A T'vash decision

Posted on Tue Apr 10th, 2018 @ 3:04am by Lieutenant T'vash

Mission: New Ship, New Crew
Location: DS5 Sickbay, Chief Medical Officer's office / Starfleet Transport

T'vash sat, quietly eating her traditional salad and green tea, while awaiting an expected emotional outburst.

T'vash had placed a transfer request. It was logical. Emotional attachments become impediments to efficiency, once broken.

A plate was placed, heavily, across from her.

"Lieutenant Williams." T'vash said, quietly.

"Cut the shit, T'vash." The woman opposite her replied, curtly.

"I am presently digesting food. It shall be 2.5 hours until my next planned defecation." T'vash retorted.

The woman narrowed her eyes. "Is this how it's going to be? We had one fight. One."

T'vash raised an eyebrow. "I do not, as a habit, exaggerate, or mislead other people." T'vash replied. "I stated, very clearly, that our relationship was an impossible feat, which would result in severe consequences, should we continue it. Your actions were very clearly emotionally biased, and I told you that I could no longer hold an emotional attachment to you, because of them."

"I saved your damn life." The other woman replied.

"And, in so doing, you disrespected everything that I am, and everything that I stand for." T'vash replied. "And you knew this."

"Don't give me your needs of the many speech, T'vash." The woman replied.

"It is everything." T'vash retorted. "It is why I am a doctor. It is why I chose to save 7 lives, instead of my wife. It is why I do every thing. Every moment, of every day. You have shared my mind. You know this."

The woman gave her a desperate glance. "Stop." She said, quietly.

"Our fraternization is terminated, Clarissa. It is you, who must cease." T'vash said, shaking her head. "You shall not change my mind. I am leaving."

"You're what?" Clarissa demanded.

"I placed a transfer request." T'vash said, simply. "It was approved. My shuttle leaves in 3 hours."

Clarissa looked shocked. "You can't just leave. We need you."

"You have an emotional need." T'vash corrected. "I explained the situation to the Captain. The Captain agreed that the emotional level of connection we have is a detriment to the crew, as it cost 19 lives, so you could save one. You do a disservice to yourself, and your uniform, as a Starfleet Security Officer."

Clarissa grabbed at T'vash's hand.

T'vash withdrew her hand, before it could be touched. She knew full well, why Clarissa was grabbing for her; to establish a psychic bond, to see the things that T'vash was not speaking of.

"Your permission to violate my phobia of physical contact has been terminated, as part of the termination of our relationship." T'vash noted. "You expressly do not have permission to freely enter my mind. Doing so constitutes criminal assault."

Clarissa withdrew her hand. "You're extremely serious."

"As you well know, I am very rarely capable of being anything else." T'vash replied. She looked down at her finished salad. She held her hand up in the Vulcan salute. "I do not harbor you ill will, Clarissa Williams. I wish you peace, and long life."

"You say that, and yet you're abandoning me." Clarissa retorted.

"I am choosing to live my life, in a manner appropriate to my beliefs, and requirements for my own health, and well being, as a person." T'vash replied. "I should have died. There are 19 people, whom I had to do autopsies, or post-mortem reports on." She narrowed her eyes. Clarissa was the singular person in a long time, that she dared to allow a vague break in her control. She now hated that Clarissa had that affect on her. "They were people. Good people. Some of them I considered friends. You let them die, for me. You think this is some kind of kindness. You think yourself romantic. I had to sign off on 19 funerals. You made me responsible for their deaths. How am I supposed to forgive you for that?"

Clarissa was silent.

"19 families broken. 19 people are dead." T'vash said. "Three of them had sisters. Seven of them had brothers. Most of them had living parents. There are 9 children whose mother, or father, is going to have to explain why the other parent is not going to be there for them. Ever. Again."

The word 'sisters' was a dirty ploy, which was presumably why T'vash had used it first.

"Don't you dare bring Talia in to this." Clarissa hissed.

"She had children." T'vash pointed out. "There was a chief medical officer, who had to do the same thing for her. To you. To your parents."

Clarissa threw her bowl at T'vash, and stormed off.

"You heartless wench." Clarissa grumbled.

"Do not attempt to provoke emotional fights with people who know how to provoke your emotions better than you can, theirs." T'vash replied.

"Using my mother's suicide is more than a little bit of a harsh move." Clarissa retorted.

