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Simon insists on regular check-ups.

Which he probably should've anticipated, since Simon is a doctor, and that is standard procedure. But none of them have seen a real doctor in...a while, for Holden and Alex, and possibly not ever, for Amos or Naomi. The poor guy is startled when he gets to Holden, and they have to have a conversation about Eros and 50 times the lethal limit of radiation and lifelong treatment plan. Holden doesn't, honestly, think much of it; he's had some time to get used to the idea, and with the more immediate concerns of his crew and protomolecule-related crises, it's easy to justify backburnering his health.

What comes as a surprise, then, is when Simon calls him back to the med bay for what he calls an important follow-up.

Simon is not an oncologist.

He also isn't a neurologist, but he's had to pick up some skills along the way.

When Holden enters the medbay, he'll find Simon sitting among books and screens, a notebook in his hands as he scribbles down ideas, observations. Old fashioned to do it this way, but he likes keeping his hands busy with it. Some of the material is specific to this system, mostly Martian like the ship itself. Some is also his own personal material from home. Texts and medical journals he'd brought with him when he'd first left Osiris, a cumbersome but comfortable weight to keep with him in whatever new life was ahead.

And now, maybe useful.

"When's the last time your implant was calibrated?"

No 'hello' or 'how are you,' he's too lost in the sauce of problem solving for niceties.

He opens his mouth as his eyebrows go up, then closes it as they come down. It takes him half a beat, mostly because the line of questioning is so unexpected.

"A few months ago." And since it can be hard to keep track of time up here, he adds, "It'll be in the autodoc logs. Is there a problem?"

"Of course there's a problem."

Simon frowns, scribbling a note down before he moves over to a screen with the autodoc records. Which show that everything is as it should be with the device, it isn't in disrepair or anything, but that's as much of a problem as anything else.

"Have you visited any medical professional for a consult about the situation other than the autodoc? Or that didn't just go with the result it spit out?"

"We don't just go with the result it spits out."

Which is lucky, because if they did, he'd be...dead. But he does have to acknowledge that they do, a lot of the time. None of them really have the medical expertise to argue with the device. Even saying him and Miller had been more on hope than knowing better than the autodoc.

So, he concedes: "You'd be the first doctor I've spoken to about this. What's the problem?"

That's about what he'd expected to hear, and it's still mildly horrifying to have the confirmation.

"This," said with a gesture at Holden's arm, "isn't a long-term solution. Not a good one."

He looks, instinctively, down to his arm at the implant, before looking back at Simon.

"It's been working fine so far."

"It's the medical equivalent of a collapsed roof being held up with a pogo stick."

None of this is working fine, going well, or something that doesn't seem designed specifically to horrify Simon on some level or another. He takes medicine seriously, takes helping people and doing no harm to heart. Most of his time since he left the hospital has been laser focused on River, but he remembers how to remove tumors and reattach legs. He remembers what different drug combinations do to the human body, how they interact, and how they sometimes do more damage.

"It working fine is killing you just as much as the radiation, only it's doing it slower."

He could respond to Simon's clear concern with some equal level of solemnity.

"Tell it to me straight, doc. How long do I have?"

Or he could be a shit.

For a second, Simon is viscerally reminded of Mal. It passes.

"Less than you would've if you actually had any instincts for self-preservation."

Look, they can both be shits.

There's a flicker of something across his face, and he folds his arms. Simon probably doesn't specifically mean anything that happened on Eros, but it's hard not to take it that way.

"You don't know what you're talking about."

Edited 2019-12-01 04:46 (UTC)

"You should've gone to the nearest fully staffed facility as soon as you could after this happened."

So, definitely not about Eros. He understands the impulse to take the big hit to help someone else, he understands sacrifice. He also understands that letting a machine treat you with the most slapshod band-aid of a solution to the problem at hand is idiotic.

Well, it's at least enough to lower his hackles enough to continue this conversation.

"There wasn't time for that," he admits.

First there was Eros, and finding out what really happened there, and trying to stop it from destroying Earth, and then there was Ganymede, and the war, and everything else. But that isn't entirely true, is it? There was time he could've, and didn't, take.

"Okay, fine. Do you have any suggestions?"

He ambles a few steps closer, as though to take a look at all of Simon's notes.

Yeah, Simon doesn't look like he buys it, but he doesn't keep pushing it.

"A few, but I want to go over your chart and the readout from the autodoc on your vitals' fluctuations before I narrow it down."

The notes are open for viewing. His own handwriting is atrocious in his notebook, a kind of shorthand he learned ages ago. When he writes something someone else needs to read, he takes the time to make it legible, but for now? Scribbles. Literally. And every book and screen open to a different theory or detail -- tumor growth, (relatively) ancient chemotherapy, metastasis, and a few articles on treatments specific to the hospitals he's worked in. Alliance tech, which isn't a comforting thought, but it works.

There's something discomfiting about seeing it laid out like this, across all these pages and screens. About the disease, about what's happening in his own body as they speak. Cell cycles spinning out of control, mutating, and then getting destroyed by his meds. All it'd take is a device malfunction, a missed day, a mass developing resistance or evading detection, and this would be his reality.

On the other hand, that's assuming some (probably protomolecule-related) bullshit doesn't kill him first.

"You want a readout now?"

As in, should he be putting on that familiar arm cuff?

The protomolecule is not an excuse for bad medical care.

At least now, even if Holden is discomfited by the information laid before him, Simon seems somehow more relaxed. He knows what to do with this, he knows the steps he needs to take to move forward to a stable solution.

"If you don't mind. I've changed some of the settings on what information it'll get during the routine scan to make sure I'm not missing anything."

