The moment Leah stepped out of Roman’s room, she affixed a mask of ease upon her face and forced herself down the corridor. Each step seemed increasingly harder until she finally slipped through the doors into the medical bay. Leah stepped to the side, face drawn, and leaned against the wall. She closed her eyes and focused on her breathing. Innnn. Ouuuuuuut. Innnn. Ouuuuuuuut.

It wasn’t Roman and his situation that she was struggling with, even if trauma processing and suicidal patients took a lot of physical and mental energy. More than anything it was the similitude between their families that had triggered her own responses. She was too good at her job and too practiced at maintaining a professional mask where needed to let her issues interfere with the work they were doing together. That did not mean, however, that Leah wasn’t having her mother’s incessant criticism running in a loop in her mind just now. She had done some work to negate the narcissistic abuse, but at the end of the day it wasn’t something you could entirely escape. She could only work to ensure it didn’t take her down. Most days, it could. Today it would not. But that didn’t mean she wasn’t feeling emotionally fragile in this moment.

In short she needed a break. A chance to take a breath and check in with herself before she and Roman continued the hard work. They were close in certain ways and so far away in others, but she truly was proud of his progress. He had no idea what huge steps he had taken already. And yet, she knew he wasn’t in a good enough place to release him. He wasn’t ready.

“Doctor Hart, are you alright?”

Leah smirked, eyes still closed. Nurse Cappet. There was only one person who called her ‘doctor’ here, because she was in fact a doctor wth a PhD. But the confusion between that and the medicallylicensed doctors was too confusing in medical settings, so it was standard for NPs to be called ‘Nurse’. She was okay with that. She wasn’t ashamed of being a nurse. She enjoyed her work. “I’m okay, Sienna. Just need to take a breather before I go make a call on behalf of a patient.”

“Okay, if there’s anything you need, just let me know, alright?”

Sienna didn’t seem convinced, and Leah couldn’t blame her. Still, Leah nodded. “I will.”

She remained there for a few minutes, before moving further into Sickbay. She saw that Kreed’s office was empty, so she went in and sat at the desk. She had the computer look up Henry and Maryann Caliano.

~Leah Hart, NP