Crewmates and Friends

It’s easy to find where Arden has set up shop. Some of the surgical suites were reserved for the more influential patients and Arden has moved his gear, Brian, and the other equipment that he needed into the suite. With Rina’s help, power had been rerouted and the batteries charged up with the numerous solar panels that still littered the top of the buildings in the city. Now Arden had a desk in a spacious room, a solitary halogen light behind a desk in a corner, and a doctor’s cot in the opposite corner. Next to the cot a hole had been knocked in the wall; a hole that hadn’t been approved, designed, or constructed by engineers. Instead the hole looks like it was done by a rather frustrated doctor armed with a heavy iron sledgehammer.

Beyond, through the hole, a dark room lies, populated with many softly beeping machines, a large bed, and the comatose Brian. A large transparent tent has been set up around his bed and its side bulge slightly with over pressure. His burned skin is covered with fresh bandages, applied just moment ago by Arden. Arden is stepping out of the tent, closing the tent behind him. A side chamber has been set up as a pseudo-airlock.

Arden is wearing a doctor’s white coat and he has a small set of surgical tools in his hand. He wipes his forehead with the back of sleeve and then moves to put the surgical tools in a large cylindrical device labeled “Canilon Ultrasonic Sterilization System, OsirisTech, A division of Blue Sun”

He seems intent of a procedure, making sure to go step by step, carefully, checking twice before committing to an action. He seems oblivious to anything else except the monitors attached to Brian and any irregular sound causes him to glance at the readouts. Nothing seems out of the ordinary, but its obvious that Arden is being extra careful and vigilant in his care for Brian.

She stepped into the office first, intending to speak with Arden before going in. She has just enough first aid to get by, but this is far beyond her skills. The only thing she can really do is spell Arden at the watching... and as much as it is a hardship to see Brian on the bed, it's just as difficult to watch Arden struggling with the treatments. She has not been .... well, she /has/ been a bit obsessed, but she has also tried to make a point of not excluding Arden. It's a fine line to walk, as worried as she is about Brian's condition; remembering not to take out her fear or her grief over all this on the doctor, who she can see quite plainly is doing his level best to keep the other man alive.

Leaning on the doorjamb to the room Brian's in, Nika watches him step out of the bubble. Nika herself has spent as many hours as she can steal away from the repairs of the Summer's Gift in here, more often than not catching what little sleep she gets in a day sitting upright in the chair just outside the bubble. "How're you holding up?" she asks Arden quietly.

Arden looks up with a smile, pleased at hearing Nika's voice, "I'm doing okay. Just sapped. How about you? Coming here must have been hard. Would you like me to give a few minutes of privacy?" He drys his hands on a towel, then drops the towel in the laundry bin. "I have to go start these linens in the wash anyhow so its no problem."

Nika offers him a tired smile. "Sure," she replies quietly. "C'mon back when you're done," she adds, not wanting him to think he's not welcome. She won't go into the tent this time, though most visits she'll suit up appropriately so she can go in there and sit and talk to the man on the bed, carefully stroking his head, where he's not burned, until she crashes out in the chair for one of the two- or three-hour catnaps that she's running on. For now, she merely goes over to the side of the tent to be near.

By the time Arden comes back from putting the linens in, Nika's sitting on the floor against the wall, her knees up and feet spread in a pose he's seen all too often when she's settled in to sit for a long while. Her elbows rest on her knees and her head's tipped back against the wall, though she's not sleeping.

Arden doesn't disturb her, he simply enters from the office side of the suite then moves to his desk where we starts going through papers, and making notes an ear-torn notebook. After a few minutes, he looks up to see Nika looking in his direction and he says loudly enough for her to hear him, if she strains, "I have some lemonade in here. Its twelve years old and made by Blue Sun, but its still good, if you want some."

"I'm not ignoring you I just had to get these observations written down while they are fresh in my mind. When you want, come on in and we can talk if you like."

It takes her several long minutes to respond, but finally she shoves herself up off the floor and heads into his office. "I was sitting there wondering... if I even wanted to know what you're writing," she admits quietly as she slumps into a chair in the office. She can't see the hospital bed from her position here, but it's not as if anything is going to change right now. And she's run out of things to say to Brian.... and for today, she's run out of tears too. "I didn't think you were ignoring me," she adds as an afterthought.

