ten_fwd | [Sickbay]: Round Two scans and vaccines

Entry tags:

[Sickbay]: Round Two scans and vaccines

New guests have arrived on the Enterprise, and that means Lieutenant Worf and his security detail are busy once again bringing them to see Dr. Crusher. Sickbay isn't all that unusual. There are no terrifying devices or humming machines you could see in a sci-fi thriller. The biobeds along the walls are equipped with biofunction monitors, but look fairly standard. Instead of silver trays filled with metal tools and sawblades, there are an array of small devices that look as harmless as cell phones. As for Chief Medical Officer Crusher herself, she's well-groomed and kindly, wearing her teal uniform and a blue coat. All of the medical personnel, in fact, look harmless. Well, perhaps excluding the sun avatar, but Trance Gemini is as skilled as the Starfleet officers.

"All right, come in," Dr. Crusher calls out as you enter. "Don't be shy. It's just a scan and a hypospray, nothing to worry about."

Probably.

[ooc: Same rules as before: this is an open log for everybody. Tagging isn't mandatory, but going to sickbay is. So if you'd prefer to skip threading with one of our doctors, you can handwave that your character got a clean bill of health and a shot and were sent on their merry way. For those who are tagging, we have Julian Bashir, Bones McCoy, Trance Gemini, and Beverly Crusher on deck, so if you have a preference please specify it in the subject line of your tag. If you would like more details about sickbay, here's the wiki page. If you haven't made your OP yet, you can assume the doctors will want to see your character shortly after they arrive.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

He wants nothing to do with any sort of medical test.

It's not like there's going to be anything there to find. He doesn't get sick. His injuries heal remarkably quickly. He barely even ages, no more than a few years in the over a century since he first died. He's in excellent physical health, physiology kind of weird for this time period sure, sure, but pretty much the picture of health for a late-thirties guy who spends a lot of time running around after aliens.

And just happens to be immortal, so is not going to be carrying any sort of disease.

He actually has no intention of going anywhere near sickbay. He has a doctor, admittedly one who's an ass a lot of the time. And he is not about to take himself to be prodded by some other doctor.

Unfortunately, the security guys have other ideas, and in the end, Jack has a choice between kicking up enough of a fuss that he gets himself shot, or going along to sickbay.

Not that he's in any way happy about this result, and it shows as he strides through the door, hands in his trouser pockets, glaring at the room.

Trance had almost the same experience, except well, not. She hadn't wanted to come, and in truth it really hadn't gone well. So she totally got where Jack was coming from. She walked up to the two security officers, crossing her arms and promptly shooed them away.

When she was sure they were gone she gave Jack a smile.

"They were going to quarantine me you know, if I didn't cooperate. I'm Trance. Welcome to the med deck.Although I think they call it Sickbay here, which is kind of odd since not everyone who comes here will be sick. Don't you think?"

Edited 2014-06-20 18:03 (UTC)

When the doctor comes over to him, there's a moment when Jack's not able to mask his curiosity. Call it professional interest. Call it plain nosiness. Call it whatever the hell you want, the variety of life out there fascinates him. And this is a variety he's not familiar with. Large, pointed ears, vividly red hair, skin that shimmers in the sickbay light. He can't place her.

Not that any of that is a reason not to trust her.

But he doesn't trust easily with medical treatment. Too many bad things in his past, too many unknowns. But he doesn't actually feel like dying today, so he'll have to play nice with Trance the doctor.

"I tend to go for 'medbay', myself," he agrees.

Personally, he'd like to see them try to quarantine him if he didn't want to be quarantined, but ... he's not going to make things difficult for himself.

That doesn't mean he has to enjoy it.

"I'm not sick. There's nothing wrong with me." Which is ... mostly true. Whatever happened to make him as he is, he's been the same for a very long time, and it's not contagious.

