Judgement – Under the Bridge
by Commander Chelsea Dunham & Commander Richard Dunham
Post Details
OLD:
"Hmmm" Something was nagging at Chelsea as she watched the readings roll up onto the monitor. She began to get a dreadful sick feeling in the pit of her stomach. She looked around and asked a Corpsman. "Where did Mr Dunham go?"
"He's here," came a grim and somewhat stoic reply from the doorway into the medical bay. Eric Dunham marched up to the read outs that where coming off the Magnetron Scanner. He had a different air about him now, one very different from the one moments ago, this one carried the air of responsibility, command and professionalism. He spoke to the room in general: “With the authority invested in me by temporal investigations Under section 17 of the temporal prime directive, I’m ordering everyone to clear the room. Now.” The statement broached no argument.
Chelsea alone stood her ground. All the other staff did at they were ordered. Chelsea nodded at Bridget's questioning glance to indicate that she was in agreement despite not moving herself. When she and Eric were all who remained in the room with the unconscious CAG, she stood with her head bowed and a sad, guilty look on her face as she waited for the room to clear.
NEW:
"This is my fault, isn't it?" She agonised, her voice little above a whisper.
"Yes it is" said Eric unsympathetically. He then stepped closer to her and rested one hand on her shoulder. "Its very important that you tell exactly what happened?"
Chelsea explained how it had come about and exactly what she had said and how Rick had replied and everything in full detail. At the end she fell silent. It sounded so much worse when described like that.
Eric rolled up his sleeve and check the time of one of the five or six different time keeping devices he had strapped their. He then blew out of his nose like he was punctuating a answer to his own inner monologue. Eric then rolled down the sleeve and went over to his son placing one hand on Rick head and stroking it gently. "I'm no Doctor Chelsea, I can tell you what happened, but then its up to you to try and bring him back around.....and even then I'm not sure what he will be like when he wakes up."
Chelsea moved to Rick's bedside, her grief and guilt apparent on her blanched, drawn face and in the agony in her eyes. Her hands trembled as she listened intently. If there was any medical fix in this universe, she, Chelsea Adams was going to find it, no matter what she had to do to get it.
"His brain has gone into some sort of defensive neural shut down, as two sets of different memories have tried to dominate his mind. Whatever you said trigged a cascade reaction in Rick and he began to remember a complete and alternate timeline of his life that to him never happened. This memory tried to replace the memory the current timeline of his entire life that he has lived and breathed. "
"He asked me about a feeling of 'Deja Vu' over his watch strap which broke. All I let slip was that you had told me not to mention anything and that he must trust me. I *had* attempted to lie to him and deny that it was important and he knew i was lying because i can't hide that from him so i had to ask for his trust. He put all the rest together from only that.... I had nowhere to go once i was confronted with the lie." Chelsea looked desperate.
"And thats what did it" said Eric to himself "thats what caused this cascade reaction, putting his mind in flux between to memories of two different timelines that generated two different realities, now occupying the same place in his head, making it shut down.......but." Eric looked at the read outs again from the medical equipment. "But now there's nothing there at all.....how?"
"Has he transferred to another timeline again? Is that what happens in this time if he's elsewhere?" she wondered, guessing wildly about something she knewn nothing about, frantically clutching at straws.
"What if he's died in another time?" she whispered, with dread in her heart and voice as she remembered the person who had chased them all when she was there.
Eric shook his head, he put his hand on her shoulder again sympathetically he gently spoke "No nothing like that, the timeline that existed in him when i was dead, is trying to re-occupy the new one in his head that emerged now that i'm alive. You've known him as both, not much change there, but two sets of memories on a mind has sent him into a collapse, now according to these readings there are no memories in there, period."
"How is that possible? Surely one or the other would have gained precedence?" she asked, understanding the idea of conflict and overload. "Does this mean he will never regain either? Or will *one* come back alone? Or both, mixed up? Normal amnesia can take several courses, some trauma induced forms just come back when the patient is ready to face it, some others come in flashbacks until the mind is gently re-introduced to accustom until it can cope, others never return. Are temporaly induced ones different."
