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“My soap flute!”
Mariner could do nothing but stare in horror as Tendi angrily stomped on her beloved prison instrument.
“Sorry Mariner,” said Tendi, “but that thing is an auditory hazard.”
“Well when you spend literal months in jail with nothing to entertain you but a flute you carve yourself, I’ll destroy it and see how you feel.”
Tendi was unfazed. “That’s a risk I’m more than willing to take. Also, that has to go too.”
It took a few seconds for the gang to realize she was pointing at Boimler’s red-rimmed alternate dimension PADD.
“What, the PADD?” Boimler questioned.
“Yes!” Tendi shouted. “It’s been annoying watching you use it all the time, but those cocktails were the last straw. Sure, you managed to fix the transporter console in less than a minute, but what if you didn’t? What if you f***ed it up so badly it had to be repaired by the whole engineering team? We could’ve been dead for centuries before it was in working order!”
”You could’ve repaired that shuttle you found Data in!” Boimler argued.
“That wreck was in real bad shape, Boims,” Mariner replied. “We harvested all the usable parts for our home on like, Day Two. The rest was pure scrap.”
“Okay, what happened today was bad,” Boimler said, “but I promise it won’t happen again.”
“You’re right, it won’t.” Without any warning, Tendi snatched the PADD and fired a phaser at it.
“NO!” Boimler grabbed the smoldering remains and desperately tried to power it on, but his efforts were fruitless. “C’mon, Tendi! I needed that!”
“No you don’t!” Tendi replied. “You have a life, stop trying to live someone else’s!”
“But it is my life!”
“Is it!?” Tendi paused to take a deep calming breath. “This just isn’t healthy, Brad. But, thank you, I suppose. Ten months on Dilmer III was perfect for T’Lyn and I getting that co-promotion.”
“I think Tendi’s on the right page, man,” Rutherford sheepishly said. “We got really lucky today. What if the next PADD idea just has even worse consequences?”
“How bad could it be?” Boimler wasn’t gonna let this idea die so easily.
“Putting aside this whole time dilation incident for a minute,” said Tendi, “last week you were sent to the hospital because you kept trying to impress Dr. T’Ana.”
“But it worked out alright in the end!” Boimler replied.
“So getting lightning stuck in your ass was worth it just ‘cause you got a nickname? And what if you got crippled for life? Then how would you have felt?”
“Uh… when you put it like that…” Boimler was starting to realize how flimsy his excuses sounded.
“If I may add something,” T’Lyn said, “while your dedication to your alternate self’s life is certainly fascinating, it is also in some ways, sad. It is sad because you feel your own life is not worth living. There is nothing wrong with who you were before these dimensional fissures began appearing. This dimension’s Bradward Boimler is perfectly acceptable.”
“Mariner?” Boimler wasn’t fully willing to let this go until he heard it from everyone, though he had a pretty good guess to what his closest friend would day.
“Look, Boims,” Mariner began, “if you asked me a few years ago, I would’ve 100% been on your side. You know how I kept wanting you to take risks and try new things.” She sighed. “But I’m not the same person I was when we first met, and neither are you. And that’s not because of the PADD. I haven’t said anything about you using it recently ‘cause I want you to succeed, but T’Lyn’s right. You’re really amazing just the way you are.” She looked at him with a (dare I say) loving gaze. “But you still owe us big time. You too, Rutherford.”
“Thanks, Mare-Bear…” Boimler wiped a tear from his eye. “You guys are right, this went too far. I guess I’ll shave—”
“Don’t even f***ing think about shaving the beard man!” Mariner yelled. “Grow that s**t as long as it can be! Riker, Sisko, they didn’t become iconic ‘til they had beards. Now it’s your turn!”
“I concur,” said T’Lyn. She held the return beacon necklace in her hands. “But now I must depart. I will take this necklace back to my quarters and prepare for the next steps of the ritual.”
With that, she left.
“What is she talking about?” Rutherford wondered.
Tendi shrugged. “Maybe she saw the necklace as a romantic offering. I’m pretty sure Vulcans exchange jeweled necklaces as a part of courtship.”
Upon hearing that, Boimler had only one thought:
“Oh f***.”