New Fic: Sometimes It Be Like That

[jackwabbit]

Sometimes It Be Like That

Fandom: Star Trek Discovery
Rated: G
Category: Double Drabble. Culmets. Angst.
Season: Post-two, Pre-three. (Probably? Inter-season speculation.)
Spoilers: General Series Knowledge Through The End of Season Two.
Summary: Sometimes, it’s truly not personal. But sometimes that doesn’t matter.
Note: Follows “The Scientific Method.”

Also, this is part of the "I Rang The Bell With My Heart In My Mouth" series, and stories in this series are presented as inspiration strikes, not chronologically. See notes above for timeframe/related stories.

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The day Paul was discharged, it would’ve been Tuesday on Earth.

He slept most of that day, and Hugh wanted him to rest, so he left him be.

Wednesday, the spore drive suffered a catastrophic failure and Paul ignored every bit of medical advice (and the personnel giving it) to get it running again.

Thursday, Hugh’s shift ran way too long for interaction with anyone.

Friday, Hugh messaged Paul, but received no response. The computer said Paul was in his forest, so he was probably legitimately busy, but Hugh had no way to know for sure.

Saturday, a life support failure dramatically hastened the planned evacuation of most of the crew to Terralysium, so no one had time for conversation.

Sunday, that was patched up enough to maintain a skeleton crew for repairs, but just to add insult to injury, ship communications went down, and Hugh wasn’t in his quarters when Paul stopped by.

Monday, Hugh was called to the planet to treat an outbreak of a new disease (fortunately, the thirty-second century bacterium responded to twenty-third century antibiotics).

And suddenly, it had been a week since Paul and Hugh had talked.

It wasn’t personal.

But it felt that way.