"I don't know" said Eric honestly a puzzled and perplexed look on his face. "Its like his subconsciousness has dumped his memories somewhere else...uploaded them even, but i don't know where, we need to bring him around some how."
"I can do that if you think it's safe?" Chelsea fetched a hypospray and put in a cocktail of different drugs, one systemic stimulant, one cortical stimulant, one stabiliser and some more systemic regulators. She shot the contents into Rick's neck, causing him to stir.
Ricks eye lids flickered open, His retinas looked from side to side. With a slight grunt he lifted himself up onto his shoulders and looked around. He then smacked his lips together to work out the dry mouth. Then frowned slightly as he spoke profoundly. "I'm hungry"
Chelsea laughed with relief.
"Pizza? With extra pepperoni?" she offered, moving towards the replicator obligingly. Within moments she returned with afore mentioned Pizza and presented it to her love with tears in her eyes.
"There you go babe. You had us so worried. Not to mention that you missed the wedding!" she smiled affectionately as he began to tuck in hungrily.
Rick stared at the women blankly "I'm sorry Ma'am I have no idea who the hell you are"
Chelsea took in a small gasp and looked across at Eric helplessly. "Ah. I see." was all she could choke back.
Rick obligingly took the pizza and took a tentative bite of it. He pulled a face and put back on the plate but not before making a 'yuck' noise. It was enough of a distraction from the trauma of reality that was about to hit Rick. This trauma was perpetuated by Eric asking. "Whats your name?"
Rick replied "Lieutenant commander....." panic then constricted itself over his face. "I don't know"
"Lieutenant Commander.... that's a start" Chelsea muttered, not wishing to finish his name in case Eric thought that was a new faux pas. She had lost all confidence in her own ability *not* to make this spiral from bad to worse.
"What is the last thing you remember?" asked Eric
"I....I urmmmm...I.....Don't remember....I" Dunham sounded very worried, a tear began to well up in his eye, his face showing he was clearly upset.
"It's okay, Rick. Don't worry. We'll sort this out. We're both here for you." Chelsea couldn't help her natural instincts to want to protect him.
Eric didn't move instead he began a series of quick fire questions that Rick replied to just as quickly.
"whats the maximum warp speed of defiant class starship?"
"Warp nine"
"whats the module shield frequency for a Valkyrie space superiority fighter"
"Seven six nine alpha slash two"
"What do you do if your maneuvering phase emitter on the port thruster of a galaxy class starship is malfunctioning?
"Balance the starboard autoemulator with multisubsonic wave interference"
"What is your favorite colour?"
Ricks mouth opened but nothing came out, his shoulders slumped "I don't know"
Instinctively, Chelsea ran a scanner over Rick. She monitored his vitals and he seemed fine still.
"Perhaps you might know your own mother?" Chelsea mused. She looked up at Eric to see if he approved of getting Margaret in here. She knew Captain Dunham would have worn a hole in the decking by now, pacing out there as she waited.
Eric nodded his approval and Chelsea went to get Margaret, she was soon back with her in tow. The reaction from Rick was perhaps totally not unexpected, starfleet training being as ingraining as it is. He sat up smartly and to attention and politely and smartly said "Ma'am".
Chelsea looked at Margaret who was looking surprised. "He doesn't know who you are but he does recognise your rank" She explained softly.
Margaret Took Chelsea's hand, tears were welling up in her eyes, she spoke very quietly "I don't know what to do?"
"None of us do, least of all Rick" Chelsea replied gently, putting her arm round her near-miss-mother-in-law. "When he was a little boy, was there something that meant a lot to him?" Chelsea asked.
"I know our short-term memories are the first to go and it's the ones we took on earliest that we access when mental trauma sets in." she commented, looking at Eric to see if he concurred.
Eric folded his arms and nodded his agreement he still had not forgiven Chelsea for allowing this to happen. Margret however was quick to respond. She sat at the bottom of Rick's Bio Bed, she fished out something from her pocket, it was a small brass keyring with a even smaller spitfire on the end of it no bigger than a thumb. "This was yours, you used to carry it around with you all the time when you were little."
Chelsea began to fill up when she saw the little plane and thought of all the models he had half finished, left lying around their quarters. It moved her even more to see the Captain of the Hagnon, bearing in mind her own first memories of the overbearing, terrifying mother that she had witnessed from the previous time-line they had lived through before the relatively recent switch to the current one.
