The Best Medicine
Posted on 22 Jan 2024 @ 11:03am by Commander Calliope Zahn & Lieutenant Commander Ethan Walker, MD, Ph.D
Mission:
M4 - Falling Out
Location: OC, Medical - counseling suite
Timeline: TBD
3688 words - 7.4 OF Standard Post Measure
It was a scheduled meeting with her counselor, who, though typically attached to the Ardeshir, happened to be on a rotation in the station’s infirmary. Although it had been almost three weeks since they had last spoken, she'd otherwise previously been meeting with Walker weekly (sometimes more) since the beginning of her recovery from her Vamiraxil dependency. It was a strange word for it, though, she had always thought: Dependency.
While she was medically being treated for the damage throughout her body, she knew she hadn't gone to the lengths she had over the years to keep herself in supply of Vamiaxil because it gave her any relief or pleasure or alertness, the way other substances did for people. There was neither a high, nor a relaxed state— really nothing to affect her nerves or attention. The dependency was psychological, and that she knew was undeniable. Her perceived need for the drug was in the comfort of knowing that she could live in her social and career spheres relatively normatively like most human women, and that her body would suppress her additional orion driven pheromone output to that end.
Walker had broken that down together with her over the months after and she'd come to accept that it had been a dependency, even if it didn't look the same as other drugs for other people. It had helped because, like anyone with a dependency to overcome, she could think of the whole thing from the outside of herself, and simultaneously assign the right amount of both responsibility for the situation and grace for herself in having been victim to it.
There was also the accountability aspect. Wordlessly, she sat down on the exam bed and held out her hand. From her index finger, Walker took a spot reading with a small device that picked up a barely visible blood sample and, attaching the device to the top of a monitor, ran a brief analysis looking for Vamiraxil related compounds.
It came up clear.
Walker just smiled back at her and the screen, and made the reading disappear. “Any symptoms you want to mention?” he asked casually, wearing his Physician’s hat for the moment. At this point in her recovery he expected those to be few and far between but you never knew. Dependencies like hers could wreak havoc on the human body, but what it could do to an Orion wasn’t quite as well documented. He didn’t know if one part of her DNA would be assisting the other in making recovery that much faster and without recurrent symptoms or if one would be overpowering the over in making the strange occur. It was something she was going to have to be diligently monitoring for a long time. Potentially years.
“That I want to mention?” Calliope huffed. “Most of it I called in with Lorne. Some headaches, sore muscles, fatigue, that sort of thing. Oh, and this sort of weird, dry rash inside of my elbows.” She pulled up a sleeve to show him. “Lorne gave me a cream for it, but it hasn’t gone away.”
Taking a tricorder from the bedside stand, Ethan gave the rash a cursory scan, pretty certain he already knew what the answer was. But with medicine, it was always something you confirmed as many times as was needed. They’d long progressed past the previous generations method of ‘informed guessing’.
“I think maybe after our session today, you should take some holodeck time. Maybe a soothing spa somewhere? I can make some suggestions,” he said as he put the device away, waving for her to roll down her sleeve. “Something to calm you down. Bring that stress level down. This will go away as you do.”
“So be less stressed.” Calliope bounced a foot up and down and looked darkly amused at the advice as she tugged her sleeve straight. “I’ll see if I can fit a spa in.”
Ethan smiled patiently, “Self-maintenance is just as important as the maintenance our engineers perform on the ships and stations of Starfleet, Calli. I know it sounds wild to think about spending a couple of hours of downtime, soaking in a tub in the holodeck. But it’s important. You are important. Don’t forget that,” he smiled, flicking off the computer terminal with the rest of her readings - he’d seen more than enough. “Shall we?” he asked, gesturing to the corridor down the hall that led to the lifts. The Counseling suites were just down the hall beyond the lift doors.
“Lead the way.” Calliope stood to follow him out of the exam room.
Officially, Ethan wasn’t a part of the compliment on the station, just here on a holding pattern since the Ardeshir was undergoing a refit. But, as a Physician and a Counselor he’d been given the professional courtesy of being assigned a counseling suite to use for his own crew still here and to support the staff on the station. Doctor Llwyd had plenty on his plate and had been clear that every hand that could help, was welcome to.
