[JP] Commander Valen Carys & Mikali sh'Shar - Discovering New Oceans (Part II)
Quinn Reynolds
((Counselling Suite, Iana Station))
Mikali was quiet for a moment, antenna drooping, her gaze sinking down to the floor.
sh'Shar: I have two answers, and I think the truth lies somewhere in between. One... I push people away with my negative behaviours, and it doesn't seem like I'm the kind of person that would go out of my way to be kind to others, so I get no kindness in return. If it's more that, that's good, because it might be fixable in the long term. With... with your help.
Valen: And the other?
Mikali's antenna sank a little lower.
sh'Shar: The other is that they simply knew me better. That they could see the real me. That back in the day I was as glass, my true self revealed to the world, and they knew. They knew I was poison. To my friends, to my crewmates, to—m-maybe even to Benna. Certainly to her other parents. ::Mumbling,:: Maybe they just knew me better.
Valen: But you believe the truth is somewhere between that.
sh'Shar: Truth be told I don't know what to believe. Maybe it's just wishful thinking. Before all this... ::She tapped her eyepatch.:: recent nonsense, I was sure it was the latter. But after spending weeks in bed with nothing to do but think, and with a lot of old memories fresh in my mind, I... I don't know anymore. What do you think?
Many things. Some of which were helpful, others were not. Carys considered her response; what her formal education said, what her clinical experience told her, and distilled it down into the plain language of a response. And as with so many things, particularly when it came to the discrete universe that was an individual, there wasn't a simple answer.
Valen: I think the truth is complicated. ::She offered the woman a slight smile.:: A combination of who you are, how you've treated people, and the realities of life in Starfleet.
Mikali nodded awkwardly. It was probably true, and there was absolutely the case that Starfleet life interfered with the wants and goals and desires of its fellows.
sh'Shar: I understand. And I agree. ::Straightening her back, Mikali's antenna slowly returned to their normal hover.:: Can you offer any advice regarding how I can feel better about it, or even better, work toward fixing it? After getting sick, I'm feeling quite proactive regarding heading off any other similar incidents before they become an issue. ::She smirked slightly.:: I guess all that rest paid off.
Valen: Well, that depends. What's the specific "it" that you want to fix?
It was hard to explain and she took a moment to gather her thoughts to prevent rambling.
sh'Shar: Sometimes, such as recently with the prosthetic malfunction, I avoid fixing problems even though I know they're problems and I know how to fix them, but the actions required are... ::She wanted to say "unpalatable" or "difficult", but neither of them accurately conveyed how she felt.:: The actions required might make someone think less of me, or hurt a cause I'm working toward. So I just accept all the suffering for myself, try to push through it and I can't, because I have, um, limits and things. And then it's bad. ::She scrunched up her face, trying to convey how she felt.:: For example, I didn't want to go see anyone about the eye because if I took so much time off, so early, it might look bad. Even though I should have gone.
Carys held her tongue, giving Mikali space and time to find a way to communicate what she was feeling and thinking. Often the language people chose was as telling as the meaning, revealing small details about their beliefs and views, digressions a useful insight into their thought processes.
sh'Shar: Sorry, I'm struggling a bit to... ::Her antenna perked up, remembering.:: Actually, I wrote this down! I knew I was going to mess everything up so I wrote it down. Hang on.
She fumbled around in her duffle bag, producing a PADD which was triumphantly turned on. Mikali scrolled through the stored data until she came to a bullet list. She offered it over.
sh'Shar: This is what I was working on during all that time in sickbay. It was kinda my... notes to myself, but I figured you'd be reading them at some point too, so it's kinda to you as well.
Carys shook her head, the silver chains of her earring swinging back and forth. When she'd asked Mikali to keep a journal, she hadn't specifically said it was for her eyes only—but that was the intention. Beyond a respect for privacy, and the intention to help Mikali learn ways to organise and review her inner thoughts, the Bajoran simply didn't have the time to read and review everything her patients wrote between sessions.
