Interlude – Skin Deep
by Alderman Yolanthe Ibalin & Commander Chelsea Dunham
Post Details
ON:
Yolanthe sat on the bio bed, trying to swing her legs, but was just far too tall. The nurse she had seen had taken one look at her battered face and decided that there was at least concussion, if not outright brain damage, and told her to wait for Dr Adams to be free.
She could hear the exchange between the doctor and the ambassador across the way, and winced. Putting them together was thoughtless, but the doctor seemed to have him under control. She found herself smiling, though the stiffened muscles on the left side of her face made that painful. She could imagine the smaller bajoran woman pulling him over her knee and giving him a spanking, despite the size difference. She certainly didn't take any crap from anyone.
She was trying not to laugh, and aggravate her bruises any further when the Doctor appeared. Yolanthe had to look at the floor to not burst out into giggles, and the slurry grey of her skin swirled from a blue tinge to an orange one and back for several seconds.
"I'd like a word with you Miss Ibalin...." The CMO began sternly at first as if in reprimand, but closer observation would have shown a sparkle in her eyes.
"You really need to raise the level of your clientèle!" Chelsea finished in a much lower voice and with a mischievous smile.
The bartender managed to look sheepish around the bruises. "That'll happen when you come by for a drink. On the house." She sighed, embarrassed for making such a simple mistake, "Probably for the next year if I keep forgetting about important little details like recent history. Sorry."
Chelsea grinned. "No worries" she reassured the Bokkai gently. "But I *will* join you for that drink though."
Taking the regenerator to the visible bruises on Yolanthe's lovely face Chelsea repaired them and stood back to admire her handiwork. "That's better" she declared.
Without thinking, the CMO ran her scanner over the rest of the patient to assess any other injuries and found a lot more than she had been expecting.
"Woh" she whistled. "You took it harder than Getal and yet you made a lot less fuss."
The bokkai frowned, and started to turn aqua, confused. "I just got banged up a bit. Couple of scratches. I didn't break anything." She put the pre-molar she had lost on the biobed. "Going to need a new one of those though."
Chelsea started to work on the padd-full of injuries, new and slightly older first. There were many of different ages and some from long ago, it seemed. The CMO didn't know whether to comment or keep out of it, but she knew she was going to have to put in several sessions to get all this lot sorted out.
"Sure, no problem. Teeth are easy." she smiled gently and worked deftly. The bokkai obviously knew the procedure well; her patient was doing what was needed every step of the way. A visual inspection of the finished work confirmed what the padd said. Not a single tooth in there was original, all were replacements of varying age.
Feeling her new tooth with her tongue to reassure herself it was seated firmly, Yolanthe pushed herself off the bio-bed, stood and brushed herself down. "Thanks, doctor."
"Yolanthe?" Chelsea didn't want to pry but she didn't want to be neglectful out of lack of courage to ask. "Will you come back tomorrow please? I can do a lot with some of these older injuries that haven't been properly treated." she suggested gently.
The bar tender shook her head. "Honestly, I'm fine," she protested.
"You shouldn't have to put up with this sort of damage at all, but having gone through it, you certainly don't need to continue to suffer from lack of medical care." Chelsea persisted, still gently, holding out the padd for the Bokkai to see too.
Yolanthe looked at the Padd, and saw the shadows of old wounds stretching back to childhood. They formed layers, the geological strata of a physical life, etched into her cells. On the bottom, crushed and obscured by the weight of years were the childhood breaks and bruises, rising up as she got older to incorporate torn muscles, lacerations of varying depths, ruptured organs and more than one stabbing.
As she surveyed the model of her insides, showing her the animated history of her internal life, she turned green, at first, faintly mint through the early years. Taking in the echoes of cracked ribs, broken nose and punctured lung from her late teens she became lime.
But it was the highest layers that unnerved her most, and for a brief instant she was dark forest green. The bruises covered her completely, some darker than others. The ligature marks around her wrists and and one ankle seemed to glow, bright white stripes against the darkness of other bruises, and the line of small punctures marching up her carotid nerve.
She sat abruptly, her legs suddenly wobbly. "I thought these were all fixed, all gone?"
"Clearly not comprehensively but I can fix that" Chelsea replied. "and in case you're concerned, Doctor/Patient confidentiality applies at all time, no matter what." she added, concerned about the deepening colours Yolanthe was traversing through, even though she didn't fully understand what they meant, their intensifying was obviously significant.
