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

[ethnobotany]

Their role reversal just keeps going. Beverly reflects a little on it with slight amusement. Usually, she would be the one giving him whatever reassurance and support she could. This time, he is doing that exact thing for her.

A frown of concern creases her face as she listens. They had each talked a little about their traumas, shared experiences that made them the way they are. Still, there's always more. There's always something else, something worse. The Quarter Quell seems worse insomuch as something can be worse than one trip into the Arena.

"I taught a few people Mok'bara while I was there," she says slowly, in answer to his words. "The meditation helped, but it wasn't perfect. I've already had a Klingon in here tell me that."

In all fairness, it's true. She's very sloppy right now as far as Klingons are concerned. As far as her own mental capacity is concerned, at the moment she is doing as well as she can. She's taking it one step at a time, at her own pace. No one else's.

"I have Fatima to talk to when we cross paths. We both remember everything we experienced, all of those horrors. It's... easier with her. Easier to convince myself that it's real. That everything actually happened and being here isn't some kind of... of dream." She runs a hand through her hair, letting her gaze move around the room for a minute.

"When I first woke up here, I was convinced that it was a trick, that none of this was real. It took being told by my best friend that I was safe for it to really sink in." Some days she reverts back to that first mindset. Some days it's too hard to convince herself that this is real. Right now is one of those times.

If she ever sees Q again....

[fishermansweater]

He understands what she's saying about Fatima, not just because he can see what she means, but because he's felt it himself. Being a victor of the Hunger Games is to be uniquely a victim of that same loneliness, a loneliness made of the arena and the fact that only one person ever came out of it alive until Katniss tore the rules apart. All of Panem watched what they went through, but each victor had always been alone until then.

It's one of the reasons Finnick was so close to Mags, to Annie, because a mentor is the closest thing to someone else who's been through it with a victor. To everyone else, it's just a story. Just television.

"It's like that for victors, too. Especially here. In Panem, everyone saw what happened to us. On tv. It wasn't real to them. And here, people can barely believe the Games happened, let alone what happened to us."

So many things tie the victors together it's little wonder he's stuck close to Annie (and Johanna, while she was here), tried to befriend Lacey, Peeta, Katniss. It might not be much, but it's all they have of Panem.

Not that any of them necessarily want to hang on to Panem, but it's made them who they are.

"I'm not surprised," he says, quietly, his clear green eyes sad as he watches her. "When I first got here, I was sure President Snow had taken me out of the arena." His smile has no amusement in it. "I thought I was going to be tortured and killed."

[ethnobotany]

"It hard," Beverly agrees softly, "to go through something like we have and not wonder what's real and not real." Fatima had told Beverly that she had started to think Zelien was all just a dream when she had come here. Fatima had been here for so long without anyone else who knew and a Beverly who had never been there at all. It was hard to blame her for wondering.

"I'm glad that neither of us has to deal with that right now. For what it's worth... this is real. It took me a while to actually believe that." And now she feels that she has to convince herself all over again. So much for her progress.

"There were children in Zelien, too," she continues, a frown crossing her face as she remembers Kaede. "I was trying to teach one and protect her at the same time. It was terrible by itself, but I don't think it really compares to anything in Panem." Of course, that doesn't mean much of anything. Zelien was still terrible for an adult, and horrific for a kid. "There's something to be said for the people you go through something like this with."

[fishermansweater]

He's quiet, for a moment. He knows exactly what Beverly means. In the middle of the night, he's used to the whispers from Annie asking him what's true and what's not, what is really happening and what her mind has tricked her into believing. That was before they wound up here.

Beverly's reassurance, though, helps, in a way. It's enough to prompt him to voice things he's never really dared voice here outside the secret whispers for Annie or Katniss where nobody else could hear.

"I still watch everything I say. We're all so used to assuming the Capitol is listening. They spy on us, they bug our houses, no victor can ever really be themself unless they're so far out to sea they might be safe."

For a moment, his expression flickers, like Beverly's had, and his green eyes are a little too bright.

"No child should have to go through anything like that. Not Zelien, not the Games, not living with that sort of fear."

Borderline treasonous words, if the Capitol really were listening, but ... it's a step. A little more honesty when he's been able to show so little.

[ethnobotany]

Beverly can only guess at how that feels, barely imagine what living like that would be like. In a way, it reminds her of the Borg, only with a twist. The Borg were always one. There was no need for privacy, so there was no privacy at all. But Beverly could still remember what it was like to bring Jean-Luc back from that, to watch as he struggled with himself. He rarely talked about it, but from what they knew, the voices... not having those voices was as strange as having them so suddenly.

There was nothing to keep to oneself. All was known. And then it was gone.

She shivers involuntarily before turning to Finnick, her eyes hard. "No, they shouldn't," she agrees, her voice practically turning to stone. "No one should. Not a child, a teenager, or an adult. And that's why I will do anything I can to help you and keep you safe -- you, Annie, and everyone else from your world who went through that."

Even if she has to take them through her hell with her to the universe she is from, they will never again know the horrors of Panem. Not if she has anything to say about it.

"Whatever it takes to keep you safe, I will do. Starfleet will have a field day with it in my universe, but I will bear the consequences."

Temporal Investigations would have her head and Guinan would be displeased, not to mention Jean-Luc's sense of duty, but Finnick and Annie especially are worth that risk.

[fishermansweater]

In a strange way, there's always been something reassuring about Beverly's horror. In Panem, most people were too afraid to show their feelings as openly as she does. It had been different the last few months before he'd come here, when people were angrier, more rebellious, but Beverly's anger is something that wouldn't have been spoken publicly for fear of the Peacekeepers, of Capitol spies.

It makes it a little easier to accept some of the things he's still struggling with: that what Snow had done to him was a horrific betrayal, that it's natural for it to have harmed him. Of course, he hasn't told her about the shame, the self-loathing that come from what he's done and what's been done to him and what he's allowed to happen, the darkness that his experiences have stirred in his mind, but ... her outrage and her sympathy make him feel a little less like he has to pretend around her.

So the harshness in her voice is reassuring, and he trusts that it's real, more than he would have done all those months ago when he first met her.

The corners of his mouth turn up, just a little.

"You'd take us with you back to your ... reality?"

[ethnobotany]

She nods seriously at his question, well aware of the repercussions of even suggesting it. She might be facing something as high as a court martial for it, but after everything she has experienced, after knowing what little she does about Panem, she will go down fighting for these people who deserve so much better than to go back to such a place as that.

"If it came down to it, yes," she affirms. "It will be easier if Q keeps you here, but if there's even a hint that something will change, I'll do whatever I can to ensure that you stay with me."

She will protect them in any way that she can, Temporal Prime Directive be damned. Starfleet can deal with it; she will never let these Panem survivors return without a fight.