Spilling The Beans

Posted on Sat Dec 30, 2017 @ 6:25pm by Commander Amia Telamon M.D. & Captain Maritza Soran
Edited on on Sun Dec 31, 2017 @ 2:42am

2,141 words; about a 11 minute read

Mission: Rumours
Location: Sickbay
Timeline: MD 08 1200

::ON::

Commander Soran walked through the doors to sickbay, and to the reception, where she asked for Dr telamon. She wanted to make the point that all the senior staff had to do this. Including her.

She was shown towards one of the consulting rooms, whilst Amia was summoned. She sat down, crossing her legs neatly, and turning to her padd which held the now never ending stream of reports and memos and briefings she had to get through.

Amia arrived as fast as an overweight whale could, and puffed a little as she first spoke. "Captain, thank you for coming in so promptly and setting the rest of them to shame!" she joked with a broad smile. She might be worried and missing Cade but there was no reason to make everyone else's lives sad too.

"I'm not sure whether you're ready to be called Captain yet?" she asked as she ran her medcorder over Soran to start the scans and base readings.

"I'm not a captain yet," Maritza said. "Promotion is pending." She stared at the wall for a moment. "How are you feeling, all things considered?"

"I'm sure it's in the pipeline. Just a matter of time." Amia said as she scrolled off some readings and assessed what she was seeing a little absently.

"I'm good thanks" she lied. Her pregnancy was getting harder but even that was another of those 'matter of time' things and would soon be all sorted again. She couldn't wait to have this all over with and the baby safely delivered, Spirits willing.

Soran wasn't sure if she believed her, but it was a matter for the counsellor. If Amia didn't want to talk to her, then she would most likely talk to Dr Bennet, or Mr Reynolds. "How long now before you are due?" Whether Amia would stay or not, she would need time off for the birth. She would need rest and time to bond with the new arrival.

"I'm an unknown Commander. If I were pure BaKu I'd carry for only five months - which on that planet is equivalent to eight months anywhere else. If I were 100% human I'd carry for nine so as a half and half hybrid, I've split the difference and calculate seven. However, as you know, Trill babies come to term in six months so I may have to shorten the prediction down a little more. Having said that, if not in multiphasic gravity my BaKu half may not function the same, so that might lengthen the term out again a bit. There has never been a hybrid combination like my baby's before on any medical databases that I have access to. It's guess work basically." she explained.

Maritza frowned. She didn't like guesses or not knowing. "So you don't know? Will you get much warning?" Trill labours were short and sharp. Almost too fast. Maritza's mother had gone into labour just after 8am and had Maritza by quarter to nine. Trill babies didn't hang about. Amia could go from pregnant to post-natal in less than thirty minutes if the baby leaned heavily on its trill side.

"I'm afraid I don't know that either. If I were 100% one species and the baby was 100% the same on both sides, I might still carry differently to any other mother like me, even my own perhaps. It's not a clear science." Amia shook her head sadly. "I guess I'll know when it starts happening although to be sensible, keeping an eye on the foetal development with scans should give me an idea which markers have been passed and any lack of movement down into the birth position could give clues on the negative side to say she's not getting ready yet. Other than that, she's in charge and we're here to wait until she makes her move."

Maritza wasn't sure she was comfortable with that. She'd want to know exactly when. But she was sure Amia knew best about her own pregnancy. "Command said you were planning to follow Commander Aldrex." She took a deep breath. "I want to ask you to stay. For as long as you can." The last thing she needed was to lose another senior member of staff. T'vaurek, Aldrex, Locke.

Amia was surprised from two angles to hear that from Maritza. Firstly what had been being said about her by Command and secondly that Soran was asking her to stay which was very flattering and actually moved her. Perhaps it was her pregnancy hormones making her soft but it meant a lot to Amia to hear that. She started with that of the two surprises, when she replied and the two rolled into one another as she spoke.

"Commander! I am deeply flattered that you would ask that of me. As it happens, I wasn't going to follow Cade, unless there is a funeral to go to and even then, if it's too soon, I'm a bit more of a beached whale than just with my ballooning size." she wrapped her hands around her expanded stomach and baby subconsciously as she talked of her.

"I don't know what Command have said but Cade's dad has been taken seriously ill. He had a Sudden Cardiac Arrest and is on life support but is in a coma at present. He doesn't seem to know anyone is with him but obviously Cade's Mum is beside herself. The Doctors there don't know if his brain can heal enough for him to revive and if so, what kind of recovery/restrictions he'll be left with but for now, they all just have to wait and see. Even in this advanced Century, this is an 'electrical fuse blowing' problem that happens with little warning and catastrophic results for the patient.

Even with all that we know these days, we can't just go in and operate to take away the part of his brain that is affected; we can't just 'regenerate' brain tissue and expect it to work with the same personality inside by replicating the tissue and hoping it'll reconnect the way it used to.

He has to heal the old fashioned way, if he can at all. If he can't then Cade will still need to support his mum and his baby sisters through this but I'm not in any fit state to get into a succession of transporters to get to across the Quadrant to be with them and we decided not to risk that. Nor can I travel that far by the 'scenic route' in a succession of starships or freighters or passenger flights as it would take so many weeks that I might be dropping this little baby girl en route! So, I'm staying. I have to."

