Posted by Gamemaster Deus Ex Machina (GM) in Rinker’s Office - Jessa’s counseling session 2 - Lets talk about the Order - When the past doesn’t match the present…or the future

Posted by Civilian Jessa Novar (Child) in Rinker’s Office - Jessa’s counseling session 2 - Lets talk about the Order - When the past doesn’t match the present…or the future
Ian sat at Lauren’s desk waiting for Jessa to return from her excursion to the gym. He wasn’t sure how thrilled he was at Jessa leaving sickbay but saying this only would make him look like a dork. The gesture was friendly enough and the kid did need exercise. It also gave him the time to catch Rinker up on yesterday. Reclining in the seat, Ian brought up the internal messaging system of the Atlantis.

To: RInker, Heathcliff Commander
From: Bordeaux, Ian Lt. Commander
Subject: Events of last night

Hey Heathcliff,

I am not sure how much you have access to but I am uploading the medical report I got from Evrilla. I’ll sign any release forms you need but for now, I give you permission to speak with

Ian stopped there staring at the screen. Any other time he wouldn’t have batted an eye sending this message but Ian didn’t need the lawyers to tell him things could get ugly fast here. Back up the cursor, Ian decided to hedge his bets and play on the side of caution. He had no doubts of Rinker’s goal to help Jessa but at times people weren’t always on the same page. In fact, maybe no written records of this would be the best. Deleting the message, he went another route. Tapping his comm badge, Ian opened up a line to the counselor.

=/\=Hey Heathcliff, we are heading down to your office at ten but I was going to give you a rundown of the past 24 hours. Apparently, when Jessa left your office yesterday, she got Mardusk to take her to the brig. It was about as productive as trying to make a Klingon a vegan. Mardusk charged Jessa with a laundry list of crimes. JAG is handling that but of course, Jessa has interpreted the unlawful use of Starfleet resources in a blindingly stupid fashion so now we are not only licking her food but bartering for it. He tossed her in a cell I assume to make a point but something else happened down there also we are still trying to figure out. If that wasn’t bad enough he took her on a tour of the ship which went well until they stopped being friends and went back to that oh so special relationship they have fostered. All hell broke loose on the observation deck. Mardusk locked it down so Jessa opted for the chewing her arm out of the bear trap route to get free. Specifically she gave herself a compound fracture as a way to escape and to get medical to intervene. Evrilla worked her magic and fixed the physical aspect but the mental baggage is all yours buddy. =/\= The stress of the situation was easily shown by Ian’s sarcasm. Sarcasm was just a gentler, more polite was to insult someone or a way to tone down criticism with indirectness and humor. It was clear Ian felt some sort of guilt or responsibility that this happened to Jessa so using sarcasm prevented someone from stating this back to him.

=/\=Logic would dictate she wanted to get out of the situation so bad she resorted to desperate measures but I feel like it could be something more. She mentioned something called the Ritual of Cleansing. Probably some delightful activity those nut jobs invented but you seem to be the only one who gets anything but religious rhetoric out of her.=/\= Ian shifted in his seat realizing he needed to have a normal conversation and a beer with Rinker soon. Every time he talked to the man, Ian now felt he was confessing something in a counseling session.

=/\=I felt bad about what happened so I tried to build a little trust after the brig incident. I brought Chris from stellar cartography up to see what we can do about finding where they are from and to get her home. Chris said when he mentioned me wanting to get her back to her mom, Jessa became extremely cooperative. Eventually, we discovered she is claiming to come from the Callieum supercluster. Specifically, a galaxy called Vela Astria. The problem is the nearest part of the supercluster is 1.4 billion light-years away from Earth, while the far end of it is 2.31 billion light-years. The boys down in stellar cartography are acting like it’s Christmas morning and they got the best present ever. Chris isn’t saying it is impossible that they came from there but no one has a clue how someone crosses a distance that is 1.4 billion light-years. It would explain why she is acting like she has never seen a replicator before or a transporter=/\= Ian leaned back in his seat hearing Jessa coming back with Rand.

