Time is Fleeting – Plain Speaking
by Commander Chelsea Dunham & Commander Isha t'Vaurek & Commander Richard Dunham
Post Details
ON:
Chelsea thought it over and decided she needed to hear Raedheol's view of the situation because from where she was in her head right now, an ira'v'Dianvm's opinion seemed like driftwood to be clung to, by a shipwrecked woman in a very stormy sea.
Unfortunately, part of her was mad with her 'older adopted brother' for fighting with Ryan and that was messing with her reasoning.
She presented at the Embassy with her medkit. Remembering the mess Rh'vaurek had been left in the last time he and Ryan had fought, she anticipated him probably needing some patching up and however mad with him 'that' part of her wanted to be, she couldn't bear to let him suffer any serious harm.
An attendant showed her in with deference that surprised her. It wasn't usual for Starfleet officers to be so cordially received, as Chelsea was well aware.
'I have come to see Acting Ambassador Raedheol please' she asked and was shown into a waiting room with fine furnishings. There was an aura here that reminded the doctor of her friend Isha and that tugged at her heartstrings making her long to see Isha again.
After the Cardassian had gone Rh'vaurek had removed his jacket and flung it over the back of the chair. i-Orinwen had seemingly hidden so that he could not demand any more help from her so someone who was competent with a scanner was a welcome sight to him, "Chelsea, come in," he said as he rose surmising that if she had thought to lug her medkit here with her, she already knew that he had thrashed Milarno.
Chelsea took one look at the bruises on his face and quite forgot to be angry with him for several full minutes!
Immediately rushing towards him and hugging him, much to the alarm of the retreating attendant whose face showed fear apparently more for Chelsea than for his seemingly accosted master.
Rh'vaurek prised her arms from around him, "Doctor Adams, I have a public reputation to maintain," he said in an undertone as he took the medkit from her and placed it on the table. "How intimidating will people find me if you keep throwing your arms around me at every opportunity?"
Suitably reminded of proper behavioural protocol Chelsea withdrew to an appropriate distance long enough for the attendant to leave and close the door before she snatched up a hypospray of analgesic mixed with anti-inflammatory in one hand, a regenerator in the other and advanced on the 'Acting Ambassador' again, this time with business in mind, rather than affection.
“Why do I get the feeling that you’re going to make this hurt more than it should?” he asked unbuttoning his shirt so that she could more easily find his injuries.
"I would never do such a thing!" she retorted, affronted. "But you know perfectly well that I don't appreciate you two trying to kill each other at every opportunity and excuse" she launched straight in single-mindedly and unwisely in view of the fact that she'd already unintentionally started off on the wrong foot.
Uncharacteristically, Chelsea was in too much of a flux to be sensitive to those around her, in fact she currently seemed like a bull in a china shop.
“So I am supposed to stand there and take it when your erstwhile lover throws a punch at me? I asked for an explanation, not a fight.”
"Oh! But..... " she was taken a little aback. "Do you mean *Ryan* started it?" The surprise with which she seemed to take this news betrayed her having assumed it was Rh'vaurek who must have launched hostilities.
“The man has no self control!” Rh’vaurek rolled his eyes then jabbed a finger towards Chelsea as he spoke, “If I hit you I’d have a damned good reason for doing so, and it wouldn’t be done in the heat of anger. But he’s the type of man that would smack you in the face when he’s in a rage and cry in remorse afterwards before doing it all again the next time he lost control – don’t tell me that he never came close to it.”
"NO! Of course not, Ryan's not violent......." Chelsea began a little too fiercely in his defence but then as she squared up to Rh'vaurek in loyal denial she began to remember how freaked out she had been over the mirror incident when Ryan had punched the glass and shredded his own fist, refusing any pain-killers or regeneration claiming he *needed* to feel the pain to deal with his inner anger.
She also remembered his behaviour with Tasha and then she thought about who his real father was and the terrible things that were attributed to that man during one of the most violent times in Bajor's history.
