Re-acclimating to Life

Posted on Sun Mar 17th, 2024 @ 8:50pm by Lieutenant Commander Gwendolyn Griffith

Mission: Double Dealing
Location: Sickbay
Timeline: 3 Days after Barth's rescue

ON:

Lieutenant Colin Barth, yes the real Colin Barth, was now in Sickbay getting re-acclimated to life. He had been in the stasis pod for almost two years when the Leto came to rescue him. He had been off an on a bio bed in sickbay for almost three days now. He walked into Sickbay and looked around. He saw Doctor Gwendolyn Griffith was not far from a bio bed.

"Um excuse me Doc," he said, "can we talk?"

Gwen looked over at the source of the voice, then nodded. She closed the project she'd been working on and walked over to him, pulling a stool out and sitting down, crossing her legs and picking up a padd. "Yes, Lieutenant? How are you feeling?"

"Aside from the oxygen levels being wonky the first two days, I think I am doing ok," he said. "I heard you were the one who saved my life over there?"

"One of a few," Gwen said. "I happened to be standing over the pod when we opened it, but I can't take all the credit. We detected a lifesign in the room, and followed it, and we found you." She gave a small shrug and a smile. "I guess luck was on your side."

"Luck is one thing," said Colin as he sat on the bio-bed. "See Doc, where I come from, I see what happened as destiny. Like we were meant to meet. I was trained by Starfleet when I come to a situation like this to just trust my instincts. The Orions and Jem Hadar wanted to start the Dominion War again. They captured quite a few of us and made clones of us. What they didn't know was when they made my clone, I imprinted on him a fail safe."

Gwen raised an eyebrow. "Really? I'd be curious to know how you managed that."

"Let's just say he was programmed with a lot of my emotions and mannerisms." said Colin, " he wasn't a clone like Shinzon was of Picard, he was a synthetic version of me. Just ask Captain Sterling, she picked up on some of his faults. Captain Sterling has known me since the Academy and knew what to look for in the clone. Now can I ask you to dinner?"

Gwen had to steady herself from the sudden turn the conversation had taken. "I'm sorry...dinner?" she said, confused.

"Yes aren't you hungry?" asked Colin.

"I appreciate the offer," she said, "but it's generally frowned upon to dine with a patient."

"Look you can release me as a patient so I can take my post here as Chief of Operations," said Colin. "We are co-workers Gwen."

Gwen raised a shoulder in a half shrug and gave him a smile. "Kind of my point. We just met, we work together, and you're recovering from a serious trauma. Maybe dinner is kind of a rush to things." She gave it a moment's thought. "How about lunch in the officer's mess? I'm hungry and that's a bit more casual. Can get to know one of the people I'm serving with.

"Lunch works," said Colin, "it will be nice."

Colin slipped off the biobed and stood by Gwen.

"Doc," he said, "you are a beautiful humanoid."

Gwen was never the demure, blushing type, but she did smile and incline her head at the compliment. "Aye, can't argue with that," she said. "And may I return the compliment and say you're rather handsome as a humanoid, yourself." She gave him a wry smile and stood up, looking up at him and folding her arms. "Lunch. One hour. Officer's mess. Go."

Colin started to walk out of Sickbay. He had to get a fresh uniform on before he made his way to the Officer's Mess hall.


Lt. Colin Barth
Chief of Operations
USS Leto

Lt. Cmdr. Gwen Griffith
Chief Medical Officer
USS Leto