Learning Session

Posted on Wed Mar 10th, 2010 @ 3:06pm by Ensign Velia Moretti & Lieutenant JG Hannah Andeti

Mission: Episode 1.2 - "A House Divided"
Location: Counselor's Office
Timeline: MD01 1445

Rayne had just returned from her helpful afternoon with Dr. Reid and aside from a few stress driven snippy remarks from two of the younger nurses, it had gone well. She sank into her overstuffed chair, getting comfortable just in time to realize she'd forgotten her coffee. With a groan she hoisted her body back up as the alert went off that she had a call. "Computer, put it through." She rubbed her face in her palms and prepared to greet the face that appeared on the screen before her with a welcoming smile.

Andeti shifted her own coffee cup as the image of the Tigris' counselor appeared on the monitor. She made her expression serious as the woman appeared and folded her hands on the desk in front of her. "Counselor Tiger, I presume?" she said with faux-formality.

Shock and pleasure simultaneously rose in Rayne at the sight before her on the screen. "Andeti?" She blinked rapidly as if trying to clear her vision. Some people in her life had stood out against the others and Hannah was one of them. "To what do I owe this unexpected call?" She hadn't seen or heard anything about Hannah since they'd parted ways at the Academy the first time Rayne was filling in as a research assistant, though she thought of her every once in a while.

Hannah grinned, breaking her mask of professionalism. "Business, unfortunately, but that doesn't mean you can't tell me what you've been up to."

"Same thing, a different ship," Rayne teased, putting her own spin on an old adage. A quick check of the frequency told her where Hannah was now residing. "The Pandora huh? How's she treating you counselor?" All the while the pleasantries were being exchanged Rayne dug furiously in the back of her mind for any business that would connect her with the Betazoid again. Unfortunately she was drawing a blank.

"Well we just transferred here from the Tethys so still getting settled in," she smiled and shrugged. "But you know, same fleet, different ship."

“It really is the small things,” Rayne chuckled. “Thankfully transfers go easier when you’ve already got some time invested in the crew. It sure beats starting from scratch. Somehow though, I don’t think that’s what’s at the heart of you contacting me. How can I help you?”

"Well, I don't want to be keeping you too long." She paused and sipped her coffee. "We just had a shuttle pilot transfer aboard, Mr. Lexon, he has some rather . . . unusual gifts it seems." Andeti stopped talking as she noticed the look on Rayne's face. "I'm sorry, are you alright?"

Her stomach seized. Drake was on the Pandora? He’d transferred to it? All of the color drained from Rayne’s face as she recalled the last time she’d seen him. He’d promised to let her know he was okay. And he hadn’t. All this time she was convinced something terrible had happened to him, and it turned out that he’d been transferred? None of this was making any sense to her. “How long has Drake been on the Pandora?” Rayne wasn’t sure she wanted to know the answer.

"He was just transferred," Andeti answered. "Are you alright, Rayne?" Her response to Drake's presence here certainly explained a lot about his response to the mention of Ms Tiger earlier.

“Hannah, can you give me a moment please?” Rayne’s trip to the replicator was long overdue and she needed to compose herself. Hannah didn’t need a rundown of the history between Rayne and Drake, she just needed Drake’s and Rayne needed to quickly separate the two. Standing at the replicator, Rayne closed her eyes and leaned her forehead against the panel. ‘Disassociate Rayne, that’s all you have to do’ she thought. Envisioning pushing a reset button, coupled with the steaming mug from the replicator brought her back to a centered state. She returned to her desk. “So, how can I help you Hannah?” She would be okay so long as she didn’t respond to Hannah’s query about her emotions.

The Pandora's counselor decided against pressing the matter and got down to business. "Apparently Mr. Lexon has decided to try and get some control over his unusual mental abilities. He mentioned that you had had some suggestions for him although you hadn't really gotten started."

