Chapter Text
Tendi is having a good day!
More specifically, Tendi is having a good day because she’s choosing to have a good day. This, she thinks, is a secret that Mariner and Boimler would benefit hugely from. It’s all a question of attitude! No matter what challenges the day throws at you, you take heart, knowing that you’re going to surmount them with the help of your good friends.
You had to skip breakfast because the replicators are on the fritz? Don’t sweat it!
You’re exhausted because a routine splanch transplant ended up lasting six hours due to unforeseen complications, and an irate Dr. T’Ana bit your head off afterwards for miscalibrating the tricorders? No problem!
You’re feeling a bit homesick because you’re the only Orion on the ship and when you tried to talk to your dads for moral support, they just did that passive-aggressive thing where they won’t say they think it was a bad idea to join Starfleet, but they keep mentioning how your cousin just opened an entry-level position at her branch of the Free Traders and it might be worth at least asking her about the benefits?
… that’s totally fine!
Not to mention the fact that two of your aforementioned good friends apparently had a blowout fight three days ago and haven’t spoken since, and the third has been doing a bad job pretending not to be avoiding you at every turn.
Yup. Fine. Great. It all adds up to another one of Tendi’s patented Good Days (TM)!
Honestly, she doesn’t understand why Mariner and Boimler have so much trouble adopting her approach. Maybe things are just more stressful in Command.
At least she and Rutherford are on the same page. He always seems... buoyant when she encounters him, like he’s genuinely delighted to have a chance to talk to her about terminium matrices or paramagnetic holoprobes. Like it’s the highlight of his day.
Except things have changed, lately. He always seems to be leaving the canteen right when she enters. He’s ducking her comm messages. Every one of his shifts has run late, and she can’t even catch him during buffer time. And she doesn’t know why.
Scratch that. She doesn’t want to know why.
Over the past month or so, and especially since Mariner's party, a Thought has been stewing in the back of Tendi’s mind. It’s a Thought about Rutherford, and no matter how carefully she skirts it, she can still feel it squatting in her limbic system like an unwanted guest. She’s avoiding it because she’s had Thoughts like these before, though only rarely, and only about people she’s spent a lot of time with.
They grow silently, like a creeping fungus, every time she notices the way that particular person smiles, or realizes that she’s been talking for half an hour and they haven’t tried to interrupt her once. Let that happen a few too many times, and suddenly she’s seeing her classmate, or her sparring partner, or whoever it is an irrevocably different light.
And it ruins everything.
She gets clingy. She overshares on a whim, but then shuts down when things get serious. Their bond is thrown all out of balance and she doesn’t know how to fix it, doesn’t know how to put words in her mouth like a normal person, doesn’t know how to take a stabilize a flatlining friendship and resuscitate it into something sustainable, let alone ro–
Well.
She won’t let that happen with Rutherford. What they have is perfect. She won’t risk it, not for anything.
As soon as Tendi receives her long-overdue release from medical she’s back in the mess, shoveling replicated curly fries in her mouth and definitely not hyperventilating. The world is a smear in the background; all her attention is fixed on her portable screen as she watches the latest printout from the pulsar. The Cerritos’s latest mission is observation of a far-flung star which has shown the very slightest chance of doing something interesting, maybe, sometime in the next fifty years or so. So they’re all parked in orbit, three days into a week of full-spectrum scans and samples of solar winds.
It’s awesome.
Even the astronomers got tired of analyzing the pulses about thirty-six hours in. It was always the same thing, every forty-two minutes like clockwork. Less than .1% variation in intensity. If they were going to see a spike, they’d be waiting decades.
But Tendi loves it, adores the predictability of it, the fact that this chaotic universe can churn out something so stable. That’s what she’d like to be – a pulsar, never pausing or crumpling under pressure, just sharing her light and her warmth every day for the next 50 million years.
Two callused hands cover her eyes. There’s only one person on the ship who can sneak up on Tendi, a trained daughter of Orion. How Mariner manages to cloak herself better than a Romulan Bird-of-Prey is really anyone’s guess, but Tendi relaxes back into her friend.
