Adjustment Period (Backpost)

Posted on Thu Mar 5th, 2026 @ 9:42am by Lieutenant JG Rala & Lieutenant Kally Kellerman & Ensign Henry Taylor

Mission: Lower Decks
Location: Sickbay
Timeline: The day after "Tennis Lessons" and "A Post Tennis Hot Tub"; a day or two before "The Next Arrival: Tial"

The Sickbay doors swished open and Rala walked in, spotting the brown-haired head nurse nearby. She lowered the hand she'd been rubbing her neck with. "Morning, Henry," Rala said. "How are you?"

Henry looked up from his PADD and gave the entrant a professional smile. "Hello, Rala," he said. "How can we be of service?

Rala winced slightly, more from embarrassment than physical pain. "I hurt myself a bit on the holodeck yesterday. Is Kally in?"

"She's getting Tessa set up with her assignments, but she'll be back in a moment," Henry said. "Would you like to lie down in the mean time?" he gestured to a biobed.

“Wouldn’t mind sitting, at least,” Rala said, stepping over to the indicated biobed and hopping up to take a seat on it, moving her tail a bit gingerly in the process. She looked back to Henry. “I wasn’t asking just to be polite, you know; I’m actually interested,” she said. “How are you?”

The question took Henry by surprise. It wasn't something he was used to being asked, and given he was staring down the barrel of losing the love of his life, he wasn't doing particularly well. Still, that wasn't something to be shared on shift, and not to be shared with a patient. For a brief instant, his composure cracked, and the sunken eyes, fatigue and despair showed. Then, the door to Kally's office opened and she and Tessa came out and, like a passing shadow, his expression went back to professional politeness, shielding Tessa from the pain of seeing him upset. He smiled again, smaller this time and nodded. "I'm fine, thanks. Doctor Kellerman can see you now." He turned and gestured for Kally to come over. He and Tessa shared a brief glance and a smile before he turned back to the patient.

Kally sent Tessa off to her practical lab in the holodeck, and came over to Rala with a grin. "Hey, Rala," she said. "What brings you by?"

Henry repressed a sigh, making a note of the unprofessional greeting.

Rala might have missed the shadow passing through Henry’s expression had she been paying less attention, but she caught it. She tilted her head slightly and frowned. She was about to say something when Kally and Tessa appeared and Henry put his ‘mask’ back on. She hid another wince, realizing she’d just poked a sore spot.

She let it pass, turning her attention to the doctor with a bit of a wry smirk. “Hey, Kally. I think I might have hurt myself a bit on the holodeck yesterday. It’s probably fine; but doing the smart, safe thing and coming by to get it looked at makes a wonderful excuse to visit a friend.”

"Well ask anyone and they'll tell you, I love a good excuse," Kally said, flipping open a tricorder. "What were you doing on the holodeck?"

“Taking Calypso up on her offer of tennis lessons,” Rala said; “got a little overzealous.” She gave Kally a description of the leap she’d made to return Calypso’s high lob, and her subsequent poor landing. “If only I’d managed to keep it in bounds,” she mused.

"It's always about the pain being worth the effort isn't it," Kally said, smirking. She'd taken a bruise to the butt from trying to play Cally as well, so she sympathized. "All right, lie on your stomach and let's see what we can do."

Rala obediently lay facedown on the biobed, folding her second pair of arms under her chest. She started to stretch her head and neck straight out, but a twinge in her neck led her to turn her head to the side instead, resting her cheek on her first pair of arms.

Kally closed her tricorder and nodded to Henry. "Dermal regenerator," she said. He placed it in her palm and she carefully manipulated Rala's tail, gently running the tool near the base with one hand and probing and massaging gently with the other, watching Rala's face. "When I would scrape a knee or bruise something, my father would say, 'pain is a great educator, Hasi, and clearly you've learned a lesson today,'" she said, her accent switching to his heavy German.

“That it is,” Rala agreed, before asking, “‘Hasi’?”

