Current location:	Concord
Entry tags:	(c) jilleen simmons, (n) judith hanover

2nd Session
Jilleen placed her hand on the glass of the large view port that looked out into space that was cool to the touch. She had come up to the observation lounge as she waited for her ride to the botanical cruiser for her next session. The view was of the many ships of the fleet which included both of the Mercury-class battlestars. She could not make out which one was the Avalon or the Pacifica out in the distance. As she stood and watched she wondered what her ship would face on its next mission.

Somehow Jilleen felt she had let down her crew mates. They were preparing for a dangerous mission while she was away passing her time on a resort liner while on orders to see a shrink. She was forced off duty, the Admiral had ordered her to take the time off while she sorted herself out. The Admiral knew what was best for her battle group and at this moment it did not include Major Simmons.


Jilleen thought of another Admiral.

“I understand sir, no exceptions,” replied Jilleen while sitting across from Admiral Christopher Pullo. It was the fourth day of the war.

“Major Simmons, what you do tomorrow will determine how quickly humanity will recover from this near genocide. We will need our best and the brightest if we are to have a chance to come back years or even generations from now to defeat the Cylon.” said the veteran of the last Cylon war. “But by the Lords of Kobol, we will come back with a vengeance. We fight for future, Major.”

“Yes, sir,” replied Jilleen. She had bought into the Admiral’s philosophy, he was the war hero and had been highly respected by all. He could not possibly lead them astray. Her own grief was blocked out as she embraced the anger she felt toward those machines. The Cylons would pay for what they did to her world.

Everything was frakked. The fleet was destroyed, the Colonies were occupied, and their own priority was resupply and to rearm. An evacuation of civilians was only secondary on this first mission to Leonis. Jilleen's mission was going to save people's lives, but in Pullo's wardroom at the time she did not comprehend at what cost. The majority of the space available on the transports had been allocated for ammunition and supplies.

She shook the memory from her mind and turned away from the window to leave the lounge, so she could wait for her ride in the departure lounge.

An hour later, Jilleen sat in the reception room at Dr. Hanover’s office. She had arrived a half hour early. She noticed there were no old magazines some would find in a typical waiting room back in the Colonies, like copies of Colonial Geographic or some entertainment magazines. Nothing was normal anymore. She sat and drank some coffee and chatted a little bit with the receptionist while she waited.


Hanover was finishing up a report on another patient, making a few last notes before her next appointment with Jill. She wondered how the major was faring since she'd seen her last, if the other woman had tried to put the walls around her emotions back up. That was a common occurrence with first-time patients, who were usually afraid of the things they felt. Well, no matter. She'd pry the bricks loose again if she had to.

When she'd filed the manila envelope away in the cabinet against the far wall, she brought out some clean glasses from a cupboard and arranged them on the bar. A check of the time revealed that it was still a little early for the major's appointment, but the doctor buzzed her receptionist just in case. "Doreen, is my three o'clock here yet?"

"She's right here, Dr. Hanover, should I go ahead and send her in?" "Please do. And if you could, could you call Dr. Tyler's office and arrange a consultation?" "Will do." The intercom clicked off, and the pleasant-faced receptionist told Jill, "Dr. Hanover will see you now. Hope you enjoy the rest of your day."


"Thank you, Doreen," she said as she passed the reception before entering Hanover's office.

"Good afternoon, Doctor Hanover." Jilleen greeted her with a smile. The office was a sanctuary of sorts in an odd way,a place Jilleen could speak her mind.


"Please, call me Judith," the therapist said, getting up from her chair and gesturing to the seat on the other side of the desk. "I have the feeling you're still having a few reservations about this, so if it will make you more comfortable we can drop the title. Would you like something to drink before we get started?"


"No thank you, not at this moment, Judith" Jilleen placed herself in the soft chair across from the doctor. "I don't know if I can say I do have reservations. I've accepted this...I've done a lot of thinking since our last visit."


"Well, we can start by talking about that, then." Hanover re-claimed her seat and folded her hands on her desk blotter, looking across the expanse of wood at Jill. This session she'd probably ask more questions about the other woman's relationship with Jake, which seemed to be a source of a lot of her stress.

"Was there anything in particular that came to mind?"


"Yes, how soon can I get back to my job?" She was worried that there was a greater risk of her loosing her mind being idle aboard the Shangri-la than constant combat drills aboard the Avalon. "I suppose your assessment of my fitness will determine when the Admiral will allow me back on duty." She leaned forward, "How did some stupid arguments judged me a a risk? People have arguments and verbal fights everyday. Don't they?"


"Well, they do, yes, but not everyone has the clout to get a ship impounded on suspicions of smuggling," Hanover said patiently. "I know that we discussed Ms. Jereldsen during our last session, so I wanted to move on to talking about Jake if you don't mind." She paused, opened her desk drawer and removed a pad of paper and pencil.

"You two have known one another for a long time, obviously. Has the relationship ever been as anything other than friends? Jealousy can be the basis for a lot of ugly behavior. Were you and Jake ever romantically involved?"


