Wishful Thinking & Coffee Bribe

Posted on Friday, 15 January 2021 - 2:13pm by Commander Soral & Lieutenant Ryan Rose MD & Lieutenant Alex Kingsley

Mission: Operation: Trail of Tears
Location: Sickbay | USS Standing Bear
Timeline: 2394

ON:

There was something to be said about hope. It could be wonderful, giving you that reason you needed to persevere when it seemed everything was going wrong, or it could make you believe the impossible was possible. Perhaps. Now, as she walked with Soral into Sickbay, that niggling sense of hope she had been nurturing felt almost insane. The logical, scientific part of her brain was steadfast in its reckoning that this was too soon to start thinking of reclaiming her bond with Soral. Still, she hoped. Hoped enough that she had made a detour to fetch the good doctor some of the finest coffee she could find. Just in case it swung the odds in her favour.

"Doctor Rose?" she was even hopeful in calling for him. He could be resting, of course. Although that was unlikely. If he was, however, it may mean dealing with the EMH and that was a headache all of its own.

Ryan stepped out of his office as he heard the voice. "Hello Alex, Commander." He smiled and nodded politely to both.

"I brought coffee," Alex informed him as she held out the large coffee cup. "Just in case you have been camped out in your office since you got back... and I came to ask a favour."

"Oh, thank you." Ryan didn't much coffee, but this particular cup smelled amazing, and he took a grateful sip. "So, what can I do for you?"

Soral had stood back letting her speak, he now jumped in. "We had an incident with respect to our broken bond." He pointed to the office the doctor had stepped out of. "Can we step in there for a moment?"

"Only if you have time," Alex clarified. "If you are busy we can come back later."

"It's fine, come on in." Ryan thought it was kind of her to make the offer, but even if he had been busy, only an emergency would keep him from helping the two immediately. He shut the normally open door once they were all inside. "Please, make yourselves comfortable, help yourself to tea or whatever. I feel a bit awkward enjoying this coffee in front of your faces." But he took another sip anyway.

"I'm alright," Alex assured him, grateful the coffee was going down well. She sat down on the couch, so Soral had space to sit beside her. "We... well, I was hoping you could run another neurological scan. To see how well I was healing after what happened after our wedding? I know Doctor Hades said it might be some time before we could even try to establish another bond..."

She took hold of Soral's hand, fingers intertwined, "but Soral is right. I assume you know about his injuries while on Jupiter station. When I went to visit him, for just a moment, it felt like the bond was back again... I suppose I'm hoping it is a good sign things are healing faster than we thought."

"Indeed. I felt it too and after the experience I was left with a bit of a headache," he admitted.

Ryan considered. "I'll happily run some more scans. But I'll be honest. I don't foresee you being able to re establish a bond this soon, even if the scans look good, I wouldn't recommend it. I've done some research and it's analogous to any other injury. It needs time to heal. It's a great sign that you felt each other, but that's the first baby step of many. Lets get out the heavy equipment and we'll do a full panel of neurological scans before we make any further plans, does that sound good?"

His use of the word baby steps made her wince a little, shooting a glance at Soral. After the news he had received, they had received, it was a delicate subject. Her disappointment at his prognosis stung a little but she nodded, knowing actual data rather than feelings was best. "Of course, thank you."

Soral stood and offered his hand to Alex "Let us start the scans." He looked at the doctor. "With respect to the bond it is something that will have to wait of course until she heals but what of a mind meld?" It was a way they could still experience a closeness at least for a little while.

Ryan led them to the one private room available. "While I empathize with your situation, I wouldn't recommend it. Those areas of the brain need to heal, and a mind meld activates some of the same neural pathways as a bond. I may be able to give you more details after the scan." He set things up. "Ready?"

“Ready,” Alex confirmed as she lay down, unable to not think of the hospital room back on Earth. She flashed Soral a reassuring smile.

It took awhile, but Ryan finished up the scans, then pulled over a large PaDD. "Here is a comparison from the last set of scans until now." He smiled. "There's good improvement, so you are on the right track. But..." he paused and pointed. "Here, and here, I'd like to see more progress before any type of mental connection is attempted."

“What happens if it is accidental?” She asked as she sat up to study the images. She glanced at Sora, “like with us, or what happened with Haru... the headaches were intense afterwards. But with Haru I had a nose bleed as well.”

That last part she hadn’t told Soral.

Soral remained outwardly cool but anger flashed in his eyes. "That, may be why those two areas are not as healed as well. " He closed his mouth to let the doctor answer Alex's question.

Ryan frowned, and began voicing his concerns out loud, including them in his musings so that they would have full input on their own treatment. "Well, we could always use the neural inhibitor, but it's hard to know how that would affect the natural healing process. We have a good baseline of scans, and I don't think that incident had any lasting consequences, though it may have very well slowed down the healing process. We can continue to monitor, and if a similar incident happens again, go from there." He looked to them both for their opinion.

"A neural inhibitor would cause more damage I would think." He said. He was worried now.

“And if it will maybe slow down healing,” she shook her head. “Maybe if absolutely necessary. I can be more careful.”

She wasn’t sure how. Maybe there was a little bubble on the ship she could move into for a few weeks or months. “Thank you for indulging me, Doctor.”

Soral placed a hand on his wife's shoulder. "We will keep checking. I promise."

She glanced over her shoulder at him, nodding as she flashed him an apologetic smile. She knew better than to say she was sorry, to give her guilt and regret a voice because it was guaranteed to invoke her husband’s exasperation.

Ryan looked to them both. "I really feel it's just a matter of time. I certainly don't foresee it being never. I'd like to rescan in 4 weeks and see where we are, we'll take a look at how much healing has happened, and maybe have a better idea of just how much time."

Soral gave a nod "Thank you doctor."

“Yes, thank you,” Alex added quickly. “I guess patience isn’t one of my virtues.”

Ryan smiled. "I hadn't noticed." He teased. "Thank you for the coffee." He held up the now empty mug. "If there is anything you need, you know where to find me."

"Sadly yes," Alex assured him with a grin, "you really need to get out more."

OFF: