House Call

Posted on Tue Feb 8th, 2022 @ 9:29pm by Fleet Admiral Sturnack & Vice Admiral Nathan Cowell, MD & Captain Jocelyn Blake

Mission: Episode 2: 18th and Constitution
Location: The Fortress, Pinetop, Arizona
Timeline: Mission Day 26 at 1030

[The Fortress]
[Pinetop, Arizona]
[MD 26 - 1030 Hours]

Sleep had been an elusive thing for Jocelyn. Though she and Sturnack had broken from their conversation shortly after dinner, retiring to their rooms -- hiding really -- she had tossed and turned for hours puzzling over what had both been a lovely and extremely confusing day. On one hand, the discovery of Admiral McGarry's Christmas décor had felt like a boon; a bit of warmth and hope in the midst of something that felt too big and dangerous to wrap her head around. On the other hand, something had shifted between herself and Sturnack.

She had tried not to watch the clock as she tossed, but the last time she recalled seeing was 2:13 am, far too late to even count as a reasonable hour. Her body had woken her again at 7:30, two hours after her normal alarm and all she wanted was to dig back under her covers and never resurface. Still, she was supposed to be working. And she couldn't just hide in her room and pretend everything was normal. So she had coaxed herself out of bed, into sweatpants and an oversized sweatshirt and down the stairs in bare feet, the cold of the floor helping to wake her up as she went.

Sturnack had been at the kitchen table, a mug of coffee in hand -- already at work. His demeanor had changed and for a wild moment she thought she had imagined all of it. Somehow fabricated the whole thing. But, no, that wasn't it either.

"Dr. Cowell will be stopping in at 10:30," he had told her after a brief good morning. "If I am not out here would you let him in?"

She nodded, voicing her agreement as she poured her own cup of coffee from the pot and then, tail between her legs, escaped upstairs to check the wires in the safety of warm blankets.

A knock had come at her door a half an hour ago--his voice following to let her know that he needed to meet with several Admirals and would take the call in his room. She acknowledged what he said, sinking deeper into the blankets with a groan once she heard him move away from the door.

Now, she was standing at the door to the cabin, watching through the door as the Doc Cowell trudged his way grumpily through the snow.

"Stupid snow, gettin' on everything," Vice Admiral Nathan Cowell growled as he slogged his way through the powdery water crystals that he should have been used to given where he lived when he wasn't sequestered in his office. Whether it was the composition, the location, or just a function of him not caring to have walk all the way up the drive thanks to the transport inhibiters all over the compound, he seemed to be in one of his usual dark humors.

"It's damn cold out here, Red. Who's bright idea was is to put this shack in the middle of the White Mountains? At least my own shack is in a valley, not some windswept mountain..." the old man grumbled as he caught sight of Jocelyn standing at the door, "And for the record, you look like shit. You come down with something up here? Keep telling people not to sit in a hot tub in the middle of winter just because the water's warm and all... you'll still catch something..."

"Nice to see you too, Doc," Jocelyn said wryly, holding the door open so the old man could come into the cabin. Her eyes darted back into the space, but Sturnack still hadn't materialized from whatever meeting he was meant to be in. "Can I get you a cup of coffee or something? Your patient is on with the Admiralty."

"Nah, never cared for coffee much. Too many canteen coffees brewed on radiators during the war turns you off the stuff after a while. Got any hot tea?" the elderly man said as he climbed the stairs into the house. He paused just long enough to take off the coat he'd been wearing and tossed it onto a nearby hanger before picking his medkit back up and following the woman toward the kitchen area.

"Funny how I get left out of those meetings... wait... it's not funny, actually. I kind of like it that way," the old man snickered as he tossed his kit onto the table and flopped down into one of several empty seats.

"Seriously though, you do look rough, Red. Can't sleep up here in the mountains?" Cowell asked with a far more sober tone than before.

"Tea," she said with a nod, making a beeline for the kitchen, setting water to boil and rummaging through the cabinets. Hands settled on two tins and pulled them out, inspecting them. "Darjeeling or Jasmine?" she called over her shoulder. "And do you want anything in it?"