He led Calliope into the suite designated for him, waving politely to Doctor Melanthio as he was exiting his own, nose down in a book. He waved back just as Ethan followed Calli in. He gestured to her preferred spot on the couch and went to the replicator. “Tea?”
“Sure, what was it last time?” She had to think back, as it had been the longest break since she’d talked with him. “Cinnamon clove something.” She settled in, trying already to sort her thoughts and anticipating everything she would need to catch him up on. She would be glad for the hot drink to hold.
Ethan ordered two from the computer and then took his seat, offering her her cup as he sat down and relaxed. On the one hand, this was a session with a patient, but on the other he felt a camaraderie and kinship with Calli that transcended the professional. He was rooting for her, and rooting hard. “This is the part where I ask you how you feel,” he smirked at her.
She stirred the tea and tried to pick a word. “Unmoored?” Then she laughed lightly at the unintentional connotations of having picked that word. “Not in the crazy sense. Just disconnected. In some kinda limbo land.” It was then that all of the carefully thought out angles and lead in explanations in her head just failed her and she got straight to the point.
“I’m divorcing Lance.” She’d wanted to tell Ethan more than anyone else, and at the same time was afraid of his reaction, even though it would be perfectly calm like all of his reactions. She didn’t know very much about Catholics, except that they weren’t big on recommending divorce, and that Ethan was a devout sort. “I moved out and I filed for the divorce.”
Ethan choked on the tea he was trying to sip as she spoke but managed to keep it from making a mess and downed the bit in his mouth, managing only a polite cough afterwards. He set the cup on the table and looked up at her as he sat back up. “That’s… a large step… quite quickly, Calli,” he observed carefully. “What. What brought you to such a decision?”
“So many things. I mean,” She motioned with a palm up to the sky. “Where do I start? I know you met him when I was first admitted.”
“I did,” Ethan nodded. “And spoke with him regularly during your initial treatments, when you were really incapable of responding yourself,” he went on.
“I remember you telling me he was really concerned, and always around," Calliope recounted.
“Even more so than would be expected of a person concerned about their ill spouse. It was both refreshing to see, and slightly concerning,” he explained, “He seemed unusually distraught. I presumed that to be the ‘engineer’ in him, unable to diagnose the malfunction and repair. It’s not uncommon.”
Calliope nodded. That was about the size of it. “He was really…” she struggled with how to explain it, “ ‘put upon’ by my situation. When I was released from medical, he was very attentive to any arrangements I needed but... He didn’t spend any time with me. He started this project that he named after me and he spent his time there.”
“We all handle grief, stress and fear very differently,” Ethan shrugged. “Very differently.”
“I know. When I found out about it, I thought, you know, he was just dealing with it in his own way. But I didn’t feel like his wife. I felt like his problem.”
He nodded along with that, “An engineer’s approach,” he said, “Did you tell him how you felt? That you needed a husband, not a mechanic?”
“I did. I told him. And he put the project in the garage on ice. He made sure I understood he’d sacrificed that. Not to mention Daystrom. I figured maybe the barely veiled guilting would cool down after a while, we just needed time to adjust. I didn’t want him to quit his hobbies, but he insisted. For a little while, I thought we were doing okay. Everything I told you, about… my past, I told him. I wanted him to understand. It wasn’t fair I had kept it from him when we were younger. He seemed to understand. We spent more time together, went on a trip planetside for a weekend. He tolerated my company.” She half smiled at that; it was a long-time wound she had dressed up and laughed off for years. “And I thought maybe if we kept it up it could get better.”
Ethan just nodded, having done this far too long to think he needed to speak for her to continue on. She was in her head and letting it all roll out, the best thing he could do was sit back and let it.
“We were doing okay at first even on assignment together.” She thought about how sweet he’d been on the ride out, and how well their skills had complemented in decoding and analytics. How well he had supported the effort at assembling resources for her away team… How they had at first shared their smaller cabin, bedding down without tensions or arguments or misunderstandings. She looked down, struggling with that bright spot more than anything else. “More than okay. We were good.”
