One of Those Days
One of Those Days
Summary: Rhea finally pays Snatch a visit and they talk personal apocalypses, as the day lulls by in Sickbay.
Date: 25 ACH
Related Logs: Can't Stop Falling
Players:
Snatch..Rhea..Alister..Thad..Zaharis..Eve..

-=============================================================================-
Sickbay Genesis - Deck 13

25 ACH 6735 Souls


The medical facility is large enough to hold a few dozen beds. Each bed is set with a curtain for privacy, a chair near the bed and any monitoring or medical aids needed. A nurses desk sits at the front near the hatch and a surgery area, Medical Officers area and supplies are on the far wall behind the desk. Nurses, doctors and medics man this area at any time day or night. Visiting hours are usually kept to the day and evening schedules, unless stated otherwise by medical staff.

----< Condition Three - Duty Area >----—-
Contents: Rhea Thad Medical Charts Memorial Board Wireless 1492

Exits: [CMO] CMOs Office [O] Corridor
[PO] Psychiatry Office [RW] Recovery Ward

Special: +lhelp - Local Help Available
-=============================================================================-

It's one of those days. Thad is off near the nurses station, going through some files and making small notes here and there. Mostly just generic bookkeeping that has to be done now and then to confirm that things have been wrapped up and stuff gets put away properly. From his posture it's almost busywork and certainly not something that's of driving importance.

Rhea enters Sickbay with a purposeful air about her. Not that that's particularly unusual. The ChEng isn't given to idleness. She marches up to the nurses' station, eyes skimming over the roster of patients. A nod is offered to Thad. "Doctor Roubanis. How goes the day?"

Zaharis comes in from Chief Medical Officers Office.
Zaharis has arrived.

Eve comes in from Psychiatry Office.
Eve has arrived.

Thad 's head lifts and he straightens from his work at the files. "Sir. It's going well. Something bothering you?" he asks then, assuming the reason to be in sickbay when not a doctor is, of course, the obvious one.

Zaharis pulls the door of his office shut as he heads out into Sickbay proper. He gives the duty roster a once-over, noting a thing or two to address, before heading for nurse's station to pick up his list for rounds.

Rhea is not bleeding or vomiting or anything of that nature. She smirks at Thad. "I'm sound of wind and limb as far as I know, Doctor. I'm just here for a visit. One of my snipes if laid up in your recovery ward. Just want to look in on her." Rhea's recently marched in and is at the nurse's station, talking with Thad.

Eve emerges from her office, snicking the light off as she goes. A chart is hung on a hook just outside her door, before she takes a moment to drag a hand down her face. Seems her day is over, just as others is beginning.

Thad nods his head to Rhea and glances back to the charts. "Mind if I ask which one? I can make sure he's cleared for visitors, just in case." he offers before looking over to the new arrivals. "Sir. Doctor."

"Major. Lieutenants." Zaharis is a big fan of getting everyone in one fell swoop. He heard Rhea's comments as he came up, stopping to tap his fingers against the nurses' counter. "Looking for Del Boccyo?" He asks the ChEng to be sure. Even if Snatch is the only engineer down for the count at the moment.

"She," Rhea corrects Thad. "Petty Officer Mopsus Doe del Boccyo. In for injuries she took after a fall on the Hangar Deck." She tries to keep her tone bluff, though a faint note of concern pokes through. Jesse anticipates her needs before she's done, though. She nods. "That's the one. Just wanted to look in on her. How's she doing?" She pauses, to rephrase the question in a more department head-like manner. "Any idea when I can expect to have her back on duty?"

Eve musters a pleasant enough smile to match a quick salute offered to the masses, while they all seem distracted, its an apt time to try and sneak out the doors to disappear into the bowels of the ship.

Thad pulls the file after only a moment and reads quickly. "Looks like we're expecting her to be here for at least a week, if she continues to improve at the rate she has been." Then he nods to the CMO. "He's the man to talk to for certain. Says you're Petty Officer is under our CMO's care directly here." he notes. "Can't be any better off than that."

"Lieutenant Sloan," Zaharis lifts his chin as Eve steals off. D'oh. "When you're back on shift, would you let me know." OH BOY! He doesn't keep her from fleeing though, looking back at Rhea and Thad, and nodding at the latter's words. Granted with a faint smirk at the complimenting. "She's nearly ready for light duty, Major. Her evaluation for such is scheduled in a few hours. If you'd like to talk to her in the meantime, you can. She's in the recovery ward." He tilts his head in that direction.

