Chapter Text
The station was beautiful, at least in my opinion. Cardassian architecture mixed with federation aesthetics like a very confused interior design disaster, and I loved it. It was wrong and hideous and ugly in every way I held dear. And better yet, it felt like a challenge. I could already see, I walked along the promenade, that the place would be filled with technological messes, computerized knots waiting to be untangled. I was already jittery at the idea. All those Cardassian and Federation systems, patched and pasted together. There were going to be computer problems here, and I was overwhelmingly excited to face them down. Settling in was easy, and orientation was simple and enjoyable – familiarize yourself with the station and your commanding officers, learn to navigate, get your first orders. All easy work. This certainly wasn’t the case with every assignment, and I was very grateful for the semi-vacation. There was a line, though, at the bottom of the list, that I was dutifully ignoring.
“Initial physical.”
As I checked off the items on the list above, I found myself trying not to allow my eyes to drift that far down on the page. After all, if I didn’t see it, it wasn’t there.
The strategy started to falter as the list grew shorter. It got harder to ignore the threatening words as they were a member of a list of fewer and fewer items. Eventually it was the last item.
I was lying in bed, miles away from anything resembling sleep. This was the most ridiculous thing about me. Most of my quirks were easy to explain away or avoid, but there was no hiding this one. The problem with being afraid of doctors was that there was no way around them. It was inevitable that you would have to interact with them eventually. There was no special dispensation that allowed one to avoid all doctors.
“Computer, time,” I mumbled.
“The time is 0400 hours.”
I rolled over onto my back and pressed my fingers into the inside of my wrist. Unfortunately my body’s response to anxiety was to make me nauseous, and throwing up in the middle of the night was not my idea of a good time. The wrist pressure mostly worked, but it didn’t quiet the panic. I squeezed my eyes shut and tried my best to regulate my breathing. Basic physical, I repeated to myself. Not sick, not dying, not injured. Not surgery. Nothing to fear. Absolutely nothing to fear. That didn’t make me feel better, though, only more ridiculous. If I willed my body to untense, maybe I could relax enough to get at least an hour or two of sleep.
Slow your breathing.
Think of warm things. Safe things. Space. The concept of the void. Sleeping on a transport.
Slow your heart rate. You are in your own bed. You have a new life. New job. So many computers to fix.
I could feel myself fading, just a little. Sleep, maybe? I felt sleep on the horizon. I did my best to give in, to let it overtake me. Sleep.
I jolted awake again. My memory of the last few moments was hazy. I silently prayed that maybe I had gotten a few good minutes of REM.
“Computer, time.”
“The time is 0415 hours.”
So much for that.
“Computer, what’s the earliest I can visit the infirmary?”
“The infirmary is open for emergencies twenty-six hours a day. Normal operating hours are from 0800 to 2400 hours.”
“Computer, please set an alarm for 0745 hours.”
“Alarm set.”
Now. Back to sleep.
Well, “sleep.”
Sadly, the alarm didn’t come quickly. It came very, very slowly indeed. By the time it went off at 7:45, it felt as if I had been lying there, heart pounding, for years. I had my uniform on, teeth brushed and out the door as quickly as I could. The faster I got down to the infirmary, the faster I could get this over with. The station seemed unreasonably cold, but it was probably just the fear.
The infirmary was roughly what I had expected – grey, cold, and brightly lit. It was mostly quiet and empty, and there was a blonde woman in a purple uniform that I assumed denoted her as a nurse puttering around. She picked up on my presence before I could say anything, and smiled at me, but there was a cold, distant quality to it. She seemed to be a little closed off, like she was there, but not really there.
“Good morning, Lieutenant,” she said, polite, but maybe not quite friendly.
“Good morning,” I answered, trying my best to seem calm and collected. “I’ve just transferred here, and I think I have to have a physical, as part of the transfer process? Unless I need some kind of appointment, then I’ll come back, I –”
The nurse held up a hand, calmly stopping my ramble. “You don’t need an appointment,” she said, still cool, but reassuring. “This will be just fine.”
“Thank god. My name is –”
“Savannah, I know.”
“…how on earth did you know that?”
“You were our only transfer this week.”
“That’d do it.”
“Any symptoms, any indications of illness?”
“Nope, I’m perfectly fine,” I assured her. “I’m just here because I was told to be.”
“As you should be. Have a seat on the biobed over there. The doctor will be with you shortly.”
“Thank you,” I answered. I was not thankful.
I uncomfortably climbed up onto the nearby biobed – it really seemed more like a cross between an examination table and a dentist’s chair, which didn’t make it any more comfortable. The nurse had already taken a few steps away from me, presumably in order to find the doctor. I felt slightly ill at the idea of opening my mouth, but I had only a second to make up my mind.
