Hands and Knees

Posted on 09 Nov 2014 @ 3:02pm by Commander Andreus Kohl

2,370 words; about a 12 minute read

Mission: Episode 07 - Sojourn
Location: USS Galileo - Deck 3, Sickbay
Timeline: MD -22, 1836 hours

[ON]

Over in an obscure corner of Sickbay, a floor-level panel swung open from the bulkhead. It was the hatchway to the jefferies tube system and Andreus Kohl had opened it from within. Down on his hands and knees, Kohl was half climbing out of the jefferies tube, but he wasn't ready to leave it behind entirely. From Sickbay, anyone could hear him clattering around in there, patting his hands against the grated plates.

Turning away from his patient, Naois took a few steps and knelt down. "You do realize we have patients resting here, do you not?" he asked, a little more crabbier than he really intended, "and most would just use the door to come in.."

Kohl stopped what he was doing and he yanked his hands out of the jefferies tube as it if were hot. Then he clasped his hands together. Kohl looked up at Naois, and in faux-saccarine tones, Kohl asked, "Are any of your patients recovering from injury to their ear drums?"

"Not that I am aware of but you are making quite the ruckus. What are you doing in there anyway." Naois just stared down at him, his blue eyes dull with exhaustion and irritation.

"I'm looking," Kohl answered simply; his manner was matter-of-fact. In one fluid motion, Kohl was on his feet, and standing upright, and clasped his hands together up near his combadge. "I don't know about you, but I believe in a raucous Sickbay. Active recovery is the only way to fight off deconditioning and entropy," Kohl said with no little enthusiasm. He closed the floor-level hatch behind him with a bang, and he moved to cross Sickbay. "Don't you agree?"

"That depends on the injury one is recovering from," Naois answered curtly, "you were injured then, I assume?"

At that, Kohl stopped in his stride. He turned his head to consider Naois seriously. "That does depend on the injury one is recovering from, yes," Kohl said. All at once, his bluster was replaced by a calm thoughtfulness. Kohl moved on again, closing the distance between himself and the freestanding LCARS console near the doorway. After considering Naois' questions about Kohl's own medical history, Kohl's response was guarded. "I... was injured, yes," Kohl said, "But I've recovered." Kohl crouched down behind the console, and pulled open the access panel at the base of its pedestal.

"Are you certain?" Naois countered, walking up to him with an open tricorder. "Your mannerisms tell me otherwise, actually, all my senses tell me otherwise. You are noisy, you avoid answering a direct question regarding your injury and you are...fidgety."

While Naois questioned Kohl's health and waved a tricorder at him, Kohl was busy inspecting the inside of the LCARS console. He only used his eyes and his hands, though, to complete his inspection. Kohl returned to his full height, and he turned to face Naois. He stepped slightly too closely. "You don't know me yet," said Kohl. "I'm Andreus Kohl. Noisy, fidgety and evasive just about sum me up. That is my baseline." --He held out a hand and he smiled-- "Pleased to meet you."

Naois just cast him a cold stare in return, refusing the offered hand. "Doctor Naois Mercy." His tone was clipped as he studied his tricorder while taking a slight step back to avoid unintended physical contact. "Do you have trouble operating equipment?" he added to his list of enquiries, having noticed that the inspection had gone without utilization of any sort of device.

Kohl opened his mouth to answer, because Kohl always had an answer, but nothing came out. At first, Kohl's eyes favoured the ceiling as he struggled for a response, and then he fixed a puzzled look on Naois directly. "I don't understand the question," Kohl said.

"You are assessing a console, but you are not using any equipment to do so. My question is valid, do you have trouble operating equipment." The half-Vulcan's patience was wearing visibly thin.

"Ah, but your question is based on an assumption," said Kohl. The half-Vulcan's manner brought out a bit of smugness in Kohl's tone. Kohl lightly kicked the access panel shut on the LCARS console, and then he moved on to the office of the Chief Medical Officer. He let himself in to the otherwise empty office. "I have no interest in the console or its workings," said Kohl. "I'm looking for what's inside."

