Lieutenant JG Roy Bancroft - The Scars We Carry
Carter Schimpff
(( Primary Sickbay, Deck 7 – USS Artemis-A ))
Bancroft: Lieutenant? Everything alright in there? This is… ::a glance at the chronometer, one brow lifting:: beginning to exceed my expectations for ‘remove uniform, apply gown.’ Do I need to assemble a rescue party?
Storm: Are you playing a practical joke on me, Doctor?
Bancroft: Not intentionally, which is the answer you want from your physician in most circumstances. Why? What’s happened?
Storm: Did you put ‘youth’ sized gowns in the cabinet by chance? I’m only a size medium and…let’s just say that both gowns I’ve tried on don’t leave much…if anything ... to the imagination, if you catch my drift or the draft that I’m quite literally feeling.
Bancroft: Ah. No, ma’am. I expect Jorgenson’s been a bit optimistic with his restocking. ::clearing his throat:: Bottom shelf should have larger gowns. Far less… architecturally ambitious.
Storm: Bottom shelf of that cabinet? Just a sec.
On the other side of the curtain, Roy tipped his head back and closed his eyes for the briefest of moments – not in exasperation, but in the private, inward manner of a man doing his level best not to laugh at a situation that had, against all odds, become considerably more complicated than ‘routine follow-up exam.’
There came the muted sounds of renewed negotiation: cabinet door, shifting fabric, the soft, staccato rustle of someone attempting to preserve both modesty and dignity while Starfleet Medical, once again, did its level best to assist with neither.
He kept his gaze pointed firmly toward the far wall.
Not performatively. Not stiffly. Just with the quiet, unshowy discipline of a physician who understood that professionalism was often less about grand restraint and more about a hundred small decisions made correctly in succession.
Still, he could feel the heat of his own near-misstep lingering at the edges of his collar.
Architecturally ambitious?
Christ.
That one would be revisited at three in the morning for the next several months.
Storm: Okay. You’re safe to come in.
Roy exhaled once through his nose, collected what remained of his dignity, and turned.
The privacy screen parted with a whisper.
She sat perched at the edge of the biobed, bare feet swinging lightly above the deck, hands braced at either side of her. There was a barely-there smile at her mouth – small enough to deny if challenged, but present all the same.
He noticed it.
And, very professionally, did not appear to.
Bancroft: ::smiling:: I was unprepared for how much drama a single exam gown could generate, but I appreciate your commitment to making this afternoon memorable.
Storm: Response
The smile lingered for only a moment longer before something subtler, steadier took its place.
Roy turned toward the nearby equipment locker and began selecting instruments with the quiet economy of long practice, laying each one onto the tray with deliberate care: scanner, probe, dermal reader, each chosen not with flourish, but with the easy certainty of a man who knew precisely what he was looking for and how best to find it. There was something almost merciful in the rhythm of it – in the way his hands gave the moment structure and purpose.
When he looked back at her, whatever humor had remained in his expression had not vanished so much as softened into something gentler and more anchored. For now, Roy Bancroft receded a step and Dr. Bancroft took his place.
Bancroft: Alright, Alex. Let’s have a look and see how your back is healing. I’m mainly checking tissue recovery, scar development, and whether the nerves are behaving themselves.
Storm: Response
He moved behind the biobed and gently spread the two flaps of the gown apart.
Medically speaking, the tissue was healing well.
Visually, however, ‘well’ was a word doing a great deal of charitable labor.
The worst of the acute trauma had passed. The skin had closed across most of the affected area, no longer raw or blistered, but what remained bore all the unmistakable hallmarks of a body that had been forced to heal under less than merciful circumstances. Broad swaths of newly formed skin stretched across her back in irregular maps of pale rose and deepened pink, the surface there smoother, shinier, and more delicate than the uninjured skin surrounding it. In other places, the damage had gone deeper. Those regions had healed with a tighter, glossier texture – slightly puckered in places, faintly ridged in others – where the skin had not so much returned as adapted.
It was healing. But it would not, Roy knew immediately, ever be the same.
Roy reached for the first of the instruments on the tray – a compact dermal scanner no larger than his palm – and passed it in slow, deliberate sweeps above the damaged tissue. Soft blue light rippled across her skin as the device mapped subsurface healing, tissue density, and residual inflammation in real time. A second instrument followed: a narrow neural probe, which he used with feather-light contact at several points along the periphery of the scarring, quietly assessing sensory response and nerve conduction. Only once the readouts aligned with what his eyes had already begun to suspect did he set both instruments aside.
Bancroft: Alright. ::quietly and steady:: The good news is everything appears to be healing cleanly. No sign of infection, no tissue breakdown, nothing here that suggests your body’s lost the argument.
Storm: Response
TAG/TBC!
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Lieutenant JG Roy Bancroft
Medical Officer
USS Artemis-A
A240205RB1