Stella didn’t spare a moment to look around the office. Technically it was hers, but she hadn’t made it hers yet. There were no signs of her habitation, just like in her quarters. No real sign that anyone lived or worked there outside the few stray items the person she was replacing hadn’t cleaned out. She frowned at the thought and made a point to try to track them down before they went under. Reports were all well and good but she knew from past experience that taking over from someone was more than just reading some reports. The only thing that kept her from filling someone else’s shoes was the fact that the entire shift was, well shifting. So she didn’t have to retrain anyone’s subordinates, just her own. It should make things easier and give her more time to do what she loved. 

“No,” she said, a pause too long after his statement about being a patient. “No I don’t suppose you get to. But that’s a good thing, no?” 

She turned her attention to the back bared before her and began to spritz the antiseptic on the numerous surface wounds left by the cat. There were marks of others, a testament to the human’s forbearance and the Cat’s committed bad-boy attitude. She smiled and sprayed and had enough sense to appreciate the canvas before her. Marks and all. She hesitated over the strange star shaped scars up near his left shoulder blade and the solid line running down his back and tried to discern what had happened there. Surgery for the straight line, she’d done enough operations on her charges to recognize the careful line. But the star shaped ones didn’t make sense at first.

Had he been in the military? Was everyone on this entire ship in the military? Not everyone, she assured herself, she was a stray picked up with her charges, there had to be others. He hadn’t seemed the type, but then she wasn’t certain what that even meant. She hadn’t spent much time around anyone in the military enough to know if there was a type. Put them in a uniform and she supposed that lent a very decided and probably useful anonymity and uniformity. 

“You were a patient once, I see.” She touched the thin scar, running her finger up along it without thinking, only belatedly realizing that she maybe was crossing some lines and pulling her fingers back as she mentally cursed her fumble.

“Sorry, don’t mean to pry so I won’t ask if these are bullet wounds or anything so impertinent at that.” 

She moved to the desk and put down her antiseptic. “All set.” She said her cheeks flaming and bent over the screen wrinkling her nose in distaste. She used to insist on paper reports but that wasn’t possible here. She would have to learn to deal. 

“Let’s see what we have.” She murmured as she slowly and with great hesitation called up files and worked her way through it. 

“Tigers and some Lynx kittens.” She said and looked up at him, blowing away a stray curl from her vision. The tigers were orphaned and more than that, they’d been rejected by the other nursing female tiger on board. That was a problem she’d have to ponder at a later point. For now, it meant some furry fun.