Hill of Beans
Posted on April 19th, 2002 by Sullivan Ruffian and Tempest Rainbird

The doors to the turbolift couldn’t close quickly enough to suit her. Sullivan leaned against the wall of the turbolift, trying to regain her composure and make her stomach stop from rolling merrily in her abdomen. To most people, the feeling would have been pleasant, making them giddy and effervescent. To her, it made her feel…. just plain sick, disgusted, dirty. “I cannot allow this to continue,” she spoke softly to herself. “There has to be a way to end this… this….” She failed to come up with a reasonable phrase to describe her dilemma. She had realized in time that what she was suffering from could not be treated by the physical medical industry, but now was at a loss to find someone who could be of use. With a reluctant hand, she tapped at her commbadge. “Counselor Tempest, please respond.”

Tempest woke from her catnap and uncurled like a marionette, stretching even her toes. Putting her hand on her temple to ward off the lingering aura of exhaustion, she tapped her comm badge. “Tempest here.”

Suli’s mouth went dry for a moment. In all her years of service, she had never sought the counsel of anyone of her own accord. Then her heart fluttered with an uneven and exotic tempo, causing her to plunge forward and hope that no one would notice that this was the day that Commander Sullivan was losing her marbles and needed assistance to get them back in the bag. “Counselor,” she spoke in clipped tones, trying to relay a sense of normality. “Do you have some time to see me?”

“Yeah – Yeah,” Tempest answered, clearing phlegm from her throat. “My – my office?”

“Excellent, ” she responded with a lie. “I will be there in approximately 3 minutes. “Sullivan out.” The doors opened on the proper deck and Suli exited. The even tempo of her boots thudding down the corridor was reminiscent of a dirge heralding the arrival of someone up for an execution. Before she reached the office door, she pondered briefly. Was I interrupting something? She paused a moment longer and rang the chime.

“Come in!” Tempest had taken the intervening time to tidy her sleep-sundered appearance. She smiled, and beckoned Suli in, gesturing for her to sit. The familiar rhythym of her motions was counterpointed by Suli’s discomfort, and Tempest tried to remember whether the Bajoran Commander had ever voluntarily entered her office before. “How can I help you?”

She hesitated just inside the doorway, a pantheress trying to decide whether to flee or to fight. With a burst of determination, she fully entered the room and found the straightest, most uncomfortable chair upon which to sit. A minute drug on in unbearable silence as she tried to find the words to express her discomfort. “I trust that anything I say will remain firmly within these walls?” She mentally winced as she realized how stupid and untrusting that sounded.

“Of course.” Tempest leaned back in her chair, and sat in an open pose, holding her gaze firmly on the Commander.

What little color she had to her complexion drained completely away. “For anyone else, this would probably be a welcome event, something to be anticipated and wished for.” She took a deep breath and tried to steady her pulse. “The fact of the matter is….” With the gravity of someone about to announce that they suffered from a terminal disease from which there was no hope of recovery, she continued. “I fear that I am in the beginning stages of what can best be described as…. a crush.”

Tempest inclined her head, not wanting to break the Commander’s rhythym, or discourage her by exhibiting the wrong emotion.

“These… feelings…. they are not desired, nor are they appropriate. My only thought is how to rid myself of them.” She looked at Tempest with a pleading expression. “Is there anything you can do…. to…. help?”

“If there were a simple way to still the emotions borne of the human heart, I think we would all embrace it. But as far as I know without walking down the ascetic path the Vulcans have chosen, we must deal with our lot, whatever harrowing circumstances that surround us.” She paused to take in the Commander’s reaction – to try to let the woman know that she was sympathetic. “But even the most terrible of heart-rending wounds is mended by time and” she smiled “catharsis. I’ll be able to give you better advice if you give me some more details.”

“D…d….details?” Sullivan looked at Tempest’s sympathetic smile and fought to keep her fragile facade from crumpling. She had expected disdain, amusement, even mockery… but never sympathy from a woman who was so obviously in love. “You mean like the fact that my heart beats erratically, my stomach does barrel rolls, and I have the overwhelming desire to…. sing… happy songs? Love songs?”