"Ignore is the wrong word," he says as he closes the notebook and puts it aside. "but I didn't want to intrude on yours if that is understandable."

"I'm not a companion like Christian, but if you need to talk I will listen. I will always listen to you Nika. I hope you know that."

Nodding to him, Nika offers another smile. "Thank you. I don't really think I know what to say. To //anyone// at this point." She moves to yank her hair down, unbraiding the mass and running her hands through it -- as dusty and grimy as she is, it won't matter if there's a little more grit in her hair. And it's been tied back so long, she has a headache now. Or maybe that's just lack of sleep. "It's taking everything I've got to keep faith that you're going to pull him through," she admits quietly. "You're the best doctor I know, Arden." She looks up at the man and says quietly, "But if he dies, please know ... it's not your fault. I get just how bad off he is."

Arden frowns as he thinks, "I am doing everything I can, and trying new stuff that I have never done. Despite being 12 years out of date the medical library in this facility has a good selection on how to treat burns: Brian's are worse than what they have seen."

He taps his fingers on the desk, "You know, Brian saved my life back there at the shuttle. He pushed me under the door of the shuttle so I was sheltered from the grenade blast. I won't forget that. I will do everything I can to pull him through.

"Also, you might want to consider something..." Arden pauses and looks away, "What comes next in his recovery will be the hardest. His body is damaged yes, but that can be healed. His mind and emotions are going to have to learn to deal with the aftermath. It will be a long, painful, frustrating road for him to fully recover. A cheerleader in his corner would help. A lot.

"I guess what I am trying to say is that if you are considering building a more ... solid life with Brian, You might want to leave the Gift with him and help him recover." It is obviously painful for Arden to say these things, but he's being honest. Not only for himself, but for Nika. She needs to have the opportunity to do what her spirit wills.

Nika watches him and admits, "I saw what he did. I was too damn far back to take out that bastard with the first shot... I flinched -- wasn't sure enough of Brian's actions to make the shot count. And I will kick myself until the day I die for it. Even had he not done what he did, though, Arden... I know you would do everything you can. My relationship with the man aside, it's not in you to //not// do everything in your power."

She looks toward the hole in the wall and the room beyond it, sadness in her blue eyes. "It's too early to make those decisions," she tells him softly. "Right now, it's about surviving. When we get past that part -- //if// we get past that part -- //then// maybe I'll have something left in me to worry about what comes next." She can only manage to respond to one crisis of this proportion at a time -- this level of injury and the fact that we are stranded here for the next several months is all that she can deal with. It's one foot in front of the other, her focus on getting us off this rock and her hope focused on 'please let him live long enough to leave Miranda,' because in spite of how good he is at his job, Arden is still only one man struggling desperately to save the live of a man who needs a team of specialists and nurses.

She looks back at Arden. "You still haven't told me how //you're// holding up," she says quietly, standing up and moving closer to him, perching a hip against his desk. She hesitates at reaching out to him only because she's not entirely sure if he's attempting to put distance between them or not. So much has changed since the night on the beach.

Arden leans back and sighs heavily, "I'm okay except I am tired and tense. I am sleeping here with half an ear open for any changes in the monitors so 4 to 6 hours of sleep a night ... maybe. I feel like I am in residency again." he smiles.

"But its not too bad. I am learning a bit and its keeping me busy. I would rather be here then back at the Gift being worked half to death by Taskmistress Rina... I am sure she is running you hard."

Nika grins faintly at him. The four to six hours he's getting are because the rest of people in the group are taking turns sitting with the injured man so the doctor doesn't get //too// tired. "Rina's in her element," she comments with a roll of her eyes. "Throw her into an engineering crisis, give her an entire ship to rebuild, and she's happy as a lark.... or, at least as close as anyone gets right now given the situation as a whole." She runs her fingers through the loose, wavy strands of hair, untangling the skeins and digging her fingertips into her scalp with a sigh of relief. Tension lines bracketing her eyes and mouth ease slightly as her headache lessens just a bit. "I get an actual shower today," she adds with a wrinkling of her nose. "Glad for it, too; can't stand the smell of myself."

