trans_9 | If You Need a Doctor, I'll Examine Every Inch of You [Phys Evals; Open]

The blessed lack of a stone cold stethoscope was most welcomed, it even made the experience somewhat berable. Her shirt was quickly buttoned up once more, and her position switched to something more horizontal. After 'sleeping' in the quarters, lying down felt extremely good, and it was taking effort not to close her eyes.

Barbara wanted to ask Howard just how good he was at drawing blood but nodded instead. She had convinced herself that he was worth trusting with her body, and she should really go through with it. "I can't imagine that any of these vaccines were around when I last went to the general practitioner as an adult."

"I don't know if the ones Sta'c has were around for anyone before here. Something like them, yes, but that's not quite the same," Sakura commented, pressing gently down on her stomach. Her chakra was giving her a better idea than her hands alone, if the gentle prodding was likely familiar.

"Everything looks good," she said after a moment, stepping off to the side. "Normal gastric function, nothing out of place. Have all your systems been working well?"

Sakura's head jerked up and to the side, and she frowned. "If you can tell Howard, I'll ask him for a review of your report afterward. Looks like there's something I need to go take care of."

With an apologetic smile to Barbara (and a look to Howard to say sorry), Sakura excused herself from the immediate examination.

Howard gives Sakura a little mock salute and turns back around. He more than trusts her deductions on Barbara's health, especially when chakra's involved; he places total faith in it. There are few things he absolutely trusts, and while Sakura herself doesn't rank on that short list yet, her powers do.

He tilts his head over at Barbara, reading her facial expressions as she sits back up. "Wow, you about to take a nap over there?"

He makes some notes on his pad and sets it aside before getting the syringe out, handling it like the delicate piece of medical equipment that it is (little will Barbara know that sometimes he and Sakura play darts with the defective ones during long shifts) and waiting for Barbara's response to Sakura's question.

"Hold your arm out, this'll just hurt as much as a needle usually does." He draws Barbara's blood with the expertise that comes from having practiced over and over and over again, including on Sakura and on himself, while trying to bring himself to and beyond the level of the medical staff.

"I'm still adjusting to the sleeping quarters," Barbara replied casually to Howard's statement and groaned slightly as she sat up again, her aging bones protesting against the sudden resistance to gravity.

"Everything has been fine," she shrugged, "I've not had a problem."

The needle was another thing entirely. Though she didn't like them, she knew that making things difficult for the doctor - man or teenager - would only prolong the experience. So she kept her protests to herself, only her brow wrinkled as the needle went in. The effects of the drained blood were almost immediate. She wasn't going to passout, but she was certainly lighter headed and somewhat woozy.

"How many people's blood have you taken?" she asked by way of distraction. Anything to not be thinking about the needle inside her.

"Why don't you live in the City? That's what I did. There's hotels and empty houses and I mean, if you wanted to you could ask Zou if you wanted to move in with us at the Inn. Even I think everyone there's pretty nice, and I don't like people." He'd shrug but he's busy cordoning off the blood he's collected. "I think Ian moved into the City too if you want to ask him where he's staying."

He slides the needle out, wipes a drop of blood away and affixes a band-aid to Barbara's arm. "On the job, between all the phys evals maybe forty. Including practice, probably closer to four hundred. Sakura and me get a lot of the dead shifts so we spend a lot of time studying and practicing." It's not that Howard doesn't understand why they relegate the teenagers to the quietest shift, but it still rankles him.

"I didn't take much more than half a pint," he explains. "Stacy needs different batches to run her tests, so that's as little as I can get away with taking for a full evaluation from her."

"I'm getting there," Barbara was still sorting things out and trying to figure her way around. She'd ask to move in with Ian if he didn't live with another bachelor. In fact, the thought of living with a man turned her stomach just a little ~~even if she sort of did it during university, and then again on the TARDIS~~. "I was thinking of asking Ian to help me find somewhere. Not that I think Stacey has questionable places in her city but it would be good to have a second opinion," and Ian had moved out before they left. Barbara hadn't.

"I never picked you for a studious person, Howard," she smiled, putting pressure on the plaster. "you've surprised me."

"Stacy totally has questionable places. Me and Zou found a house with space ghost mold, and there's at least one house out there with a mouth underneath it." And this will all be going in the book he'll someday write, tentatively titled Life Sucks So Get Over It. "Personally I think it's kind of creepy to live alone, but whatever floats your boat."

He shrugs. "I'm real bad at school. Classrooms give me hives. No offense." Or at least, as little offense as he can manage when it's clear from his voice that he hates everything about the school systems Barbara's a part of. Structured learning has never been his thing. It's not that he's dumb, he's a very bright kid, but just that he and traditional learning go together like onions and hot cocoa.

"...a mouth?" that was, well, it was certainly surprising but probably shouldn't be because Stacey seemed to be filled with all kinds of things that Barbara couldn't even have imagined if she tried.

