[center][h2]The First Session[/h2][/center][center](Roughly a month and a half ago...)[/center]
[center]A collaborative effort between [@ShwiggityShwah] and myself[/center]
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[hider=Reception area]
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Mandatory Evaluation and weekly sessions here after.  How did the Chief Engineer, hell now the Engineering officer get into this.  Sure, he's been hitting the bottle lately, but that wasn't on any workshifts.  He encouraged some of his men to fight out their differences, blow off some steam, but apparently security didn't like that either.  Finally he himself got into a fight, well fights.  One pissant was mistreating one of his friends, almost grabbing at her.  The other was some flyboy that called him a wrench monkey at exactly the wrong time.  He knocked him on his ass, who wouldn't?  
Keith Sullivan had been acting out ever since his impromptu promotion.  He had been promoted to Engineering Officer, with the bridge being his work station now ever since a disaster coolant explosion killed the previous officer, his superior, and several other members of the work crew.  According to the files, Engineering Officer Samantha Gertrude and Sullivan had a stellar relationship, similar to a trusted Officer and their NCO.  Their work was as corgial as it was professional.  Then she died in the line of duty, and something within the Chief just kind of snapped after that.
Still, Sullivan seemed to not give two cents about what the director of security said.  He was right and he knew it.  This was just all par for the course.  Whatever, he decided to take these hours as mandatory relief.  He had a mountain of work and this was a great opportunity to shirk it foe a little while.  He entered the office area in the medical wing, a woft of lemon scents assailing him.  "Cheif Engineer Keith Sullivan reportin'"  He stood in the doorway saluating.  He was a gorilla of a man, very hairy, tall about 6'3", beard and hair all curls.  Hell he even had a slight irish accent.


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From within her office, Dr. Larson received a notification that her next patient had arrived. She clicked on the screen to open up her patient's file. Keith Sullivan, Chief Engineer. Further reading provided her with the details behind the appointment. Leaning back against her chair, Melanie tapped her fingers on the armrest, mentally preparing an outline as how she would like their first session to go. This was far from her first meeting with a patient having to deal with alcoholism, but she tailored her sessions according to her patients, as every good mental health worker should.

A moment later, Melanie stood up, heading for the door and then walking down the small corridor. From the other side of the panel glass, she saw him standing outside. He was every bit masculine as he was tall. Hard to miss features as depicted on his personnel file photo.

"Mr. Sullivan, I'm Dr. Larson. This way, please."

She held out a hand, prompting him to follow her. They exchanged pleasantries, shaking hands and such, before Melanie walked them over to her office. She immediately offered him a couple of options as to where to sit before she headed to her desk to grab a notebook and pen. Once she had what she needed, she pulled up a chair across from him and took a seat.

"I always like to start by asking my patients their expectations for these sessions, as well as the results they want to achieve at the end."

Sullivan shoke her hand, firm formal.  The usual.  He noticably winced when she called him Mr.  It was a title he never really was comfortable with.  "Please, you can just call me Sullie.  Everyone does.  Unless you're my crew."  he added in with a bit of grin.  
He followed Dr. Larson and then took the couch opposite her desk.  He made sure to stretch out, feel the upholstery and be as comfortable as he could.  It was difficult though, he knew his brain was going to be poked and prodded, his behavior questioned, and he would have to answer a whole bunch of uncomfortable topics.  He sighed.  He'd have to make the best of things.
Sullie crossed his legs and let one arm drap across the couch.  She asked him a fair question and Sullie perked his head up, guaging her for a moment before he spoke, his eye contact breaking every so often.  "My expectations."  he repeated stroking his beard.  "Truthfully, what I expect is to spill my guts about everything I know.  Get some stern talking to about how my behavior was unacceptable and how I should go meditate or medicate or whatever."  He shrugged.  "What will eventually happen is I just get a clean bill of health and go back to my job, where I get to herd about four hundred or so cats to keep this place up and running."
He took a breath.  "So do what you got to do Doc.  Everything I know and say is wrong in some kind of way, and I ain't going to try to prove I was right or play head games right back.  I can already tell you I'm going to lose that game."  He waved both hands out with a big friendly grin.  "So I'm an open book.  Whatever you need to hear about I'm all your.  I'm just going to consider this an excuse to talk about myself.  It's one of my favorite subjects."  He almost wanted to chuckle at his joke.