He smiled, a tempered one, but one nonetheless. Had she stopped there he might have thought they were on the right path but he had the unfortunate knowledge of what ultimately had happened which meant that this couldn’t have been the way things went on. Something had to have broken, and quickly, for her to have reached such a dramatic conclusion.
“It only lasted the week, and then it got much, much worse. Inflated self ego, dismissal of his subordinates, treating me like I needed his supervision. It just split open a mile wide.”
“This… change. Did you discuss it with him? Did you express your feelings, and how his change was affecting you?” Ethan pressed as gently as he could. He wasn’t sure he could change minds on this, but that wasn’t the point. The point was healing, and talking it out, debating alternatives were the best way to lead one to that. Healing.
“Oh, we talked,” she said with a hint of the intensity of command and authority for a moment, dropping her gaze and meaning business. “Personal. Professional. I laid out all the problems. To which he justified himself and gave his grandiose reasons.” She sipped her tea. “And then we let it chill a few days. Our fifteenth wedding anniversary was coming up, and I don’t think either one of us wanted to spoil the day. I knew though, that we couldn’t continue on like we had.
“I figured it wasn’t going to work for us with him staying on as Chief Engineer of the station. What with…” She pursed her lips and compressed some of her reasons. “...it just being a big downshift from his real calling in research. I think he would always kind of resent it, whether or not he thinks of it as resentment, he wasn’t content, and he wasn’t going to be. It wasn’t going to be any better trying to get a ship billing together either; I knew that after everything came apart with him on the Pathfinder. He’s not cut out for a ship assignment. Not without retraining and a big shift in his career goals.
“All that being off the table, I thought it was possible I could move to Sol, so he could get back to R&D and it would maybe take all this tension out of our marriage. The guilting, the ill-fitting job,” She formed a claw with one hand to illustrate the tension and then drank some more of the tea, trying to soothe herself with cinnamon.
Ethan just smiled patiently back, letting her get it all out.
“It seemed like the only viable option. I mean, my career is stalled anyway, what with everything else. Whole other can of gagh. So I was giving the possibility of a Sol system move an honest to goodness chance. I have to rebuild my career wherever I go anyway. I just–” Her voice lost steam in the retelling and she deflated a little, her shoulders falling by degrees. “I needed to know if I gave up my career path on the frontier for something in administration or training, if… if at home with Lance I was going to count for anything more than warming the bed for him. A pleasant distraction from his calling. I just. I wanted him to care about being us.”
“It would be irresponsible for me to diagnose Lance with anything, but it does bear the hallmarks of a classic Narcissistic Personality Disorder. And if that is true, the only effective treatment is therapy. A willingness on the part of the individual to change. Is he willing?” Ethan asked carefully.
“When we went out for dinner, I asked him to come to counseling with me. He said he didn’t need counseling and declined but suggested an open marriage... I…” Setting down her teacup, she breathed out, the breath itself a shudder. She hid her face in her hands. “I left the table, Ethan. I left, I couldn’t believe it! I just didn’t see us with a future. Loki system, Sol system. Anywhere.”
“You did the right thing, Calli. You walked away rather than create a situation you couldn’t control,” he praised her gently. Talking things out was always the best option but when presented with a response such as his and having one so dramatic of your own, it was best to simply step back. At least in his opinion.
Having heard her choose to get divorced was not something he wanted to hear, but now having heard what it was that was suggested to solve their marriage woes by Lance, he had to admit that her decision was the right one. One might argue, in fact, that it wasn’t hers. He had made it the moment he suggested that they break their vows.
“Where is Lance now?” Ethan asked
"Hell if I know." Hands sliding off her face and into her lap she sniffed and looked up to the ceiling.“Making arrangements to leave for Sol. He signed over Engineering to his replacement. Honestly, I’m afraid to make any kind of contact with him. The day I moved out, he suddenly capitulated to everything; he said he’d go to counseling, even church services. He said I could move out for a while to do the separation thing and then... I don’t know what he thinks I’m going to do, just run back to the life we had? I don’t know, maybe he really would go to counseling with me. But it makes me afraid that I’d get to add making him go to counseling and leaving him to the pile of things he can resent me for. I don’t… I don’t want to get talked back into it.”
