Pain Is Just Weakness

Posted on Fri Nov 30th, 2018 @ 1:35pm by Lieutenant Asa Dael & Lieutenant Delilah Dauntless & Maica III 47

Mission: Escaped Pantheons
Location: USS Hera, Deck 12, Sickbay
Timeline: 2395, en route to the Galactic Core

Lieutenant Delilah Dauntless winced as she limped into the USS Hera's Sick Bay. The diminutive 20 year-old operations chief wore a pained expression on her face, and a long-sleeved white leotard on her petite frame. Delilah's teeth clenched as she stifled a cry of pain, and she reached out in desperation for the nearest flat surface to brace herself against.

Doctor Dael had been doing a quick inventory spot check of the stim-shots used on away team missions when Dauntless came into SickBay. Seeing someone so clearly in pain, they rushed over and put Dauntless falling form roughly atop their own, trying to maneuver her with their shoulder to the nearest bed.

Once Delilah was laying down, Dael quickly withdrew a tricorder and began scanning, calling first "Nurse Jenry, standard med kit as biobed 2 please, then continued, "Well hello there. What seems to be the trouble?"

"Right hip..." Dauntless seethed, her little hands balling into fists. "Hurts... can't move it... different from before..."

As she lay on the biobed, Delilah could see that her slender right leg, swathed in sheer leion tights, lay at an odd angle, twisted inward slightly from her hip. From beneath the clingy white tensolyne of her leotard, the crest of the young lieutenant's girlish pelvis appeared to protrude at an odd angle.

Taking in the sight before them Dael knew first things first- pain management. The doctor reached for a hypospray containing a cocktail of pain receptor blockers and muscle relaxers. Once that was administered, they conducted a perfunctory scan that revealed a plethora of half-healed injuries in the Lieutenant's form.

"Computer, please ask Maica III to join us if available. Patch her through to me when you reach her."

"So, Lieutenant Dauntless, please give me a summary of what you were doing when this happened, and try not to move. I have blocked your pain receptors, so you won't feel it, but if you move, you will cause more damage. You need to ask for emergency transport when injured, we have an entire ship worth of people here to help you, and whatever you did- walking on it made it worse," the doctor said in an uncharacteristically stern tone.

Delilah screwed her eyes shut and held her breath as the medicinal cocktail took hold. She finally trusted her voice enough to allow a sigh, as the pain in her right hip and leg dissolved from a series of lightning strikes to a deep smolder. "I was dancing," the diminutive girl answered in her child-like voice. "A 540 battement en rond into a grand jeté. Nothing I haven't been able to do a million times before." Her voice cracked in frustration as she pounded a fist against the biobed's padding.

The sound of the door opening, followed by holographics engaging nearby could be heard as Maica entered sickbay. "I have to admit, this is the first time I've been to sickbay. It's not what I expected." As the hyper-endowed Orion stepped up to the biobed, she introduced herself with a bright smile. "I'm Maica, ship's masseuse, Captain's wife, and purveyor of rare items. How may I help?"

"Hello Ms. Maica, I'm Doctor Asa Dael. I'm sorry we haven't met before, I didn't want to bother you. We have an injury here that is going to require putting some joints back in place, and I thought the hands of another therapist would be best suited to assist. Plus, a course of physical therapy is going to be needed once we are done, so I would like to consult with you about that as well while the patient recovers. What say you?"

As the doctor spoke to the green skinned beauty, they had motioned her over to the biobed with Dauntless on it, pointing to the obvious injury. While the nursing staff or the EMH was certainly qualified, Dael felt the sooner Maica met Dauntless the better.

"It's always a pleasure to help those in need." Picking up one of the sickbay's tricorder's Maica popped out the scanner and started scanning Dauntless' leg and on up. Frowning, she continued up the petite woman's body until she had a clear scan of even her brain.

"Listen, I'm sure it's not as serious as all that," Delilah tried to insist, her ice-blue gaze averted in frustration and embarrassment. "I know my body. These kinds of injuries happen."

"I see." Popping the scanner back in and setting the tricorder aside, Maica nodded. "Well Miss Dauntless, I'm afraid you're going to need more than just the two of us for your recovery. I'm sure Doctor Dael can repair your immediate injury easily enough and I can provide physical, deep tissue, and massage therapy for continued care, but the systemic damage throughout your system..."

"...It's not that serious, I assure you, Doctor... Doctors..." The petite mocha-skinned girl looked back and forth between the buxom, green-skinned Orion woman and the slender androgyne with the sandy-complexion. "I'm sorry, I don't know your names," Delilah admitted, wincing as the once-ebbing soreness began to swell anew. "Did you say 'Myca' and 'Osa'?"

Maica decided to speak a little slower. First she placed both hands on her prodigious bosom. "My name is Maica, the Captain's wife." Then she placed both hands on Asa's shoulders. "This is Asa Dael, the ship's Medical Chief. Your medical issues are severe and show a complete disregard for your own health and safety. As your friends and colleagues, if you continue like this we will have to amputate your legs. Both of them. Then put you on a controlled diet. Do you concur, Doctor?"

Disregard for my own...? thought Delilah, arching an eyebrow with a frown. Is this holographic masseuse seriously trying to lecture me on-

"ARRGH! FUCK!" yelled the tiny operations chief, as Torture herself raked her razor-blade fingernails along the side of her unnaturally protruding hip. Delilah's every muscle tensed as a paroxysm of pain seized her person, and she could not help but shoot an accusatory glare at the people at her beside.

"Ok, enough everyone," Asa replied. The doctor had a concerned look on their face, and also one of consternation aimed in equal parts at Maica and Delilah. Asa picked up a complicated looking device nearby and hovered it over Dauntless hip.

