Only Through Reliving Trauma Can You Expect To Heal

Posted on Wed Jan 18th, 2023 @ 12:37am by Lieutenant Xavier Leiko

Mission: Character Development
Location: ???
1343 words - 2.7 OF Standard Post Measure

Xavier awoke. He wasn’t quite sure where he was or how long he had been there, all he knew was that everything felt foggy. As his senses slowly returned to his body it only increased his sense of confusion and disorientation. He was sure, no certain, that he was lying on the ground and as he came around a bit more he was very aware that his entire body was in pain, but mostly his head felt as though there was a crack in the middle of it. He touched it gingerly with his free arm and as he pulled it away he saw it was covered in blood.

He slowly pulled himself up from the floor and for the first time realised that there was some kind of warning alarm going off; it wasn’t helping his already splitting headache. He looked around the small shuttlecraft as a feeling of déjà vu swept over him. Had he been here before or was this happening again? He rose to his feet and had to grab the back of the pilot seat to stop himself from falling to the floor again. The control panels were all dark and the shuttle was obviously operating under emergency power.

He looked out of the window and caught a reflection of himself. He had to admit that he had had better days. He was bruised and battered and longed for a biobed with trained medical staff who could heal all things big and small. As he stared at himself he realised that something was wrong. He had been here before, this was the shuttle crash that he had caused that had almost killed his dad. How old had he been then? Fourteen? Fifteen maybe? But the person that stared back at him was an adult, in a black and gold Starfleet uniform, that wasn’t right. Looking beyond himself, he also recognised the crash site, but this wasn’t Betazoid, the scene of the original crash, this was Ithaca II, somewhere Xavier had never visited as a child. If this was a memory why was he older and why had the location changed?

Dad! Xavier thought suddenly, panic stricken. He turned around and as expected he saw the lifeless form of his dad’s crumpled body on the floor. “I don’t want to relive this.”

“You must!” The disembodied voice of his mother replied. “Only through reliving trauma can you expect to heal.”

Xavier knew she was right and so made his way over to his dad facing the same fear he once had; fearing the worse, worrying that he had killed his parent. As he got closer he realised that the form of his dad was much smaller than expected, or at least than he remembered it being. As he kneeled next to the body, once again he felt that something was wrong. Rolling the body to face him, Xavier was greeted by the form of a child, maybe nine or ten. He didn’t have a mark on his fair skin, but that wasn’t what took Xavier’s breath away. The child looked exactly like Xavier at that age, it was like looking into a mirror of the past. Xavier couldn’t take his eyes off of the boy, though the more he studied him, the more he saw subtle differences. They did look alike, but the boy had a smaller nose and his hair was a shade lighter than Xavier’s had been. Then, who was he?

“Mom, who…” but before Xavier could finish the sentence he heard a gasp and the scene spun and shifted. The shuttle vanished and so did the pain Xavier felt. He was in complete darkness now.

It took a while for the disorientation feeling to fade but he was certain he was back on the Athena. He was outside of his office but the door was open, he stepped inside and immediately knew that something wasn't quite right. The room was in darkness, the only light coming from the massive window on the far side of the room and the light from the corridor from where Xavier had just entered. The Chief was standing with his back to Xavier, facing the swirls of fluidic space on the other side of the glass. Not this memory, please!

"You okay Chief?" Xavier said, sounding more confident than he felt. He didn’t want to go through this again but it was as though this was a stage and he had a script to follow. He knew his lines and he knew how the scene ended and his heart was full at the thought of it all.

He stepped into the room and the doors closed behind him, causing Xavier to jump. Keep it together Leiko. "Chief?" He called out again, not as confidently this time. Still no response.

As Xavier moved further into the room, he walked straight into an armchair. "Damn! Computer lights," he ordered but nothing happened. "Computer?" Nothing. He wanted to turn around and go back, but all that was behind him was a thick, black fog. The stage direction was to press forward and he guessed that's what he had to do. No turning back.

"Chief, I think we need to fix the computer," he said.

"Lieutenant," the Chief finally said. "I didn't want it to end this way, tell her I never left."

Xavier arched an eyebrow, "tell who Sir?" He asked puzzled. As his eyes adjusted to the light he could clearly make out the frame of Chief Robert Daniels, right on cue. But as he got closer he realised this wasn’t the Chief. It sounded like him but the height and frame were all wrong. He inched closer some more, looking out for the phaser he knew would steal the show at the end of the scene, but it wasn’t there. Instead, he was holding an old-style tricorder, which made no sense at all. No phaser meant no finale, right?

The man turned to Xavier and looked him straight in the eyes. For a split second, it felt as though no one else existed, nowhere in all of time and space. All that was and all that ever will be was these two men, trapped in this nightmare, in this room, in this unknown realm of the universe. “Tell her I live in here now, forevermore,” the shadowy figure said cryptically.

“Who are you?” Xavier asked, moving closer some more.

The shadow smiled, at least that’s what it looked like. “I am you, Xavier.”

As he moved closer Xavier could see that the shadow was telling the truth, the man in front of him was his exact double. This wasn’t Daniels, it was himself, a mirror version, standing in the spot where death had previously stalked. But the nose and the hair were slightly different, off in a way that didn’t match his own. The shadow wasn’t Xavier, it was the boy from the shuttle, grown up and his near double. “Who are you?” Xavier repeated, anger and fear catching in his voice.

The shadow smiled again. “It’s time for the truth,” he said, moving closer to Xavier, reaching out his arm.

Xavier went to grab the man, but a beam of light erupted from just behind Xavier and hit the shadow straight in the chest. The shadow man cracked and his body disintegrated into a million pieces and scattered across the floor. It appeared that the phaser had stolen the show after all. Xavier turned in the direction the blast had come from and his mother stood there, holding a phaser and the darkest look across her already stern face. “Mother, what is happening? Who was that?”

“This ends now!” She said, still shaking from the phaser fire.

“No!” Xavier yelled. “I want answers.” He stepped forward and grabbed her arm, as the world spun again and turned to black.