Starfleet Captain Robert April was at this moment one thing he rarely ever was, frantic, on the verge of panic. When his Beatrice shipped out with the Kelvin ridiculously early this morning after spending two weeks of leave while the ship underwent its standard maintenance overhaul, she had entrusted her cat Mitzi into his care. Said cat was now emptying the contents of its stomach on his carpet no less than ten hours after he had said goodbye to his daughter.

Silently praying that he wouldn't have to face his daughter and inform her that her cat had dropped dead from some mysterious disease less than twenty-four hours after it had entered his care, he raced over to his home console.

"Computer, find the closest Emergency Veterinarian." he yelled.

After discovering that one S. Poole D.V.M. was the nearest to his location, he promptly scooped the cat up and placed it in the carrier he had transported it home in praying he hadn't damaged any delicate bones or internal organs as he did so (he was a dog person, and cats had always looked quite fragile to him in comparison) as the creature had struggled with him every step of the way. He winced at the nasty set of scratches he had gotten on his arms for his efforts and decided that he didn't have time to tend to them as he ran out the door.

Racing to his seldom used ground transport which - until a few weeks earlier - usually sat gathering dust in his small garage, he practically threw the cat carrier in the back seat before stopping and securely fastening it in. He then raced for the driver's seat, starting the transport and racing backwards out of the garage in a rather dangerous and highly questionable maneuver the instant the door closed.

He then raced from Warwick to Coventry at a speed nearly double the local posted speed limit. Upon reaching Coventry, he sped through the streets, skidding to a stop at the Emergency Veterinary Centre on Daventry road. If his ground-car had had tires, they would have been smoking and left a long black mark on the pavement. As it was, the vehicle made a loud and rather startling sound of protest at being handled so roughly.

Once the vehicle came to a complete stop he jumped out and barely paused to retrieve the carrier containing the now shell shocked cat from the back seat before racing into the clinic.

Once inside, he was met by one of the most beautiful women he had ever seen. She had wheat blonde hair and green eyes set in an elegant and aristocratic face. Instead of wearing the trappings of royalty - which he was certain wouldn't look out of place on her - she was clad in a white laboratory coat with the words Sarah Poole D.V.M. stitched into the pocket in red which was worn over a set of standard green surgical scrubs. Taking in his harried appearance and apparent panic, she smiled in a rather comforting manner.

"What seems to be the problem?" she asked.

All he could do at that point was babble incoherently about his daughter's cat.

He left an hour later, after learning the cat was fine though rather shaken up by her trip. The vomiting had been because he had given the cat a bowl of milk, which you apparently shouldn't give to adult cats since it could make them ill. Go figure.

Robert April sat on the couch, not bothering to watch whatever was on the screen. His bloodshot blue eyes were focused on something that wasn't there. Instead he was seeing his little Beatrice, as she was when he first visited her. She had been nearly two when her mother Alice had sought him out to request support payments. Seeing her curly brown hair and the wide blue eyes that mirrored his own at that age, he had little doubt as to her paternity. As she grew, she looked more and more like him. There had been very little of her mother in her features.

He'd attended her funeral today. Her remains had been given to her mother who had won the argument and buried her in California. He stood under the hot Bakersfield sun listening to the Baptist minister speak of someone who was most likely a stranger to him. He thought it strange that this pastor was the one to do the graveside service as well considering the fact that Beatrice had been baptized Lutheran at the Academy, but swiftly realized that it was her mother's doing. Alice had been notorious for doing whatever she wanted regardless of other people's feelings.

As the pastor droned on, he couldn't stop thinking that Beatrice probably wouldn't rest in peace without whatever funeral rites the Lutherans deemed necessary. Having been raised by an Atheist father and an Agnostic mother and only set foot inside a church for a couple weddings and his daughter's baptism, he wasn't entirely certain what these rites were, but he was sure that they were different from what the minister was doing. The thought of his daughter being lain to an uneasy rest was an extremely unpleasant one, so naturally it stayed with him.

Taking another swig from the half empty bottle, he came to a decision. He called the minister of the church his daughter had attended in San Francisco unheeding of the hour. Fortunately it was only about Six p.m. in California rather than two o'clock in the morning, and the minister was still there preparing his Sunday sermon.

He hated the look of pity that was in the minister's eyes as he drunkenly tried to explain what he wanted. He apparently got through to the man though, if his response was any indication. Satisfied that his duty to his daughter was done in this instance, he closed the call completely ignoring the minister's offer to meet for some counseling.

He then swallowed several sleeping pills down with a swig of whiskey. It was the only thing he could do to get to sleep these days.