“Can I ask you a question?”
She turned to face me again.
“What’s the doctor like?”
“Like? I’m not sure I understand.”
“What kind of doctor are they?”
“…a Starfleet one?”
“No, I mean…what are they like, as a person?”
“Oh! Compassionate is the first word that comes to mind. Kind, friendly. He can be a bit talkative, so if you don’t like talking to people, you might struggle with him a bit.”
“I certainly don’t have any problem with talking to people.”
“Then you’ll get along just fine.”
My stomach felt like it was tied in knots. The anxiety was bad enough, but the embarrassment that came with admitting it was so much worse. If I could have looked someone in the eyes and told them I was afraid it really would have helped, but the very idea made me feel nauseated.
“Good Morning!”
The voice was bright and cheerful. I met the eyes of the tall man who was approaching me. He was thin, almost gangly, with long limbs and an upright posture that gave him an odd, sweeping gait. His hair was brown and fluffy, and he was about 15 years younger than I had expected him to be. Chief Medical Officers tended to average 40 or 45 years old – the man in front of me couldn’t have been older than 30. He was smiling at me, a broad, friendly smile that brought out crinkles in the corners of his eyes. He was handsome. That somehow didn’t help.
“I’m Dr. Julian Bashir,” he continued, still smiling broadly. “I don’t believe we’ve met.”
“Savannah,” I answered. “I just started, I’m the new computer girl.”
“Come to make all the systems play nice with each other?” he asked.
“That’s a pretty accurate description.”
“Any chance you could start with mine? I can’t get any of the computers in this infirmary to work properly. I’ve been squeaking by with my own portable equipment, but it’s less like running a permanent infirmary and more like a field hospital. I’m got to have a way to interface my diagnostic equipment with the Cardassian systems if I’m going to make a working infirmary out of this place.”
“I’ll put you on my list,” I said, doing my best to smile back at him.
He read a few lines off the PADD in his hands. “Any complaints?” he asked, still looking the screen.
“No, I’m completely fine. I wouldn’t even be here, but they told me that everyone arriving to this station had to report to the infirmary for an exam before they could take their posts.”
“I’m hoping to establish accurate health baselines for the entire crew,” he explained. “This station has a rather checkered history. It was built to be occupied by Bajorans and Cardassians. For all I know, the walls themselves could be toxic to humans. I want to keep an eye on the health of everyone on the station, just for these first few months, so I can be sure no one is experiencing any unexplainable adverse effects that would suggest that we need to re-examine the safety of the station.”
“Makes sense to me,” I said uncomfortably.
He produced a tricorder from his pocket and scanned me, almost passively, watching the screen but clearly more interested in having a conversation. “So where did you come from?” he asked. I winced as the tiny red lights passed through my field of vison. It was such a simple thing, as painless as anything could be, and yet I wondered how he could possibly act like I should be able to hold a conversation at the same time.
“Science outpost,” I explained, trying to keep the shaking out of my voice. “They needed a computer expert, I don’t like people very much. It was the kind of post a lot of officers avoid but I really enjoyed it. I miss it already, actually.”
The last comment was enough to get him to look up from his tricorder. “I’m sure you’ll feel right at home here before long,” he said.
“Hopefully.”
He lifted another instrument and reached out to me, gently steading my chin with the back of his hand as he focused the scope in his other hand on my left eye. It was somewhat harder to hide that you were shaking from someone who was touching you. He slowly lowered the scope and furrowed his brows a bit as he looked at my face.
“Are you alright?” he asked.
“I’m fine, why?”
“Your pulse and respiration are elevated, and your eyes are about the size of that wormhole outside. I can feel you shaking.”
I hesitated.
“Are you afraid of someone?” he asked, his tone shifting immediately to concern. “Are you in some kind of trouble? If you’re in danger, you can tell me, or one of the nurses– anything you say to us is confidential. We can protect you if you need to hide from something.”
I stifled a laugh. “Me? Hiding from someone? I think I lead a much less interesting life than you think, Doctor.”
“Maybe,” he said. “If you aren’t in danger, what is it that you’re so afraid of?”
I tried to formulate a response, but it took entirely too long. The doctor’s expression shifted again.
“Are you afraid of doctors?” he asked, in the approximate tone one would use with a baby deer.
“A bit, yeah,” I answered. Something about this experience in particular had a way of making me start crying for no real reason, and I could tell that was where I was headed – and there was nothing I could do about it. “I know it’s kind of unfounded and you’re really just meant to be here to help…I don’t even have a good excuse. I don’t have any specific bad memories, I don’t have a particular trauma that made me this way, I just…I’m sorry.” The last few words were said through tears.
