Worm Check

Regan gestured Lieutenant Commander Oz towards the table, and picked up her file. She'd already taken a look at it earlier, but the drama of that morning had shuffled it off to the side.
"Alright, before we start, I always like to ask: anything you want to tell me that's not here? Any ailments or chronic issues that you've downplayed to appease the powers that be? I can take much better care of you in the future if you're totally honest."

Erim pulled herself up onto the table, her feet barely touching the ground.

"No. Nothing that isn't in the file. The Symbiosis Commission is very thorough."

She continued to stare intensely at Dr. Ozan. Her brow furrowed.

"You look very familiar."

Regan smirked. If the Symbiosis committee was anything, it was indeed thorough. But as for the familiarity... she stopped her preparation to give Oz a good thorough look in the face.
"Well... I've never seen this particular model of 'you.'" She continued the checkup - gently prodding, adjusting her medical tricorder, and taking notes - with businesslike efficiency as she spoke, "But it's completely possible that we've met. My Parents were pretty important to the committee and I suspect that dinner at our house was a rite of passage for the freshly wormed. I'm sure I've met at least one version of every symbiont currently in rotation. That's an exaggeration. But I've met a lot. Oh, my parents are Ziri Jov and Felix Laz - now Elena Laz - if that helps"

Recognition flashed across Erim's face.

"Yes. I had visited your house before I was joined. You were a child then. I was practically a child then. I didn't pay much attention to you. I'm not good with children. Better with the symbiont. Arinia Oz was an excellent child psychiatrist and mother of four."

What Erim didn't say is that night, she was so anxious about meeting important members of the symbiosis commission that she mostly paid attention to not vomiting all over their fine table settings. She hadn't been chosen yet, and while she'd passed most of the metrics with flying colors, She had felt like an imposter. All of the other initiates seemed impossibly beautiful and came from such refined backgrounds. Erim was smart and talented, sure, but she didn't have the fine manners that the others had. She had been so worried about offending her hosts that she remembered the evening as mostly a blur.

She also didn't say that was the first evening she met Leran Oz. Before joining, she had almost exclusively preferred the company of women. But there was something about Leran. He was so graceful, gentle, and self assured. She had fallen in love instantly. It was surreal remembering the meeting from Leran's perspective as well as her own. While he hadn't felt the same sexual pull she felt, he had thought she was wonderful. Even now, Erim wasn't sure she deserved that assessment. Thinking about assessing herself as someone who, for all intents and purposes was now also herself was actually giving her a bit of a headache.

"I think Elena was there too, also before she was joined. In some ways it feels like an eternity ago, but with the symbiont, it feels like no time at all. I guess I was a different person, then."

Erim had more stories about the Jov and Laz symbionts from her own past lives, but she doesn't want to bore the doctor.

"You were literally a different person then.  That's how it works, isn't it?  And yeah.  Elena was around there a lot.  When I was a kid, I thought we were actually related to her."  

Elena was a young protege of the symbiosis committee, and the same age as Regan's older sister, Rilen.  From the time she was 14, her joining was all but assured. She was like the daughter Ziri and Felix had never had.  (Apparently, the trouble-making Regan and quiet Rilen didn't count).  Regan's weird family dynamic irked her whenever she thought about it, so she puffed out her cheeks released a quick breath and concentrated on the task at hand.

"Erim is healthy, Oz is healthy, everyone that calls this body theirs is just fine.  You're a little low on nutrients, and a little dehydrated, but that happens on a long trip. get some water and some food and some sleep, and I will be willing to declare you a perfect specimen."

The station shuddered, and the lights expired in the infirmary. Auxiliary power, a must for any hospital, came on at a lower light, and the red alert alarm jostled them both from their conversation.