Mind Games In the Morning

Posted on Thu Feb 4th, 2010 @ 9:51am by Lieutenant JG Hannah Andeti & Commander Earlond

Mission: Episode 1.1 - "Now Boarding"
Location: Commander's Office, USS Pandora
Timeline: MD02 1000

Hannah yawned as she approached the commander's office. She had slept late that morning (for the first time in almost a year, she noticed) and was still wiping the sand from her eyes as she pressed the call button. Her clothes were comfortably casual and she felt remarkably relaxed in the build up to her overnight camping trip. Maybe it was because she was doing her best not to think about what had happened yesterday, or maybe it was because she hadn't had any foreign memories yet today, but she was in a good mood.

She heard the call from inside the office to enter and she stepped inside, throwing a grin to the commander from across the room. "Good morning, sir."

"Good morning," Earlond replied, setting down the obligatory PADD (in fact, he had only picked it up when he heard the chime). "Have a seat." He indicated the comfortable chair across from him. By contrast, his chair seemed anything but comfortable - he had specially ordered it that way.

The counselor slipped into the chair and her hands came together in her lap. She couldn't deny that she was nervous -- both because she had never had mental instruction before and because it was he who was giving her the instruction, although she was trying hard not to think about why that made her nervous. There was an uncomfortable silence that Hannah felt obliged to fill. "Should I ask where you learned all of this, sir?" She offered a small smile.

"It would be unwise," Earlond replied, but he did not seem overly angry about it. "How much training have you had in blocking memories?"

Hannah smiled a little at this answer, she hadn't expected any less from him and crossed her legs. "Nothing professional, sir. To be honest I mostly picked up what I use as I went . . . experimented with different techniques I'd read about and figured out what worked best for me." She smiled without humour. "Or what had been working."

"Not too bad," Earlond said. "Better if you had not had any techniques, but at least you're not trained by a 'professional'. First things first. Tell me one of your most painful memories."

"I thought I was the counselor here, sir." She said lightly but when he continued to sit impassively she thought for a moment. "I guess that's a bit complicated." She shifted, considering whether or not to tell him but finally settling on complete candor. "I had a sister who was mentally unstable," she said it without apparent discomfort. "She attacked me . . . telepathically and implanted some of her own memories in me." She shifted. "One of those was a murder that she committed. The victim's name was Tyros. They didn't know each other but one day Elle followed her home and then strangled her." She had glossed over some of the more particularly disturbing details, but hoped that would be enough.

Earlond watched Hannah closely. She wasn't telling the whole truth...best to have her relive it all. "Tell me the rest of the details," he told her.

Her stomach twisted and she took a breath to calm herself. "She came into the woman's home and waited until she had gone to bed. She woke the woman up by . . . cutting her," the counselor paused, feeling her muscles tense in her balled hands. The sight of the woman's terrified eyes as they flew open . . . she pushed that aside. "And then she went into her mind a lot like she did to me, actually." Hannah laughed but without humour. "She showed the woman exactly what she wanted to do to her and all the while I was cutting at her with this . . . long knife. She did this for a long time and when she had finished there was just . . . all this blood. And then she wrapped her hands around the woman's throat and killed her." The counselor looked up at him. Sometimes patients told her that it felt better to say things out loud, but this didn't feel good at all. "Why do you need to know about that?"

"I will have to answer that later, Hannah," Earlond said. "I'm sorry, but it's just something I needed. Now, close your eyes, relax your mind, and let your memories flow freely. Stop when you reach a troubling memory, or one of these new memories you seem to be getting."

She was a little annoyed that he wouldn't answer her question but she would be sure that she got one out of him before the end of their meeting. Instead of insisting, however, Hannah closed her eyes and let her mind relax, consciously unclenching her still balled fists. She couldn't seem to get her mind off of what she had just said but after a few minutes her mind began to wander.

"He's . . . dead?"

Hannah fumbled with the medkit beneath her seat and with a shaking hand ran a tricorder over the man. There was no question about it and she didn't need the tricorder to confirm it but she needed the moment to catch her own breath. She always found death mentally jarring, the fading and sudden disappearance of the individual emotions and consciousness and the woman's panic was hard to control in the aftermath. "Yes, I'm sorry." The man's eyes were still open and she reached over the woman, slipping his lids closed as the woman collapsed against Hannah's side.

"Oh god." The young woman was breathing quickly, too quickly, and Hannah's fingers were slick as she prepared a tranquilizer. "We're . . . going to die." The woman's voice was husky, almost inhuman. It was awkward, loading the hypo as the woman's fingers continued to dig into her wrists.

"Of course we're not." Hannah assured her and hoped that she sounded more confident than she felt. "We're on the escape pod, we'll be picked up by another Starfleet ship. We'll be safe, if you just try to relax." The hypo pressed into the woman's throat and she relaxed almost immediately, her head rolling on the counselor's shoulder. Hannah moved to return the empty spray to its place, fingers still damp with sweat -- she took a double take, it wasn't sweat, it was blood. She felt her stomach drop as she realised that the man's blood had drenched not only himself but also the unconscious woman at his side. She breathed hard, the memory of the man's emotions, the man's thoughts as death had sped over him . . . she steadied her breath as the pod plummeted towards the planet and focused hard on nothing. She would need all her strength when, if they made it to the surface alive.

