chaotica | session 12 . video . 4wd

session 12 . video . 4wd

[ Here is Lieutenant Hugh Cambridge, lounging in a purple-shoulder blue-collar Starfleet uniform. The uniform's a little wrinkled. Without Chakotay to pressure him to keep it spotless, he hasn't been that worried about it. ]

Hello. This is to inform everyone that you can go to Merlin for magical healing as well as Morgana; he is now officially a part of the Infirmary. And for some bloody reason more than one of you actually wants me to train you in basic first aid as a medic, so I might as well open it up to the whole ship and get it over with.

If any of you would like to ask advice or behavioral questions regarding your fellow shipmates, do reply, as usual.

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[ He breathes out. He'd thought it might be an emergency. ]

First, a brain scan. I'd like to confirm diagnosis and severity myself. Obviously it would be painless and noninvasive.

[Mickey tries not to visibly tense, though the muscle in his jaw twitches despite himself. Cambridge can say it's noninvasive all he wants, but it's hard not to cringe at the words brain scan.]

That's that big clunking machine thing? One that makes all the noise and fucks up if you got metal on you?

What? Magnetic resonance? Absolutely not. Scanning techniques in the 24th century are much more sophisticated.

So like what, then?

It would be a biobed scanner, which looks like this - [ He shows something a bit like this. ] No noise, no intrusion, and scans accurate to the cellular level.

[It still looks scary. He can't help it -- he doesn't want to see Ian hooked up to some machine. But he wants to see even less what he's starting to realize really could happen if this doesn't.]

And if it tells you what you keep saying it's going to...?

Mickey. You could stay next to him the whole time. He can move freely; he won't be locked in, he won't be strapped down, and the biobed gives enough room to get out without it opening.

No.

[Although yes; it's not what he was asking, but it is something he needed to hear. It would be wrong to say he relaxes at all, but there's a flash of begrudging gratitude in his eyes before he looks down.]

If it tells you he's got-- what you think he's got. What happens next? What... what do you do to him?

Saving him literally coming at me with a laser scalpel, what goes into his body is his decision. I would review treatment options with him. The best would probably be a mood stabilizer to ease the highs and the lows; it can start very mild.

The most extreme would be to neurologically break the cycle that he's in, and give his neurotransmitters a chance to return to something resembling normal.

Fuck.

["Break" isn't a word he wants to hear. Neither is "normal." But it doesn't really matter what the words are any more: even if Cambridge were as gentle as could be with them, Mickey would probably still be fighting this sudden swell of despair. Softer words wouldn't make this conversation any less real.

He feels a sudden heat behind his eyes and lifts them towards the ceiling, blinking rapidly to clear them. He rubs a hand over his mouth as if to disguise the moment.]

It won't take away who he is, Mickey. It won't fog him up or tuck him away. It will ease his low moods enough so he can function and be himself.

The trouble with bipolar individuals is that they sometimes don't want to be cured. The mania, I'm told, is a wonderful experience.

[He draws in a deep breath and exhales again; it comes out shaky, but he looks a little steadier once it's out of him.]

Oh, he doesn't want to. He doesn't want anything to do with you. I'm not even saying I do yet, but--

[But he will. Maybe.]

You let me worry about that.

If there were another psychiatrist here, I would gladly refer you. I know I can be a bit of a bastard.

A bit?

But what I want is the wellbeing of the people here. That includes Ian, and it includes you, but it also includes allowing the people here to choose their own path. I'm not going to force him into anything.

You know that half the reason he doesn't want anything to do with you is you being a total dick, right? You're so worried about people's wellbeing, try growing some bedside fucking manner, dude.

He can't hate people who act like bastards so much - he likes you.

[He doesn't even flinch. He resembles that remark way too much to resent it.]

He gets to fuck me.

And I can make him be able and want to without chemically induced misery getting in his way.

I'm just saying: you really want that as much as I do--

[Well, okay, hold up.]

You want that, like, a quarter as much as I do, maybe say something nice or don't say anything the fuck at all every so often.

Have I even bothered either of you since you told me not to?

Cut the bullshit, man. My ass you don't know what I'm talking about.

Oh, the pamphlet?

What? No.

...Well, yeah, that too. But mostly just the general being an asshole. It's not like you don't know you are. Christ, I wouldn't want to go to you if I was crazy, either.

Then go to Jean.

session 12 . video . 4wd

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