Chapter 9- Altered State of Being

Everyone at the dinner took Capitan Kirk up on his invitation. He ordered the computer to lower the lights in the somewhat small room and start playing music that was happy. Classical music began drifting down from the ceiling and he shook his head. "No, no. Pick a popular dance tune from the late 20th or early 21rst century."

There was a momentary lapse before a hysterically familiar tune began to play. "Seriously?!" I laughed.

"Young man there's no need to feel down, I said young man pick yourself off the ground, I said young man 'cause your in a new town, There's no need to be un-hap-py."

Capitan Kirk began pouring drinks for everyone while he bobbed his head. "It has a nice beat." He commented. "Romulan Ale?" He offered gesturing to a row of glasses that contained a blue liquid.

"Bailey's, straight up." I said with a smile.

"It's fun to stay at the Y-M-C-A!"

"Hard liquor?" He asked with a look of pleasant surprise before turning to the replicator and returning with my favorite caramel colored cordial.

"Go hard or go home." I answered with a smile. "You might as well make a few more while you are back there." He raised his eyebrows and laughed, but did as I requested.

Uhura seemed to particularly enjoy disco and she gracefully made her way across the small room and asked Sulu and Chekov to dance. They all enjoyed the music, but I was drawn to the intense look that overcame Spock's countenance as he watched them. For just one second something like anger, frustration, or jealousy flashed in his eyes, but it was gone as quickly as it came. I wondered what that could possibly be about, but was distracted by the Capitan.

He passed out glasses to everyone but Spock who politely declined. He raised his glass in a toast and said, "To our new friend. May you find answers before the Romulans find you." I was unsure what that meant, but everyone else laughed, so I assumed it wasn't an insult.

I downed my first glass fairly quickly. "You look like you may have done that before." Sulu said with a smile. He had a friendly face and I found myself instantly liking him despite his indiscretion at the dinner table earlier.

"I did go to college," I reminded him, "you kind of end up minoring in drinking along the way. Doubly so if you go into medicine or law. That is the rule."

"Vhy is that?" Chekov inquired taking a long hit of his ale.

"Because in medicine you are constantly surrounded by disease and death, and lawyers have to read so much boring litigation they want to kill themselves. By the way, shouldn't you be drinking vodka…or gasoline?" I asked puzzled.

He smiled, but looked confused. "Vhy vould I drink petrol?"

"Because when I was in Russia, the people drank vodka for breakfast and if they ran out they drank gasoline. There is a reason people in my time had a healthy respect for Russians, they were widely considered the toughest bastards on the planet, second only to Ukrainians." I polished off my second glass and started to feel a little light headed. "Scratch that," I added putting down my empty glass, "Russians were probably third, right behind Shaolin monks."

"You might want to slow down," Capitan Kirk warned gesturing to my empty glasses, "you know that the ship has a pressurized atmosphere, it isn't like drinking on Earth." I looked at the melting ice in the glasses and remembered the time I dared to drink on an airplane, After one little bottle I almost couldn't get myself off the plane. I was the world's cheapest date. On terra firma I could have knocked back at least four glasses, but now I was starting to think this would all end badly if I kept it up.

"Och!" came a voice by the doorway. I turned to see a man with blondish hair in a red uniform. "Ah see you paid no mind to inviting me to your little shindig!"

"Scotty!" The Capitan yelled while raising his glass. The man saluted with a smile and promptly made his way behind the bar and began rifling through the storage cabinet for his preferred drink.

"Spock," I called to the man standing quietly against the wall, "why don't you be sociable and have a drink?" I was trying really hard not to slur my words, but ended up doing so anyway.

"Are you mad, lass?!" Scotty asked standing up behind the bar. "Vulcans don't get fannied off the alcohol. Poor buggers."

I turned to Spock astonished. "You can't get drunk?" He slowly shook his head no and I added, "Bummer, I bet you could tear it up on Dance Dance Revolution if I got a few drinks in you." Chekov and Sulu high fived each other in appreciation. Was it possible they knew what that was?! I could definitely see both of them playing it for hours on their off time. My money was on Sulu.

"Um, Scotty," Capitan Kirk said in a low voice as he leaned on the bar, "remember a few days ago when I asked you to boost the power to the tractor beam?"

"Aye," he replied taking a hit straight out of a bottle, "and I told you I couldn't maintain power to the shields and the beam. I thought you were daft to drop the shields. I just knew we were going to get our arses blown off by the Klingons good and proper."

"Yeah well," he looked down and scratched the back of his neck before gesturing in my direction, "that was the really important cargo we were after." He was almost mumbling, and I should have been angry, but my brain was swimming in booze and I could barely keep up.

"Ohhh!" He said with wide eyes. "Aye? Tell me your name, lass. Is it sweet?"

I opened my mouth to answer, but froze. I sat looking down at the bar with an ever increasing sense of terror. I knew that the alcohol could not be to blame, it should come as easy as breathing, yet all I could picture were fuzzy strands of thought. "Co…sm…ey." I looked up panicked at Scotty who was tilting his head and trying to make sense of my incoherent rambling. "I don't remember," I whispered. "I know my last name was Irish. I think I had two last names, actually. I remember it being really long to write." Scotty looked at Capitan Kirk who just shrugged. I looked at him too and asked, "Why can't I remember my own name for Christ sake?"

"Dr. McCoy told us that this might happen." He said quietly. "He said you were damn lucky to survive at all, and he had hoped that everything would turn out OK if you had enough time, but it was a possibility that some of your memory would be permanently lost." I sat quietly on the stool and contemplated not only losing my connection with my past, but now also dealing with gaps in the memories I did have. I imagined my brain looking like Swiss cheese and it was almost more than I could endure. "We asked the crew not to engage or push too hard, Bones thought it would come back slowly and naturally if we just let you be." He continued in a sad tone as though all hope were lost.

"Well," I sighed after some time, "I do, for whatever reason, remember a lot of my training. And from what I know of amnesic states, I know that more often than not they spontaneously resolve as Dr. McCoy had indicated. I have to believe that any blind spots I encounter will eventually come back."

The coldness of logic was both bracing and comforting. I had at least a little certainty and that allowed me to face the uphill battle with a little more grace than I could have mustered on my own. Still, I couldn't help but think of how far I had fallen. I was once on the other side of the desk, doling out diagnoses and estimating recovery times along with the path of prognosis; now, I had become one of them. The doctor was now the patient and I absolutely hated it.

"I guess ve vill just call you 'doctor' until you can remember vhat it vas, then. It vas a title you earned after all." Chekov stated raising his glass.

"Aye," Scotty said with steely nerves, "I'll drink to that."