Jamison left and headed to his rooms. He was amused to see that Smith was attempting to write up a report with a laptop on his lap, but was mostly indulgently watching Alianora sleep with the curled up kittens in their proper yin yang pose. When Jamison opened the door, Smith turned to him and silently mouthed "camera?"
Jamison pulled out a camera phone and snapped a shot, followed by a second close-up of the furballs, then shot Smith a thumbs up and a grin. Jamison walked to one of the comfy chairs and pulled a magazine off the coffee table and sat quietly to read for a bit without waking anyone up. About an hour later I started to wake from the nicest nap, no-the nicest sleep, period, I had had in a long time. The little furballs were still asleep and purring on my back. I just smiled contentedly.
"How did your meeting go?" I asked.
"Quite well. I gave the initial verbal report about the animal shelter, and we did some brainstorming for ideas we might be able to help you with, or you us. Ideas about what you might have interests in, options for what you might want to do with your time, and what accommodations might be useful to you, and what we might be able to 'justify' by using you as a sort of scapegoat to slip in a few luxuries past the bean counters" Jamison said with a wry smile, and Smith chuckled.
"I could definitely be on board with some of that" I smiled as I sent.
"Beyond that, we want you to make the choices about your own future. There are some things we might like to work on with you, or ask your help on, things which you can say NO to, there are also things we need your input on that you will need to work around, like base security procedures. Things like what can we do to make the security scans on your chair more efficient, are there personal or physical needs you have that we aren't meeting, how do we accommodate you in an evac situation. The answer there might be pick you up and run, like it or not, though when not under extreme conditions we would never do such a thing without permission. Mostly we tried to come up with a bunch of possibilities to present to you to tweak or fill in missing information on, and also come up with a bunch of questions that might come up. Being active military, we don't have all that many physically challenged individuals here, and though many soldiers get wounded in the course of their duty, not many of them stay on base to do their recovery. This base is in an odd position of being in friendly territory and on the front line at the same time. We also have a slew of odd medical situations. As a result we have better aftercare for certain levels of injuries, but most injuries that would leave someone in a wheelchair even temporarily also keep said soldier in the infirmary. For a longer term recovery, most would go to Bethesda or another military hospital until sufficiently recovered to return to duty. There are a few of the support personnel who are sufficiently medically compromised that they won't ever be front line troops again, but they can and do continue to work as support staff as they are intimately familiar with the needs of the soldiers on the front line, and still can serve, and they choose to do so, even if not in their original specialty. There are also a few somewhat injured techs and scientists, but mostly they are less involved in some of the day to day gate situations. Long speech aside, we don't know how to even think about some of the less obvious needs that you have on a day to day basis as it generally hasn't come up. So among other things, we need you to be open and honest about what you actually need from us. Sometimes we will be able to come up with an immediate answer, sometimes not. Sometimes the solution will be a compromise between your comfort and established routine. Sometimes there will be glaring ignorance on our part. Please be patient with us."
"Honestly, I can't believe how accommodating you have been already, and you are talking about more? Patience, I've got. Gratitude, however, seems to be overflowing. I truly can't express how…" I fumbled a bit trying to find the right words, and the fuzzballs sleeping on my back started to wake up, "gratifying or wholesome it feels that everyone I have met so far has just accepted me as another person. Maybe a cool person, but I feel...It feels like all these things you are doing for me are things you would do to/for anyone if you could. If anyone else had a decent reason to be here, you would similarly go out of your way for them too."
"I think that is true to a certain extent, though I think you might have a little something extra. I don't mean in a savior kind of way, but I think that a lot of these soldiers will end up seeing you as maybe a little sister or something like that. There is something about you that arouses protective instincts. I think it's at least in part that you have been hurt so badly already that none of us want to see you hurt like that again."
"I can handle that, as long as you all don't get too overprotective of me."
"We might, but you can tell us to back off too. You get to set the boundaries and limits, for the most part. There are some things that are about base security and general safety that you won't get a choice in. Sound okay?"
"Sounds good."
At that moment the fuzzballs started to bat at each other and rolled off of my back onto the couch. I took the opportunity to sit up. "I think I really lucked out with these two. I just hope they stay as sweet and cuddly as they grow up."
"Me too. They are certainly overwhelmingly cute right now" Smith said.
"It is getting close to dinner time. Is there anything you would like to do either before or after dinner? If it's alright, O'neill was interested in maybe joining us in the mess for dinner later or getting together tomorrow if you are still tired."
