Sight Beyond Sight

Posted on Thu Jan 25th, 2024 @ 7:55pm by Evelyn Reynolds & Oliver Lucas

Mission: Fractures
Location: SS Mary Rose, Sickbay
Timeline: Predominantly in the present
1975 words - 4 OF Standard Post Measure

"I'm fine, I promise."

In the several minutes that had passed since emerging from her panic, Evelyn had recovered enough of her sensibilities to find the prospect of lingering vulnerability exceedingly uncomfortable. It wasn't a lack of trust; if anything, Oliver had earned a surprising amount of that over the course of their time together and she trusted him to be discreet, if nothing else. It also didn't stem from a belief that he wouldn't understand; trauma didn't always leave people with a lot of choices and he had been through something exceedingly more damaging than anything she'd experienced. She was simply frustrated, not a prime candidate for enjoying any lack of control over her behaviour, and certainly not inclined to tolerate a lot of fuss on her behalf. Fear was understandable, especially given their current circumstances, but curling into a ball in the corner was an irrational and unhelpful reaction that went against everything Evelyn had ever believed about herself. Now, finally on her feet and wiping brusquely at her damp cheeks, her only priority was seeing how quickly she could squash down the final remnants of panic to focus on something more productive.

It would have been easier had his eyes not been so full of empathy.

"I was with Nollel, we were trying to find the source of these...time fractures. She's gone again," Evie added, sliding a hand over her cheek to settle against her collarbone. "The prospect of being pulled so randomly is just a little daunting, that's all."

Oliver waved a medical tricorder near her head.

"I've not had the displeasure myself yet," he said, mentally noting her post-tearful expression. "It does sound very distressing. Perhaps remaining in-situ would be the safest option for now? Movement around the ship may be exacerbating things."

"You've been here the entire time?" The simple disclosure seemed to set Evelyn back again. Fluttered eyelashes fought for composure and she swallowed, drawing in a deep breath. "I didn't realise. Sickbay was empty when I...got back." Forcing herself to rally, the doctor glanced down the corridor and considered the option to stay put. "We managed to gather a group in the Operations offices but it's difficult to know how to keep a functional command centre when all of this seems so arbitrary."

"And communications don't seem to be available," he nodded. "I doubt we're best placed to fix things, even if we knew what was going on." Oliver put down the tricorder, not noticing anything severely physically wrong. He put a hand on her shoulder. "Take some deep breaths. Remember your training."

The physical contact had the unexpected effect of forcing Evie to relax her shoulders. As she emerged from panic in search of a focal point to centre herself on, it occurred to her that the young medic was once again demonstrating an exceedingly calm crisis response. He'd been exactly the same way when they'd first met, a far cry from the nervous man who stumbled over social conversations. It helped. One of them needed a level head. "I'll be fine," she reassured him quietly, repeating the sentiment as much for herself as for him. In the privacy of their virtual solitude, Evelyn didn't fight the change in dynamic, using his strength to bolster her own. "I'm just not sure what to do next."

Oliver's hand lingered on her shoulder probably for longer than it should have. His fingers gently moved, but didn't withdraw. "As I said, maybe we're not the right people to fix the problem. Although, I did have one thought..." He finally let go and picked up a tricorder. "Something I've seen former Borg be able to do is access their cortical implants for various purposes. It's not something I've really done before, but in the circumstances..." he trailed off. "S-sorry, getting ahead of myself. There might be a way I can help to 'see' some of these fractures you experienced. Without having to experience them."

Evelyn blinked, her composure disturbed this time by his lingering proximity and, perhaps even more so, his proposition. As much as she'd studied his medical records just as she had the rest of the crew's, (though arguably with a degree more thoroughness given the complexity of the still-integrated components), Evie didn't necessarily have a complete understanding of how much control Oliver still had over the residual gifts the Borg had left him with. "How would we go about that?" He had done one thing, at least; having a tangible concern to focus on was typically a great way to bring the doctor out of herself. Her blue eyes fixed on him beneath a knitted brow. "You've previously reported some discomfort, are you sure you want to risk it?"

His expression turned sheepish when she brought up her concerns for him. "The doctors did a good job when they removed the implants originally. But, ah-" He shrugged slightly. "I can't really say what playing around with them again will do. The headaches are usually manageable with some anti-inflammatory meds. Giving these implants a nudge...might be like asking you to go for a run." He motioned to her knee as he looked up at her, wondering how she might feel about subjecting him to that.

It was a question Evelyn was struggling with herself. As alarming as the prospect of randomly being snatched away was, it had not entirely squashed her natural desire for answers. All her efforts thus far had been an acceptance of responsibility, the understanding that, no matter what Oliver might say to the contrary, anyone currently available surely had some obligation to work towards a plan of action. That included the young medic but Evelyn found herself hesitating, drawn by another compulsion, far less defined, to seek an alternative that would spare him. She realised a little too late to stop that her hand had lifted, its fingers hovering over the implant that framed his eye. The very lightest of touches provoked a frown.

