Chapter 3
Captain's Log, Supplemental:The Enterpriseis currently engaged in a rescue mission after some major seismic activity on the Federation planet Koshka IX. Fortunately, according to our medical team, there have been very few fatalities. Survivors have been beamed aboard the ship until we can find a permanent solution. One of the children on the planet appears to be autistic, and the away team has had trouble approaching him; Lieutenant Green has beamed down to the surface to see if she can be of assistance.
The air shimmered and danced as Riker and Ruthie materialized. "Any change?" Riker asked.
"No, sir," Data replied. "There is no one else in the house, and there have been no noticeable tremors."
Ruthie took off her sunglasses, and re-clipped them to her waistband. She glanced over at the other officers, not making eye contact with anyone. "Okay," she said, her voice lower than usual, almost musical. "Keep your voices down," she instructed. "You don't need to whisper—but don't shout. Ten centimeter voices, as my kindergarten teacher used to say," she added with a small smile. "All right." She took a deep breath. "Where is the child?"
"In there," Dr. Crusher answered, pointing at the open door into the next room.
"Okay," Ruthie replied. "Give us a little space, and I'll see what I can do." She walked over and sat down cross-legged in the middle of the room. She stuck her fingers in her ears, though there wasn't that much noise, and began to rock. She closed her eyes. Ordinarily, this would indicate that she was trying to block out the world around her and escape to a world of her own creation, but in this instance she was very much alert. This meltdown was a façade, meant to convince a young boy that she understood—that she was "one of us."
Twenty minutes later, the child crawled out from behind a chair and sat down beside the lieutenant, putting a hand on her shoulder. He seemed concerned, looking up at her with wide eyes. "Are you okay?" he whispered.
Opening her eyes, Ruthie stopped rocking and removed her fingers from her ears. "Hi," she said quietly, still keeping her voice low. "I'm okay. What's your name?" She was very careful not to force eye contact.
"Misha."
"My name's Ruthie. How old are you, Misha?"
"Four," he said, holding up four fingers.
"Four's a great age." Ruthie noticed he seemed to be staring straight past her, but then, she had expected as much. She rose up on one knee, as if about to propose, wincing painfully as she braced herself on her right hand out of habit, then set Misha on her knee. Her left arm was firmly, but not uncomfortably, wrapped around his shoulders. "All right," she said quietly, turning towards the door, "come on in. This is Misha." As the other officers entered the room, she turned back to Misha. "We're going to need to take you back to our starship, okay, Misha?"
He looked hesitant. "Can Nikolai come too?" he asked, hugging his teddy bear.
"Is Nikolai your teddy bear?" Ruthie asked. Misha nodded. "Of course he can," she replied, smiling gently. "Have you ever used a transporter beam before?" The boy shook his head. "All right, it might feel a little funny," Ruthie explained. She took her sunglasses off her waistband with her free hand. "Here, put these on; it makes it a little easier." Ruthie looked up at Dr. Crusher, who was standing behind her. "I assume you want to see Misha in sickbay?"
"Definitely," the doctor replied in a low voice. 'I want to see you in sickbay, too,' she thought to herself. She had noticed Ruthie's wince, and that she was now carrying her right wrist close to her body.
Ruthie nodded and half-turned to look up at Riker. "Can you beam us directly there, Commander?"
"Of course." Riker nodded. He assumed that the lieutenant was probably trying to minimize stress to Misha. No sense in leading him hither and yon all over the Enterprise if it wasn't necessary. Guided tours could wait.
"Ready when you are," Ruthie said, closing her eyes since Misha was using her sunglasses.
"Enterprise, six to beam directly to sickbay." The air shimmered and they were gone.
Six figures materialized in sickbay. Ruthie set Misha down, and stood up, stretching lightly on the balls of her feet. She noticed that Misha was shaking himself a little, much like a wet dog. "Told ya it might feel a little funny," she said, laughing. "You may want to give him a few minutes to acclimate, Doctor," she said as Worf and Data left to return to the bridge. "If he is autistic, transitions are likely to be hard on him."
"All right," Dr. Crusher replied, pulling out her tricorder. She turned toward Riker for a moment. "Could you keep an eye on Misha for a few minutes, Commander?" The first officer nodded. She turned back towards Ruthie. "Let's have a look at you first then, Ruthie."
"What? I'm fine," Ruthie protested, still keeping her wrist close, as if her arm were in a sling.
"That's what they all say," Dr. Crusher replied dryly, rolling her eyes. She pointed at the examining table. "Now, Lieutenant," she said firmly. "Or do I have to sedate you first?"
That got Ruthie moving. "All right," she sighed, using her good hand to hoist herself up. "I'm fine, really."
"I heard you the first time, Ruthie. I've also heard of your tendency to 'feel fine' when you aren't," Dr. Crusher replied, gently rolling up her patient's sleeve.
Ruthie winced, then grinned sheepishly. "Guilty as charged," she sighed. "How'd you manage to hear about that? I haven't even been aboard the Enterprise a week yet."
"I contacted Dr. Ray on Starbase Mendeleyev to tear him a new one about keeping his records up to date," the doctor replied, studying her tricorder readout. Frowning, she set down the tricorder. Ruthie grimaced as Dr. Crusher carefully unfastened the wrist brace to take a closer look underneath. Then the doctor picked up an osteogenic stimulator. "I thought I made it clear that you weren't to lift anything, Lieutenant," she said sternly, raising an eyebrow.
