@empathicstars // Aella ;;
Two weeks had treated him well so far aboard the Enterprise. The job was fairly interesting. The crew was accommodating. Dr. Crusher was very kind to him. A lot of the anxieties that he had about his newest assignment ended up being for nothing. One of the biggest had been how Captain Picard would take him, but the Captain seemed bend over backwards to help him feel welcome, and made it clear to his shipmates that they should do the same.
The whole business of people wasn’t his favourite thing. It had been in the past. He remembered being very comfortable around people. Charming, even. Words came easily to him. People seemed to trust him. But the last few years, that had seemed to get more and more difficult the further he traveled from Earth. Another frustrating thing to add to his list for his next meeting with Counselor Troi. Travel had never been seen as a stressful or negative thing, but he had come to find comfort in the Federation programs. It seemed the more of the world he saw, the more of the world hated him for what he was.
It was beginning to wear a little thin.
Although his assignment was technically to continue his studies in neurology, he enjoyed doing lab work for Dr. Crusher. His shift was sometimes spent entirely in the back of sickbay, out of the view of any patients that came in complaining of any issues. Was he hiding? No. Absolutely not. Definitely not. He was just...preoccupied. In the zone. Passionate about his work.
Scan results scrolled quickly across his ocular implant. Six leaned back in his chair, shaking his head for the hundredth time today. Nothing out of the ordinary. Almost nothing at all - a mindless job that afforded him much needed time to daydream about all the things that made him nervous about his new position. Great.
The doors to sick bay slid open for the millionth time that hour. Or was it the billionth? He had every intention of ignoring it. Several actual nurses and doctors were on call. Whatever walk-in patients appeared, they could handle it. But Six was hit with such a powerful wall of emotion that his attention was ripped from his scan samples and the PADD in his hands clattered to the desktop.
He gasped quietly, suddenly wracked with an onslaught of emotion that was too much to process without warning. A whirlwind of regret and fear and sadness that twisted in his gut like something rotten. Through the initial shock, Six listened out to sickbay. Surely the person he was feeling was there for some sort of emergency, but...he heard no chaos. No sound of Dr. Crusher shouting orders. To movement whatsoever.
He couldn’t just ignore it. Not something as out of the ordinary as this. Before he could use better judgement, he had a hold of his white cane and was out in the main room of sick bay, attempting to locate the cause of his distress. It didn’t take long - the emotions were emanating from them like a siren accosting his senses with an internal racaus that he couldn’t ignore. It was clear to him now that the person was also a Betazoid. Aside from Counselor Troi, with whom he occasionally spoke telepathically with, there were no other Betazoids on the ship. The prospect was exciting but not nearly enough to distract him from what he was feeling. Without awaiting orders, he headed straight for them.
“Excuse me,” he said, his usual polite, melodic tone a little stressed by the circumstances. His father had been a man of ‘traditional values’, so Six had always known to communicate with other Betazoids telepathically first - it was only polite. Never prod, only receive. So he gently reached out to the person before him. “Are you in need of assistance?”
