It All Starts To Unravel

Posted on 06 Feb 2015 @ 7:34am by Lieutenant JG Drusilla McCarthy & Lieutenant Tuula Voutilainen M.D.
Edited on on 17 Feb 2015 @ 11:20pm

1,957 words; about a 10 minute read

Mission: Episode 07 - Sojourn
Location: USS Galileo: Sickbay
Timeline: MD29, 14:30 hours

[ON]

As Dru stood staring at the door, she tried to draw on some sort of confidence to be able to push herself forward. She had been putting this off as long as humanly possible....As long as she didn't think about what had happened or examine it's ramifications she could hide from it all....She could pretend that none of it ever happened.

Holiday hadn't seem surprised at how easily she had agreed to return to duty on the USS Galileo perhaps it had been because he was self opinionated enough that he decided from the get go that it would happen. Either way the counselor was glad he hadn't asked.

The true reason she had so readily agreed to return was because the ship was familiar. Former crew mates were also familiar....The ship and it's crew had protected her before, saving her life, and she knew that they would protect her again. She knew at the bottom of it all that none of the crew would allow anyone to harm her.

The medical was a necessary part of coming back onboard. One she had spent days prepping herself for. Over and over in her head she had built herself to this. Just walk through those doors, allow a scan to happen, answer the probing questions and then walk out. She had been able to hide the psychological impact of what had happened from being recorded but the physical evidence hadn't been able to be covered up...it had all required sickbay time.

Taking a break, Dru repeated the mantra to herself again walk in, sit down, get scanned, answer questions, leave... over and over again she repeated it until she forced her feet to step forward and the doors to slide open.

"Hello!" exclaimed Tuula in an excited voice as she looked up from her medcart, thankful for anything that could break up the boring drudgery that was inventory day. On her last assignment, a massive starbase, the medical staff would usually have some technician or a joeboy to do that for them. But, in the tiny sickbay of a Nova class starship, Tuula was the joeboy.

"Welcome to sickbay!" she added as she turned away from the half-inventoried medcart and towards her guest. "How can I help you?"

Chewing in her lower lip, Dru hoped to god that she didn't present as the typical patient afraid of Doctors and sick bay. She commiserated with Doctors given the same attributes were typically shown to counselors. "My apologises, I hope that I'm not interrupting anything....I wanted to see about getting my medical done? I've been newly assigned to the ship."

"Sure!" replied Tuula, relieved that someone had come by to break up the monotony of inventory day. "I'd love to take care of that for you! Your name is..."

"Dru....Drusilla McCarthy would be on my file. Lieutenant Jay Gee assigned as assistant chief counselor." Dru moved her right hand so as it rubbed against her upper left arm, a habit she hadn't been able to get out of in the past few months. "This shouldn't take too long, everything you need to know is in my file."

"Oh, you must be Delainey's replacement!" exclaimed Tuula. She had missed Delainey a little; they had gotten to know each other and Delainey helped her with some of her problems. She was sad to see Delainey go, more so without even saying goodbye, but was sure that she was on to bigger and better things and didn't want to cause a fuss when she left.

"Take a seat on one of these biobeds while I pull up your medical file," she added before turning back towards the office.

Dru went to correct the young woman, Prudence was the new chief, Dru herself was only the assistant; but she'd already turned away and out of heading range. Lookin around, the counsellor set up on the nearest bio bed and swung her legs gently as she waited for the Doctor to return.

A few minutes later, Tuula returned, having examined the patient's medical records. There was noting out of the ordinary, aside from a few injuries sustained on a recent away mission and some slight vision problems not corrected by surgery or retinax.

"All right, Dru," said Tuula in a warm tone as she pushed herself towards her biobed. "Have you noticed anything out of the ordinary lately? Any potential issues you would like to bring to my attention?"

Rubbing her upper arm again, Dru hesitated for a second as she debated with herself over weather or not to prolong this. "I'm still having phantom aches in my upper left arm where they...." The counselor tripped over her words for a moment as she glanced down at her feet, "....where the injection site was located."

"Injection site?" asked Tuula, raising an eyebrow. Given the widespread use of hyposprays, injections in the 24th century tended to be painless. Of course, that didn't stop a few hypochondriacs from claiming that it hurt. And every ship or base in Starfleet had one. On Tuula's last assignment, it was a young woman by the name of Nikki Barclay, niece of the legendary Reg Barclay, a woman who got more than just her knack for engineering from her uncle. "Allow me to take a look," she added, pulling out a medical tricorder.

The raised eyebrow put Dru on edge as she moved her body to allow freedom of access to the area. Afraid to say anymore in case she was judged further, the counselor looked the other direction as she just focused on a spot on the far wall.

Tuula carefully scanned Dru's left arm. "What was it you were injected with?" she asked, not recalling any recent injections in her medical history.

