Medical Clearance

Posted on 21 Jun 2026 @ 3:27am by Captain Harvey Geisler & Lieutenant Commander Kennedy Monroe M.D.

5,936 words; about a 30 minute read

Mission: Epitaph
Location: Sickbay
Timeline: July 8, 2390 || 2130 hours

The ship had about an hour before it reached Gamma Command, and for the first time in days, Harvey felt free enough to finally think of himself. His uniform might have been clean, but the skin it covered was bloodied, matted, and filthy. Nearly every cut, burn, and bruise was concealed. Harvey knew the moment he finally started to relax, he would feel everything.

With the ship properly under Commander Reynolds' watchful eye, Harvey remanded himself to sickbay, where he hoped to be treated quickly for what he had endured. Of course, the speed and thoroughness of his care was subject solely to the Chief Medical Officer, and who knew what she would find that Harvey wasn't aware of.

Harvey entered the main ward of sickbay in the dead of night, hoping that Doctor Monroe hadn't yet retired to her quarters. After all, it had only been a few minutes since D'rimo had been defeated and the ship stood down from red alert.

Kennedy couldn't have slept even if she had wanted to. There were too many people to watch over and too much adrenaline still coursing through her for that. She knew she would crash eventually, but she also knew that like a dying person who fights to stay alive until the last loved one has the chance to offer the caring goodbye he or she needs to be at peace, her body wasn't going to fully stand down until one particular patient chose to walk through sickbay's doors.

Monroe knew she could've asserted herself long before that happened, and she told herself she would if he didn't manage to show, but she knew he would somehow. She hadn't interacted with him one on one very often, but every time she had, he never left her with the impression he was reckless or dismissive of her or her responsibilities - and she never believed this was simply because he was a physician. She believed he genuinely respected her and every member of his crew.

Seeing him enter, finally, she realized how much she hated the circumstances under which she was given the opportunity to know him better. At the same time, she recognized what a privilege it was to have his trust, especially in a moment like this. Unless he collapsed in her arms and she needed more help, she'd already decided to tend to him personally with no one else. Commanding officers needed spaces where they didn't have to be commanding officers with an audience even if that's who they wanted to be all the time.

Approaching him with a gentle smile, all the while assessing him as stealthily as she could so as not to treat him like a specimen, she offered, "Welcome home. I was wondering when you would stop by." She moved beside him, resisting the urge to put her arm around his shoulders. She didn't want to risk hurting him further, but she did want to offer him support, even if it was only her physical proximity.

Harvey chuckled at her response. He knew Kennedy was speaking from her core personality and an ounce of caution, somehow sensing her hesitation in her approach. "Don't worry," he told her, trying to find a small piece of humor in the entire situation. "I promise I'm the genuine article. I would have done this all sooner, but you know how it is when the fate of the galaxy hangs in the balance."

"No, actually, I don't," Kennedy deadpanned. "We've just been sitting here having a tea party." It didn't take her long to break into a smile to indicate she was clearly teasing him, but the fatigue shone in her eyes. Even so, she was so happy he and Joey were alive that she was glad to care for both of them now.

She led him to a nearby private room just for the added layer of privacy and space. Sickbay was quiet now, but as recent events reminded all of them, that was never guranteed. She remained beside him but at a respectful distance as they approached the biobed, just in case he needed her help. "Take your time, sir. I'm just going to get some basic scans to see what needs tending to and in what order. I may need to ask you some questions to know how best to proceed, but I'm in no rush and I know you know this, but I'll say it anyway. Anything we talk about here stays between us."

Harvey grabbed one end of the biobed and hoisted himself up onto it. Once he was sitting on the bed, his eyes scanned the private room. It wasn't anything he hadn't seen before, not to mention it wasn't unlike the room Joey was currently occupying. "So, what sort of tea did you have at the party? Darjeeling? Hibiscus?" His attempt at humor was laughable, enough the joke itself was more than sterile. "Whatever it was, I'm sure it was better than the nutrient paste I've been subjected to for the past week."

The soft whirring of the tricorder confirmed Harvey had lost weight. Preliminary scans also showed the signs of prolonged stress exposure -- elevated cortisol levels and small neurological changes. Evidence of insults to his soft tissues was also present, although she would need him to undress so she could see the full extent of the damage. She was relieved to see no signs of internal bleeding or broken bones, though logically, she knew if he'd suffered anything like that, not even adrenaline and grit would have kept him functioning for this long. Still, she wasn't going to substitute assumption for thoroughness.

