ten_fwd | [Sickbay]: Round Four Scans and Vaccines

Current Location: Section 23 Baker, Room # 1631: Sickbay

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[Sickbay]: Round Four Scans and Vaccines

There has been quite a lot of activity in Sickbay over the last couple of days. In addition to new guests arriving on the Enterprise, all of whom need to be cleared and vaccinated when necessary, there are the wounded who have come back from Alemar III and those looking in on them. Dr. Crusher has never been more glad that she isn't short-staffed.

While Lieutenant Worf and his security detail bring in the new passengers, Beverly ensures those recuperating have enough space and privacy. Beds may be limited, but nobody will be on the floor in her sickbay. For those who haven't been here before, Sickbay is fairly ordinary for a ship's hospital. There are no terrifying devices or humming machines you might 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 the staff, they're all well-groomed and friendly. As a matter of fact, all personnel look harmless. Well, perhaps excluding the sun avatar, but Trance Gemini is as skilled as the Starfleet officers.

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

[ooc: Open log! For new characters (August and September apps), tagging isn't mandatory but ICly 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, Trance Gemini, and Simon Tam on deck, with Beverly Crusher by request only. So please specify in the subject line of your tag who you would like. For those returned from the Alemar III plot, if you are not requesting a thread with a doctor but would like your character open for visitors, put "Visiting Post" in your subject line, or specify if it's locked to specific visitors. If you would like more details about sickbay, here's the wiki page. If you haven't made your intro yet, you can assume the doctors will want to see your character shortly after they arrive, and backtagging is love!]

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"Bashir? You're stuck on this ship too, huh?" Well, if he had to be dragged out of bed for a vaccination at least it was being administered by a doctor he knew personally.

"Unless you're actually just Odo playing a cruel joke on me. In that case, you can direct me to the nearest airlock."

"Preferably something that won't call security down on you."

Sure. He knows Harper, along with the rest of the crew, has sometimes got problems with authority. Still, it shouldn't be that hard. Yes, here Harper isn't the engineer, any more than Dylan is the captain. They're not traveling the Known Worlds trying to find the remaining members for the Commonwealth. That doesn't mean that either of them can revert to doing whatever the hell they want.

Dylan just hasn't worked out what is is they should be doing yet, and that makes him as uncomfortable as any of the rest of this situation. It doesn't say much for his leadership, and that leaves him feeling edgy.

That, among other things, not least of which is knowing just how wrong things are between him and Harper, still.

Apparently the relief Harper had expressed at hearing from him down on the planet has run its course.

Peter nods.

"That was ... suspiciously easier than I thought it'd be. Not that I'm - uh. Complaining or anything."

He hops off the biobed and straightens.

"Thanks, doc. And uh - no mention of my biology to anyone, right?"

Dylan himself hasn't been here all that long, it's just been an eventful last few days. Then again, that's no different to his life back in his own world.

Actually, life aboard the Enterprise has been less exciting than on the Andromeda. Which is just one of the many things Dylan dislikes about being here. Whatever Trance may say, he has things he needs to do in his world, and the time spent away from there is wearing on him.

"So are my crew. But I take your point. And ... it's probably even more interesting than you'd guess." He smiles along with the concession. After all, there are even very few starship crews whose lives get as interesting as those of the crew of the Andromeda, even in the world after the Fall, when 'interesting' is pretty much the default setting on the universe.

The universe has a lot to make up for.

The kid is seriously uneasy about something. Whether that's being around all these people or being here on the Enterprise or being apparently on his own with nobody asking after him, there's no way of telling. Still, if Dylan can reach out a little, he will.

This place is crazy enough for an adult, let alone a kid.

Once, his uniform would have offered a little reassurance that he wanted to help, that he could be trusted, but it carries no such suggestion here, even if he weren't laid up in a sickbay bed without the characteristic jacket to identify him as a High Guard officer.

Still, at least being flat on his back with a machine monitoring him is about as non-threatening as Dylan can get.

"You looked like you could use someone to talk to."

Obviously Dylan needs a distraction of some kind. At least until he can start trying to do something about his situation. That isn't much different from Marion's need to eventually get her sword back. She wants to keep training if she can't do anything else.

Writing on the side is just a thing that happens with her.

"Well I am from a much earlier time period. What would I know about life on board a starship," she points out with a faint smile. She is well aware her life is more interesting than she presents it however she just can't start talking about it with a stranger.

