Posted by Lieutenant Commander Ever Zeanar (Chief of Psychiatry) in Friends or Frenemies-SB 157 Medical

Demons or Angels. Digging up the past, walking over buried graves. There were moments in life to reconcile one’s own course that had collided with another’s story. Sometimes the part played was a villain, others a hero. On occasion, a chance to rewrite mistakes of character presented it’s way to create a better version of self. An extension of a hand given in an apology to the universe and hoping for redemption. Or perhaps the absence created reborn dormant wounds summoned to soon. 

Dangerous lips laced with honey eyed words. Quick with compliments, flawless in beauty that even deities envied. A lover who had drawn her in with false praise and desperate worship, watching her moves intently, plunging her into a tidal wave of addiction and confusing sensations torn between Heaven and Hell. Ever had known the fruit was Forbidden. The bright red apple hung low from the tree deliciously like a canvas against a blue night. Fierce desire  burned through her finger tips as she had plucked the apple that was not hers to take. And she devoured every tasty morsel, not one damn bit sorry. 

The doors to the medical department swished noisily open, followed shortly by Ever’s entrance.  Stopping two feet inside, she placed her hand against the crook of her hip. Long dark hair flowed to the middle of her back looking like she was only missing a rose between her lips. Matching dark eyes bore straight to their target, “Hello my dear Alexis.”

Lt Commander Ever Zeanar, CoP

That voice, Alexis would never forget it. She had only heard it twice, within the same 10 minutes, that shattered her life. Or so she had thought at the time. The rose colored glasses of youth making her blind to what reality had really been. Not that she was much older now, but she felt it. She’d thrown herself into her work and now she was the Assistant Chief Medical Officer of the best hospital ship in the fleet. Nothing to thumb her nose at. She had made a place for herself in Star Fleet despite the embarrassment, pity, and side long glances of her fellow crew mates.

Soulis had been…Alexis sighed. He was smooth and suave and attentive and everything that a girl thought a man should be. He was extravagant and over the top. She hadn’t listened to the rumors though. The other female officers were just jealous. That’s all it had been. Alexis had convinced herself of that. He had been older and she had told herself that that meant he had moved passed the obnoxious behavior of youth. That he was a man when others were just boys. Oh but she had been so wrong. He was older with far more experience and good at keeping secrets rather than being honest about his attentions.

That voice, heard from just up the corridor as she exchanged personnel and intimate non-whispers outside Soulis’s quarters. He hadn’t timed it well, or maybe he had timed it just right. Alexis had been devastated, her young heart broken. But it had been a good lesson. For a long time she had been angry at Ever, but then she realized it hadn’t been Ever’s fault. Soulis was very good at giving each woman he came into contact with the illusion of what they wanted. But despite that revelation and the years in between, her voice made Alexis feel like that very foolish young ensign again.

Without turning around, she knew who was standing behind her. “Hello, Ever.” She didn’t know what else to say to her. She finished with what she was doing. Auxiliary Sickbay was Alexis’s domain, her world and her kingdom. She would not be flapped and she would not be rocked from her foundation. She turned to look at the woman who not only had an unwilling hand in destroying her young heart, but had also freed it.

Lt. Bonner, AMO

For women, there is a direct line between her heart and what she hears. Soulis understood this all too well and knew how to tear women apart, from themselves and each other. Self-servings and self-centred as the man was and likely always would be, women like Ever and Alexis fell prey to his words as if the cadence of the universe kept time with resonance of whispered secrets. Was it any wonder, when these ancient truths of men’s lies and misdeeds turned women’s hearts stone and dust? Oh but how bodies and souls remembered the sweetness of lies and longing. 

When a woman is in the flowering of her youth, her life is full of exuberant impulses mixed with gravity defying beauty. Flawless skin, not yet etched with time, worry and heartache matched with the firmness of the hidden places that delight and heighten sensuality. And yet still cursed with forever knowing a younger, prettier girl is closing in, standing behind, waiting her turn. Old does not have standards or stages. One is either young or old. Youth is not appreciated, but envied. And the young fear age like flowers in a vase, cells decaying, petals falling and left forgotten in stagnate water. When a woman enters the prime of  life, she becomes invisible, no longer seen as desirable or competition. Some women faded into the background. Others, like Ever, wrapped herself in all of the years of collected wisdom and femininity and boldly took stage with  confidence releasing the beauty of a fully matured flower, roots firmly planted in astral knowledge of self actualisation. 

Words fell flat and without emotion. Ever could not discern what Alexis was thinking or feeling outside calm and steady. She had not put any thought until this moment, how unfolded events had affected the other woman. No. It was she that had been the ‘other woman’. Replying back with a matched level of professionalism, Ever simple said, “do you have time to do my medical evaluation? I just joined the Ogawa crew. Chief of Psychiatry.  I see you have been promoted to Assistant Chief Medical Officer. Congratulations. That’s a rather high accomplishment. For someone your age particularly.” 