She shuddered, looking up at Rh'vaurek in the sudden, shocked realisation that she had always seen Ryan through rose-tinted glasses.
Her expression confirmed everything. The corners of his lips twitched into a lopsided smile; it did not surprise Rh’vaurek. “Why are you defending him? He was happy to humiliate you in public and parade around with another woman as though you did not exist, he cut you out of his life and I am the one you screech at?”
"I'm not screeching" she pouted. "And I don't think he was *happy* to humiliate me, he said he was s...... "
~ ...and cry in remorse afterwards before doing it all again the next time he lost control. ~ Rh'vaurek's words echoed in her head, stopping her mid-sentence.
“The bastard has turned you into an emotional wreck and you stand there blaming yourself and blaming me. If you like playing the role of victim, revel in it, but don’t expect me to mollycoddle you. I can hardly believe you’re the same woman who had the guts to put herself between me and Iawaain,” he told her with evident disdain.
Stunned, Chelsea thought of that person who had stood up to Raedheol. She thought of everything about herself when she had first come to DS5 and the way she had vowed never again to allow herself to be treated the way that her former fiancé Andrew had done. Now, here she was, seemingly in the same position again with Ryan. A pattern was visible and it was not one she wanted to see in herself.
She wanted to be the Doctor who had defended Iawaain, a vulnerable, wounded sentient being, no matter what she was alleged to have done. What Chelsea did *not* want to be was the puppet who allowed men to pull her *strings* and manipulate her and for her friends to have to tell her she was an emotional wreck, especially if it was true.
Quietly thoughtful, Chelsea absorbed the rest of what Rh'vaurek had said, going over each of his points and wishing she could think of a good argument in response but realising he was right.
She continued working with the regenerator, repairing some of his injuries and bruises until finally she came out with something that may have seemed random to him, although it followed perfectly logically along *her* train of thought.
"Rh'vaurek," she said tentatively, her emotional mist finally clearing and her thoughts becoming more ordered again as she envisaged who she wanted to be, rather than who she had felt she needed to be to please someone else.
"I think I'm going to have to concede, your Romulan logic works better than my human/bajoran efforts at understanding myself. I still don't approve of your methods of dealing with Ryan, even if he did provoke you, because as a doctor I couldn't possibly condone them, but I actually can't fault your analysis and ...... anyway.... thank you." she apologised a little awkwardly.
“For what? Making you cry?”
"Noooooo, it wasn't *you* who did that!" she laughed briefly, returning immediately to a serious tone again. "For defending me, although it was as much from myself as anyone. And for helping me see what was right in front of me. I *had* tied myself up in knots, I can see that now. I just... Ryan meant a lot to me, that's all. I guess I just meant less to him than I thought." She looked sad but was calm.
Rh’vaurek nodded, “On an individual basis there are very few people who are deserving of winning the loyalty of another – I’m a good judge of character, Chelsea, he would have continued to abuse your good nature, and you would have continued to be confused and never quite able to understand why his other friends were more important to him than you. You have your own friends, like the new kid you’ve been spending so much time with …”
"You're right, of course. If Ryan didn't love me, then I stood no chance of ever being happy with him but I've already grown to depend on Rick - he's been so good to me through everything. How shall I ever repay him? He's been such a fantastic friend. How could I have neglected him by being so busy moping about over someone I'd already lost some considerable time ago?" she had to agree.
"I do hope I haven't missed my chance of making something of my friendship with Rick. If I have scared him away, I'll have done myself a far worse injury than any that Ryan has done me." she observed with more clarity than she had exercised for quite some time.