"I'm going to guess your ship is a lot different from this one." She takes another long look around sickbay. Everything about the Enterprise just throws the werewolf off.

"Well, I'm ... not dead."

Possibly not wanting to see him die is not exactly the highest compliment he's ever received, but in truth, he's used to it.

And the flowers really are a genuinely nice gesture; they're nothing like anything much that grows on the Andromeda, but still, they're a step away from the emptiness he feels in much of this ship.

He shifts on the bed, pushing himself up to sit straighter.

"Trance wants to keep me in here for a few days though."

"Well," he says, running a sheepish hand along the side of his face until it's buried in his hair, which parts to run between his fingers, until it sticks up at an odd angle. "Life on board the Andromeda Ascendant isn't exactly like life on any other starship."

Once, it was. Once, the life wasn't so very different to life on the Enterprise in many ways. Oh, the details were different: High Guard, not Starfleet; years of technology; size of the ship; details of the service and almost certainly the capabilities of the ships.

There is, though, a certain similarity. The familiarity mingled with the differences haunts him here.

Now, though, he gives Marion a smile.

"Yeah. She's a lot bigger, for one. And she's a warship." His head tips to one side. "With a few thousand years of technology on this one, too."

And he misses her. Misses her like another part of his soul is gone. She's been his home, his comrade, his life, for years.

She's been all he's had to hold onto, and now she's gone. Like everything else.

Dylan hates being a patient. He always has. Julian got a hint of that when they'd first met in the sickbay while Trance had been giving him his vaccinations and scans. That was positively easy in comparison to this, though; a couple of hypos, as much as he hates them, are at least over in a few minutes.

Not like this, being stuck in bed for who knows how long until Trance lets him go.

"Better if I could just get out of here." It's rueful, and he's perhaps not entirely wise to be quite so frank in his assessment, but ... well, he knows Julian, and there's no point in hiding.

He runs a hand over his forehead.

"But since I think Trance is going to keep me stuck here for a while yet, maybe something to read would be good. Got any recommendations?"

His smile's crookedly wry, but it's genuine.

He has bed hair. It's almost adorable. Marion has to hide a smile but focuses on Dylan. His words come out like he's partly in love with his ship.

Maybe he is? Her Dad had mentioned a buddy of his who ended up in the Navy. That man lovedthe submarine he eventually got to captain.Her Dad had know lots of people in different branches of the military but one things was so very true.

People loved their ships.

"Seriously? This place feels like a city." She lets out a soft chuckle. "I'm usually in... less densely populated areas."

But a war ship? She gets it. Makes more sense to her than this ship."Makes sense she's a warship. I'm... Well. Realistically there are always threats to peace out there. My Dad had been a military man. Most of his friends were in some branch of the service."

She misses her Dad. He would have liked this ship she thinks. She has no idea what he would think about her being a werewolf. Marion still hasn't told her Mom. She isn't sure she can.

"Andromeda was always a little less like a city. Fewer civilians and recreational facilities." He shrugs. Like he'd said, warship. The Enterprise does have the feel of a city around her, with the bar and gymnasium and who knows what other facilities that he hasn't explored yet. There are very few purely recreational areas on the Andromeda beyond the observation deck. Dylan and his previous -- and current -- crew have very much claimed the hydroponics garden, but it has a vital role in the functioning of the ship as well as being an area where the crew can be surrounded by the garden, green and alive and providing them with oxygen and food.

"But ... we're running on a skeleton crew, so she's not very densely populated anymore."

He misses his crew, still. Andromeda's corridors are too empty, her capabilities underutilized, and they'd been good people, people he cared about.

He keeps himself smiling at her, trying to ignore the swelling ache that's always there, in his heart, since Hephaistos.

She gets it. Not everyone does, especially not in the time he's found himself in when life is harder and the militaries of, for example, the Drago-Kazov, are used to oppress and attack, not to protect.

"Even in times of peace," he agrees. "We were always needed. We did a lot of humanitarian work, too, but you ... always need the capability to protect the peace."

And enforce it. Much of the later part of his career was spent in and out of the Quarantine Zone protecting Commonwealth interests from the Magog. Sometimes ... quite aggressively.

If Marion knows enough to read that in what he's said, then she'll understand. If she doesn't ... he's not planning to elaborate. Una salus victus runs deep.

"Makes sense. War ships ain't exactly equipped to carry the things a civilian population would need for the long term," Marion said with her accent slipping in like a dog through the kitchen door. Her accent was always in the background when she spoke and tended to slide forward when she was feeling relaxed.

