Sleeping with your eyeballs open.

Posted on 30 Jun 2024 @ 3:30pm by Lieutenant JG Kastor Aslanov MD & Ensign Amelia "Mia" Estasi

Mission: M4 - Falling Out
Location: Sickbay
1503 words - 3 OF Standard Post Measure

Doctor Kastor Aslanov glanced at the chrono that was the centerpiece of every ward of sickbay and was relieved to see that it read 0650. He still had time, 10 minutes in fact, to settle the little man in his office before his day truly started. His shoulders were slumped and the bags under his eyes had their own luggage with them. He wasn't counting on Mia already being there looking as chipper as a songbird before he'd managed to infuse any coffee into his bloodstream . He sagged against the door-frame, not really wanting the confrontation that he knew was coming.

"Jesus Kastor, you look like hell. What are you doing here in that state and is that? Wait what's going on? Is that a baby?" Mia was immediately suspicious of the completely exhausted doctor that had practically staggered into sickbay. His shift started shortly, and he looked if she were any judge of peoples looks, like he had been on a 48 hour bender and had just scraped himself up off the floor. While Kastor, she knew wasn't that type of man, he'd never come to work looking as haggard as he did right now. He hadn't even combed his hair, not really from the looks of him. He didn't smell, so he had showered in the last day.She took a deep breath and continued without missing a beat "And why do you have a baby with you?"

The questions just kept coming from the other doctor and Castor wearily held up a hand. " Mia...Mia stop. Breathe a moment. This is my son. I have named him Milek. The short story is that his mother dropped him off and went on a science mission, giving me full physical and legal custody. The longer story is not immediately relevant, and I will tell you later if I survive that long. In my brief tenure of being a parent however I have discovered that my son is quite sensitive to things and he does not sleep unless he is moving, or on me. Or both, ideally both. If he does fall asleep, I cannot then put him down for the screaming banshee that awakens if I try. Some would say allow him to cry it out, but this is intolerable. I have no place to put him except the Moses basket I purchased and that resides next to my bed...or it would if he would sleep." The words just tumbled out of him like a river and didn't stop though Kastor knew he was babbling. Again, that would normally embarrass him but right now he was too tired to care.

"Honestly why didn't you just apply for parental leave? " Mia was too good a friend to care that he was babbling and instead pierced to the heart of the issue with a single question.

"I did not know that I was going to be parent. She did not inform me of the impending child. If I'd known I would have done things differently. However I haven't slept since he arrived. Though he is perfectly happy to sleep as long as he's being held, I cannot claim the same. It's beautiful, but I cannot sleep and hold him at the same time. It brings too much anxiety to me. " His Russian accent was getting more and more prominent as he got more and more worked up. He was almost embarrassed at the burr his voice held, but Mia seemed amused.

"Oh for heaven's sake. Give him to me."

"What? "

"Are you hearing impaired now too, or do you just forget how to speak English? I said give him to me. "

"But Why? "

"Because you're going to go into a call room and take a nap. You're not going to do anybody any good, completely exhausted." She paused and pinned him with a look that would do Dr. Wagner proud. "I know that you don't have any appointments until 11:00 a.m., so until that appointment you were going to sleep. I have nothing on my schedule but inventory at the moment, so I will watch him. Unless something urgent pops up on one of our caseloads, which at the moment does not look likely, you will catch up on some sleep and then once you come out and are actually able to think and converse appropriately we can then figure something out. I'm also going to take him to Dr. Wagner to fuss over. "

"Again, why? "

"Contrary to popular belief Kastor I like you. And I don't want to see you sabotage your career just because something came up in your personal life. Now go take a nap." She didn't add that she felt the baby would distract Dr. Wagner from brooding over whoever it was that she'd been seeing that had broken her heart. Babies had the beautiful tendency to bring joy and light into situations where there just wasn't any.

"You are sure?" The backwards syntax was so grateful in its tone that Mia didn't even bother to correct it the way she normally would when Kastor forgot what language he was speaking.

"I am sure. It's been too long since my brothers were little, I enjoyed snuggling babies when I was a younger thing now go. Shoo.
Honestly...You'd think you didn't want to go and sleep." Mia rolled her eyes at him and made a shooing motion at him. Mia beamed when he nodded firmly and transferred the blanket wrapped baby into her arms. She stroked his tiny little cheek with a fingertip, and cooed at him delighted by his little face.

Kastor left with a series of blessings on his lips in Russian as he walked to the nearest call room and sacked out.

"Computer, silence alarms in call room 32. Reroute all emergency contacts for Dr. Aslanov to myself until further notice. Do not disturb, Unless I personally am waking him and authorize it. Authorization Estasi Genesis 361"

The computer beeped and acknowledgment and she looked down at the tiny baby that she now held in the crook of her arm. He was only a week or two old, and he was tiny. He was also the spitting image of Castor, just slightly lighter in coloration. That was not going to be a bad thing for him moving forward, as the good doctor Aslanov was quite handsome.

"Hello Milek" she spoke to the baby "I'm Mia and I work with your papa.". She briefly considered calling him his daddy, but knowing him the way that she did she figured that would not be a term that he would want to be called by his son. "You're going to be much loved by this department I think.".

Her mind turned over what he had said and she sympathized with him, as he probably knew none of the services that Starfleet allowed their parents to have when a child came into the world. It was usually the mother that took care of such things even though it was the 24th century. Parenting still defaulted in most human cases to the mother. But Mom had skivved off apparently, and left Papa to do all of the heavy lifting. She wondered how that had gone, and made a note in her mind to ask him about it once he was more rested. He looked a little frayed at the edges. That was something of an understatement, and she felt a momentary flash of sympathy for Kastor and his predicament.

"Little one we're going to get your papa set up with all of the things he needs to thrive with you. He's been a good friend and I would not set him up to fail. "She stroked the baby's cheek softly and was amused when he snuffled towards her finger like it was going to feed him.

She wasn't lying when she said she hadn't snuggled a baby since her youngest brother, but she had to taken up a majority of that care when her mother had had a breakdown after his birth. She had done a lot of baby snuggling in that time. Now that period In her life had cemented it in her mind that she did not want to be a parent. She enjoyed very much being the eccentric auntie, who got to spoil them rotten feed them sugar and send them home. Watching her mother struggle through the postpartum psychosis that she had had, made her never ever want to risk opening herself up to that sort of trauma.
They had not bonded strongly, Anton and their mother, but Mia and her youngest brother had a beautiful close relationship, that she wouldn't trade for anything in the universe. Her nephews also loved auntie Mia, and she'd missed out on their baby hood by being shipped off to every corner of the Galaxy.

She also knew some tricks as to how to get a baby to settle that he likely didn't know yet. She would detail them all for Castor once he woke up.