"Go with Darjeeling, not a fan of the other," Nathan said, leaning back in.

She set a mug aside with the requisite tea bag and then made her way back toward the table, leaning against the wall where the kitchen split into the dining area. "Didn't sleep well last night... no. Or really well the first night either. Nothing to do with the mountains, I assure you." She chewed the inside of her cheek considering. In the short time she'd known the El-Aurian doctor she'd come to rely on his judgment and candor. But she wasn't sure how to explain the day prior to him.

Nathan lifted the tea to his lips and took a sip, a brief "Hmm" slipping out of his throat as he took in both the tea's flavor and the woman's comment. His eyes wandered around the room for a moment, settling on little details here and there. Even though his eyes were meandering, his face didn't so much as twitch as he just took in the space without comment. After a few brief moments of gazing about the room, the old man turned his eyes back to his young friend.

"Been getting antsy, maybe? Having a hard time focusing?" Cowell asked, his voice suddenly sounding a whole lot more clinical than usual, as if he already had some idea rolling around in his head about what was going on.

Jocelyn had turned back to the kitchen, filling a mug of coffee for herself before coming to sit with the doctor. "It's possible someone tried to kill me two days ago. So... yes... antsy. Difficulty focusing," she quipped, her expression carefully neutral. She knew she should just come out with it. It was Cowell. He'd seen what felt like literally everything. But she still wasn't sure that much of what her brain was telling her wasn't just in her head and a self-conscious part of her was still concerned that she was imagining things.

"True," the old man shrugged off the comment, "But most people don't just get a little antsy or lose focus when someone makes a go at taking their life. Seen it a few times, kiddo, so I'm certain if that was all it was I wouldn't have asked. But the physician in me thinks it's something else..."

Cowell made a show of pointing over toward the fireplace, "Handwriting is a little different than normal, isn't it?"

She had the wherewithal to look at least mildly sheepish as her gaze followed the doctor's gesture. "Whose... mine or his...?" she asked, the question more than a little pointed with the undertone of what she wasn't saying. "I can't say I've ever seen Sturnack's handwriting in red glitter pen before, but it seems pretty... Vulcan perfectionism... to me. And mine..." she shrugged. She knew she was rambling now, but the urge to fill the waiting silence was strong. "It's a glitter pen... no one's hand writing looks like their own in glitter pen."

"Seem a little... similar, wouldn't you say?" the old man said with a raised eyebrow, "Glitter pen not withstanding..."

Cowell leaned forward, resting his elbow on the table with his hand propping up his head, "Could just be a case of shared trauma manifesting itself... could be something else entirely. But if my guess is even close to the mark... well..."

The old man gave her a little shrug before sitting back in his chair, "I could, of course, be wrong. It's happened once or twice. And thankfully it isn't life threatening if I happen to be wrong in this case... so no harm done."

Jocelyn eyed the doctor over her mug warily. "Just say what you want to say, Doc," she said amused exasperation in her tone.

"I'm just saying upfront I'm not a hundred percent sure... but I think you two might be having a bit of a bonding session up here... on the psychic level. Could be wrong... could just all be utter coincidence... but having seen this a few times in the past, it does seem pretty unlikely to be nothing but pure happenstance that you're exhibiting signs of such. If you start having weird dreams about people you don't know, let me know. That's the big tell..." Cowell said in his usually roundabout way.

"Well that was about as clear as mud," Jocelyn said with a bemused look at Cowell. She brought the mug to her lips, sipping slowly and thinking through what he had said. Bonding felt... appropriate... but also not exactly an accurate explanation for what had kept her up last night. "If I have wild dreams I'll be sure to give you a call."

"Thank you," came a voice from the hall, "for your patience. My apologies for the delay," Sturnack said as he padded down the hall. Like Jocelyn, he did not wear his Starfleet uniform, though his combadge was affixed to the light sweatshirt he wore. Completing the very un-Vulcan ensemble was a pair of sweatpants in the same color. "I was unsure if we would be revisiting physical therapy, so I dressed for such just in case," he said by way of explanation. "Greetings Doctor," the Vulcan dipped his head in momentary deference. "I appreciate you making the trip up here. I hope the snow did not prove too much of a challenge." Turning, he said to Jocelyn, "Thank you for letting the Admiral in. You are appreciated."

