Posted by Lieutenant Solal Segal (Oncology and Immunology) in Side-sim: When Disappointments Intersect

Posted by Lieutenant Achilleas Petrakos (Chief Science Officer) in Side-sim: When Disappointments Intersect

Posted by Lieutenant Solal Segal (Oncology and Immunology) in Side-sim: When Disappointments Intersect
Posted by… suppressed (17) by the Post Ghost! 👻
Achilleas found himself in front of Solal’s door again for what felt like the millionth time. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to come and visit because he certainly did, but every time he saw Solal still weak and not fine it pricked his heart. He took a deep breath, let it out, and reached up to hit the chime.

CSO Petrakos

Solal was standing by the bed, trying to straighten the sheets and blankets. He’d just returned from a trip to sickbay, for dialysis, for his kidneys, so he felt better in some ways, but in others he was continuing to decline. He looked more tired than the last time Achilleas had been there. Weak and tired with slightly labored breathing despite having received a treatment in sickbay.

He pressed the button to let the door open, letting Achilleas in. When the door opened, he looked round to check who it was and then waved Achilleas into the room. “You’ve been taking time for yourself. Good.” He said. It had been a couple days since he’d seen Achilleas.

~ Solal

“Well, someone told me to get lost and not come ‘mother’ them.” Achilleas quipped back with a weak smile as he entered the quarters and let the door slide shut behind him. He looked where Solal’s voice came from and saw him straightening out the bed. His first impulse was to rush over and help out but he remembered Dira’s words in letting Solal have space and that if he wanted help that he would ask. So instead he leaned against the door frame to the bedroom and watched. “This might be an unnecessary question but have you been well?”

CSO Petrakos

“I did. You needed to manage yourself,” Solal commented with a shrug. Once the bed was… somewhat neater than when he started, he sat down on the edge of it. His PaDD dinged, indicating the arrival of a message for him, off the ships’ comms.

Solal turned and looked at Achilleas as if he’d asked the most ridiculous question. “Well enough, I suppose.” He took a deeper breath that ended in a weak cough. “How has work been?”

~ Solal

“Work has been… boring.” Achilleas said as he smiled at Solal’s incredulous look. “The ship is doing medical things like all good medical ships should do but my science specialty isn’t medicine. We’re not in any interesting system for me to probe or run an experiment and I can only take up so much computing time to run a modelling program in.”

CSO Petrakos

Solal huffed softly. “Medical things… I want to know what kind of medical things.” He looked at Achilleas, “What, you have no experiments you can run without being in an ‘interesting system’?” He looked toward the desk, decided he did not have the energy to stand up again, and pointed, “Can you grab my PaDD please?”

~ Solal

Achilleas nodded and pushed off the door frame to walk over to the desk. He picked up the PaDD while being careful to not look at the screen. He did not want to accidentally read another missive from Solal’s parents and get into another argument. “I don’t know what kind of medical things Solal. I’m not a doctor, I’m an astrophysicist. Do you not have access to the various internal medical systems? I’m sure you could check for updates on there.” He arrived in front of Solal and held out the PaDD.

CSO Petrakos

“I do, but I’m not supposed to be logged into them.” Solal tapped his head gently. “Too confused.” Setting the PaDD up in front of himself, he set a hand over his upper right abdomen with a look of slight discomfort. With his other hand he turned on the PaDD and opened the message.

“Then how does me giving you an update help at all?” Achilleas asked in mild amusement.

It apparently wasn’t what he wanted to hear because he quickly looked quite upset. It was what he expected to hear, but not what he was hoping for. It had been over a year anyway, the man probably barely remembered Solal. Not to mention his request had been rather unorthodox.

Solal tossed the PaDD to the center of the bed. It took an extraordinary amount of control to not do more than that. Trembling, both because the emotions raging through him, and in the effort to control them, he began to cry. It was akin to using a small dam to stop a tsunami.

He shouldn’t have asked. It had been an embarrassing question in the first place. A stupid request. Why would he do that? Why had he thought it was a good idea? It wasn’t. He needed to get a grip on himself. He clenched his fists, then sent his pillow sailing across the room, followed by the thud of a fist hitting the wall next to his bunk.

Immediately he was embarrassed as he realized, remembered, that Achilleas was there. He curled up on the bed and stuffed his face into his remaining bedding in attempt to hide both his tears and the embarrassed green flush that had covered his cheeks.

~ Solal

“What?” Achilleas said rhetorically at all of the things that just happened. What had just happened? He’d seen Solal get angry and dent his wall with a candle holder, but this was something completely unexpected.

“Hey it’s okay.” He said softly as one would to a frightened animal. Clearly something on the PaDD had triggered Solal, and despite his burning need to know what that was, he put that thought out of his mind. He came around the bed and settled on to it next to Solal. He briefly thought of reaching reaching over and patting him on the shoulder but in the end decided against it because he didn’t want to spook him. Instead he softly asked, “What’s wrong?”