Rick tentatively took the little plane into his hands. He rested it in the palm of one hand whilst slightly prodding it with the finger of another hand. He frowned looking at the object like he should know what it is. "I know what the object is....just not what it means."
Her heart plunging to new depths of dread in realisation that he might never know her again, Chelsea's hand went instinctively to the wedding ring she should have been wearing by now, which hung on a chain around her neck since Isha had returned it to her earlier, no longer needing to present it to Tasha as planned.
She wondered if they could start all over again and her throat closed up at the flashback images of Elves, Arboretums, Pooh-Sticks, Love-making of the Ethereal kind and the beauty of soulmates riding dragons together.
The words of Rick's declaration of love poured back into her head and she stood, wedding ring spinning between her fingers, tuggin on its chain around her neck, tears rolling down her cheeks.
All this and Eric's accusatory looks, it was all too much. Chelsea's heart broke and the day's events began to take their toll. She looked beaten. Her head hung and she just walked quietly towards Rick, placing her hand over his. "I'm so sorry" she whispered hoarsely. "I can't put into words how sorry I am, please forgive me."
As she watched his empty eyes looking back at her in a bewildered blank stare, Chelsea could hardly bear it. She was filled with self-loathing for not being strong enough to lie to him when it was needed. She turned to see Eric's face, still unforgiving.
"You shouldn't have let me go with him, if you knew there was *this* much at stake". she bounced some of the responsibility back at him. "If you'd sent me back, this wouldn't have happened." She wasn't accusing, but she was desperate. "He's never going to remember...... is he?" the last comment was one of a woman whose life had just ended on the day it should have begun.
Off
A JP Between:
Eric & Margaret Dunham,
NPC'd by Dan
& Lt Cmdr Dunno
CAG - DS5
and
Cmdr Chelsea Adams
CMO & 2CO - DS5
by Commander Chelsea Dunham & Commander Richard Dunham
Post Details
| Title | Under the Bridge | |
| Mission | Judgement | |
| Author(s) | Commander Chelsea Dunham & Commander Richard Dunham | |
| Posted | Sun Jun 12, 2011 @ 10:23pm | |
| Location | Sickbay - DS5 | |
| Timeline | SD38 - directly after "Over the Rainbow" |
"Hmmm" Something was nagging at Chelsea as she watched the readings roll up onto the monitor. She began to get a dreadful sick feeling in the pit of her stomach. She looked around and asked a Corpsman. "Where did Mr Dunham go?"
"He's here," came a grim and somewhat stoic reply from the doorway into the medical bay. Eric Dunham marched up to the read outs that where coming off the Magnetron Scanner. He had a different air about him now, one very different from the one moments ago, this one carried the air of responsibility, command and professionalism. He spoke to the room in general: “With the authority invested in me by temporal investigations Under section 17 of the temporal prime directive, I’m ordering everyone to clear the room. Now.” The statement broached no argument.
Chelsea alone stood her ground. All the other staff did at they were ordered. Chelsea nodded at Bridget's questioning glance to indicate that she was in agreement despite not moving herself. When she and Eric were all who remained in the room with the unconscious CAG, she stood with her head bowed and a sad, guilty look on her face as she waited for the room to clear.
NEW:
"This is my fault, isn't it?" She agonised, her voice little above a whisper.
"Yes it is" said Eric unsympathetically. He then stepped closer to her and rested one hand on her shoulder. "Its very important that you tell exactly what happened?"
Chelsea explained how it had come about and exactly what she had said and how Rick had replied and everything in full detail. At the end she fell silent. It sounded so much worse when described like that.
Eric rolled up his sleeve and check the time of one of the five or six different time keeping devices he had strapped their. He then blew out of his nose like he was punctuating a answer to his own inner monologue. Eric then rolled down the sleeve and went over to his son placing one hand on Rick head and stroking it gently. "I'm no Doctor Chelsea, I can tell you what happened, but then its up to you to try and bring him back around.....and even then I'm not sure what he will be like when he wakes up."