After several minutes of silence, the Bokkai looked up at Chelsea. "How long to fix the... more recent ones?" Yolanthe's voice was flat as she scratched absently at the side of her neck.
"I can stop whenever you want me to, I'll get as far as i can in the time you allocate. If you give me a full half hour, I should get through the worst of the most recent and perhaps on a little bit? It's hard to tell before I start but you can always call the shots.... " Chelsea offered.
Yolanthe's colour was fading, desaturating to a murky, swampy grey. She lifted her hair out of the way, "Please. I want it gone."
Chelsea examined Yolanthe's neck gently, scanning the damage. It was clear that something had been implanted in the past and then removed roughly, without proper care. There were internal scars, beneath the skin.
Taking the regenerator, Chelsea remoulded the pit where *it* had been and refraining from asking about it, she smoothed and rebuilt the sub-layers, smoothing them back and repairing the nerves around the area. It took a while but when it was done it was a neat and skilled job.
"There!" She exclaimed, admiring her work on the scanner as it hadn't been visible to the naked eye anyway so it looked little different but she was certain it must feel a lot more comfortable and make the whole section of Yolanthe's neck function better.
"Do you want to tell me what I'm erasing? Or shall we leave it as a mystery that isn't to be discussed?" she asked softly, just as she was finishing.
"Nothing I want to remember." Yolanthe couldn't look at the doctor. "We've just learnt that you can't change the past."
"You can't change what happened but you can change the effect it has on you from now on" Chelsea replied quietly not looking up from her work.
The bokkai didn't answer, but turned a deep dark orange that was bordering on brown.
Chelsea had no idea what the colours represented and cursed herself for not having found out after the last time Yolanthe had come into Sickbay. "Remind me to do some research on the shades that Bokkai people's skin turns and what that means" she muttered softly.
"And lose my indescribable mystique?" For a moment the orange lightened before settling back again.
Chelsea laughed softly, a warm friendly laugh. "That would be unacceptable, as pricetags go" she agreed. "Ok then, can you show me how to do it then? Because it's fascinating and I want in. I'll look into skin transplantation or something, because I'm suffering from colour-change-envy!" she smiled.
The taller woman was starting to relax, and the colour of her body started to pale again, and this time stayed that way. "Sorry, can't help. Science was not my strong point. Though if you can get the skin, the rest just happens. No control, just emotional response. The whole world knows how you feel." Yolanthe thought about it. "Possibly not a good trait in a doctor."
Chelsea laughed. "NO, I can see how that would *not* be helpful." she agreed, smiling. "In fact even socially, it's probably a pain in the .... er... skin?"
"Its why I'm terrible at cards." Yolanthe looked up at Chelsea and gave her a half smile. "But its only fair to say what people feel isn't the best guide to what they think. Or what they do about it. And it can sometimes lead to uncomfortable amounts of honesty." She searched her mind for a metaphor that would fit. "It makes it hard to fake a headache."
Chelsea laughed again, more heartily this time. "Oh dear! I see what you mean.... that could be difficult! I'm imagining scenes from my pastlife where that would have been MOST uncomfortable!"
"Headaches aren't the only things you can't fake." The bokkai grinned and gave a dirty chuckle. "Bet you're not so keen on the skin transplant now?"
"OH!" Chelsea's face registered that and she began to shake her head slowly, a look of horror appearing. "AH... you're right... i've gone right off it now!" She began to laugh again. "In fact, I'm waaaaaaay too fond of keeping some things to myself.... " she chuckled.
"That makes two of us." Yolanthe rubbed her forearms unconsciously as the doctor finished removing the ghosts of the old injuries from her wrists.
"That's a whole load done. Want to take a rest for today and maybe finish up tomorrow?" Chelsea offered.
"That would be great." The bokkai smiled at Chelsea, her colouring more cloudy violet now than orange. "See you soon." And she walked out of sickbay, not intending to go back. As the doctor had said, there were some things that had to be kept to yourself.
