ten_fwd | it's the only way i can escape }{ OPEN

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it's the only way i can escape }{ OPEN

(( OOC: potential content warnings all over this for mentions of horror game content, telepathic violation, telepathic control of another, sexual harassment, death, etc. Basically, the doctor is not having a good month. ))

The only good thing to have come of Zelien was the ability to deal with horrific and traumatizing events as they happened. Afterwards is another story. Beverly had thought that being able to deal with the events themselves meant that she could deal with everything Q conjured up for them because it was over. She thought she would be fine.

She was wrong. She was so wrong.

The thing Zelien had yet to teach her was how to deal with the aftereffects of trauma. The nightmares flare again, worse than what Q had offered them recently, and even shadows make her twitchy. Memories, fears, anything traumatic that her mind could conjure up, it did. People might not want to be around her this month. She startles at the slightest movement and sometimes her instinct is self-defense, protection, because her mind remembers Zelien and the cultists, the soldiers who jeered, leered, called, and harassed.

The nightmares have her wrestling with the sheets, memories of Jev the Ullian -- was that his name? Have they been here yet? Does she need to prepare for that? -- or Ronin, different contexts, but both violations of her mental self. Of course, both lead to other nightmares of her husband's dead body or some Victorian man about 35 years old not only forcing her into his bed, but forcing her to enjoy it. Sometimes Wesley dies in place of Jack and she wakes up sobbing. Sometimes Jean-Luc's lifeless body haunts her, the Borg come in to take over the ship yet again, or the entire crew is systematically murdered to torment her. The last to die is always Jean-Luc because her subconscious mind knows that his death will haunt her the most. These and others cause her to bolt out of her quarters in the dead of night out of sheer, blind panic, heading for somewhere she can feel safe.

Most of the time, she can be found in a corner of the Arboretum. Here, she is either asleep, though it's a fitful sleep that she wakes easily from and often in a state of terror; sitting with her hands over her ears and eyes squeezed shut against that feeling of panic; or sitting with her knees tucked up to her chin and a dead look to her eyes while she stares straight ahead. When she isn't there, she might be in the holodeck, using a program of an open meadow. No walls or buildings will be in sight, not even that new cabin that she would so love normally. She remembers so clearly those buildings on that campus, remembers the sights and sounds and smells of the acid. Stomach acid. Like the buildings were alive and trying to eat them all. At least the meadow means nothing will be eating her alive. When she isn't in either of those places, she's likely in the gym, practicing Mok'bara to meditate and calm her nerves. Intruders might want to make their presence known before they startle her. Beverly is back to being twitchy and that means nothing good will come of it. What she needs are distractions, as many as possible, and people who are willing to work with her trauma.

She'll get better over the course of the month, but in the beginning and middle, she is not doing well at all.

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Merlin felt and saw, and heard and dreamed those dreams. He recalled them now, as she did, and he felt the horror of pre-knowledge, of past knowledge given such new weight. The pain of losses, and horrors, almost unconscionable, and his heart broke for her. She must be aided, whatever the cost, and so he watched, the night whole, and in the morning, he found his way to the arboretum once more, where he dined on a simple snack much like the one left in her rooms. Tea, crumpets, and perhaps an addition of a few cheeses, not quite like he remembered them, but close enough.

Today, of all days, he wore not a Federation civilian outfit. Instead, his robes hung around him. Robes of fur and woven wool, hand-made and hand earned, wrapped around him, and leather boots, double thick, held his feet. His hood fell over his face as he sipped tea, there in the arboretum, and stared off into space.

And if perchance, there was a small bluebird that occasionally came over to sing near him, well, that was unlikely to have anything to do with him, yes?

Merlin smiled, then, and nodded gravely to the bird. He had seen the night through, and he had found himself rising to the challenge. He hoped he would not fail this woman of merit and honor so dear,

She was worth not failing.

It's funny but unsurprising that she finds him in the Arboreturm the next morning. This is one of Beverly's favorite places to be and the place where they had run into each other last night. She'd had a feeling that he would be here again.

She takes note of his new attire, though she decides not to comment on it. Whatever makes him feel most comfortable as long as she doesn't have to hear about how the fur was acquired. He has done her a great service; it would be petty of her to ruin it now.

