The Doctor Is In

Posted on Wed Oct 20th, 2021 @ 4:47am by Lieutenant JG Faith Vianelli & Lieutenant Syrial J'naii

Mission: The Boneyard Heist
Location: Sickbay

Syrial had a plan.

If the doctor did the exams of their own medical department before meeting them, they could kill two birds with one stone - whatever that human idiom meant. Truly, it was the only solution. Organization was not Syrial's strong point. Trying to find a time to fit in an exam during the earliest day's a ship's new crew... not a fun experience. And trying to find two open time slots, one to say hi and one to actually examine them; twice the effort! But if Syrial started doing crew member exams before getting to know their staff they seemed callous or rude. That was definitely not the right impression to give off. So some time in the last few ship assignments, Syrial had come up with the perfect strategy; just do all the medical team exams first.

Which is why one of their counselors, Faith Vianelli, was one of the first on the list.

Faith had received the summons to medical and accepted it with good grace. She knew it was standard practice to have medicals completed at the start of any new deployment, even more so in her situation, given she hadn't actually been in active service before. She also noted that she had been assigned the Chief Medical Officer for her physical. Slightly unusual, though not by any means unheard of. She was hoping though that the medical chief might be able to fill her in on when the Chief Counselor might be expected to arrive. With departure looming, Faith wanted to make sure everything she needed to continue her academy studies was squared away before it was too late.

The advantage of being already within the medical department meant that even leaving at the last moment, the few steps from her small office to medical proper meant she wouldn't be late, though she was surprised to see who she assumed to be the doctor waiting for her as she arrived. "Lieutenant J'naii?" Faith asked, wanting to confirm that she was at least talking to the right person instead of just assuming. "I'm Faith Vianelli, I believe I have an appointment?"

"Yes," Syrial looked over at the human. Then a smile spread across their face. "Faith Vianelli. Just call me Syrial, please," they stood up to walk over towards the younger officer. "Lovely to meet you. Yes. You're right in time for your appointment." Syrial had not actually checked the time, but this was a convenient time for them so whatever the actual time was did not quite matter. "Please," the doctor turned around to pull up the woman's information on a computer console. "Go take a seat over on that bed there."

Faith pulled herself up on the edge of the bed and watched as Syrial moved around the room preparing for the exam. "I assume my medical files came through from the Academy?" she asked curiously. "I didn't have a medical before I left, there wasn't really enough time."

"Ah yes. There are some files here from your time at the Academy." The doctor smiled at her. "We need to get something more up to date, though." They pulled a scanner from their desk and walked over towards the woman. "How are you feeling? Are you on any medications or anything I should know about?" Then they chuckled. "I'm excited to be working with you. Oh, I do love meeting new people."

Faith smiled uncertainly. "I'm not sure how much we'll be working together. I'm still not qualified and the Chief Counselor apparently didn't report for duty, so without someone to oversee my studies and practice I'm not allowed near patients." She sighed softly. "Chances are, unless another Chief can be found soon I'll likely be shipped back to the Academy..." she paused and shook her head. "Sorry, anyway, no, nothing medical to be concerned about. I haven't really had a medical checkup since after all the postpartum stuff with Briella was done, that was probably a good year or so ago now."

"I'm sure everything will work out," Syrial responded with a confident shrug. The confidence was honest, all right; though for Syrial "working out" would also include her having to go back to Academy. Surely she'd some good experience, at least, in the short time she was here. The doctor smiled. "I guess we'll be seeing each other again at some point; we've got to do a check up for Briella as well. I believe I saw her name in the roster? I do love working with kids. I almost decided to be a pediatrician; went into alien medicine instead. Figured Starfleet would have more use for me there, instead of only having experience with specifically J'naii children." The doctor chuckled, starting the scans. "So instead my husband gets to have all the fun. He teaches... hmm... what would be the human equivalent of it? Second grade. Yeah. Pretty sure it's second. How old is Briella, again?" They asked. They thought they had seen it on the medical records, but even if they could easily look it up, this seemed like a better way to start a conversation.

"She's two and a half," Faith replied quietly. "She's amazing..." a smile passed her lips. "She's due for some vaccinations soon, so no doubt you'll meet her sooner rather than later."

Syrial smiled at that comment. "I'm looking forward to it." The continued the scans. They did have to wonder if the child would behave for her vaccines. Human children especially often didn't want to sit still for exams. Or was the child human? Syrial had to look at the records. She probably was, but unlike the J'naii the humans seemed biologically compatible with quite a few species. Who knew what the child's father was? That was the sort of thing that most people got offended when you asked about. "She must have a fun life, growing up on a starship. I grew up on a ship too; only it was much smaller than this one." They were almost done with their scans.

"Actually this is her first time on a starship," Faith replied with a smile. "She is rather familiar with Starfleet Academy though, especially the medical facilities. Her favourite part was the mess hall, the staff there loved her and always gave her icecream while I studied."

"Well I sincerely hope she loves it on a ship. I wonder how long it will be before she convinces our mess hall to give her ice cream. Has she figured out how to use the replicators yet?" Syrial asked with a chuckle. "My husband's friends would always bring their kids over to our house; now J'naii don't use the replicators as much as most the Federation species do, but we still had one in our kitchen. We learned very quickly that we had to keep the child lock on it whenever they visited." Syrial spoke like somebody who loved talking, stepping away to input the result of the scans into the computer.

"Oh, I had to child lock the replicator when she was about 18 months old. She's surprisingly precocious, certain words she learned very quickly. Finding a dozen empty bowls of jello and a toddler with a tummy ache is not a good sight to come home to," Faith laughed softly. "But she has this way of wrapping people around her little finger, so I have no doubt she'll have full run of this ship in no time."

Syrial chuckled. "Jello" had been - and remained one of - the weirdest human food they encountered since moving to Earth. That child had good taste. "Well, now I am even more excited to meet her." The J'naii smiled. "Your scans look good, by the way. I guess you're cleared for duty, on the medical side of things."

"I guess that's that then," Faith said with a smile. "Thank you, Doctor...." the counselor paused for a moment. "I look forward to working with you."

The J'naii smiled at that comment. "And I look forward to working with you."

Sliding off the bio bed, Faith headed for the door, to head back to her quarters to do a whole lot more of nothing. That, so it seemed, was the status quo, at least for the moment.