"Wasn't too bad," the old man shrugged, "Had worse up north just a week ago. But that's not a big deal in the grand scheme of things. Why don't we take a look at you and see how bad you horsed yourself up, shall we?"

Cowell pushed himself off the chair he'd been sitting on and pulled the medkit forward a bit, flicking the latches in a smooth, practiced motion to retrieve the tricorder that came with the unit. With the device in his left hand, the old man pulled out the small scanning module and proceeded to run his preliminary scans of the Vulcan standing in front of him.

"What's your pain like? On a scale of 'I don't have any' to 'distracting', factoring in that Vulcans usually downplay pain quite a bit," Cowell said with a smirk as he looked at the tricorder display.

"I would categorize the pain," Sturnack began, patiently waiting for the scan to complete, "as mildly but momentarily off putting. It comes and goes," he explained, "but seems worse when I am actively moving around." Unmentioned went the act of carrying an unwieldy Christmas tree box from the back shed. He also did not bring up stretching his back to place ornaments on the tree or hang decorations from the walls. Sturnack simply let the statement regarding general movement carry the weight of explanation. "As directed, I have been stretching before physical activity that goes beyond simply walking around."

Cowell frowned at the tricorder readings that were scrolling away as he made a circle around the Vulcan. He could tell by what he was seeing that his patient had been doing something that might have passed for an attempt to stretch, which meant that the activity has been completed poorly, in haste, and only because it would be even more tiresome to have to deal with an ornery old physician complaining that he wasn't doing anything to help his condition otherwise.

"Well... taking a page out of the manual from back in the old days... You get an A for effort, but you failed on the execution. You've got knots the size of a fist in there, no wonder moving sends pain through your whole damn body. I can set your muscles back where they ought to be, but maybe you're going to have to have a therapy buddy for a while. You seem to be less than trustworthy to do it right on your own. While you're here, Red can help you out I'd imagine, no sense in me traipsing across the White Mountains every damn day. That and it'd be kind of hard to explain why I keep disappearing to an undisclosed location at set intervals every day. Would defeat the purpose of this being a hideaway. Gotta keep your enemies guessing, you know? Can't rightly do that if you can't confuse your own staff," the old man joked as he snapped the tricorder closed.

"I can give you something for the pain, manhandle the offending muscle group, and be out of your hair in about an hour, unless there's anything else you're dealing with that I need to attend to while I'm here in pocket and not back at the office. I don't make house calls that often anymore, after all," Cowell said with a small smirk.

Sturnack merely nodded when the Doctor suggested that he'd been less than dedicated to proper back care. It did little good to argue otherwise; the Vulcan knew that he was probably not being as thorough as he should be. It was the mention of Jocelyn helping him with physical therapy, though, that brought Sturnack upright and rigid in his position. The touch of Old Doc Cowell was nothing his body autonomically got excited over. But with Jocelyn, the last couple of days had proven that Sturnack's body had...ideas; ideas that his mind was finding more and more difficult to ignore.

"The...other condition," the Vulcan said, raising an eyebrow. He didn't elaborate in front of Jocelyn but he assumed the doctor would understand that to which he referenced. Barring going outside, there wasn't anywhere Jocelyn could go where she would not be able to hear the conversation anyway, so Sturnack settled for being cryptic. "It is becoming more problematic," he said, clarifying no further. His eyes were hard as he regarded Cowell, hoping the Doctor would not make things more difficult.

Jocelyn had watched the exchange quietly, sipping her coffee and appreciating the back and forth between the two men. At the mention of helping with physical therapy she froze, thankful that her mug was at her face as she did. Neither man was paying her any attention, though, so she simply took an extra moment with the mug to try to bring her features back in line. The light blush on her cheeks couldn't be hidden, though, so she didn't try. It would only make it worse. Whatever thing was different now it didn't change that Sturnack had been a loyal friend to her. The least she could do was help with this.