With practiced ease, Kennedy managed to keep one eye on her tricorder and one eye on her patient. "To be honest, I'm more of a raktajino woman, but I'm told the chamomille was excellent." Her gentle smile indicated she would keep up the banter as long as he needed. "Nutrient paste, eh? Sounds like your accommodations rated not a single star. You're the only person I've ever met who lost weight after time away. Anything else I should know about them or your time there?" Monroe knew there might be a time when she or he would break the pretense, but she wasn't going to do it as long as she didn't need to. Kennedy trusted he would understand she was giving him a way to share what he felt comfortable sharing while also understanding she was not making light of anything he'd been through."

"You mean aside from the fact that I was a human pin cushion?" Harvey asked, though the question was largely rhetorical. He sighed, wondering how much in detail he should go with his capture. Every detail was important, but he could not tell if it was his pride that caused his hesitation or a practitioner wondering how relevant certain actions were to an overall assessment. "I spent several days at Starbase Unity, in one of the barely surviving structures. Joey and I attempted to escape, only to wind up in a room with corpses."

“That must’ve been awful for you both,“ Kennedy replied, giving Harvey her full undivided attention. There would be plenty of opportunity for her to review her instrumentation, but not only did she need to hear whatever details he was willing to share to treat him clinically, but out of respect for how difficult relating those details might be, Monroe wanted to make it clear her concern wasn’t cursory. “ Would you mind removing your jacket and shirt to start? I’d like to take a closer look at your injuries, just to make sure I’m covering all the bases. With your permission, I will help you if you need. I imagine based on what I’m seeing so far, you’re managing quite a lot of pain.” Of course, Kennedy wasn’t just talking about physical pain, but the unspoken hung in the air.

Indications of deep bruising, cuts, and burns were already apparent alongside malnutrition, but Harvey’s comment about being treated like a pin cushion made her wonder if he had been drugged and subjected to other forms of torture her initial scans didn’t readily reveal. The heaviness of his earlier sigh didn’t escape her, and she wondered just how much he was reluctant to share, even as he understood she wasn’t going to judge, and was only asking to make sure she understood fully how to treat him.

Harvey complied, unzipping the jacket so that the required examination could begin. The clothing he wore now was not the same as what had been on his body when the Endurance recovered him and Joey hours ago. During all of it, he'd been afforded a brief time in the sonic shower, which had revealed several sore portions of his body. "When this is all done," he thought aloud, beginning to remove his shirt, "I look forward to a bath or a traditional shower with water."

When the shirt had been removed, a nearby reflective surface caught his eye. He'd barely looked at himself when changing earlier, but now he could see the discolored patches of skin, the black and blue bruising from his torture, or the swollen points where his skin had been breached to deliver mind-altering drugs. For once in his life, his body looked worse than his state of mind, or at least he assumed so.

Kennedy cast her eyes respectfully to the side as Harvey began to remove his jacket and shirt, only returning her gaze to him to take in all of what she could see visually and to consider what her eyes alone couldn't tell her. Of course she was moved emotionally by what she saw, as she would have to be heartless not to be, but the last thing she wanted to do was make him uncomfortable with any display of emotion that would make him self-conscious, even if it was motivated by care and compassion for him.

She decided to focus on his words, continuing to build what she hoped was a deeper sense of trust between them. Monroe didn't know him well enough to decipher what he was feeling or whether he was holding it together by his fingernails right now, but she would continue to follow his lead. "You're welcome to use the facilities here if you like," Monroe offered, her tricorder whirring quietly as she scanned him more closely "You'd have your privacy and wouldn't have to wait until you got back to your quarters. Truthfully, I'd feel most comfortable keeping you under observation for a hour or two, just to give you some time to rest, but I'm open to negotiate if you're inclined," she added with a small grin. She'd switch her tricorder for a dermal regenerator to address the bruising not attributable to being seemingly injected. She needed more information about that before she treated those.

With a scoff, Harvey stated, "I'm not the one to negotiate with. The hour may be late, but Admiral O'Connell is convening a debriefing as soon as we reach Gamma Command." It went without saying that he recognized some leeway in that order. Gamma Command was a few hours away from the wormhole at full impulse, the speed the ship was currently traveling at. Even at warp one, it would take an hour to reach the station.

