Timekeeping (Backpost)

Posted on Fri Aug 8th, 2014 @ 7:29am by Lieutenant Commander Horatio Hawke & Counselor Melony Taylor

Episode: Orphans
Location: Main Bridge
Timeline: MD10, 0905hrs

Hawke was late to his appointment, only by five minutes and Melony would be more than happy to wait but in this case it might just be counterproductive. Shuffling her notes about, beginning to put them away, she thought back to the conversations she had with Counselor Toma, she had been warned he might be a bit unwilling to continue his sessions so it looked like she would have to go and find him. Having put her notes away she left thinking he might just be still checking the ship so with this in mind she headed to the bridge.

Meanwhile, Hawke is deliberately making himself busy by poking around in the flight control systems to understand the off-spec modifications.

It seemed she was right in the end, she found Hawke looking at the modifications a few minutes later, she wasn't exactly thrilled Toma had been right but it wasn't much of a surprise. "You realise your late Lieutenant, I hope it's not something your going to make a habit out of" she said interrupting Hawke.

Hawke grimaced when he heard the voice from the other side of the flight control console. He pulled his head out of the open access panel and exchanged an awkward glance with Lieutenant sh'Leksa, who was sitting at the helm. The Andorian gave a subtle shrug, which was the closest thing to sympathy that Hawke expected from his 2IC.

The pilot stood up and turned to face the counselor. "I'm so sorry, Counselor," he lied. "I must have lost track of the time."

Truth was, he was avoiding the appointment. He knew he had an appointment and he made a point to make himself busy in the vain hope that if he 'forgot' then so might the counselor. No such luck.

This wasn't how she had wanted to start things, avoidance and lying it didn't help him if he intended to make just talking to him difficult, she made an effort to relax her posture and "I'm not going to hold you to the session if you really don't want the be there Lieutenant not this time." She said calmly dismissing it to put him at ease, "So what has you so preoccupied that you lost track of time?" She added hoping to get him talking a bit at least.

It was a loaded question really, it wasn't one he could avoid after saying he'd forgotten his appointment, he had little choice but to tell her.

Horatio felt suitably chastised by the counselor's comment and sheepishly gestured to the console, "Well, the modifications my team had found in the flight control system, while impressive, didn't fully explain the higher levels of performance they were experiencing while at the conn. I had a thought and went digging into the helm console itself and found ..." He paused when he saw the counselor didn't look nearly as impressed as he did. "Well, the console itself is above standard. I was familiarising myself."

He paused and tossed the coil spanner he had been holding to sh'Leksa. "I'm sorry I forgot about the appointment, Doc," he said. "Can we reschedule?"

Although she would of been content to have him go on about the technical details she was pleased he hadn't bored her with it quite so much, and more so it hadn't been so easy to catch him off guard it would make things more interesting. So she smiled "Of course we can reschedule," she paused and said a bit more seriously "In fact feel free to find me whenever you want to talk, you don't need an appointment if something is bothering you."

Horatio nodded, conceding that he was in the wrong. He probably needed to take this a little more seriously, especially considering the promotion he was now squarely in line for. He didn't want to do anything that would jeopardise that. "I'm taking the watch on Gamma Shift tonight," he said. "What if we rescheduled to thirteen hundred tomorrow?"

"Sure, thirteen hundred tomorrow." she said happily thinking perhaps it wouldn't be to difficult to convince him she was actually there to help.

Melony was just leaving but hesitated long enough to say "Oh and one more thing Hawke don't avoid another session or I might have to disagree with Toma's assessment that your fit for duty, perhaps that might help you remember next time".

The pilot grimaced and scratched the back of his neck. "Oh, it will. Thanks."