First Meetings

Posted on Tue Aug 17th, 2021 @ 3:14am by Lieutenant Commander Emni t'Nai & Lieutenant Cassian Pell

Mission: The Place of Skulls
Location: Sickbay
Timeline: Mission Day 2 at 1800

Emni sat behind the desk of the small office space in Sickbay, a half eaten sandwich and a long cold cup of coffee on the surface in front of her. There had been a, blessed, lull in the stream of physicals she and Dr. Ryan Walsh had been performing that day and she had taken advantage of the break to hide in the office for a few minutes and some quickly replicated fuel.

The transition from the slow, languorous pace of Risa to the immediate and constant of the Sojourner, was taking it's toll and a light headache had sprung up behind her eyes. She eyed the coffee then, thinking better of it, returned to the replicator for a glass of water which she downed nearly as quickly as it materialized.

Lieutenant Lal stuck her head in the office as Emni returned to her seat. "Just two more appointments," she trill woman noted with a smile. Emni had learned the nurse's emotional signature fairly quickly. She appreciated the steady calm she presented, and smiled as she looked in before nodding.

"So you want both of us to stick around?" Lal continued, a note of uncertainty coloring her voice and mental landscape.

Standing to come around the desk, Emni offered the woman a tired smile. She had already sent Dr. Ryan Walsh back to his quarters to make sure he was rested for the next day. "No, you can both go. We've been all hands since far too early this morning and I can handle the last two."

The responding warmth that followed the Trill woman as she nodded, exiting the space to let Dogrov know, was reassuring. They may have only known each other for two duty rotations, but Emni liked the two nurses already.

Replicating another glass of water, she walked out into the larger examination area of Sickbay, waving to Lal and Dogrov as they left the space. Sighing, she let her mental guards down. So many new people meant a lot of emotional uncertainty and she was glad for the brief reprieve of close contact.

The moment was short lived, though, as a new and unfamiliar emotional signature came within range on its way down the corridor.

Patterns tended to cling to his synapses, mental barnacles in the ordered pathways of his brain, which meant that learning the ship's layout wasn't difficult. Then too, Cas was still wrapped, to a degree, in the peace that had permeated his required leave. Interesting, he thought, as he turned a corner and came into view of the ship's Sickbay, how he had had to be forced to go and yet, felt reluctant to return. He passed through the overwide entrance, built to accommodate patients, sometimes ambulatory and sometimes not, as well as medical personnel. He'd researched it once at the academy out of sheer curiosity. Why medical had larger doors than say, Security or the Labs. He entered and paused, feeling a gossamer touch slide across him. His dark eyes took in the room, searching for the source.

The doors to Sickbay parted with their telltale whoosh revealing the owner of the emotional signature Emni had picked up on. Like what she sensed before he entered the room, he was unfamiliar. Tall with black hair and eyes that gave away his ancestry. He entered the space and scanned the room and Emni felt the curiosity in his make up shift with his eyes.

"Lieutenant..." she tapped a stylus against the PADD she was holding, "... Pell?" she asked, stepping away from biobed 2 where she had been organizing a few last items. "I'm Dr. t'Nai," she said extending her hand.

"That's me," Cas said at once as he moved forward and extended his own hand, long fingers, naturally tanned, in a gesture he'd learned back at the Academy. Shaking hands was an ancient custom on Earth, one of many he'd learned in a first year class. "I was told to report for a physical though I've had one recently."

"I saw that," she noted, holding up the PADD where his medical record was pulled up. "This should be pretty quick then. Biobed 1, if you would? You can remove your jacket and shirt."

She turned, giving him a moment to undress privately and resetting the standard evaluations on her tricorder. "Once you're set if you could place your arms straight out from your sides. I'll apply pressure and you should stop me from moving them, " she explained, still facing the wall.

It took Cas a moment to understand what she was doing. As he undressed, he mulled the problem over but saw no answer. In the end, she'd see him without his clothes in any case. Is it the act itself, he wondered, that she finds distasteful? Curious. He set the jacket and top to one side and hopped up on the biobed as instructed. Though not a body builder by any means, years of hiking and swimming had graced him with a toned physique. He smiled as a sudden memory of Declan popped into his head. The Deltan's pursed lips as he circled him that night, taking measurements, while he assessed his 'project'. The whisper of his floor length robe across the floor and that tiny half smile as he pronounced him 'delightful."

"Ready," Cas said as he extended his arms.

Emni turned, tricorder in hand, and did two quick sweeps over him, front and back. A small beep of confirmation sounding from the device when the tests were done and recorded. She set the tricorder to the side and stepped up to him, placing one hand on each tricep and pressing downward, then repeating the motion from underneath. Satisfied with the results, she turned to tap a rapid shorthand into her PADD.

"And now straight above your head. Similar test, I'll try to push them apart. Don't let me," she explained. She wondered if she looked as tired as she felt, taking a bit more effort to run through the musculature and resistance tests than she would have liked. Maybe she should have finished her coffee after all.

