Check up

Posted on Mon Aug 1st, 2022 @ 11:56am by Lieutenant Avira zh'Kenarh M.D. & Chief Petty Officer Manishie Karalo & Ensign Isaac 'Zac' Hughes

Mission: Mission 6 - Memory
Location: Sickbay, Deck E
Timeline: MD301 - 1100 hours
2464 words - 4.9 OF Standard Post Measure

"We're taking good care of them." Avira understood why the other doctor wanted to check up on his own patients but couldn't help but feel as if she was the one being checked up on. They had checked the others and found they were stable, it was just this woman in front of them that needed some extra attention at this time. She seemed to be less affected and was probably in a state where they should consider waking her up.

Of the assortment of emotions Isaac possibly could have chosen from, he'd settled on weary resignation as they'd stepped away from the final of the three critical cases. Their conditions hadn't deteriorated, at least, and he couldn't argue that they were likely more stable here than they would have been had they still been stuck on the escape pod, but he was hardly going to feel satisfied until they were awake and thriving. The sense of responsibility sat heavy upon his shoulders and there was only partial respite on the horizon once they recovered. Having to break to them the news of their current situation was not something he anticipated enjoying.

It was a burden far more palpable with this one. Zac frowned down at the familiar features, a hand resting on her elbow just as he had back in the pod. Gentle contact, a quiet voice, just enough to keep her responsive. "She was conscious when we boarded," he said softly. "Just. I sedated her and then kept her under when I saw her levels." He glanced at the recently updated scan report. "Looks like they've nearly normalised."

"How do we proceed, in your professional opinion?" Avira didn't really want to test the man, but there was a certain curiosity to the differences there might be between the way they conducted medicine. How close were their universes, where there perhaps techniques and medicine they hadn't thought of. A quiet voice in the back of her head whispered something in regards to her own predicament, the chances of this individual knowing something that might help her were infinitesimally small.

"Her vitals are steady," Hughes noted, too focused of immediate concerns to consider the potential for variance in professional practise. Having made a conscious decision, or a calculated risk at least, to work alongside the current theories regarding the twists of fate that had brought him to this point, a stranger in his own Sickbay, Isaac's fresh priority was simply to render whatever aid he could. Feeling useful had always been his fall-back position. "If we're going to wake her, though, perhaps it ought to be me." He glanced at the Andorian. "To keep her from panicking."

Avira nodded a bit, it made sense, from what she was told, in their universe she hadn't come on board the Atlantis and it would be super stressful for someone to be sedated and then wake up with an alien face hovering over them. "Alright, I'll give you some room." She wasn't going to leave them alone however if there was something that they were hiding from them chances were that someone coming out of sedation wouldn't be completely up to date with their plan and they might spill the beans somehow. She positioned herself out of line of sight from the woman and stood in a corner, antennae perked, arms crossed.

Had he known her suspicion, Zac likely wouldn't have faulted the doctor for it. If anything, it might have made him feel ironically more at ease because, thus far, there had been an odd sort of lackadaisical acceptance from some of Avira's colleagues that just didn't sit right. And here he was, with no other choice than to try to force-feed the explanation to one of his own. He stood for a moment, contemplating Karalo's peaceful features, and for a moment envied her. The sweet bliss of ignorance.

He couldn't shield her forever.

Hughes moved confidently, stopping only once briefly to reorient himself with the way Avira laid out her instruments. Reversal of the anaesthetic wouldn't result in immediate consciousness but the stimulant protocol would at least hopefully stabilise her vision and hearing prior to her waking, enough that she wouldn't emerge in a flurry of blurred shapes and distorted noise. With the dose administered, Zac hooked a stool with his foot and dragged it over, perching himself on it to watch and wait.

