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Post by CO_Capt_Savage on Mar 16, 2018 1:44:06 GMT
I've really enjoyed reading this, there is a whole string of emotion in there and it keeps me coming back for more. Thanks for sharing this CJ.
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Post by Nola on Mar 29, 2018 20:29:58 GMT
Previously...
Sara didn't climb into her and Thalev's bed so much as collapse into it. Ulani had finally gone to sleep, and the living room was more or less picked up, and Sara had resolved a number of long-festering psychological issues that had been plaguing her for months, if not years. It was for this reason that she considered the day a success, but the exhaustion weaving its way through her body made it feel pyrrhic.
She groaned quietly as she rolled over, snuggling next to her husband.
"That was a day," she sighed.
Thalev, on his back, stretched an arm out so Sara could rest comfortably, bringing it back to wrap around her. "You're telling me... Ulani was hyper today."
"She's always hyper," Sara whined, giving an exaggerated whimper as she laid her head on Thalev's chest. "Today she was downright manic. We're gonna have to find some outlet for the energy, I think."
She frowned a bit before looking up at him, managing a small smile.
"How are you feeling?" she asks.
Thalev was going to say something about there not being many children a similar age, but as the conversation moved on, he left the thought behind. "Oh... pretty good actually. I think I'm finally feeling back to normal. Whatever 'normal' is." He gave her a squeeze. "You?"
She took a deep breath and loosed it in a long, exhausted sigh.
"All of the things all at once, and all of the time," she offered cryptically, though she was quick to elaborate. "Figuring out what I need to figure out, I think. Remembering who I am, and who I wanna be. Don't know how long until I'm back in the chair, but at least I'm convinced it will happen."
"Well, that's good. You've been a bit... restless lately."
"And/or crazy," she adds. "Every time there's a little bump or shake, I practically have to lock myself in the bathroom to keep from running up to the bridge. I've literally had to stow my combadge in hard to reach places just so I don't obsessively bother Raq."
Thalev let out a small laugh, "I wasn't going to use the word crazy, at least not out loud." He looked through the door towards Ulani's room, then back to the ceiling. "We liked having you around, though. I think Ulani needed it after what happened..." He let the thought trail off, not wanting to talk in detail about the recent ordeal.
Sara rolled further onto Thalev, draping an arm across his chest. She didn't respond immediately, thinking about the past few weeks and all her fears and doubts about whether she was doing the right thing by having an actual family. She looked up at Thalev, moving her hand to caress his cheek.
"I need you to stop almost dying on me, okay?" she said, her voice barely more than a whisper.
Despite the seriousness of the request, he couldn't help but smile. "Tell that to the Borg, and the Hirogen!" Then, more seriously, "I'll do my best."
Sara wrapped herself around him, as if to shield him from some unseen threat in their bedroom. Her fingers tangled in his hair as she blinked through a few exhausted tears. Finally she drew a deep, calming breath, and the two sat in silence for a while.
He said nothing, just let the quiet wash over them. He didn't know what to make of the recent change in Sara. The most important thing was that he loved her, and he needed to support her, but it wasn't easy when he thought he was the cause, at least in part, of some of her recent distress. But this wasn't about him, it was about her. This was her Borg assimilation, her Hirogen attack, and just like she was there for him, he would be for her.
She then propped herself up on an elbow, looking down at her scarred Andorian mate, and put a small smile on her face.
"I don't regret this," she said. "I want you to know that. I don't regret you and me. I don't regret Ula."
"Regret?" he whispered quietly as the surge of worry rippled through his body. "People usually don't talk about regret unless they're deciding what to do next."
Sara sighed softly, searching her thoughts for what to say, or at least how to say it.
"V'ruuk asked me the other day, if I had to choose between my career or my family, which would I choose," she explained. "I've been thinking on that for a while. Not what I'd choose - I'd pick family in a heartbeat, y'know? You and Ula... Being married and having a child has been an adjustment, but you two mean the world to me, and I would choose this over my career every time, without question. And I can't... I can't help but think of Jonathan, and how lonely he was, and I ask myself if these things, family and career, aren't mutually exclusive after all. And I wanna be in that chair so bad, Thalev. I can't believe that I can't try to have both and not be a wreck."
