"Kyoko Vala Chang-Monroe, I have been on the Destiny for 9 months." She says slurring her name a bit but recovering focus as she speaks.

"There you go...perfect."  She smiled a bit, keeping a hand on her shoulder so that she didn't try to stand up, turning off the flashlight.  "You had quite a spill, not sure where you must have slipped...it's more than a scratch on the back of your head.  You're going to have to stay off your feet for a few days at least, slowly recover."

Acacia stepped around to the other side of the table, starting an IV bag as she spoke.  "Do you remember where you got the injury on your head, then?"

"Somoene was in the engine room. I had to sneak into the access ducting to get in, he came at me with a pipe." She winces as she recalls the fight only half way. "I took a hit in the ribs, he had a pipe. I trapped it, he slammed me into the enviormentals and I banged my head. I felt.. gooshy.. so I ." She sighs. "I killed him, so that we could save the ship. Charlene and I were talking afterwards..she's not happy with me is she? Did she say anything about what I said.. it's kind of hazy." Her eyes start to droop again.

Acacia finished the IV, taking Kyoko's arm and rubbing alcohol over the spot she was going to place the needle.  It would be okay if she passed out now.  She'd have to wake her every hour or two, make sure she didn't fall into too deep of a sleep...but she could drift off, definitely.

"I didn't speak to Charlene, I haven't really had words with her in a day or two.  She tends to drift off into her own world when Kale and the others go on jobs...not to mention she seems to be taking Rhaef's leave hard."  Charlie stuck the needle into Kyoko's arm, holding it in place while she taped it down.  "I'm sure you can speak with her about it later, if you wish.  You are going to have to stay here for the night, and tomorrow we can bring you back to your shuttle...but when you're there, you'll also need to keep resting. You're going to be light-headed and woozy for the next few days, okay?"

"Oh-kay." She murmurs as she slips off into sleep. Her face takes on a peaceful look as her pain and concerns fade.

After successfully delivering the stamp to the Professor and despite the loss of their first mate, the crew of Destiny headed back into the black.  Back to work.  A few jobs later has left them with a crate from Xiaygin to be delivered to Torrance Station.  They've just docked at the space station located on the rim.

Its now been almost a month since the museum job and Rhaef leaving - the wounds are healing but they haven't been forgotten yet.
This message was last edited by the GM at 02:00, Sat 13 Oct 2007.

Acacia ran into the infirmary, nearly sliding into the countertop as she went, bracing herself with her good hand.  She kept the injured hand close to her body, the broken fingers sending a pulse of pain all the way up her arm, and to even move the rest of the hand hurt...but this wasn't the time for that.  Right now, there was a job to do.  With two of their better gunhands gone, there was no telling how they were going to fare against the reavers.  It would take all of them working together to get through this.  She couldn't fire a weapon to save her life, but before it was all over, someone was going to need to be stitched up.

"Fang zong feng kuang de jie."  Acacia cursed as she opened the cabinets, looking through her supplies.  There wouldn't be much that would be necessary to pull out, since the use of half of the equipment would require bringing someone back to the informary.  Only the essentials...

Ren reached the infirmary and saw Acacia, funny, he thought to himself, in the midst of everything, he realized how beautiful she was. Didn't matter what the Kyoko said or what the Captain feared, gorramit, they were surviving this.

Acacia stepped out of the infirmary with an armful of supplies, seeming like they would all topple out of her arms at any moment.  Small bottles of clear liquid and syringes, bandages, tape, scissors, something that looked like pliers, a tube of sealing foam...everything that she could possibly need in a bind.  She nearly ran into Ren at the doorway, stopping just before she made conctact, looking up at him.  Her eyes were something of panic, her worry having gone into overdrive.

"Ren!"  She spoke in surprise, looking down towards the cargo bay and then back at him.  "What are you doing here?  We have to go...to go save the others...why aren't you out there?"

