And now the loops are reminiscing, recurring dreams of minor chords

Posted on 27 Jul 2012 @ 7:32am by Commander Andreus Kohl & Verity Thorne
Edited on on 30 Jul 2012 @ 9:13am

2,483 words; about a 12 minute read

Mission: Episode 01 - Project Sienna
Location: USS Galileo - Deck 4, Sickbay
Timeline: MD 07 - 2144 hours

[ON]

A crewman from Engineering strode determinedly towards the doorway that would let her escape from the tedium of Sickbay, and return to her beloved engines. Nurse Andreus Kohl kept pace with her stride, while he gently waved the healing glow of a dermal regenerator over her burned forearm. As Kohl moved closer to the exit, he heard a humming float across Sickbay from somewhere behind him. In fact, he recognized that it was more than humming. There was a patient somewhere in Sickbay, and she was singing softly. Once Kohl was reasonably satisfied with the look of the engineer's arm, he let her get ahead of him and get out of Sickbay. Kohl turned towards the sound of the singing, and he saw a young Andorian crewman, who was sitting on a chair outside the Chief Medical Officer's office.

As Kohl approached the Andorian, he glanced over at the LCARS display near the door. "Has anyone seen to you?" Kohl asked her, as he came to stand beside her chair. "I don't think you've been tagged for triage."

The Andorian stopped singing long enough to reply, "I don't know." Kohl observed symptoms of shock and acute stress. Her eyes were scanning sickbay obsessively as her visual acuity was intensifying, and her antennae were twitching. She also looked ready to hit something or someone at any moment.

"Tell me where you feel pain," Kohl asked her. The Andorian didn't look at Kohl, she held her gaze on Sickbay as a whole.

Somewhat stridently, the Andorian said, "My leg." Her right leg trousers had been already been cut open, and it looked like another medic had healed her up just enough to stop the Andorian from bleeding out. Her leg was a bloody, pulpy mess, though. The field medic apparently hadn't had the time or resources to heal the leg enough for the Andorian to bear any weight on it.

Kohl raised his tricorder to the Andorian, and as he started the medical scanners, he asked, "What was that you were singing?"

"Challorn," she answered distantly.

"It was pretty," Kohl said, his voice thick with conviction. "When this is all over, when the red alert is done, there's something I think you'd like to meet."


Location: USS Galileo - Deck 4, Sickbay
Timeline: MD 07 - 1722 hours

Perched on a biobed, Andreus Kohl sat with his back in an upright posture, and his legs dangling over the side. Idly, his lower legs were pendulum-swinging, each leg moving at a different speed. Clad in a blue medical smock over his uniform, the nurse held his arms crossed over his abdomen, and his head was turned towards the biofunction monitor. The LCARS display had been re-purposed. Instead of bio-sensor findings, the Galileo's emergency procedures were spelled out in Federation Standard text. Kohl's eyes locked onto these words, studying his responsibilities in the procedures intently.

"Anyone here?" Verity Thorne popped his head around the door, looking before moving in properly. His dark hair wasn't quite as neat as it could have been, but his uniform was new. He gave a small smile to the nurse, sliding his hands into his pockets as he made his way to him. "I've come in for my routine medical. I don't have an appointment, I thought I could pop in on the off chance first?"

"The doctor is with an appointment, yes," Kohl said. He braced his hands against the biobed and pushed himself off from it. Kohl reset the biofunction monitor, and he came around the biobed to consider his patient-to-be. Thorne's steel blue eyes caught his attention first, and Kohl didn't even notice the messy hair when he was studying the fit of Thorne's uniform. "Fortunately for you," Kohl said, "I'm available."

"Perfect," Verity smiled at that, nodding quickly and offering his hand out to the man in a very human greeting, taking the chance to take the other man in too, to learn what he could from appearances. "Verity Thorne. My record should have been sent on."

Kohl clasped Verity's hand between both of his own and gave it a warm squeeze in his approximation of a Human handshake. "We've received the records for all of the new arrivals," Kohl said and he nodded at Verity's assertion. "I was on your shuttle from Starbase One-Five-Two, actually." Kohl frowned suddenly, but then he looked away to hide it from Verity. Kohl blinked a couple of times --trying to bring a neutral expression back to his face-- as he wondered if it might have been better to make a new first impression instead of rehashing the truly first one.