Arden nods, then grins wickedly, "You know, one of the advantages of being here at the hospital is the cisterns on top of the building are full of water. You're welcome to take a shower there -- plenty of hot water." he winks at her, "I would join you but I need to stay here. You go and have fun."

His wink makes her laugh quietly, the first true smile she's had in days. "There it is!" She sighs theatrically. "I was starting to think you'd been far more damaged than I thought in all this," she tells him with a grin, and she shoves off the edge of the desk to lean down and kiss the top of his head and rest her cheek there for a long moment. "I'll be back to spell you," she says, and slips out of his office to go catch a hot shower, pull her hair back into its accustomed braid, and bring Rina's databook to read while she takes a turn watching Brian.... not that she'll do much reading. More likely she'll wind up snoozing in the chair next to the oxygen-tented bed again.

Arden sighs as she walks away. All he really wants to do is follow, wash her back and then her front and then ... well. Arden shakes his head. Nika has a really odd effect on him, one he has noted before to himself. She is sensuous and sexy as hell, but when they are working, she is a co-worker, and their relationship is professional. It is curious. And then there is Brian... Arden doesn't know why he isn't being possessive and jealous, but somehow he doesn't feel threatened by Brian. Very odd.

He shook his head, and then pulled the notebook to him and started to make more notes.

When she came back into the room, freshly showered, the grime gone from her face and the dust out of her hair, Nika set a small duffel bag just inside his office door. She had come straight back her from the shower, not even stopping in Brian's room. Pausing there only a moment, she walked to the desk and put her hands on his shoulders, digging her fingertips into the muscles where she knew the tension would be worst. She was silent for a time, perhaps reading a little over his shoulder or perhaps just making a point of /not/ reading the notes. Her attention at this moment is on the doctor, and she seems to have the ability to compartmentalize well enough to make him her priority in this moment. "You need some sleep yourself, you know," she murmurs.

Arden just relaxes under the strength of her fingers and doesn't reply for a minute or two, "uh... not if it takes me away from this massage." The smile is evident in his voice. "I don't think anything has ever felt this good." He pauses and with a chuckle adds, "Well, maybe one or two things." He reaches around with his hand and lightly squeezes her thigh.

Nika grins slightly. "Guess Christian's rubbing off on me," she replies mildly. Her hands are not terribly hard, but they're strong and she continues to work on his shoulders and down into the upper part of his back and neck. "How you don't have a migraine is beyond me," she comments softly -- the tension in his neck and shoulders matches hers, and she knows //she// has a near-constant headache right now. For just a moment, she wishes desperately that something so simple could ease the pain of the other man in her life, but she shoves the thought aside. It's the only way she knows to get through -- keep doing what needs doing. Her touch is not businesslike, though it's not an invitation to abandon themselves either. Between loosening knots, she strokes his shoulder lightly, as if the contact is comforting to her. And she smiles just a little. "If you want a really good massage, though.... it's too bad Pei-Ling stayed on Pala. She was a trained masseuse."

Arden shrugs lightly, "There is something to be said for having it done by someone you care about though. Sort of "I know you exist and i care for you" thing." Arden then starts to move standing up.

Nika pauses at his words and leans down to wrap her arms tightly around his shoulders, her face buried against the side of his neck. "I know you exist, and I do care for you," she murmurs with a soft kiss on his jawline. Then she moves to step back to let him stand up.

"I think you are right, I do need some sleep. Like I said, there's lemonade in the bottom desk drawer, a music player in the top middle drawer, and truly fascinating medical journals on the top of the desk," the last he indicates and smiles knowing full well they are pretty obtuse, even for him. "Wake me in an hour?"

She looks at him and reaches out to stroke his face lightly. "Maybe two," she says with a smile. "I'll be okay here. We just... talk." Or rather, she talks. And sometimes sings softly when she's not asleep.

Arden strokes her cheek in return and then lightly kisses her on the cheek, "If you need me I will be in here. You know..." He smiles and then yawns. "See you in a bit."