Eddie wasn't sure who the new guy was, but he was well on his way to getting punched in the throat.
Steel grey eyes and pinched lips, the man clearly didn't know how to use a comb or how to talk to people.
He'd barged into Eddie's clinic demanding Band-Aids for his fingers it looked like he'd burned and gotten halfway through arguing about treatment before he noticed that the monitoring wall, housing the machines used to scan and monitor patients, and went off on a tangent about how disorganized they were.
"Why would you put vitals monitoring next to electronic discharge? Don't you know that electronic signals can interfere with the reading? They need to be on opposite sides of the wall."
And then he started pulling Eddie's monitors out of the wall.
"What the hell are you doing?!" Stop that! Hey! Asshole, I'm calling security!"
Security showed up remarkably fast and Eddie was pleased to see a familiar face when Major Calder showed up.
The lanky green-eyed, brown-haired man had served with Eddie for several years during the war. Had even been his commanding officer when Eddie had been a security team medic. They hadn't stayed in contact, but he remained one of Eddie's favorite officers.
He walked into the clinic, took one look at the new guy, and stopped dead. The lopsided grin he'd been sporting twisted into a snarl. "You again."
"Again?" Eddie glanced between them. "Why again?"
New Guy rolled his eyes, pulled an EKG system out of the wall, and shoved it into Eddie's arms. "Hold this."
Eddie sputtered. "Calder, arrest him!"
Calder growled, pulling out a pair of plastic cuffs. "With pleasure. Dr. Harmony, for the fifth fucking time, stop messing with the equipment!" He tried to grab Harmony but somehow ended up with a vital screen in his arms. Surprised by the weight, he nearly dropped it.
"Don't damage that!" Eddie yelped.
"I'm not messing with the equipment, you Neanderthal. I'm fixing it."
A sudden crash made all three of them jump as Evan Angel slid to a stop against the door.
Eddie nearly swallowed his tongue at the sight of him flushed and panting.
"Hey guys, there a problem?"
"They're getting in my way." Harmony snapped as both Eddie and Calder sputtered.
"Excuse me? Who the hell are you?" Eddie set the EKG system on a treatment bed. "This is my clinic. Nobody touches anything without my say so."
Evan jumped in the middle. "Right, sorry. That's my bad. We haven't gotten around to introducing Daniel to everyone. This is Doctor Daniel Harmony."
Calder set down his screen. "Medical?"
"Physics, engineering, and chemistry." Daniel sneered, pulled a handful of wires out of the monitor wall, and started rearranging them.
"He's joining the crew as a senior engineering and science advisor."
"Under who?" Calder demanded.
"Captain Fearghail."
"Captain- He doesn't answer to anyone else?"
"Ah, no. Not really." Evan started getting that shift look Eddie was starting to recognize as trouble. "He's going to be working on some system upgrades and double-checking the work that went into building this ship."
"What does that have to do with my clinic?" Eddie planted his hands on his hips and scowled.
"Ah, that's just…" Angel was clearly trying to come up with a polite way to say asshole. "He's very…"
"Efficient. I'm efficient and wasted efficiency causes more issues in machines than people realize. If you don't fix it, the problem will be twice as bad later." He managed to sound like Eddie's mother when she was lecturing him about the stupid shit he did as a teenager.
And it grated just as much now as it did then, so he spun on Angel, who threw his hands up defensively. "He's not a people person, but he means well."
Calder didn't look any more convinced than Eddie. "Which is why I keep getting complaints."
"They're complaining about my personality, not about my work." Harmony muttered, pushing the wires back into the wall.
Eddie and Calder stared at him in disbelief. When he didn't continue, they turned back to Angel, who shrugged. "He's not wrong."
Harmony started replacing the systems in the monitor wall. Eddie moved to help, but Angel caught him by the arm and pulled him back. "Just let him do it. It'll be faster."
Eddie glared, but stood back, starting to feel just as angry with Angel as he was with Harmony.
It took less time to put everything back together and loath as he was to admit it, once he saw it set up Eddie instantly realized Harmony was right. The vital monitors were clearer away from the ECG and with the scanners in the middle, it was easier to separate multiple patients by block. The loud hum the machines always put off was lower too, so whatever he'd done to the wiring had reduced the power draw.
Eddie studied the wall, reluctant to admit he'd been wrong. "Are you sure it's not going to short circuit?"
"It's fine. It's actually drawing less power now because they're feeding more efficiently into each other." He put a special emphasis on efficiency.
The urge to take a swing rose swiftly, but Eddie had managed not to completely fuck his career thus far, and even in his anger, he could see this wasn't a hill worth dying on. "You're still an asshole."
Harmony rolled his eyes. "I'm aware and I don't care."
Angel sighed the sigh of someone very used to this exact conversation.
"Maybe it would help to warn people he's going to be going around pulling things out of the walls." Calder ground out.
Harmony glanced at him, confused. "Who are you?"
"Major Calder, Security."
"Oh!" Angel perked up. "That's perfect."
Calder tensed and realized a moment too late he should have kept his mouth shut.
"You can escort Danny around, so this doesn't happen again!" Angel continued.
Eddie managed to muffle his laugh as Calder's face froze, and he struggled with the very unprofessional remark Eddie knew he wanted to make.
Eddie watched him swallow painfully before forcing out: "Yes, sir."
Harmony, apparently, oblivious snapped his fingers and headed for the door. "Great, let's go. I still want to look at the Star Map before I head to the Engine Room."
After a second's hesitation, Calder followed him out like a man being led to his execution.
As soon as they were out of sight, Angel turned to Eddie with a megawatt smile. "Problem solved, yeah?"
Looking at his expression, Eddie didn't have the heart to point out that he'd probably just caused a whole lot more.
~ tbc