The Silence

Posted on Sun Oct 1st, 2023 @ 5:56am by Petty Officer, 3rd Class Lottie Daglish & Staff Sergeant Nathanial "Nate" Cusack

Mission: Contagion
Location: Medical Bay
Timeline: Day 365
2751 words - 5.5 OF Standard Post Measure

Lottie span on her chair as she sat in the doctor's office on her first official night watch and glanced out into the empty sickbay that held only Nate Cusack doing who knows what. Night time was always strange on Atlantis – it was either busy with random injuries and ailments or it was silent like a ghost ship. That night was silent despite the occasional beep from the computer or her soft reports confirming hourly reports to the bridge.

The silence and stability were why the shift pattern was adjusting to allow her to run the sickbay overnight sometimes to see how it went. Slowly she rose from the chair and went out to see what Nate was up to.

The answer, of limited surprise to any who had sat sentry with him over the years, was trying to fix the wheel on one of the stools. As a soldier, Cusack had not been a man who found sitting idle particularly easy, which was a ridiculous contradiction to his specialisation. At range, embedded within a sniper's nest, he could wait with the immovable patience of granite itself. Remove the actual purpose from his isolation, however, and he became...inventive.

Currently, the seat was upside down and minus a wheel.

Lottie had to smile at the sight that greeted her with the chair upside down. She had heard scrapping around but she had been in her own thoughts and had not thought much of it but now it all made sense. "Are you winning?" She wondered moving from the doorway to hop up onto the bio bed next to him.

"I think victory would better resemble not letting things get quite so buggered up in the first place." Currently holding the rag he'd been using to clean out the barrel where the hydraulic mechanism sat between his teeth, Nate managed to sound almost comprehensible whilst, at the same time, appearing utterly ridiculous. "And this one's not even as squeaky as that infernal thing you've got over at the centrifuge." He jerked a thumb towards the space dedicated to pathology work.

"This broke 365 days ago and we just accepted it." She admitted. She had gotten used to the squeak, it was just part of the structure of the compartment now. "The centrifuge one is mostly likely due to my need to spin. I need some time for that sensation." She made a face as she thought about the.

"You can spin," Nate enunciated, allowing the rag to drop into his hand for a final polish before he wriggled the pieces back together. "You just need to remember to also apply some lubricant once in a while or you're going to erode the thread enough that it refuses to cooperate entirely." Jamming one of the wheels back into place, the marine lifted his gaze to meet the nurse's and bent forwards as if to peer of the top of a pair of invisible glasses. "If I'd known the job was this glamourous, I'd have retrained years ago."

The woman laughed. "I am sure to remember in the future. This is glamourous compared to somedays." She promised taking the seat from the bio bed and set it back upright and sat herself down pushing herself across the room on it. "Perfect."

Having climbed to his feet whilst wiping his fingers, Nate tossed the rag into the laundry basket and then stood, hands on his hips and face screwed into a bemused scowl, as he watched his primary training facilitator discard her sanity entirely. "You know," he pointed out as epiphany dawned, "those are the wrong chairs if you're aiming for speed and turning accuracy." A rare display of discretion saw him turn momentarily cagey before he failed to provide any context to his next claim. "You need the dollies they stash in the engineering lockers."

The woman looked down at the chair and laughed. He was right, to say the least, but she wondered if she should let him into the enlisted Olympics that they held once a quarter. "What makes you think I have not?" She wondered as she spun in the opposite direction and nudged into the first bio bed inside the door.

For a moment, Nate simply stood and considered his own experience with the subject matter. A drunken adventure through the ship's corridors that had culminated in passing out in a otherworldly escape pod was probably decent fodder for storytelling except for the fact that the events that had followed now resembled somewhat of a privacy issue, at least for the other person involved. It seemed to depend on the conversation whether or not Iryna was particularly keen for the rest of the crew to be too privy to their relationship, and a certain amount of self-preservation suggested that gossiping about it at work was probably going to earn him time on the couch.

He chose the safer option. It only just qualified.

"You're sloppy on your turns," he ventured, a bold claim punctuated by a pair of arms folded across his chest and a familiar smirk.

