When Orion came to again, she was calm for about a nanosecond before she realized Artemis was no longer with her. She sat bolt straight with her eyes wide and a horrified look on her face. The young woman stood and looked around. "Where the hell is Artemis?!" she demanded of the few in the room. "Where is he!?" Orion shouted again when she got no response the first time.
"Miss, I don't know," said the doctor as calmly as he could, worrying over the fragile state of the young woman's mind and emotions. Apparently she and her brother were uber close. But that didn't excuse her screaming and shouting which would not get her anywhere.
"What? You don't know?!" she asked, unbelieving that the phenomenon was just as new to the doctor as it was to her.
"It's just as Bones said. We don't know anymore than you do," said a male voice. Orion raised an eyebrow at the newcomer. He was tall, had blond hair and dazzling blue eyes. He also walked with a swagger that Orion knew too well as the 'I'm God's gift to womankind' swagger. But at the moment it was more of an authoritative stride.
He smirked roguishly when he noticed Orion looking at him. Orion scowled and crossed her arms over her chest. "And you are?" she asked snottily. The man just laughed, making Orion scowl a little more.
"Careful, your face may freeze that way," he said teasingly. "But as for my name, I'm Captain James T. Kirk, and you are on my ship, the USS Enterprise...oh and you can call me Jim," he said, starting out serious but soon turned flirtatious and winked.
"Yeah, cause I would totally give you that satisfaction," Orion bit back, making Bones chuckle.
"Oh my gosh! He laughs!" she said wide eyed, staring at the doctor who immediately reverted back to the usual frown-like scowl. Jim on the other hand was laughing his ass off. No one ever reacted like that to Bones. It was rather refreshing.
"It ain't that funny, Jim," muttered Bones as he walked away to do more beneficial work. He figured that Jim could interrogate and inform the young woman better than he could. Bones wasn't ignorant of his lack of bedside manner, but it just took too much effort to be always sunshine and daisies with patients.
"I know...I know," panted the captain who had a killer smile in Orion's opinion. Not that she would ever admit that aloud. With a smile like that, she could see how the captain could be a flirtatious womanizer.
Orion gave him an unimpressed look as he finished his laughing fit and got serious once again. "In all seriousness, I need you to stay here until Bones finishes the tests, and then I need to, according to the boring Starfleet regulations, interrogate you lest you be some suspicious alien life form...and a whole bunch of other rather boring things," he said.
"So you mean I'm stuck here for awhile?" she asked, almost afraid of his answer.
Jim looked at Orion with a sorta sad smile. He understood being in places one would rather not be in, wanting nothing more to be home and with familiar faces. What made it worse for Orion was she at least had a familiar face for a few minutes before he just disappeared.
"For the time being, yes," he said in a tone he didn't use often. The young captain nodded then turned to leave. He had some things to look into before he questioned this peculiar, but beautiful woman.
"Damnit!" Orion muttered before pacing. She had energy just wanting to get out, and there was nothing to tinker with. At least nothing she thought would be good to tinker with. Everything was foreign and Orion didn't want to permanently damage the mighty fine ship (despite the fact she had only seen the medical bay).
"I already know that if I were to ask if you were alright, I'd get a sarcastic, smarmy reply, so I'll just say, life isn't so bad on the Enterprie, and I'm sure there is some place that you could fit in just fine," said Bones as he walked back out into the main room.
Orion jumped a little. "My word, don't startle me like that...." She frowned slightly. "I'm only really good at mechanics and engineering...Artemis was more of the real scientist," she said sadly.
Bones nodded slightly as he was unsure what to say. Small talk with patients was another thing he lacked much experience since most patients were in and out of his medical bay within a few hours.
Orion gave the doctor a small smile. "So you need to finish doing some tests with me?" Bones nodded mutely and grabbed a hypospray. Orion wrinkled her pert little nose at the thing. "If I am correct in assuming that this is indeed the future, at least according to my frame of reference, I would have thought shots and the like would have been long gone," she said.
"Yeah, well unfortunately people still get sick and need medicine here in the 'future'. So just stay calm, and try not to be as infantile as Jim," Bone quipped with a very faint smile. "Also, try not to sound so scientific. You may just be proof of the oldest Vulcan."
Orion looked puzzled. A Vulcan? What on earth, or space (as Orion assumed they were in space) was a Vulcan? The doctor seemed to pick up on her confusion and shrugged but figured this might serve as a decent distraction. "Much has apparently changed, but a Vulcan is in all intents and purposes an alien." While he was talking, Bones had carefully and silently injected what he needed to into Orion.