Ren looked at her, and smiled. It seemed like only yesterday, she was just joining the crew, and trying to move stuff from her shuttle into Destiny's little infirmary. He remembered walking with Rhaef and joking that the first mate had taken to getting himself shot, so that they could finally get a medic.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~ F L A S H B A C K ~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Ren watched the new doc as she struggled with the supplies she was unloading, it appeared that Rhaef had other things to do, or at least was sick of the infirmary by now, which made sense. He nodded to the first mate, and turned to help the new doc. "Hey there, doc. You need a hand?"

Acacia turned towards the pilot in shock, spilling about half of what she'd had in her arms.  The first thing she'd set out to do on this new ship was to stock up the cabinets with all the supplies she'd brought with her, laying it out in a neat order like she'd had before.  Everything was alphabatized and neatly faced off to the edge of the cabinets, and things were kept clean and thouroughly wiped down.  She'd made a point of cleaning everything before she bothered to bring in sterile equipment.  If she was going to have to work on the go, there would not be time to do it while she was in the process of saving a life.

"What?  Oh, sorry."  The small bottles ran out of her hands and bounced off of the countertop, rolling out onto the floor around them.  "Sorry.  Must not be a good sign of confidence in a doctor if she can't keep her hands on a few perscriptions, eh?"

Ren laughed and bent over to help pick up some of the bottles sliding away, "Ain't nothing to mind, little bit a chaos is required to crew on Destiny. Should have seen my first day." Ren answered. He began setting the bottles back on the counter, he had not realized the new doc was a woman til he'd entered the infirmary. He'd not really paid attention to Kale and Rhaef's discussions about her, since it was Rhaef who most likely goin' to be needin' her services.

Even so, he was not ready for the doc to be so pretty, he'd knew they'd been flying for a good piece, and well, Charlie been more like a sister, than anything else. Now standing here, he'd been shocked by the fact that his first thought was of how pretty the new doc was. He felt himself blushing. "Oh...by the way...name's Harrison, Reiner Harrison, most folks just call me Ren." He stumbled, completely loosing what semblance of cool, he had before the conversation started.

"I'm sure everyone can have a questionable first day.  I'm just...not used to ships.  You know, it's not exactly a hospital."  She tipped up the thin wire-framed glasses that sat on the edge of her nose, then leaned over to set the armful of bottles onto the counter without spilling most of them.  Once she was satisfied that they weren't going to all fall over, she crouched down and began picking more of thme off the ground.

"Reiner...that's something I haven't heard before."  There was a flash of a smile there, and then she looked back at the ground.  "While most would have called me Doctor Keese, I suppose it'll just be Acacia now.  Titles aren't really what's important out here."

Ren continued to set bottles on the counter, "What can I my folks like creative names, me and siblings are all named with our grandfolks last names, I got lucky, my kid brother is Ocee." Ren said with a smile.

"Titles might not matter much, but I'll tell you true, you'll be more appreciated out here, we've been so long without a doc, it'll be nice to have someone who can be patching us up." He looked at the woman, even with her glasses on, he noticed her pretty eyes. "So how'd you come to find us, Doc?" Most of us have interesting stories. I got the crew out of a gun-fight with some crazy flyin', Charlie, our mechanic, she came aboard after fixin' her brother's mistakes. And from what I understand Rhaef, the first mate, just walked on to the ship and the Captain hired him." Ren added, trying to make small talk after he'd returned on his collected bottles to the counter.

"How did I-...oh.  Uh, I guess nothing that extravagent."  Acacia stood back up, setting more bottles down on the counter and trying not to let anything slip off.  "I ran into your captain, Kale...a year ago?  Maybe two?  I don't know, it seems like it wasn't that long ago.  Poor man was nearly bleeding to death on my table.  I work...well, I worked at the free clinic like most of us do on particular days, making sure medicine gets to those who need it but maybe can't afford it.  I wouldn't say I saved his life, but...I definitely put him back together again."  She shrugged slightly, looking back up at Ren.

"Second time I meet him, there's a job."  She smiled, taking off her glasses and folding them up, placing them back on the counter next to the bottles.  "Nothing exciting, just...run-of-the-mill stuff."

