Posted by Lieutenant Junior Grade Janna Kingston (Counsellor) in Holosuite 3 - Checking In

Posted by Lieutenant Junior Grade Charlie Bailey (Doctor) in Holosuite 3 - Checking In

Posted by Lieutenant Junior Grade Janna Kingston (Counsellor) in Holosuite 3 - Checking In
Posted by… suppressed (2) by the Post Ghost! 👻

(snip)

“We all want to have moments of simplicity,” Janna agreed with a nod of her head as she also poured herself a glass of iced tea. “It’s sometimes easier to go back to the ones we knew before life got so much more complicated. Before we grew up and had to the world and people around us with all their flaws and complexities.” She sipped, letting the pause act a punctuation of sorts.

She leaned forward a tad and smirked. “And sometimes it’s just a pretty place that is quiet and lovely, and goodness knows we all need something like that from time to time.”

Kingston gestured around them. “How often do you visit this place?”

~Janna Kingston, CNS

Nodding slowly, Charlie took another sip of iced tea as Janna’s words hung in the air. Flaws had hit a chord with her as she had a startling revelation pop into her head. Without warning, Charlie burst into tears and buried her face in her hands. A thousand images flashed through her mind as she began to piece together the events of that fateful evening.

Between sobs, she blurted out, “it was all my fault!”

• Lt (jg) Bailey (Doctor)

Janna could sense the shifts in Charlie and it wasn’t unexpected when the explosion of emotion hit. Janna set down her glass and moved her food to the saide and drew closer. Kneeling before Charlie, she reached out and rested a hand on her arm. “What was your fault?” she said gently.

~Janna Kingston, CNS

Charlie shook her head, her face still buried in her hands, not wanting to speak it out loud. Taking a few moments to steady her breathing she slowly wiped her eyes with her sleeve and took a deep breath. “…the accident…” she replied in barely more than a whisper.

Pulling her knees up to her chest she sighed and closed her eyes. “The night of the accident, I was playing with my father’s tricorder even though I knew I shouldn’t…” she started, her voice cracking with emotion. “…I dropped it on the floor and broke it…my father was so mad at me…” she added with a sniff. “He had to spend so long fixing it, he was late for his shift and one of his junior officers had to fix a problem with the power relays which should have been my father’s job…because of me, father wasn’t at his post when the explosion happened and he could never forgive himself…” tears rolled down her cheeks as she admitted what she had never told anyone before.

• Lt (jg) Bailey (Doctor)

It was not uncommon for people to have a narrative of events they are convinced is true because it makes the most sense with the information they have. Unfortunately there were so many variables to this particular situation that there was no way Charlie could see them. They weren’t details a child would have known. Even growing up and joining Starfleet didn’t guarantee a new perspective on a situation that was deeply traumatic.

Moving her hand, Janna positioned herself so she was cross-legged at a forty-five degree angle to Charlie -in front of her, but not crowding her. “Guilt is a powerful emotion and it can be very hard to see the other truths that might be there, especially when we’re dealing with grief at the same time.” She didn’t say her story was not possible, or she was wrong to feel that way.

“Charlie, is it possible that at ten years of age, you didn’t have all the possible information of those events.”

~Janna Kingston, CNS

Charlie sniffed and rather inelegantly wiped her face with her sleeve. Catching sight of the burn scars on her arm she gently touched the painfully familiar uneven contour of her arm before closing her eyes and slowly nodding. “I suppose so…” she said, barely louder than a whisper. “To be honest, I’ve never actually looked at any of the incident reports from the accident…” she admitted as much to herself as to Janna. Could she have been mistaken all these years? Her main driving force for most of her life had been to make up for her past mistakes. It had driven her to be the best she could be but not without cost. She had focussed completely on her studies then her work, leaving little time for friendships or relationships. In truth, a large part of why she had gone into medicine was because she felt she had a debt to repay, that if she could somehow at least save as many lives as had been lost on Vega, that she could balance the scale.

“You don’t think it was my fault?” She ventured with a quivering voice, afraid of the answer.

• Lt (jg) Bailey (Doctor)

Janna shook her head. “No, I don’t. Sometimes there are a series of events that happen and on the surface it seems easy to plot out logically what happened. But most of the time there are layers to things. Very very rarely is any event entirely about one single person and their actions. Especially in Starfleet, there are many variable that impacting an outcome. Now, I don’t have all the details, but if you think it would be helpful, when you’re ready on another day, maybe we can investigate a little further together?”

~Janna Kingston, CNS

Bump