come_sailaway | The fun develops instantly.

Who: Watson and You
When: Post Info Meeting
Where: Anywhere you care to be.
Summary: Watson has a Polaroid camera and he's trying to distract himself. That's about it.

It's a lot of complicated feelings that everyone's dealing with. Even if Watson knew some of the details, he didn't know all of it, and now that everyone knows the permanency of their current situation, and things are not working the way they have been... it's a lot.

And he doesn't know what to do with that.

So Watson, with the late 1990s Polaroid camera that he got in a gift box for some reason, is attempting to distract himself by taking candid photos of people. He's not the most gifted of photographers, and this is quite a bit fancier than even the most portable cameras of his own era, but the joy of autofocus does make the entire process a lot simpler.

Reading in the library? Leaning dramatically over the edge of the railing? Some other place where you think you might be alone in your thoughts? Be prepared for the sudden click and whirr of a camera, and Watson will come over, smiling, to offer you the developing photo.

Closed to César:

It is late, and someone needs to come to bed. After a bit of hunting, though, Watson finds César in the library, at work and oblivious of the time. He sighs, equally parts fond and exasperated, and takes a moment to take a picture of this, too. Surprise.

"It's late, and you ought to be sleeping."

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"Stitching a wound or setting a bone hasn't really changed that much," she says quietly. "Some things endure."

At his question she pauses for a moment, then glances up at him.

"I wish I knew. But...I can't think of what my purpose here would be."

"Ah, that's something I can't answer for you, sadly. If you want a chance to reinvent yourself, I suppose this is as good as any, but... yes, I do understand that sort of... restlessness. A feeling of being unmoored, I suppose."

Watson sighs. "I... know it isn't what you want to devote yourself too, but I did hear that during that business with the zombies you took up a role in the infirmary? Honestly, I felt a bit better knowing that there was a Watson back on the ship doing good, if I couldn't be in both places."

Joan smiles faintly, ruefully, at the suggestion of reinvention. She's already reinvented herself a couple times, and she had felt fulfilled as a detective, even in Sherlock's absence. But reinvention had been forced on her before. Ironically, it was away from being a doctor.

"I did. When I was a surgeon I specialized in trauma, so I knew I could help. It was the most doctoring I'd done in a long time."

"It's a valuable skill, here. Perhaps it's a little pointless, when we revive so soon after, but having gone through the experience myself I'm eager to keep other people from experiencing it."

Watson shrugs a little, embarrassed. "But perhaps not everyone feels that way. Still, I'm glad you were here, for that."

"I'm glad I was too," she says softly.

Actively practicing medicine comes with a lot of baggage for Joan, including the inertia of years of telling people she's not a doctor anymore, as well as fear that she will once again cause the death of a patient. But if they need her...

"It's worth it to spare them the experience. But of course saving lives isn't all there is. Helping people heal and easing pain is just as important."

"And there are many ways to help heal and ease pain, even outside of medicine."

Watson hesitates a little, and sighs. "I don't mean to pressure you into anything you are not comfortable with. There are no real rules here about how we are meant to make our new lives, which is both terrifying and freeing, in its way."

"You're not pressuring me. Being a doctor again..." She sighs. "It is a little uncomfortable. But if I can do some good here...ultimately that's what matters."

"That's all I've been trying to do since I arrived here," Watson says with a shrug. "Look, for what it's worth... I spent a long time out of the medical field myself. For different reasons, perhaps. I had many doubts about my own capabilities after I came back from Afghanistan."

He gives a grim sort of smile, an attempt at being reassuring.

She hums. "Our reasons are probably somewhat similar. It's hard to not be able to save people. Although I don't know if you were ever the cause of someone's death. In a medical situation, at least."

She knows he was a soldier, so it's possible, even likely, that he killed people in that capacity.

"Well. There is always room to wonder about the patients one fails to save."

No comment on outside of a medical situation, because that's not polite conversation at all. Because the answer is yes, let's be honest.

"Of course, I suspect many of the men I had die under me could have been saved with the tools at your disposal." A grim thought, but one he thinks about a lot.

"I get that," she says. "There was a woman who helped me in the infirmary who's from my future, and the technology she used was way beyond mine. Medical technology is changing all the time."

"It wasn't Tendi, by any chance? The, ah, young green lady?"

Is it rude to describe her like that? He is not sure.

"I like her a good deal. Very clever, very kind. I think she could be an excellent doctor if she wanted to be, but I think her sights are elsewhere."

The fun develops instantly.

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sup hi trying to catch back up