"This is an osteogenic stimulator. I'm going to be knitting back stress fractures in your proximal right femur, pelvis and ball and socket joint. Maica is going to hold the bones in place- firmly to avoid pain-," Asa shot a look at the holographic beauty with those words, "while I complete this part of the process. We are then going to need to complete several rounds of tissue and cartilage regeneration. You are going to require physical therapy from Ms. Maica as well as the regeneration techniques I can provide, so I suggest everyone learns to get along."

Seeing Maica's grip was in the correct place and that the pain relievers administered would be working fully, Asa began their work. As the osteogenic stimulator did it's work they continued to speak, "When this is done, you will not show signs that the break occurred except on the deepest of scans. I say this so you understand my concern upon seeing multiple poorly healed fractures all over your person. You have next to no cartilage in your knees and bone density problems consistent with poor nutrition and abuse of vitamin supplements and unapproved pain relievers. According to your file, you have never been far enough away from proper medical treatment to justify this level of untreated injury."

"I... I can't justify a visit to sick bay every time I feel some minor discomfort," Delilah reasoned, far more subdued now that Asa's slow-release meds seeped deeper into her searing sinews. The hurt was leaving her joints, even if it had not yet left her voice. "Besides... when you train hard, soreness comes with the territory. Pain is just weakness leaving your body."

The doctor had finished with the osteogenic stimulator and was now using the tissue knitter to regrow what connective tissues they could. The small yet fierce form continued speaking, "This is beyond minor discomfort. Pain is what tells us when we have gone too far. Pain is what tells us when to stop. The fact that you have so many untreated and improperly healed injuries tells me you have pushed your body past its natural breaking point and not sought proper treatment, which indicates a self destructive personality. If you continue in this fashion, you will not be able to walk within a year or two, and nothing any of us do will be able to fix it. I will also be requiring twice weekly sessions with Counselor Jurot to get to the core of why you are doing this to yourself and help you understand your worth is not contingent on whatever outward success you are so clearly destroying yourself for."

Dauntless sighed and shook her head. This again. It was a reaction that the 20 year-old prodigy was used to by now; a tried and tired argument that Delilah had learned to dismiss out of hand. One person's idea of self-sacrifice would always be another person's idea of self-destruction. There was simply no helping it. It amazed Delilah how sometimes intelligence and ignorance could express themselves in the same thought. Shame, she thought to herself, as she allowed her ice-blue eyes to dance briefly across the slender androgyne doctor's features as they bent over to sew Dauntless back together, before averting them again, lest she be seen looking. Kind of attractive, actually.

Dael reached for a hypospray and administered vitamin level corrections, and slow release pain reliever, and a small nutrient tracking device that would stay in Dauntless bloodstream until disabled. The doctor continued to speak, "I will be programming a diet for you to maintain in the replicator in your quarters. You will eat the recommended meals at the recommended times or I will know about it and recommend you be pulled from duty. You will complete your physical and emotional therapy or I will recommend you be pulled from active duty, and you will check in to Sickbay with me once weekly until further notice or I will recommend you be pulled from active duty. "

"This is ridiculous," Delilah snorted, still shaking her head. She could imagine her grandfather's withering gaze upon them all, his own ice-blue eyes cold with derision. Didn't you know this would happen? she could imagine him thinking. Isn't this always what happens when you show that you're hurt? When you show you need help? Don't they always take advantage? To hold you back? Delilah closed her eyes and sighed. He was right. It was always the same.

"Doctor, this was just a minor sports injury," said Delilah, fighting to keep the annoyance out of her voice. "Surely, there's no need to overreact? Is my training and diet regimen perhaps extreme? Yes... but there's nothing unhealthy about it. Certainly nothing that merits such a heavy-handed response?"

"Minor," Asa repeated cooly, "These minor injuries, as you call them, will have you paralyzed within 2 years if they continue. That's not an overreaction. It's scientific fact. You are mortal. Your body has limits. You will honor them, or you will no longer be fit for duty. I'm sorry you can't see it yet, but I hope in time you can."

The doctor, complete with treatment, moved to sit where Dauntless could see them. They placed a hand over hers and their voiced softened. "And we will work together to help you recover- inside body and soul. We don't know each other, but please hear me. Whatever drove you to so many breaks, tears, and obvious abuse of your own limits- It doesn't have to be that way. Please, don't destroy yourself. I promise, there is a better way to be than this. Let me help you, or I'm going to have to make hard choices for you that neither of us want. I'll be here for you every step of the way, but you have to do the work too. Understood?"

"I neither want nor need your help, Doctor. Nor do I need your judgment of my life and how I choose to live it. Pain is just weakness leaving the body, and I have no use for it. What I DO need is for you to Do. YOUR. JOB, repair the injury and..." There was a familiar hiss for a second, then dauntless fell limply unconscious.

"Then it will be an order and you won't have to understand. Doctor, I'll apprise the Captain of the situation. Do what you can for now and I'll aid you in whatever way I can but with her spike in blood pressure and heart rate as well as hr language, you'll have to forgive me this indiscretion." Maica handed Asa the hypo and dematerialized, leaving the two to be alone.

The doctor worked silently to repair the injuries to the beleaguered form in front of them. They had so hoped this would not go as it had, but they no longer had a choice. The doctor typed up their report for the Captain and simply ended it with

"It is for these reasons, both physical, psychological, and disciplinary that I am removing Lieutenant Dauntless from active duty, effective immediately. After a complete course of treatment, including psychiatric, nutritional, physical therapy, and more in-depth scans to ensure proper recover, I will reassess. Until such time, the lieutenant is not fit to serve."