Seeking Advice

Posted on Tue Mar 5th, 2013 @ 8:20pm by Lieutenant Commander Leto & Lieutenant Commander Robin Swift M.D., PhD

Mission: The Struggle Within
Location: Counselor's Office

Leto was up early, leaving Nick unbothered in the other room. She’d taken a cup of coffee to go and departed for the gym. Her life may have fallen apart, but it was time to get back to business, back to being Leto. Two hours of pounding herself later, her next stop was Intel. She took a shower there and changed and read her messages. There was one from Admiral Hawke requesting her presence at a meeting after lunch. She sighed, wondering how much trouble she was in, but it was apparently a departmental meeting. a short message was there from Patrick as well, noting his move back to the Marines, specifically as CAG. That explained the meeting. She sent one of her own, to Jackson, to ask if he was free sometime this evening. Jackson and Li were her closest friends and while she would have sought out Li, she needed a man’s perspective. The next message was notice that the Hammond was home and that finally pulled a smile from Leto. Good thing she hadn’t sent a message to Li. She had no doubt Li would be busy the rest of today with a man of her own.

There was nothing pressing this early in her day and so she called Counselor Swift’s office. Drusilla said she could come on in now if she wanted. She wanted, and so, Leto rose to go see the man who’d helped put this all in motion.

Counselor Swift’s Office

Robin had just returned from lunch at a Japanese restaurant on the station. It had been a while since he’d tasted sushi but it was too tempting for him to pass up. The food was great, as was the atmosphere, and he even made a few new acquaintances by sitting at the large table surrounding the grill. All in all, not a bad lunch day.

Once back at his office he was told of Leto’s newly scheduled visit. He made sure his office was presentable for a patient and waited for her arrival, which didn’t take long. She was always punctual and arrived right on time.

“Good afternoon,” he said as she entered. “And how is Leto doing these days?”

Leto was surprisingly quiet as she entered. She didn’t sit right away, but instead moved over to look out the portal. The silence stretched out, not entirely comfortable, but finally she spoke.

“I don’t have a clue Robin, about anything.”

“That...well, that’s a bit concerning,” he said. Not wanting to force her to react or answer in any way, he let her wander where she wanted to see her body language. “Let’s start with the most pressing issue, then. Maybe we can chip away at that and make more sense of some of the other problems.”

“The operation was a stellar success.” Her tone wasn’t happy as it should have been with such news. “We discovered the Prime MInister’s plot, rounded up all her conspirators, saved the Queen and the government, and the PM was executed for her crimes. It closed up the Section 31 connection as well. Things should be stable for the foreseeable future. Everyone’s thrilled.”

“Everyone but you.” He regarded her for a moment, still standing at the portal. “What happened, Leto? Everything went off without a hitch but you’re not happy about something. What is it?”

“Sometimes success can cost too much?” She turned to look across at Robin. “Can’t it?”

“Yes, I suppose that’s true. There have been occasions when people have completed great feats and wanted to just continue going on as normal,” he said as he leaned back in his chair. “But the success made enemies of friends, made them hunted for their fame and completely disrupted their lives. On the other hand, there are those that success has been kind to.”

“I’m not one of them.” She pursed her lips and moved over to examine his book shelf. “Nick hates me now. He can barely look at me, and speaking to me is difficult.” She picked up one of the small porcelain dragons that rested on the shelf. As she talked, her thumb rubbed its surface gently.

That got Robin’s attention. He knew that she and Nick had been an item long before he came to know them, and long before she had become Leto. “Hates you? Why would he hate you? You helped bring down a massive coup attempt and saved that planet.”

The tiny dragon was replaced and for a moment, Leto could relate to it. Isolated, fragile, alone, despite being surrounded by several others like him.

“Because.” She couldn’t say this facing Robin, no matter how comfortable she usually was with him. “Because, as Imara, I got too close to the target, to the man Nick despises and who was responsible for my having to change faces. Veist was quite enthralled with Imara, you see. We became involved, or Imara did, with all the nuances that usually carries with it. Veist even had some unknown video of us together. Nick saw it when we recovered the evidence against Aegina.”