“Tendi! Tenderheart. Ten-out-of-ten,” Mariner babbles. “Just the babe I was looking to find. You doing anything tonight?”
Oh, not much, just going to lie awake in bed and watch the new readings come in because it’s better than screaming myself hoarse! Tendi thinks, and does not say.
Except, she realizes a moment too late, she did say it. Mariner stares at her, impassive, her face blank.
Click. Mariner blinks, and her smile returns. “That sounds dumb. You should come hang with me and Rutherford instead.” Tendi has never really thought too hard about Mariner’s exceptional talent for compartmentalization. Maybe they’re more alike than she realized.
Apparently, as Mariner explains, she and Rutherford used to do movie nights back when they were both new-ish to the Cerritos, skating through different genres each week. And now they’ve decided to pick the habit back up again… for some reason.
“And what’s the genre this time?” Tendi asks innocently.
The slightest twitch of Mariner’s temporalis. “Rom-coms. Old-timey ones.”
Now, Tendi may be naive. And blithe. And easily led. And prone to believing in only the very best of people.
But Tendi ain’t stupid.
“Sounds like fun!” she says with a grin. “I’ll go wash up, they always yell at me when I track blood into the screening rooms.”
Mariner rocks back on her heels in badly-concealed relief. Something’s up with her – she’s had romance on the brain for the past week – and Tendi has a sneaking suspicion why. But it’s no reason to deny her friend the diversion she’s clearly craving.
“Oh, uh, one other thing,” Mariner adds, just as Tendi is rising to her feet. “Maybe don’t, ah, mention this to Boimler. He’d just bring down the energy, you know how he is.”
Tendi nods very earnestly. “Makes perfect sense. Don’t worry, Mariner, I won’t say a thing.”
“Screening room 2A, deck 7, nine o’clock. Bring flowers.”
Boimler looks at her like she just walked up and hit him with a rock. “What are you–”
“Screening room 2A. Deck 7. Nine o’clock. Bring. Flowers.” She enunciates slow but sharp, like she’s reading out a prescription. “And an apology.”
The slow dawning of comprehension in Boimler’s big calf eyes. He has pleasant irises, if you take the time to notice them. Not as pleasant as Rutherford’s, but – No. Stop that.
“Flowers. Okay.” He scratches his cheek, doubtless pondering whose aeroponic garden he’s going to have to pilfer to find flowers on such short notice. The Deltas will probably never see it coming.
Tendi beams at him. “Wonderful! I’ll see you there. Sounds like it’s rom-com night!”
“Wh– seriously? Eh, doesn’t matter.” Boimler lays a hand on her shoulder. “Thank you, Tendi. You didn’t have to get involved.”
And that’s where he’s wrong. Tendi does have to get involved. She always will. She and Rutherford may be very unlike each other in some ways – in species, demeanor, field of expertise – but the fundamental thing they have in common is that they’re both fixers. The only real difference is that Rutherford fixes machines, and Tendi fixes people.
At least, she hopes she’s fixing things right now. She’ll just have to wait and see.
“ – I feel like a total clown,” Mariner says.
“Don’t worry about it,” comes Rutherford’s muffled reply. “Honestly, even if I am a little frustrated, it’s with myself, not with you. Clearly the lessons just weren’t taking."
Tendi hadn’t meant to listen in, but they were talking when she arrived outside the screening room, and pressing her temple to the cool paneling of the hallway walls is really soothing her headache, and –
Oh, who is she kidding? Tendi may be a fixer, but she is also a shameless, shameless eavesdropper.
Mariner sighs. “I’ve gotta be honest, man, this is turning out to be harder than I expected. Tonight is kind of my last shot. If things don’t fall into place here, well … I might have to call off the project.”
“That’s okay, Mariner. I know you did your best. Maybe it won’t be so bad to let things lie for a while.”