OFF
A JP between
Yolanthe Ibalin
Owner of the Box of Delights
and
Lt. Cmdr. Chelsea Adams
CMO - DS5
by Alderman Yolanthe Ibalin & Commander Chelsea Dunham
Post Details
| Title | Skin Deep | |
| Mission | Interlude | |
| Author(s) | Alderman Yolanthe Ibalin & Commander Chelsea Dunham | |
| Posted | Sat Jun 26, 2010 @ 4:10pm | |
| Location | Sick Bay | |
| Timeline | SD18, straight after TLC |
Yolanthe sat on the bio bed, trying to swing her legs, but was just far too tall. The nurse she had seen had taken one look at her battered face and decided that there was at least concussion, if not outright brain damage, and told her to wait for Dr Adams to be free.
She could hear the exchange between the doctor and the ambassador across the way, and winced. Putting them together was thoughtless, but the doctor seemed to have him under control. She found herself smiling, though the stiffened muscles on the left side of her face made that painful. She could imagine the smaller bajoran woman pulling him over her knee and giving him a spanking, despite the size difference. She certainly didn't take any crap from anyone.
She was trying not to laugh, and aggravate her bruises any further when the Doctor appeared. Yolanthe had to look at the floor to not burst out into giggles, and the slurry grey of her skin swirled from a blue tinge to an orange one and back for several seconds.
"I'd like a word with you Miss Ibalin...." The CMO began sternly at first as if in reprimand, but closer observation would have shown a sparkle in her eyes.
"You really need to raise the level of your clientèle!" Chelsea finished in a much lower voice and with a mischievous smile.
The bartender managed to look sheepish around the bruises. "That'll happen when you come by for a drink. On the house." She sighed, embarrassed for making such a simple mistake, "Probably for the next year if I keep forgetting about important little details like recent history. Sorry."
Chelsea grinned. "No worries" she reassured the Bokkai gently. "But I *will* join you for that drink though."
Taking the regenerator to the visible bruises on Yolanthe's lovely face Chelsea repaired them and stood back to admire her handiwork. "That's better" she declared.
Without thinking, the CMO ran her scanner over the rest of the patient to assess any other injuries and found a lot more than she had been expecting.
"Woh" she whistled. "You took it harder than Getal and yet you made a lot less fuss."
The bokkai frowned, and started to turn aqua, confused. "I just got banged up a bit. Couple of scratches. I didn't break anything." She put the pre-molar she had lost on the biobed. "Going to need a new one of those though."
Chelsea started to work on the padd-full of injuries, new and slightly older first. There were many of different ages and some from long ago, it seemed. The CMO didn't know whether to comment or keep out of it, but she knew she was going to have to put in several sessions to get all this lot sorted out.
"Sure, no problem. Teeth are easy." she smiled gently and worked deftly. The bokkai obviously knew the procedure well; her patient was doing what was needed every step of the way. A visual inspection of the finished work confirmed what the padd said. Not a single tooth in there was original, all were replacements of varying age.
Feeling her new tooth with her tongue to reassure herself it was seated firmly, Yolanthe pushed herself off the bio-bed, stood and brushed herself down. "Thanks, doctor."
"Yolanthe?" Chelsea didn't want to pry but she didn't want to be neglectful out of lack of courage to ask. "Will you come back tomorrow please? I can do a lot with some of these older injuries that haven't been properly treated." she suggested gently.
The bar tender shook her head. "Honestly, I'm fine," she protested.
"You shouldn't have to put up with this sort of damage at all, but having gone through it, you certainly don't need to continue to suffer from lack of medical care." Chelsea persisted, still gently, holding out the padd for the Bokkai to see too.
Yolanthe looked at the Padd, and saw the shadows of old wounds stretching back to childhood. They formed layers, the geological strata of a physical life, etched into her cells. On the bottom, crushed and obscured by the weight of years were the childhood breaks and bruises, rising up as she got older to incorporate torn muscles, lacerations of varying depths, ruptured organs and more than one stabbing.
As she surveyed the model of her insides, showing her the animated history of her internal life, she turned green, at first, faintly mint through the early years. Taking in the echoes of cracked ribs, broken nose and punctured lung from her late teens she became lime.
But it was the highest layers that unnerved her most, and for a brief instant she was dark forest green. The bruises covered her completely, some darker than others. The ligature marks around her wrists and and one ankle seemed to glow, bright white stripes against the darkness of other bruises, and the line of small punctures marching up her carotid nerve.
She sat abruptly, her legs suddenly wobbly. "I thought these were all fixed, all gone?"
