Chapter Text
With a sigh of relief, Penny riffled through the files on her kitchen table yet again, confirming her theory. The four original charterers she was going to help had significant daily needs - parents or grandparents, it seemed, that someone hadn’t wanted to leave behind. The others were mostly in their early hundreds, younger than the second-teens and -twenties group she was used to working with. The oldest person on Pern, as far as Penny was aware, was General Cherry Duff at a hundred and sixteen - and she was doing well enough to run the colony’s library and history program.
Penny’s lips curled in a soft smile. The requests from the “Retirement Oasis” seemed more like servant work than anything requiring a healthcare professional. People wanted supplies delivered, laundry washed, housekeeping, daily check-ins, and the like. The most demanding part would be helping with showers and making sure medications were set up properly. A lot of it was set to change once people spread out onto their stakes. Nothing constant, nothing urgent, nothing life-or-death. This would not be like Earth, she reminded herself.
“Hey, what’s all that?” Pete appeared from the bedroom, toweling off his wet hair. Pern had no limitations on water usage, so they both took full advantage of it to wash up daily. “You said you only had four people,” he added, looking over his wife’s shoulder and seeing the papers, his bright blue eyes narrowing.
She folded her arms and plopped them on top of the scattered mess. “Hey. None of your business knowing who needs help with what. Don’t you have your own things to do?”
Pete’s jaw set in irritation. “They’re doing it again, aren’t they? Lured you here with promises of an easy job, and now that you’re fifteen years from home with no way back, they’re dumping more on you.” He threw the damp towel on the loveseat and ran his hands through his curls to get them to bounce back up.
“Don’t,” Penny replied, sweeping the papers back into a neat pile. “The only thing they lured me with was you,” she said with a wink. Pete had been head-hunted for his technological skills. He’d only agreed to come once promised that it would be nothing like camping and that his wife would have a place on Pern as well. “Besides, Dr. Marchane didn’t know about this, either. It was someone in advertising, we think. Trying to sell this as a retirement community.”
The man huffed, looking out the window to the beautiful green foliage with the neat rows of tiny houses, all freshly-built. “Would make for one hell of a brochure,” he admitted reluctantly. “Just… tell me if it’s too much, ok? Don’t try to do everything yourself.”
“I know,” Penny answered, exasperated, flipping the pile over before standing up to give him a kiss on the cheek. “I’ll figure it out. And if I can’t… I’ll just get you to help with showers.” She smiled mischievously as he stuck his tongue out and scrunched his eyes.
“No time now, sorry,” he said insincerely, already walking toward the door. “Gotta go push some buttons,” his voice faded exaggeratedly before he was even outside. There was no way he would help with care… but that did give Penny an idea.