Jack may or may not realize since he's not from the same universe as her, but Trance is actually a conglomeration of parts, pulled together into a unified form to best interact with the species she meets. As such, her form sometimes changes, depending on the situation or universe she's in. He might recognize a part or piece of her. An ear, a nose, a finger. Even her coloring changes. In the space of a few years, she's gone from purple to detailed stark shades of gold and red, to lighter less stern and harsh shades of gold. Sometimes she has a tail. Sometimes she has horns.

But not right now. That could change though.

Trance flinched a bit as she looked at him. It was...disconcerting. Everything around him changed...but he didn't. There were no possibilities, no maybes or other outcomes. She thought about dancing around it, but it was too strange to keep to herself. And she wanted answers. Too bad for Jack he got the one medic who could actually tell.

"You're a fixed point in time," Trance said. She didn't like it. At all. "You shouldn't be. You're human. I think that qualifies as something wrong with you."

She looks like she disagrees with his statement about himself. There's something in the way she looks at him, and his eyes narrow in confusion at the way she seems almost to flinch back from him when he's done absolutely nothing to her.

Sure, he's annoyed, maybe even a little snappish, but he's not threatening her. She's just doing what she's been asked to do. But her expression. He hasn't been looked at like that in a long time.

"I'm what?"

That ...

How the hell?

What can she possibly know about him and time? He's out of his time, like so many people here. He's been out of his time for so long that his own time barely even seems like his time any more. He hasn't said a thing to her, or anyone here, about any of that.

But he can feel his heart beat, suddenly, like it's just woken up, feel his chest tighten with something like excitement and something like nerves. He's been waiting so long for an answer. Waiting for the Doctor. Waiting for the truth about what he's become and how and why, and here's somebody who looks at him and sees something wrong. Right away.

"What are you?"

Trance looked at him for a few more moments, tracing paths of probability, trying to find what went wrong, where things got so totally messed up. And yet, it both was completely and utterly messed up---and yet not. It made her head hurt, despite the fact that she didn't have a brain, skull, muscles or nerves to give her a headache.

"Trance Gemini." Trance replied, as if that was all the answer Jack ever needed. In truth it was all he was going to get. "For now." The name was loosly translated at best, and changed along with her appearance. No doubt in the billions of years she's existed, Trance had been called many things, in many different universes.

"As for what you are, I already told you." She paused another moment, finding the thread of reality she was looking for. "Oh. That's what happened. Interesting."

And then she switched modes completely.

"Why don't you lie on the biobed for me and I'll scan your vitals."

Well.

He should have expected that. Seems like she went to the Doctor school of answering questions with annoying riddles.

"I don't even know what happened," he says. "How could you know?"

He's waited for so long to hear the answers, but not like this. Not from a stranger who shouldn't even be able to tell there's anything different about him. That's his secret, along with his past, along with the Time Agency and running away and nearly destroying the world.

He doesn't have much he can hold onto anymore, and his secrets are among them.

(Has he ever longed for the Doctor back more than he does now?)

"Fine," he says, after a moment's delay, frowning, still uneasy at her words, and he lies down, just like she asked.

"I know lots of things. Did you know that when an oxygen atom really loves 2 hydrogen atoms, they make water?" Yup, there was that oh so helpful 'I'm so damn cute' smile of hers. Although, truth be told, it was a lot easier to pull off when she was purple and had that cute little tail. Trance missed her tail.

But when he lay down, she smiled oh so helpfully. And sweetly. It was sickeningly sweet, and if Jack hadn't seen her being oh so mysterious a few seconds ago, she might have had him completely fooled.

"I'm just going to have the computer record your vitals and genetic makeup, just in case. Are you alright with that?"

"So what, that's it?"

You're a fixed point in time and that's all?

Whatever that means. He's fixed in time and that's why he doesn't die? Why he hardly ages? Why at over 170 he still looks pretty much the same as he did at 35 except for his hairstyle? Why no injury lasts?

How could that even happen?

He's spent his whole life since that second time he died and woke up wondering, asking himself countless questions that none of his knowledge could answer. And this ... she's right. If that's what happened to him, it shouldn't have.