“Ah.” He hadn’t expected this session to go this way. “So, let me get this straight,” he said, now sitting up in the chair and facing Leto directly, “your mind was wiped and replaced with Imara who, as expected, made contact with a bad guy who fell in love with her, one thing led to another and intimacy occurred, while you obtained the information you needed to take down the PM and her cohorts.”

Leto nodded.

“Can you tell me why Nick is so upset about this? It’s not as if you made the decision to go find this Veist fellow and become intimate with him, correct?”

“No, but he can’t separate me from Imara. To him, it’s a betrayal. In short, I cheated on him. It’s nothing that we both haven’t done in the line of duty before, but things have changed between us. We promised to just be with each other and he saw this as as a violation of that.” She rubbed her eyes gently.

In relationship counseling sessions, one had to be very careful not to immediately take sides with either the patient or the other party. That could lead to a very defensive posture from the patient negating any assistance provided by the doctor and just making things worse. The challenge, though, was to make sure to clearly understand both sides, try to get both parties to see both sides, and understand how the other party felt so that they could begin communicating more effectively with each other. In this situation it was especially difficult as both Nick and Leto had jobs that sometimes required false intimacy with someone in order to obtain information, among other things. But now they were in a committed relationship it seemed that one, or both, of them was having a skewed way of seeing things.

“How do you feel about what happened? It seems to me that you felt it was justifiable because it was just another day at work and for a very good cause. Is that right?”

“On one hand, yes. He argues that anyone could have done it but I don’t think so. None of the rest know as much about Veist as I do....did.” On the other hand, it wasn’t me, it was Imara. It was my body that was used and there’s nothing I could do to stop it and he doesn’t see that. So now? Strangely, I seem to be a widow of an Archadian citizen, who was actually Betazoid, and a man I despised as well. I burnt down the house where we stayed, where we were intimate, by the way.”

He thought about her words a moment and something caught his attention. “Leto, you say that no one knew as much about Veist as you did. It seems that that particular point is moot since the drugs and hypnosis I used on you did not allow your mind to be accessed by Imara. Granted, you have flashes of memory from what happened now, which is part of the process, but when Imara was down there confronting Veist, you were nowhere to be found. Was there more to this mission than what you’re telling me? I mean, in a way, Nick was right about that part--anyone could have been used as the bait since nothing of the host remained while the other ‘person’,” he said with air quotes, “was in your head.”

“The plan was to get whatever we could from him, as he seemed to be the weakest link, weakest being relative here, however I could. Outright confrontation would never have worked, but getting to Veist through his emotions was something no one had tried. From what we’d seen of him, he was impervious to such things but no one is. Those who try to hide it are usually the most vulnerable. He’s a lot like Nick in that regard. But that was all. Get everything I could and get out. He just drugged and kidnapped me before I could get out.”

“Okay, but go back a bit. You keep saying ‘I’. ‘However I could’, ‘everything I could’. It’s like you were destined to take this mission yourself, no matter that anyone else could have done it. Why not getting what we could from him however ‘we’ could? Somehow, from the beginning of this mission, you had put yourself in the pilot’s seat and didn’t allow that anyone could have been Imara, which is exactly what could have happened.” He stood and walked to his ever-present tea set. “Now, I’m not saying that you’re wrong for putting yourself in the position of playing Imara, but did it never occur to you to let someone else do it? Hell, if this Veist had been into men I could have been Imara--or, well, whatever name we could have dreamt up.” He smiled and held up a cup as an offer of tea to her after he’d poured his own.

She shook her head no at the offer. “I couldn’t see sending a green ensign into a situation that could’ve gotten her killed. We have other crew in Intel, yes, but none with my experience.”