"Doctor Sloan," Rhea offers to Eve, in a friendly enough manner as the psychiatrist skulks past. Then her attention is back to Zaharis. She nods. "You're quite sure? I don't want to toss her back to the shop prematurely. Production slows down when my snipes break. Clogs up the machines. I'll pop in before she's sprung, yeah."

Eve cringes. But its inwardly, of course. "I just finished my day, Major." Her steps make a side trip in the direction of Zaharis and the others, if only to make conversing easier rather then shouting from her near escape to the halls. "I have a moment now, if you'd rather." Is said, when there is a momentary lapse in talk about Snatch.

Thad's contribution finished, he offers the file toward Zaharis, since the evaluation is coming up. Might want it. If it's not wanted, he'll put it away again for now and otherwise drop quieter to let the higher brass talk.

Zaharis gives Eve a curious look, as though wondering if she'd actually heard him. "When you're back on shift, Lieutenant. Go relax." He takes Snatch's chart from Thad with a grateful nod, then looks at Rhea. "Go on and have some time with her. I promise, she's not getting out until we're sure she can handle it. Does us no good to have someone leave only to come back in pieces either." He smiles a little.

Rhea returns Zaharis' smile with a faint crook of her own lips. Then, into the ward she goes.

You head towards Recovery Ward.

-=============================================================================-
Recovery Ward Genesis - Deck 13

25 ACH 6735 Souls


This is a large room holding over twenty bed stations for patients to recover after having treatment severe enough that they cannot immediately return to duty. Each station has various connections for medical equipment, a bed with collapsible railings, fold out table, adjustable positions and a privacy curtain.

----< Condition Three - Duty Area >----—-

Contents: Alister Rhea Snatch

Exits: [O] Out
-=============================================================================-

Snatch's recovery bed is vacant, for the moment, but shows evidence of recent occupation. The snipe herself isn't immediately evident.

And Alister is just leaving the ward, hair damn near everywhere and a weary hand rubbing his temple. Wonderfully becoming of an officer, no doubt.

Rhea pokes her head into the recovery ward. The rest of the Major follows not long after it. She takes a long look around the place. Surveying the various patients. The bed where Snatch is supposed to be is spotted. Though she frowns faintly when she doesn't see the snipe in it. "Lieutenant," she acknoweldges Alister politely, with a little nod of her head.

Snatch is practicing her invisibility act. Really just hidden behind a curtain in a changing area— though she's less actively changing than simply working her (actually laundered, now) coveralls on over top of her undergear, zipping up and strapping her engineering goggles to her head, giving herself a dull and ambivalent stare in some reflective surface before picking up her Dios-Kouroi medal and looking at it with the same sort of inability for enthusiasm.

"She's in the changing room, Major." Alister replies to the nod. Well, less the nod more the frown. Whichever. It kinda works as an answer to both, anyway. Then he adds a nod and continues to make his (rather hurried) leave.

"Thanks," Rhea replies to Alister as he flees. Nodding again, to herself, she makes her way over to Snatch's bed. Sitting down. Waiting.

Alister has left.

Snatch finds a pocket for the medal, and adds to it the wire flower Nigel had fashioned for her. That done, she slips from the changing area, leaving the curtain just open enough for people to see the space is unoccupied. She steps away from it backward, then turns, eyes straying freely over the sickbay and lagging behind the rest of her as she turns back toward her station to await dismissal. So she's almost there by the time her eyes finally hit the bed and notice that her boss is sitting there. That stops her in her tracks, that does. She looks well enough, left eye still a little blackened underneath near where her cheekbone cracked, but other than that. She favors her right leg a little, but not much. She stands to attention, but doesn't salute, since the Major's sitting down. "Cap'm," she declares dutifully enough.

Rhea had her head turned away from the changing area, so she doesn't notice Snatch's approach until Snatch speaks. The ChEng lacks spotter skills. One of the myriad of reasons she's not a Marine. "Petty Officer. At ease," she stands, leaving the bed to Snatch. Offering the younger woman a smile. There's concern in her eyes, though she does her best to keep her manner professional. "How are you feeling?"

Snatch softens her stance, traces of lingering artifice beginning to wane after a few moments, though she doesn't sit down again. She's been sitting all morning. "Awright, Cap'm," she replies, drawing her arms up behind her to cross each other, stretching out her shoulder in one of her rehab exercises as she does so. It hardly even smarts anymore. "Injin still gone?" A joke, if a commonplace one, asking after the affairs in Engineering.

