after time adrift, among open stars

Mass Effect. Rory Stern, a civilian contractor on the Normandy, has her physical examination from Dr. Chakwas. The doctor takes one look at her chronic pain and gives her the first answers she’s had in seven years.

G, 2100 words. Also on AO3.

A fictionalized account of my own getting diagnosed with hypermobility spectrum disorder/HSD.

Rory steps through the airlock, breathing in the familiar recycled air of the Normandy’s CIC. It hasn’t been long since she’s been on the ship - she was here just last week, doing the final pre-shakedown calibration of the drive core’s integration with the cooling system - but she wasn’t carrying a duffle bag then. And there were people at various stations around the CIC, but not like this. A lot more swearing at code, then, compared to the current introductions and shouts to old friends and salutes. Not everyone who’s going to be on the shakedown cruise is on the ship now, either, but it’s certainly got a different feel than it did with a bunch of nerds in coke-bottle glasses just like hers.

Those glasses slide down her nose a bit, and she smiles. Okay, everyone else’s weren’t bright blue, but still.

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