"Whoa! Wait, hold on.” She reached her hand out to touch the desk. "I have two points. Firstly, I did not impound any ship. I was under orders to inform her that the Commander was holding her ship. I was the messenger, but I'd admit I came to the conclusion that Ms. Jereldsen used her ship for smuggling. I wanted to believe she was a smuggler because..."

She stopped for a moment and then carried on with out completing her last sentence. "Secondly, No. Jake and I have never been romantically involved." An intimate encounter with Jake might have crossed her mind when she was a cadet, but not after he married Bridget. "No, Jake is too serious...he is not my type. He married my best friend." She lean back into her chair and crossed her arms while looking at Judith, waiting for the next accusation.


"Ah. I see." The doctor made a small 'hmm' noise and looked at her notepad for a moment. She folded her hands together on top of the blank white sheet and pondered the best, most delicate way to ask the next question. Despite her occasionally blunt manner she knew that the first few visits to her office could be nerve-wracking, and she liked to make it as easy as possible for her patients to adjust.

"Was she...when the Colonies fell, she didn't survive?" Hanover's tone was supremely gentle, and her expression became less probing and more compassionate. So many lives lost, she reflected, so many lives still shattered in the aftermath. No wonder its so hard to put the pieces back together.


Jilleen eyes stared down unto the floor, "She..." It was difficult to say but she did, "Bridget is dead." She swallowed. Her memories of the horror on the ground fed her imagination to create a glimpse of how her friend might have spent her last days if she wasn't killed immediately in a blast. She could imagine a fragile Bridget suffering of radiation sickness on Aerilon. It was a horrible picture. She prayed that Bridget did not suffer, the idea of her friend dying alone like that was too upsetting.

They had not reached Aerilon till eight weeks into the war, by then there were less survivors around to be rescued. Jilleen told Jake little of what she saw or experienced on that last mission back on her home colony. If it were not for a set of circumstances, she would not have by choice returned back to the fleet after completing that mission.

She cleared her throat and looked up to Judith for a few moments. "How about you? Did..." She was afraid to ask if Judith had been one of those selected. "Where you already aboard the Concord, then?" She wondered if the doctor had family that survived and with her, maybe a husband, or a child.


"I was, actually," Hanover replied with a nod. "My practice took me here just before the fall, although I didn't deal with as many service people before the war started up again." She seldom discussed the details of her personal life with her patients, but in some instances she'd let it slide. "Its been a hard three years, even here."

She waited for a few minutes, allowing the silence between them to become a little more comfortable. "You know, so often, in my work, I see the struggle to either forget and move on or the insistence on holding the past to our chests as though its a shield. I think you're doing the latter, protecting yourself from having something - someone - being taken from you again. Maybe you're trying to protect Jake too? From loss, from the same thing happening to him when Bridget died?"

And it was so important to learn their names when she could, the names of those who were no longer here. To put a face on things. Hanover offered the other woman a sympathetic smile. "Is that something you'd like to discuss, Jill?"


"Yeah, sure. I'm afraid," she admitted. "Its not so much I'm afraid for Jake. I know he can take care of himself." She paused for a beat. "Its that its makes me sad. I was on the ground, I saw what happened to those people we left..." She stopped and looked at Judith, and felt compelled to confess. "Do you know what my job was...what my...what I did when the fleet was still back in Colonial territory?" Her eyes drifted toward an oil painting on the wall of a mountain valley. "I am responsible..."

The selection process. It was a scar on the psyche of everyone involved, no matter how indirectly. Hanover had heard stories of families wrenched apart, children taken out of their parents' arms, all manner of things. The therapist frowned slightly, looking at the major across her desk.


"What are you responsible for, Jill?" Better question. "What are you holding yourself responsible for?"


"I supervised the selection program, I was the officer in charge. I'd determined the criteria that said which of those we would evacuate and those we left behind." Lots of information about the program had been kept out of the public media. "We left so many behind because they did not meet the grade." Jilleen had no tears, she only felt numbness. It was something that those involve do not speak about, even with each other. "Like I say, I've done a lot of thinking since we last spoke. It haunts me more than anything.

"All I get from others about it is the same thing, 'you were under orders', 'its not your fault', and my favorite 'keep busy.' What the frak! I killed those people. I left them. I am barely hanging on, I sometimes feel my walls around me are about to crumble. Its frustrating. No one wants to talk about it." She looked up at the ceiling and then closed her eyes. "I don't know...I just want to scream."


"Well, that's not always a bad idea," Hanover said. "When something very bad has happened, especially in civilized societies, its natural for it to be swept under the rug as much as it can be." She shrugged a little. "Unfortunately, the rug has a tendency to move around, and sometimes things get laid bare when we'd rather they didn't. But we can work on that too."

The doctor fell silent for a minute, then said, "You didn't kill your friend, I can tell you that much. Survivor's guilt is very common in wartime, but that doesn't make you responsible for Bridget's death or for the deaths of those left behind."