Now this is interesting. Wheels are turning in Tendi’s head, trying to parse what this “project” might involve. But she's distracted by the sound of footfalls approaching from up the hall. Tendi, who delights in knowing other people’s business, is terrified of someone catching the slightest whiff of her business, so she tucks herself behind one of the struts and holds perfectly still.
Luckily, Boimler is far too preoccupied to notice her. The poor man knows he’s walking right into the lion’s den. The door to the screening room slides open.
“Seriously, fuck off, Jen, I told you I booked this room for– Boimler?!”
Mariner’s voice spikes from irritation to bewilderment, tinged with a faint but genuine note of delight. It takes her a few seconds to remember that she’s actually furious with this man, but makes up for it with a scathing, “What are you doing here.”
From her hiding place, Tendi hears the rustling of vegetation. Boimler must have gotten his hands on some flowers after all. Good man.
“Wait! I, uh… I wanted to… that is to say… I’ve had a lot of time to think… things were said that I… or, rather…” This is excruciating. It’s like a root canal of the soul. But little by little, Boimler gropes his way towards a point. “There’s something I need to say… if you just… oh, fuck it. Mariner, I’m – ”
“You. Utter. Sap,” whispers Mariner. She marches across the room. “Give me those.” The crumpled, joyful sound of someone snatching up a bouquet of proffered flowers with an excess of violence. (Also, a whimper. That part’s probably Boimler.)
“Well?” Mariner demands. Without looking, Tendi knows her arms are crossed in her best why-are-you-wasting-my-time staredown. Tendi creeps closer to the door, trying to hear the conversation more clearly.
And Boimler finally removes his foot from his mouth. “I was thoughtless and out of line, and I’m sorry. You may take an … unorthodox approach to problems, but more often than not you get results. And no matter what, you always try to do right by your friends. I had no right to question that.”
“Okay, first off, you’re one hundred percent right, so congratulations. And secondly,” Mariner’s gulp is audible through the wall, “I’ve been thinking, and it’s possible that sometimes I do like to charge into things loud and fast without thinking about how it’ll affect my friends. So, um, maybe you had a bit of a point.”
This is followed by a thunderous silence, as is only natural after hearing Beckett Mariner admit she might have been wrong about something. And there’s a tremulous, almost vulnerable note in her voice when she adds, “Brad… you’re my mentee, and my friend, and I care about you and junk. You do know that, right?”
The reply arrives without a moment’s hesitation. “Of course I do, Beckett.”
“Good,” Mariner sighs gratefully. Then there’s a yelp of protest and a soft rustling, like hair being tousled, as she snaps, “And don’t you ever take a rude tone with me again, Ensign!”
It’s at precisely this moment that Tendi finally overextends her head and triggers the motion sensor on the door. With nothing to lean on, she crumples and hits the floor with an undignified slap, barely parlaying it into a dive roll at the last second.
“Wow!” she cries. “I sure am glad I just got here right now. It certainly seems as though we’ve had some great emotional catharsis, although of course I can’t be sure of that since, as mentioned, I only just got here!”
One thing about having a reputation for being weird: every so often you can do something actually, legitimately bizarre, and no one will bat an eye. As Rutherford rushes forward to help Tendi up (how sweet, and what a normal thing for a friend to do that she should not in any way read into) Mariner shrugs and releases Boimler from her headlock.
Boimler takes the opportunity to dig out a PADD. “And to make it up to you, Mariner – I heard it was romantic movie night, so I went through the ship’s database and found a collection of classic cinematic love stories.”
“Wow, Boims, I’m almost impressed. So what are our options?”
“Okay, I’ve never heard of this one, but the description is pretty intense. Sent to strip a lush moon of its resources, one human man discovers the vibrant culture of its natives and finds himself falling–”
“Boimler,” Mariner breaks in, voice unnaturally restrained, “were you planning to have us watch fucking AVATAR?”
He jumps back at the sudden outburst. “I’m sorry! Have you seen it already?”
“Yeah, and I wish I hadn’t! Literally the only story that would be improved if people just obeyed the Prime Directive.”
