Let's Get (a) Physical!

Posted on 28 Dec 2014 @ 10:21pm by Chief Petty Officer Pax Inyo & Lieutenant Tuula Voutilainen M.D. & Lieutenant Olsam Mott

2,501 words; about a 13 minute read

Mission: Episode 07 - Sojourn
Location: Starbase 84, Sickbay
Timeline: MD 07

[ON]

Sickbay seemed on the quiet side, a nurse passing through now and again. Pax trolled around the waiting area, tapping rhythms absentmindedly and looking off into space.

"Excuse me?"

"Hmm?" Pax turned to the nurse addressing her.

"What are you doing?"

"I'm in the waiting room. Waiting."

"You can just come back, no one is manning the desk."

"Well that explains the long wait!" Pax chuckled and followed the nurse into sickbay.

"What are you here for?"

"The lollipops?" The nurse was not amused. "No lollipops? Alright well, just the physical then."

"Name?"

"Chief Petty Officer Pax-Inyo, Ma'am."

She entered something on her padd, then took a brief scan of basic vitals. "The doctor will be with you in a minute, Chief."

"Thanks." Pax stood up as soon as she was gone and started poking at the equipment surrounding the biobed. She found two keys that made different tones and a slider that made them fluctuate. The side table had a nice tinny noise like a cymbal when she tapped it with a pair of long tweezers while 'playing' the monitor with the other hand. She'd been trying to work out this particular melody for a few days.

"Pax Inyo?" called out Tuula as she rolled into the waiting area. She looked around; the only patient present was a Grazerite who fit the desciption. "Welcome aboard, Ms. Inyo," she said, trying to be as welcoming as possible in case her new arrival was one of those people who are uncomfortable in medical settings. "If you'll follow me and take a seat on an empty biobed, we can get started," she added, turning back towards the main area of sickbay.

"Thanks..." Pax followed the doctor in a wheel chair, which struck her as more than a little ironic, especially now-a-days with all the advancements in med tech that folks in the Fleet had access to, Doctors presumably most of all, so it must have been either temporary or especially unique a situation. It took her a great deal of effort not to comment as such, but she was staring a bit as she processed it.

Olsam shuffled over toward Tuula and the new patient, using his senses and memory to guide him so he could keep his eyes on the PADD he was holding. Some arrogant bastard know-it-all doctor on the starbase had been arguing with him about the finer points of cellular division in the newly discovered species of biomimetic vegetation found on one of the moons on Algar IV, and Olsam was determined to find the research to back up his point just to shove it in his opponent's face. All that concentrating and all that shuffling came to an abrupt halt, though, when his knee slammed into the biobed.

"Ow!" he shouted, taking a half-step back and looking up angrily. When he locked eyes with the patient sitting in front of him, only a few inches from his face, the angered subsided into something close to alarm. "Whoa. Hey. I hope you're a Grazerite, otherwise we've got a serious medical problem on our hands."

"What... what are you talking ab..." Pax feigned as seriously as possible and started feeling around at her face and came to her horns. "What is happening to me?!"

Tuula rolled her eyes at the Grazerite's little joke as she went to fetch her medical file, keeping an ear open for Dr. Mott's reaction.

Olsam's eyes went wide as he fumbled for his medical tricorder. He placed one hand on Pax's shoulder and then placed a palm to her sternum, trying to position her into laying down prone on the biobed. Sounding panicked, he turned to look over his shoulder at Tuula. "Dr. Voutilainen, did you not see how horny this woman is!? Eternal seas, we've been working on visual diagnostics for weeks now! These growths could be increasing intracranial pressure exponentially. We need 10ccs of axonol, and prep the surgical ward for emergency surgery!" Seeing that his colleague was unperturbed by the urgency in his voice, he shouted. "Stat!"

Finally turning back to the patient, he flipped open the tricorder and detached the sensor wand, frantically scanning around the woman's head. A thousand medical scenarios raced through his head ranging from a genetic abnormality to cancerous growth brought on by exposure to thalaron radiation. Never once did the thought occur to him that maybe she had been joking with him, despite the fact that he had been the one to initiate it with a humorous statement.

"Doctor, while normally I'm more than happy to perform emergency surgery," said Tuula nonchalantly, "I'm afraid this time it will be unnecessary." She handed him a PADD containing Pax Inyo's medical file. "You can see here, her genetic makeup is 50% Grazerite, so these horns are natural phenomena. Though," she added, brandishing a laser scalpel and grinning in anticipation, "I'm sure we can take them off for you if you want. I have a bone saw in my quarters which would be just perfect."