"Privacy is not a luxury I can afford anyway," he shared with the Doctor. He'd been a Chief Medical Officer before. While there was much he could defer to his staff, there was a never-ending expectation to be on call aboard a starship, and that expectation only grew exponentially when one became an Executive and then Commanding Officer. Even married, there was no stopping a senior staff member or yeoman from simply dropping by his and Joey's shared cabin. Especially in the most intimate of moments. "But I'd be happy to make use of the facilities and rest a bit once you've finished with me."

“Deal,“ Kennedy replied, continuing her work. “I promise not to keep you longer than I have to. Quality care isn't always fast care, and yet, I must keep my five star patient satisfaction scores. Starfleet Medical was all about that the last I knew.” The bruising was extensive and widespread, so she worked in silence for several minutes, just attending to each patch of marred skin that was shaded different colors to indicate various levels of healing. The burns would require their own special attention, and perhaps more than one treatment, but for now, she focused on injuries that would take a little less time, but would perhaps help him feel more like himself a bit faster.

When she was finished with all she could see with his jacket and shirt removed, she said, “I’ll take some samples just to be thorough, but do you know what you were injected with and how often?” It was perhaps the first direct reference to what had happened to him that wasn’t wrapped in vagueness or humor. Kennedy knew she was prodding his emotional skin with the direct question as much as she was prodding his actual skin with her dermal regenerator, but she knew it was necessary and she knew he understood that as well. Still, she didn’t enjoy it.

Harvey shook his head. "They never declared what was used, but it was three or four times a day, and always when I was strapped to a chair. I'm also not sure who was from our universe or the alternate one, but I'd assume all fluids injected came from the other side. Who knows what was in those compounds and whether or not they were effective on humans."

Kennedy inwardly winced. Being captured was bad enough but then to be strapped forcibly to a chair and injected with God knew what multiple times a day? "Do you know what they hoped to accomplish with the injections? What effect, I mean?" She would take some small tissue and blood samples for testing, but not until she'd addressed the swollen injection sites.

"My best guess?" Harvey asked, allowing himself to revisit the rougher moments. "I think it was supposed to be some kind of truth serum, something to make us unable to speak anything but the truth. Mostly, it wound up causing severe headaches and burning sensations throughout the body. I don't think they understood our anatomy very well." He chuckled and added, "Plus, they didn't really know what questions they should have been asking, so who knows if it would have been successful or not."

Kennedy made a mental note to look up the chemical components of known truth serums to compare tox results with known elements and their potential risks, but it sounded like these captors were just trying things to see what stuck. Monroe expected the chuckle covered more emotion than it would otherwise reveal on the surface, but she was glad to give him any respite she could. "Their recklessness I imagine only added to the fear. I'm truly sorry, sir, for all you endured," she added sincely before asking, "At any point did you lose consciousness? Also, I'm wondering how you feel now? Any headaches or burning?"

"The first couple of days were the hardest," Harvey confessed, recalling the period of time when he was going in and out, reeling from the cocktail of drugs and revelation that he'd not only been living with a near-perfect clone of his wife but also finding intimate time with the facsimile. That particular moment was going to have a hard time healing. "As for now, it's a strange feeling going from survival to going right back into the command chair."

"I have concerns about that too, sir," Kennedy replied. "I know I have full authority to do what I believe is in your best interest, including removing you from duty, but I also know that isn't a decision to be made lightly or pre-emptively without cause. You have a unique understanding of these decisions having also worked as a doctor, so I think perhaps it's best we collaborate on the next steps as far as your duty status is concerned. I have zero problem with standing up *for* you and *with* you, but I don't want it to seem as though my decisions are being inflicted upon you."

She took a moment to let that sit with him while she made her notes and prepared to ask him to undress further so she could see and tend to the rest of his injuries.

"If it makes you feel any better, I can imagine I'll be subjected to a series of debriefings that will keep me officially out out of that chair for a while." Harvey sighed, lowering his head a bit. "Being held captive is one thing. The higher up the ladder one goes, the more attention Command tends to give the situation."

“Enduring hours of command level debriefings hardly sets the right conditions for healing,“ Kennedy acknowledged. “Keeping you from the command chair isn’t meant to be a punishment and I take no comfort in knowing you will be avoiding one pressure cooker just to walk into others. Sincerely, Captain, I know I can’t protect you from all of that forever, but I’m willing to do and say whatever I have to to buy you time. However, as I said, I don’t want to be doing anything to you. I’d rather do it with you. You need time to rest and to sort out what you’ve been through therapeutically, not under conditions that read more like more interrogation rather than efforts to gain genuine support and understanding. I was thinking Counselor Rael and I could work with you to sort through all this when you’re ready? At the very least, it will give you some time to get comfortable sharing experiences aloud with supportive people prior to going before command.“

Harvey smiled, finding himself too tired to offer much else. "Thank you, Doctor. Believe me, it's appreciated." Heaving a sigh of both relief and exhaustion, he asked her, "What do you need from me next?"

