Siobhan Dixon had felt the cold hand of the Borg and it had ripped apart her existence. In the darkest moment of her young life, there was precious little she cared about including herself. Nobody understood the pain she faced…or so she thought.
SIOBHAN DIXON
FIRST, DO NO HARM
Norman Cousins – ‘Death is not the greatest loss in life. The greatest loss is what dies inside us while we live.’
STARFLEET MEDICAL ANNEX
LONDON
EARTH
February 23rd 2367
It was strange, the things that she remembered. Perhaps what was stranger were the things she didn’t remember. She remembered for instance, that there had been a thunderstorm that morning when the news had been delivered, leaving the pavements of London awash with water and a rainbow so bright that it looked artificial; but she couldn’t remember her mother’s favourite colour. She remembered every nuance on the face of the New Worlds Transport representative when he broke the news, but she couldn’t recall the tie that her father hated with a passion yet wore because it had been a present from her mother.
It didn’t matter really. Remembering something didn’t bring it back, it merely seemed to make its absence more profound.
It was now three months since the incident that had carved a hole into her life; nine weeks and three days since she had learned the truth; or at least as much as could be known.
“Remembering these things is important Siobhan.” Vonny’s reverie was broken by the cultured and gentle English voice of the counsellor sitting at the small table across from her.
“Important for who?” she replied, her voice leaden, tired, uninterested. “For me?” She shook her head. “I don’t think so. Each time I recall something good, it’s like a knife cuts another string that ties me to them, makes me realise that I won’t see them again.” She looked pointedly at the counsellor. “How’s that good?”
Counsellor Anthony Winston III was a good man, a caring man, and a professional who had seen the damage that could be done to young lives following a loss like this. Over the past four weeks of working to break through Vonny’s reluctance to remember the minutia of her life with her parents, he’d occasionally seen a small chink in the wall she’d erected around those memories. Working carefully to widen that opening into full blown remembrance and hopefully acceptance was his priority, but each time he’d come close the hole was bricked up once more and it was back to square one. Yet, in the midst of trying to do good, he felt like the world’s greatest hypocrite.
“In the near term, it hurts Vonny, but preservation of those memories is what will give your life meaning.” He paused, and then completely out of the blue said, “What do you think of me Vonny?”
She looked at him, mildly confused which he felt was a good move away from sullen.
“Think of you? I don’t understand.”
“Perhaps that was badly phrased, excuse me. I mean how do you see me?” He leaned his elbows on the desk, resting his chin on his hands and seeing that the question still hadn’t elicited the connection he needed, he continued. “Am I just a paid counsellor going through the motions? Or somebody who’s old enough to have experienced life’s hurts?”
“I don’t know, you’re…I guess you’re doing your job.” She sank back into the recliner, her detached mood returning. “Does it matter how I see you?”
Winston sighed and looked out of the window. The Starfleet Medical Annex offices in London overlooked the old part of the city that had been renovated after the war and was now preserved in all its original grandeur. Behind the offices and out of sight of the window, the new London grew in all its 24th century splendour, but the walkways along the banks of the Thames were now much as they always had been.
He stood and stretched, his back popping - eliciting a wince - and made a decision.
“Would you care to join me for a cup of tea?”
Again the slightly puzzled look. “Tea? What’s this, a new counselling method?”
“No actually. I’m thirsty, tired of this office and need a break.” Donning his coat from the old fashioned hat stand by the door, he opened it wide and looked at her patiently. It almost appeared to Vonny that if she said no, he’d simply say goodbye politely and go anyway.
Tea it is then she thought and followed him out to the turbolift.
******
The afternoon sun shone weakly through the high haze of the February morning, and where the shadows lingered along the riverside walks, frost clung tenaciously to the pavements. Their breath huffed out in vaporous clouds as they walked slowly amidst the omnipresent tourist crowds.
“It was a serious question you know.”
Vonny looked at Winston, bundled up in a coat that could well have been twice as old as him yet still looked right, his scarf neatly tucked inside. He’d always had that bizarre way of appearing mussed but tidy, the typical vision of an eccentric English gentleman.
“Did I miss something? Which question?”
