Family Ties

[Arianna Barrial]

Arianna had moved down to the mess hall after leaving Einrik, her sister, and her fiancé behind to talk. She snagged something to snack on, considering she had just been whooped by Damien yet again in their little training session, and moved back towards the medical bays.

It was there she chatted with the others she was rather proud to work with as she finished devouring the strip of jerky she'd picked up. With a laugh, she cleansed her hands and then went to chat with the ship tenants that had come for a variety of ailments that made no sense for the ship's kolo tanks to be put to use, and their other patients.

The blonde leaned a hand against the bed and smiled at the male - Kevin - as she checked up on him, asking the routine questions. She looked down, checking the chart that was displayed; they had no need for paper when Ceres provided them with everything they needed. He would be good to go. He'd had two days to recover from his dehydration.

Arianna was willing to bet he'd learned his lesson.

[David B.]

David knocked.

"Think I'm your next patient."

He strolled inside, offering her the chart the person at the front handed him, despite not being supposed to.

"Don't worry, I don't understand what any of it means. Just that I need a 'post-coma'-checkup or some such."

He offered her a grin.

[Arianna Barrial]

"Well, Kevin, it looks like you're good..." The doctor blinked at the sudden knock and looked over her shoulder with a blink. She cracked a slight smile at David's words and lightly patted her patient's leg. "To go. Be sure to do what we talked about, okay, or you'll end up here and nobody will be happy~"

She gave him another quick smile before turning to David and taking the chart before her finger planted itself on his chest.

"Mister Blaze, how nice to see you." She flashed a grin. "Did you just lift your chart and waltz in here on your own..~? Tsk tsk, you're breaching the doctor-patient confidentiality clause. What if I was about to treat this kind man with something he wouldn't want someone to know about?"

It was a little serious, but clearly she was poking fun. She and Kevin were finished, after all.

[David B.]

David blinked as his eyes focused on what Arianna was wearing.

"Um...Arianna...if Damien catches me in here with you while your wearing that, I'm likely to get an ass beating. Especially shirtless, as I have to be for this test. Yes, I read it, sue me."

He glanced down at her then back up, a little scandalized and therefore unable to respond to her antics.

[Arianna Barrial]

Arianna paused, her brow furrowing. She stopped and stood, one hip angled out as she bumped the corner of her chart against it. She blinked again, then glanced down at her clothing. Nothing revealing.

Her gaze fastened back on David as her eyebrows lifted.

"As if I would be anything but professional." She cracked a half-smile then pointed with her finger to show him where to go. "And if you tried to hit on me, well..."

She trailed off, eyebrows arching a little higher. His imagination would be more than enough to conjure more than what she would have said, anyway.

[David B.]

David cocked an eyebrow, but followed orders. Despite his misgivings, he wasn't about to face the wrath and ire of the doctor. He sat, letting out a breath.

"Don't understand the necessity for these check-ups anyway. I feel fine. I suspect your using them as an excuse for some bonding time."

He grinned, but waited for further instructions.

[Arianna Barrial]

Arianna's eyebrows arched in innocence as if to ask if she would really do something like that.

"Perhaps I did." She smiled, picking up the stethoscope she had resting around her neck. "Im pretty sure I can get this done without having you take your shirt off."

Yep. She was teasing him and slid the end under his shirt to start listening to his heart, and lungs with instructions to take a deep breath, hoooold it, and exhale. Despite the horrible reputation of the instrument being cold - it was metal after all - this one was certainly not. It was warmer than the Elder was probably expecting. Just enough to be slightly cool and pleasant.

The blonde doctor had learned a while ago how to have the instrument coiled over her to have her own body heat warm it. Her patients definitely seemed to appreciate it.

"So. You said you heard everything, just after I brought you back."

Not a question...but an open-ended statement.

"What do you think about what I said?"

And no beating around the bush.

[David B.]

David watched her after the last question, continuing to breathe, but without the sense of mirth he had previously. He didn't quite know how to respond to it, but held a certain respect in his eyes for the asking. When he finally decided to speak, he figured he should return the favor of directness.

"I did hear you, yes. And I think you were wrong to make the assumptions you did."

He was sure he would need to explain, so he would wait for her to look up at him as he expectedz

"You said I weighed Kiyr against Olesya and found Kiyr wanting. That she has been through much and loves hard. But I didn't do what you think. I never weighed Kiyr against Olesya. Each person is different. And Kiyr....Kiyr is a beautiful, wonderful woman who should never be compared to anyone. The reason I picked Olesya was because there was a child involved. I worried that me leaving Maddie and Olesya for one thing and not giving her and the child a chance would harm her needlessly. And I love Olesya. So, for Maddie, I wanted to at least try. Comparing people was not my intention, nor was it how things were done."

He tilted his head to the side a little.

"If you had waited for me to wake up and asked rather than assumed, we might not be having this conversation."

He gave a small smile, indicating that he understood why she did, and that he wasn't upset about it.