Kennedy walked over to a nearby drawer and removed a gown. "If you'll just slip this on, I can get to work healing the rest of you. I'm happy to step out while you change if you like?"

"You assume I have some shame when it comes to my personal body," chuckled Harvey, taking a look at the gown he just accepted. Then he looked down at himself if only to be reminded that he was already naked from the waist up. The gown itself was easy to put on, and magnetic tabs instantly wove the top of the back together. This also had the pleasant side effect of covering his lower half, which Harvey then immediately undressed, leaving only his underwear behind. The slacks, socks, and shoes were tossed aside, right on top of the jacket and undershirt.

It felt good to hear Harvey genuinely laugh about something and to share a collegial moment even under these circumstances. "I'm less concerned about your potential for embarrassment than my medical staff's propensity for gossip," Kennedy joked. "Also, to be fair, if I'm treat you like any other patient, I can't just deny you a gown now, can I? I do have those patient satisfaction scores to keep in mind."

When Harvey was in his gown and properly seated once more, she began to scan the rest of him. Cuts and bruises were readily apparent everywhere, some of them deeper than she liked, but her biggest concern were the burns. They were going to take several treatments and even so, he was going to be sore for awhile. He'd also lost a good deal of weight, which was even more obvious as she scanned him full. Proper nutrition and hydration was in order but it was going to take time for his body to get used to real food again.

Activating a sterifield, she explained, "I'm going to start with burn chamber treatment and then we'll get a better idea of how many passes with the dermal regen we'll need. Would you like some pain gel for the discomfort?"

Harvey shifted, feeling the discomfort in his lower back from all of the odd positions and the torture he'd endured. "I don't know if gel is going to take care of that." In fact, he supposed that not even lidocaine would be enough to dull the aches and tense muscles.

Seeing Harvey work to get comfortable, Monroe offered, "The gel I intended for your burns, sir, but I can also get you a mild muscle relaxant for your back and I can finish the treatment with you lying down if you like. It's no trouble at all." Harvey was not one to complain in her presence, so when she saw him in even the slightest bit of discomfort, she wanted to do that much more to make his life easier.

Harvey silently chastised himself. Being a former medical professional, he realized that he should have considered that the gel wasn't for all the pain, just the burns from the torture rod. "Of course," Harvey admitted, trying not to grit his teeth from both the discomfort and the burns. "Whatever you've got to take the edge off, I'm all for."

"Of course, sir," Kennedy replied. "Go ahead and lay back fully on the bed and we'll take care of both your needs." A small dose of Asinolyathin was quickly loaded into a hypo and depressed directly into Harvey's lower back. It didn't take a medical degree to see how tight the muscles were. "That should help in the short term, but I would recommend gentle massage and changing your position frequently to give your muscles some relief. I can also give you a prescription for this just to give you more immediate results over the next few days."

She then gathered her burn treatment devices, including the aforementioned gel and directed Harvey to stretch his legs so she could more closely assess the burns and cuts. "After I'm finished, walking should feel much better."

Harvey chuckled as he stretched his legs and laid back. If only he could get a massage so easily, especially with the debriefings and depositions that would soon follow. "I might need a prescription for that massage," he muttered, though it was certainly not quiet enough to go unheard by the doctor. It was only when he laid fully back and stopped did he truly realize how sore he was. He wondered if this is what the hero felt like in those action holos when they finally stopped moving and let their senses catch up to them.

Hearing Harvey mention a prescription for the massage, Kennedy chuckled. "A prescription for the massage can definitely be arranged. I'm sure the folks in physical therapy would be happy to assist and I know there are some holodeck programs that could be useful too. I'll make sure you have what you need before you leave, so no one in command gives you a hard time. If they want to come yell at me because my treatment requirements are interfering with their debriefings, they can do that, but I'm not sacrificing your well-being for their curiosity."

Of course, Kennedy knew trauma reactions weren't just stored in the mind, they were stored in the body. Massage could be an essential tool for recovery.

