A Post-Mortem Examination on a First Impression (Part 1 of 2)

Posted on 24 Jul 2012 @ 5:47pm by Lieutenant JG Brayden White Ph.D. & Commander Andreus Kohl

1,762 words; about a 9 minute read

Mission: Episode 01 - Project Sienna
Location: USS Galileo - Deck 4, Sickbay
Timeline: MD07 - 1935 hours

[ON]

Tapping at the controls on a biofunction monitor in the ICU, Andreus Kohl made a minor adjustment to the alarm criteria. If the patient's vital signs shifted towards wakefulness or dipped deeper into her comatose state, the medical staff would be alerted again. Laid out on the biobed below was Drusilla McCarthy, Sickbay's only deathly still patient. Nurse Lin had referred to Dru as Snow White earlier, due to the patient's complexion and her condition. The Human literary allusion had soared right over Kohl's Argelian head.

Although he was feeling well enough to be on duty, Kohl still felt a chill in his extremities after his earlier bout of shock. Over his uniform, Kohl was wrapped in the pale blue medical smock. He made one final sweep across the screen with his index finger, and then he turned away from Drusilla's biobed.

Brayden stretched, stifling a yawn, as he stepped into sickbay that evening. It had been a long day, finishing up last minute psych exams and organizing his notes for the new Chief Counselor to peruse. Still, new medical personnel were always important to know, especially so if he were going to be sent back to being a medical officer full time. If that happened, would they make him keep the provisional rank or could he go back to being just himself? He recognized the new officer immediately and waved slightly, crossing over and taking a look at Dru. "How's she doing?" he whispered.

"She's recovering. She's... starting to wake up," Kohl said. His voice was dull, like it might be at the end of a double-shift, rather than the start of his first shift aboard Galileo. Turning his head to the left and to the right, Kohl scoured Sickbay with his eyes for that mug of tea he put down, but his eyes wouldn't focus on anything. "She was lucid and speaking for a time earlier," Kohl elaborated, "but she hasn't regained her gross motor skills, nor the fine motor skills for speech."

"She's got a lot to come back from," Brayden murmured. "And it looks like you've had a rough start to your time here. Need a hand with anything?"

Kohl turned to the biofunction monitor above Dru's bed, as if there was a to-do list hidden between the lines of the steady vital signs. There wasn't. But something there jogged Kohl's memory, and he breathed in suddenly to say, "Yes. Yes, the blood work." Kohl brushed a hand against Brayden's shoulder to lead him towards a counter-top on the other side of Sickbay. "We have blood samples from all the new crew members. I don't... believe Doctor Ni Dhuinn is expecting to find anything surprising, but we need to run the blood tests in case the tricorder missed anything. And I probably shouldn't run my own..." That was when Kohl stopped suddenly.

"Oh! Oh, right," Kohl said, his tone conveying his slow realization that he had steam-rolled right over social niceties. He turned towards Brayden, stopped everything else to consider him. He studied Brayden's face, and smiled a little bit. "I'm called Andreus Kohl," he said, "I'm... one of the new crew. A nurse practitioner, in fact. Now, who have I just conscripted into manual labour?"

"Brayden," the Australian answered with a wide grin. "Brayden White. Started in medical, they moved me to counseling, haven't any idea where I'll be tomorrow, but it's nice to see another friendly face in the medical wing, regardless. Either way, I do know how to run blood tests, so." He started in checking the samples and labeling slides appropriately. "How are you settling in?"

Kohl lifted the second tray of samples, and he lead the way towards the medical laboratory. "Uh..." Kohl struggled to say, "Uhm, how am I settling in?" He repeated the question aloud, because the only thing going through his head was, 'don't think about your dead father', and he was struggling to think of an appropriate response. The uncomfortable shuttle ride over and the tripping into the XO's office came to mind, but the notion of settling in eventually landed Kohl's thoughts on notions of home.

"I'm going to have a roommate while we're transferring the starbase personnel," Kohl said, and he managed to sound both annoyed and genuinely amused. "I met her tonight. I think we have a lot in common, but we haven't figured out how to communicate without crossing one another's boundaries."

"Well, sharing space with strangers can be an adjustment." Brayden said as he finished the slides, gathered them, and joined Andreus in the laboratory. "First time with a female roommate?"

"No... No, I don't think it's that. I had female roommates at the Academy," Kohl said. His emphasis on the word think allowed for the possibility that it very well could be an issue of gender. Aria Rice had suggested the same thing herself. Kohl studied the sample slides on his own tray, double-checking they had all been labelled and that none had tumbled out of sequence while he'd been carrying them. "I can't even speak to sharing the space with her yet. I've only just met her, but, oh, I made one staggeringly poor first impression. One moment we were negotiating the logistics of sex while we're sharing one room, and in the next heartbeat, she accused me of calling her promiscuous."