“Okay, okay.” He nervously flicks down the list. “How about this one: In this touching fairy tale about inner beauty and self-acceptance, a curmudgeonly ogre finds himself sent on a quest to rescue–”
“Shrek? SHREK?!?”
“Mariner, is your translator malfunctioning?” Tendi pipes up. “Because I’m pretty sure that wasn’t a real word you just said–”
“Give me that!” Mariner snatches the PADD out of Boimler’s hand, muttering, “Everyone knows the second one is better anyway.”
As Mariner and Boimler descend into a standoff between cocksure bluster and neurotic stammering (you know, normalcy), Tendi settles back on her heels, tucks her hands behind her back, and waits.
And waits.
And wa–
“Hey,” murmurs Rutherford, sidling up beside her, immense shoulders shrugged together in a futile attempt to blend into the background. “I, uh, should say something too.”
Tendi wishes she was as cool as Captain Freeman or Dr. T’Ana, who would just arch an eyebrow expectantly and wait for the offender to spill their guts. But she’s not, and she can’t help turning towards him, like a plant swiveling toward the sun, as she bites her lip to keep from smiling.
“I’ve been avoiding you,” he admits. “With Boimler and Mariner arguing, and– well, things got too overwhelming and I just threw myself into my work. But it wasn’t fair to you. You’re my best friend and I’m really glad to have you in my life. I’m sorry. Can you forgive me?”
Tendi isn’t holding back a smile anymore. She beams and launches upwards into a hug that’s maybe two-thirds of a way to a Chalnoth execution grip (which for some reason makes Rutherford go stock-still). “Of course I forgive you,” she whispers in his ear. “Just don’t run out on me again. I wouldn’t know what to do without you.”
“Heh… okey-dokey,” he chokes out.
There’s a pause. Boimler and Mariner are still arguing. Tendi realizes she’s been holding on too long. But Rutherford doesn’t sway – the man’s built like a tree trunk.
Tendi awkwardly slides back down, and, to avoid thinking about her emotions too hard, finally gives voice to the suspicion that’s been dogging her for the past several days. “Hey, Rutherford, what’s going on with Mariner?”
Even though Tendi’s no longer dangling off his neck, Rutherford still sounds a little strangled as he asks, “What do you mean?”
“I kind of… heard you two talking earlier. Something about a ‘project’? I know I shouldn’t have eavesdropped, but – does it have anything to do with her hosting a big formal dance for no reason? Or suddenly wanting to have a rom-com night? Or just being really high-strung and hyperactive in general this whole week?”
Rutherford looks stricken, opening and closing his mouth like a dying fish. “Or maybe I completely misheard,” Tendi backpedals furiously, “and we don’t have to talk about it at all!”
Rutherford looks like he’s running about ten thousand calculations per second… or maybe like he’s having a really hard time saying something. Tendi desperately regrets bringing this up. He’d apologized; everything was going fine. Why does she always have to push people?
Finally Rutherford sighs, “No, it’s okay. You should know the truth, which is…” He won’t make eye contact with her. “That…”
What he could possibly be this reluctant to talk about? Unless… The revelation hits her like a phaser set to “revelation”. Of course!
“Wait. You don’t have to say anything.” She takes Rutherford’s hand. With their fingers interlaced, she can feel his pulse racing. “I think I can guess.”
“You– you can?”
“Mariner’s got a thing for Boimler, doesn’t she?”
She can hear the fuse blow in Rutherford’s implant. He gawks at her for a few seconds, and then says slowly, incredulously, “Y-yeah, how’d you know?"
She bites back a squeal. Rutherford looks shifty and awkward, almost like he’s the one with the crush, but it’s understandable that he’d be nervous about sharing a friend’s secret. “ That’s great! ” she whispers. “It all makes sense now! She’s already all over him...” Her eyes dart to where Mariner is, sure enough, grabbing Boimler by his lapels and shaking him like a can of soda. “But she doesn’t know how to tell him, huh? That’s why she came to you for help.”
