SPD: When angry, count to ten.

[RJ Ferrance, DC, MD]

If still angry, count to one hundred.                      -Thomas Jefferson   (first, I apologize.  this is long.  I've needed to do something creative for quite some time now.  You all have to suffer because of it)     Matt came out of ops trying to decide if that 10 over 10 crushing substernal chest pain was anger, or hurt.  It sure as hell wasn't coronary ischemia, because he didn't get that.  If they only knew....   And if they only knew, it might well end this whole thing right here and now.  But to divulge his relationship with Carrhae would certainly end one of their careers, and end it quickly.  Starfleet rather frowned upon horizontal relationships between its top of the food chain personnel.  Even his relative outstanding graces with the CINC at the moment wouldn't be enough to salvage this.   Though it would be radically simpler than having to disappear.   Maybe tomorrow, if this didn't somehow blow over.  He didn't have to teach at SFMA, after all.  There were a thousand medical schools that would forego endowments to get him to teach.  On both sides of the neutral zone.   He turned away from the folks in ops and tapped his commbadge.  "Brennan to sickbay."   Kay's soft voice was a welcome beacon of friendship. "Matt.  Are you okay?"   He smiled crookedly, knowing she'd hear it in his voice.  "They ain't killed me yet, Kay," he told her.  His standard line.   "Not for lack of trying, I'm sure."  There was something about her voice....   "I'm ready to come back to work, Kay."   "Matt....  I don't think that would be such a good idea."  She sighed.  "We've got a three hundred percent increase in minor complaints down here.  Dr. Basco has called in two more residents and a moonlighter to help out and we're on top of the tide.  We know that the two hundred percent overage is made up of the curious and the mediatypes trying to sneak in.  We're busting the ones we're sure of - security has been very good about dragging them off to the Big House - but we're not catching them all.  You'd be a spectacle here, Matt.  And besides...."  There was real concern in her voice as she pitched it low, "I can't be sure that some of these folks aren't lying their way in in the hopes of, well, hurting you.  I think it would be a mistake for you to come to work, Matt."   Damn.  They'd taken that from him as well.  Not directly, but as sure as if they'd deleted his passcode and clearance.   "Kay-"   "I'm sorry, Matt.  Really, I am.  But for your sake, and the sake of the real patients here.... I think taking a couple of days off would do you some good."   He wasn't going to question her judgement.  She'd never been wrong before.  "Everything's handled."  It was a statement rather than a question.  Mary Basco was a better organizer than he was.   "Yes.  Get some rest, Matt.  You're going to need it, I suspect."   "Thanks, Kay."   "We're all behind you Matt.  A thousand percent.  And more."   "I know, Kay. Thank you.  Brennan out."   Damn.  So, where to, then?  His quarters?  No, they'd be there.   San Francisco?   They'd be there, too.   The house Theresa had bequeathed to him on North Carolina's outer banks, all those years ago?   No, he'd best not leave the station.  JAG hadn't ordered it, but he didn't want them to have to.   There was one place.....   He eschewed the front door of ops and instead headed off into the back passageways, his constant shadows scurrying to keep up.  He headed upwards, toward the one quiet place the press probably wouldn't think to look.   The botanical gardens at Spacedock were so large that one could get lost in them easily.  Matt had, on more than one occassion.   At their center was a clearing,  thirty meters in diameter, with the softest grass he'd ever trod on.  He'd slipped away here on occasion just to walk on "Earth" again.  And there was a holoprojector embedded, so that he could create a small stream to provide sounding stones to rearrange, or a Japanese dojo for ambience.   His shadows gave him some polite distance as he stepped out into the clearing, which he appreciated.  What he needed to do was stretch, and move, and let off some energy.  "Computer, please provide me with <[r'jtti]>" he asked.   A small table appeared, covered with innocuous looking objects, and a set of loose clothing, much like the traditional oriental clothing for martial arts.  He pulled off his uniform shirt and pulled the pants over his own, then slid into the shirt and tied it at the waist.  He closed his eyes as he stepped away from the table and into the center of the grass.  He crouched low, into the starting position of "Earth at Rest", and cleared his mind.   AS best he could.   Slowly he rose, his arms spreading outward into "Earth Awakened."  He moved then from one position into the next, slowly, with care and precision, progressing through the movements of Earth, into the flowing languid movements of Water, then the unpredictable, eclectic  movements of Air, and the movements of Fire - fast, bold, almost violent movements - and then slowly back into Earth.   