"I would really like a real shower or bath. I would like to be clean. That hike was a lot of work, and I have only had a cursory wash-up since. If I could do that before dinner, I will be in a much better mood for dinner, and maybe we could invite the General back here after dinner to meet the fuzzballs that he allowed on base."
"Sound like a plan. Also I can't wait to see which wins, military commanding officer stuffiness (which he has very little of) or uber-cute. Ten bucks says these two make him go 'awww'."
"No bet" Smith says
"No bet. Uber-cute always wins." I send. "So, about that shower?"
"There should be a shower chair of some sort waiting in medical that I can go get, though it might not fit here. It will certainly fit in the female barracks showers. They are of a somewhat more open layout, and at worst there is the female showers in the gym, which are completely open. Will you need any help?"
"I need to see what type of shower chair or bench it is first. Depending on the type, it can be easier for me to sit on the floor, but then I would need assistance to get down and back up again. If it is a decent type, I might need someone who could retrieve a dropped shampoo or something. In getting ready there are some times where help is helpful but not mandatory, but it involves me being naked at the time, so a lady would be preferred but not needed. There are times when I am more stressed out that I will need that help, and that help will need to be female. If male, no one who smokes. In general, that is still an issue for me, but add naked and it equals hell no. Right now, the need to be clean outweighs my preference for female assistance. I will let you know when that isn't true."
"Okay. In general we would prefer to have someone female able to help you for more personal matters, but there are far fewer women than men on base, and most that are here are either scientists, so not precisely in the chain of command, or in medical, which I know can be an issue. How about I send Smith to get the shower chair thing, and I will lead you to the ladies barracks and see if anyone is willing to help you out. I would like to get either one person who is generally on call to assist or a few people to call for depending on schedules. I wanted to get your input on that, and I want to make sure it is someone you can get along with is such a personal situation."
"I really appreciate that. In general, I would rather not be a burden or take someone away from their duties so they can wait for me to need a shower or other issues, but I would like to get to know potential repeat helpers. Thanks."
"No problem."
So we did just that. Either there was some chatter behind the scenes, or we seriously lucked out, but Beecher, I don't remember a first name, but she helped put away the cat stuff, was in female country, and she was willing to help out. The shower chair was one of the better types too. I have a wider range of assistive tech and devices among the stuff being shipped, but it isn't here yet, so help was needed and appreciated. Beecher was delightfully unselfconscious about helping me with potentially embarrassing tasks, and she asked good questions about how to help more efficiently, and even volunteered to help at other times when available. I thanked her and reveled in the opportunity to get clean for the first time in days.
It had been a very good day. Kittens, new friends, and a long hot shower. I was a little worried about the upcoming meeting, no matter how informal it would be, it was still a meeting with the top brass of the base, and they had bent over backwards for me already. I was a little worried about justifying their kindnesses, and maybe a little worried about what or how much they would ask of me to keep providing it. I was also a little embarrassed to assume they would be so mercenary about things when they had been nothing but nice, but given my experiences thus far in life, a little cynicism was reasonable and quite justified. That way people mostly surprised you pleasantly rather than the opposite.
Anyway, Beecher seemed a nice enough lady, and wanted to spend more time with the fuzzballs, so I was happy to accept her help getting ready. "Feel free to come on by to play with the little monsters. I look forward to having help running them ragged enough they are willing to curl up on me to sleep. I tend to have nightmares. Tactile comfort can help, but having another human being touch me when I am that vulnerable is not something I am ready for. However a purring kitten? That works wonders. Even if they don't sleep on me, near me works almost as well. I had a few plushies at the retreat, because there were people with severe allergies, and they helped, but it isn't the same."
"Yeah, I miss critters so much. We had several dogs and cats growing up, and I miss them terribly. Shoto, one of our pits, used to always fall asleep on my feet and make the bed too short. No matter how many times I kicked him out of the bed, he always came back. I miss that loveable stubbornness that critters seem to have."
"Well, hopefully, the critter deprived will have an outlet now. Also we may be setting up a rotation to assist at the animal shelter in town. They were severely understaffed, and there is plenty of manpower here, and a desire to play with and help out the various animals. Who knows, you might be able to take a few dogs along on PT runs."
"That sounds like a phenomenal idea. I know I would sign up."
"Talk to Jamison or Smith about it. I know they got the papers for volunteers, and mentioned setting up a more formal relationship in the name of serving the community and improving relationships with the town."
"Will do."
We headed back to my room to put my stuff away and to play with the terrors. Beecher elected to keep them company and catch dinner later rather than eat now, so Jamison, Smith, and I, headed to the mess hall to eat and meet up with O'neill and whoever else might come.