"Patched up a man bleedin' to death, that more than run of the mill stuff. It's amazin.'" Ren said stuttered.  He could not believe he was stumbling over his words this badly. Yet she was so gorram pretty, and he'd been out in the black so long. "So you plannin' on stayin' with us long?" He paused, "I mean, if you are and want a tour of the ship, I can give you one."

"I'm not here because I owe the captain a favour or anything, and could leave whenever I wanted to...if I wanted to, of course."  She looked back down at the bottles, slowly putting them all upright and sliding them into some sort of order, opening one of the cabinets in front of her.  She'd have to figure out a way to keep these so that they wouldn't slide out of arrangement every time the ship was bumped...maybe there would be some kind of soft adhesive solution.  She'd have to look into it, or maybe ask this mechanic, "Charlie."  As long as he wasn't the gruff type that would paw all over her.

"Kale gave me the short tour already, when I first came on board."  She looked up at him briefly, a raised eyebrow poising above the rim of her glasses, and then back at the bottles.  "I suppose I'll be here long enough to need a place to put my stuff.  Maybe not forever, but I go where I'm needed."

"The bunks are not far from here, they're pretty simple, but they're home." He paused, "You want me to show you to them?"

Yet in the back of his mind, all he heard was her talkin' about Kale. Figures that Captain would get the first pretty girl to come on the ship. If he did not Rhaef probably would. Ren was the lowest on the pecking order, but that did not stop him from trying.

"He already gave me the tour, hun."  Acacia spoke again, starting to put bottles un in the cabinet, making sure to line them up in her continued alphabetical order.  Normally, that order would be secondary to the different types of medication...ala stimulants, depressants, antibiotics, so on and so forth...but that would only be worth it if she had that large of a quantity.  This would have to do.

"I already have my things in a bunk, set out on the bed and ready to go."  She looked back at Ren, smiling a little bit.  "I take it that when the ship isn't flying, you get a bit fidgety?  Maybe a little bored?"

Ren fought to keep his smile up, but he knew he was being shot down. Figured as much, Kale went out of his way to pick up a doc he knew and she was a lady doc, it figured that the captain had an alterior motive. "Yeah, I guess you could say that. I don't get off the ship all that much, which is fine, but Kale and Rhaef tend to need me ready to have in the air in a hurry, and well, its not that often we get new folks aboard, I guess. Sorry, if I'm bothered you." He could sense that she was tryin' to kindly move him on, cause she had work to do.

~*~*~*~*~*~ E N D   F L A S H B A C K ~*~*~*~*~*~

Acacia stood with her armful of medicines and bandages, her nose red from the tears she'd been spilling, lower lip quivering.  She was holding one hand at an askew angle so as not to jar her broken fingers, and her other hand was wrapped around a bundle of gauze, her knuckles turning white with her grip.

"Ren...baby...I'm scared."  She croaked out the words, taking a step forward and letting her face rest on his shoulder for a moment, letting out a choked sob.  Reavers were moments from breaking into the ship, and they could all easily be dead in the next few minutes.  It wasn't supposed to turn out like this.  They would get a job, and then they'd run out to do it, and whatever happened...they stayed out of harm.  She and Reinre would stay behind in the ship, and wouldn't have to deal with the danger.  People like Kale, Rhaef, Geoff...this was their job.  If I survive this...when this is all over...I just want to go home...

"I don't want to die..."
This message was last edited by the player at 05:43, Fri 03 Nov 2006.

Ren wrapped his arms around her and held tight, "Neither do I, baby. Neither do I." He said, brushing her hair tenderly with his hands, kissing her. "And we won't. Charlie and Kale'll get us free, Geoff and Wei'll get back, and I'll fly out of trouble."

His voice grew more determined. He lifted her chin and kissed her deeply. "When we get out of this, its time to go home. And I want you to go there as my wife. Was hoping for a more romantic time for this, but I know now more than ever this is what I want, what I've always wanted. Acacia Keese, will you marry me?"