Are you *sure* I know you?

Posted on Tue Jun 30, 2015 @ 3:31am by Commander Caden Aldrex & Commander Amia Telamon M.D. & Lieutenant Benj Amoran

3,344 words; about a 17 minute read

Mission: Eye of the Beholder
Location: Ops & Sickbay
Timeline: MD 3 - 18.30hrs

[ON]

Cade Aldrex was on his way to his own little-used office. He wanted to talk to his wife. Not having heard from her thus far he assumed she must be very busy with the wounded. Hopefully she could spare half a minute so he could hear the sound of her voice.

Amoran Benj arrived in Ops, slightly breathless and pale as no Bajoran hybrid should ever be. He was focused only on reporting to the XO and made a beeline for Aldrex.

"Sir. Lt. Amoran, Benj. ACMO. Acting Head of Medical reporting in as ordered." He paused as the Trill's eyes focused on him and he wondered if he should just blurt it all out or wait in an orderly manner for questions. "There's been an incident with a civilian and a phaser Sir and the CMO is hurt but not critically. We've got all the injured back on board and all are being tended to. Lt Commander Telamon has received a stun blast and concussion, she has some minor fractures - fingers, left clavicle, ribs, nothing we can't regenerate in no time, Sir."

The doctor's report came out in such a torrent that Aldrex could hardly process it all. The part about Amia being wounded did get through to him, however. It hit him like a slap in the face. "Whoa, back up. My wife is wounded? How bad? Why the hell wasn't I informed right away?" He could feel the anger rising up within him but did his best keep a lid on it. "Take me to her, now!"

Benj's mind repeated Opal's words silently, "out of an airlock" were the ones that were going around and around as he spun and took off with the XO at his heels. "Main Sickbay Sir" was all he got out as he led the CMO's husband at a jog.


=== Sickbay, Minutes Later ===

Aldrex marched quickly into sickbay, making his way through the frenzy of medical personnel who were still working to save lives. Benj was right behind him. The sickbay aboard the station was larger than any starship's, and with such a crowd he didn't spot Amia right away. "Where is she?" He asked Benj, looking around.

Benj moved from the XO's rearguard and led him forward. There was little point in shouting. In the main central aisle of the huge complex that modestly called itself "Sickbay" as if it were a recess in the bilges of an old pre-warp flight yacht, there were 'cubicles off at angles on all sides. It was carefully designed to give doors that looked out to where a medic or nurse could keep easy watch on the inhabitants and yet they could still have privacy from each other. It was a rabbit warren if you didn't know it but Benj glided through like the old man rabbit himself. All he needed were carpet slippers and he'd have filled the image completely.

Suddenly, just as the maze began to open out and the CMO's office could be seen ahead, Benj turned abruptly right and the room revealed Aldrex' wife, propped up in a biobed, the arch now down and her golden hair in tangles all around her shoulders. She was tutting and tugging at the matt with a brush but having little success. "It was so difficult in those escape shuttles. Even keeping you laying down was a difficult task. We didn't manage to keep your hair nice but it'll be better once you can shower and wash it out." Opal was trying to soothe the woman in the bed who didn't seem to even notice anyone enter.

Benj stood aside to let Cade approach and on seeing the XO, Opal let go of the other end of the hairbrush and also stood aside.

As the doctors all seemed to part like water in front of a powerful wind, Amia looked up to see what had seemingly frightened them all off. She saw a tall man with dark hair and even darker eyes that confused her. She felt like she should know them but...... He was breathtakingly handsome with beautiful markings that wove a pattern up either side of his neck, around his ears and up each temple and she was instantly interested, just as she had been the first time they had met - although she had no recollection of that so she felt she was living it for the first time. Her breathing increased and she felt herself blush.

~WOW!~ she thought and worked harder with the hairbrush but something was wrong. He looked upset. The other medics had tried to tell her who she was but their stories made no sense and she had argued with them. Now here was an avenging Angel coming to tell her off for whatever she must have done wrong. It was all very confusing.

"Look, I'm sorry. I don't even know what happened but I expect I did do whatever it was and I obviously shouldn't have and.... well, I'm sorry anyway." she tried to head off that stunning storm-cloud that was seemingly building behind those heavenly eyes. His frown melted any attempts she might have wanted to make to reason with him the way she'd been trying to with the others. This one was out of her league and she wasn't giving him ANY jip. She deflated and lowered her eyes much to the surprise of the staff around the room.

Aldrex sat next to her on the biobed, propping himself up on the edge. He laid his hand gently on her cheek. Her eyes came back up to his, just as lovely as they been the last time he saw her. It had been earlier that morning. He gave her a kiss at the front door and wished her a good day at work. But something was different. Something was wrong. "Amia, what happened?"

"Who's Amia? Is that my name?" she asked quietly this time. She had lost the argumentative denial she'd shown the others earlier. Pain filled her eyes as the fear she'd been denying began to take hold.

"Are you..... my friend?" she asked, tears beginning to well in her eyes. She really needed a friend right now but all these people who had been saying they were her friends and her colleagues - she couldn't remember any of them. It was like being in a room full of strangers, only worse because unlike strangers, they all had expectations of her. Expectations and possibly even needs of her but she couldn't help them.... she couldn't even help herself.

