Morning Candor

Posted on 05 May 2012 @ 12:28am by Lieutenant Lilou Zaren & Lieutenant JG Brayden White Ph.D.

2,700 words; about a 14 minute read

Mission: Episode 01 - Project Sienna
Location: USS Galileo: Deck 2 - Counselor's Office
Timeline: MD05 - 0700 hrs

[ON]

The office was starting to become his, at least temporarily. And finally, he was able to get his surfboard out of his quarters and into a larger space. He leaned the scuffed yellow and black long board against a free space on the wall and poured a long necklace of puka shells into a bowl on a shelf. Small things, yes, but they helped him to claim the space a little bit. Shucking off his shoes, he folded himself up into the comfortable chair beside the couch and began catching up on the ship's happenings and Federation news.

Lilou chewed her lip. The twenty feet between herself and the counselor's office felt like they stretched an eternity. She'd told Drusilla more than she'd ever intended to, and now Drusilla was hooked up to a machine to keep her alive and comatose, and Lilou had to go through it all over again with a whole new doctor? It seemed unfair. Too much. Then again, she didn't have to say anything, did she? She didn't have to tell him anything. It was a do-over, in a way. She could just keep her head down, answer his questions, and get out. So what if Kestra thought she needed therapy? Kestra probably thought everyone needed therapy; what did she know about wandering through life not knowing what people thought or felt about her? Nothing. If someone were going to hit her, she probably knew way ahead of time. And she had rank and position to keep her safe. Lilou arrived at the counselor's office, screwing up her courage to hit the chime and hoping that she'd come early enough that the counselor wouldn't be there, but found the door open and a barefoot man inside. She stood in the open frame, perplexed and unsure whether she should flee and wait to come back until she found the door closed like normal.

Brayden looked up from the digest he was reading to the short Trill woman standing awkwardly in his doorway. "Hello."

Caught, Lilou straightened and snapped her hand to her forehead. "Sir. I didn't mean to interrupt. I just thought... I received your message, and-"

"You must be Lilou," he smiled, waving her in. "I'm Brayden. Come and take a seat. Anywhere you like." He rose from the comfy chair and walked around to the desk, setting his PADD down. "Can I get you a glass of water?"

Lilou was immediately on alert. "No. I mean, no, sir. Thank you, but no." Had Drusilla made some note about her needing to drink more? Was that a sign of something? She was perfectly capable of hydrating herself. "I can't stay. You just seemed to want to meet, so... I thought I would stop in before my shift."

"That's fine," he turned back to her with a smile. She was still standing in the doorway, tight as a bowstring. "Why don't you take a seat, we'll talk, and then, when you have to leave, you can." He lifted his brows, "Sound like a plan?"

"Yes, sir." She sat down in the chair closest to the door, at attention.

"You don't have to call me 'sir'. I'm a civilian, rankless," he added, smiling.

Lilou stared at him, confused.

"You can call me Brayden, if you like," Brayden told her. "Since that's my name."

"Brayden," she said his name. Brayden. Dru. Did they all do that? First names, as though that would make her forget that they were there to pluck her apart and look at her insides?

He nodded, crossing over to sit on the coffee table a few feet from her. "So."

She watched him silently.

Brayden waited.

"Don't you have... you know... questions for me?" she asked.

"Like what?"

"I don't know. Isn't that your job? To ask me questions? Isn't that why you asked me to come?"

Brayden watched her, interested. "What sort of questions would you like me to ask?"

"I don't know. Aren't you supposed to figure out if I'm... mentally fit and capable?"

"Are you?"

Lilou scowled at him. "Yes."

"Well, that's done. What else?"

"You said that you wanted to meet me."

"And so I have. Thank you."

Lilou frowned, gaze flicking anxiously around the office before landing on him again. "You really suck at this."

He smiled. It was always a good sign when people felt they could be bluntly honest with him right off the bat. "I appreciate your candor."

"Dru asked me questions."

"Like what?"

"I don't know - like..." she thought back to her meeting with Drusilla and tried to remember the things they'd said other than... the Thing. "She asked me where I was from."

"Is that something you'd like to talk about?"

Lilou looked at him strangely. This was the new counselor? The man was a fruit bat.

Shaking his head, he spread his hands, palms up. "I just wondered if you think, in order for us to have a meaningful dialogue, that it's important that I know where you came from."

"Well," she struggled, "isn't it?"

"It can be," he allowed. "So, where are you from?"

Now that he'd asked her, she regretted having brought it up. "This is all in my file."

