The Invitation

Posted on Tue Apr 18th, 2023 @ 9:51pm by Lieutenant Jennifer Bracco, M.D.
Edited on on Sun Apr 23rd, 2023 @ 8:28pm

Mission: On the Road Again
Location: Personal Quarters
Timeline: Mission Day 2 at 0735

[Personal Quarters]
[USS Sojourner]
[MD 2: 0735 Hours]

Sonic shower complete and uniform adorned, Jennifer looked at herself in her bedroom's floor length mirror and sighed. Somehow, when affixing her combadge to her clean uniform, she'd put the damned thing on upside down. With a gentle twist of her fingers, the silver Starfleet delta assumed its standard orientation. Nodding at her reflection, now ready for the day, the psychiatrist moved into the main living area of her quarters. As she'd co-opted the space to use as an office for seeing her patients, there wasn't a lot of room for luxuriating: not that she had time for such anyway. Her first appointment of the day was coming up in a bit but Jennifer had a little time to get a few tasks out of the way before the day began in earnest.

First, she replicated a strong tea brew, instructing the computer to materialize the cup complete with a tea bag and its thin little string. Subconsciously raising and dunking the bag in alternating movements, Jennifer moved to one of the two chintz armchairs that faced each other and took a seat, reaching for a PADD with her free hand while sipping tea with the other. Thumbing the device on, she looked at her schedule for the day and slowly shook her head. Not one name from the away team appeared anywhere on the schedule for the day. In fact, none of their names appeared at all in the next weeks of booked appointments. Clearly, they'd not taken advantage of her automated scheduling system upon coming back from their terrible experiences on Shaddam IVa.

Jennifer felt a wave of irritation wash over her. Why weren't people proactively booking out her services? As ship's Counselor, she was often the first -- and best -- resource when it came to talking through trauma and dealing with its fallout. She reminded herself, though, that not everyone looked forward to therapy and often convinced themselves they could "handle" things even when all signs pointed to the exact opposite. If the away team was going to talk about their experiences on Shaddam, it was clear to Jennifer that she was going to have to be proactive in getting those folks to make appointments and come in.

Reminding herself not to judge people for their hesitance about therapy, Jennifer immersed herself in "Doctor Bracco" mode and began composing a message on her PADD. The device beeped and chimed as she typed and, after a couple of minutes, the message looked ready to send. Jennifer had been about to hit the Send button when she noticed a typo, however, and went back and stabbed at the offending extra use of the word "the." But after that, it was perfect, she thought.

The message was short and simple: an invitation to work through any big emotions or concerns after the events on Shaddam IVa. Jennifer made it clear that she wasn't pressuring but that her office was available as a safe space to talk and process as needed. She included an applet extension in the message to access her therapy schedule and book an appointment as desired. Satisfied with what she'd composed, Jennifer sent the missive on and then looked at the chronometer on the small table between the armchairs. There were now 15 minutes until her first patient arrived -- plenty of time to finish her tea, which had already cooled to the perfect drinking temp.

Sitting back in the chair, Doctor Bracco began calling up notes from her last session with said patient. As she reviewed them, she formulated a guess as to why Ensign Demise had scheduled an emergency session. They did not do well with the threat of death and nothing said fear of that like a giant enemy warship taking pot shots at the Sojo. She made some notes of how to potentially approach that conversation -- assuming her guess was right -- and settled in to start her day.

=/\= A post by... =/\=

Doctor Jennifer Bracco
Acting Ship's Counselor
USS Sojourner