She drew in a wobbly breath, the emotion of all this catching her in a bit of a tremble. She steadied her voice and her breathing briefly before finishing.

"I can't do anything there that the best doctors on Trill Prime couldn't already provide and Cade's Dad wouldn't want his first grand-daughter put at risk, we know that much. So as I can't do anything to help the Telamons by going there, then I'm very happy to have it confirmed that I can still do some good here. At least I don't have to worry that I'd be a burden here too." Amia finished swallowing hard. This was clearly weighing on her.

"Far from it." Soran assured her. "We need some sort of continuity. Given the night I've just had, I am half expecting to have Reynolds' resignation and Ryan requesting a leave of absence waiting on my desk when we're done here."

"I don't like the sound of either of those ideas, myself." Amia rolled her eyes. "I hope that half is a very small half."

"With Ryan, yes. Reynolds? Who knows. According to your husband he refused to acknowledge he'd done anything wrong when I had to put him forward on the disciplinary a few weeks ago. And I find the fact he both tried to protect a sexual predator from prosecution, then defended and excused statutory sexual assault, on a school girl no less, absolutely unconscionable. He doesn't like me, and makes no secret of it. I'll be more surprised if he stays, quite frankly."

Maritza pinched the bridge of her nose. Reynolds was going to be an issue, one she could sore afford right now when what was needed more than anything was a united front against the Cardassians, the Romulans and the 'Humans First' brigade.

Amia was shocked. "Protect a sexual predator? Liam?" She stopped what she was doing and stood, horrified at the idea, lost for words.

"Are you aware of what happened between Aleczandra Ryan and the Ferengi attache, Nazl?" Soran expected that she did, she was Aleczandra's doctor, but she wasn't going to discuss details if Amia didn't already know them.

"I know a lot about Zandy, but not the whole picture. I don't think anyone has the full story, not even the girl herself, although perhaps her Symbiont does?" Amia answered carefully but honestly.

"Symbiont?" Soran's jaw dropped. How would the girl have a symbiont? She was only half trill and the symbiosis committee would never have approved it. And then she realised. Her mother's symbiont hadn't died with her. "She has the symbiont Naqiis?"

"You didn't know? Cade must have said.... surely he would have had to....?" Amia was shocked and horrified. What had she said? She had been so sure! "Cade said he spoke to you.... to the person in charge... to... Oh Feck.... there goes my patient/doctor confidentiality. I'll have to tell her I can't be her doctor any more. Caleb will kill me.... well, she tried to, why shouldn't her dad have a shot....Light this is SUCH a mess." she put her head into her hands and shook it. "I'm so sorry!" she muttered.

And suddenly it all fell into place. Why they were all so testy about dealing with the assault, about making a fuss. The first thing that would happen is the Symbiosis Commission would demand the girl be handed over, and then she would be assaulted in another fashion as the last link to her mother was forcibly ripped out and she would spend the rest of her natural life on drugs to prevent her dying of the loss physically, probably whilst she died psychologically instead.

Not on her watch. The Symbiosis Committee could kiss her arse. "Does the Symbiosis Committee know?"

Amia was astonished and horrified at once. She was too senior to make such a mistake.

~Was it 'baby-brain' - an alleged condition affecting pregnant women that made them temporarily lose several points off their IQ, the further into their term they got? Surely that was a myth? Well, if this was anything to go by then perhaps it was true?~ she wondered in the split seconds that passed before she answered Moran.

Collecting her thoughts again and thinking through what Cade had said, Amia looked up and met Maritza's eyes.

"Cade said he had 'spoken to the person in charge' - I took that to mean yourself Commander." she said candidly. "If he didn't mean you then perhaps he must have meant the Symbiosis Committee I imagine. I can't think who else would qualify for 'the person in charge', I am almost sure those were his exact words, otherwise how else could I have got the idea that he meant you?"

"If he had spoken to the symbiosis committee, they'd have been here weeks ago." Maritza knew. "They'd be having collective coronaries at the thought of one of their precious slugs in some 'unworthy' half breed." She watched Amia as the doctor moved the tricorder sensor around her head. "I'm no fan of the symbiosis committee, Doctor. Quite famously so, if I say so myself. If they find out, it won't be from me."

"But who could he have meant if not them and if not you?" Amia asked, genuinely bemused.

"He's your husband," Soran shrugged. "You're best off asking him. Most likely he meant Captian t'Vaurek. So, Doctor, do I pass?"

"I will speak to him when we have our next vid-call, I suppose you might be right... perhaps he did mean Isha?" she shook her head as if to dislodge something that was clogging up her progress. "Oh, sorry. Yes. I'm just closing off the medical record and here's your data-rod with your clearance. You're fit and well enough to go back to work, Ma'am!" Amia's worried frown lifted and she smiled again, happy to have completed a successful test. She handed the data-rod to Maritza and beamed at her.

::OFF::


A JP between:

Cmdr Amia Telamon
CMO - DS5

and

Commander Maritza Soran
Commanding Officer
DS5

 

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