"That's true, but why don't you tell me anyway, since we're talking about it."

"I was born on a research station."

He waited for a little while, then braided his hands again. "Yes?"

"In the Alpha Quadrant," she added. "A space station. The Qin-Harbinger." When he didn't add anything, she rolled her right shoulder nervously. "Until... well. For a while, then my father sent me to Earth to keep me out of trouble and I stayed there through Academy and then came back."

"To the research station?" he asked.

"No. To space. To the Alpha Quadrant." She frowned, "Fine. Yes. And to the station."

"That was upsetting? Returning to the place you were born?"

"No. Why would it be upsetting?"

Brayden lifted his brows. Did she think he didn't have eyes? Or wasn't listening to her?

"Well, it wasn't." She scowled, "What did you ask me to come here for if you didn't want to ask me anything?"

"I've just been asking you questions."

"Only because I told you to."

He smiled slightly, "You were telling me you'd been shipped away to Earth to keep you out of trouble."

"That's not what I-" Lilou wound her hands together. Why couldn't she just keep her mouth shut? "I just meant, he thought I needed... more stimulation."

"He, being your father."

"Yes."

Brayden nodded, encouraging her to go on. "What sort of 'stimulation'?"

"More classes, stuff to build, things to keep me busy." Lilou looked around the office and noticed the surfboard against the wall. She knew it hadn't been there before. She'd made a careful study of the room the last time she'd been here. "We're pretty far from the ocean."

He followed her gaze, "A part of my youth. Do you surf?"

"I grew up. In. Space. Haven't you been listening?"

Brayden chuckled. She was a spitfire, this one. "You spent several years on Earth."

"Not at the beach," Lilou muttered.

"Where, then?"

"School, labs, firing range, practice gyms, libraries." She shrugged.

"No class trips?"

"I don't like sand," she asserted. "It's sticky and it gets everywhere. If it gets in your mouth, it's gritty for days."

"So you've been."

"Once," she admitted, not sure if she was irritated with herself or him. "I'm not good at volleyball." She sighed, "It was a 'class bonding' trip."

"What else did they do on the trip, aside from volleyball?"

"Nothing. Just that. Made us play the game. And look for shells. There weren't any. I couldn't hit the ball. Too short. I had sand in my mouth and hair for a week."

"This was when you were at..." He couldn't remember the name of the school from her file. Foxglove? Firefox?

"Foxcroft Academy."

"Right. That's on the west coast of the States, right? Boarding school?"

"Yes."

"How did you like it?"

Lilou shrugged, "It was all right."

"You felt all right going to school without regular access to your family?"

"I could send them messages or holocalls if I needed them. It was fine." Lilou wrinkled her nose, "There's nothing wrong with my relationship with my parents."

Brayden inclined his head, "Okay."

"I needed more stimulation, better classes, more people my own age. That was all. It wasn't like they were trying to get rid of me."

"I didn't say that they were." Brayden watched her curiously. "So you had just finished at the Academy and you returned to the station. It was my understanding that Academy graduates were usually deployed fairly quickly out of school."

"Right. I was deployed to the Qin-Harbinger."

"Your first assignment was to your home station?"

"So? Why shouldn't it have been? It's a space station; it needs engineers like everywhere else."

"You'll have to forgive me, I'm not very familiar with Starfleet customs. It just sounds a bit irregular."

"Well, it wasn't." She sighed, "Sorry. It's early and I haven't had my tea." She stood up, "I just thought... I was hoping you could sign me off so I could get back to work."

"Very well, you're signed off," Brayden said agreeably. "You seem competent, sane, and I'm perfectly happy sending you back to Engineering. Godspeed."

"I..." She looked down, wringing her hands. "Sorry."

"No apologies," he waved them off. "They're unnecessary."

"All right." Lilou found suddenly that her shoulders felt really uncomfortable, far too tight; she rolled them, stretching her neck.

Brayden folded his hands, watching her stretch. So much tension in such a tiny person. What on earth must be going on in her mind to keep her so wound up, he wondered.

She couldn't think of a thing to say. She hardly ever could, but... this... this waiting. He was watching her so intently, like she was about to burst into song and he liked music. "What?"

"I think maybe you had something else you wanted? Something other than getting the rubber stamp on your file," Brayden suggested gently.

"Rubber stamp?" Lilou frowned, wrapping her arms around herself.

"Outdated technology," he explained, watching her body twist on itself. "How about this," he began slowly. "For the next fifteen minutes, I'm going to block off my calendar and put the session light on the door. Then you can talk about whatever you want."

