Zeva system
Peretal, Zeva V
Dr. Abbey Paris grinned widely as she approached her last two patients in the post-op ward. "Looks like you guys are finally getting rid of me," she announced. "Not that either of you two still need me, of course."
"We could never thank you enough for all that you have done for us, Dr. Paris," Anuj Saime Peretal replied, his eyes wide in an expression of honesty, making Paris chuckle. "You saved our lives." She opened her mouth to respond, but was interrupted before anything could come out.
"Hey, Paris," Ensign Andrew Riker said, seeming to come from nowhere. "Kellogg sent me to tell you that the patients in the recovery ward have all been transferred to other hospitals."
"Good," she replied, smiling thinly over at him. "Thanks, Riker." He nodded in acknowledgement before ducking away. Dr. Paris turned back to her patients to see amused expressions on their faces. "What?"
"He likes you," Savin Colbee Peretal explained.
Paris waved that aside. "He'll get over it."
"He doesn't seem like a bad person," Saime pointed out.
"No," Paris agreed. "He seems rather nice, when he wants to be, but as I told him, I don't date pilots."
"You shouldn't generalize," Saime argued, somehow still making his words seem kind and thoughtful. "Not all pilots are the same."
She laughed at his words as she took a seat on the edge of Colbee's bed. "I know enough pilots to know that, generalization or not, it's a good rule to have. My father and my sister, and my sister's husband, are all pilots, and a lot of their friends are pilots, so I know a lot of pilots, and I know better than to date them."
"Why is that?" Colbee asked.
Paris shrugged a shoulder. "There are many reasons. They're cocky, always sure of themselves, and they always think they're right. They're usually quite charming, but like I said about Ensign Riker, only when they want to be." She paused, her expression becoming distant, remembering something from her past. "They're reckless, taking risks they don't have to, usually just for fun, and always because they're only thinking of themselves and never thinking about how much it would hurt other people if they get hurt." She flushed slightly as she came back to the present and realized what all she had said.
"You sound like you have some experience," Colbee said gently.
Paris nodded, brushing aside an imaginary lock of hair. "You can say that," she said, her words almost bitter. "Like I said, I know pilots, I was raised around them." She paused, then added, "I was engaged to a pilot once, so I really do know what it's like to date them. I know what it's like to suddenly be shoved aside when an opportunity to fly a new shuttle or try a new stunt comes up. I know what it's like to get a communication from the hospital saying that he's fine now, but he wrecked his craft earlier that night and broke both of his legs. I know what it's like to worry that he'll do something stupid and the next message I get from the hospital won't be telling me that it's okay."
"What happened to him, your fiancée?" Colbee asked.
"He died," Paris told her. "More than four years ago now."
"While he was flying?"
"No," she said, shaking her head. She looked away, then back at the two dark Zevians. "He was killed by the Nygleians when they attacked Earth. We were in Berlin, which is a city halfway across the world from Starfleet Academy. I was competing in the collegiate gymnastics championships, and he came to watch. He wasn't supposed to come until the next day, but his schedule was changed, and he wanted to see me compete, so he surprised me and showed up that morning. I was in the middle of a routine when the attacks started." She paused again, remembering. "They told me later that he died instantly, so I guess that's good, that he didn't suffer, but it's hard to find the silver lining when I know that the only reason he died was because I pouted about his schedule changing and complained that we don't ever spend time together."
She didn't miss the glance between Saime and Colbee, and didn't even pretend not to know what they were thinking. It wasn't hard to see the parallels between her attack and Jake's death four years before and their own attack a few days ago, with the injured athlete and the missing fiancée who was at the competition to offer support. She knew they were wondering how much of her intensity was her doing her job and how much was her trying to change the past, because she wondered the same thing. She didn't want to think about that.
She stood from Colbee's bed and offered her patients a stiff smile, hoping it didn't look like the grimace it felt like. "Anyway, what I come by to tell you is that you're both being discharged home, you don't need to be hospitalized any more. One of the physicians from Peretal, a cardiologist, would like to follow-up with both you, and you have appointments scheduled for two weeks from now. Any questions?"
The Zevians shared another look, Colbee giving Saime an encouraging glance. "Just one, Dr. Paris," he finally said. "I know my heart was damaged pretty badly, but I was wondering if I'll ever be able to compete again."
She blinked once at his words as she remembered asking the same question, lying in a hospital bed light-years away, less than a week after waking from a coma. The doctor, newly crowned as Starfleet's leading hybrid neurologist after the death of Dr. Naviana Torres, had looked away and muttered something incomprehensible until she lost her temper and demanded a straight answer. He told her then that, in no uncertain terms, her gymnastics days were over. "It's going to take some rehabilitation," Paris told him. "It won't be easy, and you're probably going to want to give up, but if you stick to it, you'll end up stronger than you were before. You're going to be able to do anything you want."