The Beginning Of The Story - Part One

Posted on Sat Mar 1st, 2014 @ 7:08pm by Lieutenant Commander Nicolao & Lieutenant Commander Robin Swift M.D., PhD & Petty Officer 1st Class Drusilla Dupree

Mission: Breaking New Ground
Location: Counselor's Office

* * * Counselor’s Office * * *

“It’s about that time, Robin,” Drusilla called out. She finished up the document she was reading and pressed her panel to file it away. “That’s done. Are you ready for this? I suspect it might be a little rough, based on what he said earlier to me.”

“I’m ready, come what may,” he said. He’d already gone about getting the room ready as he did with all of his patients. “I take it your talk with him went well, or no?”

“It was interesting. And yes you can take that in the weird way. I got a hint of what happened, but he wanted to wait on the full story so you’d be here and asked me to sit in. Then he addressed the friendship angle and seems open to it. Just as long as I don’t touch him.” Dru finished the file she was perusing and put it away before entering Robin’s inner office. “He won’t allow physical contact but…” she hesitated a moment as realization hit home. “He will touch through his thoughts. He can talk in my head as easy as breathing and that is comfortable for him. I’m not so sure how I feel about it.”

Robin smiled thinly. “You get used to it after a while. There are so many species that we have contact with now that can invade our thoughts easily. Most, like Betazoids, have self-imposed rules about just sloshing through someone’s head, but some do not. At least with Nicolao he seems to know when it’s okay and when it isn’t. I hope he does, anyway.”

“It’s eerily intimate, isn’t it? And strange. He’s right about one thing though. It sure conveys exact meaning and avoids misunderstandings that can happen with the spoken word.”

“That it does,” he replied, seating himself. “You never really know how useless words can be until you’ve had a conversation with a telepath in your head. It does take some getting used to, but if you and he are to become friends you will likely get used to it soon enough.” Or completely freak out, he thought to himself.

“I hope.” She stopped as the outer doors opened, and moved out to greet Nico. “Good afternoon. Robin’s ready if you want to come on in.”

Nico stood still, looking back at Dru, then finally nodded. “Might as well.” He moved on past her and into the inner office. “Hello Counselor.”

“Nicolao, welcome back,” he said, standing for his ‘guest’. “Make yourself comfortable and we’ll begin at your pace, okay?”

“Sure.” He waited for Dru to sit, then sat down as well. “I asked Dru to sit in today as this now involves her. She got pulled into it by accident and she deserves some answers. So do you, but it’s coming a little earlier than I’d planned. It won’t solve the issues but at least you’ll know what you have to work with.”

“I’m happy to listen to what you have to say,” Robin replied. “Sometimes outside influences can affect our sessions, hopefully for the better. But there may be part of this explanation that may hold keys to whatever may be going on with you.”

He nodded and reached to the neck of his shirt, slowly opening it to reveal his chest. The upper left section bore a tattoo, several Cardassian symbols. Beneath them was a round scar, roughly 2 inches across. “Does that help?”

Dru’s eyes widened and she pressed her lips together, holding back the gasp that wanted to escape her. She shot a glance to Robin, but remained silent.

“Can you explain those for me, and Dru as well, I assume?”

He closed his shirt and leaned back in his chair. “You may not speak the language, but I assume you recognize it as Cardassian? It’s a prison number. The scar is actually one on top of another where one of their little torture devices was put in, then removed about 6 months ago just before I went to Earth.”

Dru sat as if frozen and as she was here to listen, did not reply. The urge to reach out, touch his arm as some measure of comfort rose in her but she resisted.

Robin didn’t react to what he saw. As a counselor he had been trained not to show emotions as they could adversely affect the patient’s attitude and what they said during the session. He hated it, as he was shaken by what had been done to Nicolao, which he no doubt was picking up on, but he couldn’t show an outward sign of it.

“I have an idea as to where this is going,” Robin finally said, “but since this is your counseling session, would you please indulge me and explain how the tattoos and scar, as well as your time there, correlate to the stone?”

Nico looked from Robin to Dru and murmured, “Thanks.” He rose now and began to pace the office slowly. “It starts with a stint along the DMZ a year ago. We’d had some strange reports of things there and I was one of several sent in. None of us knew who the others were. It was a precaution in case of capture. We were on watch in the Federation colonies. I blended in as a local and took up residence, made friends, kept my eyes open.” He stopped and rubbed his eyes, took a deep breath. “I met a woman there and we grew close, but to her, I was simply someone who’d moved there from one of the other colonies.”

Robin nodded, busily taking notes on his padd. He also recorded each session but he liked to have personal notes in case he needed to revisit something during the session. “I see. Please continue,” he said, not wanting to interrupt too much as the story unfolded.

Nico stopped at the portal, finding it easier to talk when he was faced with the stars and empty space, given that this part of the station had rotated away from Archadia for now. “That’s what I thought. You’d think someone like me would have read the situation better.” His tone was bitter. “One evening, she arrived at my house in a panic, saying she’d seen Cardassians in town, Obsidian Order. When I asked why that should concern me, she informed me that she was one of the Fleet operatives. She said they’d been asking about me, by description, and that I had to hide. I had a closet with a false wall in it and so, went there. It was some time before they arrived, and I could hear them questioning her. And then something odd happened. They addressed her by name.”