He's just a human. Was just a human.

And now it's like nothing happened, just an irritatingly incongruous smile.

Jack knows all about the tricks of being enigmatic. That doesn't make him appreciate it any more in her. In fact, it has the opposite effect.

"I guess I have to be."

It'll read him differently than anyone from this time period, though. That's 51st century humanity for you.

Dylan was over 300 years old and didn't look a day over 40. Time was relative.

"Did you want to know something else?" Trance looked at him innocently, like, no, she wasn't just screwing with him. What was the point in explaining it to him? Explaining it wouldn't change what had happened.Too much knowledge lead to too many ripples, too many possibilities. Possibilities that couldn't be controlled or accounted for sometimes. Trance dolled out her information sparingly.

"So, where are you from? Back home." Trance made small talk while the biobed logged his information and she tracked his vitals.

"I've wanted to know for over a hundred years. Waited for the right person to tell me. And here you are, one look and you can figure it all out?"

There'd been one person who held all the answers.

That was the one thing he'd known for this long 138 years. That eventually, when he found his Doctor, he'd find out what he needed to know. He'd learn how he could be fixed.

It'd be a hell of a cosmic joke on him if it turned out that he'd find out during a medical checkup.

All those enigmatic hints about the right kind of Doctor?

This wasn't what he had in mind.

He considers her question, wondering what the chances are that she'll believe him if he tells her the story he should tell her. The story he'd tell anyone else who asked.

Who didn't look at him and see something wrong in time.

"That's kind of a loaded question."

It's been a long time since he even really knew where home was. Let alone when.

"Before I wound up here, I was on Earth."

" I may know what happened to you but that doesn't mean I'm the right person to tell you." Things had to happen the way they were supposed to. More or less. And reality was already so messed up that playing with it further might have consequences she couldn't see. Thanks to Q.

"I'll give you 5 questions. I may answer, them, I may not. I'm not who you should be asking."

And then the poor guy said he was from Earth. "I'm sorry." She apologized. "Although it seems like your Earth didn't fare that badly, did it? What year? Are you familiar with space travel? Or is this new to you?"

"Is that why I can't die?"

The question he's been asking himself, ever since he realized those weren't just lucky escapes. That he really was dying and returning to impossible life.

It has to have been something to do with the Doctor. How can anyone else know?

There's only one right person to tell him. She's right. Jack's known it since before he knew just how many questions he needed answered. Since the moment he woke up from extermination, before he even knew he was immortal.

But he can't not ask that question. Who knows how long it will be until he finds the Doctor?

(What is she? She's guarding her secrets closer than she's guarding his.)

"I said I was on Earth," he says, shifting a little on the biobed. "I didn't say I was from there. This isn't my first ride with space travel or time travel."

"In a way. But you're missing the point. Everything dies. Some just faster than others. Nothing in the universe is stagnant." Trance paused for a moment, and blinked as possibilities converged. "If I might make a suggestion? When you leave here head to Ten Forward." Trance gave a smile before she continued. " They have rather good drinks. Get one with a small umbrella." She was tempted to tell him to order 2 extra, but that would be telling. Giving things away like that just wasn't right. And not nearly as much fun.

"So eventually I'll be able to die? Because so far I haven't seen a lot of evidence of it."

It's wrong to be having this conversation with her, a young woman with a mysterious smile and eyes that see far more than they apparently should. But in the life he's led, he's had to learn to take hope where he can find it. She's not his Doctor, and he doesn't know what she is.

Nothing like anything he's ever met. There's a mystery she wraps around herself in moments that's like the Doctor, like Jack himself, and that's enough to make him believe that she really does know what she's saying.

As unlikely as it seems in her. But Jack of all people knows to believe what a person is, not what they look.

His eyes narrow at the suggestion to go to the bar, and he almost says something to her, but ...

There's something in how she says it, off-hand, so completely nonsensical in the context, that makes him think she must have some purpose.

