Lieutenant JG Roy Bancroft - The Thin TEAL Line
Carter Schimpff
(( Primary Sickbay, Deck 7 – USS Artemis-A ))
Bancroft: I want you to listen – really listen – to what I’m about to say. ‘Changed’ is not the same thing as ‘ruined.’ You do not have to love the scars. You do not have to find them meaningful or noble or beautiful. You do not have to make peace with them on anyone else’s schedule. ::beat:: But you do need to know that they do not make you less whole.
The reaction was small – so small most would have missed it – but Roy had spent too long reading what the body tried to conceal to overlook it now. Something in her had tightened. Not rejection. Not disagreement. Something quieter.
Something bracing.
And, uncomfortably, something waiting to see whether he would meet it with truth – or with something easier.
Storm: Roy…
When she spoke, the change in her voice was immediate – quieter, thinner, as though the words had to find their way around something lodged in her throat before they could reach him.
Storm: You can say that I’m not less whole… but that doesn’t change how I feel. Here. Now.
Roy held the silence for a moment.
Not out of uncertainty, but out of discipline – the first answers that rose to the surface were clean, clinical, and entirely insufficient for what she was actually asking. He set them aside.
Bancroft: No. It doesn’t. ::steady:: And it’s not supposed to – not this quickly.
What you’re feeling isn’t a failure to understand. It’s a normal response to something that changed without asking your permission.
He watched the small, unconscious movements – the brief press of her teeth against her lip, the way she held his gaze just a fraction longer than before. Not defiance. Not composure. Something closer to asking without quite knowing how to ask it aloud.
And God help him, he wanted to answer it well.
Storm: Maybe I’m not, but I feel broken, marred, damaged.
Roy didn’t look away.
He let the words settle – exactly as she’d said them – before he answered.
Bancroft: Feeling broken and being broken are not the same thing. Right now, your mind is trying to make sense of a version of you it didn’t expect to have to live in – and it’s reaching for the harshest language it has to do that. ::a small beat, fixing her gaze:: But I’m looking at you, Alex. You’re not broken.
He saw the shift as it happened – not all at once, but in increments. The tension in her posture eased by degrees, the set of her shoulders loosening as though something inside her had decided, cautiously, to stand down.
Storm: Really?
There was a pause; Roy let it exist. Did not rush to fill it. Did not gild it with saccharine reassurance.
Storm: Thank you, Roy.
She took a deep breath, and let it out slowly.
Storm: It doesn’t change the ache… but it helps. ::wrinkling her nose:: Just a little.
His eyes crinkled, the hint of a grin tugging at the corner of his mouth – not enough to undermine the moment, but sufficient to give it somewhere to land.
Bancroft: ::gravely:: Well, that’s what we strive for here in the Artemis sickbay: helping – but only just a little.
The grin followed a moment later, reaching his eyes this time, letting her see the shape of the joke without ever quite breaking the quiet they had settled into.
Storm: Response
He flared his eyes in exaggerated surrender, hands lifting just enough to suggest retreat without quite committing to it.
Bancroft: Hey now, your words, ma’am, not mine! :: a soft chuckle:: Alright. ::a gentler shift, almost imperceptible:: We’ve done what we can for the existential crisis – how about we take a look at the physical side of things next?
Storm: Response
He reached to the tray, retrieving a hypospray and seating the vial with practiced ease. The movement was automatic – muscle memory, training, the comfort of something that required no emotional calibration whatsoever.
He pressed the device lightly to her shoulder. A soft hiss followed.
Bancroft: Mostly analgesic. There’s a bit of anti-inflammatory in there, but we don’t want to eliminate the response entirely. Inflammation’s uncomfortable, but it’s also part of how the body repairs itself. If we suppress it too much, you’ll heal more slowly.
He had learned, over time, that explanation was its own form of medicine – that clarity, offered freely and without condescension, could quiet a nervous system almost as effectively as anything he could load into a hypospray.
Storm: Response
Smiling, Roy stepped back, giving her space to stand when she was ready.
Bancroft: All set, Alex. ::slightly softer:: Thank you – for coming in, and for trusting me with that. I don’t take that lightly.
His hand twitched – almost rising of its own accord before he caught it, the motion arrested halfway to something he had no business offering in this room.
In another setting – somewhere less clinical, less sharply defined by rank and responsibility – it might not have stopped. It might have been as simple as reaching across the space between them and letting his hand settle over hers, an answer offered without words.
But not here.
Not with her seated on a biobed, still under his care. Not with his name on her chart and the full weight of that responsibility firmly in place.
The instinct surprised him less than the clarity of the boundary that followed.
There were lines.
He knew exactly where this one was.
Storm: Response?
TAG/End Scene for Bancroft
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Lieutenant JG Roy Bancroft
Assistant Chief Medical Officer
USS Artemis-A
A240205RB1