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

[ethnobotany]

(( 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.

Comments

[themerlin]

"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."

[ethnobotany]

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."

[themerlin]

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.

[ethnobotany]

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."

[themerlin]

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."

[ethnobotany]

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.

[themerlin]

"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."

[ethnobotany]

"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.

[themerlin]

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.