"Clearly not comprehensively but I can fix that" Chelsea replied. "and in case you're concerned, Doctor/Patient confidentiality applies at all time, no matter what." she added, concerned about the deepening colours Yolanthe was traversing through, even though she didn't fully understand what they meant, their intensifying was obviously significant.
After several minutes of silence, the Bokkai looked up at Chelsea. "How long to fix the... more recent ones?" Yolanthe's voice was flat as she scratched absently at the side of her neck.
"I can stop whenever you want me to, I'll get as far as i can in the time you allocate. If you give me a full half hour, I should get through the worst of the most recent and perhaps on a little bit? It's hard to tell before I start but you can always call the shots.... " Chelsea offered.
Yolanthe's colour was fading, desaturating to a murky, swampy grey. She lifted her hair out of the way, "Please. I want it gone."
Chelsea examined Yolanthe's neck gently, scanning the damage. It was clear that something had been implanted in the past and then removed roughly, without proper care. There were internal scars, beneath the skin.
Taking the regenerator, Chelsea remoulded the pit where *it* had been and refraining from asking about it, she smoothed and rebuilt the sub-layers, smoothing them back and repairing the nerves around the area. It took a while but when it was done it was a neat and skilled job.
"There!" She exclaimed, admiring her work on the scanner as it hadn't been visible to the naked eye anyway so it looked little different but she was certain it must feel a lot more comfortable and make the whole section of Yolanthe's neck function better.
"Do you want to tell me what I'm erasing? Or shall we leave it as a mystery that isn't to be discussed?" she asked softly, just as she was finishing.
"Nothing I want to remember." Yolanthe couldn't look at the doctor. "We've just learnt that you can't change the past."
"You can't change what happened but you can change the effect it has on you from now on" Chelsea replied quietly not looking up from her work.
The bokkai didn't answer, but turned a deep dark orange that was bordering on brown.
Chelsea had no idea what the colours represented and cursed herself for not having found out after the last time Yolanthe had come into Sickbay. "Remind me to do some research on the shades that Bokkai people's skin turns and what that means" she muttered softly.
"And lose my indescribable mystique?" For a moment the orange lightened before settling back again.
Chelsea laughed softly, a warm friendly laugh. "That would be unacceptable, as pricetags go" she agreed. "Ok then, can you show me how to do it then? Because it's fascinating and I want in. I'll look into skin transplantation or something, because I'm suffering from colour-change-envy!" she smiled.
The taller woman was starting to relax, and the colour of her body started to pale again, and this time stayed that way. "Sorry, can't help. Science was not my strong point. Though if you can get the skin, the rest just happens. No control, just emotional response. The whole world knows how you feel." Yolanthe thought about it. "Possibly not a good trait in a doctor."
Chelsea laughed. "NO, I can see how that would *not* be helpful." she agreed, smiling. "In fact even socially, it's probably a pain in the .... er... skin?"
"Its why I'm terrible at cards." Yolanthe looked up at Chelsea and gave her a half smile. "But its only fair to say what people feel isn't the best guide to what they think. Or what they do about it. And it can sometimes lead to uncomfortable amounts of honesty." She searched her mind for a metaphor that would fit. "It makes it hard to fake a headache."
Chelsea laughed again, more heartily this time. "Oh dear! I see what you mean.... that could be difficult! I'm imagining scenes from my pastlife where that would have been MOST uncomfortable!"
"Headaches aren't the only things you can't fake." The bokkai grinned and gave a dirty chuckle. "Bet you're not so keen on the skin transplant now?"
"OH!" Chelsea's face registered that and she began to shake her head slowly, a look of horror appearing. "AH... you're right... i've gone right off it now!" She began to laugh again. "In fact, I'm waaaaaaay too fond of keeping some things to myself.... " she chuckled.
"That makes two of us." Yolanthe rubbed her forearms unconsciously as the doctor finished removing the ghosts of the old injuries from her wrists.
"That's a whole load done. Want to take a rest for today and maybe finish up tomorrow?" Chelsea offered.
"That would be great." The bokkai smiled at Chelsea, her colouring more cloudy violet now than orange. "See you soon." And she walked out of sickbay, not intending to go back. As the doctor had said, there were some things that had to be kept to yourself.
OFF
A JP between
Yolanthe Ibalin
Owner of the Box of Delights
and
Lt. Cmdr. Chelsea Adams
CMO - DS5