The search for answers

Posted on 20 Oct 2022 @ 8:39pm by Commander Amelia Fox & Captain Jonathan Reynolds & Lieutenant C'Tora Kuroka & Lieutenant JG Roger Harrison Jr & Lieutenant Syvar MD

Mission: Through the looking glass
Location: Sickbay
Timeline: MD4 Morning
2265 words - 4.5 OF Standard Post Measure

ON:

Amelia awoke and groaned. She felt weak and there was a dull throbbing in her head. Must just be hungry she thought to herself as she sat up, not noticing the blood that had dried just below her nose on her top lip. She called out "Could I have some cereal.... please?" She added quickly, remembering that her dad had always told her to remember her manners.

Kovan went to the replicator and programmed it for a bowl of breakfast cereal and a glass of orange juice and brought it over to Amelia. Here you go Amelia. I hope this is what you like. " He said as he handed it to her on a bed tray. He sat down in the rocking chair to think about what they knew about what was going on with Amelia, or what they didn't know could be said as well. He picked up a PaDD that was laying on the table and saw it was the next week's duty roster. He scanned the list and a name stood out as he quickly tapped his combadge. " Doctor M'Tara Kuroka, Could you please report to Sickbay Asap? "

He went quickly over and stood behind Dr Harrison and whispered his report. " Sir I took the liberty of calling in Dr. M'Tara Kuroka, The CMO's wife. Not only is she a medical doctor but she is a medical researcher as well. She specializes in the research of unknown viruses and diseases and developing cures for them. Starbases fight over who gets the next medical researcher, and we have one here on the ship, that's unheard of Sir. It seems our CMO has married himself a treasure. " Stated Kovan with a smile.

M'Tara arrive shortly thereafter, she had been doing some research in one of the labs. "Hello, Doctors, what is the situation?" she looked at their faces and then caught the scent of Amelia, and there having been some blood. "did something happen to the XO?"

Amelia smiled and waved at M'Tara. "Hi. Your fur is very beautiful. Are you a..." She frowned, trying to remember the right word "a Catation?" She asked, not quite getting the pronunciation correct. "My Dad told me about your race."

"Hello, thank you. And I am a Catian, but close enough. Where and who is your dad?" M'Tara looked at the other doctors, she didn't know the whole situation as of yet. Wondering if Captain Reynolds knew who Amelia's father was she tapped on her commbadge. "Captain Reynolds, would you come down to Medical? This is Ensign M'Tara Kuroka, need a couple of questions to be answered about Commander Fox?"

Amelia had started to eat the cereal that she had been brought.

"Reynolds. Acknowledged," Jon said. "I'll be there soon."

A bedraggled-looking Vulcan raced into the ward, straight for Amelia. He looked even more exhausted than when he had left as if he had no decent sleep at all. "Amelia..." he breathed as he stopped at her bedside, reaching for her hand. "Please...please remember me. It is important, please. You are my mate, my saviour... part of my soul..."

Amelia looked at him for a moment and she almost reached for his hand. After a while, she shook her head. "I'm sorry Mister, I don't know you. You do seem familiar though" she frowned. "Like a dream, I had one time." she laughed nervously "But that's silly... I..." Her eyes lost focus for a moment as a dizzy spell passed over her. She hugged her bear tightly. "Where's my Dad?" she asked, somewhat woozily.

"I don't know," Syvar answered slowly, trying to bury his feelings of hurt and helplessness. "Tell me about your dream?"

Amelia shrugged. "It's all fuzzy in my head. You were there... I think... and there were some others and it was all white around. Pretty boring." she added with a smile then noticed Syvar's expression. "I'm sorry mister, did I say something wrong?"

"No sweetheart, you've done nothing wrong." He reached to cup her cheek. "Tell me about the others you saw?"

"It's getting harder to remember," Amelia said. "They were women.... and they looked the same. There was one dressed in black... she seemed.... sad for some reason. I don't know..."

Kovan went over to M'Tara and began to brief her on what they knew and handed her a PaDD with the test results and other pertinent data that had been collected. Parts of her brain have become unresponsive and it seems to be spreading towards the brain stem, So, in a nutshell, she is currently dying unless we can do something to halt its progress. " He looked at M'Tara. " Might I ask you something? To say the least, I was rather surprised that we had a medical researcher on the staff, How did your husband manage to get you onto a starship if you don't mind me asking? I know this may not be the best place and time to discuss this, But I'd like to hear about it sometime if you want to talk about it that is. "

"We can speak of it later on." M'Tara gave a small smile.

Jon walked in to hear the words "She's is currently dying ..." After processing that for a long moment he looked at the medical staff. "That's not an option. I do not intend to be losing my XO. So get me some options people."

" We are currently getting you more options and have brought in a specialist to help out and to find a cure, and she's a member of your crew. Between the medical staff and our medical researcher working together I would say our chances for success are about seventy percent. " stated Kovan.

Syvar nodded as he listened to Amelia. "I saw them too," he explained, "the dark one seemed lonely don't you think? I saw you there too..." He smiled sadly at her, pointing at her bear. "Even Melody was with you," he added."

Amelia nodded. "The other seemed scared of her. It's just a silly dream, it doesn't mean anything." She put her hand to her head and winced slightly as her nosebleed started again.

Frowning, Syvar reached for a nearby cloth and handed it to her. "Doctor?" he queried, slightly raising his voice to alert the other doctors. His hands were tied, he couldn't be involved in her actual treatment. "I don't know if it doesn't mean anything," he offered quietly, "but it sounds important to me." It had felt important, why else would they connect while both were asleep?