The soft cloth of the huge double bed enveloped Manishie, she was looking out over the bay area. A lazy sunrise had woken her, though it was difficult to remember how she got there, or who she was with. That hadn't happened to her before. She wanted to look around for clothes and make herself decent, but she felt the cover tighten around her. The soft bed turned colder and there was a darkness that crept in from the edge of her vision. She panicked as she seemed to be sucked into the bed and land roughly on a rigid slab. Her body immediately aching from the impact. She moaned and wondered when she had closed her eyes, slowly trying to open them. The warm sunrise had been replaced by cold overhead medical bay lights. The realisation came to her that she was on the Atlantis. She had been injured, somehow. Her leg spasmed, then Hughes came into sight, sitting next to her on a stool. "Doctor? What happened?"

In his unhurried, methodical way, Hughes glanced at her vitals, alternating his attention between them and Karalo's face as he watched all observable indicators of her return to alert comprehension. "Hey, welcome back. You're safe," he reassured her, biting back any hesitation he might have had in being able to guarantee that entirely. "Give yourself a moment first and then tell me what you remember." Launching into an explanation when he couldn't account for lapses in her recollection would only serve to disorientate the woman more.

Manishie looked around, there was something off about the medical bay, she couldn't quite put her finger on it. "I. uhm." She tried to think back, "There was an emergency." There was a familiar throbbing headache that took over as soon as she tried to recollect exactly what had happened. "We were trying to figure out how some of the deaths occurred when there was a call to evacuate." She looked at him in confusion. "Not too sure what happened after."

Zac nodded gently. "You were confused and disoriented," he prodded gently in an attempt to jostle her memory a little. "Commander Jamesson found you and brought you to the escape pod. You said your head felt like it was going to explode and I gave you a sedative to let you sleep."

"Yeah. About that. A painkiller would be nice." Manishie tried to push herself upright but immediately felt the world around her swirl. "I take it the threat has been contained?"

Hughes glanced across at Avira, battling a wave of weary defeat that he wasn't authorised to administer even pain relief. "Our situation has become a little more complicated," he explained, allowing his gaze to drop again to meet Karalo's. "And, honestly, it's something we're still trying to figure out. You aren't in immediate danger though, I need you to focus on regaining some strength first."

Drawing in a breath, Zac straightened and then released it as a gentle huff of resignation. "Manishie, this is Doctor..." He hesitated, unable to recall the correct pronunciation of the woman's name. Trying another tact, Isaac continued, "We're on...another ship. This is her sickbay." Every syllable was a punch to the gut.

"You can call me Doctor Avira." The Andorian stepped into the field of vision.

Manishie turned her head in the direction of the sound and saw an Andorian step up. "What? Were we rescued by Andorians? All the way out here?" She looked around the bay again, it was clearly an Earth Starfleet vessel.

"Andorian, singular." Avira remarked, that it was odd to see the woman that she had been developing a friendship with not recognise her in the slightest. She wasn't sure how Hughes wanted to approach this. "You are on the Atlantis, it's just not the one you might remember."

"It's a convoluted theory at the moment," Zac added gently, aware that this theory was already more or less accepted by those with the command clearance to declare it true. "But it does look as though we're aboard an alternate version of the Atlantis. Avira is their Chief Medical Officer. Are you okay with her checking you over?" The faint furrow of his brow failed to hide the doctor's concern, his expression an odd conglomeration of compassion and apology. He didn't have the clearance to do his job. He didn't have the clearance to give her the pain relief she needed. Manishie was his friend; suddenly Zac's impotence stung with fresh frustration.

Manishie looked over at the Andorian, "Can't you do it, Zee?" She looked back at Zac. It's not that she didn't trust the friendly-looking Andorian doctor, but the last Andorian she had met with was hell-bent on killing one of her Vulcan crewmates. "No offence."

Avira her antennae curled slightly, contemplating the request. "I don't see a problem with that. He's more familiar with your medical history anyway." She motioned for Isaac to take the lead in this. "In the meanwhile, I'll prepare something for the pain."

Manishie's narrow stare at the doctor relaxed slightly and with a faint smile she looked over at Zac. "Please don't take any pictures, I feel like I might be having a bad hair day." She ran a hand through her messy hair.