The pod rocked as a blast wave hit them and Hannah groaned, knowing what that meant. They were still too close to the Tethys as it blew and the explosion spun the pod out of control. Sight became blurs of movement, lights flashed and then burst out as the interior was thrown into darkness. Somewhere a panel exploded, showering the room with glowing drops and the woman Hannah had been tending to groaned. She envied the woman her unconsciousness as she slammed into ceiling, a burst of pain in her stomach, before being thrown back to the floor. Her head screamed, but she didn't as she fought to remain conscious, to remain alive. She couldn't die like this, she wouldn't. With another jerk the pod seemed to attempt to right itself and the counselor's head struck the edge of her own seat. The last thing she saw was the unconscious body of the crewman, looking unnaturally serene and then a bright light took everything away.

It took Hannah a moment to realise that it had happened again but she didn't open her eyes. At least she was beginning to recover better from these memories and tried to dwell on what she had seen although certainly not wanting to.

"Hannah?" Earlond's voice asked. "What did you see?"

"I think . . . I think I just saw my own death. in the other universe, I mean. I hope." She replied, quietly.

"What preceded the memory?" Earlond asked. "What did you think about just before you received the memory?"

"I'm not sure, exactly." Hannah paused, thinking. "I was thinking about what I just told you." She was still shaken from both her account and the memory but she tried hard to focus on her former train of thought. "About why I actually managed to tell you about that and then I started thinking about why I had never noticed that I'm attracted to you before and how most of my patients would probably be appalled at my own self-ignorance . . ." she trailed off and her mind caught up with her mouth. There was a long silence. "I guess . . . um, I guess that's what I was thinking about." She fell silent trying to pull the mental foot out of her mouth. Her first instinct was to bolt for the door but she needed his help. Part of her hoped he would just ask her to leave.

Earlond stared at her, somewhat surprised. Was this an affect of the memories? Somehow....it didn't seem that way. "Hannah...." Earlond began, then paused. What did one say to something like that? And why should it matter? He should just keep a professional distance and move on with the training.

The counselor was determinedly avoiding eye contact. Why wasn't he changing the subject? She chose to do it for him. Maybe pretending that she hadn't said anything unusual would be the best course of action, she wasn't new to running away from emotional issues after all. "Would you like me to blank my mind again or try something else?" She asked, returning to the subject at hand. The faster they got through this the faster she could get the hell out of there.

"Hannah, avoiding the issue won't make it disappear," Earlond said, leaning forward. "Am I right in assuming what you said was not related entirely to your new memories?"

"No, it wasn't," she replied quietly and then looked up at him, resisting the urge to make some joke about the whole thing. "But I didn't mean to say anything, sir. It's been a . . . weird couple of days."

"Understandable," Earlond said. "Yet the 'weirdness' does not change the fact that you feel what you feel, correct?"

"Yes," Hannah agreed. Why did she feel as though she were in a counseling session herself? She did not like being on this side of the desk and she realised that she did not need to be. She went on the offensive, leaning forward and regaining some of her confidence. "I don't intend on letting this affect our professional relationship, sir, but since you would like to deal with this openly how do you think we should do that?"

"Well, I was going to suggest that we continue with your training," Earlond said, his face unreadable as usual. "But since they're your feelings, what do you suggest?"

The counselor's eyebrows jumped towards her hairline, surprised by his sudden show of calm hostility. She worked to keep her own voice steady as well. "I tried to go on with the training, sir, you're the one who insisted we discuss it." She straightened. "And since you're now demanding we change the topic I have to wonder why you wanted to discuss it in the first place."

"You don't have to do anything," Earlond said. "Clear your mind, please."

Hannah eyed the commander, before closing her eyes and taking a breath. It was going to be really easy to clear her mind now. She breathed slowly, focusing on each breath and the way her lungs expanded with each intake. Slowly she felt her mind begin to relax.

"Tyros," Earlond murmured, just loud enough for Hannah to hear.

The face of the woman rose in the counselor's mind, smiling and frozen in happiness the way she had appeared in the picture that Hannah had spent a long time studying while recovering in hospital. It was almost tangible and she could smell the cleaning products of the hospital complex as her memory returned to that time. She tried to focus on that instead of the other memory that was tapping at her mind, but after a moment the other image slid before her. The woman's eyes snapped open and she opened her mouth to scream. There was no noise but Hannah jumped as though there had been one and opened her eyes. She studied the commander for a moment, her heart beating quickly. "That," her voice trembled slightly. "That was unpleasant."

"How did you attempt to avoid the memory?" Earlond asked.

"I focused on something else related to but not quite as disturbing as that one," she explained.

"How long was that technique effective for?" Earlond asked.

"A few minutes, I think." She hesitated and then continued. "If we tried again I might be able to hold onto it a bit longer."

Earlond shook his head. "No," he said. "You need to rest before we continue."

"Alright." The counselor nodded with a small smile and relaxed back into the chair. "When should we do this again?"

"Once you've had adequate rest," Earlond said. "But we don't need to meet in my office. If you'd rather meet elsewhere...perhaps the lounge?"

Hannah popped an eyebrow. "You want to practice mental blocking in the lounge?" She offered a wry smile as she felt herself relaxing and her usual humour returned. "Not afraid I might have another memory and try to kiss the Admiral or something?"

"I'm not worried," Earlond said with a small smile. "But get some rest. I'll see you tomorrow."

She nodded and stood up, heading towards the door, but before it opened she turned back to the commander. "Thank you for your help, sir."

OFF

Commander Earlond
Executive Officer
USS Pandora

and

Lieutenant JG Hannah Andeti
Chief Counselor
USS Pandora