[Arianna Barrial]

Arianna pulled the stethoscope from David's chest and coiled it back around her neck, letting the flat of the metal rest against her skin again. She listened with a slightly growing smile.

She hadn't quite been clear enough with what she had said.

"If I had waited for you to wake up I would have been waiting fifteen years. Holding that frustration in for that amount of time? That's not me. So while I would have preferred to speak with you face to face, I had to settle with what I did, now that I wasn't so vexed with you for hurting her to begin with."

She tilted her head.

"And I guess I wasn't entirely clear when I spoke to you. I knew the deciding factor was Maddie. Kyrie expressed as much to me when she found her way back home. And I understand the want and need to give a second chance...but the thing is, you would have been perfectly capable of continuing to stand as a father-figure to Maddie. We both know my sister would encourage it if you had any doubts. In my opinion, I suppose it shouldn't have been the main deciding factor at all. If something happened between you two again, how much harder would it have been on Maddie? Kids are incredibly resilient and can bounce back, but they might not have the capacity to do so if things repeated. ...but I still understand why it was and why you chose that way."

She blinked, not shifting her gaze away. But she smiled, gently, because she had told him already.

"You're a good person, David, and were trying to do what you saw as right, which I can appreciate."

[David B.]

David's eyebrows furrowed.

"You think so? Did you know she already started calling me 'Dad'? That she took my last name? If I caused unhappiness for her and Olesya by leaving her for another woman, what kind of example would that set for the girl later in life? I wanted to be the kind of example Maddie needed. And Olesya is not a bad person- in fact, she is an amazing woman in her own right. I understand you feeling protective, but there was more to the story than you know. Not that it matters anymore."

He looked down at himself, blushing a little over her stating he was a good man.

"You should note that my bone density has increased and my immune system has blitzed. My aging has slower as well, in case you need to know."

She was the doctor after all.

[Arianna Barrial]

Arianna frowned slightly and, for the moment, resisted on giving the man a flick to his forehead. Like she had said, he was a good man.

"You're right: I don't know the entire story. I'm just going with what I know... She is my little sister, and I wouldn't hesitate to string a man up by his testicles - family or no," She grinned despite being entirely serious, "- if he hurt her, because that's what I would do for family. But I wouldn't hesitate to do the same for, say my twin, if he hurt someone else."

Aside from her grandfather Odin and Kyrie, though, the rest of her family was dead. But she was just giving him an example of, not only what she would do for family, but what kind of person she was. And she wondered if he caught that and the other thing she had slipped in there.

Her honey eyes brightened in curiosity, then flipped down to scan the chart...

"Damien mentioned the longevity—I promised I wouldn't breathe a word to her... Does the ship have record of the other things? You were in those tanks and she was monitoring you, so..."

And it wasn't on the charts. Arianna looked up.

[David B.]

He nodded.

"And I respect that. If I meant to harm her I would understand. But as I said, it doesn't matter now."

He would shake his head.

"No. Nobody else knows about it. I did it to myself, or should I say I asked Ceres to do it to me and keep it off the record. Speaking of which- this is all doctor/patient confidential, right?"

A grin.

[Arianna Barrial]

The blonde eyed him with those gilded eyes of hers. That was the second time he'd said that.

"Okay... I'll bite. Why doesn't it matter?"

After all, Kyrie was going to follow through on her promise.

A moment later, she smiled.

"I wouldn't breach it. I promised I wouldn't breathe a word to her about it to Damien, but it's all covered under the doctor-patient confidentiality."

It might kill her a little bit but no more than what she had promised Damien.

"Can I see the information, still? Just curious. I wouldn't mind comparing your initial stats to your current."

[David B.]

He laughed.

"You don't need to bite. You'll see soon enough."

He nodded at her request, turning to the blank wall on the right.

"Ceres, if you could project my statistical analysis on the wall here of me before my enhancements and after, that would be great."

Ceres gave the affirmative before projecting both with a slowly spinning image of him in 3D. On the left it broke down his current 'stats' which were as follows:

Bone strength rating: 13 (Concrete level strength)
Immune system rating: 25 (Average)
Estimated life expectancy: 70-90 years

Then it displayed his "after" statistics on the right:

Bone strength rating: 120 (Titantium steel strength)
Immune system rating: 100 (4x average - extremely high)
Estimated life expectancy: 500-2000 years.

David looked them over, before more information began to display:

Current mask progression-

David cut in.

"That will be enough Ceres, thank you."

[Arianna Barrial]

She gave him a look at his...slightly evasive reply but was quickly won over by the information. She glanced between the statistics and let out a low whistle.

"If something were able to break your bones, it would be a major pain to stabilize them with plates if the tanks weren't available..."

The spinning 3D figure of him she hardly even blinked at, despite the fact the model was as naked as David had been in the tanks. She was in full doctor-mode, regardless, and wasn't the slightest bit interested in checking him out, besides.

She turned to him despite being curious about this mask business.

"Am I supposed to infer that the length of your life is why it doesn't matter..?"

She was pulling on straws but didn't think it would be too far from the reason. A subtle frown curved her lips downward just a little.