Given the atmosphere in the turbo lift on the way to the bridge, it would take a structural engineer with a phaser drill several hours to cut the tension between Flyboy and the younger blonde accompanying him to the command center. To his credit, Henry had decided to heed the words of the XO, pushing their issues on to the back burner for now, but giving the younger woman the silent treatment probably wasn’t the best way to do it.

The yellow and black clad woman tried her best to mimic the man, but found herself to be impatient and impetuous. Something many had said about her in recent times.

“Look, can we talk?” she asked him, turning her head to give him her full attention. When she received nothing back, she carried on. “If I had known you were here I wouldn’t have accepted the transfer,” she frowned. It was true, if she had known about Henry’s presence she’d have taken a posting on the other side of the quadrant.

Still nothing, so she decided to go nuclear with her comments. “You’ve been lousy at keeping the family updated. Mum always asks where you are and no one can tell her. I’ve done wrong, I get that, but she’s done nothing wrong,” she tried to appeal to what she still knew of his nature, hoping that accepting her part in the tensions would at least get him to talk. She was right.

“You may not realise this but the galaxy has gone a bit mental in the last year or so,” Henry tried to keep the pretence of not wanting to speak to her, not wanting to go against the XO’s order, his hands behind his back, tightly grasping each other until they turned white.

“That doesn’t excuse the way you’ve treated Mum,” Lauren told him, hands on her hips and glaring at her older sibling. Then came the kicker, the one phrase she knew he wouldn’t resist. “Dad would be ashamed of you for treating her like that,” she chided him.

Henry’s eyes widened as he turned his entire frame to tower over her, aggressively pointing in her face with his right index finger. “Don’t you dare lecture me on what father would be ashamed of,” then he jabbed her in the shoulder. “You. You’re the one he would be ashamed of.”

At that exact moment, in an event that would have made one of Henry’s twentieth century film writers proud, the turbo lift doors opened and revealed his outburst to the entire bridge. Once they realised that they were in the open for all to see and hear, Henry, now as red as the uniform he wore, stepped onto the command deck, locking eyes with Commander Prida as she spun in the command chair to ascertain the cause of the commotion.

“Henry?” she asked with a raised eyebrow, “Everything okay?”

Looking rather sheepish, Henry ran a hand through his hair, then dropped it to his side with a sigh. “Yes Commander,” he nodded.

Pushing herself out of the Captain’s chair, the Bajassian took a step closer to the helmsman and regarded him closely, then looked back to the blonde stood just behind him. “And you are?”

“Lieutenant Lauren Mitchell,” the younger woman smiled, offering a hand to the brunette in the same colour uniform as herself. “I just came aboard with your Captain… sorry, the Captain. I’m the new tactical chief,” she elaborated further, but ceased when the hand shake wasn’t reciprocated.

Prida, in an uncharacteristically cold and standoffish manner, simply moved her attention back to Henry. “Where is the Captain? Did you fill her in?” she asked, folding her arms across her chest.

“Yeah, about that…” he lifted a hand and scratched his head while scrunching up his face. “We should talk…”

In the few minutes since the two officers had departed them, Nazir had not moved an inch. She was still in the same position: hunched over; propped against the wall with her arms at full stretch; head bowed and shaking from side to side. It was a shock for Zinn to see his proud Captain in such a position once he rounded the corner to their location.

Sidling up to the XO, who looked more than a little exasperated as she held one hand to her brow and the other on her hip, the doctor lowered his tone so that he didn’t distress the Trill any further, all the while noting the chatter she was having with herself. “What the hell happened?”

“We’ve been put on alert,” Noli matched his tone, turning her entire body to shield the captain from her words. “A possible Borg incursion near Deep Space Eleven,” she elaborated further.

“And that triggered… this?” the Deltan’s eyes widened at just how serious the matter had apparently become. Deep rooted trauma they had suffered in recent months had a lot to answer for. But then, so did Starfleet, since they had continually put the Lakota crew in disastrous situations.

Noli nodded slowly, looking genuinely concerned for their captain. There was, however, an elephant in the corridor that she needed to ask, given the situation they faced. “Doctor, I have to ask…” she took another look at the Captain, and felt for her. Closing her eyes and taking a deep breath, she uncomfortably asked the question she’d been dreading. “Is she still taking her medication?”

Zinn looked shell-shocked at the question from the XO. “How the hell do you know about that?” he took a step closer and glowered at her, visibly angry.

“I caught her,” Noli confessed, looking back at the Trill then the Doctor. But instead of feeling ashamed at breaking that confidentiality, she doubled down on her concern. “She dropped a tablet in the observation lounge and I had it tested. She’s taking antidepressants and sleeping pills just so she can function, and I need to know that this…” she waved at the Trill, almost exasperated, “this will not happen in a bigger crisis moment.”

“You’ve invaded her privacy and her right to medical treatment!” Zinn scolded the XO. “I’ll be putting this in my log and informing Command,” he told her bluntly.

“And I’ll tell them you’ve been keeping the captain drugged instead of sending her for the counselling and support she needs,” Noli spat back, seething at his boldness. “You’ve helped create… this!”

“She came to me for help,” Zinn’s anger abated slightly, looking at the Trill, “and after everything we’ve all been through, I wasn’t going to turn her away. Now I get that you have to look out for this ship and crew, but so do I. And if I have to medicate her for a while to keep her in the chair, I’ll do that. I’d rather have her there than,” he looked the Bajoran up and down, “someone else.”

Noli took a moment to compose herself, biting her tongue so hard she could almost taste the blood in her mouth. When she was ready, she took a step towards the much taller male. “Since we’re being so candid,” she stared him dead in the eye, “if I get so much as a hint that she is going to be a risk to this ship or crew, I’ll remove her from command, and I’ll send you with her.”

“Careful Commander. That sounds awfully like mutiny,” the Deltan chided the XO, a sly smile crept upon his face, then took a step back and towards the Captain.

“I don’t want to see her on the bridge until she’s fit and well,” Noli warned him, her voice louder than she had perhaps intended, and then stormed off down the corridor. A final look behind her saw Zinn crouched beside the captain, whispering something.

Appearing from the turbo lift at the back of the bridge, Noli took a moment to take in the sight of the bridge crew hard at work. These people needed their captain, she needed her captain, but she couldn’t let Keziah put them at risk if she wasn’t fit for duty. Too much was at stake.

Her almost daydream like state was interrupted when Prida walked up to her and placed a hand on her shoulder. “You ok? Where’s the captain?”

“Indisposed but she’s ok,” Noli plastered her best smile across her face and nodded quickly. It was time to get to action and worry about the captain afterwards. “Where are we at with preparations?”

“We’re ready to go whenever you are,” the Chief Engineer nodded, holding an arm out, almost welcoming the XO back to the bridge. “Oh, and Proxima‘s powering up with orders to support whatever action we take,” she added as they moved towards the center of the bridge.

Noli stood behind the command chair, listening and dutifully nodding in all the right places until her friend went silent. Gripping the headrest, the Bajoran found herself staring at the empty seat directly in front of her. It felt wrong to sit in it, given the threat she’d made just a few minutes earlier. But if she didn’t, people would know something was wrong, and she couldn’t have that right now. Reluctantly, she turned the chair slightly and lowered herself into it.

“Henry,” she called out after a second or two of self-composure, “take us to the outer marker and set a course for the Proteus,” she instructed. “Contact Proxima and thank them for their assistance. Have them match our course and speed,” she nodded towards the newcomer at tactical.

“We’ve got somewhere to be, and I want to be there yesterday…”