Couch Time

Posted on Wed Sep 30th, 2020 @ 6:28am by Karen Dawson MD & Chloe Waltz PhD

Mission: Just A Short Hop to Priam
Location: Counches, Outside the Infirmary
Timeline: After the Surgical Spirits Incident

Karen was well and truly tired. She waited for the Alden and the new brute on the crew to make Daiyu's room safe for the young woman's mental state. Thus she sat, tiredly, looking into the doorway of the infirmary, at the sleeping patient on the exam table.

Everything about Karen spelled Mental Drain. She was tired of the antics all the new crew and passengers brought with them. In her jeans and t-shirt, Karen solidified her, I don't care anymore aura.

Chloe had not been on the Fortune's Echo for long, and it felt no more like home to her than it did when she first arrived. Her room felt barren; what few belongings she had on her last ship still sat, packed up, on her bed. She had thumbed through the one book she'd brought. If she knew she would be staying for longer than the Legerity's journey of a few days, she would've brought a more interesting book. Maybe a few. Still, she wasn't quite mentally ready to get herself to unpack yet and that left her with no soft place to sit in her room. So Chloe made her way to the little common area with couches, the one she had seen earlier on her "tour".

Footsteps caused Karen to look up. At first, she was unphased from her current, dour mood. Then she performed a double-take and realized it was Chloe. A part of her wanted to really dig in and get to know someone else from The Core, but Noah's death. Who Chloe worked for?

Small moments of panic hit Karen and she fought hard to maintain a calm exterior. To cover for her shock, the doctor yawned, then pat the couch.

"Seems you had a rough day as much as the rest of the crew," Karen opened.

"I-," Chloe looked up at the other woman. She wasn't sure what to say. She had always been told to try to hide it if she had been having a rough day. Had she really been that obvious? The engineer gave a shy, apologetic smile. She sat down on the couch because the seat had been offered so at this point there was no turning back, but a part of just wanted to return to her room. She didn't know this doctor, other than a couple brief meetings with the whole crew. She seemed like the sensible sort; but it still concerned Chloe that this, what, ten person ship? got in enough trouble to require a full time doctor. "Yeah. Rough day."

"It wasn't always this crazy," Karen admitted in longing of the earlier times. "Jacob - a former companion that rented a shuttle - he and I used to visit some of the more upscale parts of many border planets... There was this great spa in a port we visited a few months ago. Great mud baths."

Spas. Chloe had always liked spas, and she wasn't sure why. Perhaps it the cleanliness... "I've not been here for long. Haven't unpacked my stuff yet, I just threw it on the ground to sleep... put it back on the the bed to try and force myself into dealing with it. Not long at all," the woman seemed to ramble a bit, as if she wasn't used to talking to people, "and that girl in there," she looked towards the infirmary, "tried to get everyone high and tried to drink whatever. And the Captain brought on this... Sorry, I'm rambling," she seemed to catch herself, and straighten herself up, returning to the formal demeanor one might expect from somebody from the Core. Or perhaps - a demeanor one might expect of Sibyl particularly. Chloe always did strive to be like her employer.

"Yeah... I didn't help things by letting her snide remarks about my drunken behavior, get to me," Karen confessed with a frown. "I was an Alliance Army medical officer, during the war. I was boots-on with Serenity Valley after it was bombed... So being back there wasn't something I enjoyed and I let those feelings turn sour. So I apologize for being unprofessional. To you and Daiyu."

"I don't know anything about the army. And I haven't exactly been professional myself on this trip either." To be fair, Chloe thought to herself, her bar for "unprofessional" seemed to be a lot higher than some other people's on this ship. She had asked Sibyl to reconsider when Sibyl told her to join this ship. She hadn't known what to do at their "party". And she had been the first one to ask about eating at their breakfast. Not to mention the rambling she had just done to the doctor. She wanted to be in control and professional at all times, and this was just not it. She knew she was bad around people, but, well... it was hard.

"Well... you want someone to talk to, I'm here," Karen offered. She began to feel a little more comfortable now with Chloe - so long as she never mentioned Noah's treatment. "...That is, if you want to a friend."

"Thanks." Chloe didn't come here for friends. She had had plenty and plenty of troubles trying to make friends back home. Going through all that effort for a crew that would be temporary - she didn't know how temporary, but she figured she'd head back to Londinium once Sibyl wanted her back - seemed pointless. She wanted friendly acquaintances though. Other than Sibyl, whom she considered a friend, she had been happy enough in life with just coworkers and formal acquaintances before now. She wondered if perhaps other people had a different definition to the word "friend" than she did. "And if you need something- I mean, somebody- to talk to, I'm here too," she offered, as she had learned that to be the "correct" response.