For now, Kennedy contented herself with seating herself at the lower end of the bed so she could attend to Harvey's burns. She would debride and clean them first, applying dermaline gel for pain and the dermal regenerator to seal the wounds as she went.

She worked in companionable silence for awhile, then took the opportunity to address a delicate matter she had purposely waited to address until Harvey didn't have to look her in the eye. Monroe did so, not because Harvey had anything to be ashamed of or because she was uncomfortable, but because sometimes it was easier for patients to talk about uncomfortable things without the added pressure of eye contact. "I wanted to address a potentially delicate matter, sir, with the understanding you can say as much or as little as you like, but that I'm doing so strictly for your well-being. I'm referring to your wife's clone and the lengths she went to in an effort to convince you nothing was amiss...I can only imagine the range of emotions that have come with that realization and what personal medical precautions might be necessary."

It was not typical of Kennedy to dance around even delicate issues, but her approach always depended on the relationship she had with the patient in question. She and Harvey didn't know each other as well as she might have liked before treating him for trauma as serious as this, but she respected him and she believed it was mutual, which is why she wanted to address the matter of intimacy between Harvey and the doppleganger Joey no matter how delicate it was. To ignore that particular part of the cruelty she believed he'd been subjected to would be akin to telling him to hide it out of shame, and that was a message Kennedy wouldn't abide.

Harvey would have lied if he'd said he wasn't concerned about the relations he'd had with Joey's doppelgänger. He'd barely broached the subject with Joey since their focus was purely on survival. It was something they would have to discuss, not to mention work though all of the trauma associated with that. "I'd had no idea it wasn't her," Harvey admitted softly.

Retrospect only revealed the signs had been there the whole time. The clone had had a hunger and a lack of concern about when or where, something only a youthful soul could sustain for prolonged periods. Harvey and Joey might have had their moments in the last year, but little compared to that brief period when Joey... well, wasn't real.

"We haven't been able to talk about it much," he added on. "Joey's aware, and it's likely going to be a matter of me trying to forgive myself than she try to forgive me." He grunted, figuring it was unfair to even assume as much. "Is there something I need to be concerned about? Medically speaking?"

Harvey's response confirmed what she'd suspected, though she somehow hoped wasn't true, no matter how unrealistic it would be to think no sexual intimacy had taken place over such a long period of deception. The implications of that were still being processed for all involved. For Kennedy, those implcations were professional and not fully understood. She knew she needed to admit as much. "Beyond protecting you against known infections, I will do a thorough review of all your scans just to make sure I've left no stone unturned. I don't have concrete evidence the doppleganger's motives for engaging with you in that way went beyond just trying to maintain the ruse for as long as possible, but I don't wish to assume anything. Recognizing the delicacy of the subject, sir, is there anything about those particular interactions you think I should know that might suggest cause for medical concern or avenues to investigate to protect your health?"

He considered the doctor's remarks for a few moments, as well as thinking over the information he'd learned in the last few hours. "I appreciate the thoroughness," Harvey stated. "But as for the clone... have you performed an examination on her?" Given the clone's attempt to whisk both the twins and the dogs away from the Black Hawk might have meant that she was looking for multiple paths to become a mother. It was a long shot, but one worth exploring.

"It's on my to do list," she offered with a nod, a sense of unease growing in her stomach. Could the clone‘s motivation been about achieving motherhood as Harvey suggested? If so, was it possible sexual intimacy wasn’t merely a means for maintaining the ruse? The thought was disturbing and she didn’t want to voice it without evidence. She made a mental note to check to make sure Harvey’s contraceptive injection was up-to-date. “As for learning to forgive yourself for something you could not have known, I get there can be a disconnect between your head and your heart, but as I am nearly finished with these burns, I will just say for the record, none of this is your fault. None of us knew what was happening and I choose to believe that’s a good thing because I’m not sure I want to possess the type of twisted mind that could have seen any of this coming. Even so, I’d be lying if I said I didn’t feel my own guilt for not picking up on any of this sooner.”

"I've been hearing that a lot," Harvey muttered. The good doctor was not the first to lament that she hadn't picked up on what was happening. She wouldn't be the last either. But forgiving oneself was something that was going to have to wait for after these debriefings and after he and Joey had the chance to work through it all.

