In A Broken Dream, Part Two

Posted on Tue Oct 6, 2015 @ 3:08am by Civilian 'Key Holder' Yolanthe Ibalin & Commander Amia Telamon M.D.

2,178 words; about a 11 minute read

Mission: Fallout
Location: Promenade
Timeline: MD04 1230

::ON::

Yolanthe steered Amia out of sick bay after the doctor had promised to call them when he'd finished analysing whatever the medicine Tianys Dalav'ni had given her actually was. Then she took the doctor to the Box of Delights the long way, starting at the bottom of the Promenade, and pointing out various attraction as they worked higher, hoping to shake loose some more of the doctors missing memories.

The promenade itself was not in great condition. Moving the station the day before had cuased an awful lot of damage to the structure. There were partial deck collapses on all floors, railings were missing, carts and art installations had been flattened. Starfleet workers and civilian contractors alike swarmed around the wreckage, doing their best to repair the place, and if not, at least make it safe.

After they'd passed a variety of bars, dress shops, the Vulcan tea room, they stopped outside the biggest one on the promenade, taking up multiple units at the point where one of the walkways from the core met the actual promenades of the Promenade. "My humble establishment," Yolanthe gave a mock bow. The main entrance was at least ten meters across, and completely open to reveal chairs, tables, dabo wheels, a small stage, and the wave shaped bar that divided the whole thing, as well as the two mezzanines above it.

"Wow!" Amia took in a breath. "Humble? This place is.... it's ......" somewhere, as if in another time or space.... some stirrings began to flash across the horizon of her mind's picture.

Oddly, the flashbacks didn't seem to be of this place but of Cade. Cade in another place. Her mind told her it was a ship but that was ridiculous, surely. "Do I recall you telling me I used to come here and go into your holosuite with the Commander.... the one that's my husband..... my boy as you called him? Was the program we used one that depicted a starship? One that he would pilot.... one that .. she was getting confused now.... did he pilot the starship itself, or a smaller ship.... like a Captain's Yacht.... or was it a bucket of bolts filled with juniors.... or..... " she grunted as if in pain and grasped the sides of her hair just above her temples. It didn't help but the pain seemed to distract her from the flashing slide-show effect of the images.

"I ..... I .......... don't...... " she reached for the back of a nearby chair to steady herself. " I shouldn't have come............" she managed to finally get out, going pale and clammy as if she was about to black out again.

Yolanthe reached out to steady her, and a nearby waiter, a very handsome young man with long dark hair, hurried over to pull out a chair. "Breathe," Yolanthe insisted, signalling for some water. "How about I take you up and run your program. Let you soak in the atmosphere?"

"You don't understand...... if the program is of those ships.... i don't want to remember..... I....." she choked back this realisation, shocked to realise what she's just said.

The doctor was obviously remembering things, but Yolanthe was a bar tender, not a shrink. She had no idea if she should push it, or let it be. "No, its not, its just a romantic dinner. Come and see."

Amia followed on still trying to work out what it was that she didn't want to remember and what that might mean about her amnesia. Was she blocking her own recovery? If so, why? What had happened? She strained and fought to recall it. As Yolanthe led her upstairs, Amia didn't feel any bad feelings or instinctive concerns so perhaps this particular situation wasn't the problem?

As they got to the *holosuite* Amia felt a warm flashback and saw Cade's face. It made her flush with colour as if embarrassed but the feeling was a good one so far.

Yolanthe told the computer to load "Telamon One," and the blank walls were replaced by the moonlit balcony and the private little cove. "Also, bedroom," Yolanthe opened the doors across the gallery from the balcony, and moonlight bathed an enormous room, filled with a giant fourposter bed that draped in red satin and littered with pillows. "DOes that bring anything back?"

"Erm.... looking at it, I would suggest it SHOULD" Amia seemed surprised and blushed.

It did stir all sorts of memories but they were all in a jumble.

"Yolanthe?" she put out a hand and placed it gently on the forearm of the beautiful Bokkai woman. "Did we know each other well? Did I used to confide in you?" she asked, hope stirring in the idea that perhaps that might have been the case.

"Im a bartender," Yolanthe gave a modest smile. "I am counselor, confessor and co-conspiritor to all who need me." the Doctor had only been in a few times, but the poor woman sounded like she needed to talk, and it wasn't a direct lie...

"You must have a lot of people bending your ears about all sorts!" Amia laughed. "I was only asking because I'm so desperate to know about so many odd things that I half remember. Do you know anyone named 'Haku'?"


"Doesn't ring a bell."

"Oh, well, perhaps it doesn't matter. Not to worry" Amia lightened up her response but she had been certain that this 'Haku' person had been hugely important and she was confused to find that Yolanthe, who appeared to know the universe and his wife, hadn't heard of her.

Amia walked across to the giant bed and touched the beautiful silk curtains softly. A shiver ran down her spine but not an unpleasant one, quite the contrary. The colour returned to her cheeks. It was like she was showing something very private to the public. She had to remind herself there was only Yolanthe and herself in the suite. Even her ears began to burn with heat.