“… yeah, exactly. She’s worried she’ll ruin the friendship if she handles it the wrong way.” Wow, Rutherford seems really relieved to have this off his chest. But then, he’s never been a good liar. Poor guy must have been worried sick trying to keep this to himself.
How absolutely adorable. Tendi’s always known that, like a Hengrauggi, Mariner’s crusty exterior conceals a core of soft, buttery meat (wrong metaphor?) but it’s still delightful to have her instincts validated. “Good thing she went to you, not me,” Mariner giggles. “Last time I kissed someone, it was just because I thought I was going to die.”
“...when was this?” asks Rutherford, an unfamiliar squeak entering his voice, and for some reason it feels like Tendi’s gone and said the wrong thing again.
“The whole Merced incident,” she explains, words tumbling out. “It seemed like the thing to do – it’s what people always do in stories, isn’t it? And I felt really connected to him in the moment, sometimes when I have a really strong connection to a person I–”
Tendi stops talking.
Tendi weighs the relative merits of grabbing a phaser, stunning everyone in the room, and making a break for the escape pods. No. Not now. Security camera mean s too many witnesses.
“Anyway, he’s on another plane of existence now. And in retrospect, I barely knew him, and I don’t think I actually liked him that much,” she finishes. “Ha ha?”
Rutherford is sweating more than usual. He strains a chuckle. “Whatever works for you is… cool with me.”
Tendi once again turns to the lives of her far more dysfunctional coworkers for distraction. “So… Mariner, huh? She’d rather replicate a whole dance hall than just ask her friend out? No offense, but… isn’t it all a little over the top?”
“Yeah,” Rutherford says, rubbing the back of his head. “At this point I’m not sure whether Mariner actually knows how to flirt or if no one minds the outrageous stuff she does because she’s crazy hot.”
Good question. Tendi has just started grappling with it –in fact, she’s halfway to formulating the abstract for a research paper on the topic– when Mariner exasperatedly jabs her finger at some unseen line on the PADD. “This one. This one will do.”
“That one?” protests Boimler. “From 1934? Had they even developed electricity by then?”
“Ah ah ah,” protests Mariner, typing furiously at the projector terminal. “This is the one. Let’s go, Tom Servo, it’s movie sign!”
“What does that even mean?” screams Boimler.
Tendi doesn’t know. Tendi doesn’t especially care. She and Rutherford take their seats on the front row, and if she’s noticed that Rutherford hasn’t let go of her hand, she doesn’t say anything about it.
“So is this whole movie just Clark Gable mansplaining his way into this woman’s heart?”
Mariner seems chagrined. “Not the whole movie. Like, yeah, if I met a guy like that in real life, I’d probably sock him. But it’s not about a perfect love story. It’s about the banter, the tension . ” She flashes Boimler a look that Tendi can’t quite parse, and finishes ruefully, “It’s about the drama .”
“Well, a little drama can be entertaining,” Boimler replies, wearing an uncharacteristic smirk, and Tendi doesn’t miss Mariner’s shoulders relaxing an inch.
Mariner presses on, “And, like, I can relate to the characters’ struggles, you know?”
“What, because you’re always complaining about having to look after Boimler on missions?” Rutherford chuckles.
“No!” Mariner snaps, a bit too hastily, as if offended on Boimler’s behalf. “I meant how Ellie tries so hard to get out from under the thumb of her controlling parent.”
“Why do you find that relatable?” asks Tendi, genuinely puzzled. “Did you have a problem with your parents? You’ve never mentioned it before.”
Mariner blanches.
“Yeah, you never talk about your parents, Mariner,” Brad chimes in. “The one time I asked, you just said they were, quote, ‘So lame that trying to describe them would make me age ten years.”
“You told me they were super cool hoverboarding experts who never visit because they’re too busy ‘shredding it’ back on Earth,” says Rutherford. “But you never managed to get me their autograph, or even a picture.”
“You told me they got erased from the timeline and you can’t even remember their names or faces anymore,” says Tendi, “and I said, ‘That’s really sad, do you want to talk about it,’ and you said, ‘No, can’t you see I’m just fabricating a ludicrous lie to get you off my back,’ but now – oh. Oh, right, I get it.”
