Leading the Way

Posted on Mon Sep 19th, 2022 @ 2:15am by Evelyn Reynolds & Oliver Lucas

Mission: Mission 16: Hysperia
Location: Sickbay
Timeline: Time is but a construct.
2757 words - 5.5 OF Standard Post Measure

"Thank you, you can leave it all there."

Watching as the anti-grav cart was manoeuvred to provide the best access to the designated unloading zone, Evelyn leaned with both hands on her cane and tallied up the boxes as they slowly formed a pile in the corner. As much as it was unfortunate that the ship had taken enough damage to ground it for months, the halt in functional deployment had allowed the blonde scientist time to gather not only the necessary resources for her to embark on promises made, but scope to mitigate enough of the fallout of her resignation to parade this fresh opportunity as the 'career change she'd been craving.' Convincing anyone had been only been marginally successful; by the time she'd been back in communication range, her father had been debriefed by Starfleet with their version of her decline, just as she'd suspected. And Jack, who could always be relied upon to have no idea when to back down, had attempted to use a connection through her family to track her down. His interference had already stalled the resignation process, tacking on a six-month 'grace period' under the guise of fully-supported medical leave, ostensibly to protect her commission and career trajectory from this bout of momentary madness, but mostly because he still thought he stood a chance of convincing her to play along. Maybe if she'd been told what the game was, if she'd been kept in the loop regarding her own conveniently-diagnosed mental breakdown, that might have been an option.

Now.

Now, she was going back to her grass-roots.

And thankfully, having made enough time via a secure channel to bring her father up to speed on her own interpretation of events, Evelyn had been granted enough lenience by those whose support mattered most to at least entertain the idea of this change in direction. It helped, of course, that she was dipping her toe back into medicine, ever her father's daughter, and that the assistance she'd sought from him had been of a practical, reasonable nature. Fast-tracking certification, fast-tracking enrolments, purchase and deployment of necessary training tools. It wouldn't be enough to stop her family watching her like a hawk, or treating her like a piece of fine bone china, but it provided them some relief that her way of handling her emotional frailty was to find something useful to do. It was the way their family operated and at least proved she wasn't entirely without hope of recovery.

So now, they were nearly ready. The coursework had come through, she'd sent off the last of the applications required for her to administer it through Harvard Medical back on Earth, having unashamedly used her father's presence on the board of fellows to her advantage. Her credentials had certainly helped, as well as a long-standing relationship with the faculty through the publication of her field work, but Evelyn was under no delusion that this was what cashing in several decades worth of professional favours looked like. The fact that it had worked, that Starfleet's best attempts to sully her reliability as a trusted expert had not succeeded, had gone a long way to improving the doctor's confidence over the past few weeks. She certainly felt less lonely than she had when she'd first stepped aboard the Mary Rose.

"Where are you going to put all of this...?" Oliver asked, aware she probably hadn't noticed his presence and deciding at that point, when silence had fallen, to make himself known. Not that he was sneaking around, but the knowledge that there were large quantities of medical supplies coming on board piqued his interest. He eyed the labels on the tall containers nearby. "Ktarian flu vaccines? Are we anticipating an outbreak all the way out here?"

He had a way... It wasn't sneaking, though it had taken Evelyn several weeks to get over accusing him of such in the quiet recesses of her frazzled mind. But he moved like he wasn't sure he should be there, no matter where he was, and that equated to a silence and stealth that had been the result of far too many adrenaline spikes. One of these days, he'd do it whilst standing far too close and reap the rewards of a walking cane right across the stomach.

"This isn't even half of it," she responded instead, watching with eagle eyes as each crate was stacked. "Just the immediate priority supplies I could access. We're about to," she rounded on the other doctor, "mingle with an entire conglomerate of tourists and I don't think any of us want to spend the duration of this festival trying to control mucus levels." Evie raised her eyebrows and then tapped her cane against the box. "There's been a few outbreaks recently, precaution is never a terrible thing. The bulk of the equipment we're going to need," Evie continued, "has been delivered elsewhere though. I spoke to the Captain, he's agreed to power up one of the defunct science labs for training purposes."

"That's...fantastic," he admitted. Honestly when she had agreed to support with training he hadn't expected her to take it to the extent she had. The previous medical staff employed on Rosie hadn't been quite so thorough, nor considerate towards himself or Beya. "I must admit, I can't wait to get started. Do you really think we'll have to deal with a lot of exotic illnesses once we're underway?"