"Oh, sorry, I was asleep for pretty much the entire journey," Verity chuckled awkwardly at that, shaking his head. "I dropped off as soon as I sat back, it had been a long journey to the Starbase. I don't really remember anyone from the shuttle," he admitted with a sigh, rubbing the back of his neck.

"In that case, Verity Thorne, allow me to introduce myself properly," Kohl said. In an undertone, he remarked, "Instead of declaring myself as available," and then he cleared his throat. Kohl patted the biobed twice, and he nodded at Thorne, to indicate where his patient should sit himself. "Call me Andreus. I'm Ensign Kohl, Galileo's Nurse Practitioner. Tell me about how you've been feeling lately, physically speaking."

"Oh I'm not bad thanks, Andreus," Verity chuckled softly as he jumped up to sit on the bed. "Just your general annoyances," he assured lightly, meeting his eyes as he held his breath, shrugging. "I'm just getting used to the new ship too."

"Tell me more," Kohl said, as he activated the tricorder cradled in his palm, "about what general annoyances feel like for you."

"Aches, headaches, bouts of insomnia," Verity watched him curiously with a small smile. He'd always wondered at people who had gone into medicine. It couldn't be an easy job. And it had to be tiring as well. "Do you know if there are any social groups set up on the Galileo?" he suddenly asked.

Kohl turned off the sensors in the tricorder itself, and began collecting readings from the biobed sensors. Using the slim model of the medical tricorder, he took advantage of the larger display on the tricorder to access Verity's medical records and add a note about the aches and insomnia. "I haven't learned of any social groups yet," Kohl said, without looking up from the notes he was taking on the tricorder. With a pointedly lopsided smile, he added, "At least not any that were clamoring to have me as a member." Kohl looked up at his patient, and shifted towards a neutral facial expression. He squinted at Verity, and he asked, "Have you noticed any patterns to the insomnia?"

He shook his head lightly as he watched him with curiosity. "No. Just comes and goes. Although, it seems to be worse when I have a lot in my head. Natural, really. I don't see why social groups wouldn't want you involved, you strike me as a nice guy," he gave a half smile at that. "Professional, but nice. I'm thinking of starting some up. Probably musical to start with." He thought about it, tilting his head. "If I ran a number a week, then it wouldn't matter what duty shifts people were on," he said lightly, almost to himself. It was exactly the kind of thing that cluttered his mind on a daily and nightly basis. Work, how to get more going.

"I'm going to collect a blood sample," Kohl advised Verity, before he set down his tricorder and retrieved an empty hypospray from the cabinet set into the bulkhead. "When you say musical," Kohl said, "do you mean playing instruments? Singing? Dancing?"

"Maybe a group for each," he smiled lightly to him, his eyes shining as he watched him. "What do you enjoy doing, Andreus?"

Kohl gripped one of Verity's sleeves, and began to roll it up his arm. He looked up to glimpse Verity watching him, and then turned his attentions back to revealing Verity's left arm. "I like live music performances where the audience is encouraged to sing along. Singing's only worth doing if you can sing it loud," Kohl said in a stream-of-consciousness manner. "And I dance. I love to dance. I can't say I know any formal steps, mind. I let the music tell me how to move." As he spoke, he pressed the hypospray to Verity's arm, and pressed the appropriate hypospray toggle.

Verity grimaced slightly before letting out a long breath, glancing to him to give a half-smile despite the treatment. "I'll look into it. I'll definitely start a singing group of some kind, not sure what yet though," he nodded, as if in line with the thoughts rolling through his head in the following moments. "Has it been busy down here for you?"

"I'll need you to ask me that again later tonight..." Kohl said. He remained straight-faced as he spoke, but his timbre was a little bit cheeky. ""My tour of duty aboard Galileo started less than an hour ago." Kohl raised up the hypospray to confirm it collected an appropriate amount of blood, and then he set the hypospray aside on an antigrav instrument tray. Taking up his medical tricorder again, Kohl laid his gaze onto Verity. Kohl asked, "Have you spent any time on non-Starfleet spacecraft or non-Federation planets since your last physical examination?"

Verity took a deep breath as he thought on the question. There had been some travelling and dropping in. "All Federation," he assured after a couple of moments. "This time at least. I usually like travelling on the backwaters," he winked to him.