Valen: They're yours and they're private; I only read them if you want to show them to me. If you find it's useful, it's a tool you can keep using to organise your thoughts, once you're no longer seeing me.
That... was actually a good idea. Mikali had found that writing things down made them clearer; when she used her words, they tended to come out as a messy jumble. But when dictated to the computer, and then cleaned up manually, they came out much more ordered.
sh'Shar: I definitely will consider that, and it seems like a good idea. Maybe that's just how my brain works. ::Mikali fiddled with the PADD.:: I'm not doing a good job of explaining it, though, and this does much better.
She offered the PADD again, not demandingly, but cautiously. With a small smile, Carys took it, and her brown eyes dropped to the glowing text, reading over the fruits of Mikali's stay in sickbay.
WHAT HAPPENED:
(AKA, "I guess that's why they call it Eye-ana Station, huh?")
• I got sick.
• It was my own fault.
• It won't happen again.
• To elaborate, back in the day, I lost my eye on the Independence-A, piloting the ship through an unstable wormhole full of debris. It was extraordinarily difficult, and it took every ounce of my piloting skill to get us through.
• I'm proud of that moment. Probably my most proud moment. Despite being severely injured, I stayed at my post, I saved the ship and the lives of all the crew. Nobody else onboard could have done what I did.
• I'm proud of my actions that day, and if I had my time over again, I would do it all over again the same way.
• Since then, I've had a prosthetic finger and eye. The finger is normal, I hardly notice it, but the eye's colour range was kinda weird. I got used to it.
• Over the last few years, the eye has been malfunctioning. Since I took the trip to the Tyrellian system, it got a lot worse.
• Finger is fine, by the way.
• I didn't want to go see anyone about the eye because I wanted to have perfect attendance and excellent work performance, and I didn't want to take time off since I was worried about how that might look.
• This was... if you'll forgive me a pun... short sighted. Hah!
• My health is important.
• My career is important.
• There is, to a certain extent, a point where the former has to be sacrificed for the latter; in our work lives, our home lives, our personal lives... we have to sometimes step outside of our comfort zone and endure discomfort, pain, injury, even death.
• Ideally, these circumstances should be minimised if possible. Nobody should die to do the dishes. But given my line of work, they might happen again.
• Good judgement is when the circumstances are evaluated and weighed, where our priorities fit the circumstances, and where if possible one's health is taken care of first, and if not possible, at our earliest convenience. Good judgement is when people are sensible and reasonable, where the cost-benefit ratio of our actions is correctly weighed, and we act accordingly.
• Obviously that didn't happen this time. I didn't use good judgement.
• I promise to use good judgement on my health from now on.
When the Bajoran finished reading the PADD, she leaned back in her chair and took a slow breath. Thoughts tumbled behind her dark gaze, processing what she just read and learned, theorising and planning based on this new information. After a few button presses on both devices, she handed the PADD back to its owner.
Valen: You thought about a lot during your stay. ::She sat back in her chair, hands resting lightly in her lap.:: If you look over that, can you tell me what you feel it is you need to work on?
sh'Shar: So I guess my question is, how can I use "good judgement" on things beyond my health, and in other things in my life? I know it might be a difficult question to answer, and it might be a long-term project, but... I think this would make me a lot happier. Eventually.
She wasn't wrong. The Andorian's history was replete with incidents where she'd exercised poor judgement; rash and impulsive decisions, choices considered with a narrow focus and no regard to the bigger picture, allowing one mistake to deteriorate into a downward spiral. But there was a part of her life Carys didn't know about, a period not in her file and one they hadn't discussed. Knowing what Mikali had done since her discharge—what choices she'd made, how she'd lived her life—was vital to understand how to help her.
Valen: No doubt. Before we tackle that, there's something I'd like to ask you. I know a fair amount about your past before Starfleet and during Starfleet, but I don't really know what you've been doing in the six years since you left the service. Can you talk me through it?
TBC
--
Mikali sh'Shar
Civilian
ReachOut Project
O238704AT0
&
Commander Valen Carys
Anthropologist and Clinical Psychologist
USS Gorkon
T238401QR0