Melanie smiled, finding some mild humor in Sullivan's words. He very closely described the stereotypes people held regarding the interactions between a therapist and their patient. Needless to say, most of it wasn't true, but they didn't know any better. 

With that fleeting thought slowly dissipating in her mind, Melanie jotted down a few analytical points on her notepad, then looked back up at Sullivan.

"Well, Sullie, we're going to do things quite a bit different today. And no medication is required, I can promise you that much. Now, this is going to sound extremely cliche, but I want you to tell me a bit about your childhood. More specifically, any traumatic experiences you may have had growing up. If you don't remember them, that's fine, but if you do, I'd like you to share them with me." Melanie stopped for a moment to shift her weight on the chair since the two of them were about to engage for the next hour or so, and she needed to be comfortable. "I know a lot of us have our embarrassing or shameful moments from our past, therefore if at any point you'd rather not disclose that information to me, then you have every right. I don't want you to feel pressured by any means; on the other hand, think of these sessions as a break from the world out there," she motioned towards the wooden door, the one matching her desk which enhanced the overall design of her office by playing with the various earthy tones. "I invite you to think of me as a close friend of yours whom you're simply sharing some stories with." 

Melanie then nodded at Sullivan, giving him his cue to start. He looked rather comfortable already, but Melanie always liked to communicate some quick instructions to her patients. It made the job easier for her and hopefully, a little bit less stressful for her patient.

Sullivan chuckled.  "You're right, that is cliche." He let her finish her explanation and he was visibly relieved by that.  "Aww shucks, you're making me feel right welcome."  He knew it was work to her, and whether she'd like it or not, he intended to give her what she asked.  He grinned before he thought, crossing his arms, making a bunch of motions in his chair, looking up to the ceiling, closing his eyes, making a bunch of audible thinking sounds.  "Childhood.  Childhood.  That's a bit tricky to explain."  He snapped his fingers.  "Wait I got it!"  he then leaned in before looking left and right.  "You have a paper and pen?  It's going to be easier to explain if I get some kind of timeline going.  The facts are thirty years old and I want to make sure I'm not missing anything."

Presumed to get what he desired, he leaned over his paper and began to draw.  They were crude shapes, but with rather amazing techniques of curves to straight lines.  He was drawing a list, a list of what looked like spaceships, very simple in scope but each fundamentally different in design.  He spoke while he did this.  "Now, correct me if I'm wrong, you weren't a Fleeter right Doc?"  he called her rather informally.  

"No, I was not, but let's stay in topic if you will. Remember, this session is about you, not me." 

But Melanie already knew his type. A jokester who didn't take things too seriously. She could very easily write him off and let his chain of command deal with him, but that wasn't the reason they were both there, and she'd rather maintain the integrity of her job. "Now, Sullie, I hope you realize that I can see right through that paper," Melanie went on, her pen pointed in his direction as she gave him the look similar to that of a mother who caught her child doing something they weren't supposed to be doing, but she nonetheless loved them and just had to deal with them. "If you need some pen and paper to jog your memory with notes, that's more than fine, but I can't allow you to doodle within the brief timeframe we're allotted, no matter how much you tend to excel in your artistic talents."

Melanie then took a few moments to write down some more of her notes before turning her attention back to Sullivan. "Let's try this again, shall we? Can you recall any particular incident from your childhood that back then made you feel more uncomfortable than usual?"

