(snip)

“Hello there.” he said in his deep baritone, and a black stray curl fell into his forehead.

The dark skinned woman looked up and looked entirely like she wanted to throw something at him too.

While others might have flinched away from the look, this guy stood his ground and kept smiling. Amber eyes in a dark face, Julien thought. How unusual and beautiful. She was not his type of woman, but the touch of wild beauty made him curious nevertheless.

“Can I interest you in a game of football? Whoever manages to kick the other one’s crutch away first has won and gets invited for drinks.” he said.

• Julien

Unwanted and unbidden, a snort erupted from the cranky commander. “You’d win… this time, and I’d still be out the drink, which I really want but am apparently not allowed with all these meds I’m on,” she said in a deeply accented voice with very clear notes of bitterness.

~Commander Koraia, XO on Medical Leave

Julien’s smile just broadened. “Ah it seems like you need a doctor who can, after a look at your file and the meds you are getting, figure out which kind of drink you can have safely. You see, there are drinks that work very well with meds, it’s a question of evading the negative effects of the wrong mixture of substances and dosages…” he cleared his throat
“Well my name is Lt. Cmdr. Julien King, currently in between assignments and as chance has it, I am a doctor… thought not practicing anymore… but that I can do.”

Had she not been empathic, Koraia might have rolled her eyes at the man. As it was, she almost sighed, pulling her long black braids over one shoulder. It depended on whether this doctor had ever encountered a Napean and knew she was at least somewhat empathic based on her forehead ridge, or if her mixed features were decipherable at all.

In an instant his whole demeanour changed and he dropped the charmer facade, though the offer wasn’t a fake. Suddenly Koraia could see a reflection of what she felt in his oddly mismatched green eyes as he touched his crutch to his right leg, producing a metallic clang. He suddenly looked oder and very tired.

Julien couldn’t hold the cheerfulness anymore. Something that usually came as easy to him as breathing was now hard and felt like a lie. He had no energy left in him to give, but he was also yearning for something that had nothing to do with his body… or half of it.

“Seriously now, I think you can use a drink and so can I. I yearn to talk about something other than my limbs and their underperformance.” he said and gave her an imploring look.

• Julien

She looked down at the workout shorts she was dressed in and then at her crutches. “I’d need to change. I’m on vasodilators to keep blood clots at bay. If you can find your way through bypassing thatrestriction, well, I’m game. Whatever we drink better be strong though,” she warned.

~Commander Koraia, XO on Medical Leave

Julien nodded. “Yes I think we can manage. Before we go dress, would you unlock your medical file for me?” he asked looking at the terminal next to the exit that was set into the wall panel. “I doubt vasodilators are the only thing they’re giving you and the dosage also makes a difference, together with your mixed heritiage.” he said calmly. He didn’t hide his feelings from Ghubari’s senses either, even if he could. There was no deceit or mischief in him, the main emotions she felt from him was impatience and suppressed anger, but both not directed at her.
“Also maybe then I can find a name to all you by while I raise my glass to yours later.” he added and smirked.

• Julien

With a sigh, Ghubari grabbed her crutches and maneuvered herself to a standing position with difficulty. But there was a sense that even if he had offered to help her, she’d have declined. Moving over to the terminal, she tapped in some commands and then turned to face him. “Commander Ghubari Koraia,” she said, giving him a brief bow of her head in greeting.

Julien nodded back. He knew better than to offer her help, he could remember well his own reaction to offers like that. The name sounded familiar, he was sure he had heard it before… had it been on fleet command briefings?

In her file, she was listed as being on Asinolyathin for nerve pain management, ambizine for sleep issues and heparamax to prevent blood clots. It was noted that she recent had targeted heparin treatments for a blood clot that has since dissolved.

With even the quick skim of her file, he’d see that she was noted to have significant nerve damage that made her ineligible for a biosynthetic limb and thus was stuck with a less sophisticated mechanical limb.

“Have fun with that, I’m going to go change,” she said without any further chit chat. “Meet you out front.”

~Commander Koraia, XO on Medical Leave

He nodded and let her go, returning his attention to the file. That nerve damage was nasty and he knew she had a harder journey in front of her than most… like him. She had lost less limbs, but they couldn’t be replaced with better-than-human cybernetics as in his case. If that was a blessing or a curse… he wasn’t sure and didn’t feel like pondering it.

Half Napean, right. The forehead ridge had looked familiar, that meant she might be emphatic if he remembered correctly, which made this even harder for her of course and to top things off she was an XO on medical leave like him. What were the chances. He zoomed out again with his eye and committed her med file to memory, then he shut the terminal down and limped out of the room and out of the building onto the green and flowery grounds of the Starfleet medical complex.

The sun was still shining although it was evening and everything around here looked way to idyllic for his taste. He called a glider for their short trip to the Root Beer Inn which was the local watering hole for officers and waited for her and the glider to arrive.

• Julien King