"Doctor Zaharis says they're nearly ready to spring you," Rhea says. She sounds glad of it, though there's still that shadow of worry in her tone. The joke gets a laugh. She's probably heard it a billion times, but she never tires of engine humor. "We haven't broken anything terribly vital recently. But, the day is young and full or promise."

Snatch nods her head shortly in agreement. "Ah'm 'bout green t' git." She's glad not much seems to have inconvenienced Rhea in her absence. If anything kept her from doing what she did for as long as she decided not to, it was a sense of shame for leaving the Captain in the lurch, short a snipe. The shame seems to haunt her, now. She can't quite make eye contact, and it's not the hateful, tired sort of aversion from before the 'accident.' "Wellen, we'ns bes' aught make full sure it shain't," she suggests, her voice lacking some essential piece of the dedication her words suggest.

"We'd best," Rhea agrees softly. For a moment she just regards Snatch. Not as sure of herself as is standard for the ChEng. "So. You want to talk about it?" She gives up looking for something eloquent and just settles on that. Despite the blues her manner isn't terribly commanding at the moment. She pulls over a chair and sits, to further camouflage her brassy nature.

Snatch chews softly at the inside of her lip a moment, looking down at her toes, still bare, her boots waiting by her bedside still. Suddenly reminded of the task, she goes to sit at the edge of the bed and pick up a boot, instinctively reaching inside and pulling the tongue out as far as possible, turning the boot upside down. Too many nasty things can crawl into one's shoes back home. "Chen say pas," she replies honestly, after giving it some thought.

"If you're ready to be back, I'll be glad to have another hand," Rhea says. "But you can take some more time if you need it. I'd prefer to have you back whole than just…there. We need you, Mopsus. We all need each other right now."

Snatch sticks her foot into her spiderless, centipede-free boot, jerking the laces at each eyelet level with her hands until the boot sheathes tight around her calf, tucking in the bottom of her coveralls, then double and triple knotting them. "Ah cain't vin' whan tahm's gonna hailp min none," she replies, focused on the bootlacing, but in the end leaving the job half un-done, one booted foot and one bare on the cold Sickbay floor. "A hain't whole," she admits, "An' Ah cain't ken out how'll get whole agin."

"None of us are whole right now," Rhea says. Softly. As if more to herself than Snatch. "Everyone's lost so much. Entire families. Whole photographs full of old friends. My best friend never even told me he had a little girl, and now she's gone. I had to tell my son his father was almost certainly dead." She blinks. Eyes shining. "I don't know what to say. Except I can honestly say I know how you feel. Most do."

Snatch stares down at her feet, a few round tears patting on one leg of her coveralls and the bedding between them (nobody ever taught her how to sit like a lady, it seems). She turns her head, then, swallowing. "Spraicht," she recalls. "How'n he hol'in' gither?"

Rhea blinks some more, a few tears leaking out of her eyes. She brushes them away, but makes no great effort not to cry. "My Sprocket. Yeah." In spite of the tears she smiles. "I don't know. He's twelve years old. How do you deal with this when you're a kid?" She laughs a soft, humorless laugh. "How the frak do any of us deal with this? I'm trying to spend as much time with him as I can. He's got other people around him he can lean on. Projects he can put his hands on, give him something to occupy his mind. He's a strong kid. Reminds me of his dad in so many ways."

Snatch leans further over her legs, folding her arms over them and slouching before sitting up— the slouch, her usual posture of choice, not so keen for her ribs, right now. "Y'ns all… y'ns all got the twin on yin. Jus' don' leave yer own sailf git harmt. Hi'ns got the care of yin, an' ye of him. Casser'n Palx."

"He's the only thing in my life I've built that's worth a damn," Rhea says. "I guess I knew that before. The point's been driven home lately. My father was a mechanic. He used to say…be about the work. Make your life about the work. He wasn't talking about a job. He made something substantial for himself, for his family, out of nothing. A life. I'm trying to remember that. My kid, this ship, my crew…" She regards Snatch. "…it's all work worth doing. I'm trying to give my best to it. Maybe that'll be something. For now, it's enough to keep going."

Snatch closes her eyes, squeezing out a few tears in the effort to stauch the flow. "Ah war buildin' hard," she says, voice training toward keeping from breaking. "Ah workt so keen t' git un navy pense. Mamma an' pappa… our lan' war in a lot on debt, but… Navy pays far mor'n nigh any job on-world. All war gone be fahn an' fahr, s'long's ah kep' mahn hainds inna 'jins an' kep' them canott midst-air. Git sommat cap'tal back in thar lan', git on home… mahn sweetheart an' I… we'ns war gone git hitched. Mamma an' pappa gone retire to them rockin' chair on thar porch an' spoil they'ns gran'kiddies through-rot. An' now… now ah'ns peer at them baffled wahrin's, an… thar ain't none of 'at. None of 'at keepin' min gone."

