One Moon Circles

Posted on 14 Mar 2016 @ 12:59am by Lieutenant JG Drusilla McCarthy & Commander Andreus Kohl

3,030 words; about a 15 minute read

Mission: Episode 10 - Symposium
Location: Earth - Starfleet Medical
Timeline: MD 23 - 1440 hours

[ON]

Dru's hand reached out to grip at the guard rail as another cramp gripped at her abdomen before taking miliseconds to ease. If anything the visit to Starfleet medical had perhaps been a good thing...they were able to establilsh that the frequent cramping was being caused by implantation of the embryo. It was still a mystery as to why they were still happening while the pregnancy entered it's third month but they'd done what they could to ensure that the baby was ok.

Dru felt a little like how a medical specimen must feel. She was the first known human to become pregnant via a Reman male. Although their psychologies were similar to Romulan it didn't mean that the pregnancy wouldn't be any less dangerous. The different blood types alone, with the babies being copper based. The medical teams were at least more knowledgable of this aspect of the pregnancy given the relations between vulcans and humans but it didn't make things any less scary.

And then there was the whole issue...was she going to keep the baby? Or would she give birth and choose to give it up for adoption? The questions had been thrown at her left right and center and left the counsellor feeling disorientated and upset. She hadn't got anyone to help...Tuula was there to a certain degree but it had been Markum who was her prop...the person who pushed her and gave her that shoulder to lean on when she needed it the most but now...now he wasn't there.

Markum was in a coma on the ship with preparations already underway to bring him back to Earth. They wouldn't give her anymore information outside of that, citing the fact that she wasn't a spouse as the reason. Things had happened too quick between them both for anything legal to have been put in place and Dru's dilance of changing quarters meant that even the crew were oblivious to their relationship.

As her hand gripped the railing hard, Dru felt the first tear well up in one eye before it dropped from her eyelash and trailed a path down her cheek....What was she meant to do?

All around her, the main atrium of the Starfleet Medical headquarters was an architectural love letter to harsh angles and green glass. As much as the atrium was an open-concept, cathedral-like space, it was constructed to be narrowest at the top and broadest at the bottom. It brought to mind the scope of the pyramids of Egypt, if only they'd had transparent aluminum in those days. In contrast to the hard angles were the swooping ramps that spiraled from the sixth floor all the way down to the ground level. It was on the third level that Dru was gripping the railing, questioning her next steps. Questioning to whom she could turn. And then twenty metres behind her, the humming sparkles of an annular confinement beam deposited a third option into the room. As soon as the transporter released him, it didn't take long at all for him to catch sight of Drusilla McCarthy's petite form, clutched against the railing.

"Drusilla?" asked Andreus Kohl, as he came to stand beside her. He put a hand on her shoulder, vaguely remember something K'os had said to him, about his touch being a steadying force. "Is there anything I can help you with?"

As Dru felt a touch, the voice which followed seemed to familar all be it foreign. Her hand moved to quickly wipe away the tear as she reminded herself that she was in a public space and forced herself to man-up as such.

"Who a..." Who words trailed off as she finally looked at the face that was all too familar. "Andreus?" As realisation came forward, the women threw her arms around her old friend as she gave him the biggest of hugs. "Andreus!"

It had been a couple of years since Kohl had experienced one of Dru's big hugs, but he gave into it. He gave into it boldly. Hugging her back, Kohl explained, "Your charge nurse was a friend of mine from medical school." --He spoke softly as he held her close-- "She was concerned about you; she saw you distressed. When she read you were a Galilean, she called me to help."

Dru closed her eyes as she just held Kohl and let him hold her in return. He offered her a safety, second only to what Markum had once offered her. This man...this amazing man had enabled her to live again, in so many more ways than one.

As she felt the threat of tears again, the counsellor pulled back but kept a hand on each of his arms as she studied his face with a smile. "So you jumped onto a molicule deconstructed and directed it to deposit you here to save me? My very own knight in starfleet armour."

Kohl considered her eyes. He looked right at her and there was a seriousness to his expression. "I'm not promising to save you," Kohl remarked. It was something Kohl had said to her on his first day aboard Galileo, as a young nurse practitioner. Dru was recently woken from a coma at that time, and Kohl had been put in charge of her program of care. Dru's progress through speech therapy and physical therapy was some small part of what made her the woman she was today. Kohl's successes with Dru's recovery were also what contributed to him being recognized and promoted to the ship's Assistant Chief Medical Officer. He owed her. He enjoyed her company, but he owed her too.

"I'm here, though; I'm right here," and that was something Kohl could promise.

