Posted by Lieutenant Commander Kaylee Baxter (CNS) in Office: Counselor Baxter - One Lonely Romulan

Posted by Major Vektul (Chief Engineer) in Office: Counselor Baxter - One Lonely Romulan
The corridor outside the counselor’s office was quiet—no hum of engineers debating conduit stress, no chatter of junior officers filing reports. Just the steady pulse of the ship, low and constant beneath his boots.

Vektul paused at the door, hands clasped behind his back, gaze set straight ahead. He had entered this space before—mandatory evaluations, perfunctory inquiries, the formalities of Starfleet procedure. This was not that.

This was a first.

He drew a slow breath and pressed the chime.

¥Major Vektul¥
Chief Engineer
U.S.S. Memorial

The door to the counselor’s office slid open with a quiet hiss, revealing a space still in the process of being claimed. A pair of crates sat stacked near the wall, half-open with personal belongings peeking out. The desk had been rotated slightly away from the window but not yet aligned to the room’s symmetry, and a pair of chairs were set at angles that suggested recent indecision about their placement. It was tidy enough, but not yet polished — a room caught between the old and the new.

Kaylee Baxter stood in the doorway, smoothing the sleeve of her uniform before her bright eyes lifted to meet the Romulan officer waiting outside. Her expression softened into a welcoming smile, the kind that touched her features with warmth rather than formality.

“Hello there,” she said, stepping aside to open the way. “You’ve found me in the middle of turning this place into something less… Starfleet-standard and a little more comfortable for my liking” she gave him a wink. “Please, come in.”

She gestured toward one of the angled chairs with a small laugh. “Though I’ll admit, you may have to forgive the furniture arrangement for now. I haven’t quite decided what feels right yet.”

-Kaylee Baxter, CNS

Vektul stepped across the threshold, the faintest crease forming at his brow as his eyes passed over the disordered crates and half-set chairs. He said nothing of it, but his gaze lingered for a moment before returning to Baxter.

“Change… unsettles a space,” he remarked, though not unkindly. His tone carried the weight of an observation more than a critique.

He moved to the offered chair, adjusting his posture carefully before lowering himself into it. Hands rested lightly on his knees, back straight, as though even here he was expected to be inspected.

For several breaths, he remained silent. Then, with the faintest shift of his shoulders, he spoke.

“I have seen counselors before,” he said evenly. “Evaluations. Protocols. The kind that measure whether one is fit to serve. I know how to endure those.”

A pause, and this time his gaze shifted slightly aside, as if conceding something unusual for him.

“This is not the same. I would not be here if it were.”

Another beat, quiet but deliberate.

“I have severed my ties to what was. I know my duty here. Yet…” his eyes met hers again, steady, though softer now, “I find myself unable to form the ties that others make with ease. I do not know how. And I would like to learn.”

He let the words hang between them, heavy in their bluntness, but unguarded in their intent.

¥Major Vektul¥
Chief Engineer
U.S.S. Memorial