She had been lost in thought so she didn't immediately catch the change in Sturnack's body language. When she did, however, she stood quickly drawing glances from both men. "I... should get back to work," she said hurriedly, nodding to Sturnack before fixing Cowell with an appreciative smile. "Don't be a stranger, Doc." The smile held long enough for her to nod and then she turned, hurrying up the stairs and shutting the door to her room behind her.

After a rather pregnant pause in conversation as the woman made her retreat, Cowell turned his attention back to his patient. His 'other' condition was something the old man had been aware of, thanks to his extensive digging into the man's medical background. With practiced ease, Cowell took the Vulcan by the shoulder and guided him to a chair, plunking the man into a seat with a measured amount of force that told his patient just how serious the conversation they were about to have was going to be.

"From what I can see around here, your 'condition' is running rampant and out of your ability to control," Cowell said in a rather stern tone that seemed almost foreign giving the man's usual propensity to be sarcastic and noncommittal most of the time, "And it's likely going to get the better of you sooner rather than later."

Cowell took his own seat, dropping the tricorder back in the case as he did so, "You're lucky you've got someone around you that will be even remotely sympathetic and possibly even amenable to helping you with your problem. But I'm gonna give you a cautionary tale both as your physician and as someone who's dealt with it personally a few times before... it will not go the way you're used to. From what I've gathered over the years, when it's two Vulcans involved, you get back some of your emotional control since the two of you are struggling with the same issues and you can fight the urges together. With more emotional species, it tends to have the opposite effect."

Cowell reached out and seized his tea cup, taking a sip before continuing, "The few times I experienced it first hand, I noticed that I took on some of her quirks for a while. She was very organized in her daily life... maybe it would be better to say in her private life since pretty much everyone in Starfleet seems to be fairly orderly when they're on the job. But anyway, this particular girl has a penchant for items being at precise angles... always variants of fifteen degrees. Everything had to be slightly cockeyed for her to feel at ease. Well... I started doing it. At first it was just little things... a PaDD... sometimes I'd set down a hypospray at an odd angle, little shit."

"Then," Nathan took another sip of his tea, "after a while I noticed that my companion at the time started swearing. And boy did I get a few dirty looks when she would angrily... yes, imagine the shock of it, a Vulcan angrily dressing down someone using just about every expletive in my vast arsenal when one of her subordinates did something or another in the science lab. She got that from me during our little adventure through her own little problem. She did thank me for not having any weird dreams though, seeing as how the few times she'd asked me to show her some of the things I'd talked about through a mind meld had disturbed her terribly."

"I say all that to say this. You're already starting to influence her in little ways. Your stockings over there paint a pretty solid picture of how you two are progressing. If I thought it would be too big of a burden on either one of you, I'd probably recommend cutting it off with chemical therapy until all this shit blows over and you get get a specialist to help you through it the Vulcan way. But I'm not going to do that. You've put this off long enough through pharmaceuticals already. You two have a good enough relationship, from what I can tell, that this won't make the house of cards come crashing down. What you might want to do, though, is sit her down and explain it to her. Let her know that you're going through it, that you have at least enough personal affection for her, even if it isn't romantic in nature, that has made her a target for your condition, and see if perhaps she isn't willing to at least try to help you. I can always come back and cut you off should it get too much for the both of you. But, because I'm not the one dealing with it, this is just my advice, man to man. If you, as my patient, feel that it's not worth the risk... I brought what I need to dope you up for another month or two... but that's as far as I can safely take you with drugs. After that your body's going to reject them and you're stuck at square one. So what's it going to be, son?" Cowell set the cup down and gave the Vulcan the floor.

Sturnack listened attentively as the Doctor shared his cautionary tale. It was helpful to hear the man's experience: it was, after all, not uncommon for touch-telepaths to instinctively enable the sharing of traits between each other when mating. Such was only temporary but, for Vulcans, this was considered a sign that the bonding had been effective. While Sturnack was intrigued to hear that Doctor Cowell had undergone such bonding, Sturnack internally bucked at the idea of using Jocelyn to fulfill the needs of his body. "I do not wish to give in to...convenience," he spoke carefully, "and potentially upend the 'house of cards,' as you called it. While it's possible Jocelyn might assist, I feel it would change the nature of our working relationship. And while I do consider her a...friend," the word was chosen strategically, "a Pon Farr bonding would -- as you described -- affect each of us. I feel it would be more appropriate to wait out this crisis under your medical care and increased medication," Sturnack confirmed his choice. "However, I am appreciative of your perspective and advice, Doctor."

