What happened

Posted on 06 Sep 2016 @ 7:21am by Commander Jayla Kij & Ensign Katniss Sutherland

1,659 words; about a 8 minute read

Mission: Click Three Times
Location: Sick Bay
Timeline: MD 7 : 1149

From the darkness appeared a little flash of white light, then another and another until a whole series of lights began to flash and Katniss slowly began to open her eyes. It took a moment for her vision to adjust to the bright lights, she turned her head in an attempt to recognise her surroundings. She had pins and needles in her limbs but at least the feeling had returned, not only that her memory seemed a lot better. She tried to sit up but it was futile, she just wasn't strong enough. Then from behind her a machine began to beep, then a familiar voice began to speak but is seemed muffled, as though she was still a little out of it.

Jayla had run scans of the young nurse, of course, to make sure she was still on the mend. At first, she had dismissed the multiple lacerations as none of them seemed severe, but after a few moments, she realized that the reason they were not severe was because they were old and that gave her pause. Why would Katniss not have them healed? They seemed as if they had been rather more than a nick, but she had opted to let them heal on their own.

It both confused and concerned her.

She opted not to form any opinions or theories until she could talk to Katniss about it. And, it looked as if the nurse was waking up. "Katniss," said Jayla. "Katniss can you hear me? How are you feeling?"

"It wasn't me mamma, honest." she replied slightly confused.

It took a few minutes for her head began to clear, she narrowed her eyes as she slowly began to focus. It didn't take her long to recgognise her surroundings, she was in in sickaby. "What...how?" she said in a panic. She looked up to see a famialir face "Jayla." she said noticing a cocnerned look on her face. "I'm alive...so I guess I should be greatful." she replied with a slightly bitter tone.

She looked down, she wasn't in a unifrom she was in a gown, which indicated she had been their a little while, that must of meant..."shit." she uttered under her breath. If she'd been uncouncious then no doubt they would of done a full set of scans and tricroder readings. Now it was going to be a game of cat and mouse, had the good Doctor compaired those scans to her altered ones already, what did she know? it would be upto Katniss to find out without revelaing anything that Jayla didn't know. Had she linked the incident with her shoulder to eveything else or was this just going to be a fishing excercise and in reality she knew nothing.

"Katniss," Jayla said again softly. "How are you feeling? Are you in any pain?" She had a hypospray at the ready just in case the nurse was in a bad way. The scans looked good, though, so she probably wouldn't need it.

Katniss tried to do one of her fake smiles as she looked at Jayla "No, no pain. I'm good" as she scanned her surroundings, like a rabbit caught in headlights. She pondered for a moment, even the slightest feeling of pain would be good, it had been so long since she had felt anything, in fact she was beginning to believe she was incapable of showing or feeling real emotion, she had certainly become a master of decipt and lying when it came to interaction with anyone. She could fake smile, say she was fine, act normal, but she longed to feel something, but in reality she felt dead inside.

"Okay," said Jayla gently, noticing the girl's wide eyes. "Calm down, sweetie. Just breathe. Do you know where you are?" she asked. Dr. Road had indicated that there seemed to be memory loss due to shock which she hoped would come back quickly.

Katniss took a deep breath, the panic was more really for what Jayla knew "I'm...I'm fine Doctor, I beleieve I'm in sickbay." she gently replied in a soft tone.

Jayla smiled gently. "And we're going to take good care of you," she said. "All of your symptoms were caused by shock. Literal shock. Dr. Road found evidence of a fair sized electric shock to your system. It's wearing off and you should be regaining some feeling in your limbs. Do you remember what you were doing just before everything went black? Perhaps assisting an engineer with repairs?"

"I can look after myself" she snapped at Jayla, it was an unpleasant side of her that Jayla had never seen before "And I was...I was..." she pondered for a moment, just what was she doing before everything went black. "I don't know" she said "What's happened?" she asked.