"We all had plans, Mopsus," Rhea continues. "I was going to go back to Picon, with my husband, when his tour on the Persius was up this year." This is likely news to her engineers. Rhea's been with the Genesis since it was launched to the station. Seems built into it at times. "Maybe get a teaching gig with the Engineering Corps. Get a house. Go to my kid's Pyramid games. Wake up in the same bed as my husband every morning. Have another baby…We were always good at making plans. It seemed like there'd always be more time…"

Snatch's expression grows briefly stony, but she can't maintain it, forcefully moving to put on her other boot, but, by the time her foot's in it, she leaves it untied, its tongue lolling forward, and pivots slowly, "An' than they'ns frakkan grill-a-pain took hol' of our lan'. An' we'ns heavin' off quick smart in ourn's canott an' not gittin' back fer in," she utters insistantly, a more clear expression of pain in her voice than at any point hitherto. Some do say that the folk of the Aerelon Plains grow straight from the soil, parents harvesting children along with the crop. The land is part of them. Maybe that's the part Mopsus Doe is missing.

"I'm not sure there's anyone left back there," Rhea says in a small voice. She's still taking in the sheer horror of what's been done. "Mopsus…what happened is devastating. There's no other way to react to it than to be devastated. I know the commander is doing what he can. To keep us together. To fight back, in some small way. I don't know what'll come of it. We all seem so small now…I have things to live for. I believe you do, too. We can't let those frakkers win."

"Ou-ais, th' are," Snatch declares, as if she knows. Really knows. "An' even if they ain't? It's our'n lan', an' we'ns bes' git an' faitch in back agin. We'ns cain't git shofft." She buries her face in her hands in frustration, biting her lower lip to disguise the pain in her cheek. She rubs her right eye, since rubbing the left is a painful ordeal, "Ah jus' wanned t' git home," she explains, of her multiple attempts to go AWOL, of which Rhea blessedly is unaware (as far as Snatch knows), and of her multiple attempts to kill herself, only one of which Rhea is currently aware of. "Ah'm sorry, Cap'm."

Rhea reaches a hand forward, tentatively, to put on Snatch's shoulder. "You've got nothing to be sorry for, PO. I don't know what to say. There's nothing I can say right now. I feel selfish. Billions are dead. All I can think about are the people *I* lost. Personal apocalypses…The best advice I can give is to find someone to talk to. Doesn't have to be the priest or the shrink. Or me. Just a friend. That'll probably do best. I'm only sane right now because I've got a couple people I can crash into when I get low."

Snatch takes a deep breath at the touch of hand on her shoulder. A little bit too deep a breath for her recently pinned-together ribs. But she's goten used to the sudden jabs of pain in her side, and at least she -can- breathe, now, which is a decided improvement. And she relaxes into the touch, just nodding her head. "It jus'… it ain't seem right, Cap'm. Sommat happen an' y'ns feel like smahlin', an' i'ns laik als cossin' annan altar. An' folks is playin' at pyrmid an' trahd an' all manner on sport. An' in feels… it jus' ain't fittin'."

"Maybe that makes it easier for them to get through the day," Rhea says with a shrug. She lets her hand lay on Snatch's shoulder a moment longer before letting go. "I've no business telling anyone how to grieve. You poke at anybody around here right now, I suspect you'll find a raw nerve. Some're better at hiding it. I think they're the ones we should worry about. Anyhow. I'll leave you to it. Get some rest. You'll be on light duty for awhile after you get out of here, but there's still work to get on with."

Snatch considers the words with brow furrowing, engineering goggles lowering on her forehead. But she nods, "Ou-ais, Cap'm," she replies, sounding a bit more ready and less empty than earlier. She lifts her half-tied boot to the bedcovers, then her fully tied one, resting on her bad side for good measure. "An' Cap'm… ah thank yin. Fer… kennin' whan ah done and whah."

Rhea stands, nodding at that. "Just don't do it again, okay? That's an order." It's half a joke. But, she might as well wield what power she can. "Be well, Mopsus. Well as you can." She'll get back to ranks and surnames once she's back out the door, but the given name feels right just now. She heads out, giving the petty officer a last look over her shoulder before ducking out of the ward.

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