“Honey,” he said as he sat, “that makes absolutely no sense. You weren’t there. Imara was. What experience you had, or that green ensign you referred to, didn’t mean a hill of beans. You’re not thinking this through, Leto. Sure, it was your body, but everything you knew, all of your experience, your love, your hate, your skills...it was never on the planet with Imara and Veist. You, yourself, could have been killed just as easily as that green ensign simply because you and your experience weren’t there.” He sipped at his own tea as he sat. “Maybe that’s what Nick’s thinking and why he’s so upset by this.”

She shook her head, then finally sat down across from him. “All he sees when he looks at me is the images of me with Veist. He can’t get past them. And as much as I love him.....” she stopped her mouth hanging open as a sure and terrible thought rose in her mind. She covered her face with her hands and began to cry. “Neither can I.”

He stood and sat a box of tissues next to her and pulled one out for her use. “Something like this is not easy to get over, but with time and some help it can happen. I’m sure Nick feels hurt by it, but I think what I want to focus on, before anything else, is you.” He sat back down. “Now, I’m sure you knew that Imara becoming intimate with Veist was a possibility. You’ve done that in the past with your work, but it seems that now it’s not the same. Is it because of your relationship becoming more serious with Nick, or something else, like the fact that you weren’t in control this time? Your body was being used and abused without your knowledge, at least until after the fact.”

She nodded without looking up. “Yes. To both. And now, I’ve lost what amounts to a husband, and the man I love. Why won’t Veist get out of my head? I hated him and yet I feel the loss as keenly as if it were real and I can’t admit that to anyone.”

Robin nodded, his face now a frown. “It’s Imara who is feeling the loss, not you, not Leto. You see, while your consciousness was never involved with Veist until the bitter end, Imara was and she was taking up residence in your brain. When you were returned, Imara was still there and, unfortunately, may still be there for a bit longer until the false consciousness of her finally dissipates.” He sighed, not realising that Leto didn’t understand that this could happen. “Right now you and Imara are sharing the same space. You’re in control and the primary resident of your noggin’, but she’s in there. Unlike when she was active. She had full control and your consciousness was suppressed with no knowledge of what was going on around you. What sorrow or feelings you may have lingering for Veist aren’t your own. They belong to Imara.”

“How long?” she demanded. “I kept that arrow you know? I wanted to toss it into the fire too but something just wouldn’t let me. If Nick finds out about that, or sees it, he will explode.”

“For you, around two weeks since Imara wasn’t active in your mind very long.” She seemed a bit perturbed by that answer but this was all something he had gone over with her prior to the procedure. Sometimes it was common for patients to forget a few things afterward, though. “Tell me about the arrow.”

“The shaft is gold, the arrowhead was one of the native Archadian metals, rare. The fletching was made of jewels. Robin, it is exquisite.The arrow is Archadian tradition. The males present an arrow to a female they desire. It’s both an offer and a request to take the male as a mate. If she accepts, it is official.”

“It sounds absolutely beautiful,” he agreed, “but the question is, did Imara take it or did Leto? And if it was you, why?”

“I don’t know,” she admitted. “Maybe it’s what you said...that Imara is still affecting me.”

“For the time being, then, I would suggest making sure that Nick doesn’t find it. If, after a few weeks and Imara is gone, you want to keep it then you’ll know who kept the arrow.” He sat the cup down and leaned forward. “But don’t think for a minute that you keeping it is wrong. Maybe it’s just a reminder of what you had to go through to take out a major threat to the Archadians.”

“I want to fix things with Nick. If he finds it, he’ll never speak to me again.” She shrugged and wiped her face with one of the tissues. “He barely is now, and it’s killing me. I can’t say anything he wants to hear and no matter how I try to explain it, it’s not enough. Tell me I don’t have feelings for Veist. Please! I...I can’t!”

“Easy, Leto,” he said. “Take a deep breath and listen. As I said, it’s more likely that whatever it is you’re feeling for Veist is residual Imara, not you. You weren’t even there, Leto! The only thing you know about him first hand is when he first caught you as Nenita and when you killed him with Nick. Everything else is leftover memory from Imara blurring into your own.”