"A lot," said Jayla, choosing to ignore the snapping for now. "We went after a couple of Consortium controlled ships. It didn't go well for anybody. Long story short, we lost a lot of good people. I think about half of the fighter pilots are either dead or injured. I know for sure we lost three."

She closed her eyes and the imagine of bright red hair filled it again, a sence of dread filling her, 'Dzhossen' she thought to herself, she gave out a loud sigh. Death always seemed to take the good people away early, however for the likes of her it seemed to leave her alone even though sometimes she longed for it.

"So Doc, any lasting damage?" she asked opening again and moving her limbs.

"I don't think so," answered Jayla. "Everything seems to be healing just fine." She left out the fact that she was surprised Katniss had survived a shock like that without any immediate medical intervention; no need to terrify the girl, after all. "There are some... abnormalities that turned up on the scan, though," she said hesitantly. "I was wondering if you could shed some light on it."

The words began to echo and Katniss's face changed to a stern and angry look "abnormalities...scan...abnormalities...scan." It was thought her shields had gone up and she was at red alert. So the doctor had stumbled onto her dirty little secret. Different scenarios began to run through her head, could she talk herself out of this one, could she explain the initial scans with her own tricorder, should she just confess. "No...you weak thing. She knows nothing." a voice said in Katniss's head.

"Well," Jayla continued. "There is evidence of wounds. Old wounds. That were left to heal on their own." She paused. "And please, Katniss, I want the truth. Why wouldn't you come to Sick Bay to have them taken care of?"

Katniss looked at Jayla she was brimming with anger. "As you said doctor, old wounds. It was before I was assigned to the Black Hawk. Yeah I might not have got them properly treated but you know how hectic things can get, study, exams, practical's. They weren't serious enough to get looked at and I just let them heal" she replied trying to convince her that it was just an innocent mistake. "You know how hard it is as a women to get respect, I couldn't have everyone thinking I was a wuss just because of a little cut or bruise, you've seen my file, I had to work hard."

Jayla didn't buy that for a single second. In the first place, some of the wounds were far more recent and at least half of them were serious enough to warrant a visit to Sick Bay. In fact, Jayla had healed three that were still slightly raw. In the second place, nobody thought less of a woman who went to Sick Bay to have a cut or bruise mended. True, certain men scoffed at the idea, but they were the sort whose personalities held them back and they very rarely managed to get anywhere in life.

However, Jayla opted not to point that out. Right now, she wanted Katniss mended and if she was stressed out, she couldn't mend. So, instead of bringing up her reservations, she simply smiled gently. "Okay," she said. "If that's how it is, then I trust you. Do you need anything? Water? Food? Replicators are down, but we've got ration bars. Oh, and Selah brought some beef jerky, apples and carrots from the stasis chambers in talons. She said it's just going to spoil anyway, so someone may as well eat it."

"No...Thank you...I'm fine, I just need to get out of here. I make an awful patient, but I guess that's true of all medical personnel." she said trying again to smile.

But by the look on Jayla's face Katniss knew she wasn't buying a word of what she had just said. But she wasn't pushing the issue, so she certainly wasn't going to give anything further away. She just needed to get out of sickbay, check on someone then get on with her duties and be more careful and discreet.

Jayla nodded. "Do you feel like trying to walk?" she asked.

Katniss nodded as she sat up and shuffled over to the edge of the bed, she moved her legs in anticipation of them supporting her weight, she took a deep breath in and slowly placed her legs firmly on the floor while still holding the biobed. she was a little wobbly for a moment but she started to pace a little.

"I presume I'm fit for duty Ma'am?"

"Under normal circumstances, no," Jayla answered. "But because we're so short handed, I suppose so. Just take it easy and rest frequently, okay? I'm about to institute mandatory sleep schedules, so I'll let you know when yours is."

"You worry too much." she said as she searched around for her uniform after all she didn't want to wander the corridors in medical gown.

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