What's up, doc?

Hours after most of the new crew have retired to their quarters to settle in and sleep, Weihan is curled up, half dressed, in one of the chairs in the lounge, watching some music videos streaming over the cortex on the public box with Lingling sleeping at his feet.

When a commercial for a blue sun energy drink flashes on the screen, he swears, standing to shut off the box. When he turns to return to the couch, he starts in surprise as Dr. Jones enters the area.

"I didn't think anyone else was awake."

With a shrug, he sinks back down into his seat, careful not to disturb the pig.

Working in an emergency clinic for the past six months had gotten Lee used to sleeping odd hours, and the sheer newness of the situation was enough to make the idea of sleep seem absolutely ludicrous. The more she thought about it, the less she trusted the situation, and to stop herself from diving headfirst into paranoia she decided to instead see about sending a quiet message to Nick to apologize and let him know she was alright. Despite the trouble she'd caused for him and his clinic she knew he would be concerned for her.
With that idea in mind she headed out into the lounge. It was an absurd hour of the morning and no one else would be awake-she could send it discreetly with no one the wiser.
The idea would have worked perfectly if it weren't for Weihan sitting in the lounge with his pig. Lee stifled a swear and smiled at the captain. "Nor did I, honestly." She replied, settling down nonchalantly in a nearby chair. "What keeps you up this late?"

He shrugged - Weihan wasn't really sure what had happened for him to wind up in the medbay earlier - if he'd passed out, or what - but other than....however long that had been, he really, honestly had no idea when he'd last slept, other than that he felt tired, and frustrated, and had had a headache for literally as long as he could remember.

"Couldn't say. You?"

Lee found herself once again getting curious and concerned for Weihan. Something about the look on his face made her worry. She was itching to get him in a scan to see what exactly was going on and what she could do to help. She couldn't force him, however, and so she decided to let the matter slide for the moment.
"I was an ER doc for a while on Persephone. I tend to not sleep consistently these days. Besides, with everything that's happened today I need the time to process."
She sighed and glanced over at the cortex box. "Anything interesting?"

He looked back at the screen - he had turned it off, hadn't he? The fact that he felt relieved to see the black was a little worrying, and he made a sour face.

"Just garbage. If you want it, go ahead." He sat up, adjusting his open shirt to be a ittle more modest. And where were his shoes? Had he been wearing shoes? Lingling grunted sleepily, pawing at his pants, and he picked her up obligingly.

Lee frowned. "I'm honestly a bit more concerned about you at the moment." She told him, noting carefully the look of confusion on his face. "If you've been having trouble sleeping it might be a sign something's gone wrong-and those memory lapses you said you were having are not good."
She spoke in her best clinical voice, a look of concern on her face. "I know you weren't exactly excited about letting me check things out earlier, and I don't blame you for not wanting to spend more time than you already have getting examined. That said, head injuries are tricky. It's generally a good idea to keep an eye on them, and if I'm going to do that I need to know where I'm starting from."

"I expect something probably went wrong when that bú yàoliǎn shǐ dàn shot me in the head, yes." He looked down at Lingling, who was settling down into his arms to sleep, and felt fiercely jealous for a moment. he sighed, looking back up at Jones. "Well, you certainly sound like a real doctor."

Lee nodded. "If I hadn't been arrested, I would happily show you my degree. As it is, you're just going to have to trust that I know what I'm doing." Not for the first time she mentally cursed the situation she currently found herself in. Without credentials she would probably have a difficult time of things if she couldn't convince this crew. "If you don't mind, we could get started right now. Unless you were planning on getting to sleep?"

He gave her a hard look - his instincts said she was on the level. He'd seen her reaction when 44 was hit by the stunner, and her initial reaction earlier - the concern was real enough, anyway. He'd just have to hope that whatever it was she 'hadn't' done didn't involve losing any of her patients.

Standing carefully, he gave her a tired smile. "Well, Doctor, if it will help *you* sleep a little better, I'm sure I can spare you the time."

She couldn't help but be pleased that he trusted her enough to let her check him out. It was nice to be doing her job again, even if she did wish for his sake that Weihan didn't need quite so much medical attention.
"Good, Captain." she told him, a faint smile on her face as she started to lead the way down to the med bay, "I don't suppose you know where I could find the records for what's been done so far?"

"Hmm. I should probably look at those. I would guess they must be on one of the computers down there..."

He followed along, wondering at the ship - he'd been looking over the designs (again?) earlier. He'd known, he thought, that she was further along than the official reports had claimed, but the last thing he remembered hearing unofficially said that she hadn't been quite ready to fly. First tests has still been weeks away. Or was it? It was hard to pinpoint what the last thing, exactly, was that he remembered, and he gave up trying, wandering back over to the scan bed he'd woken up on earlier that afternoon and sitting down.

Lee nodded. "That's probably a good idea. It's best if you have a good understanding of your own condition."
Once they reached the bay, she moved over to the computer terminal nearest the scanner and skimmed the report. She'd read it more thoroughly later when she didn't have a patient waiting on her, but she needed at least a basic idea of his state so she'd know where to start. "So you've been having blackouts then, in addition to insomnia and headaches? Is that all still going on?"