“And Nick? What do I do? I can’t lose him. We work together too and that’s not going to change anytime soon.”

“I think it would be very advisable to get him to have a conversation with you. It doesn’t have to be about this incident, just anything. Once you two are talking a bit more, you’re going to have to discuss the elephant in the room. And by discuss I mean that you both are going to have time to give your side and be receptive to the other point of view. You two have been together too long to simply throw this relationship away. And if you want a facilitator, my door is always open. I’d be more than happy to referee. Or, if you think he’s receptive to it, have Nick come see me for a one-on-one session. He can get it all out and then we can all three come together.”

Leto’s eyes filled with tears once more. “That’s the hard part, getting him to listen. He bellows like a wounded buffalo. I think he believes that I wanted Veist. He did stay in my spare room last night but I didn't see him at all once he got there and went to bed. Science was in his quarters investigating.”

“From what I gather about Nick, he doesn’t do emotions well. And since he’s been overt with his feelings for you, this incident must seem like--well, I don’t guess I can put words to it, but it’s bad for him. I think what may be best for you is just to keep telling him that you love him, even when he’s huffing and puffing.” This is one hell of a difficult case, he thought to himself. “It won’t be easy, Leto. Just imagine him as actually being that wounded buffalo. At first he won’t let you anywhere near him and will try to hurt you if you try, but after a while he’ll wear down enough for you to get in there and tend to his wounds. It’s just going to take some time and assurance from you.”

“I hope so. I’m hurting too but on top of it is all the guilt of knowing I did this to him. And there’s no time to lick my own wounds. Work goes on, you know?” She reached for another tissue, hating the tears. She had never been a crier and now she couldn’t seem to stop.

“I know you’re hurting, Leto, but talking this out with Nick may help you get past your own hurt and guilt while he’s hopefully moving past it as well.” He stood, indicating that their time was up. “However, if you feel like you need some time off of work I am authorized to order that for you. And to be quite honest, because of what I’m hearing here, I’m seriously considering giving you that time.”

“I can’t. Admiral Hawke’s called a meeting of the department tomorrow, so today is it. Thanks anyway.” Her smile was sad. “Time to soldier on.”

“You can if I say so, Admiral or no Admiral. Your mental and physical health is more important that soldiering on, Leto.” He pulled out a PADD and typed up some information. “You know what, it seems that your priorities are a little skewed her, love. I know you could keep on working, but at what cost?” He handed her the PADD. “You are off duty for five days, starting now. You can go to the Admiral’s meeting, but you cannot do anything else except see me, take time for yourself or try to work things out with Nick. And if it takes longer than that, I am here and I will do everything I can to help you. Understand?”

Leto opened her mouth to argue with him but his resolute expression told her it would be useless. She sighed and took the padd from him.

“Very well. I understand.” She reached for his hand and squeezed it gently. “I’ll see you tomorrow?”

“Or any time in between, Leto, remember that,” he said. “Oh, and don’t try hacking that PADD, you sneaky minx. I’ve already sent the order to Intel and the XO. Ooh, I have an idea! Why don’t you go take a little time for yourself right now? Hit the spa, get a massage, drink a little wine...I think that could help you relax a little and maybe get on the right path.”

“Maybe I’ll do that.” She had to smile at Robin’s warning. He knew her too well. “Tomorrow. And I’ll bring the tea.” She stood departed, the padd in hand. The idea of a glass of wine sounded good but not at the spa. She needed something a bit more distracting.

He watched her go, his heart telling him to reach out to her for a hug, but in his position as her doctor that was just unacceptable. The poor girl, he thought. And poor Nick. They were both a huge mess and if they didn’t find some common ground soon it could turn nasty and get to a point of no return.

“Drusilla,” he said as he walked out to the waiting room, “I’m heading out early. I have some studying to do. This case may take a miracle.”

_________________

Lt. Commander Robin Swift, M.D., PhD.
Facing a big challenge

Lt.(jg) Leto
Completely Adrift