"Ah," Brayden smiled sympathetically as he moved the new crew member blood samples over to the centrifuge. "What did you mean to say when she heard that?"

While Kohl lifted a sample between his thumb and forefinger, he let out a prolonged, "Uhhhh..." At first, he was genuinely struggling to remember exactly what he had said. It didn't help that fatigue was dragging down his thought processes, and adding unnecessary "uhm"s and "ah"s to his diction. As the "uhhh" vocalisation became prolonged, Kohl's voice shifted towards the sound of guilt. He froze in place, as if moving might risk him forgetting his sudden insight.

"Oh, I crossed her boundaries for sure," Kohl said. "I asked a leading question that --easily-- could have been inferred as an accusation of promiscuity. She was telling me how she was newly taking a break from dating and casual sex, and I asked her if some consequence from casual sex had informed that decision."

"Ah," Brayden murmured, removing the samples from the centrifuge and preparing the slides. "A fair question, but - yes - easily misunderstood. Semantics can be tricky; especially when someone is already prepared to hear the worst. Was it curiosity? Or do you have some interest in her?"

Without meaning to, Brayden's question evoked a laugh from somewhere deep inside Kohl. The laughter came cackling out of Kohl so unexpectedly that he snorted twice. "No. No. No interest in her. No," Kohl said haltingly, as he got the laughter and then his breathing under control. "That was just... just... where I was born, that would be considered small talk. It's what we talk about. No, no, no, she's not nearly masculine enough to keep up with me."

Brayden smiled; the nurse's amusement was contagious. "Did you try explaining that to her?" he asked, then glanced up from the microscope, "Not that she's not masculine enough for you, but that that kind of dialogue is natural for you? The more you understand about each other's cultures, the less likely it is you'll come across these sorts of misunderstandings."

Kohl's laughter deflated into a wan smile. He began to hand the blood samples from his tray over to Brayden. Balancing guilt and self-amusement in his tone, Kohl said, "Of course not. I stormed off and took a long shower. Mind you, I probably sent mixed messages when I undressed in front of her."

"Probably so," Brayden agreed, filtering the new blood samples into the centrifuge and returning to the microscope to make a few notes on the chart on his PADD. "So what do you think you'll do now?"

"I hadn't thought that far, at least not yet," Kohl admitted, and he didn't sound as amused this time. He took the first sample Brayden had manually inspected, and he inserted it into the analyzer. Kohl tapped on the LCARS panel to begin the mechanical process. "I think..." Kohl drifted, and then he said, "I think I would wait and see how she behaves around me next time, and adjust my approach accordingly." --He shrugged helplessly-- "What would you do if you'd somehow put yourself in the same situation?"

"Everyone has different ways of handling awkward social situations," Brayden temporized. "If it were me, I'd take her aside and explain before she had a chance to come up with her own erroneous interpretations." He checked the next slide carefully, making more notes. "We're a small crew. There's no good way to avoid anyone on this ship. Best to keep the air clear." He looked up, passing the slide to Andreus, "But that's me. You may be right. Sometimes it is best to let things lie. That's up to you."

As Brayden spoke, Kohl nodded his understanding of the advice, and "hmm"ed whenever he agreed with something Brayden said. Kohl accepted the slide, and he inserted it into the next open slot on the analyzer. "Valid approaches, both of them," Kohl said, without really committing to either one. He tapped another sequence into the LCARS panel and then looked to Brayden. Kohl bit his lower lip for a moment, as he considered. "How well have you settled into this little ship?" Kohl asked.

"Honestly?" Brayden asked. "Not so well," he laughed a little self-deprecatingly. "I'd gotten used to being auxiliary, part of the crew and yet separate from it. I've never been the only counselor on a ship, so I was always free to bond with the crew however I preferred to, since it rarely affected my ability to care for them in a therapeutic sense. Being alone in the job, even for a few days has been... really quite alienating. I'm glad to see a couple more counselors joining us. It should make Drusilla's transition back into work easier as well. Less of a load to take on." He made more notes, passed on another slide, then paused, quizzically staring at the next slide under the microscope. "What the devil is that?"



[OFF]

To be continued.


Lieutenant JG Brayden White Ph.D.
(played by Lieutenant JG Kestra Orexil)
Counselor
USS Galileo

Ensign Andreus Kohl
Nurse
USS Galileo

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