Lieutenant JG Roy Bancroft - White Coat Syndrome
Carter Schimpff
(OOC: I have a LOT of scenes to catch up on and have received permission from Liv to go past the 3/day limit today. My apologies in advance to your inboxes!)
(( Primary Sickbay, Deck 7 – USS Artemis-A ))
Sickbay, in the peculiar lull afforded by shore leave, had taken on the character of a place that remembered too much.
Not the urgent, breathless cadence of triage – no shouted vitals, no hover-gurneys sliding noiselessly across a deck stained with blood and viscera – but something quieter and yet more insistent. The soft, steady hum of biobeds cycling through diagnostics. The intermittent chime of monitors flagging old injuries for fresh review. The faint antiseptic scent that clung to the air like a promise no one quite believed anymore.
Dr. Roy Bancroft stood at the central diagnostic console, one hand braced lightly against its edge, the other guiding a series of scans across a rotating skeletal projection suspended in pale blue light. The image belonged to a crewman he had discharged not ten minutes earlier – three healed fractures, one that had tried very hard not to be – and yet he lingered on it a moment longer than necessary, as if confirming, for his own sake, that the body in question had indeed decided to remain intact.
His thumb tapped once against the console, affixing his seal to the chart.
Around him, Sickbay bore the quiet signatures of Callis I in a hundred small, invisible ways – hairline stress fractures, lingering inflammation, the sort of bruising that had long since faded from skin but not yet from memory. They had all come back in one piece. More or less.
He exhaled, slow and measured, and only then allowed the file for his next appointment to populate.
The main Sickbay doors sighed open behind him. He didn’t turn right away.
Instead, his gaze flicked – subtle and practiced – to the reflection in the darkened edge of the console display, catching the shape of her as she stepped inside: the familiar line of her posture, the faint hesitation at the threshold that lasted no more than half a heartbeat, and – most notably – the absence of regulation footwear. Any footwear at all, for that matter.
His attention returned to the console just long enough to slide her chart over to a nearby PADD. Then, and only then, did he turn – expression already arranged into something appropriately neutral, though the corners of his mouth betrayed the faintest hint of mischief.
Bancroft: Is it ‘Bohemian Day’ today, Lieutenant? Has the Captain finally taken my anonymous feedback and implemented themed attire across the Artemis?
The line drifted lightly across the room – unburdened and deliberately inconsequential. It was the sort of remark designed not to land so much as to arrive, to announce his awareness of her without demanding anything in return.
She turned at the sound of it.
For a fraction of a second – so brief it might have been imagined – her smile softened, then slipped, like a curtain caught on an unseen hook.
Alex inclined her head in a polite, measured acknowledgment. She made no mention of her bare feet against the sterile deck, nor of his having noticed them. The omission hung between them with the quiet dignity of something mutually understood and intentionally ignored.
It had been a throwaway line and they both knew it.
Storm: Good afternoon, Doctor Bancroft.
Ah.
Doctor Bancroft.
The title arrived with all the crisp formality of a uniform freshly pressed and just slightly too tight across the shoulders.
Curious.
Roy was no telepath – despite occasional professional fantasies to the contrary – but Alex Storm, for all her discipline, had a way of broadcasting in subtleties. A fractional shift here. A softened edge there. The sort of tells one only noticed after prolonged, attentive observation… or after surviving something like Callis I together.
Internally, something in him smiled. Externally, nothing of the sort was permitted.
Bancroft: ::polite nod:: And a good afternoon to you, Lieutenant Storm. ::beat:: I couldn’t help but notice your smile falter just a touch – should I be diagnosing a case of ‘White Coat Syndrome’?
Storm: Oh. It’s nothing much. It’s just … you shaved your beard off.
Huh.
His pause wasn’t confusion, precisely. More like… recalibration.
So much for easy reads.
His hand rose of its own accord, fingertips brushing the unfamiliar smoothness of his chin as though verifying the absence of something that had, until recently, been a consistent and rather distinguished presence.
Bancroft: You’re very observant. ::arching an eyebrow:: I confess, that wasn’t my leading theory – my beard is responsible for your sudden loss of morale?
Alex shrugged.
Storm: I dunno. I kinda liked it.
His other eyebrow rose to join the first, the pair forming a brief, silent conference of mild astonishment. His lips pressed together in thought, not quite a smile, not quite anything else.
The immediate instinct – to agree, to acquiesce, to say I’ll grow it back – surfaced with surprising urgency, and was just as quickly interrogated away.
What, exactly, would possess a physician to take aesthetic direction from his patient?
A dangerous precedent, surely. A slippery slope. Today, a beard. Tomorrow, elective sideburn consultations.
He very nearly shook his head at himself, caught the motion before it began, and instead substituted something safer – a small, deliberate nod, as though concluding an entirely different and far more reasonable internal debate.
Bancroft: It was awfully itchy, truth be told – though I suspect that had less to do with the beard and more to do with two weeks without a proper shower.
There. Sensible. Clinical-adjacent. Entirely appropriate.
A pivot was required now. A graceful return to purpose. Medical intake. Professional distance. All the usual, well-practiced steps.
He began to reach for them–
–and missed entirely. The words that escaped his mouth were as much a surprise to him as they might have been to anyone else in earshot.
Bancroft: Perhaps I’ll grow it back, now that sonic showers have resumed their place as a daily feature rather than a luxury.
Storm: Response
Roy allowed the corner of his mouth to tilt just slightly.
Bancroft: While I’m prepared to provisionally accept your self-diagnosis, I’m afraid I’ll still be ignoring it entirely. ::an easy, almost apologetic shrug:: We’re a peculiar profession. We like to see things with our own eyes
Storm: Response
He guided her toward one of the more secluded biobeds with a quiet, practiced efficiency that never quite rose to the level of direction. A subtle shift of his body here, a slight angle of his hand there – an invitation rather than an instruction, but one that carried them precisely where they needed to be.
The privacy screen whispered closed around them.
Roy rested a hand briefly against the edge of the biobed, then gave it a light, reassuring pat – less a command to sit than a quiet assurance that it would hold her, that this place, at least, was safe and dependable.
Bancroft: Go ahead and have a seat. There’s a gown in the cabinet to your right. I’ll need a direct look at the affected area. ::a small, deliberate pause:: I’ll step just outside and give you a moment to change.
The phrasing was careful without being precious, the cadence of it shaped by hard won experience: an understanding, earned over years, that dignity in such moments was rarely about grand gestures and almost always about small, deliberate choices.
Storm: Response
The curtain settled between them with a soft, final hush.
For a time, there was only the muted language of fabric and friction – the quiet rustle of uniform being unfastened, the faint shift of weight against the biobed, a soft, distinct harrumph that suggested a minor and deeply personal negotiation with Starfleet’s ongoing war against full-coverage medical attire.
Roy waited. At first, patiently. Then, gradually, less so.
His foot began a subtle, arrhythmic tap against the deck, the motion betraying a mild, growing suspicion that something within the curtained sanctum had deviated from standard operating procedure.
Another moment passed.
And then–
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: Response
TAG/TBC!
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Lieutenant JG Roy Bancroft
Medical Officer
USS Artemis-A
A240205RB1