"Suit yourself," Cowell shrugged, digging the required medications out of his bag, "But I'm gonna preface this by saying that I don't think it's wise, for starters. But I'm also going to give you forewarning that it might not even work. Your body has been getting a little too used to this stuff, and while it might give you another month or so... it might not. You're pushing the boundaries of being a case study for using this junk for a record breaking amount of time, so there's a non-zero chance your body is going to reject it outright. I wouldn't bet the farm this will be anything more than a loose bandage that might not stay put longer than it'll take me to walk out the front door."

Speech complete, Cowell administered the series of hypospray injections that would, theoretically, assist in suppressing his condition for a while. Once he was finished doing so, the doctor deposited the items back in his bag and sank back down.

"Now, all that's left is to put your muscles where they belong and I'm pretty much done, I think... unless you have anything else I need to take care of," the old man said, sipping on the last of his tea.

"Thank you, Doctor," Sturnack nodded, unconsciously rubbing at the injection site. Cowell's warning gave him pause: if the medication did not temper his urges, things could get very difficult very fast. That said, though, the medicines had so far done their job and the Vulcan hoped that an increased and refreshed dosage would prove effective in the short term. "The back is all that remains," Sturnack spoke up again in confirmation, assuming a position he was now quite used to when seeing the Doctor.

Leaning over, the Vulcan braced himself against the table as Cowell worked on the shambles of muscles in his back. Knots were unknit and wrinkled ridges calmed and smoothed as the Doctor's experienced hands worked their magic. The alternating staccato of beating hands and rubs across his sweatshirt fabric filled Sturnack's ears as the session went on, the Vulcan focusing on a meditative breathing technique in tandem. While the unkinking process did involve some level of pain, the relief that followed the session was immediate and welcomed.

Looking up, Sturnack offered the Doctor a small bow of his head in thanks. "That is a marked improvement. I promise to adhere to the physical therapy routine you've set forth. I am sure Jocelyn will prove an... effective," he emphasized, "partner. Thank you again for making the trip out here, Doctor."

"Don't mention it, son. House calls might not be in fashion much these days, what with general health being a far cry better than what it used to be when I started out practicing medicine, but I'm not too proud to give my roots a visit now and again. Just remember what I told you. You're working on borrowed time now, with that condition of yours. Give me a shout if the shots don't work... I'll figure out something, even if we have to import someone from Vulcan. That'd be a first," Cowell snickered to himself as he collecting his belongings. Once the medkit was on his shoulder, Cowell walked the tea cup he'd been using into the kitchen and placed it in the sink. After his small contribution to the general cleanliness of the abode was complete, the old man wandered out the door, trudging through the snow with crunching footsteps on his way to the border of the transport inhibitor zone.

Sturnack sat for several minutes with his thoughts, reflecting on all that the doctor had said, suggested, and borderline ordered. It was unfortunate that the timing of the assassination attempt had been what it was; had it been a month later, the Vulcan's scheduled trip to his homeworld would have made things much easier. But as things currently stood, Sturnack was rather stuck between options that were all either extremely and awkwardly inconvenient and undeniably questionable.

Resolving to get through the situation with medication as best as possible, the Vulcan rose from his chair and called up to Jocelyn, letting her know the Doctor had departed. He then withdrew into his bedroom to quietly work through the remainder of the afternoon, pregnant thoughts very much vying for his attention but ultimately going nowhere.


=/\= A joint-post by... =/\=

Fleet Admiral Sturnack
Commander-in-Chief
Starfleet Command

and

Captain Jocelyn Blake
Press Secretary
Starfleet Command

and

Vice Admiral Nathan Cowell, MD
Director, Starfleet Medical
Starfleet Command