Head Shrinking

Posted on Wed May 24th, 2023 @ 6:40pm by Executive Officer Jake Ford & Evelyn Reynolds

Mission: Mission 16: Hysperia
Location: Sickbay
Timeline: MD-07 - Morning
1398 words - 2.8 OF Standard Post Measure

It hadn't been Jake's preference to visit sickbay for the brain scan quite so soon, but Cassie was both insistent and persuasive about him looking after himself. After the mind meld, things had become clearer, at least to himself. But at the same time there were medical concerns that he really only trusted one person to alleviate.

"Good morning, Doctor Reynolds," he announced, rounding the corner to her CMO office off the main ward. "Got a second?"

From her self-appointed mound of paperwork, Evelyn peered upwards at the use of her professional title. "Why does that sound more ominous than I'd like?" A pointed gaze scrutinised him for a moment before Evelyn sighed and set aside her PADD, gesturing with a nod of her head towards the entrance behind him. "Close the door if you need to."

Jake thought about that for a moment, then touched the button to give them a moment's privacy. He took a seat opposite her, which made this feel even more formal. Maybe it was better that way.

"So...I sort-of did something to address the...issue." He tapped his temple. "The thing in my head." He studied her expression, wondering if she would make another jibe, but she remained silent. "I asked Cassie to help me. With a mind meld." He was speaking in short statements again, which was reminiscent of his usual conversations with a doctor. Not that this was just any doctor, but actually a long-time friend. Evelyn had known him certainly longer than anyone else on board. "We made a bit of a discovery."

He could speak in single words for all it was going to make any difference to the protracted silence as Evelyn sized him up before summarising, "Meaning that you stirred the hornet's nest before we'd updated the scans on record, and without adequate medical supervision in the event that a meld caused more problems than it solved." It earned him no lenience to have her personally invested in the outcome; if anything, that was only going to set the tension into her jaw indefinitely. "Causing risk to not one but two crewmembers. It had better be some discovery."

"When you put it like that..." Yes. He didn't finish the sentence out loud. Instead he just leaned forward to try to explain. "Look, when Cassie and I looked into my brain, we met something else. Someone else, I think. What did she call it? A little like how Vulcans have a katra, there's like a second one of those inside my head. She...spoke to us. Called herself Kilhra - but she's not dangerous, as far as I can tell. The opposite, in fact; like a defensive mechanism to compartmentalise all the strange other stuff that was bouncing around in there." He blurted it all out quite fast that he had to force himself to stop. "Does that make any sense?"

It was abundantly clear from Evelyn's frown that it did not. She held up a hand, an appeal for a moment to process the bizarre explanation. "Let me get this straight; you believe you have someone else's soul living inside your head?" Evie was the first to admit that psychological injuries were not her forte and she'd already determined a strong likelihood of having to fall back on old allegiances and hope that they had endured Jack's best attempts to dismantle her credibility. This seemed something else entirely. "Or are you suggesting that part of your psyche has reinvented itself to such an extent that it now has its own separate identity?"

"The second one. I think." Jake felt his face screw up again, knowing that he was either losing Evelyn, or worse - annoying her. "I might be completely wrong but I think it's the brain's way of helping keep the bleeding effect of the transfer under control. Rather than repressing all of those memories and emotions, it's like they're stored away in a safe place. And, strangely, I feel like it's helped me to get some semblance of control back."

In truth, it was veering more towards the deeply concerned aspect of that particular trifecta, but Evelyn was a woman who had grown altogether too accustomed to frowning at data when it refused to give her the kind of information she wanted. It wasn't that her bedside manner was lacking, it was just...a little dormant, at least where Ford men were concerned. She wasn't typically prone to unnecessary extremes of emotion, however, and the furrowed intensity of her scrutiny revealed more of a mind churning over possibilities than a temper about to snap.

"Jake," she eventually said, in a tone that was calmer but somehow altogether more stern for it, "this isn't something you can romanticise. If there is evidence of psychological injury, which this would definitely count as, then we need to consider treatment and recovery first." She arched her eyebrows at him. "Medically, morally, our first obligation is to resolve this, not encourage it."

There was something about her input that felt uncomfortable. Jake felt inwardly like he had just started to make progress, and Evie was telling him that he was somehow making things worse. And maybe he was. But it didn't feel like it. "I know. And I understand. But..." He sighed. "It genuinely has helped. My head feels clearer than it has done in weeks. I'm not slipping into another language during conversation. I feel like me."

And therein lie the dilemma. As a doctor, providing relief was a considerable part of Evelyn's job. Since specialising, she'd been removed somewhat from the palpable proof of her attempts but the overarching goal was still the same. An uncertain and scared patient was typically harder to treat successfully that one with a more optimistic frame of mind and Evie couldn't see a lot of benefit in robbing Jake of whatever glimmer of hope he'd managed to find. She didn't trust sudden reductions in severity of symptoms without known intervention, however, especially not those inclined to give themselves a name.

"If it is providing temporary clarity, then we can use it to our benefit," she relented, backing off a little despite the fact that her eyes still spoke of her concern. "But we are still going to have to investigate what's going on. We're almost done installing the equipment upgrades, I can schedule you for a full Encephalopathy screening in the next day or so and we can try to see what we're dealing with."

"So long as that's not the one where you have to stick it up my..." He paused mid-sentence, figuring that he was probably just giving her ideas. "Never mind. I consent to whatever scans you want to run. And more regular check-ups, if that's what you're asking for. Total open-book with this."

Finally resigned to the inevitability of helping yet another Ford man through a calamity entirely of his own doing, Evelyn exhaled in audible frustration and then shook her head. "You may regret putting me in charge of all this," she warned in a droll tone, consenting to veer towards the camaraderie of humour despite the pervading concern over the escalation of his symptoms. "The sheer lack of medical follow-through that occurred after that one incident alone is not going to fly on my watch."

"Hey, that's not on me. You'll need to ask Oliver and Beya about that one..." Jake shrugged, absolving himself quickly of responsibility.

Evelyn frowned. "You're First Officer," she reminded him. "You had best get used to the idea of being dragged into the loop." In many ways, Evie knew she was over-compensating, that part of her thoroughness stemmed from insecurity and nervousness and the sensation of being woefully unprepared for the severe alteration to her career path. As had always been the case, she approached uncertainty with stubborn imperiousness and a refusal to succumb to vulnerability, no matter how loud her demons screamed at her to give up. "One lunch meeting a week, you name the day."

"Sunday. You're cooking." He grinned, propping himself up. "I remember your grandmother's recipe for roast chicken. Best in the quadrant - lives up to the reputation."

"Fine," Evelyn deflated all the way, content to tuck away the rest of her concern for after she could schedule his scans. "But you're in charge of dessert."