"Is he.... the XO.... my husband..." she corrected herself. She'd been calling Cade "The XO" ever since people had told her about him because she hadn't been able to get her head around the idea that he wasn't a stranger, but here... yes there was something here.

"I think I love him very fiercely..... do i?" she was still looking bewildered but she had some very strong, very emotive memories, thumping metaphorically on the door of her locked mind.

"Well, I don't think you spent four and a half hours in here just eating dinner."

Amia blushed. "Um.. I take your point.... but what I meant was that I seem to be having flashes of pictures in my head of still-scenes, like old photograph things... without the holo part that proper holopics have now.... and the only thing they give me are overprints of an emotion, or maybe more than one."

Her colour stayed high as she realised she was failing to make sense. "I'm sorry, this must be very frustrating for you.... I'm just flailing around really. I remember some things about myself but they're all mixed up. I think I remember Cade but I have the image that he was there when I was a child, which according to the records I've read about me, he can't have been! My history says I was rescued by some Starfleet Officers who found me dying from some meta-radiation effects. I have an image that I always wanted to be 'rescued' as a child because I wanted my dad to come back for my mum and me. He was a Starfleet officer so I kinda had that legend in my head from very young. Yet it's Cade I'm super imposing as the one who came for me when that's not what it says on my record that happened. So I suppose I must have made him that in my own mind. Is that why I married him? Did I see him as the one I'd wanted to come along.....?" The question was rhetoric and unanswerable in her present lost state of mind. Her eyes filled with tears that she'd wanted to cry for a long time but which still wouldn't come, they stung.

She looked up at the tall Bokkai apologetically and shrugged. "I suppose you get to be a life-qualified, hands-on expert at informal psychology, working at you do here. You probably don't have a long-winded medical name for every type or every pattern but I'd lay a very large wager that you've seen it all and know more about it than us so called 'medical experts'.......... even those of us who can remember what we were taught in a classroom somewhere?"

Amia sounded wistful and a little dismissive of her own profession in asking this, but she did have to acknowledge, even silently that the part of herself that she failed to remember did not include the vast store of her professional mind. That added to the frustration of the bit she was struggling to pin back into place because it wouldn't even be possible to be trusted back at work until she was certified as back to some form of 'normal' mental health.

~What was it about a person's personal relationships and sense of where they belonged (or who with) that was considered SO important to how good a doctor they were? Vulcans made perfectly good doctors, some of the best, and they didn't have emotions...... but then was it true that emotions and memories were one and the same? They did seem to be for her at the moment, in the way they were attached, like colours to an image...... ~

Amia continued to wonder but was hesitant to ask as it seemed to her that she was already asking too many vague, philosophical, irrelevancies of this kind, helpful soul who she had no idea how well she even knew personally, let alone whether it was appropriate to bombard the poor woman with all this outpouring when all she was trying to do was to maybe set up a situation that might help jolt back some familiar memories

Yolanthe waved away the flattery of comparing her to an actual mental health professional. "I see a very small subset of moods. If its not celebration or despair, people normally don't talk talk, just pass time. And what you described. If I had someone at the bar talking like that, I'd be pushing them to call you.."

Amia rolled her eyes. "Fat lot of good that would be right now!" she said with a helpless gesture of her hands.

She stood up again. "Thank you so much for showing me this. I don't think it's working but there are some flashes so perhaps it's just going to take a while to do its work."

"Thats okay." Yolanthe called for the door, and it appeared. "And remember, if you want to talk off the record, my bar is always open." She paused. "Well, it isn't. I'm open 11 am to 2 am, and I tend towards the later shifts, but you're always welcome."

"It's been so very good of you to put yourself to all this trouble to try and help. I do really appreciate all you've done, thank you." Amia was genuinely grateful. She began to walk towards the open door of the 'Box' out onto the Promenade.

Almost outside, Amia turned, as if an idea had come to her suddenly.

"Do you happen to know if..... if........ are there any archives about previous CMO's here? About what they used to be like? About the footsteps I'm trying to walk in here.... on this station?" It was perhaps a little random but it seemed like a good straw to be grasping in the bewildering search for whoever Amia was trying to be here before she lost her way.

Yolanthe thought about it. "I don't know about anything formal. But Chelsea was a goof friend of the Captain. The captain may be able to help there. But now isn't a good time."

"I don't really have another time I can leave it until but thank you anyway. You have been a great help. I really appreciate what you've done for me.

"Its nothing. Enlightened self-interest. After all, How can I get you to spend time in my holo-suites if you and your boy aren't... you know." She gave Amia a wicked grin, and her skin and hair went shades of sky blue.

Amia blushed. "Yes I can see how that would be a problem!" she murmoured. "Thanks anyway though." Sadly she turned and walked thoughtfully back out onto the Promenade. She stood for a while at the balcony and looked up at the stars and then down on the levels below, green of the lowe level gardens peeping out like a tiered hanging basket below her.

Neither of them offered her any advice or assistance so she meandered back along the corridors until she got back to Sickbay.



A JP between:



Lt Cmdr Amia Telamon
CMO - DS5

and


Yolanthe Ibalin
Owner, The Box of Delights

 

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