Clouded Reflections

Posted on 10 Nov 2014 @ 7:59pm by Commander Andreus Kohl & Commander Allyndra illm Warraquim

2,166 words; about a 11 minute read

Mission: Episode 07 - Sojourn
Location: USS Galileo - Deck 3, Sickbay
Timeline: MD -14, 0311 hours

[ON]

Padding into Sickbay in his duty boots, Andreus Kohl was otherwise under-dressed in his green athletic shirt and shorts, and motor-assist bands on his exposed legs. He didn't cast his gaze around the compartment, didn't worry about who else might see him in sleepwear and tousled hair. Kohl crossed the main ward and made his way into the private office of the CMO. He rapped his knuckles on the door frame softly. "Good morning, Allyndra," he said. The smile on his lips, like his timbre, was lop-sided.

Allyndra sat in the darkened office sipping a sweet honey laced tea. Sickbay was empty, no one had come in, and the experiment she had going in the lab would be sometime. Medical records were pretty much caught up as were mandatory check ups. All in all it was boring so she had taken to having tea and just staring at the ceiling thinking about life in general. She had been somewhat day dreaming but she thought she had heard the sickbay doors open and sat up. A gentle rap and then a shape with a voice she knew well.

"What ever are you doing up at this hour Andreus? What is bothering you? And yes I can see it looks like you barely rolled out of bed a few minutes ago." Her tone light and with a lilt.

Kohl shook his head from side to side, and he said, "I can't reckon how to articulate it yet." He let himself into Allyndra's office; he approached her desk; he gently lowered himself into the chair across from her. "I can't sleep the whole night through. I get anxious," Kohl said, and he wrapped his arms around his chest. "During the day, I feel fine-- or at least, I feel normal. The anxiety only comes when my mind is at rest."

Allyndra sat back though it felt a little uncomfortable. "Obviously your mind is not at rest. During the day it is occupied with other things but something is bothering I would say, something that is forcing itself up enough to wake you. Your a good medical practitioner and obviously have not taken any sleep aids. So there is something you need to resolve."

"I'm sure there is something," said Kohl. His timbre implied agreement, but with reluctance underneath. He shook his head. "But I can't know how to work on it until I put words to the feeling. Until I can place it. For now, it's just a feeling." He shrugged at her helplessly.

"Well," Allyndra said shifting into the Counselor mode as she had been one at one time. "What sort of feeling do you have? And is there a connection with anything?"

Tilting his head from side to side, Kohl struggled to put the vague notion in his head into words. "It feels like anxiety. Maybe it is anxiety, I don't know," Kohl said vaguely. "What little I can remember of my dreams have been metaphors of anxiety... Being given a test I never studied for. Becoming lost in a labyrinth of a starbase." --He furrowed his brow, first in disbelief, and then when it took some effort to remember- "I think I had a dream about building a restaurant, and it wasn't going well..."

Allyndra listened. "The situations you describe would mean you insecure about something, a lack of confidence with yourself, low self-esteem, of not being good enough or not meeting someones expectations. So let me ask, if you do not mind, is there a relationship or something else that has recently come up?"

Kohl stared at the tabletop between them, as he put some thought into Allyndra's question. "A lack of relationship is more like it," Kohl said, a little flippantly. He frowned then. "My staff in the science department get along with me well enough, but I can't say any of them like me. I had wanted my time on this ship to be about my life, not my job. ...But I seem to have lost that one who was special to me."

So there it was Allyndra thought. It was not unlike her own situation other than she had not even had someone steady enough to be as special as Kohl had.
"I hear you, I never thought being in the service would mean a near life of a nun. Oh there have been the occasional flings and some hopefuls but nothing ever developed deeply. I had thought my life though before to be all certain. I had a husband and position within the Guild. Everything all laid out and ready then everything changed and now this is my life." Allyndra waved a hand encompassing the office in general.
"Depressing sometimes, at one moment everything seems so certain, so settled, so laid out and the next something comes along and knocks all that out. Perhaps I still hope though for the current to change and bring something new. Guild Mother told me when I first left my home: 'The ocean of life is filled with many currents, but ride them and you might find the journey to be a worthwhile one'." Allyndra smiled wanely, "I am still waiting for the worthwhile but not without hope. I have moved from place to place, ship to ship and maybe this one, maybe the next one, maybe someplace I have not yet been to but I hope. I guess friend you must decide if you want to ride the current of your life here and hope or perhaps a new current and see where that journey takes you."

A captive to Allyndra's words, Kohl rested his elbows on the desk and cupped his chin in the palm of one hand. "I'm impressed you don't lose hope," Kohl said at first. Most especially, Kohl was speaking to the loss of her husband, but he didn't suppose it was worth speaking that aloud. He smiled fondly, and he said, "I don't know if I believe any one current would be inherently more fortunate than another. I think I can make something special of this one. I believe you can too. It comes down to the swimming technique to choose to interact with the current -- if my metaphor holds."