He raised his hands defensively.  "Hey hey I don't mean anything by it.  I'm a fleeter, and you need to understand that crews aren't just crews to me.  They're family.  You have to make that known and you have to open yourself out like that.  Some of the ships I were from, they aren't like the VITAE, they have parts held together with chicken wire and duct tape.  Sometimes the cockpit can only tell the whole ship what to do, and then its a million moving parts all coming together.  So you gotta-"

She interrupted him.  He rolled his eyes like a child to her motherly tone.  He took a pause and explained.  "They aren't doodles, they're the ships I've been on.  Its how I like to remember things, I'm a visual learner or whatever."  He held up his paper to her, a list of 'doodles' from top of the page to bottom, all of them different.  He used his pen to point at one.  "I was born on this one.  I served on this one to do-"

She asked again, this time focusing on the negatives of his past.  This time he felt his skin bristle a little bit as he looked at her, almost scowling.  "Okay... fine.  My dad died on this one following a mining accident."  he went back to pointing to his paper.  "My mother and brother died on this one getting me to this one before those damn aliens showed up.  Grandparents on this one when I took their place on their escape shuttle.  Then I lost my fam- I mean my crew..."  He paused, wanting to use another word for them.  "On this, this, this, this, and that one."  He pointed at each ship down the page, except for the last one.  

"So yes I can now recall quite a few incidents from my childhood that made me pretty damn uncomfortable."  He took a deep breath and waved his hands out as if calming down before looking back at her with a forced smile.  "But past is past right?  We all lost someone.  So I'm not going to complain about it.  Not bitter or anything."  He looked away, trying to find something to look at on the wall while he tried to get comfortable again.

"Well, thank you for sharing," Melanie smiled slightly, scribbling away some more. "I can sympathize with you, Sullie...I too lost my parents prematurely," she went on, her eyes glued to her notepad. "I was devastated, but like you, I just had to move on, you know? Try to make the best out of a terrible situation and--"

Just then, Melanie was interrupted by the emergency tone on her watch. "Excuse me for a moment, please." She put her stuff down beside her before tapping on the screen. Apparently, there was a code 3 call within the medical bay due to one of her patients. He was demanding she go talk to him, but no more details were provided. 

"I'm sorry to have to cut our first session short, Sullie. I have an emergency call to attend to." Melanie got up, gathering some stuff from her desk before rapidly walking to the door, advising Sullivan to follow her outside. "You can reschedule to make up for this session, I'll send a note up your chain so they know you showed. Sorry again!" Melanie walked off in a hurry, putting on her coat to adjust to the sudden chill outside of her office.
[center][img]https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/animal-jam-clans-1/images/1/17/Page_divider_7.png/revision/latest/scale-to-width-down/640?cb=20160915171140[/img][/center][h3]Present time[/h3][hr][hr]
Melanie received the notification right away, as she'd predicted. But she couldn't deal with Sullie at the moment, not with everything else she had on her plate. One of her patients, Eddison, had had a full-scale meltdown in the ward. One of the psychiatrists had terminated the dosage of medication Eddison received on a daily basis due to unrelated health concerns, and when Melanie sided with Dr. Roberts on the decision, Eddison lunged at her, believing he was betrayed by the one person whom he could trust the most on the ship. The incident didn't rattle her any; she was well aware it was a mild hazard of the job, but she became momentarily unhinged when she learned Eddison had been released not too long after the incident. The medication stopped, and so did his symptoms...or so they say. Eddison wasn't fully cleared for duty just yet--he was reassigned to another psychologist who would do an evaluation to give him the clear to fly again, but of course, his command would have the final say. Nonetheless, on the rare occasions Melanie and Eddison crossed paths since then, she could sense him staring at her for longer than socially possible. She was terribly close to making a stop at the security office to hopefully put an end to it since for some reason, her own co-workers didn't really believe her. 

"Another shot, please," Melanie called to the bartender, her finger impatiently tapping on the bar top. She knew she would have to return the call, but it was easier to put it off. On the other hand, she could get it out of the way, or maybe...

"Thank you," Melanie downed the shot in one go, making a face for only a split second before scanning her payment. As she walked off, she chose the option to deliver a voice message. "Hey Sullie, it's me. Listen, I'm in a bit of a rush right now but I had no choice other than to transfer you. Most of the guys at the office have started talking about you and I, and you know it's extremely unethical if I were to start dating one of my patients. All these events and gatherings you've been inviting me too...it's getting a little too personal, and my guys know. Trust me, they notice this behavior, it's what we do. If you'd like to talk, then just get a hold of me. All right, I guess I'll see you around." 

Melanie then ended the message very abruptly, a sigh escaping her lips as she made her way within the crowd.