OFF:
A JP between :
Lt. Cmdr. Chelsea Adams
ACMO - DS5
and
erie'Khrein Rh'vaurek Raedheol
Acting Romulan Ambassador
by Commander Chelsea Dunham & Commander Isha t'Vaurek & Commander Richard Dunham
Post Details
| Title | Plain Speaking | |
| Mission | Time is Fleeting | |
| Author(s) | Commander Chelsea Dunham & Commander Isha t'Vaurek & Commander Richard Dunham | |
| Posted | Fri Sep 04, 2009 @ 12:00am | |
| Location | The Romulan Embassy | |
| Timeline | (Backpost): SD11 - 14:00hrs |
Chelsea thought it over and decided she needed to hear Raedheol's view of the situation because from where she was in her head right now, an ira'v'Dianvm's opinion seemed like driftwood to be clung to, by a shipwrecked woman in a very stormy sea.
Unfortunately, part of her was mad with her 'older adopted brother' for fighting with Ryan and that was messing with her reasoning.
She presented at the Embassy with her medkit. Remembering the mess Rh'vaurek had been left in the last time he and Ryan had fought, she anticipated him probably needing some patching up and however mad with him 'that' part of her wanted to be, she couldn't bear to let him suffer any serious harm.
An attendant showed her in with deference that surprised her. It wasn't usual for Starfleet officers to be so cordially received, as Chelsea was well aware.
'I have come to see Acting Ambassador Raedheol please' she asked and was shown into a waiting room with fine furnishings. There was an aura here that reminded the doctor of her friend Isha and that tugged at her heartstrings making her long to see Isha again.
After the Cardassian had gone Rh'vaurek had removed his jacket and flung it over the back of the chair. i-Orinwen had seemingly hidden so that he could not demand any more help from her so someone who was competent with a scanner was a welcome sight to him, "Chelsea, come in," he said as he rose surmising that if she had thought to lug her medkit here with her, she already knew that he had thrashed Milarno.
Chelsea took one look at the bruises on his face and quite forgot to be angry with him for several full minutes!
Immediately rushing towards him and hugging him, much to the alarm of the retreating attendant whose face showed fear apparently more for Chelsea than for his seemingly accosted master.
Rh'vaurek prised her arms from around him, "Doctor Adams, I have a public reputation to maintain," he said in an undertone as he took the medkit from her and placed it on the table. "How intimidating will people find me if you keep throwing your arms around me at every opportunity?"
Suitably reminded of proper behavioural protocol Chelsea withdrew to an appropriate distance long enough for the attendant to leave and close the door before she snatched up a hypospray of analgesic mixed with anti-inflammatory in one hand, a regenerator in the other and advanced on the 'Acting Ambassador' again, this time with business in mind, rather than affection.
“Why do I get the feeling that you’re going to make this hurt more than it should?” he asked unbuttoning his shirt so that she could more easily find his injuries.
"I would never do such a thing!" she retorted, affronted. "But you know perfectly well that I don't appreciate you two trying to kill each other at every opportunity and excuse" she launched straight in single-mindedly and unwisely in view of the fact that she'd already unintentionally started off on the wrong foot.
Uncharacteristically, Chelsea was in too much of a flux to be sensitive to those around her, in fact she currently seemed like a bull in a china shop.
“So I am supposed to stand there and take it when your erstwhile lover throws a punch at me? I asked for an explanation, not a fight.”
"Oh! But..... " she was taken a little aback. "Do you mean *Ryan* started it?" The surprise with which she seemed to take this news betrayed her having assumed it was Rh'vaurek who must have launched hostilities.
“The man has no self control!” Rh’vaurek rolled his eyes then jabbed a finger towards Chelsea as he spoke, “If I hit you I’d have a damned good reason for doing so, and it wouldn’t be done in the heat of anger. But he’s the type of man that would smack you in the face when he’s in a rage and cry in remorse afterwards before doing it all again the next time he lost control – don’t tell me that he never came close to it.”
"NO! Of course not, Ryan's not violent......." Chelsea began a little too fiercely in his defence but then as she squared up to Rh'vaurek in loyal denial she began to remember how freaked out she had been over the mirror incident when Ryan had punched the glass and shredded his own fist, refusing any pain-killers or regeneration claiming he *needed* to feel the pain to deal with his inner anger.