The fleeting thought flashed through Tempest’s mind that she should pair this woman with the Draknor who kept coming into her office and asking whether depressents shouldn’t be sprayed in the hallways to keep the happiness disease from spreading. She chuckled, genuinely. “I meant more how it happened. Whether you’ve felt this way before. That sort of thing.”

Suli’s brow furrowed. “Truthfully, I don’t know how it happened. One day, I was just minding my business and the next day I can’t walk by his office without dropping whatever I’m carrying. His smile causes me to lose all concentration on what I’m doing! His damn voice makes me think of warm bubble baths, candlelight dinners, and silk sheets!” The anger in her voice was not directed at Tempest, but at herself and the folly of her emotion. “I did not ask for this. I did not want this.”

She calmed herself before continuing. “I have felt passion before, I have known loyalty. With Doctor Caine, there is and will always be this deep cosmic connection that we are unable to break… but this… this…. this is sheer lunacy! Especially after all that…. ” She stopped herself. “I don’t have the time, energy, nor desire to engage in the frivolity of an affair. My career is going to suffer… and I’ve done enough damage to it as it is.”

“Try to put your anger aside for a minute, Suli,” Tempest said. She kept her voice calm and low, soothing like the low hum of ocean waves, to try to lure Sullivan from her heightened temper. “Now, Suli, one of the goals of therapy is to try to learn about oneself objectively. Try to think about your life as if it were a story happening to another person, all right? Breathe and calm. Let your emotion color your breath with red hot energy, like pepermint, and exhale it, but savor the flavor of it as you do. What can you tell me about that flavor and how it grew?”

Suli resisted the urge to shout, “I don’t need therapy! I just want this fixed.” Instead, she closed her eyes and concentrated on breathing her life. “Bitterness. Lemon? But not as fresh. Hot. Cinnamon. Not as sweet. More like a Bajoran Basalt Pepper.” She looked further inward, wondering what was the flavor of despair. A smile tugged at the corner of her mouth as a thought of him wandered across her mind. “Cotton candy. Spring Wine. Popcorn with real butter. Peanut butter.” The frown returned suddenly. “This is silly.”

“Yeah,” Tempest agreed. “You took that a bit more… literally… than I meant it. It was a metaphor. OK, let’s try something else.” She paused for a moment, brow furrowed. “You mentioned an involvement with Doctor Caine. He, I know, is a follower of the Buddhist tradition. Did you ever talk about daoism at all? The flow of life?”

Sullivan allowed herself a full smile. “Talk about it? Does he talk about anything else?” She nodded and continued. “He has discussed it in great length with what I consider to be a rather unwilling pupil.” She looked more studious and serious. “We differ on points of acceptance. Accepting oneself is not an easy task.” She shifted in her seat, the first real movement that she had made since they had begun. “He seems to think that in this river of life, you can help steer the boat…. I have trouble just staying in it.”

“Remember,” Tempest added, “Anger makes waves, and fighting the current may tilt the boat so the ocean water can pour in.” She winked. “Another metaphor.” She smoothed her flannel shirt over her pants, the ragged edge of her bitten fingernail catching on the material. “The first step to overcoming any emotion is accepting it. I’m going to ask you to tell me this story again – of how you came to feel this way – and this time I want you to try to do it without letting yourself be angry, or embarrassed. Just tell me what the narration would be for your book. I’ll hear it, and I won’t judge.”

Sullivan sighed impatiently. No wonder I avoid this place like the Bajoran Beetle Plague. Talk, talk, talk….. She stood and reseated herself in the chair again. “Just out of curiosity,” she interjected. “How is this going to help me get rid of this feeling?” She held out her hands in an almost submissive motion. “What are you trying to accomplish? Maybe if I understand the objective… I can help with a solution.”

“Sullivan, you are coming to me very upset. Any attempt to analyze the source of your feeling is treated as hostile. You’re attempting to avoid it with humor – with abruptness. Now, if I were a medical doctor, and you had a physiological problem, you would not deny me the necessary diagnostic tools. The difference between the medicine Brooke practices in sickbay and what I practice here is that the diagnostic tool lies in your hands – or rather in your mouth. The words you speak are my way to diagnose, and to solve. If you deny them to me, I can’t give you any advice.” Tempest gestured again for Suli to sit, jading her sympathetic tone with quiet authority. “Furthermore, it is a well-proven fact that a vital step in the process of humanoid recovery from trauma is talking about the incident. That’s been well documented since before Freud. I can give you some modern studies, if you like.”

