Solis Has Some Explaining To Do

Posted on Tue Jun 16th, 2015 @ 12:55am by Lieutenant Commander Solis & Lieutenant Bajun Julisa

Mission: Further Challenges
Location: Solis & Julisa's Quarters

Out of breath and exhausted, Julisa ran down a corridor lined with iron bars and arms sticking from the bar's, trying to grab her and hold her. She beat them back, but wasn't getting any closer to the end of the corridor. A hand grabbed her, swinging her around and making her fall to the ground....

Only it wasn't the ground she hit. It was a bed and her hand was pinned to the headboard by a knife. She struggled, pulling her hand and the knife free, when suddenly an angry-faced man loomed over her. She scrambled away from him, almost reached the door, but he caught her and slammed her to the floor. His weight pressed on her as they tussled; he grabbed the knife and drove it through her shoulder into the floor under her.

He laughed and left her there. Julisa grabbed at the knife, but couldn't pull it out. She could feel her blood pooling under her, slipping away, taking her life with it. Then Solis was there, screaming, "NO goddammit! Vina...nooooooooo……” Solis, her thought came through sluggishly, faintly. I love you.

Julisa jerked upright, breathing hard, feeling every bit of the anguish Solis had experienced. What the hell had that been? She recognized elements of the dream - she'd lived through having her hand stabbed. But the rest? Solis and Dae had been there just as the man had wrestled her to the floor. Was this her new anxiety dream? What was she anxious about? A headache hit her and she moaned quietly, lying back against her pillows and taking Solis' hand in hers.

“Jules?” He was instantly awake and turned, leaning over her and resting his hand on her forehead. Instantly his mind was deluged with the dream, reliving her death in vivid detail.He heard his own scream echoing in her head and frantically he sifted through the swirling thoughts. Niro had been right but Solis hadn’t thought it would be so soon. Her moan worried him and he tried to reach her. Something was wrong.

“Julisa!” His voice was sharp, desperate. She didn’t seem to hear him and he called her again.

Solis? My head hurts, again. I dreamed about Betazed, but... It's different. She squeezed his hand. Less like a dream. I died.

“Don’t use your telepathy Vina. Too much stress on your mind. How bad is the headache?” He was more worried about that first, then he could address the memory.

She licked her lips and lightly bit her bottom lip, "It's okay. Worse than this afternoon. What the hell did Niro do?" She cracked open an eye and looked at him. "I should find him and kick him for this."

“Only delayed the inevitable,” Solis answered, his voice soft. “He tried to stop it.” He jumped from the bed and pulled his med kit from the closet. With his tricorder he began to scan her and when he saw the readings he frowned. “Jules? Is the headache going?” He wanted to steer her away from the memory but he didn’t have Niro’s ability to manipulate memory. If she returned to it…..the thought made fear blossom within him.

"He tried?" She thought about Niro's visit to her office earlier, how he'd suddenly been right next to her, looking concerned. The headache eased slightly. "It's eased up. He tried to delay the inevitable? What do you mean?" She opened both eyes and looked at Solis. "You look so worried, love."

Solis nodded. “He was trying to help, yes. There’s a...a memory in there that is blocked. It’s causing some problems.” He left it at that for the moment. He was under orders and he didn’t want to break open that dam for fear of its effect on her.

"A memory?" She went looking, knowing it had to do with Betazed, and winced. "Ow." She mentally stepped away from thinking about Betazed. "Apparently thinking about Betazed is a bad thing," she commented. "What if you tell me what happened?"

Solis pursed his lips and shook his head. “I..I can’t. I’m sorry. Orders from high up.” He moved the tricorder around her again, glad she was talking at least. His concern didn’t ease however. The scans showed her neural activity was all over the place, to use one of Earl’s phrases. He set it to continuous monitoring, then checked her pupils.

"You can't tell me? Solis?" She took his hand again and sought their link out. It was easy enough to get into his head and seek out what he was hiding. His tricorder beeped several times. "So Niro attempted to block this memory? It is a memory, not a dream? I died?" Her headache spiked.

“Easy my love, that’s not a good thing to poke at right now.” He was torn as to how to answer her. If he refused to tell her, she’d keep prodding him. If he told her the truth, it could be damaging, here where his tools of the trade were limited.

"Okay, okay. Since certain memories seem to trigger this headache, let's think of other things. And tomorrow, I'll find Niro and make him undo this." She reached up to toy with his hair. "Remember our time on Vesta?"

“He didn’t do this, Vina.” Solis pursed his lips, then reached for her hand. “It just...happened. It was...oh fuck me,” he muttered. There was no way around it and it wasn’t something Niro could fix. “He was trying to keep the memory of what really happened locked away where it was supposed to be.” He looked utterly miserable now.

"What really happened? I recall what really happened. You and Dae burst into the room and killed the guy. You two saved me," she said, her brow furrowing as the memory played in her head. Suddenly, she pushed Solis back and sat up again, her eyes wide. "Ehlana Winter! That's what this is, isn't it? She... Temporal Affairs! By the Prophets! She changed the outcome, didn't she?"

Slowly, Solis nodded. “Yes.” His voice was desolate as he answered her. “You died in my arms and then...I lost my mind. Dae kept me from….” He swallowed the words about to come and pressed his hands to his eyes. “There was nothing I could do! I couldn’t save you! Don’t you see? Everything I am was...was useless and without you I didn’t want to….Dae stopped me….and then Ehlana came….” Tears slipped beneath his hands and ran down his cheeks.

The headache was back, but Julisa was more concerned about Solis. She took his hands in hers and kissed his cheeks. "Solis," she whispered, "you weren't useless. The timing was bad." She saw the dream again, the gleam in the man's eyes, how he'd left her to bleed out. Her headache threatened to turn her stomach. The thought that she had died, that that was the original timeline, only added to her sudden nausea. "Please, Solis," she was crying with him.

He pulled her up and wrapped his arms around her. “It was indescribable, Jules. I’ve lost you twice now and this time it was just too much. If not for Ehlana….” He tightened his embrace. “But now, the rest of it in your head will break free and ….and your headache’s getting really bad.” He could feel it and it was beginning to affect him. “I need to take care of that.”

Holding him as tightly as he was holding her, Julisa swiftly pondered how she'd be if the tables had been turned: what if Solis had died? The thought terrified her. "I don't care, Solis, if we can never marry because of things like Nikki Gold getting in the way. Whatever happens, I won't leave you again." She hid her face against his neck. "And, yeah... A painkiller would be good about now."

“That I can do. Then I want to take you into Piper and do a thorough check. No arguments.” He wiped his eyes, then reached into his med kit for the hypospray. With a press to her neck and a hiss, the analgesic was delivered and he dropped the spray back into the bag. “That will work short term only but it will be fast.”

She argued, "Can we wait till morning?"

“No. I’ll need to call Ehlana too.” He paused and kissed her forehead. “As for Nikki, that issue is being taken care of and won’t continue to be a problem. But get something on, I’ll have us transported down. I don’t want this blowing up on you and us losing valuable time….just in case.”

Her headache receded as she stood and donned pajamas and a robe. "I owe Ehlana my life," she commented even as she leaned into Solis and let him beam them both to Piper Medical.

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Lt. Bajun Julisa
Haunted

Lt. Solis
The Truth Revealed