Silence reigned for several minutes. Then Ruthie sighed. "You did. It wasn't because I beamed down to the planet. It could just as easily have happened in my own quarters, tying my shoe."
"What did happen, exactly?" Dr. Crusher asked as she re-stabilized the fractured ulna.
"Stupid mistake. I'm right-handed. I was getting up from the floor, and balanced my weight on my right hand. Sheer force of habit," she said sheepishly. She flinched involuntarily as the doctor put the brace back on, drawing her hand back slightly. "Ouch."
"Sorry. Now hold still," the doctor chided gently. "That explains it."
"How did you know? I hadn't said anything about it."
"You should have," the doctor replied in a slightly accusatory tone, raising an eyebrow. "But, to answer your question, you've been favoring that hand ever since we beamed back, for starters. And people who are 'just fine' don't generally wince like that. If you're not careful, Ruthie, I'm going to tell you to stay off the floor too," she added, smiling. She took a hypospray out of the pocket of her lab coat and injected it into Ruthie's shoulder. "That should take care of it. Just fine, my eye."
"You're right. My profound apologies, Doctor." Ruthie slid down from the edge of the table, walked across the room, and took Misha by the hand. "Your turn," she said with a smile, leading him back to the examining table. She was about to pick him up, but was interrupted.
"I don't think so, Lieutenant," the doctor said, hands on her hips.
"Oops, forgot. Again."
"Up you go, Misha," Riker said, setting the child on the examining table as the doctor picked up her tricorder.
"A few minor cuts and bruises from the quake, nothing more serious than that," the doctor said in surprise, looking up from her tricorder. She thought a moment. "Where were you when the ground was shaking, Misha?"
"Under my bed. It was too loud, so I hid from the noise…but it still found me," Misha replied, still not looking at any of the officers in the room.
"That explains it," Dr. Crusher said, turning to Riker and Ruthie. "The mattress must have protected him from impact from all the falling rubble." She turned back to her tricorder. "Come over here for a minute, Ruthie. I need a neurological basis of comparison." She reached for a second tricorder as Ruthie walked over. A tricorder in each hand, she scanned both patients. "Sure enough," she said, comparing the readings. She waved over one of her nurses. "Misha, are you hungry?" the doctor asked, smiling.
Misha nodded. "Uh-huh. I'm as hungry as a goose that's never eaten that's four years old." He was smiling broadly, though he still wasn't looking anyone in the eye.
Dr. Crusher smiled at the child's analogy, not so very different from the ones that Wesley had once used. Wesley's analogies had always tended more towards alligators and crocodiles. She gently lifted Misha off the table. "In that case, why doesn't Nurse Miller take you to get something to eat?" The nurse took the boy by the hand and walked over to the replicator, as Dr. Crusher motioned Riker and Ruthie into her office. "Ordinarily, diagnosing autism requires a fairly large set of tests, as you probably well know, Ruthie."
Ruthie nodded. "It's been nearly twenty years…but, yes, I remember."
"Under the circumstances, I don't want to put Misha through that right now," the doctor continued. "However, his neurological abnormalities are consistent with Ruthie's. I think a tentative diagnosis of Asperger's Syndrome is justified."
"Thank you, Doctor," Riker replied. He turned to Ruthie. "I'll see you back on the bridge, Lieutenant." With that, he went off in search of a clean shirt before returning to duty.
Ruthie turned to face Dr. Crusher, though she did not look the doctor in the eye. "What happens to Misha now?" she asked.
"Well, his mother should be waking up soon. At that point, we'll give them quarters aboard the ship along with the rest of the survivors."
"And after that?" Ruthie looked insistent.
The doctor had a pretty good guess of what Ruthie was getting at. "I don't know, Ruthie."
"He needs to be allowed to make that decision for himself when the time comes. He has that right." Too distracted and upset to be paying much attention, Ruthie began rocking again.
Though Ruthie hadn't specified which decision she meant, Dr. Crusher understood exactly what she was getting at. She shook her head. "I don't know what his parents will decide, or even if he has a preexisting diagnosis or not. We'll have to wait and see, Ruthie." The doctor walked over and gently put a hand on the young lieutenant's shoulder. "Are you doing all right?"
Noticing that she was rocking, Ruthie stopped. "I-I-I'm fine. I-I'd better get back up to the bridge." She turned to go.
"Not so fast, Lieutenant," the doctor interrupted, arms folded across her chest. "Are you fine or are you 'fine'?"
Ruthie sighed. "I'm all right. Really." She noticed the doctor's questioning glance. "This is part of day-to-day life for me. It's something I've learned to live with."
"Are you sure?" the doctor asked. The only response was a nod. "All right. If you're back to normal."
"As normal as I'm ever going to be." Ruthie shrugged. "Normal isn't a concept I have much use for unless it involves titrations, Doctor. I'll see you around." With that, she walked out of sickbay.
The turbolift doors hissed open, and Ruthie stepped onto the bridge, heading for her usual science station.
"There you are, Lieutenant," Riker remarked. "I'd been wondering where you were."
"I earned myself a lecture from Dr. Crusher, Sir."
"I should've guessed," Riker replied, shaking his head.