“You have nothing to apologize for,” he responded. I laughed.
“I am sort of having a breakdown on your biobed, so…”
“You’re not the first, and you won’t be the last,” he said softly. “Stay there, alright? I’ll be right back.”
I nodded. As uncomfortable as his presence made me, or at least as I had thought it had made me, the room seemed colder and more frightening somehow when he was gone. It was impossible to think about anything other than my own embarrassment in the cool silence. I was actively making a massive fool of myself, ensuring I would never be taken seriously, and probably slightly insulting this otherwise very nice man in the process. He really was very nice, with a kind face and a softness in his voice. He seemed like he was probably a lovely person, and I felt quite guilty for just breaking down on him like this.
All those feelings together meant that when he returned a few moments later, I was full on weeping. I could feel the snot running unattractively down my lip. I had been quietly dreading his return, but for some reason, when he appeared again, I felt a bit better. He had a box of tissues in his hand – apparently what he’d gone to retrieve – and the light smile on his face fell when he saw me.
“I thought you might want these, but it looks like you need them even more than I thought!”
“Thank you,” I sniffled, taking the tissues from him. I wiped my face down and blew my nose, but it only did so much good when I was still actively crying. My new frenemy’s demeanor shifted a little; where he seemed to be trying to cheer me up or maybe even get me to laugh, he settled into something soft and caring, and serious, apparently realizing that making me laugh was a no go.
“I know I’m probably the last person in the world you want to open up to, but I want to help you. Will you talk to me?”
"I think I need to."
“What’s the thing that’s upsetting you the most, right now? Is it just too overwhelming, or is there something in particular? Something I can change, even.”
I hesitated. The fear was bad enough, the embarrassment was bad enough, they were bad enough together. The feeling that I was trapped in a nightmare of social faux pas was another level I didn’t need.
“I just feel so terrible,” I said. “You’re so nice. And I’m kind of being a jerk.”
“How are you being a jerk? For being uncomfortable around me? You have a fear of doctors. I know that’s not personal. And even if it was, even if it was me specifically you were afraid of, that’s not you doing something wrong. That tells me that I need to do something differently, because apparently something about me is frightening to people. I promise you, you haven’t hurt my feelings – nothing of the sort.”
“I know that’s the reasonable thing but I just…and I feel like I can’t ever recover from this.”
He settled back against the wall like someone preparing for a hard conversation. I noticed that he seemed to be deliberately keeping his distance from me. “What do you mean you can’t ever recover?”
“Like, this is your image of me now. This is everyone’s image of me now. No one’s ever going to take me seriously or believe that I can be strong or brave or capable because some cute doctor tried to give me an eye exam and I started crying.”
“I’m not judging you,” he said softly. “I’m never going to judge you. That’s not what I’m here for. To judge people would be opposite of everything my job is meant to stand for. I understand. I have a rather unpleasant history with doctors, myself – trust me. I spent most of my childhood just as scared of them as you are of me right now. More, even. I understand exactly what you’re feeling right now. I’m not going to think any less of you. And no one else will, either. This is a crew of very understanding people. But that doesn’t really matter, because I have no intention of telling them. The details of this appointment are strictly confidential. Not only that, but there are special protections accorded to medical records that are considered sensitive. Normally it’s reserved for diseases that have cultural stigmas attached to them, other things of that nature. But it’s up to the doctor what does and doesn’t qualify as sensitive, and I think this whole conversation qualifies. I’m going put a single line note in your file that you’re uncomfortable with medical treatment, so I can make accommodations for you in the future. But the only person who will ever see that information is me. The only people on this station who will ever know this happened are me, and you, and anyone you choose to tell.”
“Thank you,” I whispered. He frowned a little when he realized I was still crying, and took a leap of bravery to get close to me again. He held his hands out to me.
“Take my hands.”
I nervously lifted my hands and he wrapped them in his, squeezing them tightly. “It’s alright,” he emphasized, shaking my hands a bit. “You haven’t embarrassed yourself. You haven’t hurt my feelings. And you certainly haven’t given me a bad opinion of you. I promise. Also, you don’t need to call me Doctor, if you don’t want to. I’m just Julian.”
“Thank you, Julian…you still need to examine me, don’t you?”
“I do. But I want to see if I can make you a bit more comfortable with that idea first.”
“Tall order,” I said. “I don’t think I’ve ever been comfortable around a doctor in my life.”