“See, the thing is,” Mariner begins, eyes darting around the room, “that my parents are just, y’know, not–” Her head snaps towards the screen. “Oh man, you gotta watch this part!”
So Tendi watches.
Ellie, the runaway heiress, is trying to fall asleep in a haystack, and Peter, the roguish reporter, is tucking her in with his coat so she’ll be warm. He’s practically on top of her, their faces inches apart – her eyelashes fluttering, his weird little mustache quivering on his upper lip as they draw ever closer…
Then he backs off, walks away.
“I thought they were going to kiss,” says Tendi.
“Exactly,” says Mariner with relish. “Tension so thick you could cut it with a knife. Wondering if they will, or if they won’t, and why not, and how long it’s all going to last. That’s the power of almost. Watching people make out has got nothing on watching people who want to make out and just can’t bring themselves to do it.”
Tendi ponders this. It does make for a great story. But is it any good for the people involved? Do they enjoy being trapped for days (or weeks, or months) in the liminal space between desire and denial? How could anyone exist like that, biting back their true feelings for a person they spend nearly every waking minute with? And this is real life, where people aren’t forced to share hotel rooms or pretend to be married because the narrative calls for it. Outside of a movie theater, fate doesn’t go around putting reluctant couples into dramatically heightened situations–
The lights flare a blinding white and the warning sirens scream into life as the ship shudders around them. The floor lurches violently beneath Tendi’s feet and she braces herself for a bruising impact, but the fall never comes.
Or maybe it never ends. She kicks her feet helplessly in the air, then cracks open one eye. The room is eerily quiet, and the lights have faded to a throbbing red glow. She’s adrift. Around her the walls are spinning, getting faster and faster as her flails grow more frantic.
“Thi– –ptain,” comes a splintered voice over the intercom. “The puls– –ambled our syst– –ravity generators throu– –main calm and stay p– –store full func– –ELAX, RANSOM!”
Well, that’s such a great help. Is this happening all over the ship? Tendi stifles a laugh, imagining Dr. T’Ana soaring through the operating room, probably hissing and spitting all the while.
A bright yellow object drifts into her vision, like a miniature sun. It’s Rutherford, just as helpless as she is, hurled on his own wild trajectory that’s swinging him by her for a few scant seconds. She can barely see his face, he’s spinning so fast. No, she realizes, it’s because he’s spinning in the opposite direction to her. A plan is already forming in her mind.
He’s getting closer. Tendi’s hand shoots out before she has even finished composing the thought. “Sam! Take my hand!”
A pair of eyes, one digital and one organic, meet hers. Her fingers reach across the gap and find his, but they’re both moving too quickly and the torque threatens to wrench them apart again. Luckily, she saw this coming; she grabs his wrist and yanks, yeeting herself right onto a collision course with his torso. Rutherford grunts as her shoulder accidentally connects with his solar plexus and she worries that she’s hurt him, but then a pair of solid arms squeeze her tight, locking the two of them into a single unit.
There’s a brief, dizzying burst of negative acceleration, and then they are still, more or less. Rutherford is bulkier than her –a fact she is suddenly very much aware of, pressed in close like this– and so the rotation has not canceled out perfectly, but at least now they’re twirling at a speed that doesn’t make her stomach want to exit her body through her inner ear. Rutherford is gazing down at her, his expression soft and open.
“Basic physics,” Tendi chuckles nervously. “Action–”
“–reaction,” Rutherford finishes. “You okay?”
She nods. His heart is racing – or is it hers? It’s hard to tell. Makes sense, of course; they’ve just been in a stressful situation. But they’ve made it through worse. If there’s one thing Tendi knows, it’s that there’s nothing the two of them can’t pull off if they work together.
Across the room, their comrades are not having the same luck. “Catchmecatchmecatchme!” Boimler wails, spinning so fast he’s more bullet than man. Mariner swoops left, deigning to spread her arms in a wide bear hug in an attempt to absorb his momentum.