"And what are you looking for," the Vulcan enquired, following him into the empty office, "something that is, quite possibly not there? Are you suffering hallucinations? Are you seeing things that others do not but whic, according to you, are there?"

Now Kohl's own patience was wearing thin by, what seemed to Kohl, like a bored doctor actively looking for a patient. "If I had found a hallucinatory something, I would be jumping up and down right now, celebrating how I found it," said Kohl. He took the liberty of sitting in Allyndra's chair, with a slightly disgruntled 'harrumph'. From his new vantage point, Kohl examined the room, looking for another access hatch. "Rather, I'm continuing my search, which means I haven't seen anything yet."

"Search for what." Naois crossed his arms over his chest. "You are not authorized to sit in that chair, get up or I will remove you."

Kohl blatantly scoffed at the Vulcan. He laid his palms on the desk and he leaned forward, but made no effort to get out of the chair. "Remove me?" asked Kohl, his inflection revealed the height of incredulity. "It's a chair. A plain, ordinary desk chair. You were right. I have an injury. I have standing and walking restrictions. It would be rude for me to sit my rear on Allydra's desk."

"That still does not authorize you to occupy her seat. There are other seats and if you are required to sit, and you are injured, you should be on a biobed undergoing scans. Elaborate, what type of injury."

"Hey, now," Kohl blurted out defensively. He was overcome with a mental image of this Vulcan doctor binding his arms behind his back and forcibly treating him as a patient. Kohl rose from the chair, but only so he could cross the office, and open the ODN access panel beneath the LCARS panel in the bulkhead. As he rooted around inside the ODN junction, Kohl said over his shoulder, "I've already been diagnosed. I've been prescribed treatment. I'm compliant in my program of care. I don't need a biobed."

"If you have standing and walking restrictions, no doubt crouching is in the package too," Naois commented dryly, "assuming your treatment is for back issues. I wonder, should you be on duty at all?"

"What is this, the dark ages?" Kohl remarked. His voice was getting louder, his manner was even more defensive. Rather than shout at Naois, Kohl was directing it at the ODN junction. "I'll never recover from a little back strain if I lie in bed all day. I've been cleared for restricted duty. It's fine. I'm fine!"

"I never said you had to lie in bed all day lieutenant. I merely stated that crouching is not encouraging for your recovery either. And clearly, you are not well because you are shouting at an ODN junction."

Kohl breathed in, and he breathed out, and he closed the access panel. His movements languid, Kohl turned to face Naois and then he leaned his back against the bulkhead. "I'm looking," said Kohl. His voice was soft now, but steel underneath. "I'm looking for my talisman. It's-- it's a seed pod from my father's garden. It's one of the last possessions I have left from my father. My father who died the day I stepped aboard Galileo."

"And you lost it here?" Naois tossed the man his tricorder. "If you have a signature, upload it." He understood items that were of immense personal value only too well. And he understood loss, only too well. "I will help you search."

"I don't--" Kohl trailed off, and he stared down at the tricorder in his hands as if it were some foreign object. "I don't know what it's made from. I hid in it Sickbay. Pola and I, the previous Medical Chief and I, we hid it in Sickbay to promise recovery and renewal," Kohl said fondly. His remembrance was replaced with other memories, and his expression darkened. His hands fell to his sides. He sat on the floor. "But Sickbay was moved when Galileo went through its refit. I thought-- I thought I asked someone to save the seedpod for me, but I was... incapacitated at the time. And heavily medicated. I don't remember where they stowed it."

"Do you know what kind of seed?" Naois knelt down next to him, his expression changing as his attitude reasserted itself to something more appropriate for a doctor. "Where did you see it last, where was sickbay priorly?"

Kohl turned his head to regard Naois, and he shared a wan smile with the Vulcan. As the smile started to fade, Kohl leaned his head back against the upholstered bulkhead. "I'm being foolish," Kohl said bleakly. "The interior of Gally was disassembled and brought back together again, and I left one single seed behind. I don't know why I thought I could find it here. ...I just wanted to take it with me."