Allyndra looked at Kohl slightly puzzled. She was not sure if the metaphor he referred to she quite understood. "I would agree," she said thinking she understood at least the idea. "One does not have to just ride the one passively. We have some choice to see if we can change to another. Well...," Allyndra laughed, "so much for being a philosopher. I think I better stick to medicine or science."

Kohl laughed along with her, but he buried his face in his hands, as if he could hide from the embarrassment of his mangled metaphor. He shook his head and then he looked up at Allyndra. "If not your personal life," began Kohl, and his eyes brightened with a hopeful expression, "Have you found any solace in your research of late?"

Allyndra cocked her head. "Not really. Not that I have had a lot of time either." She held up her left hand, the fingers nearly as they were only slightly thinner than the rest. ""I have not given up on this, but I will not do anything more until certain that success will be complete." She put the hand away and continued solemnly, "My thoughts really have been centered more on what happened back at the mines. I really wonder what the consequences will be of giving the tribbles to those entities without know more about them. Perhaps, the mistakes of my culture colour my view too much as well." She shrugged.

When Allyndra shrugged, Kohl shook his head. He was curious for Allyndra to continue that thought. "What unintentional consequences might you expect?" he asked.

Allyndra cocked her head, "Well it seemed to me that those entities, we never really established a name really, while having evolved to their present form realized now that they lost sensation. I can not help but think of them being like someone in a long term sensory deprivation tank especially isolated as they were in those obelisks. As you know in the short term such isolation can be relaxing but in the long term results in anxiety, hallucinations and mental instability. The way they used both our team and the Cardassians seems to point to that in my opinion. Now they have the tribbles, what might they mold those creatures into, or will they loose what intellect they have in those near mindless creatures?" Allyndra again made that odd rolling shrug, "or perhaps I think over much about things. Well done is done."

"I wouldn't say it's done done," Kohl said. He had shook his head when Allyndra suggested she was thinking too much about everything they had experienced recently. He hadn't reached the same conclusions about the lifeforms of Lyshan III, but those conclusions bore weight, in Kohl's mind. "We could recommend another survey ship stop by," Kohl recommended. "Perhaps a team of scientists could be dispatched to observe them for a time?"

It was not a bad idea Allyndra thought but she did not have the pull to request such a thing but perhaps coming from the Chief Research Officer might carry more weight.
"An excellent idea if there are not repeats of the incidents that took place. Of course, such an observational team would now know what they were getting into. While I have no love of tribbles, it would be interesting to see if the entities are keeping them alive somehow. All we need is for the little things to starve and then the entities now having a taste of corporality now go looking for more." She shrugged that odd rolling shrug, "As I said, hasty without wondering what the ramifications might be. Of course, coming from me carries little weight but your position in science would have more authority."

"We could work on a proposal together. The two of us. I'm sure I've worked up some sway with Lieutenant Pendleton by now," Kohl said. He started out smiling broadly, but his expression shifted diffident. His gaze shifted down to the desktop. "It's been some time since we worked on a research project together. Probably... probably not since we worked on, well, since we worked on me." --He looked at Allyndra, a worried look in his eyes-- "Did I ever, did I ever thank you for how hard you tried to cure me?"

Allyndra shook her head in the negative. "No, but there is nothing expected for failure. I have not given up yet and I will not give up until I can do something like this." She again held up her left hand and flexed the fingers. She continued to look at the new fingers. "Perhaps like the A'ksu of old, I was over confident and too arrogant." She looked finally to Kohl. "I am sorry it did not work fully at least some function returned to your legs and..." She trailed off with a slight blush tinging her face and a smile touching the lips as she referred to his other impaired function from before the therapy.

"But I do thank you," Kohl said with complete sincerity. He looked back at her. "I do. You shared your world with me. You went to incredible lengths to find me a cure, and in the end, your conventional medicine and program of care have done me a world of good. I wouldn't be where I am now without you."

"I still consider myself not to have finished. Once the action has started I will continue to work. Thank you for giving me the chance to try though. Guild Mother had a saying: 'If one is afraid of falling then never try one's wings'." She smiled, "I have fallen many times and still get up and try again."

"That's a good habit, that one," said Kohl. Pushing against the deck with his boots, Kohl rolled his chair back away from the desk. "I should try again to sleep; else, I'll be very grouchy tomorrow." Before he stood, Kohl said, "Thank you for being a friend."

Allyndra made a deep nod of the head. "I am glad you think me that. I do not think I have that many. Now then," she said before he had a chance to say anything. "I am going to put in a prescription for a sleep aid. You decide if you want or need to take it." Allyndra looked up, "Always a pleasure but now good night or morning." She made shooing motions with her hands.

"Night or morning," Kohl remarked, as he made his way for the door, "Either one is better in your company."


[OFF]

Lt Cmdr Allyndra illm Warraquim
Chief Medical Officer
USS Galileo

Lt. Andreus Kohl
Assistant Chief Science Officer
USS Galileo

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