"You think he's damaged?" Sehvi asked, brow wrinkled.
"Damaged is a strong word," Vasiht'h said. He sat facing the wallscreen in the main room, comfortably sprawled against the sofa. Jahir had a morning class on the last day of up-week and a habit of staying out afterward: his way of politely leaving Vasiht'h to make his calls in privacy. Most of the time, Vasiht'h wouldn't have cared if his roommate had wanted to listen, though he had no idea how Jahir would have felt about some of the gorier stories Sehvi shared about her hands-on experience with obstetrics. "I don't think he's damaged. I think the experience of being so weak was foreign to him and it's stuck with him, the way it would with any of us who had a scare about our bodies."
"Even though he was on Seersana and needed the regimen there initially," Sehvi said.
"He could walk here without getting tired," Vasiht'h said. He thought of the ring Jahir had not yet taken off the cord around his neck. "Selnor was a much different proposition." He leaned forward to fetch his cup of kerinne from the rug now that it was no longer steaming. "I'm going to see if he gets past it on his own. If not, I have some ideas."
"Some ideas, huh," his sister said, resting her cheek in her palm in a gesture they'd both gotten from their mother.
"A few. You know. Being the fancy therapist and all."
She grinned. "How's that going, anyway? It's been a couple of weeks since you started, right? Figured out how to achieve galactic peace yet?"
"I'll let you know once a galactic war breaks out," Vasiht'h said dryly. More seriously, he said, "I think it's going well."
"You think," she repeated. "Isn't this something you know? I mean, your patients aren't leaving worse off than when they come in, right?"
"No," Vasiht'h said, stroking the wall of the mug with his thumb, thinking. "I think they're getting better. But we have a faculty overseer—it's a practicum, you know how that goes, right?" At her nod, he continued, "And she's gotten... really quiet. Which is strange, because when we first started, she was not quiet. She was energetic and interested and curious. She wanted to know all about our experimental methods. So having her get so closed-mouthed about it so quickly..."
"Mm." Sehvi tapped her fingers on her desk, a sound he could hear clearly across the sector. "Maybe she always gets quiet? She wouldn't want to prejudice the results, right, or influence you all while working...."
"That's just the thing," Vasiht'h said. "She's supposed to be doing all that. The overseeing is supposed to be part mentoring. We're still students, and this is part of the teaching process. We're not expected to fly without back-up until we're in our residencies."
"Which your partner's already completed."
"In a medical specialty, which doesn't apply to the clinical environment." Vasiht'h leaned back, shaking his head. "No, it's not normal. And I've talked to some of Ravanelle's other students. They say it's usual for her to do some conferences at the end of every week, talk out the problem cases, make suggestions. She's not doing any of that for us. She asks us questions and prompts us to discuss things, but she doesn't say anything. And it's making me nervous."
"But you haven't messed anything up yet, have you?"
"No," Vasiht'h said, slowly. "At least, not that we can see. From the patient perspective, anyway. The people who are seeing us have come back, when it's part of the deal with the student clinic that they can request a different therapist if they're not comfortable with the one they've been assigned. They know we're learning... there are safeguards built in so they can feel safe, so they can back out of situations that make them unhappy. No one's backed out. But our methods... they're...nonstandard." He shrugged, helpless. "We don't fit the mold. So I worry they're not going to know what standards to judge us by."
"You'd think they'd judge you by the standard of whether your patients are happier," Sehvi said with a snort.
"You'd think. But academia isn't results-driven. You know that. We grew up with professors for parents. It's about process."
"Maybe over there it is," Sehvi said. "For me, not so much. Maybe that's why I like repro engineering so much."
"Speaking of which, how's your semester going? Gene theory finally making more sense to you, or is that tutor too distracting?"
To his surprise, she blushed and started playing with a pen on her desk. "Um. Well... yes, I think I'm finally getting it."
Vasiht'h set his cup aside and leaned forward. "Finally, a good story on your side for a change! Come on, ariishir, let's have it."
"Well, you know I had to find the only other Glaseah on campus," she began.
"We are done?" Jahir asked as KindlesFlame withdrew from the side of the bed.
"You are, yes. Go on, get up."
The halo-arch retracted, and Jahir sat up. "It remains a form of magic, that the instruments here can discern anything without requiring someone to disrobe."
