Posted by Fleet Captain Alexander Cochrane (Commanding Officer) in Officer’s Mess- Dinner with the Captain

Posted by Civilian Sair Songz (Counselor) in Officer’s Mess- Dinner with the Captain

Posted by Fleet Captain Alexander Cochrane (Commanding Officer) in Officer’s Mess- Dinner with the Captain

(snip)

The room was pleasant and open with tables throughout, some occupied and some not. There were people in uniform and in plain clothes. Some were alone, some with friends… some obviously on dates. The door into the Mess was at the interior side of the room, away from the hull and the large windows at the far side. It was here that table had been set and single figure sat and looked out the window. As the Songz women entered, Cochrane stood and smiled and waved them over. He was wearing a dark gray, almost black, suit with a pale blue shirt beneath, unbuttoned at the top with no tie and black polished leather shoes.

As they approached, he said “Good evening, ladies. And might I say that you both look positively amazing. I should have worn a tie.” and he smiled and pulled out the chair for Kel first, then Sair. A few of the people in the room watched and whispered. Cochrane sat after the ladies and then sighed. “Scuttlebutt… the lifeblood of any ship’s crew. By this time tomorrow, I will probably be engaged to one or both of you.” and he shook his head but grinned slightly. “And that will be the tamer of the stories, I’m sure.”

Cochrane, CO

Sair laughed openly. “I can imagine. The rumour cycle at a hospital is no different, trust me.”

“Yes, but I didn’t go out my way to encourage it either,” Kel said, a gleam in her brown eyes.

“Hey! You make it sound like I did it on purpose,” Said said, clearly not miffed at her mother’s teasing and she shook her head and smiled. “But in any case, you do look rather dashing yourself, Captain.” And he did. Cochrane was a good looking man to begin with, but there was something slightly different in his demeanour that Sair guessed had to do with being out of uniform. She herself had relaxed a bit too, though the laughing had helped with that a lot. She still felt rather awkward being in this space, even if she had bene specifically invited.

~Sair & Kel Songz

“That sounds like a story. Do tell.” Cochrane said with a twinkle in his eye. At that moment a server appeared and filled wine glasses with an amber liquid that seemed to have multicolor motes of light dancing inside it as the liquid moved in the glass. “I hope you don’t mind, I had the wine ready. Antarian Gem wine. It was a gift from a freighter captain we assisted a few months ago. If you’d like something else, just ask and I’m sure Chef Harv can get it for you.”

Cochrane, CO

Kel shook her head. “It sounds lovely, though I can only have a small amount.”

Sair picked up her glass and studied it curiously before she took a sip, knowing there was no way she’d get out of telling these stories now. What was that Terran phrase about liquid courage? The wine was sweet but not overly so and filled her mouth with something she could only describe as a brightness. “It’s lovely,” she said, before breaking into a tiny smirk. “So… there’s not all that much to say really. I was involved with someone at the hospital-“

“An intern,” Kel interjected with a grin.

“Yes, an intern,” Sair said, heat touching her cheeks. “And yes, I was an attending. There was no explicit rule forbidding it, and he worked in an entirely different department, but we weren’t interested in broadcasting it to everyone, so we were… discreet. But an event happened that I’m not going to talk about now and let’s just say that it was all everyone could talk about for weeks.” Sair shrugged. “It might not have been the best decision but I’m not sure I regret it.”

Kel chuckled as she sipped the wine cautiously. “That’s not even the incident I was thinking of, though it showed how fast information could travel about Hopi Care Centre. No, the one I’m thinking of was far more recent, just before she left for this assignment actually.”

Sair groaned and covered her face for a moment. “Fine, go ahead,” she said.

Kel leaned forward with a grin. “So Sair did a lot of work as a counsellor at the hospital too, in addition to working with individual clients, and one day she just seemed a bit off. More determined and very focused. I was working on the ICU ward and she was seeing a patient, an adolescent girl who had just started puberty and beginning her dueridium treatments. Sometimes this does not go smoothly and there is a rough patch while a patient’s body decides to accept the treatment, so we have to maintain a close eye on them. Sair was checking in on her and that’s when I and the other nurses noticed that Sair was quietly collecting supplies from the around the ward. You have to understand Captain that supplies are heavily monitored because they are in such high demand, and Sair was no longer a practicing physician so she shouldn’t have been even touching any of it. But we nurses know that sometimes we just have to sit back and let things play out, and frankly we were just so curious what she was up to.

“And this went on for a couple days until somehow one of the hospital administrators got wind of it and confronted her, demanding an explanation. All she would say is that she was taking care of a patient and walked off.” Kel laughed. “This administrator was well known to be very difficult and abrasive and Sair’s response infuriated him. He even threatened to fire her and she just turned back, looked him in the eyes and said ‘No you won’t’ and then carried on.

“So the next day, Sair brings all the supplies she’s collected and starts using them in the girl’s room, decorating it as one might for a celebration. And that’s when we understood that Sair was throwing the girl a party.” Kel focused on her daughter. “I still don’t know how you didn’t get fired, but it was one of those stories that everyone was talking about. Still do, actually.”

Sair smiled and looked at Alex. “The girl had lost her mother the previous year due to premature cellular degradation. The woman was fairly young so it was particularly devastating and her daughter was having panic attacks over being at an age to need treatments and it not going well. So my thought was that she needed something positive to propel her forward, that we could celebrate her rather than focus on what her body was doing. I figured her mental wellbeing surpassed the few supplies I used as decorations and the wrath of an ignorant administrator who wouldn’t listen to my patient’s emotional needs.” She shrugged. “It was just before I decided to rejoin the exchange program and honestly was looking for a reason to leave. He gave me the necessary push.”

“How did you know he wouldn’t fire you?” Kel asked.

Sair’s light brown eyes gleamed as she looked between her mother and Cochrane. “He never asked who the patient was when I told him I was doing something for an ICU patient. He backed down once I told him who it was. She was his niece…”

Kel shook her head and gestured to Sair. “See right there, Captain? Don’t let this innocent face fool you. My daughter can be quite the troublemaker when she wants to be.”

~Sair & Kel Songz