"It will all depend on the work we undertake." Evelyn, having only functioned in terms of ship-based duty as a Starfleet officer, honestly didn't know what to expect from this freelance venture. Gregnol, as far as she'd been able to tell, had a decent amount of commonsense about him but the stringent protocols she was used to were virtually impossible to replicate here, if only because the technology just wouldn't allow it. There was every chance she was overpreparing but, with the funds and connections to do so with limited hardship, there seemed little incentive not to risk it.

"Come on, I'll show you."

Manoeuvring to the nearest turbolift betrayed the personal adaptations that had become necessary over the past few weeks, primarily around her rehabilitative treatments and the medications available this far out. The arrival of supplies would ease that but Evelyn had spent several weeks only able to mitigate the worst of her pain, without eradicating it entirely. It had gifted her a certain amount of tenacity for dealing with obstacles, which Jake liked to refer to as her 'bulldozer mode'. Stepping into the lift first, there was barely any effort afforded these days to mask her weariness. Instead, Evelyn ignored it and pushed onwards with explanation.

"The initial courses they've sent us will focus mostly on fairly standard routines, which judging by what the two of you have encountered already, should only take us a few weeks to complete. The lab will be for training and assessment purposes, though obviously any actual cases that come through the door will count for something." She studied his profile as the lift descended. "You should have received the theory work by now, right?"

"Oh yeah. I had to download it onto four different PADDs. It's...a daunting amount of reading," he said, puffing out his cheeks a little in acknowledgement that she was going to work him harder than he might have felt he was ready for. But then again, he trusted her; Evelyn's way wasn't critical or harsh. It was precise, and experienced. When it came to medical knowledge she had a certain gravitas that he admired. "I'll do my best. I promised as much."

Pausing a moment to clock that familiar air of trepidation, Evelyn's features softened to allow an encouraging smile. "We're handling pre-med preparation and aiming for some formal certification that will set you up for specialisation if you want to pursue a fully-fledged medical degree. You've already done quite a lot of it, just nothing formal and possibly without some of the underlying explanation that will make it easier to connect the dots later on."

Reaching up, she gave his upper arm a reassuring pat before stepping through the open lift doors.

"Your best is a lot better than I think you realise."

He flushed hard at her encouragement, feeling suddenly a little embarrassed at his own enthusiasm. Perhaps he respected her just a little too much, to the point where he was worried that he wasn't going to be good enough to meet her expectations. "I hope so," he mumbled. "I wouldn't want you to go to all this effort only for things to...not work out. N-not that it would be your fault, of course." He pushed the moment of discomfort away. "It's just hard to picture at this stage, you know? Feels like there's a long way between me and there."

"I don't think that any effort exerted to shorten the distance will be wasted," Evelyn reassured. In her own way, there was a dependence on this as a means of escaping everything she was dragging behind her, a mutual sense of covetous eagerness that may have veered a little too close to co-dependence for a therapist to be overly happy about it. It didn't render her desire to assist any less genuine, however. Oliver had potential, and Beya seemed equally as eager to learn. With her own career in tatters, helping them find more secure footing in theirs seemed vital to maintaining whatever sanity she had left. Rounding the corner to the lab closest to the turbolift, Evelyn keyed in the access code that she'd asked to be assigned and smiled as the lights lit up upon entry. "Welcome to study hall."

The lab itself had been subjected to routine maintenance checks, its systems updated and brought online, and the room itself thoroughly cleaned, mostly by Evelyn herself. The major alteration, positioned centrally after some rearrangements of equipment, had the appearance of a large and bulky biobed. Overhead, large panels encapsulated the module, with control panels situated at the head and foot of the bed. A portable bioscanner sat off to the side. "And here is our primary study aid."

"This..." he approached and picked it up, examining it in his fingers as though handling an artifact he wasn't supposed to have access to. "It's one of the newer models. I...I won't ask how you managed to get hold of one. Couldn't have been cheap to import on a non-Starfleet shipping licence..." Either Gregnol had ways around those, or Evelyn was more resourceful than he gave her credit for. If it were the latter, he wasn't sure he could be that much more impressed. "T-thank you. For going to all this effort, I mean."