It doesn’t work.
They go somersaulting, two clowns trapped in what Tendi now cannot help but interpret as an absurd mating dance, ending in a direct collision with the wall. Mariner, as usual, takes most of the impact. Tendi could almost swear she maneuvered herself into harm’s way on purpose.
Mariner groans, her head draping limp onto her shoulder. Tendi gets the sense that if the gravity were on, she’d be lying in a pile on the floor. Physician’s instinct kicks in.
“Get me over there,” she instructs Rutherford.
“You got it,” he replies, dutiful to the last, and spins her around, keeping her close as he places his hands just beneath her shoulder blades. Then he gives her a firm (but not rough, he’s never, ever rough) shove, and there’s that the lurch again – not just from the zero-g but the feeling of unmooring, of no longer having the comfort of an anchor to keep you secure.
She spares a glance back. Rutherford is moving away from her now (action, reaction) but he’s stable, unworried. He flashes her a thumbs-up.
He’s my anchor, thinks Tendi, and doesn’t have the bandwidth to interrogate that bizarre thought, because right now she’s focused on maintaining a trajectory that will take her in to her wounded friend without giving her another concussion.
Up ahead, Boimler is cradling Mariner’s head in his hands, eyes level with hers, fingers cupping her cheek. “I am so sorry,” he babbles. “Can you hear me? Do we need to get you to sickbay? Stay awake, Mariner, I can’t carry you on my own! Oh wait, no gravity, so maybe I could, but it’s still not ideal…”
Her eyes flutter open halfway. “’s not fair,” she mumbles. “You do not deserve eyes that pretty.”
Tendi is close enough now to hear Boimler’s breath hitch, followed by a weary sigh. “Okay, Tendi, let’s get her to sick bay.”
But as he moves to help Mariner up, she stiffens like a board, eyes flying open all the way, and shoves Boimler away with a solid tap to the sternum. “I’m fine!” she hollers.
Then, just before he goes full pinball, she snags him by the wrist and hauls him back in again. “I was a little out of it for a moment, but I’m fine,” she repeats, one eyebrow arched. “Stardate is 57933.04. I’m speaking with Brad Boimler, the human weasel. Two plus two equals four lights. I don’t need to go to sickbay. Understood?”
“Y-yes, ma’am!” Boimler squeaks.
“I’ll be the judge of that.” Tendi puts a hand on each of their shoulders, clenching firmly for effect (and also for braking).
The doctor is in.
Treating your friends is a double-edged sword.
It’s wonderful to be able to ease their pain and offer them succor when they’re wounded. But it is nerve-wracking to see someone you love at less than their best, to know that they are suffering because you aren’t doing enough for them.
This is one of the reasons why physicians don’t normally treat their own friends and family, but when you’re a Medical officer a Starfleet ship, everyone is family.
And after a few tense minutes of peering into Mariner’s eyes, taking tricorder readings in triplicate, and walking her through some basic tongue twisters and memory exercises, Tendi is able to offer a diagnosis of “only very mildly concussed” (Tendi suspects that Mariner suffers worse than this on most Saturday nights out).
It doesn’t help that the temperature is slowly dropping. Rutherford explained it to her once – the backup generators can’t muster quite the same level of climate control, because their main job is to, oh, keep everyone on the ship alive . So Tendi knows that just because Orions are used to warmer desert climates doesn’t mean she has a right to complain.
Tendi slumps, hovering against the wall, feeling like a wrung-out cloth, and watches her breath cloud up in front of her face. Familiar hands place a heavy blanket over her shoulders. She looks up to catch Rutherford smiling at her beatifically.
What a friend. What a… huh.
Boimler is still fussing over Mariner like a husband over his expectant wife, which is almost as cute as it is annoying. He insists he trusts Tendi’s diagnosis, but is still wondering whether they should get her to sick bay, just in case. After all, with the gravity still off, they’ll want crew members to start reporting in soon.