Lilou shifted, looking at the door. Maybe she should just go. Her shift started in half an hour and she was tired. She could get in a power nap in the shuttlebay and then kick herself up with caffeine in her tea... But she found herself nodding her agreement.

When she nodded silently, he stood up and went to his PADD, making the appropriate changes to his calendar and the door settings, then sat on the edge of his desk.

"I don't know what to say," she said quietly.

He nodded, accepting that. He wasn't trying to put her on the spot, but the way she'd come in and the rather backwards way she'd had of demanding attention said to him that she did in fact have something very specific to say. She might not know what it was consciously, but it was there.

When he said nothing, she looked up and found him sitting there with the same non-expression, waiting. "For- look, I never know what to say. You're going to be waiting there a long time."

"I'm very patient," Brayden promised, sitting back. "Take your time."

Lowering herself to perch on the edge of the couch, Lilou nibbled her lower lip. A few minutes passed in silence. "She didn't tell you anything?" she asked.

"Who?"

"Dru."

Brayden shook his head. "Lieutenant McCarthy is very serious about the privacy of this office and her patients. As am I."

"So... this is what you do? Just... sit around and wait for people to tell you things?"

He smiled. "Lilou..." he looked at the surfboard, thinking, before returning his gaze to her. "I have a particular theory about therapy; would you like to hear it?"

Lilou shrugged. If it meant she didn't have to figure out what she was doing sitting there of her own volition; well, it was better than nothing.

"I think that - if someone isn't interested in it - therapy is useless. It isn't like medicine. If you have a cut on your arm - even if you're fine with having the injury or you don't feel it - I can fix that. But the mind. The heart. Those are complex. They can't be fixed, no matter how much we sometimes wish they could. And knowing where the hurt is... that's just as complex. There's no device to use, no diagnosis. There's only years of training which, let's face it, are based on theories that are constantly changing, the ears and instinct of the therapist, and the honesty of the individual in the session. It's not really very much to go on. Now, the first two things, those are a constant that I can provide. But in order to get anywhere, you need all three. So... taking the years of training and internships and degrees as a given, let me tell you what my ears and instincts are telling me. You came to me. You didn't reply to my message saying that you didn't need to come in or try to avoid a meeting. You came willingly. And you came before your shift began. Not early enough to be able to spend a lot of time here, but just enough to test the waters. And you did. And you're still here. Which tells me I've passed your test, at least so far. How am I doing?"

Lilou chewed the inside of her lip, watching him cautiously.

He nodded, "So that takes us to the third part. Which is the part that is the most important. Where you talk to me about whatever it is that brought you here this morning."

"I..." Lilou cleared her throat, "I am not crazy."

"We've established that."

She pressed the soles of her boots firmly against the floor. "She said I should keep coming back. Dru did."

Brayden kept his expression carefully neutral. "Is that something you think will help?"

"No," she said, frowning down at her hands.

"Why not?"

"Because."

Brayden cleared his throat. "You know that's not an answer."

"Because I don't think anything can help." Lilou cursed silently, "Not that there's anything wrong. I just... talking is... useless. I'm not good at it."

Brayden watched her for another long minute. "How about this. What if I reserve an hour of time for you at o-seven hundred hours, every five days starting tomorrow. You can use that time to come in and talk, or you can sleep in or meditate or..." he rolled his hand, "whatever you need to do. But I will be here, reserved for you, at that time. You don't have to come." He smiled at her as the timer chirped once. "But I hope you do."

Lilou nodded, standing up. "Thank you for your time." She didn't have to come, his words rang in her ears. She was approved to work. He didn't think she was crazy. She didn't have to come. Somehow, conversely, that made it seem so much easier to think about doing it. She could do that, couldn't she? Just... talk. Not converse. Not talk inanely with someone, trying to figure out what they wanted to hear or what she should or shouldn't say. Just... at someone. Without it mattering so much what they thought of her. He'd already approved her for duty. What he thought of her... well. He didn't seem to think anything. Or... nothing personal, it seemed. He was... She looked at his face again. All relaxed and sun worn and clear somehow. Maybe she could. But she didn't have to. With another small nod, she turned and left.

"Thank you for yours," Brayden called after her.

--------------

[OFF]

LT JG Kestra Orexil
Chief Security/Tactical Officer
USS Galileo

MWO Lilou Peers
Assistant Chief Engineering Officer
USS Galileo

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