Title: DIGNITY
Author: R Schultz ( cousindream@MSN.com )
Series: The Next Generation
Rating: PG-13, for concept
Pairing: Crusher/Selar/f, implied only
Disclaimer: Paramount owns Trek. I use it's created universe for the purposes of fun only, no money is made here. Don't sue.
Summary: The new Vulcan Doctor has an unwelcome duty, but one she is beholden to perform well.
Warnings: Some implying is made here of female loving female. If this irks you, do not read. 800 words, August 2003.
Written for Round XII of the Femme Fuh-Q Fest -- http://www.oocities.org/femme_fuhq_fest/ -- before being posted to the ASCEML. May be archived elsewhere if permission is requested first.
Comments to: R Schultz -- cousindream@MSN.com
by R Schultz
I raised up my head when the door irised open. There was a seal on it, so there were only four people aboard ship, at the most, who could have opened it.
Doctor Crusher stood there, her sterile suit still busily enfolding her in its protective embrace. When it was complete she strode forward to the subject of our work.
"Do you wish to observe, Doctor?"
"I wish to help, Doctor Selar," she whispered. "Computer states this is your first time with a member of my species. I wish to aid you in doing this well."
We looked down at what was not so very long ago a fellow member of our crew. This morning she had been alive. This morning she had been full of the plasma of vitality. Now she was cooling, already becoming stiff in her physical decay.
On Vulcan we honored our dead whenever possible, therefore the presence of Doctor Crusher was no insult, nor cast any doubt on my competency. There were rules and directions, all carefully delineated in Computer files. I was quite capable of performing the necessary duties without supervision nor assistance.
Nonetheless I recognized the presence of respect in Doctor Crusher. It was well that the dead were honored properly. We on Vulcan honor the dead as a way of respecting the living. I welcomed the Doctor with a curt nod of my head, and I laid careful hands upon what remained.
First off must be the clothing. A line of laser and we competently removed the outer garments.
"Tell me how you prepare a Vulcan for last rites, Doctor," my red-haired companion asked.
"Do you not know this already?" I asked in some surprise.
"It would please me to hear it from your own lips. Please indulge me in this small wish."
"Vulcans, as with your species, loose control of their muscles in death, and we first strip and clean the flesh remaining under our hands."
With that I lifted and moved the body, applying relaxing bursts into joints. With the stiffening flesh made pliable again, we cleaned her flesh, returning her dignity.
As we worked, I vocalized routines and surmises, conjunctures and observations, while Doctor Crusher spoke counterpoint to my litanies of clinical doctrine. I recognized this verbalization was for Doctor Crusher's comfort, not mine. So be it.
Jets of soapy water were followed by drying jets and toweling cloths. Doctor Crusher continued to relax the body, negating the tendency to assume a fetal position.
We dismissed all signs of lividity, and injected tiny mists which seemed to restore a glow of health to the quiescent flesh. Doctor Crusher closed the eyelids, hiding the filmy whiteness which the eyes had already assumed.
I kept the crewmember's head high while my fellow surgeon combed and adjusted this woman's short hairdo. Beverly applied a bare hint of make-up and lip coloring to the face in it's repose.
She brought forth from a bag, a set of clothes for the deceased. During all this time we worked as a team to bring back beauty to this husk. Throughout the procedure we compared notes as to varying customs.
There was little difference, in the end. We sought to give dignity to the remains and thus honor the previous inhabitant of the flesh. The inner node of being, now gone. Our work honored the living and gave dignity to the entire crew.
Beverly applied a small touch of perfume to the wrists and back of the ears. Then she produced another small bag of a slurry of some unknown vegetative mixture. She turned over the woman and applied the thin slurry to the buttocks, the thighs, the back of our charge.
"Frankincense and Myrrh," she explained. "Also Rosemary and Thyme, Spicebush, and Planta Genet, and Genea." We turned the woman once more on her back and Beverly rubbed it under her breasts and in her groin.
She toweled off the remains, but now I could detect a different and, for humans, probably pleasant scent.
Beverly and I carefully clothed her in panties and bra. The memory bra did not wish to cover or work on a cooling body, but we over-rode the matrix commands.
Beverly produced a shimmering dress of green, with a dozen other colors flowing easily throughout the weave. It appeared to be alive with islands of moving warmth. Beverly finished the clothing with a pair of impractical white shoes.
We had returned Dignity to our charge. Dignity is important.
We stood back to let the HoloCameras memorialize this former comrade and charge, with their lenses. Then we used the anti-grav facilities in the BioBed to move her into the shell of the photon torpedo.
She would be shot into the nearest sun, as per her request. Planets held no charms for her, she had said, and she wanted to be part of the heavens and not the earth.
"Memorial service will be at 1800," Doctor Crusher reminded me. "Will you attend?"
"Of course," I said. "We are bonded now, the two of us."
Beverly nodded and stood before the still open torpedo casing. Then she slowly bent down and gave Natasha Yar one last lingering kiss.
Then she came erect and keyed the casing closed.
END