As Kohl's words some of the light left Dru's eyes as her hold on his arms lessened a little. She remembered that of him...although he'd been her friend and her confidant during the worst months of her life, back then he had always been a nurse first and foremost and part of that was ensuring that little bit of a hold back to keep professional and personal separate.

As her hands left his arms, they crossed over her chest as she held one arm in each hand and tried to close herself off. "I apologise...I'm sure you're a busy person...things to do and people to see."

Pursing his lips together, Kohl shook his head in disagreement. Facetiously, he remarked, "Not terribly busy. Just my debriefing with Starfleet Command on everything I learned about that alternate universe." In a more serious manner, he continued, "I know where I'd rather be. Right here. With you and your plus one."

Looking down at the ground, Dru defensively wrapped her arms tighter around her abdomen as she felt shame begin to populate her mind. Outside of Tuula and Markum noone else was meant to know...she hadn't even told her own family yet...hell she hadn't even decided if she would keep the baby or not. "How did you know...Tuula promised not to tell anyone...."

"The charge nurse told me," Kohl answered, and there was an apology in his tone of voice. His eyes on the down too, Kohl stared at the floor as if it were terribly fascinating. "She didn't didn't want you to be alone right now, and she thought I already knew..."

As she ran her hands across her arms, the ridgedness in Dru's body lessened a little as she forced herself to breath. She guessed it made sense...Kohl was now part of her ship's command team. She wasn't about to go jump off of a cliff or something but still...she wasn't sure how she felt. The unexplained tears which threatened to fill her eyes was evidence of this.

"I'm sorry...I didn't mean to give out...I'm just...I'm feeling...I'm...." Her words trailed off as she tried to figure it al out. "I'm sorry."

Kohl reached over to Dru and clasped her by the shoulders. He tilted his head to one side, his expression pained. Gently, Kohl asked her, "What are you sorry for?"

Dru felt tears press against the eyes that she had closed over. She ddn't understand why he pushed...why couldn't he just leave her alone to mourn in peace? To mourn her child who might not be and to mourn her lover who was taken from her.

"They said Markum may never wake again and if he does...they can't promise how much of him will still be there. The brain injury...

"Markum is a good man, Dru; a strong man," Kohl said in affirmation. Like Dru, Kohl hadn't personally known Markum Quinn for very long. Their brief friendship had been struck up while Kohl had assisted Markum with his rehabilitation after losing a hand in an heroic accident aboard Galileo. Not following the plot, though, Kohl shook his head. He said, "I didn't know you were that close to him...?"

At those words, the tears started to flow down her face as Dru looked over at Kohl with pure distress in her eyes. "No one did...no one knew that after a year and a half apart we found each other again and realised what we'd missed out on...no one knew that he'd asked me to move in with him...no one knew that he wanted to be my babies Father despite...despite..." A sob tore from the counsellor's throat as she found that she couldn't say it.

Kohl didn't know what to say to that. He could relate, but he couldn't relate. His own romantic entanglements tended to come apart at the seams almost as soon as they came together. Even just in his time aboard Galileo there was brave Gabriel, sweet Lucalin, earnest Victarion, thirsty Keval, and all of his confused feelings for Ellsworth, and Pola, and K'os that had ultimately lead him to nothing. Still, none of them had left Kohl as gutted as Dru was here and now. Kohl could only wrap his arms around her shoulders and plant a kiss on the top of her head.

The gesture just made her cry harder as the sobs tore from her chest and for the first time since the mirror universe Dru let her guard down and just let it all out. All of the pain of loosing Markum, the pain of the pokes and prods from Starfleet Medical as they treated her like a science project all because she carried a half Reman baby. Most of all though...the tears were for everything that should have been. The happy life she had faced with her lover, the future for a child he would help her to raise...it was all gone and she didn't know what to do.

"Don't be sorry," Kohl whispered into Dru's hair. "Be you," he insisted. Kohl straightened up his posture and he took a deep breath. He maintained his hold on Dru while he felt her wracking sobs against his chest. When it sounded like she had stopped --even if only to catch her breath-- Kohl asked, "Are you hungry, Dru? Because I'm famished. I think we should get something to eat. What do you think?"

As Dru tried to catch her breath, she found herself afraid to look up as she was scared that she would just break again. The question surprised her thought...food? Sniffling as she tried to bring the tears and the sobs and snot under control, the counsellor finally nodded her head for want of not being sure what else to do.

"C'mon," Kohl said in gentle encouragement. "I thought I saw a dim sum kiosk in the courtyard outside," he said. Kohl released his hold on Dru --as they would need to see where they were walking towards-- but he didn't move very far away from her. He linked their arms together at the elbow and he lead her towards the ramp that would bring them to the ground floor. As they moved along the downward sloping ramp, Kohl told her a story.