Instead, she stops close by, watching the bird for a few moments before she approaches fully. "Thank you," she says softly. "That was the best night of sleep I have had all month." Probably longer than even that, but she doesn't really want to dwell. "I see you have a friend today." Meaning the bird.

Merlin smiled to her and rose as she approached, then bowed to her, eyes warm. "Greetings, milady, and you are welcome." His smile was gentle as he surveyed her.

"I'm glad it worked for you, and gave you a night of solace. "

Merlin glanced aside at his bird friend, and smiled again. "It seems so. I think he may have absconded from the starbase we just visited, or are visiting... or whichever that is." He sometimes lost track of the outside. His realm was here now, and tending to these people who he had taken as his own.

He tweetled softly, and the bird perked up, peered at Beverly, then hop-flew to her, hovering as if inspecting her, tweetling softly in greeting, even holding still close up before shooting off again.

Beverly is happy to use the bird as a distraction for a short time, but part of her is curious enough about what he saw of her nightmares. They didn't trouble her last night, but that doesn't mean he didn't get to see what she's been living with. For a few minutes, she just watches the bird, smiling gently at is antics.

"It really is quite lovely. I can imagine it makes the days less lonely." Would for her, anyway. That's the void her plants fill. The void that people like Jean-Luc, Annie, Finnick, and Fatima fill.

"So... I guess I should make sure my nightmares didn't traumatize you too badly last night," she jokes quietly, nudging open the door to questions about those nightmares and her experiences.

"Aye, milady, a part, anyway." He enjoyed animals, and their visits usually made him smile. Today, he was waiting for her words, and when she spoke, he nodded.

"I am well. You have been through much, milady, darkness and pain, sadness and loss, tortures and war. And now, to face a past like this one? I wish I could somehow make things more right for you."

Which, you know, he might be working on, in his own way.

"Do you wish to talk about your past? Some of what you have been through seems such that most would hardly be able to bear it."

Beverly nods absently at his words, considering the idea of talking. She had figured she would need to explain a few things after he saw what she suspected he would see, but that didn't mean she would ever like it or even know where to begin. Her past is riddled with difficulty, especially now with Zelien. How to explain any of that is difficult to figure out.

"I guess now you understand why I asked you to keep it between us," she starts slowly. "It isn't as though I can tell anyone that I know when and how this Enterprise will be traded for the next, never mind the Borg. They've met the Borg by this point, but they haven't met the Borg." Locutus hasn't become an entity yet. She could tell the moment she laid eyes on Jean-Luc.

"I guess we could start from the beginning, unless you're curious about something in specific?"

Merlin shook his head, smiling lopsidedly to her. "With such news as this, I think your wisdom is better suited than mine to tell when and where to start, milady. And in truth, with such a log of impressions and ideas to go through, I do not know yet where to start myself."

He sighed, shaking his head, and reached for one of her hands, gently clasping it for a moment in sympathy and support. "These universes are changed, and changing still, more and more. I have seen entire courses of history set on their ears here. And yet, I do not know if that was why we are here, or if there is another reason beyond Q was bored." Which was entirely not a happy making reason.

The beginning is as good a place as any to start, difficult as it is. After giving his hand a squeeze in return, Beverly folds her arms loosely across her chest, more to give her hands something to do than because she feels particularly threatened.

"I remember it like it was yesterday. 2354. My son Wesley was five years old. Our marriage was five years old. Jean-Luc came himself to tell me the news because he was one of my closest friends. Sometimes I can still picture it, how it felt and exactly how the scene went as he told me. Jack, my husband and his best friend, had been killed in the line of duty and the responsibility was his."

Hence her difficult and confusing relationship with the ship's captain, made all the more difficult by her temporal displacement. As if they didn't have enough between them before she was brought here. Her eyes glaze over as she loses herself to the memories, talking through them as if she still sees them play out before her eyes.

"I remember sobbing into his shoulder. I felt as though a part of me had died with him. I remember having to tell Wesley that his father wouldn't be coming home again, realizing that he had picked it up from what Jean-Luc had said, before I even tried. For a long time afterwards, I could feel a deep and desperate darkness, like a weight was trying to choke me, cut me off. How could I live without Jack? How could I do anything at all? But it was Wesley, crying at night - Wesley who so thoroughly depended on me for his survival - that brought me out of that darkness. If something happened to him, I would never forgive myself.