She needed a friend she could recognise. A friend who could make her feel like she wasn't alone in the whole dark universe and one who could fix this for her so it would all feel ..... warm and real again..... well at least she remembered that warm and real felt different to this, even if she wasn't sure what it was.

She felt the gentle touch of the man's hand against her cheek. The hand of that gorgeous man sitting on her bed looking at her. She felt something as she looked back up into his eyes but she was still swimming in a kind of fog and it was very frightening. Reaching up, her fingers took hold of his and she held on. Gently at first but then tighter. "Please. Don't let me get lost...." she whispered. Something inside her told her she could trust him, whoever he was. Perhaps it was a reaction to how much she would like that to be the case, but then again, the way he was looking at her, IF she was the luckiest woman alive, perhaps it might be something she was remembering?

"No, of course not," he answered, still perplexed by her behavior. "You're not lost. Everyone here cares about you." Any minute now he expected her to snap out of it, but the minutes ticked by and nothing changed. Then something awful occurred to him. What if she stays like this?

He took both her hands in his and grasped them tightly. "Do you know who I am? Do you know my name?" He looked deeply into her eyes for any encouraging sign.

She SO wanted to please him, to respond to the anguish in his beautiful eyes. Tears pricked her own eyes as she broke their eye contact and looked down at his hands holding hers tightly.

"I'm sorry. I wish I did. I can tell that I *should*, right?" she was lost. There was nothing he could say that would change that fact. She was SO lost. Her head shook sadly from side to side and her head pounded. "What happened to me? My head feels like it exploded."

Benj moved closer. "You were involved in an accident Amia. A frightened civilian pulled out a phaser in the chaos of the evacuation. You were so brave and you tried to disarm him. He shot you, but I don't think he meant to. We have his under sedation because he was so upset at what he'd done. You hit your head on the decking as you fell..... after he stunned you. I tried to get there in time to catch you but you were down before I could fight my way through the crowd."

He was trying to be helpful by telling her what she had asked but by now the ACMO could tell from her ever deepening frown of confusion and the slump of her shoulders that she wasn't understanding.

"Where were we evacuating from?" Amia asked quietly and a little vaguely.

"Where from?" It seemed an odd angle to come at the whole story he'd just told her.

"Yes, did we get here...... after we left somewhere else?" It sounded a reasonable question to her.

"No..... we were always here... we just evacuated for a while and now we're back....." Benj was now the one with the confused frown dipping his brows.

"What planet is this? Have I always lived here? Was I born in this solar system?" Amia was surprised that she knew about stars and solar systems if she couldn't remember details like who she was but then that was the case with amnesia. Did she have anmia... amseenia.... what was that word... how had she just known it. Am I a doctor?" she put that together from the fact that the staff around her had been trying to convince her she was one of them and there had been that split second of something that sounded medical in her head just then, even though it had gone now.

Benj grasped his hair in angst. He looked around for something that would assist her get her memory back. "This HAS to be temporary." he thought out loud.

"It often is." she said with conviction and then wondered where that had come from. She saw the hope in all their eyes as she said that with such confidence and she felt crushed to know that she couldn't hold onto it and keep it. It flew away from her concentration like a startled butterfly. The fog in her mind swirled and she shivered. "Is it cold?" she breathed quietly and sadly.

"Get her another blanket," Aldrex said to an attendant. The man instantly went to find one. Then to his wife he said, "Amia, listen to me." His eyes locked on hers. "My name is Caden. I'm your husband, and I love you more than I love my own life. That's fact number one. The other facts are that you're the Chief Medical Officer of a space station called Deep Space Five. That's where we are right now." He motioned to the small crowd standing around her bed. "These are your colleagues. They're going to help you through this."

Some of the people assembled smiled and nodded. They understood that Aldrex was trying to get a positive vibe going.

"Don't despair, okay? Everything is going to be alright. I want you to rest and don't worry about remembering. That will come back in its own time. All this," he nodded to the other patients being treated, "has happened because we've somehow gotten caught up in someone else's war. We're working to put a stop to them."

"How did I manage to get someone as gorgeous as you to marry me?" she whispered, still gripping his hands. "Thank you." she added at a normal volume and then looked around directing her words to all the people around her. "Thank you all!"

The blanket arrived and was wrapped around her but actually, it wasn't long before she realised she wasn't cold after all. ~shock~ she thought, her mind confirming that she was indeed someone medically trained.

"CMO?" she whispered to Caden. "Really?" It seemed a lot to take in, a lot to have been but even more to have suddenly forgotten.

"Yeah, CMO. You're the one in charge here, but I don't think anyone will mind if you take a couple days off," he quipped. He leaned in and kissed her on the cheek. "I'll tell Captain t'Vaurek what's happened to you. She needs me back at my post. But I'll check in on you as often as I can, okay?"