Dru closed her eyes as she fought back an overwhelming need to run. Every single time she was asked this question. Either the Doctor hadn't read her notes in their entirety or the last Doctor was a blundering idiot....which was very possible. "I don't have the name...all I know is that it had a sedative like effect. I imagine it would have been some form of ambizine or aprovoline." The counselor had some basic knowledge of sedatives from her time at the academy given there sometimes use in the counseling profession.

"Hmmmm," said Tuula as she scanned the patient's arm. She knew more than anyone what it felt like to suffer from phantom pains and have puzzled doctors who were incapable of understanding brush them off. "I'm not detecting anything physically wrong with your arm; could it be psychological perhaps? Were these injections part of a larger traumatic event?"

Stating to become agitated and unsettled, Dru started rubbing her arm harder before making a move to step down off of the biobed, "I'm sorry. This was a big mistake. Physically I am fit and your scans should verify this. Can you please declare me fit for duty and I can be on my way?"

"I'll be the judge of that," replied Tuula, holding her hand up in a motion to stop Dru from stepping off the biobed. Changing her tune, she looked up at the clearly agitated patient and offered her a warm smile. "Dru, this is a simple routine physical. It's totally painless, and it will be over in no time." As she held up her tricorder, she decided to make some small talk to calm the patient. "So, have you tried any good holodeck programs lately?"

Stopped in her tracks, Dru studied the woman for a moment before slipping back up onto the bed. At the end of the day, without this physical she wouldn't be able to fully preform her duties; they could even throw her off of the ship. The thought of having to leave USS Galileo sent her into a panic.

Trying to anchor herself back into the presence, Dru tried to focus on the woman's question, "Um...no. I find it difficult to get holodeck time give that there's only two holodecks to the whole crew. Can you recommend anything?"

"I have a sauna program that I use to relax," explained Tuula, figuring the clearly nervous counselor could use it. To her, saunas were a magical miracle cure, capable of healing patients of all sorts of maladies. "Voutilainen Alpha Four; it's got public access enabled so you can find it in the holo-library. It's as authentic a sauna as you can get this far from Finland."

As the medical tricorder emanated an unusual beep, Tuula furrowed her brow and stared at it again. "Hmmmm, that's strange," she muttered as she waved it over Dru's abdomen again.

Dru felt her stomach churn as she watched the woman's double back. "What's wrong?!?" Her voice was slightly high pitched as she started to panic. Was there side effects from what had happened and the injuries? The last Doctor had missed the signs of what the pirates had done to her but was there something he'd also overlooked damage wise? The thoughts ran through her head as her hands moved to grip the edges of the biobed.

Tuula took a deep breath. Her patient hadn't mentioned this, which was strange. Is it possible that even she didn't know?

"Dru, are you aware that you are..." Tuula looked around. Despite the fact that apart from the two of them, sickbay was all but abandoned, she lowered her voice. "With child?"

Dru felt the blood drain from her face as her body wavered as if to faint. Shaking her head rapidly, she refused to hear what the Doctor was saying as being true, "It's not possible....You have to have had sex for a baby to be convinced...I haven't been involved with anybody in a longtime...Your tricorder is faulty. It has to be...."

"My tricorder doesn't lie," replied Tuula, scanning her again. She had been through this before; a patient distraught over an unplanned pregnancy. Often, the first reaction is denial. "Based on these readings, I'm guessing the date of conception was about four to six weeks ago."

Dru's mind went blank. She didn't know what to say, do or even how to act...She felt numb. There was only one way she could be pregnant and to even consider that was the reason caused a cloud to darken her mind.

Looking up at the Doctor, Dru helplessness shone through her eyes as she went to move to her feet. "I need to go. I'm sorry....I need to go."

"Wait," said Tuula, looking around. Dru hadn't finished her physical, but judging by her reaction that was the least of anyone's worries. The patient clearly needed some help dealing with the news. "Dru, I'm a doctor. I know how difficult an unplanned pregnancy can be. Whatever it is, you can talk to me about it."

Shaking her head, Dru saw the Doctor's lips moving but didn't comprehend the words. Pushing the woman slightly, the counsellor was able to move to her feet. "Thank you for taking the time to do my medical Doctor. I look forward to seeing you around."

"But..." started Tuula, still holding her medical tricorder in one hand.

Pausing for a moment as the room seemed to spin, Dru righted herself and marched herself out of the door. left foot, right foot... the easy motion and thoughts allowed her to shove aside what had just happened. Right now...she needed space to breath, she didn't care about anything else.

OFF:

Lieutenant (J.G.) Tuula Voutilainen, M.D.
Medical Officer
USS Galileo

Lieutenant (J.G.) Drusilla McCarthy
Assistant Chief Counsellor
USS Galileo

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