For the first time since stepping off the escape pod, and arguably quite a while before that even, Isaac smiled with enough warmth to reach his eyes. "Doubtful," he said kindly, offering her an arm-up to a sitting position. Watching intently, Hughes stood in front to place a steadying hand on either shoulder. "How's the head holding up?"

Manishie shook her head a bit. "Not sure, it feels almost as messy as the hair." She closed her eyes for a moment trying to remember something. "Last thing I remember is beating you at a game of Fussball." She opened her eyes again, looking at Hughes and giving a devious grin.

This time, the slow spread of a crooked grin culminated in a relenting chuckle as Isaac shook his head. "That could be any memory from the past six months," he pointed out, using the opportunity to place a gentle hand on her head and press his thumb just beneath an eye to peer intently at her pupil. "The memory fog does clear slowly over time," he added, switching to the other eye. "Though I've not figured everything out myself yet." He pulled his focus back so that he was looking at her rather than at her and allowed his hand to settle a moment longer before dropping it away. "I don't know how much we're going to get back though, 'Nish. So far, it's just the immediate short-term stuff that seems most affected."

"Does it explain the headache or was I hit over the head with a blunt object?" Manishie ran her fingers through her hair to check her scalp for bumps. "Did. Ehm. Did we figure out who it was that killed Samantha?" She remembered the weirdest crime scene she'd ever investigated, but only in a flash. None of the pertinent details seemed to have stuck.

"Yeah, we did." And there had been so many more, though it seemed as if Manishie's memory only extended to the first of their unexplained deaths. Isaac hesitated, eyes flitting over to see how close Avira was to prepping the pain relief, and was instantly hit with a pang of regret that there was nothing he could give his friend to soften the psychological blow of their current situation.

"There's a lot to take in about what's happened. We're not...where we were anymore. Jamesson, you, me, and the three others we transported from Sickbay into the pod just before he brought you in..." Zac's sad eyes found hers. "That's all. We're the only ones that made it, at least...we're the only ones who made it here."

It was like a boulder crashed into her chest. Manishie simply shook her head, "No." Silence. "This is one of your worst jokes yet, Zee." A hopeful stare at the doctor and her friend. The headache started to pound as her heartrate jumped well into the triple digits. "Not. No." Water welled up in her eyes, she looked over at the strange Andorian who seemed to be hovering with the painkillers, "Tell me this is some sort of sick joke."

Avira felt one of her antennae twitch involuntarily. "I'm afraid not. We have not been able to detect any additional survivors." She stepped forward with the analgesic. "You may feel a bit of a sting."

As the realisation sank in that this wasn't some sort of misplaced prank Manishie slid down on the bed, took in a deep breath, and with all the force she could muster exclaimed; "FUCK!"

It summed up the situation nicely. Isaac realised, as he watched his friend succumb to the instant grief of an entire existence snuffed out, that he hadn't processed the loss adequately enough himself to properly anticipate her pain.

At first, there had been lives at stake, and then had come the temptation of mistrust and doubt because it had been almost preferable to believe that he was drooling over himself in a corner, spaced out and hallucinating, than this. Jamesson had seemed too much in shock to process what they'd lost, and Zac understood that as not only as a sense of professional inadequacy but a deeply personal anguish. Ben had known what he'd lost when he stepped inside the escape pod; Isaac supposed being jettisoned into an entirely different universe might almost have been a relief for the guy.

Manishie, as always, had a far more palpable sense of the scope of what they were dealing with. Zac's admiration of the woman would normally have evoked a crooked smile, and a resigned acceptance of her accuracy, except that this time, there was no reward for being right. Gone. All of it. The magnitude of it was staggering, not impacted in the slightest by the fact they'd already had to adjust once to the sensation of displacement. The scalding bile of his own loss rose to burn the back of his throat before Zac pushed it aside and focused instead on slipping a hand into his friend's. He gave it a squeeze.

"I'm so sorry, 'Nish."

 

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