Posted by Lieutenant Junior Grade Hannah Lori Asimina (Doctor) in When Life does a 180

Posted by Lieutenant Tandra Mika (Counselor / Diplomatic Officer) in When Life does a 180

Posted by Lieutenant Junior Grade Hannah Lori Asimina (Doctor) in When Life does a 180
Posted by… suppressed (1) by the Post Ghost! 👻

Hannah was a little lost with herself. Her life had revolved around one purpose for so long. Now that had changed. She was incredibly happy and she loved her position on Saracen. In her down time, when she was alone, though she found she didn’t quite know what to do and was, well, she didn’t know what she was. There was a new counselor on board and who better to talk to? And if not professionally she could make a friend. With one or both of those thoughts in place Hannah stood outside the counseling office and rang the chime.
Lt jg Asimina, Doctor

Mika was bored. Impossibly bored. Very, very bored, with little to do besides read or stare at the wall of her new office. She had finally finished setting up her things, and finished everything she needed to do, and she had to admit her office looked… remarkably like her old one.

A desk sat in the back corner of the room, any papers neatly stacked on top. Photos of old crewmates were set up, some on the wall by the desk, some stood framed on the desk. There were about eight of them. In the center of the room, three chairs. Two were the same, one was a complete different chair. She meant to fix that later. A bookshelf lined another wall, mostly filled with medical texts, but she had opted to switch some of them for psychological or mental health textbooks instead. They took up perhaps half the shelf now. A few books she likes to read for fun were stacked on top. The rest of the walls were still bare, and she honestly had no idea what other furniture to decorate the room with.

The door chime rang, and Mika slipped a bookmark into her book and set it on the corner of the desk. “Come in,” she said, letting the person outside into the office.

~ Lt Mika, CNS/DO

Hannah entered the room and looked around. SOoooo much different from the last time she was in here. “Hello Lt Mika. How are you today? Have you settled in alright?” Hannah’s ‘accent’ seemed more pronounced today, her words perhaps slightly more difficult to understand if they weren’t paying attention. Someone who knew Hannah well would know that this was an indication that she was preoccupied by her own thoughts, and putting less conscious effort into enunciation. “Do you have time, or should I make an appointment later?” Hannah unlike many had no problem with counselors, and often enjoyed simply conversing with them, and found great benefit from their medical and psychological expertise. Though if Mika checked her psychological file there would be some concerning, but not horrible mentions from the last ship’s counselor she’d seen.
Lt jg Asimina, doctor

“Hello! I’ve settled in okay.” Mika said smiling as she saw who was coming in. “…Asimina, right?” She asked, trying to remember the other person’s name. “I have some time.” She said, taking a seat in one of the chairs in the center of the room. “Pick a place, either place.” She said, pointing to the two other chairs. She had only met Hannah once, and so she did not know her that well at all. She had, however noticed, that Hannah was a bit more difficult to understand, her words slurred by her ‘accent’. “Was there a specific reason you came for a chat today?”

~ Lt Mika, CNS/DO

Hannah nodded, “I prefer, Hannah.” Something else Mika would notice different today was Hannah’s habit of not simply talking with her hands, but using sign language while she talked. This was a habit that was ingrained and not odd at all. Mike would not have noticed it during her check in because Hannah’s hands had been occupied with the tricorder and probe. Hannah sat down in a chair. “Well I seem to be bored…no at a loss…” her hands moved for a moment while she was silent, ‘thinking outloud with her hands’ is what her parents had called it. Finally she turned her full gaze on Mika. “I don’t know what to do with myself. I…I need a hobby I think. Or, well…I’ve never really cared much for rank. My advancement as a doctor has been much more important to me and those don’t always go hand in hand. But now, well now that Daniel is here, like really here, I’m ecstatic. I mean at first I was a little worried, but we seem to be working everything out alright. But when I have time for just me I don’t know what to do. What I did before, of course, doesn’t have purpose anymore. And I’m wondering as well if I haven’t neglected my career a little bit.” Hannah was rambling, her hands going at super speed, it all just dumping out of her mouth with no rhyme or reason.
Lt jg Asimina, doctor

It was a lot of information right off the bat, but Mika sat quietly and listened to Hannah’s story. Mika knew a little sign language, she wasn’t fluent or anything. She wanted to be. But she recognized what Hannah was doing with her hands right away. “Let’s start with this,” she said, at last. “Who’s Daniel?” She could probably read the old CNS’s files, but she’d rather get to know Hannah herself first, something her mentor aboard her previous ship had strongly believed in. Your own, unbiased perspective was too important to go around reading other people’s opinions on a case. And Mika had to agree. Once she had narrowed Hannah to one topic, they could go through and hit everything. Otherwise it was just a barrage of information, too much to go through all at once.

~ Lt Mika, CNS/DO

“Oh, right,” Hannah smiled sheepishly and little embarrassed. “DaVinci, Cmdr Colter. I forget that no one on board calls him Daniel but me.” Oh where to begin. “I met Daniel just over five years ago. We were together just a little over 6 months. We knew, it was easy, it was, not perfect, it was like we’d always been together. Then he had leave. He was sent away on a deep cover mission.” She reaches for his dog tag, a long habit, but she doesn’t have it anymore. She isn’t sure Dr Mika would know what a dog tag was anyway. “He gave me a necklace with something of his on it. He asked me to keep it till he came home. He was gone five years.” Hannah watches Mika. The counselor on her last ship didn’t like that she was waiting for Daniel and had talked to her repeatedly about it, but since it didn’t affect her work there wasn’t anything the counselor could do about it. “I didn’t know he was here when I transferred and he didn’t know I was on board. Not until he walked into sickbay with a busted knee.”
Lt jg Asimina, Doctor

Mika thought it was sweet. When she left the Challenger, Mika had been separated from her own girlfriend, and while they had meant to write to each other all the time, it hadn’t really happened and it had been months since she’d spoken to her. Perhaps she should have said the same thing, that waiting wasn’t healthy, but instead she said, “I’d have probably done the same thing.” She hadn’t met Commander Colter but she had heard about him. He seemed to be a well-respected officer. “After all this time, your relationship…?” After five years apart, she’d expect it to have change. Substantially.

~ Lt Mika, CNS/DO

Hannah sighed. Other than that one time on Starbase 12 there had never been an issue. It hadn’t affected her work or her performance or her friendships. She’d just wanted desperately to find him. “Thank you. Some people don’t understand.” After all this time, that was a question. “It’s, well it’s like he never left. But at the same time it’s a little bit like starting over. So much happened in between, but so much has stayed the same. We’ve talked about it, here and there, sometimes briefly, sometimes for a couple hours. I gave him back the necklace; we’re living together again.” She blushes slightly. Her personal life has always been that, personal and private, not something she just talks about. “I know that probably sounds crazy or ill advised. But we lost so much time. We don’t want to lose more.”
Lt jg Asimina, doctor

Mika nodded. “I understand. I’m happy for you,” she said. “What about your hobbies? You said you don’t really know what to do with your free time?” She asked. One from one topic to the next. Of course, it seemed that Commander Colter would probably be an important part of this topic, too.

~ Lt Mika, CNS/DO