Pax was grinning just watching the Bolian doctor panic. That had been just too easy.

"I think I'll keep them. Handy when you can't find a coat rack around. Careful with that, doc. Might laser an eye out. I'm just here for the standard physical. I hope."

Olsam laughed, loudly and nervously. "Half-Grazerite, of course, I knew that. You know, hence my joke. And, uh, playing along with the chief petty officer here. I'm something of a thespian, as you well know, Dr. Voutilainen. So, uh, right. Standard physical. Yes. Standard physical for one half-Grazerite, coming right up..." He looked down at the PADD that Tuula had handed him and flipped through the information, scanning it and committing it to memory while waiting for his colleague to begin the standard procedures.

"So," said Tuula, trading her laser scalpel for a medical tricorder, "have you noticed anything peculiar lately? Aches, pains, difficulties, more horns than usual?" As she asked the questions, she placed the tricorder on the biobed next to the patient and fiddled with the height adjustment controls on the bed. One of the most irritating things she found about working with other doctors was always having to lower the biobeds after they've raised it up to their height.

As she descended on the readjusting bio bed, Pax thought about it. "No, nothing really. I think I pulled a muscle in my shoulder sparring last week, but I kept a compress on it while I was traveling and it seems to not be so stiff now. What about you? How've you both been feeling?" She returned the question for conversation sake.

Olsam blinked. His first instinct was to say they were the ones who asked the questions around here, but that sounded very Cardassian-internment-camp-ish of him so he smiled instead. "I'm feeling very well, thank you for asking. I just got married. To Dr. Voutilainen here." He motioned to Tuula. "Uh, I mean, Tuula. My wife, Tuula Voutilainen. Her. She's lovely, isn't she?"

"Hey! Wow! Well, congrats you lovebirds! What are you doing checking into work? Should be honeymooning! Scanning each other and all. Now I feel like such a third wheel, geeze. I don't even have a gift. Unless you want a song. I've always got a song."

"I... erm..." Tuula stumbled for a moment before getting back into character, realizing that the greater the number of people who think the marriage is real, the fewer the chance that the matron of the Motts would find out about her deception. "Do you happen to know any Gilbert and Sullivan, perchance?" she asked as she pulled out her tricorder.

"Who doesn't?" Pax cleared her throat and opened up her vocals aiming for theatrical effect. "I am the very model of a modern Major-General, I've information vegetable, animal, and mineral, I know the kings of England, and I quote the fights historical, From Marathon to Waterloo, in order categorical..." She rattled before taking a breath. She knew most of the lines from goofing off in highschool, showing up friends by memorizing it. "I'm very well acquainted too with matters mathematical, I understand equations, both the simple and quadratical, About binomial theorem I'm teeming with a lot o' news, With many cheerful facts about the square of the hypotenuse!" She took a mini bow while seated.

Olsam watched the exchange, befuddled. He remained silent but discreetly opened his medical tricorder to recall the scans he'd taken of the chief petty officer a few moments ago. After a quick review he decided they didn't seem to indicate any manner of brain damage, so he supposed "Gilbert and Sullivan" was some sort of nonsensical poet rather than a restaurant, as he'd assumed. At any rate, Tuula didn't seem particularly alarmed by the odd recitation so he stayed quiet and smiling, trying his best to look supervisory.

"I uh, don't suppose that's very romantic, huh?" Pax chuckled.

"It was great!" exclaimed Tuula, quietly but rapidly applauding Pax. "I love Gilbert and Sullivan! I played Mabel last year in Pirates!, it was so much fun!" She cleared her throat, realizing that she had gotten ahead of herself in her excitement. "But, erm, back to the physical... let me take a look at that shoulder..."

Pax shed her jacket and pulled her shirt off without any prompting, tilting her head this way than that to maneuver through the neck of it, slightly favoring her left arm, not raising it quite as far over her head as she peeled down to her undershirt. "It's the left side. I don't think it's swollen at all any more. Just sore a bit."