The entire kata took nearly twenty minutes, and when it ended, with him again in "Earth at Rest" his forehead was dripping from the exertion he'd commanded of himself.  His eyes were again closed, and the peace that had settled over his mind was slipping away as sands through an hourglass while the outside world, with all its current excrement, came sifting back in around him.   <[It is good to see that so much time among the Earthers has not softened you, or robbed from you the grace which my Mother's daughter found so... arousing.]>   That voice.  Matt instantly fell onto one shoulder, rolling away and coming up quickly in a defensive stance.  But no, the voice hadn't been a ghost.  It hadn't been Rhiana's.   (OOC: The part of Ael is played by ... an actress to be named later.  Can't think of anyone appropriate just now)   "Ael," he breathed.  He took a moment to wait for his heart to slow again.  She... was as beautiful as she'd always been, as beautiful as he'd never let himself admit that she was.  Perhaps she was more beautiful than Rhiana had been.    Not likely, but perhaps.   She was tall, elegant in her bearing and in her speech and in her interactions.  She wore civilian clothing - something he'd almost never seen on her.  A simple yet, of course elegant, black pantsuit, with a short cape.  Her long hair hung freely, tucked behind one elegant pointed ear.   She was regarding him as one might a new neighbor, looking as if she wasn't as displeased as she'd expected to be.  <[I did not know you were on Spacedock, otherwise I would have properly welcomed you.]> he told her.  <[With roast thrai and sweetmeats.]>   Her look became even less displeased.  <[You still speak the language as if raised with it.  My compliments.]>   Matt bowed his head slightly to accept the compliment.    Ael's hand trailed over the array of items on the table, her fingers slowly wrapping around a long, straight bo.  <[If I remember correctly, you were not entirely inept with this weapon,]> she said.   Almost more quickly than his eye could follow, she had tossed the stick to him and lifted its identical twin.  She was spinning, the bo twirling with her in all three dimensions.  He barely had enough time to put both hands on the tossed weapon and balance it before he had to swing it across his body, buttressing it with an entranced footplant, to keep her from crushing his ribs.   He could see the shadows moving as his escorts moved to rush forward.  "No!" he called out to them.  "She's just saying hello."   She looked away toward where he was talking and he used that opportunity - he knew she would afford him few others.  He hooked the bo behind her left heel and pulled, taking her down.  No sooner had her back hit the sod than she arched her back, then slammed her feet back down, tossing herself upright.  He spun quickly away from her, the bo traveling behind his back to protect himself as he sought a better footing.   It didn't matter.  The bo connected with his knee with a shot that would have crushed it, had she not pulled the punch at the very last moment.  As it was, the pain was intense enough to be very distracting.   Which meant she was about to attack again.  He closed his eyes against the starburst of visual pain information and went on instinct alone, and managed to parry all three of her swings.  And connect with one of his own.  Her grunt told him he'd connected well.   For nearly fifteen minutes they continued, until a bad twist and turn on Matt's part put him down on the ground closer to her than he should have been.  The end of her bo flew at him, stopping only centimeters from his windpipe.  She stood in that position, towering over him, looking all the taller from his vantage point with her long lean legs and the long narrow rod of her weapon occupying most of his visual field.  All sound, all movement, all thought had come to a sudden, jarring, screeching stop.  <[I acknowledge your victorious endgame,]> he told her quietly, formally ending their match.    She paused only a moment longer before tossing aside the bow and offering him a hand up, her superior strength making him feel much lighter than he truly was as he came to his feet.  Ael stared into his eyes for a long moment, before abandoning decoum and wrapping her arms around him.  <[Matthew,]> she finally greeted him, <[the Elements are kind to me in allowing us to see each other again.]>   Yeah, that was Ael.  She always had had a soft spot for her big sister's husband.   And damn few other men, it should be pointed out.   tbc....   (for the record, this was a public place.  And I'm sure Matt's shadows would have reported the lady's 'attack' on him.  Anyone who wants can feel free to jump in here)   ********************************************************* RJ Ferrance, DC, MD Combined Internal Med/Pediatrics Chief Resident Medical College of Virginia Hospitals Richmond, VA 23298 [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://views.vcu.edu/~medtoast/anvil.html