"I haven't ever really lived alone. I lived with my mother until we were swept up by the Doctor and now I'm here. I wouldn't say that I'm living alone. I've a small shelf in a large room of beds a I share with other people." On her first day, before she had even thought about where she was going to sleep, Ian had told her it was like sleeping in a giant nose. She should have believed him and found somewhere else right then and there. "Maybe if I asked nicely, the Doctors might let me live on the TARDIS again."

She smiled and shook her head, "no offense taken. School isn't for everyone, just like medicine isn't for everyone, or needles." Cue another wary glance at all the needles.

"It almost ate us." Howard gives an exaggerated shudder and shakes his head. "But that seems to be a running theme in my life. Everything wants to eat me."

He says it as a joke, but he's deadly serious. He has a very bad history with almost ending up someone else's snack food.

"I never lived alone either. I tried it for like...two weeks, here, and I think I got maybe two straight hours of sleep the whole time. Empty houses freak me out." He tilts his head and blinks. "What's a TARDIS? And do you mean the Doctor like that weird guy who wears stupid bowties?"

He follows her glance over to the needles, then gets a cloth out of one of the drawers and covers them. He doesn't know how far her discomfort with them goes, but out of sight, out of mind. "That's all the needles I'm going to use on you today, don't worry."

Barbara smiled in maternal sympathy. "Living alone isn't for everyone. Some people really enjoy it and others do not like it at all, but you won't know until you try."

She was still used to a life where everyone in her close circle of friends knew what a TARDIS was. It was taking some adjusting to remember that not everyone is like her. "One of the Doctors wears a bowtie," there was a tone in her voice suggesting that the Doctor was a complicated thing to explain. "And the TARDIS is his spaceship. Time and Relative Dimension in Space."

Of course, at the thought of not having any more needles, Barbara smiled in relief. "Thank you. What would you like me to do next?"

Howard would like to live alone someday, because that would mean he's one step closer to no longer needing other people. That's the hard thing, for him - he feels so disconnected from and wary of others but can't seem to do without them. It's a constant tug of war.

"'One of the Doctors'? Does he have like, alternate reality versions of him wandering around? Because I knew we had two Spider-Mans but..." He tilts his head over a little further, wrapping his mind around that. "Why would you want to live in a spaceship when we already live in one?"

He's not quite sure when his relationship with Barbara crossed from the disdain to the somewhat-friendly zone. "I'm just going to take a look at your hands for circulation and use the triangle thingy for your reflexes, then it's just whatever's on your mind. Any concerns you have or anything."

Edited 2012-03-03 18:11 (UTC)

"The Doctor..." how could she explain it? "...he doesn't quite die, but instead gets a new body. I had no idea of it before I pod popped, so I'm still trying to wrap my head around it. But the TARDIS doesn't feel much like a spaceship. It has numerous rooms, all of which are unlocked and some don't even feel like rooms. I once found a field full if daisies with a big, beautifully blue sky and rolling hills. The TARDIS is just a lot more comfortable than Stacey."

Barbara held out her hands and giggled lightly at Howard's description of the little hammer doctors used to test reflexes. "So you're a doctor, a counsellor, an action man, and a well organised teenager. Have I got that right?"

"Lucky bastard." Howard's eyes narrow as he considers her description. "Wait, is this thing like, a big blue box thingy? I've been inside that thing! It tried to eat me!"

Technically the TARDIS didn't so much as a rogue library did, but it's all the same to Howard.

He shakes his head. "Nope. I'm not a counselor or a doctor. I'm a field medic. I served on a council for a few months back home, but that kind of disintegrated." He raises an eyebrow at her as he checks her hands. "And I'm certainly not an action man. At all. Action just finds me when I don't want it to."

Edited 2012-03-03 22:39 (UTC)

"The blue box thingy, yes," she smiled, though wondered how could it eat someone? Or even try to eat someone.

"Alright, you're a man of many skills, but you're counselling now - you're talking with someone, trying to get them to discuss what they're thinking and feeling, and confront it somewhat." She kept quiet about being an action man. Howard dealt with it well, which qualified fine enough in her books.

"I called it The Great Blue Yonder. I like my name for it better. TARDIS just sounds like a made-up word."

He looks a bit confused. "I always assumed counselors were like, those school counselors who sit around and tell you not to fight back if you get pushed around. So, totally useless."

But he guesses she's right, in a way. It's just that he'd never cast himself as a counselor. He checks her reflexes. "I mean, if that's all it takes to be a counselor, anyone could do it."

"Well, it's the basics of being a counsellor, I suppose," her knee kicked up under the little hammer. "I believe the degree would come with a little more understanding or a better ability to interpret what your patients are saying, and then to diagnose them. Or something like that."

After a moment's thought she added: "it's like teaching, I suppose. Anyone can do it but after some training, you're better able to pick up on a few things a little easier."

