her face she felt a twinge in her neck.
"Ow!" Unbelievable! Rubbing her neck she carried on writing her reports.
Never a dull moment.
The End