Even if he doesn't drink anymore.

Unless someone's buying.

"Is that what you want? To die?" Trance answered the question, by not answering it. He wanted a real answer? See previous comment. "As I said. Nothing in the universe is stagnant. Everything changes, everything dies. There are no exceptions to that rule."

Trance picked up a hypospray, and checked the contents. "I'm going to give you an injection of an antibiotic and a vaccination, just in case you're carrying something this universe has already combated or has no immunity too." And to make sure he didn't die of something horrible. Not that it would stick.But, still, she went through the motions.

"Is that alright?"

"I'm human. I'm not meant to be immortal."

It's not an answer to the question, but ... neither was hers, really.

And it's a complicated question that cuts to the heart of everything he's been thinking and asking himself ever since he got the message that really, no, he wasn't going to die if he threw himself into one more fatal situation.

It's been a long and unhappy life that he'd had no preparation for. He'd been ready and willing to die to give the Doctor the chance he needed. It had been a good death, facing down the Daleks, showing the courage he'd been taught. He'd fully expected that last stand to be just that.

If he'd been going to pick a guy to give unending life to, it wouldn't have been himself.

Much of the long life he's spent in Cardiff he's been thinking that when he finds the Doctor, the Doctor will give him the answers. Will fix him, and let him seek his end on his own terms again.

Trance Gemini doesn't say how or when, but she does seem to suggest that eventually, even he can die.

"Do your thing. Not that it'll make much difference."

Very little seems to stick since he died.

Edited 2014-07-03 07:36 (UTC)

"Are you sure?" Trance asked. Things such as this--something so definitely messed up time wise, well, such things tended to happen, no matter how much they were fiddled with.

Still, while he pondered her suggestion, Trance filled the hypospray with the antibiotic required and pressed it against his neck. It released with a hiss and she took it away to refill with the vaccine, repeating the process.

"There we go. All done. Unless there's something else I can do for you? You still have a couple more questions."

"You're the one with the answers."

In truth, he doesn't know. Not with any certainty, at least. Sometimes, he's thought that he did. Sometimes, he's thought that whatever this is, it must have a purpose. But other times, he's not sure he believes enough in fate for that to be true.

Except he always comes back to the things he's sure of, in his heart. The things he's sure will happen when he finds the Doctor again.

And one of them is that the Doctor will be able to tell him the things he's got left to ask.

For now, though, there's only one of his burning questions left, but it's the one he's had in his heart for so long, rehearsed so many times, that he can't ask it of Trance.

Because Trance isn't the right sort of Doctor.

He lets her give him the jabs he's there for, and he studies her.

"I'm saving the others. For later. Unless you want to tell me how you know this, because ... I've only ever met one other person who could know the sort of stuff you know."

Trance had to smile. She was the one with the answers. Most of the time. Unless the future wasn't playing cards with her and she had to ask again later. "Yes, I am. And no, not really." Trance watched him, wondering what his next move was going to be. She didn't really want to tell him how she knew anything. She didn't want to tell anyone that. Force of habit. Call it a quirk.

"Different universes play by different rules."

"I didn't think so."

It's almost amused, because ... he might not know her or what she is, but he knows the type. Too knowledgeable by far for the appearance she gives, but not willing to come out there with what she knows.

Hell, he ought to recognize it. That's kind of become his style over the years.

"There aren't that many people around who know that."

Even Jack doesn't really know all that much about parallel universes.

"And now we get to try it out and see how this one works."

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[Sickbay]: Round Two scans and vaccines

Trance!

Re: Trance!

Re: Trance!

Re: Trance!

Re: Trance!

Re: Trance!

Re: Trance!

Re: Trance!

Re: Trance!

Re: Trance!

Re: Trance!

Re: Trance!

Re: Trance!

Re: Trance!

Re: Trance!

Re: Trance!

Re: Trance!

Re: Trance!

Re: Trance!

Re: Trance!

Re: Trance!