Rayne smiled slightly. "Actually, I only had one suggestion for him. We have a very gifted engineer who has some unusual and unique abilities herself. I was hoping maybe some of the training Ella had received could be helpful to him. Unfortunately before we could really begin to go about working on blocks and filters Drake was ... reassigned," Rayne finished in a dull voice.

Hannah frowned at this tidbit, she had hoped for something a little more concrete from the Tigris' counselor. "You must have had some experience with him, even if you weren't trying to help him block out his telepathy, did you make any observations that might be able to help me? I've never encountered someone with quite his brand of telepathy."

"Oh, I had plenty of experiences with him, and made many observations. First and foremost, for me, it was the thoughts that were the quietest that he picked up on the quickest. He really seemed to have no understanding of why it was ... uncomfortable ... for me. His ability doesn't seem to be stronger or weaker depending on species either. It was seemingly just as easy for him to pick up on my thoughts as it was for him to pick up on a humans or even Ella's. He's very naive as well, which I found surprising considering the strength and accuracy with which he can tune in to others. The hardest part about trying to help Drake was, well actually there were two difficulties I encountered. The first is that he really has no idea how he does what he does. It doesn't take concentration or focus, it's natural for him. The other hard part is that, as a counselor, trying to mull anything over in your mind is out so long as he's in the room with you. He'll have a question or comment for every thought. He's quick to apologize for intruding and in the same breath retort to another thought. I found that to be particularly frustrating." Rayne blew gently across the rim of the mug before sipping from it. "I tried to do some digging on my own, and came up with nothing. He'll tell you he's human, and he absolutely is not."

Andeti was taking notes on her PaDD and only looked up when Rayne stopped speaking. "What species is Ella?"

“Ella is a Noi. Very interesting species. Think Betazoids crossed with Orions and a little Elyshan thrown in just to make it interesting. There are only two of them this far into Federation space that I know of, Ella has a twin.” Rayne would love to dig through the Noi history beyond the file she’d been supplied with; for as thorough as it was she wondered what all had been left out. “And of course, the tele-empathetic abilities she has are far beyond anything I’ve ever encountered before. “

"Did you ever notice whether or not he was able to read the thoughts of a Ferengi?" It might seem an unusual question but, due to their unique brain chemistry, Betazoids weren't able to read a Ferengi's thoughts and this would tell her a great deal about the source of his ability.

“We aren’t fortunate enough to have a Ferengi aboard the Tigris, however I had wondered that myself. It would have been an interesting experiment. If you have a Ferengi crew, I’d encourage you to try it. Nothing I’ve seen with Drake indicates that he couldn’t.” Rayne stopped herself from asking Hannah to let her know if he could; she was no longer his counselor and had no reason to be privy to that information.

She nodded and jotted that down. "Did you ever notice times when he was responding more frequently to someone's mental comments, or more frequently to their verbal comments? Any unique circumstances that seemed to affect his ability?"

“Not any that would be helpful from a counseling standpoint,” Rayne spoke carefully. The truth was that yes, she had noticed an increase in his replies to verbal or spoken, but if Drake wanted Hannah to know when that was, he could tell her himself. “There was one instance where he somehow managed to glean flashes of a dream I was having,” she found herself saying. “From separate quarters,” she added quickly. “He claimed he’d never done that before, and I was, well it was kind of shocking that he managed that without being in close proximity.”

"Did the emotional or mental states of those around him seem to affect his ability at all?"

“I obviously can’t speak for everyone he encountered, but looking back on some of the time I spent with him, yes, I do believe the more frustrated or hesitant I was, the more likely he was to pick up on my thoughts. Very clearly, I may add.” Rayne sat up and leaned in toward the screen. “One of the most fascinating things about Drake’s ability to me is how sensitive he is telepathically, but I can’t recall a single time he was given to any sort of empathetic ability. He’d pull a thought out of my head, but because he couldn’t sense the feeling behind it, he would internalize it incorrectly.”