"But you do have it," the Vulcan suggested softly. "Maybe not physically, but you have it, here." He reached out and touched Kohl's temple, his fingers burning hot with fever.

"Ah!" Kohl spat out in alarm. He ducked his head away and he muttered, "Sorry." After giving his head a shake, Kohl remarked, "A hot touch you've got there."

"Seems so," Naois murmured, studying his hand. "I apologize for that, I am..not well. Anyway, as I said, you do have it, in your memories. Correct?"

Kohl shifted his posture where he sat on the floor, leaning away from Naois, but only by a few millimetres. He narrowed his eyes on the Vulcan, and he admitted, "Yes. Yes, I can remember the seed pod."

"Then you do not need the physical manifestation," Naois supplied logically, "but if you recall the specifications, you could replicate it."

Grimacing at Naois, Kohl bit back a nasty riposte, because at least the Vulcan doctor was genuinely trying to help now. Kohl shook his head, almost imperceptibly, and he said, "I can't say I recall the specifications with any clarity. And besides, it wouldn't have been a seed that came from my father's garden. It would never have been held in his hand. Doesn't have the same meaning."

"I could help you recall them," the Vulcan reluctantly offered, "and no it would not mean the same, but at least the thought is there. The link to the memory." He took a deep breath, looking right at the other man. "I know what it is like," he continued softly, "I know what it is like, to lose someone you love."

Staring right back at Naois, Kohl gently asked, "Who did you lose?"

"My wife," Naois answered, looking away. The pain of that loss, even after three years, was evident in his eyes.

Kohl intertwined his hands together and held them against his chest. He looked down at his hands, allowing Naois to look away diffidently. Still, Kohl asked, "What was she like?"

"She was the sweetest and most caring woman I have ever had the privilege of knowing." He shook his head, drawing in a deep breath. "She died three years ago."

Pressing his hands flat against the deck, Kohl continued to look away. "I'm sorry I never got to meet her," Kohl said.

"She was a doctor too," Naois continued, "but you are deviating from the subject. Your seed...how do you plan to find or replace it?"

"...I, uhm, I'm going to leave it lost," Kohl said. His manner was much sobered by thoughts of Naois' lost wife, and his own lost father. He turned his head to consider the Vulcan sitting beside him on the floor. "I was happy when I worked in Sickbay. Really damn happy. ...But I can't expect to simply replicate that same feeling in the science department. It's not honest. I have to find a new happy."

"Then why not return to medical?" Naois observed, "or maybe turn your skills to helping people. Become a counselor instead."

"It's not about the work, exactly," Kohl said. He squinted off into the middle distance, as if he were confusing himself. "I enjoy what I'm doing, for the most part. The research is engaging. I'm proud for the opportunity to develop our scientists into better officers. I'm just not as happy as I used to be in my Sickbay. But this isn't my Sickbay. This isn't the Sickbay I was happy in. That one had different walls, different people. It was on a different deck. ...It doesn't exist anymore."

"I do not understand.." the Vulcan medic frowned as he considered the words. "A medical facility is a medical facility, no matter the location. THe spirit of the facility remains the same."

"It's okay," Kohl said. At first, he only smiled mildly at the Vulcan. He didn't want to disagree with him, nor try to convince him of what he was feeling. Naois was entitled to his own perception of his work environment and his home, as far as Kohl was concerned. "You're not the one with decisions to make. You don't have to understand."

"Then I hope you will find the right decision to make," Naois casually replied. "Meanwhile, will you be alright?"

"I will be all right," Kohl said. There was a determination in his voice, but he didn't sound entirely convincing. "Will you be all right?"

"Eventually," Naois answered evasively. "At least, I hope."

Kohl smiled, and he moved to get up off the ground. "Hope is enough."


[OFF]

Lieutenant Andreus Kohl
Assistant Chief Science Officer
USS Galileo

Lieutenant j.g. Naois Mercy
Medical Officer
USS Galileo
[PNPC T'Vanna]

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