“If you’re seriously considering walking this path together which, I feel compelled by my other vocation to remind you is what He would want,” Ethan said, indicating the pin on his collar opposite of his Starfleet rank with the seal of the Holy See. “My therapeutic recommendation however would be to treat this time as if it were a complete reset. If he wants to rekindle this, he has to initiate it. It’s not an ask and answer, it’s his effort. That will tell you if he is truly serious about saving this, if he’s truly in love and refuses to accept this falling apart even if it means having to reforge himself. If he simply walks away, then my suspicion of his narcissistic disorder may be more correct than we know. An individual such as that would presume his simple act of contrition would solve the problem because, to their mind, who could be more important than them?” he went on. “I think it is worth at least an open mind to the possibility he fights for this. As you clearly have.”
Her heart ached thinking about what she wished Lance could do, and for what they might have been together. “How would I really know? If he comes back asking, how would I know that it wasn’t just promises he thought I wanted to hear?”
“His actions will have to speak for you,” Ethan answered simply. “Word will not suffice here anymore. His action, or inaction, will speak volumes. As much as you want to hear him, to hear him say what you want, you have to step and listen to what he’s doing. You’ve made clear what you want and what you need. He has to step up and act, for good, or not,” he explained slowly, as evenly as he could.
She was rubbing her knees, self soothing a growing anxiety. It sounded like more waiting, when she felt she'd been waiting all their married life as it was. “His actions, yeah,” she echoed. But she was still confused. Lance had left Sol to be with her, and yet she’d had to live with his bitterness over the loss. “Actions speak louder,” she echoed again. “Wait for him to act.”
“Calli,” he said, purposely drawing her eyes up to him. “Just because you’re opening your heart to the possibility of him acting in a way to save what you have, doesn’t mean you have to put your life on hold,” Ethan smiled. “Live. Be the woman you want to be. Pursue what you want to pursue and if he truly loves you, truly wants to save this. He’ll accept that and act accordingly. Marriage is accepting each other for who you are, and accepting that we each have our own paths to walk, one to walk together,” he went on. “I want to hope he’ll see that. But…” he shrugged slightly. “I don’t want to see you put yourself in some kind of limbo waiting for something that may never happen,” he said. “So, walk out these doors today, and follow whatever path you want. You’ve done enough to try and bring him with you. It’s his turn.”
Exhaling, Calliope just sat with that, thinking about what she knew of Lance. Tears of relief trickled and she took Ethan’s offering of tissues and rubbed the tears away as she just accepted the situation for what it was, the pieces for how they had fallen. She knew that Lance was never going to come back to her, not as the man she had known. It was just like Ethan said, he would have to be someone else entirely different. Really contrite and not just going through the motions of it, flexible and not bitterhearted– entirely reordered from the inside out. For all of that, he’d have to be a different Lance. She’d told Lance when she had left that last dinner that the changes weren’t things they had to arrange on the outside, but from inside. And she couldn’t imagine him changing willingly. How could you change yourself when you believed there was nothing that needed to change? But she didn’t have to hold out waiting for the impossible either. Right now, she felt okay to move on.
After a time Calliope stood, all sad smiles and sniffles, setting her teacup neatly to the side with the crumpled tissues stacked on the saucer.
“So, should I still use the elbow cream or…?” She laughed even as she said it, becoming a new mess of laughing and crying.
Ethan just smiled kindly back, “That’s the best medicine right there,” he said. “Don’t let yourself be afraid to be happy, Calli. To laugh, or cry, if you need it. And if it helps to use the elbow cream, you keep on using it,” he winked playfully.
When she’d collected herself again, she paused on her way out. “Thanks. I know it’s your job but… ” There was no one who had been as patient, and who had walked with her through her whole story. And somehow still didn’t find her disappointing. She didn’t know how to voice her gratitude. “If you ever need to talk or, whatever.” Unsure if she was too emotional to make sense, Calliope just shook her head. “I’ll see you around, Walker.”