Lt. Commander Ever, Zeanar, CoP

Without realizing it Alexis’ own thoughts mirrored Ever’s. She had been so eager to believe the words and the soft whispers that Soulis showered her in, but she had learned that day, experience is a far stronger seducer of men than the eagerness of youth. And perhaps she had built Ever up in her mind, but looking at Ever now, she could see only the beautifully sensual woman that Ever was. Alexis was younger than most and her youth, her extreme youth had made her easy prey. Now after all this time, instead of the hurt of an older adolescent, Alexis, honestly only wanted to thank Ever for saving her from the tragedy that Soulis would have dropped her into.

The years in between had been filled with the passions of the mind. The brain craved exercise and Alexis provided it with more than enough. Her mind and it’s primal hunger for knowledge ruled her life. There had been no more room for her heart. She’d realized after the hurt had subsided that she didn’t have the social experience, at her young age to be social with the regular officers. She didn’t understand them and they had no time for ‘a child.’ She had absorbed everything put to her, and she had been lucky enough to have a department head that wanted to feed her brain. It hadn’t taken long for Alexis to surpass her more experienced colleagues in every field.

And then one day her CMO came to her and told her about the position on Ogawa, and she found herself here awaiting the refit. She nodded firmly to Ever. “I have managed to make quite the reputation for myself. I’ve worked hard, and it’s paid off. I love my work.” At least, when it comes to my work, no one finds me less than. “Of course I can do that.” Normally she would ask if the patient wanted a different doctor, but as a department head, Ever would need her to the CMO to perform her medical exam. And since Ever come to auxiliary sickbay rather than going to main sickbay, Ever had intended to find Alexis. She waved to a biobed and turned to grab a PaDD and a medical tricorder. “Do you have a copy of your records with you?”
Lt Bonner, AMO

“I do,” Ever said as she handed a PaDD to Alexis and walked towards the biobed. A tinge of guilt washed over her as she caught the younger woman’s thoughts of insecurity mingled with pride and possibly regret. While she had not been remorseful for her actions entirely, a part of her was apologetic for the harm and pain it had caused Bonner. Saying sorry, though, was not in Ever’s vocabulary. 

Alexis took the PaDD and looked over it. Reading carefully for any medical information she should be aware of before she started the scan on Ever. It struck Alexis, suddenly, that this could be a very awkward encounter. Ever probably expected her to be angry and resentful, and for several months, Alexis had been. And then, well she’d moved back to her work, where she belonged. She finished reading the PaDD and logged the file into the starbase computer and marked it for Ogawa so it would be transfered with everything else. “Anything in here, you want me to pay particular attention to or that you are concerned about?” Alexis asked as she opened a tricorder and pulled out the probe and began to scan Ever.

Ever sat gingerly on the edge of the biobed, looking up at the ceiling for several moments before bringing her eyes into full contact with Alexis’s. Many thoughts and feelings coursed through her all at once. Perhaps she regretted her actions more than she had first believed or allowed herself to admit. What remain to be seen was if the prideful psychiatrist would actually say the words. “We are going to be working closely together for possibly years to come. Do you want to continue to ignore the past or do you want get this all out and over with so we can move forward? I am not expecting to be your friend, but we have to be colleagues to the best of our abilities. We owe that to the crew. And to ourselves.” 

Zeanar, CoP

Alexis raised her brow and nodded, “Yes we will be, so it would appear. Though as chief of psychiatry you will be working with Dr. Walker and not myself. Unless, of course, he is unavailable.” Alexis leaned back against the wall taking in Ever once again. The woman was still as prideful and seemingly direct as she was those years ago. “Look, Ever, I don’t hate you. I was..” she looks off to the side thinking, trying to find the right words to convey her thoughts and feelings, even though the Betazoid could easily do that on her own, “I was angry, for a long time. I wanted to hate you, but that was wrong. You were not to blame. And in my youthfulness it took me awhile to realize that. Soulis,” the name churning up feelings of anger, inadequacy, regret, and sadness, “was to blame. He was very good at playing on the feelings of women. I would wager you knew without him telling you exactly what type of relationship he was after. Maybe you didn’t know he had other women. Then again, perhaps you did, but were unaware that he was playing them in the dark, or perhaps you were aware. And you felt safe in proceeding because you did know. However it was, it doesn’t matter. Without meaning to, you freed me from a trap that would have surely destroyed me, at such a tender age, if it had continued. And although your voice and face, much to my own disappointment, recall the pain all to clearly for me, I do not hate you or blame you.”

Alexis lets her words sit for several long moments. “Coming upon the two of you was the best thing for me. I was too young to understand what he really wanted. He knew that, and he took advantage of me. Afterwards I threw myself into my work. A child prodigy has no business socializing with anyone. My age peers are intimidated by my intelligence and obsessive dedication to my work, and my intellectual peers are disgusted with my inability to understand them socially, and are threatened by the fact I can do things that they can not. I returned to my work, and made a name for myself.” It would occur to Ever that despite being at the top of her field with a brilliant mind, Alexis was still very young socially and personally.
Lt. Bonner, AMO