"I don't have any access to pain relief." Her voice, when she finally spoke, was quieter than her usual professional veneer permitted. "If we're going to try this, we should at least try to make it to Sickbay."

"Do you think we can?" Oliver wondered. "If there are more of these fractures between here and there, we might land in another unusual timestream, with no idea whether they'll be safe or dangerous."

It was exactly the problem, the uncertainty that had ground Evie to a halt to begin with. Not being able to trust the empty space around you was some next-level paranoia she hadn't counted on, and she drew no comfort from the proof that trauma recovery took time. It might have been a perfectly valid point but it didn't make her any less impatient. Still frowning, she regarded the young medic for a moment, contemplating now the idea of taking a risk not for her own benefit but on behalf of another, and found herself predictably annoyed enough at her own hesitation to push through it. "We're not far away," she reasoned, reaching down to take his hand firmly. "Just stay with me."

"Yeah..." he looked down at their clasped hands. "Yeah." The second time he said it was softer; a little more whispered. It took him a moment to reframe himself. "Sickbay. Implants. Anti-inflammatories. One step at a time." He squeezed her hand, a slight burn in his chest as he added. "Together."

Whilst it was easier to force herself to move forward with someone else in tow, Evie still fought against the urge to close her eyes as she did it, struck by the primitive supposition that if she couldn't see something, it couldn't apply to her. It was a foolish impulse and completely illogical given their entire purpose was to render the invisible at least partially detectable but, like a child quivering under the covers from the bogeyman, the occasional reprieve behind her own eyelids became enough to propel her all the way to Sickbay. If she'd been asked prior, Evelyn would have guessed she didn't know the ship's layout well enough for that; apparently, that wasn't true.

"Hop up," she patted one of the beds, reluctantly detaching herself from Oliver to go and grab a better-grade tricorder. Pulling over one of the portable scanners, the doctor swung it into place and then studied the medic's features with a faint crease to her own brow. "When was the last time you had someone check the integrity of your implants?" She knew, having worked with Morcan in the past, that medical care crossed over into bio-engineering and that was a specialty not always immediately available.

"I self-diagnose every six months," he replied, a little admission of self-treatment that by all rights he wasn't qualified for, nor was it something that he likely should have been doing himself. "To be honest aside from the occasional headaches they're totally dormant. At least...for now." He gently touched her hand then pointed to the scanner. "There. The cortical resonator, it's just behind the retinal nerves. Activating it should help me pick up some of the ranges outside of normal human visual acuity."

"Once this is over, we'll look into something a bit more in depth." It was a quiet promise, made without establishing eye contact as Evelyn was absorbed with trying to process the information on her screen. She visibly rallied herself eventually and moved to load a hypospray, finally looking up to explain her intent. "I'm going to give you a precautionary analgesic." Hesitating just long enough to seek permission, she gently pushed the injector against his neck and set the device aside to pick up her tricorder again. A soft hand, slightly chilled, cupped itself around the contours of his skull to frame the implant and Evie used her thumb to flick aside a strand of hair as she asked, "Ready?"

He took a deep breath, touched her shoulder for comfort, and smiled faintly. "Yes."

There was no pain from the hypo. And nothing immediately changed until he felt the numbness in his neck and near his ear. That spread quickly towards the front of his face as several implants stirred from a long dormancy. Oliver closed his eyes, focusing on breathing techniques to endure through the odd sensation. When he reopened them, her face and the room had a slight greenish tint. He blinked a few times, adjusting. "I think it's working...hold on..." He blinked and turned, seeing a wall of brighter green static washing through the room. "Oh-" He grasped hold of Evelyn's shoulder more tightly as the moving wall caught up to them both.

There hadn't been a lot of time to react. One minute, she was flitting her gaze between the readouts of her tricorder and Oliver's face, the next she had a death-grip on one of his elbows whilst the hand holding the scanning device threatened to throttle the life out of the piece. The sensation of being displaced wasn't pleasant, Evie decided, it left her decidedly disoriented and slightly nauseous, but this time held the distinction of being at least somewhat less jarring because it appeared that the location hadn't changed. At least, not beyond the superficial.

Everything looked worn out.

"Are you all right?" Try as she might to grasp hold of the quicksilver slither of her composure, Evelyn couldn't coax her voice above a whisper.

"Yes...but I think we might have been caught in one of those fractures..." Oliver explained, rubbing his temple with his fingertips, as though that would alleviate the off-set vision and odd sensations.

"Indeed you have." Another voice rang out in the dim light. The pair of them looked up as a silhouette materialised into a visible form, and Oliver found himself looking face-to-face with...Oliver.