Cas complied and as he held his arms up, he cocked his head to one side and looked at her. "Do they," he asked, "forget to resist?"

"The muscles or the patients?" Emni inquired, one long Vulcanoid eyebrow arching as she did. She slotted her hands between his arms placing pressure first on his biceps..

"The muscles don't, forget, no," she explained as she pressed, "but how well they do it can indicate a number of different things."

She moved her hands to his triceps, repeating the motion and, satisfied with the results, indicated he could drop his hands. "And you would be surprised how often the patients don't expect me to touch them."

She turned, tapping rapidly on the PADD she had been recording from before selecting the rod she used to test reflexes.

"I'll tap your knees with this next." She moved back to the biobed, completely the test with two brief light taps.

"There is a lot you can learn about a patient's health by watching their musculature," she commented.

If she was going to try to place the feel of his emotional signature she would have described it as quizzical--his curiosity front and center.

"If you could stand and walk to there," she pointed to a spot on the far wall, "and back please."

If he had known her better, if he had known any of them better, he would have sashayed the entire way just for the humor of it. But he didn't and she seemed to be all-business. Some were like that. Still it was interesting, wasn't it. Patients not expecting their physician to touch them. He walked to the far wall and then, because he couldn't really resist, did a turn worthy of a runway model and walked back. He stopped in front of her, hands on hips, and said, "what next?"

Emni couldn't help the laugh that bubbled up as the Betazoid struck a pose in front of her. "You know you're the second person today to choose a less than standard maneuver to make that turn," she remarked, thinking of Lieutenant Blackstone's earlier pirouette. "Perhaps I'll start requiring some sort of creative maneuver for future physicals."

She offered the man a warm smile. She may not have known him well, but his emotional signature was growing on her. "You can put your shirt and jacket back on, then we're on to a hearing test."

"There was this man, Edwin Land," Cas said as he dressed, "who said that 'creativity is the sudden cessation of stupidity. If that's true, then its probably good to test for, no?" Dressed again, he leaned against the edge of the biobed. "So, hearing test, huh? I have a friend who swears I suffer from selective hearing loss. Personally, I have no idea what he's talking about."

She was chuckling again, despite the exhaustion from the day. Not an insignificant feat on the part of Lieutenant Pell. Picking up the headset she proffered it to Pell, explaining the steps to complete the test using a hand raise to indicate a tone heard and on which side. Once he had settled the headset over his ears she began the test.

He complied. Wasn't the first hearing test he'd had and once she'd finished, released the question that had been banging against the inside of his skull trying to get out. "So, do people ever, you know, invent sounds? Respond to sounds they think they hear but actually don't?"

Emni considered the question as she returned the headphones to their home. "They do," she replied slowly, "Although typically not deliberately. People don't aim to fail a hearing test."

"One of the technicians on my old ship," Cas said, his hands slipping into his pockets, "said his son failed every test on purpose. Something about not liking to perform. This was back when he was, maybe, four?" He paused, parsing back over what he had said. "Son not the father. Anyway, there was this famous parent-teacher conference, where they started comparing behavior at school and at home? They worked it out after that. The point being that there's at least one being out there in the universe who actually did." He smiled cheerfully. "What's next?"

Shaking her head in amusement, Emni smirked. "Ok, so at least one person has attempted, but typically officers do not try to fail their hearing tests. Different ramifications. But fair point. I did make that a rather black or white statement."

She tapped the PADD then a series of holographic letters and numbers appearing in the space in front of Pell. "Last one," she noted, "If you could read from the top down until you can't easily read the lines anymore."

Cas read the letters, going as far as he could, though toward the end, he thought it highly unlikely that anyone would need to be able to see something quite that small. He imagined minute warning signs on a Klingon training base and resisted the urge to laugh.

Lieutenant Pell's amusement bubbled up into the emotional makeup that had been present throughout the physical and Emni found herself smiling with it. Perhaps it was simply because she was tired, but she was finding it hard to avoid the impact of Pell's emotional state on her own.

"That'll do it," she remarked to Pell as he completed the test. "Anything you'd like me to note on your file or anything you'd like to discuss? Otherwise you're good to go."

"Nothing I can think of," Cas said. "It's been a pleasure meeting you, Doctor."

Emni nodded, "Likewise, Lieutenant. I'm sure I will see you around the ship."

As she spoke the doors announced the arrival of her last patient for the night with their telltale whoosh. "Biobed 2, if you would," Emni noted to the newcomer, "I'll be right with you."

Cas nodded and headed out, his mind already on the next thing he had to do because there was always a list. As the Chief, he had final responsibility for everything that went on which meant that he needed to know what was going on. This he did through a combination of reports, conversations, and impromptu visits. Or at least that's how he had done things on his former ship; being new to the ship, he had yet to establish a routine. Less new now, he amended. So, what's next? Unpacking, I think. Can't put that off much longer.

=/\= A mission post by =/\=

Lieutenant Emni t'Nai
Chief Medical Officer

Lieutenant Cassian Pell
Chief Science Officer