The atmosphere in the room had grown a little tense, thanks to Nico revisiting the memories. He continued on, unable to stop the tale now.

“Moments later, the closet opened and my hiding place was revealed. She’d brought them there - a traitor and I’d fallen right into it. She cared nothing for me. I should have known better. There was no escape and they removed me and escorted me finally to Elmspur, which you likely know of by reputation. They tried all their usual tricks of the trade but never got anything useful from me. The drugs they used seemed to do more harm than good on Enaran physiology. Between that and the device, before long I was little more than a rag doll.”

He turned to Dru now, hating the tension in her shoulders, the horror that radiated from her, knowing it was his past that was doing it. “That place you saw? That was all that was left of me. I couldn’t even recall my name, where ai was from...nothing. The weather there was an indicator of how things were going in what was left of me. But there was a voice...a voice that kept calling to me, talking to me, trying to pull me out. It was a tiny old woman in the next cell as it turned out. Three months after I was taken in, I was rescued, and that’s another long story, by my brother who I am told I did not even recognize. He said that as we were leaving, her hand came through the bars and slipped that stone into my pocket.”

The entire story was fairly intense, to hear how someone was betrayed and then abused afterward because of it. But again, Robin’s position kept him from relaying his opinions or emotions on the matter. “Do you know any more about her? Her race or what she may have done to the stone prior to giving it to you?”

Nico shook his head. “No, I’ve never seen anything like her anywhere, and that is saying a lot. As I told Dru, I think it’s just a stone that was used to center me, give me something to focus on and along the way it absorbed a lot of the intense psychic energy.”

Dru nodded, her attention still on Nico. “That would make some sense given that all I saw was what you saw.”

“I described that place to Dru as my own personal brand of insanity. I was locked in there. It was all there was for those three months.” He turned back to Robin finally. According to my brother, it was another three months before I knew who I was or recognized him. He returned me to Enara Prime and my contact there took me to Earth.”

“Did you ever manage to find out anything further on the woman you spoke of earlier? If she had actually been one of your fellow operatives?” Robin asked, more curious about this bit than anything. It made him wonder if she had gotten into some sort of trouble and sold Nicolao out rather than face torture, or if she wasn’t an operative and had found out who he was through other means. Either way, the whole ordeal would be enough to break any being. He knew now that what ailed Nicolao may be harder to repair than he initially thought.

Nico was watching Robin closely and he nodded. “Your second choice. She gave me to them to save her own skin. She never understood how they operate, though. Once they had me, they had no need of her anymore.” He licked his lips for a moment. “I did not mourn the loss.”

“Unfortunate for her,” Robin said. “So, did you notice the effects of the stone immediately? How did that manifest itself?”

“There weren’t any for me really, other than that when the nightmares came, and I was back in that place, it seemed to help me get out, you know?” He shrugged slightly. “I’ve just kept it since as a memento I guess. A worry stone I think humans call it. Eventually the nightmares came less and less while I was on earth. The problem is that the Counselor there began to have them, which is what landed me on your doorstep.”

“I take that to mean that the Counselor there must have handled the stone a few times, then?” Robin prodded, knowing the answer.

Nico shook his head. “No, it was just the Enaran effect I guess.” He glanced to Dru, his expression sympathetic. “Maybe that’s what happened to you too, Dru. It’s the simple explanation.”

Dru considered it, then finally nodded. “Maybe.” It was not all that reassuring.

“Well,” Robin continued, “now that we’ve discovered the history of what all is going on here, would you care to delve into your feelings on the matter? Being sent on this mission, for starters, and not knowing who or if you actually had backup, could be daunting in its own right. Then your betrayal, capture, torture and the nightmare place could be quite a bit to pile onto it.”

He’d hoped that Nicolao would actually begin to discuss his feelings on the topic, maybe trying to sift through it all to get to the crux of the matter. Only then, when he really opened up about it and dealt with it openly and freely, would he begin to find some sort of relief, possibly even closure.

Nico rubbed his eyes and shook his head. “Maybe next time? Or I could show you up close how it felt. You know, cut to the chase.”

That thought gave Robin pause after his dealings with Eli. But he was determined to try and help Nicolao, even if it caused him to have the same nightmares that he and Dru had gone through. “If you think it would benefit you, and my assessment of what is going on, then let’s do it.”

Nico’s eyes widened. He hadn’t really expected the Counselor to venture out onto that limb. He looked to Dru, who shrugged, then turned back to Robin. “Do you keep sedatives in here?”

“I’m a doctor but I don’t have medications here. I just write prescriptions to be filled later at Piper,” Robin replied. “Best I can do is a good soothing tea.”

“Well, if you react badly, I hope I can help. Are you ready?”

“Wouldn’t be the first time an Enaran gave me nightmares,” Robin said, grumbling. “But I’m determined to help you, Nicolao. That being said, yes, I’m ready.”

To be continued...


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Lt. Commander Robin Swift
PO2 Drusilla Dupree
Nicolao