Andeti hesitated and then continued. "What about changes in his own emotional state?"

That question caught Rayne off guard. “Let me think about it for a moment.” Replaying things in her mind brought to light something she’d been unaware of previously. “I guess in order for me to answer that Hannah, I’d had to have seen some changes in his emotional state; and I can’t recall a single one. He’s very straightforward and even keeled. There were times when I would expect most men to react strongly in some manner, he never did.” In fact, the only time they had been surrounded by emotion and Drake hadn’t reacted to her thoughts, had been the night he left ... and even then he’d been so calm in spite of the circumstances.

"Did your doctor ever take any detailed brain scans that might give an idea what causes his unique ability?" She queried, changing the subject. If telepathic training didn't work there was always the possibility that there could be a strictly medical solution.

“Just a second,” Rayne held up a finger and crossed the room. A few movements later, she returned with a thin file folder which she placed upon the desk. Because of the size, it didn’t take her long to leaf through it. “From what I can tell, he did not report to sickbay during his time here,” which was odd, Rayne mused, since Dr. Tybek was never one to overlook a physical evaluation of new crew. “I could put you in contact with Dr. Tybek if you wish, but I’m fairly certain that had Drake been seen, and any anomalies been noted, it would have gone in his file. Have you checked with your own CMO to see if Drake has been in for a visit?”

"Not yet, I thought I'd check in with you first." She finished off her long list of notes, with a note to talk with Dr. Evans about him. "Is there a reason you asked Ella in particular to help with Drake's ability?"

"Because her own abilities are very strong, I thought maybe she could help him learn to focus his, or control it, or at least figure out how it worked so he would know," Rayne shrugged. "She'd had to undergo extensive training to learn to block her own, I didn't see how asking her to help him could hurt at all."

"Do you have any idea why he might have waited until now to look into blocking out this ability?"

If Rayne had ideas as to why Drake did or didn't do anything, she'd be a lot less angry with him right now. "Counselor, while Drake Lexon is superb at ferreting out the secrets of others he absolutely is not the sharing type himself. And, you may have more luck with this than I did Hannah seeing as how you're physiology is pure Beta not just half, whenever I tried to connect with him, it was like telepathically smacking a brick wall. He surely knows how to keep others out. Simply put," irritation crept stealthly outward, "your guess would be every bit as good as mine."

"You mentioned that he didn't ever show emotion, did he ever . . . " she tried to think up a polite way to ask and then decided to just ask it. "Ever seem to use his ability to manipulate people?" She hope Rayne didn't react badly to the question, but Andeti remembered Earlond's reaction to the man when they had first met and she trusted his judgment on people.

Rayne chuckled and shook her head. No, if anything, Drake used his personality quirks for that. "Not to my knowledge Counselor."

Hannah looked up from her PaDD and thought for a moment, but didn't seem to come up with any other questions. She smiled. "I'm sorry if this was uncomfortable for you, but, believe it or not, you've been very helpful." That wasn't entirely true, she still wasn't sure what to make of Drake, but at least this gave her some ideas about the man in general.

"I wouldn't imagine it's comfortable for anyone in our positions to admit that they can't help someone," Rayne smiled softly, knowing full well that hearing something secondhand and experiencing it for yourself were worlds apart. "It was wonderful to speak with you again Hannah. I wish both you and Mr. Lexon luck with this."

"And you." Andeti smiled. "Hopefully it won't be quite so long between visits next time." They finished off their 'goodbye's and the counselors both signed off. Hannah sat back in her chair and eyed the PaDD she had been taking notes on, considering. Rayne had certainly given her a lot to think about and unfortunately there seemed to be a lot more questions in there than answers.

[Off]

By

Lt. JG Hannah Andeti
Chief Counselor
USS Pandora

and

Lt. JG Rayne Tiger
Chief Counselor
USS Tigris
(played by Ensign Moretti)