"What backwaters suit you best?" Kohl responded in kind.

"Anywhere off the beaten track," he admitted with a small, half smile to him, his eyes sparkling at that. "Be it the wilds of nature or a shady space station out in the deep. Variety is the spice of choice, as they say."

Kohl tapped his tricorder twice as he continued to study the display. He blinked a few times and then looked at Verity with a tilt of his head. "I... suppose... I haven't had many opportunities to choose a place to be. There was always family or school or Starfleet..." Kohl's eyes wandered, as his voice trailed off. He didn't know how he felt about that, or even how he should feel about it. And so he didn't even try. "Can you-- can you specify where you feel some of the aches you mentioned before?" Kohl asked.

"Mostly my back," he smiled gently to him, easily seeing the brief moment of thought, the way his mind had wandered. "There is plenty of time to travel. Many years ahead to see what's out there."

Offering a tight, sheepish smile, Kohl corrected him: "Plenty of time for Starfleet to tell me where else I'm going to travel." He shrugged helplessly at the notion, and put his tricorder aside once again. Gesturing to Verity's back, Kohl said, "I'm going to need you to take off your shirt."

Verity watched him with a small smile for a moment, amusement chasing though his eyes, and it was so clear how tempted he was to say something unprofessional in return. He somehow managed to keep it bitten back and just kept it to a smile. He pulled the top off, letting out a soft breath, stretching slightly with it. "You will have to forgive me. I am hardly the warrior that some of you Starfleet officers can be."

Kohl's gaze dragged languidly over every centimetre of Verity's exposed skin. Using only his eyes, he studied the shape of Verity's chest and arms, and he wasn't very subtle about it. "Not everyone finds warriors particularly attractive," Kohl said. He spoke in a deadpan, but his lips had curled into a wicked smirk. The nurse moved around to the other side of the biobed where he could study the small of Verity's back. Kohl narrowed his focus on the source of Verity's nebulous aches and pains. Starting at the neck, Kohl began tapping down the length of Verity's trapezius muscle using the pads of two fingertips. Mentally, he noted the consistency of the tissue as he did so.

Verity shivered from the touch, chuckling softly with a small smile. The movement in his body shifted the tattoo across his back slightly and he gripped the edge of the bed to try and hold still for him despite the tickling sensation. When the fingers moved down to his lower back though, he let out a tight breath, his body tensing slightly at the tenderness of the area. "That's where it aches. A symptom of getting old?" he laughed softly.

"I certainly wouldn't diagnose you as old," Kohl said, over Thorne's shoulder. Kohl picked up his tricorder from the biobed and added notes to Thorne's medical records. "Can you hold out your right hand in front of you, palm up?" Kohl asked.

"Interesting," he said lightly with a soft chuckle, glancing back to him before setting his arm out as told, watching curiously.

Rounding the biobed to face Verity, Kohl pressed his hand against the back of Verity's hand and he applied pressure. Kohl felt for the muscle resistance. As he did so, he said, "I can show you a few simple exercises you can perform in your quarters to assist with the back aches."

"That would be great," he admitted with a gentle nod, watching him with a small smile. "I do my best to get out and active, but, well, you know what work can get like yourself, I'm sure."

Kohl clasped Verity's hand for a few moments longer. "I wasn't calling you sedentary just then," Kohl remarked, only a bit apologetically. "Those exercises, they specifically target the lower back for reconditioning." Kohl smiled and he released Verity's arm. He lifted up his tricorder instead, and he started making the last of his notes to Verity's medical file. "Verity Thorne," Kohl said in playful formality, "please consider yourself fit for duty. You can put your shirt back on, but only if you want to."

Verity laughed softly, his eyes shining with it as he pulled the shirt back on. "I doubt my new interpretations of uniform regs would be appreciated," he teased as he stood, pulling himself to attention with the playful formality he had used. "Thanks for keeping me in good hands," he nodded formally despite the playfulness of the words as he headed on out, stretching even as he moved through the door. "I'll chase you soon, to get you singing!" he called back with a chuckle before ducking out.

[OFF]

Ensign Andreus Kohl
Nurse
USS Galileo

Crewman Verity Thorne
Chaplain
USS Galileo

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