"Making It Through The Night"
[Previous post: "Solitude", written by the our leader Sabrina Jones]
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Setting: USS ANUBIS, CMO's Office
Stardate: 60326.1930
Lea had come back to Sickbay to work on discovering a cure for SDS. The CMO would have liked to stay with Susan, Uxtar and Nico but she knew better. As much fun as the celebration might have been Lea knew that her heart would not have been with them. David was alone in a secured room on NEW ALEXANDRIA and this was as close to him as she could be.
Maya had been kind enough to allow the CMO access to all of the information she had collected on this rare disorder. As thorough as the CSciO had been the data had not helped Lea all that much in her search for a cure. How could anyone be expected to reach into someone's *soul* and pull out something that was not meant to be there?
In the hopes of stumbling across something new Lea had resorted to brainstorming wild ideas. At first the ideas had not been all that strange but as time passed the CMO had proven to be quite imaginative. The last image Lea had created for herself involved David being tied upside-down by the ankles. That he was hanging over a pool of ice cold water while being submitted to Klingon pain sticks had meant only one thing. The CMO had been working too long on this problem.
"You look exhausted," Maya said. Apparently the CSciO had walked into Sickbay without Lea having noticed. That had not been all that hard to imagine since Lea's mind had been several universes away from this place.
"My imagination seems to be in agreement with you," Lea said grinning. The excuse and the way Lea had delivered it made Maya tilt her head in puzzlement. Not wanting to go into the details of what she had imagined, Lea moved on by continuing. "Don't ask. What brings you here? Sickbay is not your usual place to be, unless Pravat is hurt or checking up on one of his men."
The CSciO had wanted to say something against what the CMO had implied, but Maya could not come up with anything. As overly verbal as the Shillian was known to be Maya had been unable to think of anything to say. The comment made by Lea had struck home and there had been nothing that Maya could say. Of course etiquette demanded an official denial which the CSciO eventually provided. "That is not true; I do not always follow Pravat. It is only a coincidence that we are often found in the same rooms or areas of the ship. I mean we are both members of the same crew and both head of our own departments. It is only normal for us to be found in the same rooms from time to time during the course of a mission."
"Of course," Lea mumbled under her breath, "in a pig's eye."
"What does a pig have to do with this?" Maya asked unfamiliar with the EARTH saying of disbelief.
"Nothing," the CMO said. "What brings you down here?"
"I noticed that you were accessing the files that I made available to you and I wanted to see if you had made any progress," Maya said. It was clear to see that the CSciO had been happy that the conversation had moved away from her and the MCO.
"If you can call going nowhere progress, than I have made more progress than I can describe," Lea said. As much as she might have hated to admit it, the last couple of hours had not helped any. All of the work and research the CMO had done had been nothing more than her spinning her wheels.
"The disorder is too rare," Maya said while approaching Lea who had turned to face her workstation. "That many influential authorities within the medical field do not acknowledge this condition does not help. You are trying to find a cure for a sickness that has not even been officially proven to exist."
"Don't remind me," the CMO said through a long sigh. "The more I read about this SDS the more I wonder if it is real or not. Then I look at David's medical records and it all seems to fit and maybe even make sense. The problem is that it brings me no closer to finding a way to fix the problem. Whatever it may or may not be.
"Maybe you could confer with someone on the base," Maya said. The idea of involving more people in this had been a logical one, but not for Lea. As far as the CMO had been concerned this had been an internal matter that needed to be resolved within the ANUBIS. The real reason for Lea's apprehension was that she did not want someone else to find more cause to lay blame on David. At least if she found something damaging to his defence she could disregard it until after the trial.
"I think it would be best if we handled this on our own," Lea said keeping her reasoning to herlself. "At least for the time being. The preliminary hearing will take place early tomorrow morning. I'll continue working until then and see what needs to be done at that point."
Maya stood behind Lea as the CMO resumed her work, or at least the semblance of it. As much as she had wanted to find a cure or even just a viable explanation Lea had no idea where to start. The CSciO eventually sat down next to Lea and silently offered her help. Lea smiled and continued her research glad that she would have some help to make it through the night.
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Tiffany Rose {lady_tiffany_rose@mail.com}
Ensign Lea Summers 2005 post #426
Chief Medical Officer
USS ANUBIS
