I Don't Mind

Posted on 05 Jan 2019 @ 4:46am by Commander Jayla Kij & Ensign Kelly Khan

1,244 words; about a 6 minute read

Mission: The Kalisa Conundrum
Location: Sickbay
Timeline: MD 1 || 1530 Hours

Kelly left the Ready Room at a brisk pace and crossed the bridge to the turbolift. When it arrived, she entered it and commanded it to take her to Sickbay, her mind wondering if she was just tired and stressed as the Captain had suggested. He didn't seem to indicate that he was anything but tired and remembered everything. As the turbolift came to a halt, she kicked herself mentally; she had forgotten her double strength, double sweet Raktajino and Doctor Kij probably wouldn't let her use a medical replicator to make one.

She left the turbolift and entered Sickbay to search for Doctor Kij visually after stepping aside to keep the doorway free. She wore her command red uniform still and had a vague look of questioning on her face, but waited until she spotted the Doctor to say anything.

But, of course, Jayla spotted her first. She was in her office, working on the endless reports required of a member of senior staff when she saw the doors of sickbay open out of the corner of her eye. She glanced through the glass half wall of her office and saw Ensign Khan enter and look around. Eager for a chance to get away from the reports, she jumped up and headed out of her office. "Hi!" she said as she approached Kelly. "Need some help?"

"Hey, Doctor K," Kelly said. "Either I'm stressed and just forgetting things, or I'm having memory blackouts. Can you give me a once over, please?"

Jayla blinked, momentarily confused. "Seems to be a lot of that going around," she replied finally. "Come over here and I'll check you over," she added, leading Kelly to a nearby bio bed.

The young Ensign hopped up on the biobed. "I don't know what's wrong. I was talking to the Captain and he asked me something...and I forgot who he was for a minute."

"Hm," replied Jayla thoughtfully, beginning scams with her tricorder as well as the biobed system. "Just a moment ago, I forgot I was a doctor for half a minute. I was really confused as to why you were asking me to check you over. I asked a nurse to go through the medicines and arrange them by expiration date and use and she blinked at me like I had two heads. There seems to be a lot of this going around. Maybe we're all over worked."

Kelly had always heard about people who had various reasons that they didn't want to go to Medical, but hearing a Doctor saying she forgot she was a doctor gave her a new one. "Maybe I'll just go take a nap," she said. "I'm sure that I'll feel better after that." Which seems to be a safer alternative than being here, she mentally added.

“Could be,” replied Jayla, closing her tricorder. “Even so, I think I’m going to take a blood sample. And maybe test everyone who comes in with similar complaints. Now where do I have the hypo-syringes?” She began opening drawers and glancing through them. “Ah, here we are,” she said, taking one out and fitting it with en empty phial. “Won’t take but a moment,” she assured the ensign.

"Uh, Doc...you may want to put a full phial in that," the young Ensign said as she pointed at what Jayla was putting in the hypo.

“Oh, right,” said Jayla, turning back towards the medicines before whirling back quickly. “No, this is right. I’m extracting, not administering.” She checked the hypo to make sure it was set to draw and pressed it to Kelly’s arm. The hypo took a half phial of blood- enough to test for common and uncommon pathogens as well as vitamin B12 levels, just in case the whole crew was suffering a B12 deficiency at the same time. “There we are,” she declared.

"Oh. I thought you were going to give me something, not take something from me," Kelly said with relief that the Doc seemed to have her head back on her shoulders again. "How long will it take?"

“Not long,” answered Jayla, labeling the phial and setting it aside to take to the lab later. “If we find anything important, I’ll be in touch.”

"if you find anything important?" the Ensign asked. "What if you forget to have it tested later? What if I forget? Wait...if I forgot, I'd never know it. Can't you do it now?"

“Oh all right,” said Jayla. “But hang on a second.” Grabbing a second phial, she loaded it into the hypo and quickly took a sample from herself. “We’ll take them both at once,” she said, labeling her own phial and taking both in hand. “Now.... lab... where’s the lab?” she finished, completely blanking on where the lab was in this sick bay.

"How should I know?" Kelly asked. "I'm Flight Control. I can tell you where the Flight Deck is if you want to go for a ride."

"Ooo!" replied Jayla, distracted. "Can we- no! No, I need to focus! Nurse Rigby! Where's the lab?"

Rigby blinked. "Lab?" she replied confused. "What's a lab? Oh! The lab! My goodness, I'm forgetting everything, aren't I? Um..." she trailed off, biting her lip and turning in circles. "I... I don't know."

Jayla frowned. This was getting serious. "Computer!" she ordered. "Where is the medical lab?"

The computer beeped several times before the lights along the floor lit up, showing them the way. "Aha!" exclaimed Jayla. "This way!"

"Okay, that's neat," the Ensign said. "Why are we going there?"

Jayla blinked. "I don't know," she replied, reaching up to tap the phials in her hand against her chin. "Maybe- oh!" she exclaimed, holding up the phials of blood. "That's right! Delivering these." And with that, she followed the lights to the lab. "Aha!" she said as they entered. "O'Malley," she said, calling the only lab tech's name she could remember at the moment.

"Ma'am?" said O'Malley, looking up from whatever he was doing.

She headed over with the two phials. "I need these checked for pathogens and... oh, there was something else..." she glanced at the phials. "Oh! Yes! B12 levels. Right away. It's a top priority."

"Absolutely," replied O'Malley, taking the phials and plugging them into the computer. Then he turned and blinked at Jayla, looking confused. "What's B12?" he asked.

"Maybe I should just come back another time..." Kelly said as she looked between the Medical personnel. If they were having more memory problems than she was, the ship was doomed.

"The vitamin," Jayla told O'Malley. To Kelly, she said, "you can go. like I said, if we find anything, we'll let you know. I did say that, right? I meant to if I didn't."

Kelly started to say something when a mighty yawn took her by surprise. "You wouldn't be able to prescribe a Raktajino, double, double, would you?" she asked hopefully.

Jayla gave her a look that clearly said 'not a chance.' "Get back to work ensign," she said. "I'll be in touch."

"No chance of that, Doc," Kelly said as she headed out. "I'm Alpha Shift now and this is Beta. See you later."

"In that case, go take a nap and let me know if it helps," Jayla replied absently. She was too busy studying O'Malley and the tests he was running to really notice that Kelly had already left.

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