"And so we survived until 2364, when I heard that the new Enterprise-D was looking for a Chief Medical Officer for her maiden voyages. As soon as I heard who would be her captain, I put in for a transfer to that position. I knew Jean-Luc and he still was a good friend, despite the awkwardness and the pain hanging between us. I had forgiven him long ago, though I knew he hadn't forgiven himself."

Awkwardness and pain that still hang between them, especially now. Blinking, Beverly lets her gaze return to Merlin's, pausing to let him digest what she's told him so far.

There was so much there that it took a long few minutes for Merlin to move, or respond in any way. So much pain, history, and loss. So much emotion. He knew what that was like. He knew what it could be like. Over two thousand years stretched back in his life, and he had lost... yes he had.

And in that time, he had rarely seen one do so well as she was doing. She carried herself, and others, even in the darkest hours. As when she had thought of Fatima during her own trials. She was, though she would never say it, and he would never trivialize her accomplishments by calling her such, a hero.

Merlin nodded, and sighed. He admired how she had managed to make her way through it. And how she still stood. "A hard situation for you all. A strange one, too." He blew out a long breath, remembering those images and feelings, and how she had felt, then, and how her nightmare had felt, now.

"You have carried this weight, for a long time. And you have not broken." His words were soft, gentle, sure, and the look in his eyes was sure as well. She yet managed to hold on. "An amazing, and hard, beginning."

Edited 2015-12-28 08:42 (UTC)

Harder and stranger still to admit that Beverly and Jean-Luc share an intense love for each other, but that she is the only one who knows. That is something she doesn't want to vocalize. Not now and perhaps not ever unless she is forced to. No good can come of it yet.

Instead, she simply nods and searches for how to continue.

"I was transferred to Starfleet Medical that second year and then I requested a return to the Enterprise the following year. While I was gone, they encountered the Borg for the first time. Then I returned and at the end of that year, 2366 into 2367, the Borg returned. You probably saw something in my nightmares about that. About... Jean-Luc and Locutus. The Borg used him against us, against the entire Quadrant and the Federation itself. In my time, he still bears those scars, both the physical and emotional ones. It's... difficult--" For lack of a better word. "--to know what should be coming, should already have happened, and know that I can't say anything about it."

Not just because of Starfleet's rules and regulations, but also because... how would she even begin to tell them? How could she say she knows that the Borg will strip so many people of their very selves, including their captain?

"It will be an extremely trying time for all of us when it happens in this timeline. But it does... change certain people. For the better, I think. It gives them new perspectives. I just hope it works the same here."

The only question now is how long will they have to wait?

"I can imagine, milady." He had walked some, this morning, and thought. And he had seen faces and heard names that he recalled from her nightmares. Their fates written in her dreams, cascaded across his consciousness, and he could imagine, indeed, what she was going through.

"Do you think, then, that it is something that must happen?"

"I don't know," she answers with a weary sigh. "In my timeline, I would say yes. It's something that... changes the face of the Federation. But how can I let something like that happen? How can I not try to stop it? What would that even do to the timeline that hasn't already been altered?"

It's such a headache already. Beverly lifts a hand to her temple.

"That's what I've been trying to figure out for so long. It's hard, though. I've never been able to really talk about it yet. Normally, I would talk it over with Deanna, but... she's from this timeline, not mine. I can't taint her understanding and knowledge of the future."

"For all that I know not the answer, I can at least offer thee my debating and listening services, milady. Tis what a good friend does, after all." He nodded to her.

"If it were my own choice, I fear my own choice would be to act." He steapled his fingers together and spoke slowly, not looking up at her."I am not a good man, nor a hero, and have done many things that could be properly labeled as evil. An yet... when the lives of so many hang in the balance, I do not think would stand aside."

He grinned then. "BUt that is not to say that such is the right choice." His eyes flashed with self-humor. "I've been a fool all too often."

Beverly sighs, nodding even as she turns and steps a few paces away, turns again and steps back. The whole situation is so complicated. The Temporal Prime Directive is ever in the back of her mind, ever in effect. But at the same time, shouldn't she at least try?