M'Tara took a look once more at the degenerating scans of Amelia's brain. "Right now it looks like she is suffering from a cascading stroke. "Walking over to look at Amelia. "Did she suffer from something traumatic? I am suggesting that we put her in suspended animation for now and begin repair work on the neural pathways. In the meantime, has there been any checks as to pathogens that may have caused this as well? Also, another suggestion is due to us being in another universe check for any unknown particles that may have gotten into her bloodstream. Had she ever been in contact with anyone who could have been in contact with her?"

M'Tara looked over towards who she called her hairless cousin. "Syvar since you are more connected to Amelia or anyone else for that matter, I need details. Right now though, she needs to be placed into sleep form otherwise she will continue getting even worse."

The Vulcan nodded slowly, trying to hide the fear he felt though it was visible in his eyes. They weren't as vibrantly green as usual. "Will I still be able to sense her?" He asked, clearly not wanting to venture into doctor mode on this. He had to be the husband, and only the husband no matter how difficult. "I don't know what happened," he answered, "the last time it was some kind of spores I think? At least she did remember me, now she doesn't..." He paused. "She's a nursing mother, how will this affect her ability to nurse the girls? I've been bottle feeding them now...."

M'Tara looked around for the ACMO Doctor Harrison, "Doctor Harrison, what I had just stated maybe the best option, to put a pause on what is going on." then she turned to Syvar. "The babies will need to be fed via formula still. And I am going to go out on a limb here, if you have a telepathic connection, you'll be able to connect with her while she is unconscious. I did though ask, what precipitated this current state that Amelia is in. Did she go off the ship?"

"Stop it! Just stop it!" Amelia cried suddenly. "I don't know who you're talking about but I want to get out of here! she dropped down off the biobed and made a beeline for the door."

Syvar caught her as she tried to run past. "Not yet sweetheart, not until we know what ails you. Tell us...have you been anywhere you shouldn't have been?"

Amelia beat her fists against Syvar's chest. "Let me go! Let me go!" She was getting more and more worked up at this point. She took a deep breath and wailed at the top of her voice "DADDY!" and promptly burst into tears, hugging her teddy bear.

The Vulcan cringed as the wail hurt his sensitive ears. It was worse than when the girls wailed for whatever reason. Still, he held on to her, casting the CO a look of desperation.

Jon suddenly winced both mentally and physically at the high pitched “Daddy.” This wasn’t working. It was just making it worse and his executive officer even more stressed without the emotional maturity she normally had to deal with it.

He walked towards Amelia. “This is all too much for her. A person who believes they are eight and is exhibiting childlike behaviour cannot cope with being told she has babies and questions on telepathic meetings. Everyone cares for the XO but for now back off.

Syvar, go be with your daughters and give her some space for a bit. I know that’s hard and I will send someone from counselling to help you during this odd situation. We know your suffering too and emphasise but this strategy is not working. So let’s try what she needs."

He sat down next to the XO and tried to not awkwardly take her hand. “Darling daddy’s here. I know you're upset and being in sickbay is hard for you so I’m going to see if the docs will let us go for a little walk, get some fresh air for a bit.”

He thought about Eddie. What always calmed him down? “maybe get some ice cream. Teddy can come too. Maybe we could go see the puppies on deck 6. What do you think?”

Through the tears, Amelia managed a smile, nodded her head and squeezed Jon's hand. "Thanks dad," she said quietly, moving closer to Jon and away from Syvar.

Despite the order, Syvar hadn't moved. The girls were sleeping anyway, they didn't need to be made aware of their father's distress. The pain and rejection he felt was plain on his face as he stood there, like a lost child.

Roger watched the goings-on around him with slight bewilderment. Lucy and Minnie were sometimes prone to what *he* thought was hysteria, but truly, it was almost always in reaction to something he'd done or said. So seeing *actual* hysteria was new to him. Trauma. He liked trauma medicine, it was fast and it was over. This?! This was...frightening, if he were frank. He just nodded to the Vulcan, though-brilliant idea! "Brilliant do. Another person looking in should help! Researcher, no less!" Quite right. He sounded like a ninny, though. Returning to his thoughtful scans of the output the biobed was displaying, he noticed her brain waves were odd. Perhaps a stroke, perhaps a psychological torture or somesuch. His first thought was confirmed by M'Tara, and she indeed said to stop. He did so. He watched as Captain Reynolds moved slyly into the role of father, and stifled a laugh-better that man than him, because his own was going through a clingy phase and he would surely lose it. "I'll go with Syvar, if you like, chat." He offered, feeling otherwise useless and superfluous. To M'Tara, he clarified. "My training is trauma and triage, not...this." He gestured loosely.

The words barely registered to the Vulcan doctor, who just kept his eyes on his mate as the woman left sickbay with the commanding officer. He sighed audibly before turning away to look in on the twins. Did he even want to talk? Of course, he realized he probably shouldn't be alone, even if technically, he wouldn't be if he were with his daughters.

M' Tara slammed her hand upon a nearby table and growled out "Time for a meeting right now, a briefing. If you want to save Amelia get your heads out of your asses and let's get planning! Meet me in the medical briefing room right now." she didn't care if she was overstepping but this was a matter of life and death.

With that, she turned and strode into the briefing without a backwards glance.

OFF:



Ensign M'Tara Kuroka
Medical Personnel/Researcher
USS Andromeda
NPC: Michael Hawkins.

Commander Amelia Fox
XO
USS Andromeda

Ensign Syvar
Medical officer
pnpc Aidan

Lieutenant JG Kovan Talios
Medical Doctor
USS Andromeda
pnpc C'Tora

Captain Jonathan Reynolds
CO, USS Andromeda