Chelsea moved to Rick's bedside, her grief and guilt apparent on her blanched, drawn face and in the agony in her eyes. Her hands trembled as she listened intently. If there was any medical fix in this universe, she, Chelsea Adams was going to find it, no matter what she had to do to get it.
"His brain has gone into some sort of defensive neural shut down, as two sets of different memories have tried to dominate his mind. Whatever you said trigged a cascade reaction in Rick and he began to remember a complete and alternate timeline of his life that to him never happened. This memory tried to replace the memory the current timeline of his entire life that he has lived and breathed. "
"He asked me about a feeling of 'Deja Vu' over his watch strap which broke. All I let slip was that you had told me not to mention anything and that he must trust me. I *had* attempted to lie to him and deny that it was important and he knew i was lying because i can't hide that from him so i had to ask for his trust. He put all the rest together from only that.... I had nowhere to go once i was confronted with the lie." Chelsea looked desperate.
"And thats what did it" said Eric to himself "thats what caused this cascade reaction, putting his mind in flux between to memories of two different timelines that generated two different realities, now occupying the same place in his head, making it shut down.......but." Eric looked at the read outs again from the medical equipment. "But now there's nothing there at all.....how?"
"Has he transferred to another timeline again? Is that what happens in this time if he's elsewhere?" she wondered, guessing wildly about something she knewn nothing about, frantically clutching at straws.
"What if he's died in another time?" she whispered, with dread in her heart and voice as she remembered the person who had chased them all when she was there.
Eric shook his head, he put his hand on her shoulder again sympathetically he gently spoke "No nothing like that, the timeline that existed in him when i was dead, is trying to re-occupy the new one in his head that emerged now that i'm alive. You've known him as both, not much change there, but two sets of memories on a mind has sent him into a collapse, now according to these readings there are no memories in there, period."
"How is that possible? Surely one or the other would have gained precedence?" she asked, understanding the idea of conflict and overload. "Does this mean he will never regain either? Or will *one* come back alone? Or both, mixed up? Normal amnesia can take several courses, some trauma induced forms just come back when the patient is ready to face it, some others come in flashbacks until the mind is gently re-introduced to accustom until it can cope, others never return. Are temporaly induced ones different."
"I don't know" said Eric honestly a puzzled and perplexed look on his face. "Its like his subconsciousness has dumped his memories somewhere else...uploaded them even, but i don't know where, we need to bring him around some how."
"I can do that if you think it's safe?" Chelsea fetched a hypospray and put in a cocktail of different drugs, one systemic stimulant, one cortical stimulant, one stabiliser and some more systemic regulators. She shot the contents into Rick's neck, causing him to stir.
Ricks eye lids flickered open, His retinas looked from side to side. With a slight grunt he lifted himself up onto his shoulders and looked around. He then smacked his lips together to work out the dry mouth. Then frowned slightly as he spoke profoundly. "I'm hungry"
Chelsea laughed with relief.
"Pizza? With extra pepperoni?" she offered, moving towards the replicator obligingly. Within moments she returned with afore mentioned Pizza and presented it to her love with tears in her eyes.
"There you go babe. You had us so worried. Not to mention that you missed the wedding!" she smiled affectionately as he began to tuck in hungrily.
Rick stared at the women blankly "I'm sorry Ma'am I have no idea who the hell you are"
Chelsea took in a small gasp and looked across at Eric helplessly. "Ah. I see." was all she could choke back.
Rick obligingly took the pizza and took a tentative bite of it. He pulled a face and put back on the plate but not before making a 'yuck' noise. It was enough of a distraction from the trauma of reality that was about to hit Rick. This trauma was perpetuated by Eric asking. "Whats your name?"
Rick replied "Lieutenant commander....." panic then constricted itself over his face. "I don't know"
"Lieutenant Commander.... that's a start" Chelsea muttered, not wishing to finish his name in case Eric thought that was a new faux pas. She had lost all confidence in her own ability *not* to make this spiral from bad to worse.
"What is the last thing you remember?" asked Eric
"I....I urmmmm...I.....Don't remember....I" Dunham sounded very worried, a tear began to well up in his eye, his face showing he was clearly upset.
"It's okay, Rick. Don't worry. We'll sort this out. We're both here for you." Chelsea couldn't help her natural instincts to want to protect him.
