The Start Of Some Sort Of Treatment

Posted on Sat Jan 18th, 2020 @ 7:46pm by Lieutenant Alexis Aenera

Mission: Dead Moon
Location: Counselor's Office

Alexis paused outside of the counselor's office as she always did whenever she'd had an appointment with ANY counselor, but especially in the last three years, ever since the survivors from the Rhea had gotten back to the Federation at large. Then she'd been seen by several counselors, all which had been cleared for the Event and part of the specialist unit for trauma events. Five counselors knew her part of the whole story from her own words, and perhaps there'd be a sixth now? She'd done a little research on Lieutenant Tavis Styvek and noted that he was also one of that breed of counselors as well, and a Vulcan. One of the others had been a Vulcan as well, very cold and his advice had been basically to just get over it.

Of course, if this one said the same thing, then she could just ignore HIM too. The Commander had told her that whenever she told her story, it gave it and the 'people' that did those things to her less of a hold on her. She wasn't sure if that were true, but maybe. She pressed the chime, then straightened her uniform tunic to lie flat to the pleats of her skirt and sensible flats to await the word to enter.

Tavis looked up from his Padd, his calendar indicated his first appointment of the day with a Lieutenant Aenera, he hoped she would be punctual, he could not stand tardiness, before finishing the train of thought the notification chime rang, “Enter please,” the Vulcan said almost monotone as he stood and walked to the chairs in the center of the room.

The room had a desk with bookshelves behind it resembling a formal office, the center of the room however was different. There were a pair of oversized chairs centered over an oriental rug. Between the chairs was an ornate coffee table hand carved with the sunrise over the mountains on Vulcan. The room was more decorated than he normally would have done, but it was to help put his patients at ease with a more comfortable environment.

Watching the Lieutenant enter he asked, ”Lieutenant Aenera, I presume. please have a seat, may I get you something drink before we begin?”

Monotone, the voice had to be monotone. Alexis glanced around non-chalantly to get a basic feel for the counselor, knowing that it would be judging the book by the cover. "That would be me, indeed." She said as cheerily as she could manage, smiling brightly at him as she made her way to where he obviously intended the session to be, "But perhaps just a glass of water? I'm not much into coffee and I think it would be a bit early for any of the hard stuff, don'tcha think?"

Tavis glances at the officer, “Normally I would say it is early but I have found that libations, at time does loosen the tongue. Do you think that’s what it will take for you to get through our sessions? I can bend a few rules for medicinal purposes, nothing heavy mind you.”

"Iiiiit was a joke." Alexis shifted in the comfortable chair, then waved it away, "Truth be told, I think if I've not come to some sort of terms with the whole situation after this long, I shouldn't be where I am right now and besides, I've gotten rather quite used to counselors over the years. I'd warn you about empathic blowback, but you're not Betazoid and while I know Vulcans are touch-telepaths, if you pick up some strong emotional outbursts from anything, I do apologize in advance."

Styveck nodded before continuing,”To begin I’d like to ask two questions, just to begin our discussion.” The Counselor had learned through several years of experience that his patients did not always reveal what was bothering them right away. The first session or two was designed to build trust. His approach was different than most counselors, he was intrigued by the emotions especially since he was half human but he did his best to control it.

“Two easy questions just to break the ice. What is your favorite childhood memory and what did you hope to get from joining Starfleet?” He hoped that by grounding themselves in something happy then looking forward would help revitalize their focus on the job at hand and any future goals.

Lexi suppressed a sigh, her smile gradually failing to something a bit more set than she liked, but it was still a smile. Yes, new counselor wanted to get to know her better, to be able to give better advice or information or something like that, but did they all have to? She could get right to the point if she needed to, it wasn't as traumatic as it used to be. But, if this was how he wanted to do it, well, why not? It wasn't like she wasn't going to have to work with him for the next however long.

"Let's see, there are a lot of good childhood memories, none of them really stand out overall, if I were to be honest about it. Maaaaybe that time when when my brother stepped in between me and this boy that was rather cute, but was being an asshole and pushing waay too quick." Mischief at the memory flicked through her eyes, "Didn't end up as much anyways, but still, having a protective brother never was a bad thing." She sighed, "But I'm afraid my answer to your second question is going to be rather disappointing. Maybe some adventure, see new places, meet interesting people, learn some new things. Oh sure, that means there's danger, but there's always danger no matter what you do, but still, pretty safe, reasonably so at least." She shrugged.