"I understand. Thank you." she said quietly. She didn't understand. She didn't understand what was happening to her, she didn't understand why he had to leave her. She felt instinctively that she could trust him and he had said that he loved her which was another wonderful feeling but the panic that threatened to engulf her when he said he was going to leave, left her back where she had started. Numb. Afraid. Alone.

Aldrex stood and turned to Amoran. "You're in command of sickbay, Doctor. What's your status down here? Do you need anything?"

"We're coping better here than we were on the shuttles. We have plenty of supplies and our staff are all back together where we can utilise them as a team. I think we're okay right now Sir, thank you." Benj replied, standing respectfully to attention as the XO addressed him. ~In charge of Sickbay! That was both scary and elating at the same time. He looked across at his mentor without realising at first that the pride he was hoping to see from her wasn't going to happen as she was sitting there, squinting at him as she tried desperately to remember who he was. He was so sad for her. There seemed all the more irony and pathos in her lost look when he compared it mentally to the strong, calm, unshakable leader figure that he was used to.

Amia slid down under the blanket and buried her head so the lights weren't so bright and the eyes that were all watching her with pity were out of sight.

Opal waited for the XO to leave and the ACMO to move off about his work and she moved back to Amia's bedside. Amia peered out from under the covers and looked up at the Medic with the quizzical look on her face. The woman's apparent confusion made Amia sit up. "This isn't who I am is it?" she asked a little sheepishly like someone who'd just been told off for disappointing behaviour.

"Isn't it?" Opal replied with a strange look on her face. "How do you know?"

"I don't know. That's the thing. Only I don't think it can be. How would I get someone as kind and patient as Caden..... was that what he said his name was?.... to marry me? And how would I get to be Chief of anything, let alone a whole department?" She reasoned.

Opal's lips began to curl up at the corners slightly. "If you were a quitter you mean?" she knew what was happening here.

"Yes. If I were..... If I had been.... a quitter. What's happening to me is scary but it's not going to get any less scary under a blanket, is it? I'm supposed to rest but nothing's going to jog back into place if I just stay in bed and have a pity party." She tried to get up.

"Okay...okAY... no heroics either. You have a concussion and you need to spend the night quietly. TOMORROW you can get up and go out there looking for your old self but for tonight I'll get us some hot chocolate and we can have a girls' night swapping stories about the good old days... oh wait, you can't remember, so I'll have to do ALL the talking for a change?!!?" she winked at Amia and grinned as she went off to get the warm drinks.

Amia smiled back. "So THAT's how it is?" she called after the retreating back of the medic with the jaunty sashay and the bright sparkling eyes. "I don't think I liked you very much!" Amia joked, knowing the other woman could still hear her and, judging by the good natured, one fingered gesture that rounded the corner ahead, she had found a thread, just a thin one, but some "breadcrumbs" on the path back.

~Tomorrow then.~ she agreed silently with Opal's plan. ~Take cover universe, you don't have long to make good your escape before Amia.... what an odd name.... is going to be back and then the Spirits help you all!~ She frowned and thought for a minute. ~What spirits?~

"Hey Thingy...." she deliberately pretended to have already re-forgotten the name of the medic she had liked. She knew she'd been told it was Opal but she was comfortable in the relationship of banter with this one so she maintained it. "Which Spirits?"

"Thingy? You talking to me Fishface?" Opal replied, her smirk widening as she too was following the metaphoric "breadcrumbs".

"Yeah, you have a problem with that?" Amia pretended to be threatening.

"A problem? With a quitter like you?" Opal had a sharp retort waiting, softened only with a cheeky grin.

"I'll give you Quitter.... tomorrow we'll see who's the first to quit, won't we!! You just bring it on, if you think you're hard enough!" Amia actually laughed. She hadn't felt like any form of laughter since she had come round earlier today but there was something about Opal that she really liked and felt she had been connected to before. And then there was that gorgeous "Caden". If HE was in the present and the future, who cared if she'd lost her past?

Opal plonked the drink down on the bedside ledge. "You want to drink this or wear it?" she grinned back and sat on the edge of the bed.

"Who invited you to sit on MY bed? SURELY the CMO around here doesn't allow sitting on beds?? Well, from tomorrow, I'm going to see that a new rules is brought ....." Amia was getting into the swing of this now.

"Oh just drink up and shut up for a while. I liked it better when you were unconscious! At least you were quiet for a few minutes for a nice change!" Opal said, laughing as well.

"So, come on then.... you were excited about having the stage to yourself a minute ago... get on with telling me all about who I used to be before I realised that I don't like you!" Amia countered and settled back with her drink, ready to hear lots about herself and see if anything helped her remember something important.

Out in the corridor, Aldrex walked with a purpose, chin up and shoulders back. He nodded to a pair of crewmen going the other way. He came to the turbolift. The doors opened for him and he stepped in. "Ops," he said. The doors closed and the lift moved.

Now, with no one watching him, he slumped back against the wall of the turbolift and hung his head.


[tbc........]


Lt. Cmdr. Caden Aldrex
XO

and

Lt Cmdr Amia Telamon
CMO

and

Lt Amoran, Benj
ACMO (Npc - Jools)

and

Ensign Opal Oliver
Medical Officer
(Npc - Jools)

 

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