As if on cue, the main lights flicker back to life, and the movie starts playing, but Clark’s voice is silenced almost at once as the intercom chimes on. Then off. Then on again. Then off again. Then:
“Shaxs, if you do not keep a steady hold of my ankle I swear I will – Ahem. Main systems are stable and full power is being restored to the crew decks as I speak. Engineering expects to have our gravity generators working within the hour. If you are not on call for this shift, please remain in place to reduce risk of injury. Freeman out. ShaxswhatdidIJUSTsay–”
“There you have it,” Tendi says primly, resisting the urge to bonk Boimler on the forehead with her tricorder. “And Mariner will be fine. She just needs rest and light monitoring. And maybe something to keep her core temperature stable,” she adds, wincing at the way her friend is shivering against the wall.
“All riiiiight, blankie time!” a still-addled Mariner roars. “Gimme gimme!”
Rutherford hands her a regulation survival blanket. “I could only scrounge up two from the closet. But Boimler and I will be fine.”
“Speak for yourself,” Boimler shivers, breathing onto his hands.
“Hey. Dumbass,” Mariner calls. Boimler turns automatically to find that Mariner is holding open one end of the blanket. “I need to keep warm. Doctor’s orders. You’re all about following orders, right?”
Tendi might have to ask Rutherford later if his implant took any footage of the journey Boimler’s face goes through. But even slow motion analysis probably wouldn’t crack the mix of emotions washing through him – confusion, interest, indignation, self-doubt... She would, however, hold on to a frame of the wan, gentle smile that he settles on, which is maybe the most compelling empirical evidence she’s ever seen for the existence of true love.
Boimler lets Mariner pull him into the blanket, then guides the pair of them back over to the front row where they had been watching the movie. With infinite care, he pushes Mariner back down into her seat.
With the gravity off, Mariner just floats back out.
He tries again. Mariner floats up again. She blows a raspberry at him.
Boimler whispers something that sounds a lot like For fuck’s sake, Beckett, and allows her to rest her head on his shoulder as they float two feet above the cushions.
Rutherford half-pushes, half-swims his way over to join them, looking very stoic as he pretends his teeth aren’t chattering. Tendi is in the middle of wondering whether she should offer him her blanket, or whether that would make things weird , or if the only weird thing is that she’s taking too long to show her friend some basic kindness, when Mariner regards her with a look that is, despite everything, sly.
“Rutherford,” she barks. “Don’t freeze to death. That’s stupid. Go share with Tendi.”
“Well, I–” he starts.
“I mean, I can totally–” Tendi stammers.
“Only if you don’t mind–” He taps his thumbs together anxiously.
“Of course, I just wanted to make sure you didn’t mind, I mean I can just do without–” She’s already shrugging the blanket off her shoulders.
“Oh my godddd you two,” Mariner groans. Boimler whispers something in her ear, and she sighs. “By which I mean, take your time and come to an accommodation that best suits the pair of you.”
That accommodation ends up looking like Tendi snuggled right up against Rutherford’s torso, her free hand clutching Mariner’s, as Mariner leans on Boimler and Rutherford’s long arm extends all the way to Boimler’s far shoulder to keep the four of them locked together. It is an accommodation, Tendi concedes, that suits her extraordinarily well.
The movie is rolling again. Ellie is walking down the aisle; she’s about to marry the wrong man, even though she’s just found out Peter’s still in love with her. Who will Ellie choose? Tendi is rapt. The suspense is killing her.
Except… it isn’t. Being suspended in midair here in Screening Room 2A, sharing warmth with two of her best friends and her Rutherford, is the best thing that’s happened to her all week. It’s the coming down that will be the problem – when the gravity returns and they all have to settle into new positions. It’s inevitable, and there’s no telling how long it will take to find a new balance and whether they’ll end up as comfortable as they are now.
But for right now, they’re okay. And isn’t that enough?
She sneaks up a glance at Rutherford, and finds he’s staring down at her. She holds his gaze. And ever so quietly, she hears him whisper,
“Thanks, Mariner.”