"If there were an easy answer, I would go with it," she says with another bone-weary sigh. "I know a lot of lives will be lost if things go as they should. Even if I warn them, what good would it do? We're facing the Borg. Nothing will change the fact that they are coming. Even if we are warned, even if the Federation has a head start, even if I warned everyone about Jean-Luc and Locutus... I don't think it would prevent anything. It might help get him back faster, but.."

She trails off, pacing away and back a second time as she mulls over the thoughts in her head. Being who she is, she absolutely wants to save as many people as she can, but she doesn't see how she can do that and keep up with Starfleet rules and regulations. It's something she has struggled with in the past and she almost always lands on the side of saving lives and helping. Right now, she feels that pull, the desire to throw everything aside and help... but to what end?

"Sometimes I wish I didn't know the future," she adds on wryly. "At least then I wouldn't have to worry about all of this and the Temporal Prime Directive wouldn't weigh so heavily."

Merlin nodded, listening. So many of those thoughts were familiar, so many were tracking with what he had once felt, and been through, and he felt a kinship to her, and in her pain. He sighed. "There is never an easy answer, milady, not for those who would cherish both life and determination, both hope and will." he rubbed his forehead, and nodded again. He reached out a hand to gently squeeze one of hers, and smiled wryly, lopsidedly.

Her last words, though, made him stiffen and his face go carefully, but compassionately, gentle.

"Would you truly wish it so?" Be careful how you answer, Beverly. Merlin has done worse than aid another by removing those memories that pain them so.

Edited 2016-01-08 20:33 (UTC)

Beverly sighs, tilting her head back and then to the side so she stares at the plants high up, rather than the man in front of her. Arms folding across her chest protectively, she gives her head a slight shake. There's really nothing to consider with that question. As much pain as she has experienced in her lifetime, as much loss and suffering as she has seen, she knows the answer.

"Our experiences and memories make us who we are, don't they?" she asks rhetorically. "Without my past, both pleasant and not, what am I but a shell of myself? I... wouldn't really be who I am now. At my heart, I am, but..." She shakes her head again and then turns something of a wistful gaze back to her friend. "If I asked that of anyone, I would be betraying myself and the people I care about."

People like those in her timeline. People like Fatima and Morgana. Her other crew. If she forgot any of them or what they had all been through together...

No. It wasn't even an option.

"I might think about it, but I could never ask it."

Merlin smiled then and gently touched her shoulder, a warm hand meant to comfort. "I think, if it helps, that you are doing the right thing, and that you are taking it all rather well. The weight you bear would break many, and seems to not break you." He smiled softer then.

"And I will aid thee as I can, as long as you let me." He would listen, and tea her, and sit with her, and aid her dreams. And he would do all of this because... he knew nightmares, and he knew fear and pain.

"You do honor to those you know, and those you have known."

Beverly huffs out a hollow laugh. Sometimes it hits her harder than others. Sometimes she thinks she really is broken already. "I think you just haven't seen me on a bad day," she says wryly. "But thank you. I really appreciate everything you've done already. I don't want to do this every night -- I wouldn't want to put that much pressure on you -- but even just this once... It helped more than you know."

He might be able to guess, after what he saw last night, but words will never be able to express how much it helped her.

"I will aid thee as often as I can, and will not let thee face this alone." He would make sure to find her, three of four times a week, with tea, and crumpets or biscuits, and then be there when she needed him.

Merlin leaned forward and tapped the tea cups he had conjured earlier, and the color of the liquid altered, the twang of strong but subtle whiskey wafting up. "Then a drink, milady, to facing the darkness, and to friendship, the most powerful magic of all."

"To facing the darkness and to friendship, wonderful as it is."

Beverly jokingly makes a note never to have tea with him while she's on duty as she takes the cup and then sips the drink. The taste of the whisky is strong, but not overpowering. Yet another barrier between her and her terrible memories. For now, she is content to keep Merlin company here. Later on, she will have to find a way to repay his kindness.

Merlin bowed to her again and smiled. There was reason to rejoice, sometimes, even in the darkness. And he found he had much joy this evening, despite what pains had come. Perhaps, in friendship, there was yet hope.

He would like to think so, anyway.

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