"Oh... I'm seeing the ship's shrink," Karen confessed. Small ship, so it wasn't like that would stay a secret very long. "But maybe if we end up in a nice port again, we can go all-out shopping. Spa. Something most on this ship can't afford and-or appreciate."

It wasn't that she was a snob, but Alden was clearly not the type to enjoy finery. Chloe gave off a lot of finery vibes that Karen missed in Jacob's absence.

Chloe hesitated for a moment. Were they supposed to talk about, like, their mental health? Oh. That was what she and Karen must have meant when they said "talk to". That kind of "talk to". "I've got a therapist back on Londinium, I've been seeing her for four years. I talk to her over the cortex when I'm off on a ship." If Karen had mentioned that, Chloe figured they should be on even ground, right? Then again... the fact that this ship of only what, ten people? Needed both a shrink and a doctor, now that was the concerning part. "But if you ever want to chat," there? Was that a less ambiguous word? "I'm here." Chloe found herself actually a bit surprised by how reasonable she was sounding. "And yeah. I'd like to go into a nice port spa at some point." That part, at least, Chloe said with all honesty. She had hardly been long outside of the Core and she was already looking forward to a chance to wash the dust off her.

"Next time we get a whole day of free time in a good port, sure," Karen promised with dreamy eyes. "...Miss the rose baths and seafoam lufas."

"Wonder when that will be." Chloe looked down at her book out of habit more than interest. She couldn't help but feel a bit of unease. Back with Sibyl, every port they stopped at would be a "good port". Here she wasn't sure when, or if, they'd reach one. She had been here for what, less than a week? And already she was starting to miss the conveniences of the Core.

"Could be a few weeks or a few months, depending on the clients and task we're given," Karen answered with uncertainty. "But I generally book mini-vacations, when we're on a planet for more than a few days,"

"Ah." Chloe responded quietly. She wasn't sure how long she was going to be staying with this crew; and a few months might be too far out for their little spa day. "What kind of clients and tasks does this ship normally have?" She asked.

"He takes all sorts of jobs. Legal and illegal," Karen answered simply and looked down the hallway so see if they were done yet. "But the criminal ones I don't ask about, nor take part in - made it clear to him that I refuse to do something that'd jeopardize my medical career."

"Oh." That really didn't surprise Chloe. At least the doctor was honest. Of course Sibyl would send her to somebody who had their own incentives for staying out of the public eye; that would keep Chloe out of the public eye as well. "I wouldn't want to do anything to harm my research career, either... I might've already screwed it up though," she admitted. That part, at least, was probably obvious to anybody who knew that Chloe did research. What sort of researcher would be handling odd jobs on a Firefly?

"Way I see it... you can only go up, from here," Karen smiled. "Not my ideal place to be either, but better than Persephone. And not permanent."

"You don't plan to stay on here?" Chloe asked, looking over at Karen when she mentioned "not permanent". A part of her had assumed that she would be the odd one out in regards to not wanting to stay on this ship forever. From what she knew of the crews of these older ships, they tended to get pretty attached to them... or maybe it was to each other.

"I ran a free clinic on Persophone," Karen explained. "New Chief Marshal decided my policy of not asking questions, meant I was a Browncoat sympathizer and he... interrogated me more than once for it."

The Doc's blue eyes darted back to Daiyu's sleeping form. Her body trembled on the memories as she finished, "...It got too dangerous. So until he leaves for a new posting, I decided to tag along with Alden's crew. I once treated him in my clinic, so we knew of each other."

"Oh." Chloe couldn't help but glance towards Daiyu when the doctor did. Then she glanced back down at her book, almost embarrassed for having heard so much. She was Chloe. She wasn't used to having people actually talk about themselves. Outside of small talk and work talk, nobody actually talked to Chloe and she felt like was intruding on a world that she didn't know how to handle. "How long have you been with this crew?"

"4 months... Maybe a few years before I can go back to Persephone," Karen stood up when she heard Alden and the new merc wrapping up things in Daiyu's room. "...And, seems I need to prep my patient to be moved to her room now. It was once meeting you, all the same."

"It was nice meeting you," Chloe repeated, leaning back into the couch. The doctor seemed nice - more sane than some of the others on this ship - but Chloe was an introvert and she was quite looking forward to sitting on this couch and reading.