CSO Petrakos

Solal did not immediately respond. After a few moments, he had no choice but to uncover his face, his breathing not well enough to manage between the uneven breaths caused by his crying and the extra strain having a blanket over one’s face put on breathing. “I’m fine.” he said, despite being clearly not fine. There were still tears on his face and he refused to fully look up at Achilleas.

“Don’t lie to me.” Achilleas said with a little edge to his voice. “You are clearly not fine.”

“I just need to get ahold of myself.” His voice trembled, rich with bitterness and frustration.

“It was a stupid idea anyway.” He was speaking in short sentences, a good sign he’d aggravated his breathing issues. “Shouldn’t be this upset about it. Can’t keep emotions in check.” He banged his fist into the wall again. It hurt, the side of his fist which collided with the wall throbbed, but it let off some of the excess emotion he was feeling.

~ Solal

Achilleas leaned over and grabbed Solal’s wall hitting hand with both of his. “Stop hitting the wall dammit!” He said in a fluster. “It’s okay to be upset but what’s the problem? What was your idea?”

CSO Petrakos

Solal had been moving to do it again, his fist starting the motion towards the wall. Achilleas was able to stop him with his grip on Solal’s hand. He didn’t want to tell Achilleas, it was embarrassing. He never wanted to speak of it again. “I shouldn’t have done it. I was inspired by you. By your taking time for yourself. Seeing someone. I shouldn’t have let it happen.” His chest heaved with effort breathing as he tried to calm himself.

~ Solal

Achilleas was glad that he caught Solal’s hand in time, but man that took some effort to stop the swing. “Whoa, slow done and give me complete thoughts. See someone? Inspired by me? Shouldn’t have done what?” He kept holding onto Solal’s clenched fist in case he felt motivated to try another punch against the wall.

CSO Petrakos

Solal’s fist was still clenched tight, a green bruise forming. “I sent a letter. To someone I… Used to talk to.” Solal shrugged, “Shouldn’t have expected a different answer.” Then he tried to pry his fist away from Achilleas, swinging towards the wall again. “He said no! He can’t help me.”

~ Solal

Achilleas hung on to Solal’s fist for fear life. When he felt that his body was being lifted by a fist, he attempted to push his body down onto Solal’s to pin him to the bed. “Solal stop! I’m not going to let you hit the wall again!”

CSO Petrakos

The change in force surprised him and Solal was pushed back, falling to the bed. He was still fighting, struggling against Achilleas with less strength than he’d usually have. He felt weak, but he was still strong for Achilleas. He wasn’t thinking clearly, his thoughts and judgement clouded with emotion he couldn’t control. Achilleas was, in the moment, little more than an obstacle preventing him from releasing emotion he desperately needed released. He pushed out and away, shoving Achilleas off the bed with all the force he could muster.

~ Solal

Achilleas knew that Solal was strong even while being malnourished and sick. He was frankly surprised at how strong he still was however, as his body left the bed and rapidly approached the wall behind him. ‘Huh.’ Was the last thought in his mind before he impacted on the wall with a pretty nasty crunch/thud sound and it all went black.

CSO Petrakos

“Achilleas?” Solal asked as the weight of his friend was suddenly gone. He’d tossed him off… And Achilleas lay against the wall, motionless. “Achilleas?!” He asked again, alarmed. The exertion had left him very short of breath, and it took a lot to drag himself out of bed and to Achilleas’ side, medical scanner in hand.

“Computer… call a medical team to my… location.” He said, huffing out the words as he turned the scanner on to get a preliminary look at Achilleas’ condition. His hand was swollen and bruised, slowing him down as he had to mostly use his non dominant hand.

What had he done? This was his best friend. He’d hurt him. And bad enough Achilleas wasn’t immediately waking, which told Solal he likely had a concussion. He could hope it wasn’t worse than that. He was going to be in trouble for this, and he’d deserve it. His emotions swung quickly from anger and upset to guilt, extreme guilt, and remorse, and sorrow.

~ Solal

The medical scanner would show that Achilleas had a skull fracture on the back of his head, a hematoma and brain swelling, as well as a ruptured C3 vertebrae. He wasn’t in good condition at all.

CSO Petrakos

Solal dropped the scanner, reached around, and stabilized Achilleas’ neck with his hands. “Computer… Forget the… Medical team… Transport… Two to… Sickbay.” He managed, his breathing getting worse. He’d hurt Achilleas. This was bad. Achilleas could die of this. He was sorry. He was sorry! He was sorry! The words kept repeating themselves in his mind.

He wanted to punch the wall again, he wanted to leave, get himself away from Achilleas, but he needed to keep Achilleas’ neck still. The ship’s system transported them both to sickbay. Once they had materialised there, he began weakly calling for a doctor.

~ Solal

Frigga had just finished her last appointment of the day and was thrilled to find her mom and the steak keeper coming through the door to get her. She ran over weaving circles around their legs, nudging their hands with her nose and then sitting down quietly.

That was until there was a shimmer if lights and the smell in the bay changed drastically informing her that something was very wrong. She barked sharply three times in warning.

Frigga