Don't Worry, My Fingers Are Meant To Be Green

Posted on 04 Aug 2013 @ 8:29pm by Ensign Natalie Chevalier & Commander Andreus Kohl

955 words; about a 5 minute read

Mission: Episode 03 - Frontier
Location: USS Galileo - Deck 4, Sickbay
Timeline: MD 12 - 0900 hours

[ON]

Nat walked along the corridor of Deck 4 sucking her thumb: she wasn't in the process of infantile regression, but rather staunching the throb of a sharp thorn prick she'd managed to pick up in the arboretum. Painful as it was, it had been a poetic reminder that she hadn't got around to her medical evaluation the previous day, and she knew herself too well: if she didn't see to it now, it'd inevitably get lost in the shuffle of the departmental changeover. So instead of replicating herself some salve, she headed to Sickbay to take care of it.

Arriving at Sickbay, she looked vaguely around for someone to speak to. But thirty seconds passed, more than exhausting her patience, and she began rooting around through an equipment tray, searching for a dermal regenerator.

Approaching quietly, Andreus Kohl came to lurk behind Nat. The relatively tall Argelian folded his hands behind his back and tilted his head to the right inquisitively. "Can I help you find something?" he asked.

Nat wheeled sharply, surprised by his approach, and with the predictable result of spraying a clatter of instruments across the floor. "Oops," she said, then trying again with, "Oh, merde," before finally remembering to add: "Ah, Lieutenant, hello."

She sized him up with up and hastily scrubbed her bird's nest of hair into some semblance of order. "I'm Ensign Chevalier, from Planetary Sciences: I was told to report here for my medical evaluation yesterday, but I sort of got tied up with some other stuff."

The throb of her thumb reminded her. "Oh! And I pricked myself on a thorn bush. Occupational hazard, but I thought, maybe if I could find a dermal regenerator, I could save you the bother and fix it up for myself." She gestured to the instruments she'd dropped on the floor. "I guess that plan didn't really work out."

Kohl looked at the floor and then he looked at Nat. There was a hint of curiosity behind his sapphire eyes, but he made no attempt to clean up the mess or tend to Natalie's wound. He spoke wryly, when he said, "No, I suppose you created more bother by tossing my tools all over the deck." --He pointed at the scattered objects, and only then did he crouch down to collect them-- "But then, if I had no bother, they could replace me with a hologram. ...Oh, wait."

Nat grinned in mild embarrassment, joining him on the floor and gathering up the rest, which she stuffed haphazardly back onto the tray; she kept a hold of what she was fairly certain was the dermal regenerator. "Holograms, huh? I'm glad there's not an Emergency Ecological Hologram: I don't want to think what the arboretum would look like with ugly holoemitters drilled in everywhere."

There was a teasing flippancy in his timbre, when Kohl said, "You can't appreciate the aesthetic of a well-designed tool?" Kohl waved a hand at the dermal regenerator in her grip with some small flourish.

Nat flipped it over and examined it, then passed it to him, shrugging. "I'm sure it's a very nice bit of equipment, but I've never found any piece of machinery so well designed that it could rival the awesome complexity of nature." Aware that she was starting to sound a little severe, she added a more light hearted touch: "So, are you going to use your fancy tools to fix my finger? Or do I have to go rub in some Terellian gloveroot?"

As soon as Kohl caught the small device in one hand, he thumbed the toggle on its side. At the device's nose, the blue glow of the regenerative field flickered on. Kohl brought the device closer to Nat, but then he pulled it back. "Only if you want me to," Kohl said, as if he were hurt by her ultimatum. "As long as you're breathing and your blood's on the inside, you can take your pick of medical treatment alternatives..."

Nat chuckled. "I was only teasing, Lieutenant. I'm sure you're more than capable." She held out her hand for him to examine, thumb pointing upwards: an old Terran gesture of approval, she vaguely remembered from Principles of Xenoanthropology 101. "I didn't actually catch your name, before?"

When Nat encouraged Kohl to treat her thumb, he muttered, "If you insist...", to himself more than her. He held the dermal regenerator close enough to her thumb to allow the healing radiation to wash over the cut. Any bacteria in the wound was killed instantly, and the flesh knit itself closed moments later. He watched the wound erase itself completely, and then he flicked off the tool.

"Andreus," he said. "You can call me Andreus. I'm the Chief Medical Officer of our tough little ship."

Nat flexed her thumb and examined it closely: it didn't even look as though the fingerprint had been altered. Technology, she had to admit, had its moments. "Andreus," she mused, not yet looking up; when she did, she grinned. "Thank you for fixing me, Andreus. My friends call me Nat: I hope you will too."

She gestured to the biobed. "That was the fun part. Now the boring bit." The physical evaluation was a chore, but a necessary one. She sighed. "Shall we?"

Kohl swept a dramatic hand towards the biobed as well. "If you'll have a seat," Kohl replied in agreement, "I'll perform a series of seemingly unnecessary procedures to make certain there have been no changes to your health status since your last assignment." He smiled at her then, really smiled. "Pure joy."


[OFF]

Lieutenant Andreus Kohl
Chief Medical Officer
USS Galileo

Ensign Natalie Chevalier
Ecologist
USS Galileo

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