"When my father died, I couldn't process it. I was stuck. I was angry and terrified and elated. It came out of me in a jumble and I couldn't understand any of it. I needed to sweat it out. I needed to release the emotional toxins before I could even begin to process it. Before I could live with the grief," he said. "But my father, when he was young, he used to tell me that Humans were wired differently than Argelians. He said grief will tear out a Human's gastrointestinal tract. Grief can leave them hollow. He said it's best to fill them up with food to help them feel Human again."

Dru couldn't prevent the smile that alighted her lips. In the past Koh had always been her support in her rehabilitation. At times when it seemed that she'd never speak right again, or never walk under her own power; he'd never once let her give up. She owed him for so much...

"What was he like? Your Dad...."

That question. That question was like a Pandora's Box filled with hope and all the world's grief. Kohl said his name, "Elbon?" to focus his thoughts and his remembrances on his adoptive father. "He was a tall, tall man. A Gallamite. He was always personable with anyone he met; very funny too. If my mom was away, a sit-down dinner with him and my brother would consist of us each saying increasingly horrible things in a competition to see who could get the biggest laugh.

"My Dad was hyer-competent at his job. A diplomat," Kohl said, beaming with unabashed pride. He and Dru reached the foot of the ramp and Kohl tugged her towards the grand arches of the structure's exit. "Everyone at the embassy spoke of him like he was some Jean-Luc Picard or something. And if I ever asked him a question, on any topic, he always had an answer. ...It was only as an adult that I came to realize he was making up half his answers."

Dru feather body begin to relaxes Kohl did what he did best, spoke and filled the empty space with chatter. Even in those endless days when she'd no voice of her own, she could always remember how he sat by her beside, recounting mindless stories of ships gossips, own goings on in his life or just of Starfleet at large. Squeezing his arm gebtly as they walked, the counsellor rested her head against his shoulder for just a brief moment; allowing herself to just just and focus on someone other than herself. "He must have loved you all deeply...."

"That's what parents do," Kohl said with a simple kind of certainty. Now that they were out of the medical facility, Kohl had to squint to keep the glare of natural light out of his eyes. He looked around for that dim sum kiosk, as he nudged Dru away from the expansive pond-feature that dominated the courtyard. "They love us every day," Kohl said, "and honestly, I honestly believe that's all they really need to do for us. The rest-- anything else, we can work out for ourselves."

Dru's hand moved to her abdomen as she felt tears threaten once again in her eyes. Her baby would only have her if she went ahead with this pregnancy...could she be the person that Kohl described, could she be both a mother and a father which this child would need. "He was excited when I told him...even when he knew before there was anything between us...us insisted that he would help support me no matter what decision I made but most of all...he would always be there."

Although they were nearing the kiosk --they were so close they could smell it-- Kohl stopped short of the mouth-watering source of dim sum. Keeping back from the small queue of people who were lined up for food, Kohl leaned towards Dru. "But what do you want?" he asked her. "From the paths available to you, what sort of life do you imagine for yourself."

As Kohl lead her to the queue, she found herself uncertain for a moment if his question was regarding the food or her personal choices. Biting down on her lower lip as she tried to avoid the eye contact of those around her; Dru found herself asking, what did she want? "I don't know...I want my old life back...before the pregnancy, before the rape, before the brain injury...life was so much more simple back then...I didn't hold the lives of others in my hands as I do now."

Kohl looked at her, greedily holding onto all of her eye contact, so Dru wouldn’t have to consider anybody but him. “Is that what you want?” Kohl asked. “Is independence what you want most of all right now?”

"I....I...." Dru found herself stutter and stammer as she was unable to tear her eyes away from Kohl. She knew he knew her too well...he could see beneath the images she tried to paint and the words so carefully chosen. "I don't know...I know without it all I'd never have come back here...never have been reunited with Markum...life would be free but...it would be different."

"Take some time with that thought, Dru," Kohl suggested. They strode forward, stepping up to the kiosk. "First, we decide what we want from the menu. Then, you start to think about what you want... from everything else."

Dru's lips parted as if to say more but if she was honest with herself, the opportunity to let it all go, even if only for a brief time, was somewhat more appealing. Nodding her head with the smallest of smiles, she allowed her friend to guide her with the menu and to give his recommendations.

[OFF]

Lieutenant Commander Andreus Kohl
Second Officer
USS Galileo

Lieutenant JG Drusilla McCarthy
Chief Counsellor
USS Galileo

RSS Feed

Comments (1)