"Must be strange. Not having a full compliment." Marion sounded like she understood the strangeness of it.

"Sometimes ya gotta be the shield as well as the sword. Just the way things are," Marion agrees. Something about her expression speaks of experience. Something she hasn't brought up. Marion knows what it's like to fight to save people.

She also gets there is so much more to what he is saying. He has hunted too in his own way. Huh. She blinks forcing her wolf far away from the front of her mind. Marion so doesn't want to explain everything about herself.

"Exactly." The facilities on a High Guard ship always tended to be more ... practical in nature. The Andromeda had a larger crew complement than the Enterprise, but that crew was military. Over 4,000 of them, the crew needed to run the ship, the specialists to carry out her missions, a lancer regiment and two fighter wings.

Soldiers, on a warship, even in a time of peace. And her facilities and crew were there to support her capabilities as a warship. An extremely powerful warship.

He nods in acknowledgement of her words about his crew complement, his gaze resting on her face for a curious moment at the understanding in her words.

"I'm not sure I'll ever be used to it. I have an excellent crew, but ... it's not the same."

He still misses every one of them. He'd prided himself on knowing them all, by name, at least.

"Someone has to do it," he agrees. "And that was us."

His smile is grimmer than it had been. He'd always preferred to be the shield over the sword. Protecting people. Helping them. Defending them. Holding the line against the darkness that was out there, beyond the Commonwealth's borders.

Sometimes, though, that protection means taking the fight to the enemy. Especially since the Fall, when there is no High Guard left but him and his ship.

Henry just shrugged, leaning up against the wall that the biobed was attached to so he was close to Dylan's head. He wasn't sure he wanted to talk, but being around people who might encourage him to do so would help tell if him if he wanted to or not. He knew he wanted company and reassurance after what had happened on the planet so he was sticking around where the doctors were.

So...not knowing if he wanted to talk or not, he simply did what was polite and introduced himself. "'m Henry."

That was part of the problem. Harper didn't have things to distract him. He didn't have a machine shop to go hide in. A problem to solve for Dylan in his great quest. Even his best friend had changed on him.

He's glad Dylan isn't dead. How mad would Rommie be at him, when it would have no doubt been the Captain's own good fault that he had got himself dead. Not Harper's. Even Rommie knew how stubborn the man could be.

"So you are still mad at me for that." He frowned at him, there was nothing in his hands any more to try and hide behind with his actions. "As if you didn't make me feel bad enough already with that. Going to do it again?"

"The Enterprise feels a little bit like a research vessel." Marion smiles slightly at the thought. That really wouldn't be so bad. She had loved science once upon a time and part of her still has this stray urge to balance chemical equations now and then.

Marion gets it on a level she just cannot explain. Werewolves are not meant to be solitary creatures. At least not her kind of werewolf. They do better with others around what Marion doesn't realize is that she doesn't have to limit herself to other werewolves should she give into the need to have others she can let herself trust.

"I get that." She really does. Marion may try to hide it but with Dylan's background he might as well have her pegged as some kind of soldier. It may not be what she really is but it's certainly how she is reacting.

"I've..." She trails off and stops herself. She nearly opened up a can of worms that she was not prepared to touch. Holy shit, she never opens up to anyone this quickly.

Not since that night. No one gets this kind of trust from her. What the hell. It's like a sucker punch to the gut. The reaction isn't obvious she just shuts down verbally for a moment.

"Sorry." For what? Being the way she is? Maybe. "I just..."

Shit. Her poker face starts to slide into place. "Outside work. I don't talk about it. I'm an outside consultant hen I'm not writing."

"It does, a little," he agrees, reminded, inevitably, of the last High Guard research vessel he'd visited, the Starry Wisdom, Ismael's exploration ship that Sara had somehow managed to persuade him to his to try to mount the rescue that had come so close to freeing him from the black hole just a couple of years after he was trapped.

Before the Fall.

She'd tried to take everything she knew, everything her years of knowledge and research had taught her, and make it change the future. If anyone could have beaten science it was Sara. (She came so close. And defeat physics or not, she did have him.)

He blinks when she keeps talking, trying to force aside the thoughts that, lately, are harder to to push away than usual. It seems, though, that he's not the only one having that issue; Marion speaks, then she pauses, hesitates, in a way that he notes without commenting on, though it's ... revealing. Something she nearly said but didn't.

