round 22 BLUEHEART RAJ - Fearful Joy

[Jack Stavins]

((The Eagle’s Roost, USS Discovery-C))

::Fearing the worst for the away team, and specifically, the first officer, Emerson had sought the solace of spirits and a sympathetic (pointy) ear.::

CRUELLA: Your day will get worse. You have already guaranteed yourself that much. I think in a minute you may be glad to have avoided physical violence.

RAVENSCROFT: Nah, ::waving his hand arrogantly:: I doubt it. I need the violence right about now. ::He stared longingly into the empty glass as if it were an eye of a lover.:: I need the distraction.

::Someone howled on the other side of the bar. Emerson looked up, and into the fathomless and timeless eyes of the Reman.::

CRUELLA: How are the Columbia survivors getting along? A few of them have been chatty about your assistance in bringing them to the present.

RAVENSCROFT: Meh. It was nothing. Steve taught me well.

::His emerald green eyes moistened. He clenched his fist around the empty glass while simultaneously clenching his jaw till his masseters bulged hideously and screamed in searing pain. Furrows dug deeper between his eyebrows, bringing them closer together.

Quinn. Now Raj, Steve. He was in Starfleet, he reminded himself, chided himself. A day like this would ultimately arrive, abruptly and rudely. Why wasn’t he prepared for it? How *could* he have prepared for it anyway?

His commbadge chirped. He almost reached up and ripped it off his uniform realizing he was off duty at that moment when a familiar, spine-chilling voice, stopped his hand in mid-air and stopped his heart in mid-beat.::

ROGG: =/\= Ravenscroft, get to Sssickbay! Raj will want you. =/\=

::The commlink went dead. He looked up at Sister Cruella, eyes blazing with green fire, a cold sweat erupting on his brow. He stared at the emptied glass then back at the Sister. Surely this was a biochemical trick played on him by the purple prankster. Or a Reman hex. He narrowed his eyes suspiciously at the ancient woman clad in swathes of black fabric behind the counter, but a soft sigh emanating from her was all he needed to assure himself that this was no trick, this was no spell, this was no hallucinatory intoxication.

This was Steve back on the Discovery! And.. this was Raj back too!!

He jumped back and over the barstool, almost toppling it, and raced out of the Roost on heavy legs, with a spinning head and a queasy stomach. But also with a heart filled with hope and gladness bursting at the seams.::

((Shortly thereafter))

((Sickbay, USS Discovery-C))

::All throughout his dash along corridors and in turbolifts, Steve’s words finally made an impact on his purpled brain.

Sickbay.

Sickbay, the Dachlyd had uttered. Now outside the doors of the infirmary, the queasiness in his stomach began to rise in the form of bile to the back of his throat. What horror awaited him on the other side of the door? Would the fates seal themselves with the death of Raj Blueheart, as his future self had tragically witnessed, in another time, in another universe?

He hadn’t the patience or the courage to contemplate the unknown, no, not then and there, and as such, burst through the doors in a cloud of fearful anticipatory joy, into a brightly blinding and sterile world.::

TBC

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Ensign Emerson Ravenscroft

Xenolinguist/Transition Officer

USS DISCOVERY-C

as simmed by

Commander Raj Blueheart

First Officer

USS DISCOVERY-C