Posted by Captain Zachariah Cobb (Commanding Officer) in Sickbay

Posted by Lieutenant Casela Synthi-er (Counsellor / RTF) in Sickbay

Posted by Lieutenant Fey Kastil (Chief Medical Officer) in Sickbay
Posted by… suppressed (3) by the Post Ghost! 👻
(snip)
Seeing her stir, Cobb took gentle steps into the room, as if the impact of his boots against the floor could shatter her current fragility. So many questions had been locked, so many accusations loaded, on his journey between the RTF office and sickbay. But now he found himself gazing upon a very different woman to the one he had come to consider a friend and confidant. Gone was the tritanium exterior and exuberant confidence and in its place; fear, injury and pain.

Reaching out a hand, he allowed it to brush gently against her hair, then whispered “How are you feeling, lass?”

• Captain Zachariah Cobb

Casela couldn’t move her hand to knock Cobb’s away, because of the bio bed. What was it with men and touching her hair? Mad Man had done that a lot. Ryder did it a lot. Oh gods, was he here too? She took a deep breath, and it felt…heavy, but not painful. She focused her gaze, schooled her face, and turned her head to look at Cobb. He looked…what had she done? His voice had been a whisper, but why? And then it came back…oh she was in trouble. In the same soft voice as his, “I’m much better than I deserve, Captain.” She was going to get a dressing down, some kind of punishment, and possibly brig time for this, maybe. That depended on how mad Zachariah was, and whether or not anyone had told Manhattan. Since it was his department she had been training with. “I take it the doctor’s,” she hesitates, “experiement worked? I’m not suffocating under the weight and there is no sharp pain in my lungs.”
Lt. Synthi-er, CNS

For a moment Zachariah hesitated, unsure of how to respond. Worked? Well, that depended on one’s definition of ‘worked’.
“The Doctor has been successful in alleviating your immediate issues,” he offered in compromise, “although I’d wager you won’t be a stranger to this department in the near future.”

Casela looked away at the ceiling, she won’t be back. Fey had…she had triggered too much baggage, too many memories. Ones that Casela had never managed to come to terms with. The ones that, after a decade still woke her in the throes of nightmares. She had survived, curse it, but she couldn’t get rid of it. And so she locked it away so she could do her job.

Turning from the bed momentarily, he located a chair and brought it to the left side of the bed before settling down into it, wearily.
“What the hell happened, Cas?” he exhaled. “We’re still days out from our first mission and already you’re in this state? As your friend I ask you to confide in me, but as your captain I’ll demand it if I must. So, who did this to you?”

• Captain Zachariah Cobb

Her carefully maintained mask of flippancy and irreverence in place, she side-eyed Cobb. “No one.” But as he stared at her, she couldn’t do it. He was her friend, but more importantly he was her captain. He had earned her respect and she could do no less than give it to him. “Nurse please give the Captain a PaDD.” Once it arrives Casela nodded her head, to herself mostly in acknowledgement of his question, and to Cobb that she knew she’d done something very inexcusable. “No one did this to me other than myself. My left ribs were fragile to begin with. I didn’t realize I was so hurt when I went to RTF training. I told Kastil the truth. Manhattan did score on me, 3 times,” her face shows her disgust at the number, “and I’m sure it made things worse. He, however did not use enough owed to cause the damage.” Kastil had asked about Ryder, so she was assuming that Cobb had the thought as well. “I’m not sure what is more insulting, that everyone on this ship seems to think I would be involved with a man who would treat me like this, or that you all think I would let it continue without putting him in the ground the first time.”

She nodded at the PaDD, “you’ll need your security clearance. Run the footage from holodeck 1, yesterday,” was it yesterday? Casela had to think, yes, they were in the middle of Gamma shift now. “Time index 1845 hours.”
https://www.star-fleet.com/core/xfleet/leviathan/posts/92099/
The feed would show that the safeties were set very low, she was the only one in the room. In the last 20 minutes Casela got hit, on her left ribs, hard enough to drop her and knock the wind out of her. However she gets up and keeps going as if nothing happened.
Lt Synthi-er, CNS

Cobb took the PaDD and remained silent as he watched the footage in its entirety. Once it had played out, he closed the device down and handed it back to the nurse. Only then, once complete understanding of the situation had been reached in his mind, did he allow the emotion to surface.