Styveck took a couple of notes and continued, "I understand you may be repeating something you discussed with a previous counselor, but I appreciate your patience. Would you please walk me through what is bothering you the most about the incident?"

"By 'the incident', I presume you're talking about the Rhea Event?" Alexis asked, but continued on under the assumption that it was precisely what Styveck was talking about, because after all, that was the only REAL situation that she'd had that would require counselling. "Before I answer that question, I do have a question of my own: What do YOU know about the Rhea Event? I only ask because depending on the answer, you might need to hear at least the short version before I can explain what bothers me most." She smiled slightly as she leaned forward in her chair.

"As a counselor I am not privy to the security clearance required for the detailed reports from the Rhea Event. I am however familiar with the declassified report that was sent to all Chief Counselors with advice on how to council someone who has survived this sort of traumatic event," Styveck replied honestly.

Alexis couldn't hold the snort of laughter that came to her, but covered her mouth as she did so, controlling herself after a few seconds, "So you have the Official Report on the Rhea Event." her voice capitalized the noun and she shook her head while stating the obvious, "And I'm sure you're prepared for someone who lost a lot of crewmates in a static temporal decay event. The problem is that the Official Report isn't quite entirely accurate. It explains the loss of the crew, but not the way it actually happened."

She wiggled back until she was fully back in the chair and crossed her left leg over her right, "I happen to know that you're going to be able to be cleared for the actual report, especially since you're going to be the counselor for one of the survivors, plus your background. Or, if you want, you can get the direct story straight from me and then read the report. It's not pretty, but I've come to terms with it as best I can."

Styveck raised an eyebrow, "I fail to see the humor in the situation over the differences between the report and the events. The most logical reason is the clouding of emotions and an inability to separate the two. I would however prefer to hear your version of the Rhea Event, since you brought the matter up."

"We'll have to set up several more sessions in order to discuss the entirety of the Rhea Event then." Alexis said soberly, then quirked a slight smile, "But the humor is in how vast the differences are. The declassified report says that the survivors have reported hearing voices and experiencing realistic hallucinations. Of the thirty-six survivors, thirteen of us are medically retired due to psychological reasons, three are still in the Fleet Psychiatric Hospital even now, with two of them not expected to recover sufficiently to ever be released, the remaining twenty on active service duty, with fifteen permanently assigned to starbases or planetary assignments."

She took a deep breath and closed her eyes, "My emotions aren't clouded about what happened, neither are my memories. I remember everything. The question I have for you, counselor, is how much detail you want me to go into? How deep do you want to go into the rabbit hole?" Her eyes opened and met his.

"Lieutenant Aenera, I do understand that you have suffered and alot of it has not been declassified. As far as I am concerned you can tell me as much or as little as you please. My role is to help provide you sound advice and to assist you with dealing with the aftermath of traumatic events. I may be half Vulcan but I am not telepathic. I cannot assist you until you begin to share with me your thoughts and struggles."

"Oh, it's not dealing with the aftermath I have a problem with, not yet at least." Alexis shrugged, "And I have no problem telling you what happened in all the details. The Powers That Be made it a condition of returning to duty to have someone on hand know as much as possible just to make sure I have a support system in case I have some recessive memories that cause a 'bad' reaction." She crossed her right leg over her left, "So I suppose I should start, then, with Rhea and our mission: To start investigating the backlog of spatial anomalies within Federation space that hadn't been classified."

“If you wish Lieutenant, I can do a review of the reports that you suggested before our next meeting.. I would not want to waste your time and I feel in your case that I may require the extra knowledge. If you wish to continue we can or we can schedule after I have completed the necessary research. In this case the decision is yours,” Styveck explained.

"Actually, I'm not sure it is." Lexi said musingly, "Would it help you more if you heard it from me without prior knowledge? Or would you yourself prefer to review the entire event's records first to familiarize yourself with it? Or, a third option, would you prefer the highlights of the Event for the background before you hear the individual account from me, so that you're familiar with the event's timeline without being able to bias yourself one way or the other? Not that I think you'd be biased in any way, shape or form, that's just how another counselor once pointed it out to me."

“Please give me the highlights at our next meeting as we are nearly out of time for this session,” Styveck asked.

"And I'll have the the reports in your hands within the hour." Alexis nodded and smiled slightly as she began to stand, "With your permission?"

Styveck nodded, "Please give them to my Yeomen and have her schedule your appointment as well, Thank You."


OFF:


Lieutenant Styveck
Chief Counselor
USS Astraea

Lieutenant Alexis Aenera
Chief Science Officer
USS Astraea