=/\=Hey I gotta go. Rand took her down to the gym to burn off some energy. I’ll fill you in about that after I talk to him. See you in ten.=/\= Ian clicked off the comm call and walked into the main part of sick bay. He hoped he filled in any blanks that Rinker did not know about.

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Ten minutes later outside Rinker’s office
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“I have no idea why we are back here. I have nothing to say to that man,” Jessa balked outside Rinker’s office. “Heathcliff was nice. The pizza was good but the man doesn’t talk about himself…at all.” It was clear Jessa was looking forward to her second session like most people were looking forward to returning to the dentist for a root canal. She didn’t have the defensive, cross-armed pose but instead opted for the I give up gestures with sagging shoulders and the occasional hand wave at the door to indicate she was talking about Rinker.

Ian debated about telling Jessa therapy was more of an ego-centric conversation instead of a mutual one but decided against it. Instead, he planted the seed to hopefully get Jessa to want to talk. Once she got talking, Rinker was a skilled enough therapist to take her where she needed to be. Jessa could just be stubborn. All the way down here she grumbled and threatened about spending the hour in silence which was the last thing Ian needed. “So maybe ask him about himself. I am pretty sure no one ever asks how his day is. My guess is all they ever want to do is talk about themselves.” He felt a slight pang of guilt knowing Rinker would have to keep redirecting her back to the appropriate topic. Maybe on some level, Ian was just jealous a complete stranger seemed to be getting to know Jessa instead of him. It would change in time but for now, it just annoyed him. Reaching out he palmed the door controls and waited for Rinker to allow them into his office.

Jessa suddenly seemed far more on edge that she was actually going to have to go back into the office. “Look can’t we talk about this. We don’t need him. Fair dinkum mate,” she threw out Chris’ term from last night. The last time she had been isolated with an officer of the ship the results were disastrous. Jessa didn’t have the time or the energy to go through with Rinker what she did with Mardusk.

As much as he was just granted the wish he had been secretly hoping for, it could not happen. “Fair Dinkum,” he responded back as an idea came to his head. “Tell you what,” Ian pulled a comm badge out of his pocket and placed it on her chest. He had planned on giving it to her later but now was as good time as any. “I know you are smart enough to know this is how we communicate with each other. I am sorry about what happened yesterday but if you are wearing this you can contact us no matter where you are on the ship. If you have a problem in there all you have to do is tap this and say “Ian.” As he demonstrated, his badge registered the connection producing the single word Ian out of it. “Go on. Try it.”

Tapping the badge, Jessa produced one sentence. “You know this is an hour of my life I am not going to get back,” echoed through Ian’s badge as she looked up at him with a half annoyed, half resigned look on her face.

Ian Bordeaux and Jessa Novar

The door slid open without a whisper of sound. Ian saw Rinker from his point but didn’t say anything to Jessa. Normally he just yelled enter but for some reason, he met them at the door. There must have been a reason for it and Ian wasn’t going to second guess him. They needed to get inside Jessa’s head and that was what they paid Rinker the big credits for. If Ian had any questions, he was sure Rinker would appraise him on why he did things just like at the end of the last session.

“I want to open with I heard what you said outside. You don’t know how many people say that.” He looked offended.

Jessa was not expecting a third party to the conversation so Rinker’s voice took her completely by surprise. “Holy triffing Elder on the alter,” Jessa yelped jumping about five feet in the air and turning back wide-eyed. “What is it with you all? You are like Chrisven mice,” she let out a small laugh and put a hand to her chest. “Someone needs to issue you all bells or something.”

The levity ended as fast as Jessa saw the expression on Rinker’s face. Jessa felt her tummy knot feeling bad she had basically insulted the man and seeing that Rinker felt bad about her comment. She let the silence hang for a second hoping to get a smile or chuckle from the man indicating he was just teasing her with his comment. Since no one was talking it was obvious to Jessa that Rinker expected a response. “I…I didn’t really mean that,” Jessa looked at Ian for support.