Feeling a lull in conversation that had to be filled, Olsam spoke up while Tuula began her examination of Pax's shoulder, referencing something the half-Grazerite had mentioned earlier. "So, chief, did you serve in the Marine Corps? I didn't see that on your personnel file... Or do they have Major-Generals in the Terran armed forces? Is that how you know all of the kings of England? Isn't that a place on Earth... I think I visited there once. It was raining and everyone ate a lot of fried fish. It reminded me of home." He reached up to scratch his chin, then frowned. "I didn't like it very much. But, I'm sure their kings are absolutely delightful. How many do they have?"

Pax looked at Tuula. Could the Bolian not get that the song was completely fictitious? "Is he serious?"

"Dr. Mott?" asked Tuula from behind Pax, as she ran the tricorder over Pax's shoulder. "To be honest, I can't tell sometimes." She stared at the readings for a moment and placed the tricorder aside. She placed her hands on Pax's shoulders, delicately feeling around for anything out of the ordinary. "Oh yeah, I'm definitely feeling some knots. Tell me," she asked, pressing into her flesh with her fingers, "does that feel tender when I poke you like that?"

"For sure," the grazerite grimaced just a little, "that's the spot all right."

"All right," replied Tuula. "I'm going to recommend a massage program on the holodeck for you, a quick rub twice a week should help take care of things, don't you agree, doctor?"

"Yes, I agree. That is a very therapeutic course of action, doctor," Olsam said sternly, lowering his voice into a very serious tone. His brows were drawn sharply together and he was frowning deeply in an effort to look as serious as he sounded. Everyone was always asking him if he was serious, so apparently he had to do a better job of showing when he was.

"Well hey, I can't argue with that prescription." Although she wasn't sure why Olsam sounded so dour about a massage. "But I really came here for the bill of health so I can get all my paperwork in order and report in."

"All right, well, I'm not detecting anything else wrong with you," she said, waving her tricorder over Pax one last time. "If you'll be so kind as to give us a small sample of your blood, there's a couple standard tests that you're due for, but other than that, I think you're healthy enough for standard duties."

Pax held out her arm. "Take what you need for the lab vampires."

"Very well," replied Tuula as she adjusted a hypospray to take a sample. "We're in luck today, Grazerite goes well in cocktails."

Olsam's serious look was replaced with a genuine frown, although there wasn't much to indicate the shift. Were they making some sort of joke about Dr. Allyndra's species with these 'vampire' comments? Terran humor had never been his specialty, so he thought it was safer to just stay quiet, especially after he'd apparently embarrassed himself in asking about the kings of England. Evidently it wasn't something one discussed openly, so hopefully Tuula would see fit to explain it privately at a later date.

"All right, there we are," said Tuula, pulling a small vial of blood out of the hypospray. "You're tentatively cleared for duty, pending the results of this test."

Pulling her shirt right-side out again, Pax got it on around her horns and then slid back into it. "Great. Thanks, Doc. Docs. Mr. and Mrs. Doc." She shrugged back into her duty jacket.

"Huh?" Olsam said, looking from Tuula to Pax. Then he started. "Oh, right! Mr. and Mrs. Doc. Yes, that's us. The picture of wedded bliss, the two doctors." He awkwardly reached out and placed his arm around Tuula, drawing her against his hip and patting her affectionately on the shoulder while giving Pax an exaggerated grin. "Be sure to tell my family if you see them. Please."

"You haven't told your own family? I'm not always on the best of turns with my folks, but I think I'd tell them if I was newly hitched." Pax shook her head and hopped off the bio bed.

"Uh, who? Me? Oh, no, I've, uh, I've told them. Yeah, they definitely know. They know all about it. All about it, yep," Olsam said with his eyes fixed straight ahead to avoid the temptation to look all around the room. "They just, uh, worry. And highly value the opinions of...Grazerites." Feeling mounting pressure the longer he talked but being entirely unable to shut his mouth, his need to break eye contact finally won out over his willpower and he began looking from side to side. "A Grazerite once saved our family fortune, um, so...we, uh, put a lot of stock into what Grazerites say. So, coming from you, it would mean a lot to them. You know, about the success and prosperity of our marriage. Right, Tuula?"

Tuula just stared up at Mott. "Shut up, Olsam."

[OFF]

Lieutenant (J.G.) Tuula Voutilainen, M.D.
Medical Officer
USS Galileo

CPO Pax-Inyo
Master at Arms
USS Galileo

Lieutenant Olsam Mott, M.D.
Assistant Chief Medical Officer
USS Galileo

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