“So far, am I like any other doctor you’ve ever met?”
“Not at all.”
"Well?"
I had to shrug and admit he was right.
“I can’t magically make you not scared, but I think there are a number of things I can tell you right now that’ll bring you some comfort. I’m not going to hurt you. That’s the cliché doctor line, isn’t it? But I promise you, right now, that nothing I’m going to do to you – none of the exams I’m going to put you through – are going to be painful or uncomfortable. And yes, I would tell you if they were. I’m not a fan of lying – if I tell you that what I’m about to do isn’t going to hurt and it does, you don’t really have a reason to trust me the next time I say that, do you?”
“No,” I agreed.
“Exactly. If I have to do something to you that I expect to be uncomfortable, I promise to warn you beforehand. It’s not perfect, but maybe taking some of the uncertainty out will make you feel a little safer.”
“It does, actually.”
“I need to examine you eventually, but there’s no reason that has to be right now. You can take a couple hours, even a couple of days if you want, and come back later.”
“I think that would just give me more time to be anxious about it.”
“Do you just want to get it over with?”
“Yeah. I’m sorry, it’s so kind of you to offer to let me leave, but I think it would be better to just get this over with.”
“That’s perfectly alright. Would it help if I tell you what I’m going to do?”
“…yes.”
“It’s only a couple of steps. I already have preliminary tricorder readings, but since I suspect your vitals will be a bit different now than they were before, I’d like to take them again. I’ll also stop and take your pulse manually – I prefer doing it that way; the tricorder’s not wrong exactly but I can tell more with my hands. Then I’m going to examine your eyes, ears, and throat. Normally, I’d take some more detailed tricorder readings and call that it, but I want to run a detailed cerebral scan on you as well, which just involves pressing a very scary looking scanner to your head. 10 minutes at most, and then you can go.”
“That sounds survivable,” I said.
Julian took his tricorder readings again, as promised. He handed me the device, and pointed at the screen. “Your heart rate is about half what it was,” he explained. I didn’t have an answer for that. I felt a bit like I was a participant in a very silly battle, and I was losing. Every time he batted his eyelashes at me, which he seemed to do a lot, almost without knowing, he got a little closer to making me like him.
“I’m going to go ahead and run those more detailed scans while I already have this out,” he said, passively. It was oddly…nice, to just sit there and let him scan me. I could feel my chest opening up a bit, as if at least some of the weight was lifted. He put down his tricorder and held out his right hand, like a cautious offering.
“I’m going to take your pulse now, if that’s alright.”
“Sure.” I offered him my wrist. He chuckled a bit and shook his head. “Look up.”
I looked at him anxiously. “It’s easier to take a pulse at the neck,” he explained. I must have looked more anxious than I realized, because he seemed to reconsider. “If that’s too overwhelming, I won’t do it. I don’t have to. I have tricorder readings. But I promise I’m not going to hurt you.”
If I was staying here, he was going to have to touch me eventually. This probably was the least intimidating way to try and get used to that. “No. Do it,” I said quietly.
“Are you sure?”
“Yes. I’m sure.”
“Okay. Chin up.”
I tilted my head up towards the ceiling. I knew it was coming, but I still jumped a bit when he pressed his fingers into my neck.
“You’re alright,” he soothed. “Deep, slow breaths, alright? Focus on your breath.”
I tried, but it was difficult to focus on anything other than his hand on my neck. Not exactly in a bad way, either – his hands were…kind of nice, and there was something almost grounding about the gentle pressure of his fingers against my neck. 30 seconds felt like an eternity.
“Are you alright?” he asked, cautiously, as he finished counting.
“Actually, I am,” I answered.
“See?”
“I’m starting to.”
The rest of the exam consisted entirely of the previously aborted eye exam, which ended up being a completely painless experience, and lots of assorted scans. By the end I was genuinely enjoying Julian’s company, and I felt something that resembled disappointment when he announced he was finished.
“That wasn’t so bad, was it?”
“It really wasn’t. You’re a miracle worker.”
“Just a good doctor,” he deflected. “You are free to return to duty. I want you back in 3 months – so I can compare readings.”
“I may actually look forward to it!”
I had already jumped off the bed and was halfway to the door when he spoke.
“You do know you called me cute a minute ago.”
I stopped and rubbed my face with my hands. “Did I?”
“It was in the middle of another thought. I wasn’t sure you even knew you’d said it.”
“I didn’t. I definitely didn’t.”
“I don’t remember the last time someone told me I was cute.”
“Well you wouldn’t fault me for telling the truth,” I answered quickly, and booked it out the door and down the promenade as fast as my little legs would carry me.