Leading by example - A little bribery never hurts anyone

Posted on Sat Jun 29th, 2019 @ 8:09pm by Captain Abigail Laurens & Lieutenant Commander Calvin Morgan

Mission: Getting To Know You
Location: Sickbay

It was a good five minutes before zero eight hundred when Abigail walked through the doors to sickbay, casting a quick glance around before her gaze settled on the CMO. With an easy grin, she held out a basket full of assorted pastries toward him. "See, not only am I here, I'm early and I come bringing gifts!" she exclaimed. "Fresh from the bakery on the Starbase this morning."

Calvin's boots came off his desk as he set down the PaDD that he was reading. His eyes came up to the Captain who was greeting him with a box, which instantly perked his interest. "Well good morning! And early too, I suppose you're hoping to bribe me for a good check up," He said jokingly as he came to his feet, stretched his back and walked into the main room.

He sported his normal outfit for himself in sickbay, teal turtleneck undershirt with the sleeves pushed up above his elbows. His lab coat and uniform coat hung in the office by the door. "Please, have a seat on that bio bed," he stated, motioning to one bed while walking to the console to start up the diagnostic equipment. "They smell good, let me start up the diagnostics and we'll have a peak inside the box."

Moving to sit on the bio bed as directed, Abigail managed to obey with minimal scowling. "They're pretty good actually, I had one with my latte this morning for breakfast while I was waiting over on the station. " She swung her legs lazily as she watched him fussing with the equipment. "So, any idea how long you might expect this to take?" she asked curiously. "I mean, you know, not that I'm impatient or anything," she finished with a sheepish smile.

Calvin shrugged. "Depends what we find. And I agree you're not impatient. You are a patient." He chuckled to himself as the diagnostics started to do their thing. "Do try to stay relatively still please. Any new aches, pains, problems, symptoms?" He asked typing away.

Suitably chastised, Abigail stopped swinging her legs, rolling her eyes at the incredibly bad joke. "Nope, nothing since my last medical. No aches, no pains, no problems, no symptoms. Eating well, sleeping well, nothing else of any concern. So is that it? All done?"

Calvin laughed, walking around the console up to his patient. "Now, if I didn't poke and prod you a little pretending like it actually meant something, would I be doing my job?" He stopped at the box of pastries, lifting up the lid gently, like he wasn't sure what to expect to find inside. He nodded approvingly, closing the lid and placing it on the adjacent bed. He lifted the back of the bio bed to more of a sitting position before instructing, "Lean back into the bed. A few assessments and I should have you out of here."

With an exaggerated sigh, Abigail leaned back on the bed and crossed her ankles. "Just watch where you're poking, I'm ticklish," she retorted. "How are you settling into sickbay so far? I assume everything is up to standard for you?"

Calvin grinned at the ticklish comment, but didn't reply to it, wanting to not cross lines on his first day. "Oh just fine. Nothing too out of whack that won't be the way I want it before we shove off. My OCD requires some things in weird ways." He stated in between explaining different assessments he was doing as he did them, starting at the head and working his way down her body.

Abigail nodded along, pretending she actually understood what it was he was saying. In truth some of it was pretty straight forward, but other stuff was a bit beyond her basic medical comprehension. "If there's anything else you need requisitioned before we leave Starbase make sure you let Operations know," she said warmly. "I think we still have a few days but the sooner the better, just in case."

"The only things I have left on my requisition list Operations doesn't need to know about," he said with a wink. He took a step back after finishing his assessment, tapping some things away on the PaDD. "The torture is over Cap, you're all set," He stated with a smile.

Sitting up, Abigail swung her legs back over the side of the bio bed and slid to the floor. "Perfect! Maybe I should bribe you with pastries more often, it seems a good way to increase efficiency," she teased.

Calvin chuckled, "I didn't actually do anything, but dang do I make it look good," he said with a wink. "I come from the emergency side of medicine, I don't do fluff, never had time for it in the ED, so never got into the habit on the primary side of things." He closed up the PaDD and placed it on the console. "Though I am easily bribed with food and alcohol."

"I will definitely have to remember that," Abigail said with a smile. "While we're on the Starbase at least, having that kind of easy access to good food and drink makes it so much easier to bribe people when I need things done quickly."

"Just don't abuse the secret knowledge I imparted," He said still smiling. "If you don't have any questions you're free to go."

"No, no questions... but I do have a favour I would like to ask," she said quietly, glancing around quickly. "We've been assigned a new intel officer, he came aboard today. Can you prioritize his medical? I'd like clarification that he's physically fit for duty before we leave starbase."

Calvin raised an eyebrow, not liking the wording of the favor. "Of course Cap, any particular reason why?"

"Lieutenant Aleksander Voroshilov," Abigail replied quietly, deliberately keeping her voice low as she spoke. "His history is somewhat... well... lets just say... well..." she paused, clearly struggling to find an adequate way to describe. "Checkered. We'll run with checkered. I just want to make sure all our own boxes are ticked. I'll feel better having my own staff do their checks before we leave."

Calvin narrowed his eyes for a moment, trying to reconcile the idea of a checkered history. Way too vague of a statement to work with. He shrugged it off, his smile and carefree attitude returning. "A patient is a patient, crew is crew. Send him down whenever he gets onboard, I can squeeze him in. Though if he's got any more than a few screws loose, you might want him to meet Bert too. My prescriptions for loose screws is well," he thought for a moment, "Isn't by the book, that's for sure." A broad smile crossed his mouth as he put away the medical tricorder and grabbed the PaDD he was taking notes on.

Abigail laughed. "See, I knew keeping you around was a good thing," she said lightly. "I'll have him down within the hour, and Bert is next on his list. Thanks Doc," she slid off the bio bed and started toward the door. "Oh, and enjoy the pastries!"

=/\=

Commander Abigail Laurens
Commanding Officer
USS Astraea

&

Lt. Calvin Morgan
Chief Medical Officer
USS Astraea