"Aliens? They really do exist?" she asked, eyes going wide like a kid who just walked into Wonka's Chocolate Factory. She just knew that there had to be extraterrestrials. The universe was enormous, and Orion refused to believe that humans on planet Earth were the only ones inhabiting the universe.
Bones raised an eyebrow before rolling his eyes and muttered an "Unbelievable" as he strolled back into his office for something. Orion just shrugged and looked around the Medical bay. Everything was shiny and pristine.
'Just as a medical place ought to be,' she thought, thinking back to the times she had asked her father why he had to be so clean all the time. Orion felt a small pang in her heart when she thought of her father. What had happened to him, she wondered and her silvery eyes scanned the room.
There was the swishing sound, which Orion could only assume meant that someone had entered the medical bay. She just about had a heart attack when she saw him. Orion did how ever go wide eye and screamed, causing Bones to rush out, wondering what happened. He sighed in annoyance. "Damn hobgoblin," he muttered before wandering away to check on another patient.
Raising an eyebrow, the first officer looked at the young woman and then at the doctor before bringing his attention back to the woman. He wondered what had caused her to scream and look...horrified at his appearance.
"You're one of them, right?" Orion asked rather quietly like a child might do when asking a celebrity for his autograph. She stared at him and was rather amazed that for this alien, he seemed human, apart from the ears that reminded Orion of elf ears. She doubted the man would appreciate that, as it could be offensive to him and his culture.
"If I am correct in the assumption you meant to ask if I was an alien life form, then in answer to the query, yes. I am not of the planet Earth," said the Vulcan.
Comprehension dawned in Orion's eyes. "Are you a Vulcan by any chance?" she asked curiously tilting her head to the side. She seriously wondered if he was part of the species that the doctor had mentioned earlier.
The man with the pointy ears sounded very rigid and scientific, just as she sorta had earlier when the doctor....Bones, as he was called by the captain, made the comment. If this alien was indeed scientific, Orion couldn't wait to have bouts of scientific debates. That was the other area Orion excelled at. She could argue scientifically like no other...at least in her time.
The Vulcan raised an eye brow. "Fascinating," he mused softly to himself before tilting his head slightly and inspecting Orion more critically. "How did you know? I assume that you have had no prior exposure to alien life, I am slightly confounded as to how you knew what I was."
Orion smirked. She had a feeling this guy was rarely, if ever wrong. That was something that she would never understand. She had her share of mistakes, but that was part of the fun, learning and growing and doing better because she happened to be wrong. Orion wanted to make him wrong more than once, but until she gained more knowledge about this time, she'd have to save it for later.
"The good doctor here," she gestured toward Bones. "Mentioned something along the lines of me sounding kinda like a Vulcan he knew which I could only imagine is you since you have a very scientific vocabulary," she explained adding a few sarcastic points in the mix. To say the Vulcan was amused at her antics would not be quite accurate. If anything, the art of sarcasm was about as lost to Spock as the emotions behind the use of such a device.
Spock nodded curtly. Everyone on the ship, excluding Orion, knew that he and McCoy were not on the friendliest of terms. Spock thought the doctor was too emotional and irrational. McCoy on the other hand thought that Spock was a little too cold blooded and scientific. The doctor wondered what Uhura saw in the half-man. Maybe it was just the ears that did it.
"Did you come by for a checkup, Spock, or did you have other important matters to attend to here in my medical bay?" snapped Bones as he sauntered through, checking on things here and there. Keeping things up to snuff as it were.
Spock narrowed his eyes slightly at the doctor. Why the captain put up with such a man was incomprehensible to the half-Vulcan. Shaking his head slightly, Spock looked at Orion. "The captain asked me to show you to the confrence room, and he also wished that you, Doctor McCoy, were present as well." Orion nodded and stood to follow the tall Vulcan who just let the medical bay.
"Great. 'Cause I really wanted to spend an hour or so with Jim, the point eared bastard and the kid, when I could be doing some real work," Bones muttered with a scowl, following the two out the door and down the hall toward the conference room.
Author's Note: WHOOOO!Two chapters in a week! Wow...actually it's cause Im highly motivated and highly inspired....either that or I'm writing pure shit.
Anyway, I want to thank you for reading...and reviewing if you do.
PLEASE! I need your help...I need to know whom I should pair Orion with. It's not that to cast a vote as it were...
And at least I will not to a run-off vote...
Thanks again for reading and reviewing! Byes!