notabricklayer | (no subject)

From:

olyabird.livejournal.com

Over his shoulder, there is a mirror fracture painted on this dimension of reality. It moves without sound, without displacing a single molecule of air. Behind it, perhaps someone might notice a few degrees drop in temperature.

But other than that, the shadow that follows him through the door leaves no trace.

From:

notabricklayer.livejournal.com

Ship-board air has a stale tang after a week in the bar, but McCoy doesn't pause, striding boldly down the corridors, nodding to crewmembers... some of who stare after him with puzzled expressions. He'd just been beamed aboard hours before, unconscious and under emergency medical care, and gossip spreads quickly on board this ship. Some people had even heard that their CMO had died on that dusty planet.

McCoy has his work cut out for him. Step one is to march straight back to his abandoned medbay, nearly bowling over a stunned Nurse Chapel as he does.

"Dr. M'Benga. Pending your exam, I believe you'll find me fit for duty." He calls to the junior doctor, enjoying his expression immensely. This? Is going to be fun.

From:

olyabird.livejournal.com

Olga would laugh, if she had the presence of mind to, but she's far more concerned with the terrifying sensation of being disconnected from the Earth.

Old power lies in the Ley Lines of her home world. It draws the invisible boundaries of the Gloom. It gives direction to the Chaos. Here, in the Gloom, she is fighting to keep her senses oriented. There is life flowing in the corridors, life all around her. Just so little, it seems a tea cup's worth tossed in the ocean. Still, she's here, following him, and his bright spirit is a beacon in the darkness.

She stays close, shallow in the Gloom, ready to step out if she feels her sanity start to slip. She's a Grand Sorceress. The Gloom is her kingdom. This is just a new territory for her.

From:

notabricklayer.livejournal.com

M'Benga's physical exam is a thorough affair - he cannot quite believe that McCoy is coherent and on his feet. Afterward, he dives into the pile of work that has awaited his return, and into making sure the command crew is up and rolling again. Even though Spock has taken temporary command of the ship, some things still need to go through Kirk, so there is a steady stream of command crew coming in and out of sickbay, under McCoy's watchful eye.

From:

olyabird.livejournal.com

She watches, eventually making the shift from the Gloom into the reflective surface of the display nearest his chair. The place isn't what one would call warm and inviting, but even still, it's more hospitable than the chill void of the Twilight.

She makes a slow circuit of the rooms he calls his offices, tracking the scent of his skin and his blood, moving from mirrored plane to mirrored plane, the humans and -- not-humans -- around her utterly oblivious to her presence.

A pretty brunette comes through wearing a ridiculously short skirt (they are all wearing such ridiculously short skirts, Olga notices) but she addresses McCoy in a familiar tone.

Too familiar a tone. Olga shifts back to the display behind his desk, watching the two of them, trying to still an aching fury behind her breastbone.

From:

notabricklayer.livejournal.com

"... and I think an outside voice, a... more maternal voice is what is called for here, to help him avoid internalizing the trauma, and..." Dr. Noel shows no signs of stopping for breath any time soon, so he breaks in, abruptly.

"And if you are thinking about quoting Shultz and McNathal's paper on me, don't - I was part of the group that did the peer review, and I wasn't overly impressed with their statistical work." He shuts her down firmly, steering her away from the private room that Jim is resting in. "And, as you remember, I'm perfectly qualified to oversee the Captain's mental health as his CMO."

It's pointed, and a trifle rude, but if she honestly believes that he is going to let her in there, she's the one who needs psychiatric help.

_________________________________

Soon, one by one, the away team is released back to duty - despite reservations, Kirk escapes first, with a severe warning that if he gets any reports of physical weakness, Kirk will be back in a bed so fast it will make his head spin.

The two security boys are released next, within a day of each other, with a long road of physical conditioning in front of them to get back up to fighting strength. McCoy is pretty sure they'll be alright.

Rand takes the longest, but mostly due to psychological damage rather than physical - she revealed to the Captain her long-standing crush, and was held captive by homocidal children. Between one and the other, the girl is a mess. McCoy spends several long days talking her through her problems.

From:

olyabird.livejournal.com

She marks each of them, time slipping around him to watch their stories unfold. The one from the hell planet is perhaps the most interesting. Ancient songs sing in his blood, but his own emotions are so closely kept, like dried flowers pressed in a book, or scientific specimens pinned to a board.

The other, the one they call Captain, his blood is hot as well, but in a different way. She bores of him quickly.

She does the same with each of them, returning to McCoy's side to pick up a new trail, to unravel a new story.

Mostly she spends the long hours watching him.

He works too hard. He thinks of her often, thinks of their bed, but he stays here, bound by duty. Of all the things that are so confusing in this place, this? This, she understands.

From:

notabricklayer.livejournal.com

On the whole, life on board a starship is much like life on board a submerged submarine - routine takes over after a while, without even the freedom to go out and see a change of weather. There is a reason why various sports and game leagues have sprung up all over the ship - without some sort of variation, it's an existence designed to drive men mad.

Of course, some days life gets interesting. McCoy is starting the quarterly ship physicals, putting a poor ensign through the ringer, when the alarms go off abruptly, strident and loud.

"Medical emergency, medical emergency, assistance to Deck 4, section 2." It's Uhura's voice, quickly drowned out by McCoy's barking orders, before he and three of his orderlies disappear out the door, racing to meet the call.

From:

olyabird.livejournal.com

She flies to follow him, careening from surface to surface, just another glint of light in the too bright world of this starship.

The power source here is jittering, a wild thing, setting up a resonance around her that makes her skin crawl. It's touched a man, singed both flesh and nerves.