“In the office? I asked you how you saw me.”
“Oh right.” Her attention wandered to a flock of pigeons scrabbling for breadcrumbs by the wall separating the walkway from the river.
“I’m not the enemy Vonny.”
“I know, you’re doing your job and…”
“No!” Vonny stopped dead in her tracks at the abrupt retort. For the first time since she’d met him, his affable demeanour had deserted him and colour had risen in his cheeks that wasn’t entirely due to the chilly air. “This isn’t just a case of doing my job Vonny, not by a long shot.”
She was honestly too shocked to think of a reply and it must have shown on her face.
He dipped his head in embarrassment as passers by stared.
“That was unprofessional of me.” He bit his lip. “I apologise.”
Nodding her acceptance, she carried on walking in silence. As he caught up with her, he continued as if the outburst hadn’t happened.
“I asked how you saw me because I was genuinely interested. There’s a maxim in the medical profession Vonny which says ‘First, do no harm’.”
“As in the Hippocratic Oath you mean?”
He chuckled. “Popular misconception I’m afraid. No, that’s not in there as such, but it’s just as important.” He halted his slow pace causing Vonny to stop and turn to face him.
In a quiet voice, he said “I feel it may be best were you to see another counsellor Vonny.”
“What? Why?” The words sounded slightly inane on their own. “I mean why now?”
“It’s not just now Vonny. Had Starfleet been aware of my circumstances, it’s quite likely I would never have been assigned to your case. But there was no reason for them to know and here we are, in a position where I may indeed be breaking the truism of ‘First, do no harm’.”
Vonny shook her head in confusion.
“So you’re saying what? I should be somebody else’s problem because you don’t quite feel up to the task?”
He shook his head emphatically. “That’s not it at all…”
“Well its how it sounds to me. “Ditch the basket case, I’ve got enough problems” or am I oversimplifying it?” Tears were in her eyes as she turned and marched off down the crowded walkway.
“Vonny, no…” Winston was about to follow her when a well dressed man of Japanese descent tapped him on the arm.
“Excuse me.”
Trying to keep his eyes on the rapidly retreating back of Vonny, he answered distractedly. “I’m sorry?”
“Excuse me, would you be so kind as to take a holo of my family and me?”
He turned towards where the man was gesturing to see a mother and three young girls, the eldest around the same age as Vonny. By now, Winston had completely lost track of where she had gone and it would have felt churlish to refuse the man.
“Certainly,” he smiled as the family broke into a group grin, “my pleasure.”
They took up the usual pose as he set the camera and took several shots, and in each one he saw the evident pleasure of a family together. When he handed the camera back, it was with a sad smile.
“You have a wonderful family Mr…?”
“Hiroshi,” he replied, “Hiroshi Tarou. This is my wife Yuuka and my daughters Sakura, Asami and Misaki.” They each bowed graciously and Winston clumsily returned the gesture. “And I am indeed proud of them.” His smile was evidence of that. “We are celebrating my eldest daughter’s completion of her exams though she is unsure of her future as yet.”
Winston pursed his lips. “The future, Mr Hiroshi, is a very malleable thing. It is what we make it, whereas the past can never be changed.” His voice tailed off as he looked back toward the crowd where Vonny had disappeared, a realisation dawning and a decision made.
“Mr Hiroshi, I’m afraid I have to dash but I hope your stay here is pleasant.”
“Thank you Mr…” but Winston was already moving off through the crowds.
He smiled, returning his attention to his family. “Time I think to eat.” The three girls were more than enthusiastic about that and as they dashed ahead, Hiroshi Yuuka turned to her husband with a smile. “I think that is the first time you have said that out loud Tarou.”
“What, about eating?”
“No you idiot!” she laughed, poking him in the chest. “About how proud you are of your family.”
“Just because I do not say it does not mean I do not think it every day.”
Yuuka placed her arm through his as they walked on.
“Nevertheless, it is good to hear.”
******
Winston quickened his pace. Either Vonny had returned home or she was still walking along the embankment. Minutes later, on the verge of giving up his search, he spotted the tartan jacket she had been wearing, and as he approached he saw she was stood by the wall and silently gazing out over the river.
