Setting a Date
Posted on Sat Feb 8th, 2020 @ 7:35pm by Lieutenant Gunnar Arnason
Edited on on Sat Feb 15th, 2020 @ 8:30pm
794 words; about a 4 minute read
Mission:
What Lies Ahead, Between, and Behind
Location: Haumea Hospital
Timeline: aftr 'Visiting Nurse'
A few days after paying a house call...
Gunnar had just retrieved fresh coffee when his PaDD chirped. One message.
+ "Please specify time and location for date with Consul Briya Valriya." +
He looked at it and blinked. Right. She had told the computer to send a reminder, but it hadn't been quite a week yet and even if she'd insisted on going back to work, she probably wasn't up to eating a lot. Of course, that might mean he should schedule a trip to the cafe... but he didn't want her to force herself to eat anything rich and feel ill later.
He'd find a date for the following week. Just as soon as he finished rounds and had a chance to check his calendar....
- One week later... -
MacQuire was leaning against the wall, checking his schedule when Arnason rushed past him. "Whoa, kid, you running from a jealous husband?"
Gunnar puffed a breathe. "We lost the new CMO already. Even if I were the type, I wouldn't have time to make any husbands jealous."
His PaDD chirped, and he tapped the message out of hurried reflex.
+ "Please specify time and location for date with Consul Briya Valriya." +
"A Risian," MacQuire laughed, as he headed for his next appointment. "That explains why you haven't got time for the married ones..."
- Another week later... -
+ "Please specify time and location for date with Consul Briya Valriya." +
Gunnar looked at the expectantly blinking light by the digital assistant and felt vaguely guilty. He'd sent a brief apology and explanation last week ...or he thought he had - the week was kind of a blur...
The thought was interrupted when Lizza edged by him to get at the breakroom coffee. "She's who you're seeing?" she asked, noticing the message. "Here I thought you and the Captain..."
Gunnar's brows shot up. "No. And also, No." He gave her a look. "The Captain's a friend and the Consul is a patient."
"Do all your patients refer to check ups as dates?" MacQuire chuckled, appearing in the doorway. "Or just the ones you make house calls for."
"It was a wellness check," Gunnar protested. "She was ill and not eating, and trying to get her to eat became ...well, it somehow turned into a date to sample pastries."
MacQuire snorted. "Don't tell Emily. She'll start starving herself."
Gunnar glanced upward, as if for strength. "Ms. Hutchinson has been talking to me because she's interested in pursuing a career in nursing, possibly in Starfleet," he stated evenly.
Lizza and MacQuire exchanged a look. In their opinion what Emily was interested in pursuing wasn't nursing in Starfleet, so much as a particular Starfleet nurse - one who seemed very set on not seeing that.
"Uh-huh," Lizza remarked. "And what is the Consul pursuing?"
Gunnar frowned. He wasn't naive, he'd just found that being deliberately obtuse in some instances made managing certain situations a lot easier (like for instance a teenage crush that was both likely to be painfully embarrassing if acknowledged and bound to go away with the next boy that came along). However he didn't have much hope of that strategy working with Briya.
"It's just a meeting at the Crepe Cafe," he said, almost more to convince himself. "...which I guess I should really find a time for."
"Wait, this is still the same reminder as last week?" MacQuire asked, aghast. "A lovely Risian wants a date with you, and you're ghosting her?"
"I'm not ghosting her," Gunnar insisted. "She was still recovering, and then we lost CMO and my workload doubled overnight, and now... " He paused. Nikedoros had picked up most of the administrative work again so that had gotten somewhat back to normal. Maybe he was subconsciously avoiding what was apt to be a somewhat awkward situation... "I guess I have been putting it off." He glanced pointed at each of them. "But given the kind of gossip it's bound to generate, can you blame me?"
"Yes." Lizza grabbed his PaDD, and before he could stop her, tapped a reply in and hit send, then handed the PaDD back. "You're off Tuesday morning. Now you have a date for breakfast and you can go explain that you're taken, or almost-sort of taken, or whatever the status is that you've been letting spread around here as 'gossip'."
Gunnar sighed. He probably deserved that. Like most interspecies relationships his with T'Ango was complicated, and in ways he preferred not to discuss, or in particular, have discussed in the rumor mill that was the nurses' station. But he was stuck now and unless something extraordinary happened half the hospital staff would 'happen' be in the cafe to watch.
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