It takes her but a fraction of a heartbeat to slip out, grasp the thing by the throat, and drag it back into the Gloom with her. It writhes in her grasp, a wounded animal.

She ignores it, watching him and the people around him, waiting for them to disconnect the beast at the source.

From:

notabricklayer.livejournal.com

He sees her - the dying boy, convulsing helplessly, he sees the impossible and knows that he is going to die here, in this ship, millions of miles from home. After all, one doesn't see ghosts and live.

McCoy doesn't see her, only knows that someone managed to get the access panel disconnected from the rest of the ship, and they're hauling the young electrocuted engineer across the hallway, flat on his back, doping him to his eyeballs with sedatives and anti-arrhythmic drugs and McCoy is praying fervently to whatever god cares to listen to ship's medics that he won't have to take the boy's hand in the end. Sure, there have been great strides in prothetics, but it won't be the same, and the boy's career, just begun, would be effectively over. The corridor reeks of burnt flesh and burnt plastics, and it becomes obvious who is in the medical department and who isn't, even without the colored tunics - everyone has cloth or hands up in front of their faces except McCoy and his crew. They've smelt worse, sometimes while grabbing a quick bite during emergencies.

Just then, they actually do shut down the panel, and someone reports as much to McCoy.

McCoy starts wondering if Spock didn't have a point about the crew needing more disaster drills.

From:

olyabird.livejournal.com

The thing dies in her hand and she discards its hollow carcass without a second glance. The boy saw her, she knows that much.

But at least he will live.

She follows them back to the medical bay, alternately impressed with the cohesion of his team, and confused at their alien culture. She stays close to him, the only taste of home she can sense in all the fathoms around them.

From:

notabricklayer.livejournal.com

Olga is right, and the boy is wrong - he isn't about to die.

McCoy is right too, much to his disgust. His attempts to save the mangled, blackened hand end in a mid-humeral amputation, the damage below that too extensive to undo. After a terse conversation with the Captain (Kirk deeply, deeply hates losing any of his crew, something McCoy can sympathize with), McCoy settles into a chair in the recovery bay, waiting for the boy (Alston, the boy's name is Alston. Mark Alston, Engineer second class) to wake up.

From:

olyabird.livejournal.com

He does this every time. She thinks she's seen it so much, she'd be inured to it by now, but she isn't.

His heart is too big. (And hers, apparently, not that she'd ever admit it.)

There's a tiny little puff of air, somewhere over his left shoulder, and a tiny brown feathered body wings passed his shoulder, landing on the console.

Okay, flailing a bit, because it's slick, but she gets her balance in a moment.

From:

notabricklayer.livejournal.com

It's the sharp sound of talons on the usually unmarked plastics that gets his attention - he's already shooed all of the day staff out for the day, and the night crew tends to stay out of his way on nights like this. No one particularly wants to rile an already grumpy Doctor McCoy.

For the record, this might be the first owl sighting on board a Federation vessel.

He both knows and discredits the correct answer to this riddle in the span of heartbeats - it can't be Olya, Olya is back in the bar at the end of the universe, hopefully not getting too impatient with how long he's stayed here already.

How many other owls does he know, though?

From:

olyabird.livejournal.com

Well, to be fair, this owl form is considerably smaller than her usual owl form. One fifth the size, to be accurate.

The owlet cocks its head at him, and blinks.

From:

notabricklayer.livejournal.com

It can't be, so he should be diving for the shipboard comm, raising the alarm, getting help - the unexplained on board ship, this deep into space, can mean horrible things.

But first...

First, he raises a hand, stretching it out to the delicate bird.

Olya?

From:

olyabird.livejournal.com

Again, wide dark eyes blink at him, and a tiny taloned foot reaches out and grasps his finger.

There's a rush of warmth in his head at the contact.

He'll live.

She can give him that much, she thinks.

From:

notabricklayer.livejournal.com

"He'll be discharged and sent home on the next Earth-bound ship." He replies, pulling the little owl close, casting a wary glance at the open archway to the rest of sickbay. "I'm not sure he'll make the distinction between that and death very easily." Sure, he knows it is stupid, life does not end just because a curveball got thrown...

But the kid is young. And the young are stupid, by default. He is going to take this rough.

"I know some good psychiatrists, back on Earth. They owe me some favors." Very long-standing favors, actually, tracing all the way back to a bar just outside of the campus boundaries at Mississippi State. Sometimes it pays to keep in touch with old classmates.

From:

olyabird.livejournal.com

The bird sniffs, coughs really. The air in here is stale and smells of plastics. Her wings flutter a bit as she rearranges them, and there's a feather out of place on her breast just there.

Okay, now we're good.

Soldiers all, we go where our masters tell us. And we do not look back.

Such a lie.

From:

notabricklayer.livejournal.com

His lips thin, because he has a certain opinion about mindless military destruction of young talented lives.

They're only a few months into a five year tour, and already the captain has been treated to this particular rant several times. It comes up often, when McCoy believes Kirk is driving the crew too hard.

"Well, the only place he's going is Earth, for the near future."

He must like her. He isn't yelling yet.

From:

olyabird.livejournal.com

The owl sighs, a remarkably pointed sound for such a small creature.

She looks him up and down, tilting her head at an odd angle.

Who was that woman?

From:

notabricklayer.livejournal.com

He blanks, not entirely sure who she is talking about - there are quite a few women on board ship, and a fair number in his department who have been around today.

"... Nurse Chapel?" He finally hazards, sounding a bit stunned, because he never thought of her as 'that woman'.