Posted by Lieutenant V’alura Belmont (Scientist on Medical Leave) in The Performance of a Lifetime: V’alura Arrives on the Ogawa
Dark, green circles marred the undersides of V’alura’s once bright blue eyes. Her cheeks and temples slightly sunken, marking the weight she’s lost. Auburn hair, once kept perfectly curled and coiled, lay limp and dull. V’alura frowned at every imperfection captured by her little hand mirror. In her mind she cataloged everything left to do before she boarded the USS Owaga, her weariness expanding with each new listed item. Come now V’alura, she thought, You can’t meet your half-brother looking like death itself. They were finally going to meet in person and she could not, would not give him any less then her very best.

The show must go on and you are a professional. V’alura sucked in a deep steadying breath, that collapsed into a coughing fit. The nurse sitting beside her jumped into action and injected V’alura with a hypo while pressing a bronchodilator into her hands. V’alura breathed in, rough and unsteady until the coughing fit subsided. Her shoulders trembled. Weakness seeped into her muscles. V’alura gritted through the haze and picked up her hair curler sitting beside her travel bag of make-up. There was work to do.

It took hours battling her weakness, coughing fits and fatigue. Until finally the woman who looked back from the mirror resembled the woman that she was before. A proud woman who always looked her best and poured her heart into her work and her team. V’alura flashed her mirror a smile, not the dazzler she used to pull from her pocket like a stick of gum. But it would be enough. And just in time. Not twenty minutes later a page came over sickbay’s intercom. =^=Helm to Sickbay. Five minutes till we reach transporter distance to the Owaga.=^=

V’alura stood on shaky legs with her nurse’s assistance and the two walked arm in arm to the transport pads. She refused transport directly from sickbay to the Owaga and she was not shy to claim pride for that choice. It was that pride that pushed her to focus and take each step with confidence and grace. Dressed in a pale pink cropped blazer knotted together in the front, matching pink slacks, and a thick gold chain draped across her collar bone to make an impression. Between the hair, make-up and clothes V’alura looked like she walked off a photo shoot than out of a sickbay. Last but not least, she reminded herself as she stepped onto the transport pad, remember to smile for the camera.

White enveloped her vision and in a flash she materialized aboard the Owaga alongside her nurse and an NE helping to tote her personal luggage. On top of which were two seemingly empty terrariums. V’alura took a quiet, shallow breath (least she trigger another coughing fit) and closed her eyes. In her mind’s eye she prepared the expression she will wear, choreographed her movements and prepared her lines. She will give Solal the true V’alura the friend and sister experience. There was no illness in the world that could stop her.

V’alura Belmont

Solal spent long hours pacing his quarters when he received the letter which said she was placing herself on medical leave and coming aboard the Ogawa. He had been writing her for months now, but that kept the concept of her as a sister vague, abstract. In practice, he still did not know what to think about the whole situation. Solal had never wanted to know anything about his bio family. Yet V’alura had always been nothing but nice. He still used the Paris program she had sent all the time. And Solal, though he would not admit it to himself, had always struggled with loneliness.

The reason for her arrival was less than pleasant: they had both fallen ill. Given the similarity of the symptoms and the closeness of the times of onset, it was logical to treat them both in one place. But that still meant she would be here, with him, for the foreseeable future. Still he put on a logical mask, like he always did, purging the unwelcome emotions and focusing instead on the logical reasons.

In the end, he had messaged his parents, explaining what had happened in these last months, and asking their opinion and advice. Predictably, they had told him to treat her like a sister, and that she was always welcome to come visit home with him, along with an aside about how he had yet to take leave to visit home. Like he knew how to treat one “like a sister”. He’d never had, nor had he wanted, a sibling. Of course, regardless of the feelings that he didn’t have, he had promised up down left and right that V’alura would feel welcomed and most… ehhm… sisterly.

In the meantime, Solal had been dealing with catastrophes in his own work life. The fatigue had made it difficult to get out of bed. Sometimes he wouldn’t make it an entire duty shift before falling asleep at his desk, and ultimately being made to leave early. The dizziness and shortness of breath made carrying out his duties difficult, and unfortunately, much like V’alura, the Ogawa’s doctors had yet to find an answer. He had been pulled off paient care due to the same recurrent respiratory infections that plagued V’alura. After all, no one wanted a sick doctor. And as an immunologist, he could not risk spreading flu, cold, or an assortment of other illnesses, to his patients, many of which had compromised immune systems and may not be able to fight off such infections.

More recently, he had also been placed on medical leave, not of his own choice. But seeing as V’alura was coming for the same reason, and he was too sick to efficiently do his duties, it made logical sense. He still didn’t agree. More of those pesky emotions he didn’t have.

Being on medical leave meant Solal had more than enough time to make it to the transporter room to which V’alura was slated to arrive, and wait in order to welcome her. Ten minutes before her boarding, he stood in the transporter room, leaned against one wall. He looked tired, dark circles trailing under both eyes, his skin so pale he could pass for Human if it weren’t for those pointed ears of his. The most recent in his long line of respiratory infections, a flu he had picked up undoubtedly from the ship’s patient population , left him exhausted, with a fever that flushed his cheeks slightly green, muscle aches that made moving unpleasant, and a cough much like V’alura’s. All the 23rd century Robitussen and Theraflu on the Ogawa couldn’t make him feel better, though the medicine did lessen his symptoms.

When the transporter sprung to life, Solal quashed a feeling of nervous anticipation. Logical, Solal. You are logical. She is no different than any other colleague. He stood straight up, no longer leaning against the wall, in greeting mode. There was a flash of light as the transporter materialized the woman Solal recognized from their correspondance as V’alura, a nurse, and an unrelated NE lugging several bags of luggage. In lightly French accented English and formally as all get out, “Welcome to the USS Ogawa, Lieutenant. I am Lieutenant Solal.” He had written her, not excitedly because as a logical Vulcan he did not react to emotions like excitement, when he had been promoted. That was several weeks ago now.

~ Solal