It seem that a million things had gone through Jilleen's mind since their last session, that caused her to be all over the place today in her thinking. So many things she wanted to discuss, so much she wanted to express. She had to let the doctor guide her, even if she wanted to be done with it as soon as possible. Her mind drifted for a moment to times she wanted to give up wearing the uniform and just go home, if only that was possible.

"The Cylons killed them all, yet I feel responsible for so many of those that could have lived, if it weren't for the lack of space." Her eyes looked directly at Judith's eyes. "I wanted to take them all. It broke my heart every time at first and then I just became numb to it..." Her voice trailed off and she just stared at Judith.


Hanover allowed the silence to continue, knowing there was little she could say that would offer comfort.


"I'm struggling to hang on, doctor." She looked off to a corner. "Its hard to describe this struggle. You said something about survivor's guilt. Yeah, I shouldn't be here...I should have been back home." She looked back at the doctor. "My friend, Bridget should not have died alone. I should have been there for her. I know, I know, the past can not be changed, and it was fate. Gods! Is that suppose to make me feel better? Am I just suppose to get over it? Three years have past, time to get over it. Frak that! How can we just forget? I tell you, I try, I do." She nodded.

"When I get to a point where life seems to carry forward, I get these nightmares of the things I've seen and done back home. It doesn't let go of me, Judith." She placed her hand on her forehead and breathed for a moment. "Is there some magic pills I can take? Something perhaps stronger than Semerald?"


Hanover frowned, checked her notes. Had Semerald been mentioned in the preliminary report? How long had the major been resorting to narcotics? They'd have to talk about that later, since drugs often interfered with the process of therapy. How difficult would it be to get the other woman weaned off whatever she was taking?

That would have to wait for the next session, though, as the hour was almost up. "Is there anything else you wanted to bring up before we call it a day, Jill?"


Jilleen let out a sigh. "Yeah, someone suggested that I write about my experiences. I don't know. I can see it might do some good, but then again I'm not sure if it would only make things worst." She paused to think about what Councilman Sertorius had advised her, that the best way to preserve those we love and those we want to honor, is to write about them. "I'm seriously considering it. What do you suggest?"


"Well, I think that it can help," the therapist said with a nod. "Sometimes, even painful memories become more manageable once we put them down on paper. It might even help you discover something about yourself in the process. Of course, what you do is up to you."

While it was tempting to help make the decisions for her patients, in the end it was their responsibility to decide things for themselves. She could only guide, not lead.


"I might give it a try," replied Jilleen. "I was asked the other night at a dinner party by the editor of the Fleet Gazette if I would consider writing some articles. Nothing specific, just some stuff from a military person's perspective. I know it would bring up some memories I rather not think about, but you're right, it might help manage the memories." She sat back against the chair.

"Did you know, I had an aunt that was a war journalist in the last war? Adel Simmons was her name. I never met her, she was killed in the last days of war on Tauron." She tucked her hair behind her ear and slowly combed her hair back to her neck with her fingers, and then tilted her head slightly. "My father often told me stories about her when I was growing up. You know, now that I think of it. I think he told me those stories, so my aunt would not be forgotten, he even mentioned writing a book about her, but he never did. It's a shame." She stopped for a beat. "Maybe, I should add it to my list."


"Well, maybe you should. We can talk about that during our next session." That and the drugs. "I hope you're having a pleasant stay with your friends while you're on-board."

Hanover arranged a few papers as the timer on her desk beeped, signalling the end of her second meeting with Jill. It still seemed like a fairly tangled web, and one that might take some time to work through, but nothing worthwhile was ever easy.


"It's a change, which brings me to my next question. How many of these sessions do I have to attend before I'm allowed back on duty?" Jilleen asked politely. A few days have passed since she had been relieved.


"Well..."

Hanover took her glasses off and folded them up. "That's difficult to say at this time. I might have a better idea at the end of our next talk, but there's really no set limit on how many sessions are required until you can resume your duties. That's up to Admiral Sinclair." Which reminded her, did the Admiral know about the use of Semerald? She might have to make a discreet inquiry, just in case.


"Right." Jilleen got up from her chair. "I'm sure a good word from you after the next session would go a long ways with the Admiral. If there is anything I can do to make that happen, please let me know," she hinted. A favor in return for a good recommendation would be a good barter.


Hanover just smiled, a polite professionals smile. Suggestions of being able to do 'something' for her in exchange for a good word wasn't uncommon, but she had yet to take anyone up on it. This was important work she was doing, too important to sweep things aside for the sake of favors.

"I'll see you out," she offered, rising from her chair to step around her desk. Their next appointment was already scheduled, so that was taken care of. "Let me know if anything comes up so you can't make the next session."


"Sure," Jilleen walked with the therapist. "Thanks for your time, Judith. I'll see you later." She left the office and with some time to kill before the next shuttle departure. She would go explore one of the biospheres open to the public.


*NPC Judith Hanover written by Stargazer.