Suli stared blankly at her for a few moments and then sat. “Once upon a time,” she began with the simplest of beginnings. “There was a young girl who lived among trolls and goblins and the most rancid beasts known to man. They were violent and angry. She was hungry and scared. Because of it, she learned to fight and fight well…. among other things. One day, a huntsman was passing through and got into trouble with the local resident evil. So, the girl did what her heart knew was right and saved him. In return for her help, he took her to the nearest castle and there she learned the ways of good men and women.” She looked at Tempest without mockery or amusement or sarcasm. “She learned to walk among them and act like them, but somewhere inside, she always remembered that she was different. She wasn’t like them. She would never be them.”

Suli focused on a point somewhere over Tempest’s left shoulder and continued. “In time the girl became a woman and fell in love with a dark knight. Though it was bound to end badly, she followed her heart anyway. They were happy for a time, but as was predicted it ended. The woman lost not only her pride and her heart, but her hand as well. She went back to the castle and everyone accepted her back. They gave her a new hand to make up for the one that was lost and for a while everything was alright. She lived among them and with them. She did good deeds. She earned her keep…. and then it all changed again.”

She noticed that Tempest hadn’t moved a muscle since she had begun her story. She briefly wondered if the woman was even breathing. “The woman could no longer remember who she had been and what she had been. In her mind, it was all starting to run together and for some reason, she thought that maybe she wasn’t so different from the person that she had been. So, she went back to see. She just wanted to look at the beasts that had raised her and see that she was indeed different. Instead, the trolls and the goblins captured her and would not let her go. They would not…. they hurt her. They did things to her that she swore they would never do again…. and then again she was rescued. This time by the great king and his loyal subjects… the very loyal subjects who she thought wouldn’t miss her because she wasn’t truly one of them.” She took a ragged breath and thought that she couldn’t go on, but she did what she always did when the chips were down. She dug deep within herself and found the strength to see the story through to the end.

“When they all returned to the castle, the woman worked hard to fit back in among the people who had saved her. But she couldn’t forget what had been done or what she had been forced to do. And then he came…. he asked for nothing, demanded nothing. He simpley sat with her when she was looking sad and shared the simplest of things. A cup of tea or coffee, a light lunch. An encouraging smile when she was looking down… and then… without her knowing…” She looked at Tempest and shrugged.

Tempest nodded. “Thank you, Suli.” She wondered how to brooch the next topic, fearing that her next request would be taken equally literally, and afraid that Suli would lose whatever precious trust she had allowed to tie them together if she breathed the wrong word. This story, in outline, was not so different from many stories – very similar, in fact, to her own – but it would hurt Suli to tell her that, and to reinforce that she needed the details that made this story so uniquely Suli’s own. This was going to be like rehabilitating a feral kitten so she was willing to accept a human touch. She backed down and sought a solution.

“For now, I think the best thing for you to do is to put yourself in the company of this person in group situations, where there is enjoyment of friendship, but little intimacy. Avoid the urge to spend time alone with him where possible, and try to concentrate on the friendly feelings that arise. Perhaps on a situation where you felt genuine friendship. For instance, if you have an association of, say, a summer-ripened apple from a time when you shared those fruits with a childhood friend, try to weave that association into your experiences with this individual. Meanwhile, think about how you’re feeling, and how it changes. We’ll talk again next week. All right?”

Suli’s heart sank. “Talk again? See him??” She blinked several times. “Can’t you just give me a frontal lobotomy and make it all go away?” She sighed as she stood.

“Sorry,” Tempest said, echoing the sigh. “We only give frontal lobotomies on Tuesdays.”

Sullivan grumbled. “But I have my half price coupon and everything.” She picked up the PADD from a nearby table. “I’m very sorry to have troubled you with something as trivial as this…….. I mean….” Suli began inching her way towards the door, wondering if she was going to make it out before having to make a definate appointment. “I’m sure you are very busy with people with real problems… and congratulations on your engagement.”