Even though he could have easily taken over the situation, Ian resisted. Putting his hands in his pockets he looked down at Jessa indicating she was on her own. Jessa needed to learn who was in charge and when. A rude comment by her didn’t need him to intervene to apologize for her mistake. One day that might happen but right now Jessa was sizing up who was in control and who wasn’t. From Ian’s point of view, Jessa should see everyone but her in control. It was clear by her exaggerated eye-widening, Jessa was hinting for Ian to become involved so a tiny head nod punctuated the unspoken thought between them that she was on her own.

Turning back to Rinker, Jessa fiddled with the sleeves on her shirt pulling it down over the black and blue mark from yesterday and to do something with her hands. No one that wasn’t an Elder ever questioned someone of her status and Jessa was at a loss on how to deal with it. Even if they dared to expect an answer there was always an Elder or Adjudicator nearby to remind that person of their place. Jessa worked to formulate a response but Rinker always seemed to know when she was off balance and when to shift the topic just slightly she had to alter the reply for it to make sense.

“You never get any hours of your life back and frankly how bad was it. We talked, we ate, we drank, and you left. That’s a good hour in most people’s books.” Rinker decided to confront and make her talk right away.

Rinker

“Well yes,” she quickly agreed cocking her head to the side slightly and wore a befuddled expression trying to figure out if she should address his first question of why people said it or his second question of why she said it. “It was but,” her voice trailed off slightly not sure what to say. The problem with Rinker was he never asked a direct question. It was never yes or no with the man but open-ended questions Jessa felt she had to interpret or explain in detail just like the one he said now. Did he want an answer? Was it just a statement? At times RInker made her head hurt. “Aside from you making me cry it wasn’t terrible. Um, what I mean is,” Jessa felt her mind going blank.

Jessa needed to get out of this situation. Nothing was going to be the right answer to the only logical choice was to ignore it and start a new conversation. Licking her lips, she spun on her heel and looked at Ian. “See you in an hour then?” After speaking she moved quickly past Rinker and to his couch where she took a seat on the end as she had in her first visit.

As the door slid shut, Jessa made a decision. If she had to spend the next hour with the man, she would make sure the conversation focused on him and not her. Too much had happened since she had seen him last and too many pins were placed on her imaginary board for future conversational topics. Luckily it seemed these people only had digital written records. Looking at his books, however, Jessa felt a pang of sadness. Re-educating cultures that only used digital histories made the process faster and seamless. Data wipes and magnetic pulses obliterated histories and cultures in a blink of an eye reducing people to oral traditions which were more easily controlled and replaced with the truth of the Order. While Jessa understood the need for this she always hated it. Her eyes fell on the small blinking green dots on Rinker’s wall of books. She could not read their language but somewhere was the book Hoblits Heading Home sitting on the shelf. Suddenly the guilt over her comment at the door faded. Jessa would know how to thank Rinker for all his help so far and give him something to know he could always trust her. She would ask to borrow his book and keep it safe and later when he was on the path give him back a piece of his past.

“I am sorry about that at the door. You weren’t supposed to hear that,” Jessa began to speak mainly so that Rinker could not ask another question. “I said it because…well it was just…it’s that I was up early at the gym with Rand…and I wasn’t expecting to come down here,” she rambled fidgeting slightly even though it was only a frown on Rinker’s face that started it all. “I guess I said it trying to assert some control she thought but ended it with, “to be funny. I’m sorry if it made you feel bad,” she ended the conversation with an apology as she fiddled with the lace of her shoe instead of looking at him when she spoke.

Lifting her head, Jessa decided to make the best of this hour and maybe make it up to Rinker for insulting him by asking him about his day. “Can we start over,” she tucked some hair behind her ear feeling her uneasiness ebbing away. “Also you would like an iced coffee with caramel and whipped cream please and one of those pizzas,” she stated confidently. If Rinker ordered it and they shared it at least Jessa wouldn’t have to find a way to use the resources of the ship. “Then you can tell me about your day?”

Jessa