"Given the Mary Rose's age, it was important to get a standalone unit. I don't think she'd take kindly to the integration, these holoemitters are a little beyond her. I got the the granddaddy for my 12th birthday," Evelyn admitted, eyes alight with mirth at her own expense. She had been an odd child by some standards, entirely homeschooled for such a long period and heavily influenced by her father's profession, and moreso by her mother's death. "This is just on loan, however. My father arranged a lease and I have a small fortune invested in insuring it." The blonde raised her eyebrows, albeit in a mostly playful manner. "So we'll try not to break it."

Oliver heard the words and carefully put the bioscanner back into its place, treating it like it was somehow more fragile than it had been a few moments earlier. "What's next?" he asked, beaming. She was talking about birthdays - somehow this felt like a dozen birthdays and Christmas come early. Far more than he could ever have anticipated.

For a moment, Evelyn studied the younger doctor, whose barely-contained exuberance was admittedly rather infectious. It was not the first time she'd scrutinised him so openly, though a close examination of her mannerisms suggested she had a tendency to stop and regard most people in such a way when struck by a thought she wanted to explore further. In this case, there was something warm about how eager Oliver was, and how routinely astonished he seemed to be that it was actually happening. Birthdays, Evie supposed, had probably not really been much of a feature of the ex-Borg's childhood.

"We enjoy the festival."

It was an unexpected response but heartfelt. Certainly nothing about Evelyn's expression suggested she wasn't being serious. "You just came through a significant ordeal, after a year of quite a lot of them." Nothing about her own arrival had featured in any of their conversations; Evie had remained closed-lipped about her situation, even in the face of more palpable proof that she was still suffering. "This is an important opportunity to relax and reset some stress levels."

He was fractionally taken aback by the suggestion; Oliver himself was not one for loud public spaces. The cacophany of voices one found at a festival-type event were oddly reminiscent of the voices a drone might hear in its head. As much as he was past that part of his life, it was still a part of him. Lurking. He nodded at the suggestion, though, given Evelyn's direction about resetting things. This was an opportunity to grow. All of this was. "So long as you promise that counts for you too?" he said, diverting the thought back onto her.

The audacity of the suggestion earned him a raised eyebrow; not because Evelyn took any offense, but because it was refreshingly bold of the young doctor. There was hope for him yet. A slow, gradual smile smoothed out the surprise in her expression. "I may put in an appearance once or twice. I hadn't given it a lot of thought." Or preparation for that matter. So much focus had gone into setting up this training program, along with securing a few of her personal belongings, Evie had barely managed to visit the planet a handful of times. All the walking, of course, made it an arduous prospect most days.

"If you're needing an escort..." he blushed again, feeling a little awkward about even asking. It felt like the chivalrous thing to do, which in his experience was how he was supposed to behave. And it had the ulterior motive of meaning he didn't have to endure events by himself among strangers. He had no strong feelings about that being Evelyn, either, but the desire to impress her from a medical point of view was definitely a decisive factor.

The difficult thing was, she would. Far enough along in her healing that some light exercise would actually be a good thing, Evelyn still couldn't imagine that heading out on her own would be particularly wise. Jake, having spent a decent amount of time badgering her since Cassie had left for Earth, could be relied upon some of the time but she was determined not to live in his back pocket. Part of reclaiming her life was ditching this sense of apprehension every time she had to deal with groups of people. She dipped her head in partial agreement. "If it gets you out of the house," she threw it back on him.

Oliver felt something akin to a surge of pride - or maybe it was a sense of relief. "Y-yes. I suppose I'll have to find something to wear." It was an opening to at least try to help him escape thinking too hard about it. "Shall we arrange to meet somewhere, or...should I pick you up from your quarters?" Uncomfortably aware that he sounded like he was treating this as a date when in his mind it most certainly was not, he shifted between feet and waited to see if she would relieve him of that doubt.

It was, admittedly, not something she had expected from him. Raising her eyebrows probably wasn't helping his sense of awkwardness but Evelyn had a brief moment of hesitation of her own, contemplating any time spent in an unsecure location with only a relatively new acquaintance for support. It was very difficult to mistake anything as a date when all she could envisage was a huge expenditure of energy trying to make the man not regret trusting her with his career. Evie smiled faintly.

"I'll meet you down there."