“Sorry, “ Kennedy offered. “I could see how that would seem like I was fishing for reassurance from you. I suppose what I'm really trying to say is, you aren’t perhaps as alone as you might feel. and I hope in time we can all come to accept none of this is our fault.“. She painted the last of the gel on his burns and said, “I’m all done here, sir. I’ll just get that antibiotic for you and you can be on your way to a warm shower and some rest.”

Harvey did his best to allow himself to relax as the gel was applied. Going through medical attention was always so personal, no matter the situation or circumstance. "Thanks, doctor," he replied. That shower was certainly something to look forward to, even though he dreaded what would come after.

"No thanks needed, sir, but it's appreciated."

She headed to the computer to order his meds, one of the most predictably ordinary tasks of the decidely not ordinary circumstances, but what started as an ordinary review of his medical record after a few clicks soon created a sense of unease in her abdomen.

Taking a beat, she quickly decided this was not a conversation she wanted to have from across the room, and she quickly loaded some hypos before walking back over to Harvey. She administered the hypo easily enough and handed the hypos full of additional meds over to him, casually offering, "Sir, I saw in your record you are overdue for your contraceptive hypo. You wouldn't have replicated one for yourself and just forgotten to tell one of us you took care of it yourself, would you?" It was not unreasonable to think this was a possibility, Kennedy reasoned, given Harvey was a doctor himself. Naturally, she would have preferred people not self-medicate, but in this case, she hoped it was true.

Harvey blinked, looking over at the doctor. To be honest, contraceptives was one of the furthest thoughts in his thinking lately. “Overdue?” He asked. “I don’t really remember the last time I had one. Is… is there something I should know?”

The sense of dread in her stomach only deepened, not only because of what he had shared about Joey's doppleganger's interest in sex as part of the overall deception, but because she felt responsible for not realizing sooner Harvey had missed his required dose. She was supposed to stay on top of such things, and the implications of having not done so were far more serious now in light of what he had just been through. Worse yet, he did not seem to realize what Kennedy herself had put together. She felt awful and knew she what she said next had the potential to make him feel worse than when he came in, which was saying a whole hell of a lot.

With tears of self-recrimination threatening to prick her eyes, her voice took on its strongest keep-it-together-tone. "So most people elect to receive a quarterly contraceptive hypo at their regular physical exams. As you know, we have hypos for beings of all species to virtually prevent all unintended pregnancies, but for these methods to be effective, it's important patients receive doses regularly. There are other methods that don't require a doctor's visit, but looking at your prior records, it appears you always elected for the hypo."

She paused, swallowing hard. "I apologize for the sensitive question, sir, but I'm asking as someone who cares about you, not just as your doctor, but as a colleague who respects you immensely, did you and your wife's doppleganger use any sort of protection I'm not aware of when you had sexual contact?"

Monroe's phrasing was direct and more clinical than she would normally be, but she figured that was preferable to implying any degree of consent or romanticism around their encounters.

If a frown hadn’t been on Harvey’s face before, it certainly was now. The doppleganger had been very forward when it came to intimacy, whether it were in the Captain’s mess or in their quarters and everywhere in between. Until his capture, Harvey thought it just had been a renewal or rekindling of what had excited them in the first place. He was already questioning his actions before that time, and now he was doing it again.

A sigh escaped his lips as he resigned himself to the biobed. A sensitive question deserved a simple answer, so a simple answer he gave. “No, we did not use protection of any sort. And now that I think about it, I had been due for my quarterly just before the first attack weeks ago. I have to admit it hadn’t registered in my mind at all.”

"Well, you've been a bit preoccupied so that's perfectly understandable," Kennedy reassured. "None of this is your fault." Monroe knew she had said that already, but it was worth repeating. She let the silence hang between them for just a moment before offering, "I'll give you that dose now and then you can take that much deserved shower and rest."

As she pressed yet another hypo into his neck, Kennedy's other hand briefly but gently brushed his shoulder to steady him as the device was pressed with a hiss. The touch was tentative at first as she didn't want to startle him after all the unwanted contact he'd endured, but the compassion behind the gesture was genuine Kennedy. If she was going to be treating him like a pin cushion herself and asking him deeply personal questions, the least she could do was take a few moments to offer comfort that was more than professionally perfunctory. "I'm just a comm away if you need anything, anytime."

"Thanks, Doctor," Harvey said, not making any effort to lean forward on the biobed. Even though the conversation had stirred up emotions he hadn't planned to deal with for a while, this was still the most relaxed he had felt in several days. Perhaps what he needed more than a shower before the debriefing was just a little bit of rest.

And rest he would.

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