"It means 'little bunny'," Kally said, smiling. "And my sister is Prinzessin, his 'little princess.'" She handed the regenerator back to Henry who sterilized it and returned it to the instrument tray before making notes on his PADD. "How's that feel?" she said, manipulating Rala's tail gently.

Rala let out a small giggle at the nicknames. “I might have to remember those,” she said. She focused on her tail, in particular the area that had been bothering her, briefly tensing the muscles there. “Better,” she said, shifting slightly on the biobed to get a bit more comfortable, “but I think your hands might be helping more than that tool did; I’m beginning to see where your reputation for massages comes from.”

Kally glanced at Henry's frown and rolled her eyes. "Yes, well, glad I'm getting good word of mouth," she said. "And don't worry about remembering our nicknames, unless you plan on adopting us." She scanned Rala again, pausing by her neck and moving her hands gently up from Rala's shoulders, stretching the muscles gently. "Look down at the biobed," she said.

“Mmh...” Rala grunted, propping herself up slightly with her second pair of arms so she could actually turn her face down toward the biobed. She had to tuck her snout down toward her chest in order to be even slightly comfortable, and required her to somewhat tense the muscles in her neck—including the injured ones—to support the weight of her head.

She winced. “No, that’s not working,” she said, gesturing for Kally to stop for a moment.

Kally released her neck. "Find a position you find comfortable, but keeping your neck straight," she said.

Rala glanced around for a briefly, then turned around, putting her feet toward the head of the biobed and hanging her chin off the foot of the bed. “Better,” she said.

Kally shrugged. "If it works, it works," she said, resuming her careful ministrations. As she continued to adjust Rala's neck gently but firmly, she made note of the bone structure underneath, curious about giving Rala an x-ray. "All right," she said after a minute or two, "how's that?" She picked up her tricorder and scanned her again.

Rala had almost started purring again, but despite what she’d said to Calypso the prior afternoon, she stopped herself. It wasn’t that she minded anyone knowing she could purr, but for some reason she was reluctant to actually do so in public, around people she didn’t know that well.

That didn’t stop her from letting out a moan that would have been easy to misinterpret had they not been in plain view. “Do you have to stop?” she asked lazily. “That was divine.”

Kally smirked and gave Rala another minute of muscle adjustment, then patted her shoulder. "All right. Any longer and I have to charge you for the time. How do you feel?"

“Might be worth it,” Rala moaned, rubbing and rolling her neck gently as she sat up. “Better,” she said, giving Kally a grateful smile. “A lot better. Thanks.” Her smile gained a touch of amusement. “Don’t be surprised if I ask you for another massage at some point.”

"Well you may have to get on the waiting list," Kally quipped. "At this point I should just start a second practice on the side. Of course, then I'd have to tell Katie she'd have to wait in line--" she paused as Henry gave a loud throat clear, a not-so-subtle reminder that they were on shift.

Kally gave a slight eye roll and shook her head. "Well, either way, when you're in need of another adjustment, come find me."

Rala gave Henry an annoyed glare and almost told him to mind his own business, but stopped herself. “Before I go,” she said, sliding off the biobed and returning her attention to Kally, “care for another visit to the Tikkana tree program sometime soon? Maybe actually just relax this time? That, or we could load up the scans from the planet we stopped at a few days ago.”

"Oh, absolutely," Kally said. "I can always go for a swim. Once we're done with this next planetfall we absolutely should." She noticed Henry's twitch out of the side of her eye, but ignored it, not wanting him to make a scene.

“That works,” Rala said, giving Kally a quick side-hug without thinking, “or just call me up whenever; I haven’t been socializing enough, if I’m being honest.” She gave Henry a quick glance, trying to think of something to say to soothe any sore feelings, but nothing came to mind. “See you around Kally, Henry,” she said simply nodding to them both, and headed for the door.

"See you later," Kally said, waving. She made some notes on her padd and handed it to Henry, her expression softening. "Hang in there," she said.

Henry nodded and went to file the reports.