Eric didn't move instead he began a series of quick fire questions that Rick replied to just as quickly.
"whats the maximum warp speed of defiant class starship?"
"Warp nine"
"whats the module shield frequency for a Valkyrie space superiority fighter"
"Seven six nine alpha slash two"
"What do you do if your maneuvering phase emitter on the port thruster of a galaxy class starship is malfunctioning?
"Balance the starboard autoemulator with multisubsonic wave interference"
"What is your favorite colour?"
Ricks mouth opened but nothing came out, his shoulders slumped "I don't know"
Instinctively, Chelsea ran a scanner over Rick. She monitored his vitals and he seemed fine still.
"Perhaps you might know your own mother?" Chelsea mused. She looked up at Eric to see if he approved of getting Margaret in here. She knew Captain Dunham would have worn a hole in the decking by now, pacing out there as she waited.
Eric nodded his approval and Chelsea went to get Margaret, she was soon back with her in tow. The reaction from Rick was perhaps totally not unexpected, starfleet training being as ingraining as it is. He sat up smartly and to attention and politely and smartly said "Ma'am".
Chelsea looked at Margaret who was looking surprised. "He doesn't know who you are but he does recognise your rank" She explained softly.
Margaret Took Chelsea's hand, tears were welling up in her eyes, she spoke very quietly "I don't know what to do?"
"None of us do, least of all Rick" Chelsea replied gently, putting her arm round her near-miss-mother-in-law. "When he was a little boy, was there something that meant a lot to him?" Chelsea asked.
"I know our short-term memories are the first to go and it's the ones we took on earliest that we access when mental trauma sets in." she commented, looking at Eric to see if he concurred.
Eric folded his arms and nodded his agreement he still had not forgiven Chelsea for allowing this to happen. Margret however was quick to respond. She sat at the bottom of Rick's Bio Bed, she fished out something from her pocket, it was a small brass keyring with a even smaller spitfire on the end of it no bigger than a thumb. "This was yours, you used to carry it around with you all the time when you were little."
Chelsea began to fill up when she saw the little plane and thought of all the models he had half finished, left lying around their quarters. It moved her even more to see the Captain of the Hagnon, bearing in mind her own first memories of the overbearing, terrifying mother that she had witnessed from the previous time-line they had lived through before the relatively recent switch to the current one.
Rick tentatively took the little plane into his hands. He rested it in the palm of one hand whilst slightly prodding it with the finger of another hand. He frowned looking at the object like he should know what it is. "I know what the object is....just not what it means."
Her heart plunging to new depths of dread in realisation that he might never know her again, Chelsea's hand went instinctively to the wedding ring she should have been wearing by now, which hung on a chain around her neck since Isha had returned it to her earlier, no longer needing to present it to Tasha as planned.
She wondered if they could start all over again and her throat closed up at the flashback images of Elves, Arboretums, Pooh-Sticks, Love-making of the Ethereal kind and the beauty of soulmates riding dragons together.
The words of Rick's declaration of love poured back into her head and she stood, wedding ring spinning between her fingers, tuggin on its chain around her neck, tears rolling down her cheeks.
All this and Eric's accusatory looks, it was all too much. Chelsea's heart broke and the day's events began to take their toll. She looked beaten. Her head hung and she just walked quietly towards Rick, placing her hand over his. "I'm so sorry" she whispered hoarsely. "I can't put into words how sorry I am, please forgive me."
As she watched his empty eyes looking back at her in a bewildered blank stare, Chelsea could hardly bear it. She was filled with self-loathing for not being strong enough to lie to him when it was needed. She turned to see Eric's face, still unforgiving.
"You shouldn't have let me go with him, if you knew there was *this* much at stake". she bounced some of the responsibility back at him. "If you'd sent me back, this wouldn't have happened." She wasn't accusing, but she was desperate. "He's never going to remember...... is he?" the last comment was one of a woman whose life had just ended on the day it should have begun.
Off
A JP Between:
Eric & Margaret Dunham,
NPC'd by Dan
& Lt Cmdr Dunno
CAG - DS5
and
Cmdr Chelsea Adams
CMO & 2CO - DS5