That evening, Leonard took himself to the recreation room as he promised, feeling something like excitement. The competitive spirit in him was definitely enthusiastic about a good battle at the scrabble board again. It had been way too long since he'd been able to enjoy some friendly competition.
Judging by the packed room, game night was pretty popular with the crew. There had to be at least fifty bodies crammed in there gathered around tables or sitting on the floor around various games.
"Sorry!" Squealed an ensign, gleefully bumping her opponent's piece back to start. Commander Spock appeared to be deeply engrossed in a game of Monopoly. "Go to Jail. Go directly to jail. Do not pass go, do not collect 200 credits." Those words sounded so funny in his serious monotone, Leonard couldn't help but chuckle. Uhura sighed and moved the little shoe to jail. Scotty and Jamie waved him over to their table, where they were setting up the scrabble board.
"This is quite the event," he remarked. "Even Spock is participating." He glanced over at the Monopoly game again. "It's become very popular," confirmed Jamie happily. "Excellent crew bonding time. Spock gets ridiculously cutthroat at that game. Only Uhura and the Andorian engineers will play with him." Leonard chuckled. Spock obviously took the game, like everything else he did, very seriously.
Since the Risk game was already in use, the three of them played Scrabble, watched closely by Scotty's buddy Keenser. It was quite the competitive game and he found himself deeply engrossed. He and Jamie were neck and neck for awhile, but It was Scotty who surprised them both by winning the whole thing. "Nice job, Scotty," Jamie said admiringly. "You broke the streak at last." "Nifty move, coming up with 'asphyxiation' at the end. I take my hat off to you," Leonard admired. Scotty grinned. "I've been studying up since last time," he said, "shall we have another round?"
They ended up playing three more games that evening. Jamie won two and Leonard took the last one. They stood up and stretched afterwards, stiff from sitting so long The room was beginning to clear out as people packed up games and made challenges for the next time. Leonard was in a great mood, feeling satisfied with himself, until an Orion girl ran up to Jamie, hugging her enthusiastically.
"Gaila!" Jamie squealed, "did you beat Sulu's tail at Risk?"
"Soundly!", the red-haired women declared. She turned toward Leonard, who felt suddenly queasy.
"Where did you find this one?" she asked, looking over the doctor. "You been keeping him to yourself? That's not nice, Jamie."
Jamie looked slightly panicked and tried to halt things before Leonard got too uncomfortable.
"Umm, Leonard, this is Gaila, Gaila, Leonard. He's a friend of Geoff's and I don't think he's interested right now. He's been through a lot recently."
"I'm sorry to hear that." Gaila said, sympathetically, "But Jamie's really good at cheering people up. She'll have you feeling better in no time."
He watched Jamie turn beet red at the insinuation her friend made. He inwardly groaned. Why couldn't he just be friends with a pretty woman without assumptions being made? But that was just how Orions tended to think. He'd once thought it was cute, back at the academy. Not after he had seen some of them treat their fellow Orions and other species like cattle.
Jamie distracted her friend by asking her how in the world she beat Sulu, the resident master of Risk, at his own game. They began an enthusiastic discussion about that game, leaving Leonard free to sneak quietly out. He hadn't known there were any Orions on board, but then he'd only met a tiny fraction of the crew. Maybe he wouldn't be so eager to visit Engineering in the future.
He knew it wasn't her fault and she seemed like a sweet girl, but for a second he'd had a vivid flashback to being taken for a "test drive" by another Orion woman in the employ of his owner. The memories were beginning to jump out at him now. He'd stuffed them down for so long, trying to survive each day of dragging rocks around and monotonous hard labor.
But, now that he was safe, there wasn't much to hide behind, other than his reading and helping in Medbay. Just yesterday, he had seen a tall Cardassian and broke out in a cold sweat, remembering one of his worst encounters. He'd hid in a dark corner for several minutes while he waited for his fear to pass and heartbeat return to normal. Pike was right. How could he ever hope to treat patients effectively when he risked a meltdown when ever he saw one that somewhat resembled a rapist?
He was ready to turn in when the door chimed. Jamie stood in the doorway, looking worried.
"Are you all right, Bones? I forgot to tell you about Gaila. I'm sorry."
He motioned her to come in. "It's okay, Jamie. You're captain of a starship." Leonard tried to reassure her. "You've got plenty more problems to deal with without worrying about what might trigger me."
"I know. But I should have said something." She sighed. "I had so many things that set me off after Tarsus IV. Took my subconscious years to not send me into a freak out whenever I saw a man with a similar body type to the attacker. So don't think there's anything abnormal about you, Bones."
Jamie looked him in the eyes again, her blue eyes earnest. "We do have a wonderful psychologist on board if you feel you'd like to spill your gut. She sees me regularly and it's done a world of good, both personally and professionally." She rubbed the back of her head ruefully. "I almost got kicked out of the academy because I thought I could deal just fine on my own." Leonard raised an eyebrow. "What did you do?", he asked. Her answer was honest and remorseful.
"Nearly beat a cadet half to death for saying something disgusting about my friend. I lost control of myself in a way that scared me badly. It was like the guy suddenly turned into Kodos and the rapist all in one. Pike told me I could either get help or face an indefinite suspension. He looked so sad. I broke then and there and agreed to go to counseling." She gave a long, quivering sigh. "That started the long road back. I...hope you won't follow my bullheaded example. I really want you in my crew someday. You're a great doctor and friend. Thanks for hanging out with us tonight. It was a lot of fun."
Leonard felt warm hearing her words. Maybe there was hope for him yet. He wanted to be the person she thought he was, He really did. Jamie left him a few minutes later with a gentle goodnight and a handshake, giving him a small card with a name and number on it. He carefully set it on his nightstand and thought about what she'd said before drifting off to sleep.
