Attachment issues

Posted on Mon Sep 26th, 2016 @ 12:31am by Commander Bertrand Cuprum

Mission: Do Not Follow
Location: Medical

Bertrand had a moment's confusion at the door to medical. His right arm was detached and held in his left hand. That left nothing free to press the chime. He had finally decided to use his left elbow, stepping up to the door to do so, when the door opened for him. Bertrand chastised himself. Of course the door would open automatically; you couldn't slow down the passage of emergency patients by requiring them to press a chime.

He stepped through into the sterile interior. Since Dering had taken up residence the place had altered considerably. Someone had placed a few plants in unobtrusive places, probably to reduce the starkness of the environment, or provide feeling of "well being" or whatever other waffle this counselor-cum-medico was into.

"Dr Hood?" he called out. He knew she was in here somewhere, but his head hurt to much to try any proper sensing.

Dee stepped out from her office and gave her visitor a warm smile. Smiling was very important and it offered reassurance to those coming into an unknown and somewhat scary place such as Sickbay. Smiling can use up 26 facial muscles where as a frown can use up to 64. Or was it the other way round, 26 for a frown 64 for a smile. Never mind about that now. Other things to concentrate on here.

"Welcome to Sickbay. What can I do for....ah I see"

The gruff security officer waved his dismembered bionic arm at her, "I am having some attachment issues and need you help."

"Well I'm a Dr stroke Counselor not an bio engineer. You run the risk of me attaching you arm on back to front and offering it soothing advice but I can have a look at that head wound for you first."

She guided him to a bio bed "You had better lie down before you fall down Mr because I can't pick you up off the floor if you fall."

Bertrand grunted and sat down on the bio-bed, "Took the dam thing off for the mission and my arm started to heal over. Just a little but the Nanites want to build a replacement. I need you to scour it clean and just check the connections on the socket side aren't obscured."

Dee cleaned his head wound with one of her natural tincture remedies. The wound wasn't deep but it had some dirt inside it that needed to be cleansed. It came from the essence of a particular Carew Worm and was far better than anything Sickbay was offering. When she was finished Dee started on his arm. "This is going to smart a bit." she told him as she placed the damaged part of his arm on a sterile table along side of him.

She set her healing crystals around him gently blowing on each to activate them.

"Damn thing," Bertrand winced.

"Sorry. But it's going to take a little while. The crystals will set up a magnetic field around your injury. That in turn will tell your brain to go to that place and take the pain away. You should start to feel pain free in a minute or so."

Bertrand watched her for a while as she worked on his arm, her mind a million light years away.

"Still no word on Jake, huh?" he muttered.

She stopped what she was doing. The mere mention of her husbands name made her heart ache painfully. No one knew about him she's kept it quiet because she didn't want anyone to feel sorry for her. Over the last year she had tried to put him further to the back of her mind and was trying to move on with the rest of her life. But Dee was trying to remember something he had said to her just as Bertrand interrupted her thoughts.

"Sorry, you were thinking about him pretty loudly," Bertrand apologized. Even after all these years he forgot occasionally that non-Betazoids got upset about their minds being read.

She stood up looking at him realising then that he was a Betazoid. "I'm sorry. I'll try to be more careful on my thoughts next time. I want to talk about him but I don't want to talk about him. There's too much pain to deal with it.

Bertrand nodded, "I know that feeling."

He lay back and sighed heavily, the crystals turning a deep blue in response to his mood, "Everyone tells you it will be better to talk about it, but it is like scouring the damn arm socket again and again. Never going to get the arm back, so why bother talking about how much pain you are in, right?"

"So what do you like to do off duty? "asked Dere changing the subject of the conversation and getting him to think of something else.

"OFF duty?" Bertrand mused. "Can't remember. A cop, er, investigating officer, is never really off duty. What time isn't spent in some therapy session or other, tends to be focused on not drinking. I do like a game of darts though. Anything hand-eye related. I am afraid this," he gestured to his limb, "gives me something of an advantage."

He grimaced as the sonic scalpel knocked the growing edges off his shoulder joint, leaving it smooth again, "And what do you do when you aren't inflicting pain and crystals?"

Dere took a moment to think. "Well I like music and meditation. Oh sorry did that hurt? I've been known to throw a few 'arras' in my time we should have a match make a team up."

Dere walked over to her desk and fished out a rose quartz Illutherian crystal. It was sticky and covered in fluff but she placed it on his forehead. It had a way of cleansing his aura, which had holes all over it and balancing his chakras, which were totally out of sync.

"Few more minutes should do it."

Bertrand just grunted. Something was working at his mind, flitting around like a shadow at the corner of his eye, and he couldn't quite catch it. But it distracted him from the process on his shoulder until he heard the click and sudden rush of bio feedback to indicate his arm was attached and functional. He sat up and rolled his shoulder to test the motion, but it was smooth again now.

"Thank you, Lieutenant," he said. "I will no doubt be scheduled a session with you by Starfleet Medical. They do worry about my PTSD."

"That's fine." she replied "but wait...."

He was out the door before she could finish. She wondered how long it would be before he realised that he still had the rose crystal stuck to his forehead.