Without turning, she said “Am I really such a lost cause Dr Winston?”
“How on Earth did you know it was me?”
She shrugged. “You’re the only person I know of who wears those small metal plates on the heels of your shoes to stop them wearing down too quickly. You sound like a tap dancer.”
“I suppose I do.” He really wasn’t sure what to say next. “Still, if it saves money…”
Vonny stiffened at the comment. “That’s just what my mother used to…say…”
Then she broke down and the tears lasted quite some while as Winston guided her to a small café he knew.
******
Vonny held the fine china cup between her trembling hands, her eyes red rimmed but no longer filled with tears. She looked at Winston for a long moment then said, “What’s the real reason you need to pass my case on to somebody else?”
“Strangely enough I honestly believe I won’t have to now, but I believe I’d still like to tell you.”
He sipped at the strong sweet tea, then placed it carefully back on the saucer. Around them quiet conversation filled the air, but Vonny felt as if they were in their own bubble of privacy as Winston placed his hands on the table.
“All my life Vonny I’ve been wrapped up in a career of medicine, caring for others. It’s how I wanted my life to be if I’m honest so I’m certainly not complaining, but I never realised until not so long ago that my life had been…just me.” He looked out through the condensation clouded window at the hurrying crowds.
“Oh I’d had relationships of course but nothing lasting, nothing meaningful.” His sigh was wistful. “Of course when it did happen, like most of life’s good things, I was totally unprepared for it.”
Sipping quietly at her drink, Vonny relaxed into the chair.
“His name was Philippe Dubois, a Starfleet officer aboard the USS Firebrand. He was all the things that I felt I wasn’t; tall, handsome, funny. But he gave me four of the happiest months of my life.” His voice was far away, and Vonny wasn’t even sure that he remembered who he was talking to. “We never talked about the future but there was something that told me we had one...or should have had one.”
He swallowed, the words becoming difficult.
“What happened?” asked Vonny.
He turned to her, yet seemed to look through and beyond her witnessing some distant horror.
“Wolf 359 happened.”
She recoiled in shock, her jump rattling the cups in their saucers and causing some of the closer patrons to turn their way before resuming their own quiet conversations.
He went on to explain how the Freedom class vessel had been one of the first to be hit by the Borg. Dubois had managed to cram eight crew members into an escape pod and had run back to a nurse who’d collapsed. Before he could return to the pod though, a panicked crewman had slammed the hatch and hit the eject mechanism. Dubois was never seen again.
Over 11,000 people had died at Wolf 359, or worse, been assimilated. Over 11,000 families, friends and lovers had been affected by the worst tragedy to befall the Federation in generations, yet Vonny had never knowingly spoken to another of them.
“And that is why I felt such a hypocritical charlatan in trying to get you to face your loss Vonny. Until I met you, I hadn’t dealt with Philippe’s death at all. In trying to help you, whose interests would I have been serving? Would I have been doing harm?” He fell into silence as he watched her.
“So you decided it would be best for somebody else to take my case?”
He nodded solemnly.
“And yet out there on the embankment, it was because of you that I shed perhaps the first real tears since my mother and father…” She paused before saying the word died, but suddenly she realised that it caused neither the anger nor hatred that it had. It still hurt immensely, and she was glad of that in a strange way, but it was a hurt she now thought she could deal with given time.
“We may have both taken a step forward today Vonny. The only question is, would you prefer another counsellor?” She was about to answer but he held up his hand. “No, don’t answer that now. I want you to take time to think about it Vonny.”
STARFLEET AIR TRAM ‘MARTIN’
OVER SAN FRANCISCO BAY
SAN FRANCISCO
EARTH
September 14th 2370
That had been almost four years ago. Anthony Winston III had remained as her counsellor and from that day forward she had recovered her life, a life that now saw her flying over the Golden Gate Bridge towards a future she could never have contemplated back then.
The clean open grounds and curving architecture of Starfleet Academy spread out ahead of her as the air tram at last began its delayed descent towards the shuttle port.
Her final thought before leaving the tram for the pandemonium on the concourse below was aimed into the ether.
Thank you Dr Winston, she thought, I only hope you found the peace that I did.