"Your mother died, because your sister died." T'vash said, walking past her. "How many people are going to do the same, after this, because of your actions?"

Clarissa did not have an answer to that, and T'vash left her in the appropriately morbid silence that this left her in.

---

T'vash sat, on the transport ship, to the Alabama, in silence. She did not speak, unless spoken to. She did not have anything to say.

She sat, staring at the pictures of 19 people, whose faces should not be on the list of people dead, from the last mission.

"Ain't always easy, huh?" A voice said, from a man sitting next to her.

T'vash tilted her head, to this new face.

"Losing people." He stated, quietly. "Who were they?"

"My friends." T'vash said, quietly. "Or, they were. Before."

"Ensign Longmire." The man said, looking at her. "Running away?"

"Logically removing myself from a dangerous situation." T'vash replied. "Lieutenant Junior Grade T'vash."

"Science, or medical?" Longmire asked.

"Violator of personal codes of ethics, who does not wish to explain." T'vash replied.

Longmire nodded. "I'll avoid that subject, then. Three hours to the Alabama."

"To which department are you being assigned to?" T'vash asked.

"The wonderful world of people who have personal codes of ethics, in a job, which forces them to violate them." Longmire replied. "You're not the first doctor to say something like that before."

T'vash looked between the PADD, and the Ensign. "You, as well?"

The Ensign nodded. "Was a sheriff, once. A police officer. In a tiny city. On a colony." He said, quietly. "Was my thing. Protecting people."

"You were a law enforcement officer?" T'vash asked. "A moment of situational irony."

"How so?" Longmire asked.

"I chose to leave my previous assignment over a Security Officer who violated personal codes of ethics." T'vash noted.

"I'm surprised they didn't." Longmire laughed. "Usually violation of personal ethics evokes changes in the person who violated the ethics."

"The violation was of my ethics. By them." T'vash replied.

"Ah." Longmire nodded. "I'm familiar with that, too." He withdrew a locket, from under his uniform jacket. "Small towns on small colonies. I did my best. Ain't good enough. My friends needed food. They needed medicine. The very Orion pirates who were smuggling drugs in to our colony were also being paid, by these same people, for our food, and medicine. And I busted them. I busted them hard."

"And all it did, was shift one problem, to another." T'vash stated.

"Oh, Starfleet came in. They remedied our food, and medicine problem." Longmire nodded. "My friends hated me for it."

"A curious statement. Why?" T'vash asked.

"Because I went outside the local code of ethics. We were supposed to be self sufficient. We were supposed to be the capable. On our own." Longmire looked away. "And, instead, I saved lives."

"Yet, they did not see the irony of relying on the Orions for those same necessities." T'vash noted, after several moments of contemplation. "Somehow, I suspect, Ensign, that I am not going to have problems working with you."

"Then, please. Call me Tom." Longmire laughed.

"Is that short for something?" T'vash asked.

"Tomato? Toenail? Probably two or three planetary abbreviations." Longmire laughed. "Thomas."

"Would it be acceptable if I addressed you as such?" T'vash asked.

"Ain't nobody ever called me Tomato before." Longmire retorted.

T'vash raised an eyebrow.

Longmire laughed harder.

"I think you're right, little lady. I think you and I gonna get along just fine." He added.

"Why... medical?" T'vash asked.

"'Cause shootin' stuff, and bustin' bad guys ain't good enough to help people. That's why." Longmire shrugged. "T'was either this, or tendin' bar, and I honestly would drink too much profits away, to keep a bar running."

T'vash quirked an eyebrow. "There are other methods of helping people."

"True." Longmire nodded. "But. I like it. I didn't like being a cop. I didn't like being a chef. What I did like was saving someone's life. Not with a gun. Not by beatin' someone's head in. The first time I used my brain. To save someone from somethin' that couldn't be shot, or arrested."

"What was it?" T'vash asked.

"Opiate addiction." Longmire said, quietly. "My first assignment was to a small colony, and most of our patients were outpatient treatments."

"That is a very fine place to start, indeed." T'vash nodded.

"T'was better than locking them in a cell."

"It always is."

---

Introducing

Lieutenant T'vash
Chief Medical Officer

And

Ensign Thomas Longmire
Medical Officer

With special guest star

Lieutenant Junior Grade Clarissa Williams
Chief Security and Tactical Officer
D.S. 5