“Suli. Stand. Still.” Tempest stood up, shook off the professional, sympathetic facade, and put her hands on the woman’s shoulders. “You and I started serving on this scow within what, a week of each other? That’s… years. That’s far too long for you to be able to bullshit your way out of this.”

She lowered her face so that she was looking Suli directly in the eyes. “If you are upset, then you have a real problem. Period. That’s what I’m here for. To help with upset. I don’t care whether you stubbed your toe or cut off your hand -” she grinned, devilishly, “-again. You come to me when you’re feeling upset, and I’ll make you feel better. And if I can’t make you feel better, then I’ll at least buy you a drink.” Tempest twitched her upper lip, and walked back to her desk, rifling through her drawers. “I might even have something here. Rum? Sherry?”

Suli stood deadly still as her body recovered from the effects of being actually touched by someone…. purposefully. Her breathing became less shallow and her eyes lost that *little critter about to be run over by at large truck* look. Swallowing convulsively, she moistened her lips and stammered. “B…b…b…bourbon.”

“I don’t have buorbon…” Tempest frowned at the assembled contents of her desk drawer. “In fact, I can offer you Bajoran Summer wine or… paper clip a la padd.”

“Summer wine is fine.” She edged her way back into the center of the room, wondering for a moment if there were any meetings she was missing.

Tempest scrounged for a further second, trying to conjure a cup from the midst of the disorganized paperwork, then gave up, found a replicator, and created a glass. She poured the red liquid into the flute, then swallowed a hefty gulp of it herself, straight from the bottle. She handed Suli the glass.

“Thank you.” Sullivan took the glass with a somewhat steady hand and whispered some words of thanks to the Prophets before putting it too her lips. She studied Tempest over the rim of the glass and asked quietly. “Why do you do this?”

“I like you.”

She tilted her head to the side. “Like me? Forgive me for being blunt, Counselor…. but you hardly know me aside from a little fairy tale version of my life that I told you. Aside from department meetings and passing on the bridge, we’ve hardly said a dozen words to each other.” She smiled softly. “And when we served together before… well…. that seems like it was another lifetime ago.”

Tempest shrugged. “It was a lifetime ago, wasn’t it?” She took another swig from the bottle. “Do you remember that girl you carried in from the rain? Back into the cave, when we were all stranded on the planet. I went out into the storm, and Alexander… her father… almost killed me, but you came up behind us, and you carried her back to the cave.” Tempest blinked that away, shoved the padds and refuse back into her desk drawer, and slammed it shut. “I can read, you know. I fought with the maquis and – I may not have been here when you were fighting the Cardassians at Gallitep – but, damn it, it takes more than an ordinary woman to do it.”

A bit of color had the good sense to stain Suli’s cheeks. “I didn’t mean it to sound so harsh. I just… well…. I just have trouble seeing how anyone can… oh, never mind. Truth be told, I don’t know a rat’s ass about you except that you are engaged to Zuriyev, who I respect greatly and it seems like I must see something in you that I like or I would never had rung your chime. I would have stayed on that turbolift and gone to the holodeck and tried to fight it out again, like I’ve done almost every day and night since I’ve returned.”

“You don’t have to give a rat’s ass about me,” Tempest blurted. She fumbled to find a lid for the bottle of wine. “That’s not your job. It’s my job to watch people. So what do you want? Other than ten impossible things before breakfast. Name one practical thing I can do for you, and I’ll try to do it.”

“I’ll do better than that,” she stated as her chin rose at the challenge. “I’ll name two. One. You can forgive me for snapping at the hand that has offered nothing but friendship and understanding.” She finished the rest of the wine that remained in her glass before setting it on the desk. And two…. you can pour me another glass of that wine before you offend the Prophets by letting it go sour in that garbage scow that you call a desk.”

“Go sour…” Tempest winked. She poured another healthy dollop into Suli’s glass and downed another swallow herself. “No problem on either count.”

She raised her glass to the counselor. “To Tempest,” she praised with a toast. “Who has the most thankless job among ungrateful people.”

“To Suli,” Tempest echoed, bottle upraised. “The gentle ruffian.”