She could see the cogs working in his mind but for the life of her could not work out what it was over. Either he had seen the enlisted olympics or he was being a cocky shit again. “Bit judgemental their Staff Sergeant. You have only seen my moves tonight.” She said with a grin as she stood up and pushed the stool over to him. “Show how it is done then?” She laughed almost challenging him a little.

"With inferior equipment?" Nate's expression suggested an over-exaggerated appraisal of the nurse's sanity. "At the very least, we should secure something a little more robust." Whilst the rest of his face remained impassive, a deadpan that had taken years to perfect, his eyes glinted as he pointed out. "I think there's an engineering locker not too far up the corridor, right?"

“Go on then.” He might have been a higher rank but as a trainee and her being fully trained she was leader and what leader didn't take a moment to develop some rapport with her team. She knew that if there was any change in the silent status they would both instantly move into the correct mode and forget the fun and games.

Steepled fingers against his chest affected a silent yet incredulous who me? before Nate's normal swagger returned and he smirked on his way out the door. "If I don't return, assume that Engineering have a bounty on my head."

“I’d turn you in myself if they did. All that booze for one marine. Very good exchange.” She called after him with a laugh. It was certainly a change to being by herself but she was finding her company nice, his swagger did nothing for her as he very much was not her type but that was exactly what she thought he needed sometimes. It was all well and good using charm but sometimes you needed to work for something.

In his defense, ingratiating himself was never particularly high on Nate's agenda and he had entered this new career diversion somewhat opposed to the implied necessity of brushing up his bedside manner. It didn't make it any easier that he had to deal with Hughes, whose initial impression of the marine was flavoured by his capacity to solve social tension with his fists. The Andorian wasn't an easier prospect and so it had fallen to Daglish to provide the only semblance of camaraderie Cusack really felt inclined to engage with. Whatever it resembled, he most certainly was not flirting with the woman.

His sense of self-preservation was far too high for that.

It took a few minutes but, eventually, he returned with predictable precariousness, one foot balanced on the dolly as the other pushed it along like a makeshift skateboard. There wasn't really space in sickbay for his antics but Nate had never let sound logic get in the way of a terrible idea and he wasn't about to start. Beneath his arm, another dolly was tucked away, which only complicated his balance. "Heist successful, mon capitaine." With a wobble, he came to a stop and held out the second aparatus towards her. "Your steed."

The nurse had been checking reports but the ship seemed silent that night compared to others when he returned and she smiled. "Were you a skater boy in your youth?" She wondered quietly wondering how long it would be until a confused engineer would come looking for the dolly.

"Absolutely not," came the definitive response. "I grew up on the coast and any time spent at a skate park would have wasted opportunities to surf. We're a little short on decent waves though," Nate pointed out helpfully, as if it wasn't blatantly obvious. "Compromises have been made."

“Did you manage to do any of that on Babel or Relea?” She wondered thinking of the planets that they had been to the offered a small glimmer of a chance for something normal for them.

For a moment, Nate regarded the nurse as if she'd grown an extra head. "You think I should have surfed in the middle of a blizzard?" His overstated grimace gave a fairly decent summary of what he'd thought of the planet's weather. "What little I saw of the shoreline didn't motivate me much. Hypothermia's bad for your health, you know, they should have taught you that in space-nurse school."

“I went a little south and the water was free flowing. Shame.” Lottie said with a roll of her eyes at him. “Just jealous you went to grunt school and they did not even teach you to tie a bandage correctly.” She teased back enjoying the banter between them. It was far too easy.

"Too busy teaching me to avoid needing one," Nate quipped back before using one of the instrument tables to hold himself steady whilst he tried to step both feet up onto the dolly. The resulting wobble was minimal, though enough to threaten catastrophic amounts of disinfectant if he wasn't careful to avoid sending the whole tray to the ground. "Imagine the efficiency," he continued, pulling himself precariously between beds, "if they put us all in rollerblades."

“But I also imagine the workload we would experience.” The woman noted back as she moved between the next set of beds and balanced herself on her own dolly. “Let’s try not to injure ourselves though. I will have to explain to the doctor and Hughes.”

"The only sensible way to do this," Nate lied, "is to determine who can make a complete circuit of the entire area without setting foot on the floor." Already he was pulling himself along the length of the bed, as if to sneak a headstart to a race that didn't even exist if they were basing it on time taken. "Loser finishes sterilizing the bandages we started last shift."