Simon can be a funny mix of polite and no-nonsense. He says if you don't mind, but there's clearly not much question to it.

Holden sits himself down and puts on the cuff, lets Simon run whatever he needs to. After all, all Holden really needs to be doing here is sitting still and doing nothing, which isn't exactly strenuous.

(Though it does feel like his time could be better used elsewhere. He can always check the news feeds on his hand terminal, but Simon likely wouldn't appreciate a distraction that could affect the readouts. Like, say, his blood pressure.)

"I appreciate that you take your work seriously," he says, because he does. "But I didn't bring you onboard to fix my chronic conditions. That's my problem; it doesn't have to be yours. You don't owe me anything."

He's a funny guy like that. Probably why he focused on trauma surgery and not direct patient care.

Holden says his piece, and Simon focuses for a few moments on transferring the readouts to another device, glancing over them for anything that might need immediate attention. When he looks back at the captain, he looks a little grim.

"You're my patient now, no matter the reason behind why I'm here. Which makes it my problem."

It's been a long time since he worked in a hospital, under optimal conditions, but he's always taken pride in his work. There's no excuse for letting something like this go without the best treatment. And, maybe, this is the best way to show his own gratitude to Holden for bringing him and River on in the first place. There isn't a lot else he has to offer beyond his skills.

Well, as long as Simon is clear he isn't obligated....to do this.....anyway, they can always revisit this conversation if need be. Instead, he notes the grim look on Simon's face.

"What is it?"

Oh, he's absolutely obligated. That's just how he functions as a person, apparently. Obligation and responsibility, all wrapped up in a barely functional young man.

And on this point, he might have expected more of a fight.

Simon shakes his head, sets down the data and crosses his arms across his chest as he leans back against one of the medbay's counters. Casual, a signal that the argument (such as it was) is over.

"Would you have seen anyone if I hadn't come on board?"

For now, it's not worth fighting over. If it starts causing a problem, or getting in the way of things they need to do, or if Simon seems worryingly fixated on this...they can revisit this.

Anyway, he shrugs.

"No."

Keeping it real.

He is absolutely going to fixate on this, at least when he has time away from fixating on River's treatments. Simon has already sunk a decent amount of time on research on any differences in this system's med supplies for anti-psychotics and treatment plans. This is just, you know, a fun side-project.

(One he might actually make satisfying progress on, but he doesn't let that thought linger.)

"Well, now you're stuck with me," said with a sigh, because that's about what Simon expected. How he manages to end up on ships with self-destructive men at the helm is beyond him, but it speaks to his general luck in life.

The thing is.

The thing is, if it isn't broken, he doesn't want to fix it. He keeps an eye on his own health, quietly. He has regular scans on the autodoc for tumors, keeps his implant full up with power and medicine. Makes sure their stock of meds never dips dangerously low. This is a solution that may not be perfect, but it works. It makes it easy for him to keep on top of his treatments, keeps him active and present and able to deal with every challenge that comes their way.

The thing is, he's the captain of this ship. He doesn't want to make them worry: Naomi, Alex, Amos. He's here to take care of them, of the Roci, and he can still do that. They need to be able to rely on him.

The thing is, they were the last ship off Eros. He and Miller took enough radiation to kill them several times over; but a hundred thousand people didn't make it off Eros. Even Miller didn't, in the end, not really. If he could change anything about that day, it wouldn't be the radiation. It'd be all the people he didn't save. And that's a regret the whole crew will carry for the rest of their lives.

The thing is, Holden's living on borrowed time. He survived that day because he was lucky; because Miller was there to help him make it to the docks, because Naomi made sure the ship waited for them. That's all there is to it. So he'll take whatever extra time he gets with gratitude, and try to put it to good use.

What he says, looking upwards at Simon as the autodoc beeps quietly, is, "You know, when people say someone around here can't help trying to save people, they're usually talking about me. I'm starting to think that's just because they hadn't met you yet."

Simon manages a laugh at that, though it's...

Quiet, amused but held back. A little bitter. Maybe a lot bitter.

Most days it isn't hard to wonder about what-ifs, the past. He'd wanted to be a doctor for as long as he could remember, wanted to be the one that fixes people. That takes something impossible and heals it, restarts a heart or replaces a lung. There's power in it, a kind of high knowing he has the knowledge and the skill at his disposal to save a life. Others in his class were after that first and foremost, and the credits it would earn them, but from Simon's perspective it was a duty, too. Money wasn't a real goal, considering his family, and power had never really interested him.

He wanted to help. He felt responsible. Why would he be so good at this if he wasn't meant to use it, to do what he could?

Ever since River went to the Academy, that sense of responsibility narrowed down to a single point focused on her recovery, but he's not going to ignore a problem that's right in front of him. He's going to do what he can.

"The God Complex of a doctor. They get handed out when you start medacad," is meant to be a joke, but there's more truth in it than he'd like to admit.

He laughs, obligingly. Just briefly. But what he remembers is Dresden in the echoing hallways of Thoth, ranting about the protomolecule and the fate of humanity and brushing aside the deaths of everyone on Eros like they were nothing. Less than a rounding error, he'd said.

"There are worse things."

PICK YOUR POISON
PIC PROMPTS / TFLN / RANDOM SCENARIO
HAN SOLO velocities	BETTY MCRAE bombsheller	RIVER TAM subsulcus	RIVER TAM (AU) comprehender
SIMON TAM vest	BRIA THAREN exulted	NADINE CROSS bridaled	GU JUN-PYO toddler
available on special request: veronica sawyer, benjamin linus, imani, maria deluca, mushu, poseidon, niccolò machiavelli, malik al-sayf, chloe

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