“I apologise,” he began, “for suggesting that you would allow someone to hurt you in this way. Turns out, the only person you allow, or perhaps even encourage, to hurt you is yourself. By the gods, Cas,” his tone solidified as concern began to fall into anger, “what good is it putting so much effort into protecting yourself from others if you’re then going to seek out a beating of your own design?”

The stone mask, eyes flashing irreverence and disdain, back on her face, she stared at the ceiling. The program wasn’t designed to give her a beating. It was designed to remind her to be cautious, to keep her skills sharp, and to allow her to put the demons to rest when they got to loud. Being here, on this ship, was making her complacent, and her reactions were getting slower. Manhattan had made her their trainer, and the purpose was to push the team’s limits, make them faster, and better, not herself. They had started to score on her, because she’d gotten slow. There was no one on the ship she felt safe sparing with. That would push her to her limits and keep in shape and willing to take the risk of injury, not that injury was the point and was avoided at all possible. Well there was one person, but they had decided it wasn’t a good idea. She would not apologize for keeping herself at peak performance.

Zachariah shook his head, silver-tinged strands escaping from their confinement after being loosened by frequently worried hands, to fall around his face and for a moment lend him the appearance of a younger, although in no way happier, man.

“I understand,” he nodded to her. “I do. When you’ve fashioned walls so strong they begin to serve as your tomb, it can bring relief to throw yourself against the stone. But all it does is bloody the mortar. The walls remain in place. Only now,” he concluded with a dry chuckle, “you have everyone on the other side wondering where the hell the screaming is coming from.”

• Captain Zachariah Cobb

No one listened to the screams, and those who did didn’t care where they came from and didn’t want to help. She was in a hospital gown, not even decent clothes. Did it cover the scars? Could they see? She wouldn’t justify it, she wouldn’t explain. It was bad enough Fey and her nurse had probably seen. She couldn’t move, her 6 hours not over yet. She stared at the ceiling refusing to speak. She would not answer questions, while she was confined, restrained, shackled, imprisoned by the biobed. He could interrogate her all he wanted. She would not answer. A few minutes of Cobb’s disapproval was nothing compared to the months, the endless months. She never said a word. She didn’t have the information they wanted, but she never begged and she never made up lies to make it stop. She wouldn’t bed his forgiveness and she wouldn’t make up lies to get out of whatever consequence he seemed to think she deserved.
Lt. Synthi-er, CNS

“I see,” Zachariah nodded once the silence became untenable for him. “This is your way of telling me to mind my own business, eh? And I told you in turn that I would honour such wishes until they made themselves my business.”

That was why he was there though, if she wasn’t able to do her job it was his business. She wasn’t trying to get hurt. She wasn’t … it didn’t matter. She was still stuck, trapped by the bed and that was of more concern to her than his efforts to get her to talk.

He rose from the chair and returned it to its original location before allowing himself one final glance at the patient in the bed. “I’m all out of answers, Cas,” he admitted, his voice heralding every atom of the struggle he felt in that moment. “There are nine-hundred and fifty-seven people on this ship and, as their captain, I am responsible for every single one of them. And even then, with all of the technology and the resources and the cashflow of the ARU at my disposal, still I expect to have lost a third of them by the time we head back to base. And that’s on days when I’m feeling optimistic.”

Cobb began a slow circle of the bed to eventually place him in line with the exit.
“I never claimed to be a counselor,” he snorted, the derision aimed fully at himself. “I never even claimed to have an idea on answers. I am as lost and alone and afraid as both you and Will Hampton and in no place to guide you to anywhere comfortable or safe.”

He inched towards the door, slowly enough to still catch a reply if she found the strength to deliver one but with momentum sufficient to carry him out were the next wave to bring only more silence.

“I’m not asking you to open up to me, Cas,” he added finally. “I’m simply asking that you stay alive long enough to give it at least a passing thought?”

• Captain Zachariah Cobb

While he talked she stared at the ceiling. She knew what her problem was, but she was unable to deal with it at the moment. If Fey didn’t get the restraints off of her soon, she was going to start screaming, and that just simply was too upsetting to think about. Her voice came softly barely a whisper, “I didn’t mean to.” She closes her eyes, trying to figure out how long till she can get out of there, away from the restraint, the imprisonment. The memories too close to allow her to converse as Cobb would have her do. If he should hear her and return he will hear, “Make her let me go.”
Lt. Synthier, CNS

In a heartbeat he was back at her bedside, her voice barely a whisper but his own ears desperate enough to catch every word.
“I…I can try,” he offered, before heading once again for the door although with the intent to leave now gone.