“That seems like a sensible idea for sure.” She answered shaking her head at him to indicate she did not believe that it was the only way but she would humour him.

"Falling behind there, Daglish," came the immediate taunt, followed by a rather frantic waltz with a chair as it span him around unexpectedly and left him facing the wrong direction. Having already stipulated that placing a foot on the ground would force a reset, Nate settled for a very precarious wobble of his hips as an attempt to turn the dolly back around.

Lottie said nothing as she wiggled around the man struggling to turn back around. She smiled and nudged him just a little helping to turn him around in the process. She was not totally inhuman and determined to win despite how much fun it would be to watch him wiggle trying to turn around.

"I reject your charity," Nate declared dramatically, a protest very nearly brought to pass as a literal reaction once he over-corrected and fell forward somewhat onto one of the beds. An over-extension of his legs nearly sent the dolly flying backwards but he reined it back and took a moment to catch his breath. "Starting to think this place could do with some redesigning."

"Or you are just far too gangly for the place." Lottie declared as she moved further away from Nate and towards victory. "But I would love to see you suggest that to the Doctor." She laughed. "You alright?" She wondered turning to check on him as was normal for her.

"Just giving you a fighting chance." Through years of practice, Nate managed to restrict his mischief to a faint glint in his eyes as his otherwise-poker face gave no hint of his plotting. A sudden burst of energy, spurred by a swivel away from the bed to an intercept path, saw the marine propel himself across the distance in what might loosely have qualified as a shortcut.

"Of course." Lottie laughed as she watched him bump into her and she leaned out to grapple him and keep him from falling as well as herself. "Not sure this counts or does not count as cheating." She laughed.

"Tactical diversion," Nate retaliated, reaching his long arm towards one of the overhead shelving units. "Perfectly legitimate counterstrike, just wait 'til you see what I else I have stashed in my arsenal." Zig-zagging back and forth in front of her, he goaded with a grin, "Want to give up?"

“For now.” The woman jumped down from the dolly with a chuckle. “How are things with the other marines?” She wondered thoughtfully not having checked in on how things had been recently.

Not without a small amount of relief, which he tucked behind a subtle smirk, Nate took the opportunity to hoist himself up to sit on one of the counters and nudged his dolly in the nurse's direction. "That entirely depends on which marine you're talking about." He raised his eyebrows. "We've been systematically scattered throughout the crew, I think it's fair to say some of us are finding that an easier adjustment than others."

“My former marine? Your marine? Does it overly matter. Only leaves a small amount afterwards.” The woman commented as she started to clean up the mess that had been made.

"Not sure many of them would take kindly to me writing my name on their 'belongs to' label," Nate replied, shrewd enough to recognise the comment for what it was but contrary enough to refuse to play along. "For that matter, I'm not convinced I'd produce proof of purchase for any of them even if there was a decent trade in option." Still sat on his perch, he pulled one leg up to his chest and left his foot to balance on the edge of the bench. "You thinking of adopting?"

Lottie smiled as the statement he was making and shook her head. “No. I do think I could adopt a marine but… not going well hmm?” She wondered quietly cutting through his words.

"Being kind of vague there, Petty Officer." As was his particular talent, Nate's expression remained impassive whilst his eyes only hinted at his tenacity for being intentionally obstinate. "One could argue we're not going great given how few of us there are left."

Lottie smile and inclined her head. That was a given but she was not going to say that at all. “Vagueness is my best ability but I also want to check that my night shift buddy is okay as well as the people around him.”

Predictably, the concern smacked face-first into Cusack's defenses, which at least had the courtesy to resemble amusement rather than open hostility. He couldn't blame anyone for being worried about the state of his head, but if he was just grudgingly getting used to Iryna's gentle jabbing at his private thoughts then Daglish, as much as he found himself not disliking her company, had no chance. "I dunno, made a career alteration recently that some would say is proof of insanity." He winked at her.

“Oh completely but I am glad you are here Nate and you know you can come to me and if I can help I will.” She said giving one final poke at his defences before she backed off. “You know for how to please women or keep off The doctor's radar.” She teased just a little.

That earned her a smirk. "Glad to see someone around here still believes in the impossible."