He shook his head, and laughed. "I'm afraid I don't have a very good frame of reference for you there, doctor. I expect I will have to say yes? But I don't know, maybe its not the same."

Lee nodded and made a note of it. "So your memory loss is fairly severe then? How much can you remember right now?" She paused, sighed, shook her head. "Let me rephrase the question in a less daft manner. Are you noticing more blanks in recent memories since you got shot, the time right around when you got shot, or equally throughout?"

"I remember what happened." The hardness in his voice surprises him a little when he says it, but he continues after a moment, softening his tone with some effort and scritching Lingling's belly. "I think. I remembered, earlier... It's all confused. I know I'm missing time before and after. Luk Mei Xiu and Athena know more. They said that since, I would seem to be okay for a while, but then something would happen and I would forget all over again. Everything... Sometimes I remember again. Maybe sometimes not." He shrugged. He was alive at least. It was frustrating, but he would manage. What had happened that afternoon had shown that at least - he could still feel the adrenaline if he thought about it much, and he smiled slightly.

Lee felt a wave of pity for her unfortunate captain. The situation was fairly dire for him even without an injury, but with it... Seeing the scans and hearing his description of the problem, she was amazed that he was able to plan and execute the raid on the ship. She found that her respect for him grew at the realization.
"What about your short term memory then? Have you been forgetting immediate things like where you just put things down or items of clothing?"

Weihan's nsmile widened slightly, and he laughed again, looking down at his sock feet. "Doesn't everyone?"

Lee laughed. "Yes, but only to a degree. If it's happening moreso than it was before, if it actually affects your day to day life, then it's perhaps a little more than that. But I take your point. How severe would you say your headaches are, on a scale of one to ten-ten being the absolute worst?"

He threw up his hands. It all seemed so absurd - all of it. The questions, the situation, the late hour. Lingling, having had enough of his squirming, climed up out of his lab onto the scanner bed and wandered over to look down at the edge, her tail wagging frantically. At that point Weihan noticed the little pillow that someone had set (he had set?) down over in the far corned of the room for her. He sighed, and set her down, and she ambled off with an indignant grunt. "Three?" he answered finally. "it's nothing. It's not that bad. Maybe even two. One."

Lee did her best to hold a neutral expression despite his frustration. It was perfectly understandable, were she in his shoes the last thing she'd want to do would be sit around and talk about this, examine all the little ways her body no longer worked like it should.
But that was unfortunately how medicine worked. For all the fancy scanners and pills and surgeries, a surprisingly large amount of the process involved simply sitting around discussing symptoms.
For now, though, perhaps it was time to make use of the fancy scanner she'd been dying to try since she'd seen it on her way in-it was even nicer than the one they'd had for the Companions back on Sihnon, and ages better than anything they'd had on Persephone. "Alright, then. Why don't you lie back and I'll get a scan of your head. It shouldn't take too long, but try to hold still."

Weihan swung his legs back up onto the bed and laid back. he even closed his eyes, but his mind was too full, and he just sighed. This would be good, he supposed, since he had no idea what all was wrong. Probably there were other scans in the file, but he wasn't a doctor. He took a deep breath to try and relax, then smiled.

"Alright then - do your thing."

Lee nodded and started the scan with the push of a button. It was quiet, which could only be for the good if he had a headache. She watched the screen intently as the results slowly appeared.
What she saw amazed her, and she rechecked it several times before cutting off the scanner and turning the screen towards him. "Alright, I've got it, you can sit up."
She waited until he looked settled before continuing. "There's a lot of damage here, though whoever was working on you before managed to repair a good bit of it. You're honestly lucky to be able to function as well as you can-without fast action by a very capable doctor you probably wouldn't have been able to walk, and might have possibly ended up as a vegetable. The good news is, with care you should be able to function more or less normally."
She smiled encouragingly at him before turning her gaze to the scan and pointing out what appeared to be the worst of the remaining damage. "The bad news is that all of this right here is still in bad shape, and there's only so much that can be done to repair it. Brains are tricky things-if you get too energetic about repairing them you just make things worse."
She turned back to him. "The part I pointed out to you is in the area of the brain that stores and controls memories. That is the reason for the memory loss."

Weihan nodded as he sat up. Probably he had heard it all before, but it still felt like news this time around. Only it wasn't anything surprising, either. he knew he was lucky.

"Ai-ya. Nothing to do but live with it, then."

She shook her head. "It may well get better, even so." She told him. "I won't tell you that it definitely will, because as I mentioned the brain is a tricky organ, but it's a distinct possibility. From what the records say, and what your sister and Athena told me, you seem to be retaining things better and for longer as time passes. I don't know how long the improvement will continue or how much it will change things, but it is promising. In addition there are various treatments that are generally helpful that we can try for you."

"Treatments?"

He tried not to sound too dubious. It wasn't that he necessarily doubted her abilities, but they were on the run, out in the black, and on the verge of becoming pirates, in addition to whatever other crimes they were wanted for.