“Doctor, a moment please,” he called to the CMO, beckoning her over to them.

• Captain Zachariah Cobb

“Computer, time?” The Doctor asked as she approached the Captain. “Five hours Fifty-nine minutes twenty-seven seconds.” The computer had been keeping a timer for the six-hour mark that the counselor needed to remain steady for, while it wasn’t expressly stated, it was to allow the metallic reinforcement of the Counselor’s lower ribs to settle and finish solidifying. “I would release the restraints now Captain, but I fear our Counselor would run the risk of flight the moment the opportunity presents itself. Thirty-three seconds isn’t long to wait and afterward we’ll not need to worry about the Counselor’s ribs again. That is, of course, as long as she doesn’t get the upper ones damaged. I’d really rather not have to go back in and line the entire ribcage, that might pose problems with weight distribution and affect her ability to swim.” The Doctor saunters over to Casela, every bit the ominous evil genius that she is. “I suggest you let the Captain or your own staff help you, if you continue this path, you may find yourself a regular visitor to this table for all manner of new and improved methods of medicine that I have already, or yet to have discovered.” The Doctor disables the restraining field, the time having passed at this point and stepped back to allow the counselor a chance to get herself dressed. “I’ve sent you an itemized list of all the damages I found that were not reported in your medical records. I must request that you explain them when you have time but within the next seventy-two hours. I’ll not have you dying on me because you forgot to mention that you have an old wound that was never treated properly that may have been laced with some new time-delayed toxin.” The Doctor faced the captain and nodded softly to him. “If you’ll excuse me Captain, I’ve a report to fill out.”

• The Evil Doctor Fey Kastil
  

Cobb’s reaction to the mention of additional injuries was clear from the intense scowl aimed in Synthi-er’s direction. Still, she remained in a vulnerable state, both physically and psychologically, and he could not ignore his desire to protect her. He had been here, in the very place where she now stood…or lay. He had eschewed all medical assistance following his wounding in the Second Battle of Chin’toka and in truth had paid the price for that decision ever since.

Casela would stay on that bed not moving if the doc would just remove the restraints. Once they were lifted she laid there a moment and then slowly sat up. At the doctor’s threat to use more of her own experimental treatments Casela spat a curse. “Never again Kastil. I have been an unwilling lab rat. Never again. I will be damned if it will happen again. I’d rather die.” She stood from the biobed adjusting instinctively to the added weight and change in her center of gravity. She began walking towards the prep room to change. The doctor’s request for clarification of her injuries made her turn. “I can’t tell you what I don’t know. And like every other doctor before you I’m sure you can tell that they all happened within the same six month span.” Casela waited and as their mouths began to ask how she could not know…”I was captured and tortured for 6 months. They all ran together after awhile. If you’re so brilliant doctor, figure it out yourself.”

She turned went into the room, she came out shortly and left, disappearing, unseen movement a specialty, down the corridor.
Lt. Synthi-er, CNS

He made no immediate movement to follow and instead turned his own gaze to the ceiling, as if there the gods lingered to hear his desperate plea. Do not let her make the same mistakes that I have made.

Then, turning to the Doctor, he offered her a perfunctory smile. “Thank you, Doctor. Your skill and also your discretion in this matter is most appreciated. I assure you, I had no prior knowledge of Lt Synthi-er’s injuries and would have taken action long before now if I had.”

There appeared to be more he wished to discuss, questions and assurances crowding onto his tongue yet not a single word taking flight. After a moment he simply nodded and then declared, “I shall talk with the Counselor and do everything I can to ensure that this situation is not repeated.”

Then, turning on his heel, the captain marched out of the sickbay and headed directly for the holodeck, where he reasoned a more comfortable setting might ease the passage of a distinctly uncomfortable conversation to come…

• Captain Zachariah Cobb

OOC: And of course this will now lead neatly into the “A Captain, a Counselor and a Campfire” thread :)

The Doctor watched both of them leave and shook her head. “I’ll let the Captain handle that. She’d rather die, ha, not in my Sickbay.”

(OOC: Closing Thread)
- Doctor Fey Kastil