"I wouldn't want to be one anyway, though. I don't like people enough to want to listen to all their stupid problems. I want to write." He gives her a bit of a wary look - he's never told anyone that he writes and doesn't quite know how people will respond to the idea. It usually seems a little silly to him, like a pipe dream, but she is a teacher. They're supposed to encourage this sort of thing.

"Yeah? What did your training teach you?"

She caught the wary look and restrained herself from smiling. Instead, a twinkle lit her eyes just a little. "It taught me about how to pick up on a few things in students' work that they could be better trained in, or which parts of their learning and results may help when discussing a student's work, or how they might improve on skills such as research or writing."

Barbara crossed her legs as she spoke, as Howard was done with his reflex testing and had no further use for them.

"For what it's worth, I think you'd make an excellent writer. You've an attention to detail that's quite rare and clearly you're very studious," she nodded at his textbook margin and his little scribbles, a small light-hearted smile lifting the edges of her mouth.

"And how do you improve on stuff like writing?" Because clearly that's something Barbara can tell him without seeing even a sentence of his work. He finishes filling out her form and sets it aside, sitting up on a lab table.

"Thanks, I guess. It's just kind of a weird thing to want to do, right? I mean, I guess it's just sort of weird in general to plan for the future in this place." There's a bitterness in his tone that betrays his expectation of dying at a young age. He thinks it a minor miracle, or a curse, that he's made it this long. "If you promise not to make fun of it I could show you some of my stuff someday."

"Practice and looking for ways to improve," she wanted to tell him that he had to get others to read his writing in order to receive constructive criticism he could then work on but that would be asking for trouble.

"Why would I laugh at you?" that actually hurt a little. Barbara had been nothing but kind from what she could remember, even if they hadn't entirely agreed on everything. "It isn't weird. I think it's noble. Most of Earth's greatest men were writers, or wrote on the side of their work. Like Poe, Verne, Wilde, Doyle, Plato and Aristotle, Stoker..." admittedly, Wilde didn't have the most favourable reputation during his time, but that was mostly forgotten about in the history books.

Howard shrugs. "Because writing's one of those things you don't tell other people about unless you know them. You might as well tell people you play Dungeons and Dragons or are a mathlete. Or, you know, just make it really obvious and paint a red bullseye on your nose."

He squints and chews on the tip of his thumb. "I don't know who any of those people are. I mean, um...I guess I recognize Poe. I don't read much poetry."

Try not to despair in the youth on this ship, Barbara.

She wasn't certain exactly what Dungeons and Dragons was, but she had an idea of what a mathlete might be and got the message loud and clear. Barbara hesitated a moment, thinking through her phrasing and word choice. "...if you would like, I could recommend some authors for you," she managed to stop herself from using the phrase 'English lesson', "we could do it somewhere discreet if you'd prefer, somewhere of your choosing."

She wanted to emphasise that it needed to be Howard's choice, and that he was welcome to decline. "It's entirely up to you, of course."

It wasn't as if Barbara had much else to do on the ship for the moment. She felt like a loose end more than anything else. As it were, Barbara would have even been happy cleaning up after people. Just something to be busy.

Howard bites down on his thumbnail, considering. Just having authors recommended is one thing, but the fact that Barbara's emphasizing a discreet location means it's a little more than that. "What if I don't like reading, I just like writing?"

Which is partially true. He doesn't mind reading, but he'd be lying to say he had any great interest in it. He mostly writes because without a therapist or anyone who really knows how to deal with things, it's one of the few coping mechanisms he has. The idea that someday he could make a living out of something he does naturally is mostly a bonus (if he's even any good at it, which he's not sure about).

But from the way Barbara's hedging around the idea, Howard thinks that maybe she would get something out of this too and well, he may think Barbara needs to get a little common sense, but he likes her more than most of the people on the ship.

And God knows he understands the desire to keep busy.

"I guess we could do that, yeah. As long as it's not like, Shakespeare. That's hardly even English."

"If you don't like reading, then I suppose you don't have to read," she shrugged, "I just thought I'd try and be helpful. And I promise no Shakespeare." Barbara held a hand up while her other pressed against her heart, as though she were taking an oath.

She could have argued that Shakespeare is English, and prattled on about how he'd driven some of the great developments in their language but decided against it. There were other authors she could try.

After hopping down from her perch, Barbara Wright smiled warmly. "So, am I fit to be on board Stacey or do I need to be quarantined until further notice?"

"I don't hate reading," Howard clarifies. "It's just, you know. I don't like reading for book reports or essays or anything like that. And the books we got assigned back home were usually stupid books where nothing happens. But if you know some interesting ones, I guess I could try them. I like writing horror stuff, so..."

He shrugs.

He checks a few more things off her form and nods. "You're good to go. You'll probably hear back from us about your vaccines in a few days. I mean, if you had any serious health issues Stacy would have found out in the pods. She jacks you full of whatever you need while you're sleeping. I woke up twenty pounds heavier, even."

If You Need a Doctor, I'll Examine Every Inch of You [Phys Evals; Open]

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