"If I wanted to do specific kinds of imagery, we'd need you to strip," KindlesFlame said absently, studying the read-outs. "But for something this general, there's no need to make you freeze." He shook his head. "You have some of the most mysterious biology I've seen, alet. And I've climbed all over real alien races."
The word 'climbed' was evocative from someone not given to hyperbole. Jahir ran through his mental catalog of aliens and guessed, "Akubi?"
The foxine flashed a grin at him past a shoulder.
"You climbed over an Akubi? Truly?" Jahir said, interest piqued. "What was that like?"
"Warm, musty, a little bit furry and feathery. I don't know how to describe their integument, except maybe 'variegated.'" KindlesFlame set his data tablet down. "You're looking good. How are you feeling?"
"I think after Selnor anything feels better in compare," Jahir said.
"Mmm." The foxine folded his arms. "Would you humor me by allowing me a little granular imagery?"
"I can't allow..."
"Not with a machine," the Tam-illee said, smiling a little. He tapped the corner of one eye. "The old-fashioned kind."
"I... suppose?"
"Take off your shirt, then."
Jahir pulled it over his head and folded it, setting it aside and resting his hands in his lap. The metal of his ring felt suddenly cool on his chest, exposed to the air. He ignored the sensation, waiting as the Tam-illee considered him. KindlesFlame walked around him, said, "Bend forward? Head down." Curious, he complied. "Now sit up again and lift your arms—straight up, yes. Like that."
Wondering what the foxine was looking for, Jahir said, "And have you derived anything from this examination?"
A tap on his ribcage startled him for being completely without emotional data: the foxine's stylus. "You're getting there. Not quite as much flesh as I want to see, but your skin is finally the right color again."
"It had changed?" Jahir asked, surprised.
"Sure. And your smell too." He chuckled, though Jahir had been certain he'd schooled his expression to something a little less incredulous. "No, you don't need to do that little infinitesimal eye widening trick at me. I'm not kidding. Part of being a healer since time out of mind is paying attention to the details. A halo-arch can tell you a great deal, but you need the instincts for the times you don't have them... or they fail you." He canted his head. "You had front row tickets for some of those failures, so don't tell me this surprises you."
"No," Jahir admitted slowly. He drew his shirt back on, pulling his hair out from beneath the collar, and began adjusting the cuffs.
"Mm. And now what are you thinking in that too close mind of yours?"
Jahir tried not to find the buttons he was straightening as interesting as they'd become. "That medicine remains fascinating." No, he thought. To be honest with those you have chosen to trust is important. "That it becomes more fascinating as I study it."
"Why does this bother you?" KindlesFlame wondered, leaning against the wall as he waited.
"It doesn't. Not... precisely." He paused, then said, "Have you ever thought of taking up another profession?"
"Me?" The foxine huffed a soft laugh. "I'm happy where I am. And even if I wasn't, I have too much invested in this one."
"And if you had more time?"
KindlesFlame hesitated, then arched a brow. "I see. So this is about confronting our mortality."
Jahir thought about his enjoyment of the chemistry classes. And the ferocity of feeling he had for what he did with Vasiht'h during their practicum. He loved them both. Knowing that he had the time to devote to both when so many people around him would not have that luxury was... strange. To put his life in an order—first, become a therapist until your best friend dies, then do something new—made him uncomfortable. There was despair in him, with which he had made an uneasy peace, and it made him realize that before he'd left his world he had known very little of either love or grief. He finished straightening his clothes and pushed off the bed.
"You'd make a fine healer," KindlesFlame said.
"Do you think?"
"Oh yes." The foxine smiled. "Gotta eat more first. You're underdoing it still."
Jahir grimaced. "I thought I was doing better."
"Better than you were, certainly. I'm sure trying to figure out how much fewer calories you need here than you did on Selnor's a trial. But you need to pay more attention to it." The foxine chuckled. "Eat more ice cream or something."
Jahir thought of the bizarre medical concoction Vasiht'h had fed him at Mercy and shook his head a touch.
"You really would," KindlesFlame said as he ushered him out. "Make a fine healer. Thinking about it, someday? You have time."
"I do," Jahir said. "But I'd like to make a fine therapist first."
"Convince Ravanelle of it, then." When Jahir stopped abruptly, KindlesFlame said, "I expected to hear something from her by now. She's an talkative sort. It's strange for her to be cagey."
"We wondered," Jahir murmured.
"Keep going," the foxine said. "If there's no map, there will always be people who assume you're lost. Prove them wrong."