Once back in her office from her visit to Gavon’s, Melanie dropped the files on her desk before plopping down on her chair. Exhaustion has suddenly crept up on  her, and she was not having it, not at the moment. She leaned back and closed her eyes, taking advantage of the silence her office space provided.

Even though only ten minutes or so had passed, Melanie was startled back to full consciousness after a notification from her computer went off. She yawned as she clicked open the message, seeing that it was a reminder to contact Rear Admiral Locke or at the very least, one of his people. It was nothing serious, simply an informal check-up to make sure the admiral didn’t require her services at the moment. He’d already had his sessions with her, and nothing about their previous interaction had alarmed her.

[b][right]Five Years Ago[/right][/b]

“Admiral Locke...sir, please, come in.”

Melanie stood by as her patient walked in, feeling slightly intimidated to have the highest-ranking officer of the Vitae in her office. Despite her civilian status, Melanie would make every effort to treat him with the utmost respect, similar to any other individual falling within his chain of command.

“You may have a seat wherever you’d feel most comfortable.” Melanie secured her door to avoid any unwanted interruptions. She then walked over to take her place across the admiral. Any items she would need during the upcoming hour had already been neatly placed on the coffee table between them both in anticipation of their session. Melanie then grabbed her notebook and pen and got comfortable.

“Admiral, allow me to start by asking whether you have any concerns you’d like to share… Doesn’t matter that they’re not recent, but I can only imagine you have a lot going on, and if anything is keeping you up at night and it shouldn’t, then maybe we can work through it together. We can then work back from there. Does that sound good?”

William took a seat at the coffee table, sitting up straight he surveyed the room. Comfortable, homey. Designed no doubt to knock any reservations the patients have down, making them feel at ease and willing to speak. It would be effective if William hadn’t spent his professional career commanding others, getting information out of those that didn’t want to share it. That said, his job demanded that he take part in at least one session every year to understand his mental wellbeing, failure to do so could jeopardize his command. In a way this Doctor held power over him.

The first of, hopefully not many, sessions to come and he was already fed up of it. There was one formality that required her attention first. William slid a datapad over the coffee table to her. “Two non-disclosure agreements. One Martian Unity, one UEC. I’ve done a lot in my career that is classified, I won’t be telling you anything you don’t need to know but in the rare case that something about my past assignments or this ship slips, I need you to know you will be held accountable if any of this information reaches the general population. In that case you will go to a Military Tribunal.”

“Oh...of course.” Melanie half-smiled, leaning forward to reach for the datapad. She clicked the end of her pen to switch tips in order to provide the admiral with her signature, using her full name in cursive instead of the short scribble she usually rushed through. "If I may, Admiral Locke, I'm sure you've heard of doctor-patient confidentiality, and I can assure you that it applies here. Anything and everything you tell me will remain confidential between the both of us." Melanie paused, placing the datapad back on the coffee table and pushing it closer to his side. "I'm bound by our own Code of Ethics, and needless to say if I were to deviate for whatever reason, I would immediately lose my ability to practice. So with that said, you can rest assured that I won't do anything that would make you lose your trust in me. I'd be facing serious repercussions on the civilian side of business. And more importantly, I care a great deal about my job. I know you have to go through your own formalities, but I want you to feel totally comfortable in here."

William leaned back, hand on his chin. As he took the time to think about what she had said. It was true that she would lose her civilian license and right to practice, and if that happened no doubt she would end up in a cryopod while someone who still had a license was brought out to replace her. “If you wanted me to feel comfortable this place would be a little more spartan.” He chuckled to himself. “No, this is more of a legality and a technicality. It’s also a deterrent, I mean you are far less likely to talk to anyone if you’d lose your license and have legal trouble.” 
He leant back, making himself appear more at ease. “Nothing is keeping me up at night-” not wholly true, while he could sleep he was often plagued with dreams of Amanda and of the war “-though you are right. I do have a busy and hectic schedule. Today I’m meeting with astronomy and navigation, I need to meet with civilian representatives. Generally there’s just a lot to do, so if you wouldn’t mind getting to the point and asking what you need to ask to let me on my way. I’d appreciate it.”

His sense of urgency was evident in his voice. Although Melanie would have liked the session to last for a while longer, she couldn't hold back the admiral to "talk about his feelings" like some would have put it. He was an important man, and they both knew it.

"Alright, I won't hold you for long, I promise. I just need you to fill this out for me real quick and then you can be out of here. It's a screening, basically the minimum I have to do to make sure you'll continue to be fit for duty." As she spoke, Melanie handed the admiral a checklist. The instructions were clear; add a checkmark to the statements that applied. The questions covered some of the basic statements such as:

[list]
[*][I]You are able to achieve a sense of control; you set and pursuit your goals and you have the ability to shape your own circumstances.[/I]

[*][I]You have a belief in your own capabilities and you have self determination.[/I]

[*][I]You feel you can have trust in your family, coworkers, and friends. You feel safe where you live and work.[/I]
[/list]
Melanie knew some of the questions were one-dimensional that would make the admiral, or almost any person for that matter roll their eyes, but it was part of her job, regardless of the redundancy behind the process. Faking it was as easy as adding various checkmarks, but at least his signature at the bottom would save her butt in the future if something came up. 

While the admiral busied himself, Melanie added some official session notes stating how he had refused to engage in conversation. Not that the lack of communication on his behalf was necessarily a bad thing, but her notes were created more so for the purposes of record-keeping.

William checked down the list, before holding the marker in his hand. He looked at Melanie, and then back to the questions. “These are the actual questions?” He paused, as he took time to think things through. He didn’t like them, he wasn’t sure what other questions could possibly be used in replacement for them. That however wasn’t exactly his job, that was their job to do. “You may want to think about replacement questions. With how recently we have left Sol behind they may cause more troubles than it’s worth.” He handed her the checklist back.

“That was relatively painless, though… if I’m honest I didn’t expect you to give up so easily without a fight…”