She covers it well, but not well enough to fool him.

She's speaking with far more familiarity than he'd expect of a writer, even one with a father who'd been in the military. Not like she's heard. Like she understands.

He's not convinced by the word 'consultant'. There's a lot that could mean.

This, though, isn't the time to press her. This is a friendly conversation, and a lady's allowed her secrets. So he smiles like he hasn't noticed the telling hesitation, and shrugs.

"Yeah. I get it. Some things you just don't talk about."

Argosy Special Operations taught that as well as anything.

"That wasn't my plan."

Of course, it hadn't exactly been his plan the first time, either. He hadn't set out to upset Harper. Yes, he'd been furious, angrier than he's been with Harper in a long time. It hadn't been his plan, but ... as much as he leads his crew through respect, even friendship, rather than through any sort of imposed discipline, that has never meant that his crew can go without a talking-to when they need it, and Harper had needed it.

Anger fades. Dylan's never held anger with his friends or his crew for long. Anger, though, isn't entirely the point here and never was.

Usually, after he's had to tell Harper off, they stay out of each other's way, Harper in the machine shop, Dylan in command, and they come to an unspoken sort of understanding.

That hasn't happened here. Harper's still holding it against him, bitter, unhappy.

He lets out a long breath.

"I'm not still mad at you, Harper. I'm still disappointed."

He shakes his head.

"But I've said everything I have to say."

Trance crouched down in front of him in her leather getup and with one hand, removed the headphones from his head.

"Hi."

"Not a bad thing. Always liked chemistry." She can't even explain how much she liked it. Sometimes even really loved it. Marion had a few really nice memories because of chemistry.

Sometimes when she finds herself balancing a formula to pass the time Marion really misses Paul. He had been adorable and let her fly her geek flag. If only things had worked out. It was just that things got complicated and turned into a huge mess.

She focuses back on Dylan as she brings herself back to reality. At least this one in which she has to avoid talking about the other things she does. The things she has seen.Marion is so convinced she should never talk about it.

Marion knows why she is so reluctant to talk about it. She doesn't think anyone could exactly get what she deals with. Marion had not thought she could trust anyone for a long time.

Why the hell did it feel like she could trust Dylan Hunt?

"Thanks, pard." She can't think of anything else to say. There is tension running down her back. She needs to chill out. Maybe trust isn't a bad thing.

Dylan isn't pushing the issue that is hanging in the air after all.

Disappointed.

That word is worse.

It hurts.

Harper wants to hide, find a really small space and just hide.

Sat at the end of the bed as he was he looks like the kid being told off by his dad for something he did without thinking. It wasn't meant to be a callous action just something not thought through fully to keep one step ahead.

"Do you want me to leave?" He didn't quite look up to meet Dylan's eye.

The disappointment isn't going away so easily. That needs time, time to prove that Harper really has listened to him, really understands what he'd said and just what had been wrong about what he'd done. But instead of that understanding, what he's getting from Harper is sniping and needling.

"No, Harper. I'm glad you came to see me."

But the conversation is awkward, forced, and it's clear that's down to their discussion before they'd gone to Alemar III. He just doesn't know what to do about it.

Or what Harper expects him to do. He's tired, he's sick, and he's not taking back what he'd said.

It had to be said.

If Harper would tell Dylan about what had happened and what he'd done Alemar III to help Steve it probably would have gone a way to helping with everything but he was too busy not wanting to for him to actually do that.

"I'm glad you're not dead." It was some admission even if his reasoning behind it was a little flawed. He wasn't going to mention the reason.

"I've made it this far. No earthquake's going to get me," he says, with the self-assurance he can summon so easily, even if he's never really as certain as he sounds.

It had been too close, he'd been too foolish, going down there without any preparation or supplies, either of which would have made the days they'd been stuck in there much easier. And stopped him winding up being sedated and hauled into sickbay by Trance.

One corner of his mouth tightens.

"I'm glad you're not, too. Smart of you to stay out of the caves."

Not surprising, given the world ship thing, but smart.

Harper for a moment forgets everything about how upset he is with Dylan at the mention of staying out of the caves. The memory of the world ship is still a little too vivid for his liking.

He looked at Dylan, he wanted to explain why he didn't go down there but that was more demons that he had to battle still. He wished Rev was there then. "Smart? Try afraid."

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[Sickbay]: Round Four Scans and Vaccines

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