PHD #062: Unfortunate Answers
Unfortunate Answers
Summary: The CMO returns an answer to Stavrian.
Date: 2041.04.30
Related Logs: Office Hours, A Fair Few Words.
Players:
Bia Stavrian 
CMO's Office — Deck 10 — Battlestar Cerberus
Post-Holocaust Day: #62
The CMO's office is, like many offices aboard the ship, of very military design. The space is utilitarian, to say the least, with bookshelves on the wall behind the single desk. In front of the desk are two chairs - as if the occupant would never need to have more than two other peole in the office at any given time. The shelves are lined with medical reference books, dotted here and there with a few framed photographs. Despite the rather sterile feel, overall, the room does have a few touches of warmth - a lab coat hanging from a hook near the door, a hearty variety of plant on top of a filing cabinet. It's the little things.
Condition Level: 3 — All Clear

Third shift, and all's as well as it ever can be. The Interim CMO is, again, back at her metric tonnes of paperwork. Some more progress has been made — she's pacing between desk and filing cabinets, steadily feeding the pages from the former into the latter. A request was left with the clerk at the front desk to have Stavrian come by 'as soon as he had a moment'. If the stack of paper disappears before he appears, she'll go a-hunting.

Good luck finding 'moments' in Sickbay. But just when that stack of papers starts to get low, a lull in the activity outside lets a weary Stavrian get to Bia's office, knuckles rapping gently on her door as he does. "Captain, sir." That isn't a hopeful voice. Wasn't exactly hopeful last night, not really a change.

"Still hain't any Captains left in here, Mister Jesse, but come in all the same." The filing cabinet rattlecreaks as Grace slides it shut and turns to face the medic, one balled fist pressed against the small of her back. She studies him for a moment with gentle appraisal, then heads for her desk. "Close the door behind you, if'n you would?" She's not seeming particularly hopeful, either. There's a new sheaf of crisp paperwork laid across her burgeoning clipboard, which she turns slightly toward her to skim.

Stavrian's lips twitch slightly. He nods and pushes the door shut behind him with his foot, crossing the couple steps to the chair in front of Bia's desk. His fingers wrap around the back of the chair there — the faded horizontal burn scars across his knuckles stand out slightly with his grip, the only betrayer of a little tension. His blue eyes follow his CO.

Is she stalling? Collecting her thoughts, maybe, is a more accurate description. The few seconds the CMO takes drag uncomfortably through the silent room. Turning, she picks up the crisp-edged form and lifts a solemn, unwavering stare to the medic. "I'm sorry, Mister Jesse." Was there any real doubt? "Weren't anything I could say to make the Admiral change his course of action. I've fetched you the necessary paperwork for your formal complaint." There's two or three copies of the form in her hands; the topmost is peeled away with a dry rasp and offered out to Stavrian before she sets the others back on her desk.

Stavrian's eyes lower, dropping from hers to somewhere near the side of her neck. His expression itself is tough to read, as it doesn't change at all aside from some subtle tension gathering between his brows. Drawing a breath in through his nose, he nods crisply. "Understood, sir. I realize I may be the only one on the ship. But, so be it." He shrugs one shoulder and holds out his hand for the papers. "Thank you, I appreciate this."

The paperwork is handed over, seeming strangely light for all the somber words it contains. "You're welcome, Mister Jesse." Grace drops her gaze from the medic's face to the paper he now holds, then further to one of the stacks of paperwork still awaiting sorting on the floor. Her hand balls into a loose fist again, pressing to her back for a moment. "If'n you'll bring it back once it's completed, I'll deliver it to the Admiral along with mine."

Stavrian folds the papers over his thumbs, running his fingers over the fold to make a formal crease. He looks back up at her face, attention flickering from one of her eyes to the other. "Thank you, sir." That repetition seems a little more weighty, somehow. "I'm off shift soon; I'll leave it on your desk before I rack out."

"Of course. I'm anticipating passing these over in exchange for the request for attendant medical witness, but may be that's a day or two ahead of us, yet." Yet another unpalatable thing ready to be dished onto the CMO's plate. "But-" Long-fingered hands sweep the air as if the words could be wafted away. "No matter. Anything else I can help you with?" She's already crossing toward the door, reaching out to smoothly swing it open.

The mention of medical witnesses doesn't take Stavrian by any shock. He's no newbie to all this, not to executions and probably not to protesting them either. Such is the way. He offers Bia a slight curve of the right side of his mouth, not quite a smile but not as dour as he can often look. "Not right now, sir. I'll come back and drop this off, thanks." And perhaps have his mind back together by then from a long shift. A brief pause, then as he's going he lifts a brow at her in passing. "Need anything yourself, sir?"

"Four more hours in the day, Mister Jesse." Grace's eyes crinkle slightly at the edges with weary warmth. "I've got my galley time tonight, so remember to grab you a cookie when you turn the paperwork in." She'll wait at the door until the medic's through, offer him a final faint smile, then gently return the door to its previous barely-ajar state.

Stavrian smirks a little. "Will do." Cookies. Men. They mix well. He slips out the door, tucking folded papers into one of his pockets, and heads for the duty nurse's station to get his last batch of charts done for the evening.

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