She also remembered his behaviour with Tasha and then she thought about who his real father was and the terrible things that were attributed to that man during one of the most violent times in Bajor's history.
She shuddered, looking up at Rh'vaurek in the sudden, shocked realisation that she had always seen Ryan through rose-tinted glasses.
Her expression confirmed everything. The corners of his lips twitched into a lopsided smile; it did not surprise Rh’vaurek. “Why are you defending him? He was happy to humiliate you in public and parade around with another woman as though you did not exist, he cut you out of his life and I am the one you screech at?”
"I'm not screeching" she pouted. "And I don't think he was *happy* to humiliate me, he said he was s...... "
~ ...and cry in remorse afterwards before doing it all again the next time he lost control. ~ Rh'vaurek's words echoed in her head, stopping her mid-sentence.
“The bastard has turned you into an emotional wreck and you stand there blaming yourself and blaming me. If you like playing the role of victim, revel in it, but don’t expect me to mollycoddle you. I can hardly believe you’re the same woman who had the guts to put herself between me and Iawaain,” he told her with evident disdain.
Stunned, Chelsea thought of that person who had stood up to Raedheol. She thought of everything about herself when she had first come to DS5 and the way she had vowed never again to allow herself to be treated the way that her former fiancé Andrew had done. Now, here she was, seemingly in the same position again with Ryan. A pattern was visible and it was not one she wanted to see in herself.
She wanted to be the Doctor who had defended Iawaain, a vulnerable, wounded sentient being, no matter what she was alleged to have done. What Chelsea did *not* want to be was the puppet who allowed men to pull her *strings* and manipulate her and for her friends to have to tell her she was an emotional wreck, especially if it was true.
Quietly thoughtful, Chelsea absorbed the rest of what Rh'vaurek had said, going over each of his points and wishing she could think of a good argument in response but realising he was right.
She continued working with the regenerator, repairing some of his injuries and bruises until finally she came out with something that may have seemed random to him, although it followed perfectly logically along *her* train of thought.
"Rh'vaurek," she said tentatively, her emotional mist finally clearing and her thoughts becoming more ordered again as she envisaged who she wanted to be, rather than who she had felt she needed to be to please someone else.
"I think I'm going to have to concede, your Romulan logic works better than my human/bajoran efforts at understanding myself. I still don't approve of your methods of dealing with Ryan, even if he did provoke you, because as a doctor I couldn't possibly condone them, but I actually can't fault your analysis and ...... anyway.... thank you." she apologised a little awkwardly.
“For what? Making you cry?”
"Noooooo, it wasn't *you* who did that!" she laughed briefly, returning immediately to a serious tone again. "For defending me, although it was as much from myself as anyone. And for helping me see what was right in front of me. I *had* tied myself up in knots, I can see that now. I just... Ryan meant a lot to me, that's all. I guess I just meant less to him than I thought." She looked sad but was calm.
Rh’vaurek nodded, “On an individual basis there are very few people who are deserving of winning the loyalty of another – I’m a good judge of character, Chelsea, he would have continued to abuse your good nature, and you would have continued to be confused and never quite able to understand why his other friends were more important to him than you. You have your own friends, like the new kid you’ve been spending so much time with …”
"You're right, of course. If Ryan didn't love me, then I stood no chance of ever being happy with him but I've already grown to depend on Rick - he's been so good to me through everything. How shall I ever repay him? He's been such a fantastic friend. How could I have neglected him by being so busy moping about over someone I'd already lost some considerable time ago?" she had to agree.
"I do hope I haven't missed my chance of making something of my friendship with Rick. If I have scared him away, I'll have done myself a far worse injury than any that Ryan has done me." she observed with more clarity than she had exercised for quite some time.
OFF:
A JP between :
Lt. Cmdr. Chelsea Adams
ACMO - DS5
and
erie'Khrein Rh'vaurek Raedheol
Acting Romulan Ambassador