i wish i knew then what i know now

[ethnobotany]

For Bruce

Beverly had hoped to have a relatively calm day. Well, she'd hoped to have a relatively calm month so she could really settle in before something happened. With Q around, she knew better than to hope too hard and it seems as though that caution was warranted.

She'd honestly been avoiding most people almost all the time, so it's taken her this long to find out that there's anything going on at all. Once she stops to look at it, though... well, there sure are a lot of children running around and that doesn't bode well. Or, rather, she wonders how many children Q has brought in lately and why. And also what will be done about them. One in particular catches her eye and she steps into his path, head tilted curiously.

"Is everything all right?" she asks, using her motherly tone today.

In Sickbay, for medical things

After figuring out that there's something going on, and taking an unexpected detour to the Arboretum for a while, Beverly finally makes her way into sickbay of her own accord. It's the first time since she arrived here that she's walking in willingly and without an escort. She expects the stares, expects the looks of concern, but right now those aren't important. What matters is that there's something going on here and she'd like to help stop it.

She pauses for a few seconds to take a deep breath and then starts speaking to the room at large, offering confirmation for a set of rumors that have been going around the ship since she arrived. "I've seen something like this before and I need to see if what's happening now is in any way similar." She's just hoping that someone, even if it's not one of her staff, will catch her up on the research she's missed in the last few days.

In Ten Forward, Open

At some point over the next few days, she can actually be found in Ten Foward, doing a little research, writing down what she remembers of the last time something like this happened. It isn't the same this time, but maybe having even a few of those notes will help in the long run. She is, of course, here for more than just her research. She's here to keep an eye on any of the children she sees running around, to help them if they need it and keep them out of trouble. If anyone wants to talk to her while she's here, she's more willing to offer idle conversation today than she has been in a while.

It seems she's finally settling in. Maybe a crisis was just what she needed to push her forward.

(no subject)

[tridens]

In room 0767 [open to Annie and Steve]

Annie had been unsettled yesterday afternoon, in one of those moods she gets, sometimes, when even Finnick's company is too much for her, when she can barely breathe and she looks like she wants to crawl out of her own skin at any moment. He'd long ago learned that the best thing to do on those days is to leave her to her thoughts, as much as it hurts him to do that while she's upset. He hates the thought of leaving her to be consumed by her darkness, but his presence only makes things worse.

So he'd told her he'd check in on her later, and he'd gone to the arboretum to write. Somehow, though, nothing would come. He'd found himself zoning out, his head drooping, concentration wandering. It wasn't just the mind fog he's familiar with, though, he was tired, not just in mind, but in body. It was difficult even to stand up from where he'd been sitting on the rocks by the pond, and doing so had exhausted him.

It was still early in the evening, too early to check in on Annie, but he'd had to go to bed. So he'd left a folded note shoved under Annie and Erik's door with her name on it, telling her he's unwell and going to bed, and promising to see her in the morning.

He doesn't wake up early, though: he's so tired he sleeps for hours and only gets up many hours later.

It takes only a few moments to realize something is very seriously wrong, and he hurries to the bathroom to stare into the mirror.

The reflection is that of a child.


In the arboretum [open to all]

Later, there's what looks like a twelve year old boy sitting by the pond in the arboretum, still muscular, but not tall like he had been. The startling green eyes and tousled bronze hair are still the same, as are the not-quite-district and not-quite-Capitol clothes.

He's curled up, knees to his chest and arms wrapped around them, but even the fish aren't cheering him up.

In the Holodeck

[bob_fraser_rcmp]

 He doesn't like being so short. Or so solid when he's not used to being so short. He's hit himself off of several desks and tables now. 

And there's something else creeping. He's almost claustrophobic. It's not like he feels like the walls are coming on him, but they feel so restricting that anxious pit in his stomach makes him want to curl up into a ball and... well he's not even sure what he wants to do then, but it's not happy thoughts. 

He's reluctantly at the Holodeck doors, his hand over the user interface, not one to talk to a computer. He goes through the menu. Dixon Hill, Callisthenics... none of these seemed particularly helpful. His hands moved with increasing skill as he went through the options before finding his way to a landscapes menu and he found some name he recognised. He selected that and waited for the computer to announce its readiness before stepping through.

He found himself in a grassland that was used to hardy weather and high altitude. It featured several cattle with long hair - yaks, Bob recognised them as. Some distance away, signs of human habitation were present in the form of pieces fabric - prayers of a kind - flapping in the wind.

The young man felt braced by the cool wind rather than chilled by it and started to explore the area.

hallway[s] and lounge

[electro_kinetic]

After talking with the oddly miniature Philip, Noriko hadn't felt great--probably something to do with what the replicator thought of as ramen, she thought--but it had progressed quickly to simple tiredness, and she'd escaped the public areas of the ship to hole up in her room and nap.


And several hours later, she's awake--and much shorter even from her five-foot-five perspective--standing on tiptoes to get at the replicator panel to request candy kits, which it gladly coughs up, making her expression flare into a bright smile. Thus loaded down tiny!Noriko is sitting on the windowsill, which is plenty wide enough for her and the kit placemat with all necessary accoutrements, happy as a clam and generally enjoying not having to look at the metal gauntlets she's gotten so used to being no longer a danger to anyone unless static zaps are life-threatening.

After that (and you had best bet there will be an after that) there will be one very sugared-up and already hyperactive child trying to outrun the baseball she's tossing all the way down the stretch of hallway. She might get pretty far before knocking into someone, who knows: Nori's pretty fast and she's got a good arm.