Thalev thought for a moment, knowing that he couldn't unravel this any faster or better in mere minutes if V'ruuk hadn't managed over a number of hours. "V'ruuk might have asked you as some exercise or something, but here, in reality, no one is asking that question. No one is asking you to choose. I was a Captain, I know what it means to be in command and the way it can take over your thoughts, I get it. And I knew that before we got married. It's one of the things that drew us together, sharing the same desires for good and dedicating our professional lives to it. And we didn't exactly adopt Ula in a drunken stupor, we considered all this. Stop putting the pressure all on your own shoulders and let's share it out as a family, a unit."
"Is that all I need to do?" Sara rolled onto her back beside him, though she stayed in his grasp, staring up at the ceiling. "Never really learned to share my burdens. You know it's like pulling teeth to get me to vent to you. I just can't do it without feeling like I'm burying you in my own pointless neuroses. I'm absolutely fine with people sharing their worries with me, but the thought of doing the same with others terrifies me."
"You just have to make sure to share with the right people." He gave her another gentle squeeze. He knew the difficulty Sara was having. When he had met her, she had been full of confidence, but it had taken a while for their relationship to move into the emotional kind. He loved how warrior-like she was, a fighter, and it saddened him to see the inner doubt and self criticism getting in the way lately.
Sara continued to stare at the ceiling, even as her eyes welled.
"Okay," she said. "I hate feeling like I have to responsible for everything. I know that I don't, but I hate feeling like I do. I hate that I constantly have to push myself to be better. I hate that I can't appreciate the things that make me unique, or powerful, or just good. I resent that I had to be the peacemaker in my family, and that resentment just sits in my stomach like a pit."
The tears were flowing freely now, and she took his hand and gave it a tight squeeze as she forced herself to vent.
"Sometimes it seems like everything I do is to make somebody else happy, and while I like making people happy, it forces me to suppress my own happiness. I look at my own satisfaction with my life and I discount it as invalid. I tell myself it doesn't matter if I'm happy, or content. So many years, I though I got it light at home, you know? I thought that all of dad's bullshit went square on mom and Henry, but now I realize that it fuckin' radiated itself right into my core. It's never good enough. Never. It didn't matter how many fights I broke up, and it doesn't matter how many planets I save, or battles I win - It's never. Fucking. Enough."
She fought to keep her composure despite her heaving chest and streaming eyes, but she just couldn't stop the dam from braking. She curled up against her husband and sobbed, two decades-worth of unprocessed agony finding its way to the surface.
Thalev hated Henry, for exactly this reason. He didn't give a shit, and he'd left Sara to do all the hard work in the family. When their father had died, he'd been nowhere useful, and Sara had taken the burden on herself. This was the result, even years later. What could he even say? That she was good enough, better than good, perfect? That she shouldn't be so hard on herself? Anything would sound pathetic and empty. So he stayed silent, held her tight, and kissed her on the head as she cried onto his chest.
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Post by Einar on Mar 30, 2018 7:49:16 GMT
you guys.....I love it
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Post by Nola on Apr 12, 2018 9:22:03 GMT
Unpacking - Part 3
"I think it's safe to say I have a lot of unresolved shit," Sara offered. She was reclined on V'ruuk's couch, her legs dangled over an armrest.
"In regards to your upbringing?" he asked.
"Mostly. Y'know, I remember when Henry finally went off to the Academy. Things seemed to settle down at home, but mostly that just meant that there was less arguing. We never really talked."
"Things were just sort of left to linger."
"Yeah." She heaved a long sigh. "I couldn't wait to leave. I remember when I told dad that I was going to the Academy as well, he just said 'alright.' Mom was, uh, displeased. She didn't tell me not to go, and she didn't yell or anything, but she cried a lot. She would make little comments about how she must not have been a good enough mother."
"That hurts to hear, doesn't it?" asked V'ruuk. Sara gave him a curious glance. V'ruuk gave a rueful smile, knowing he'd tipped too much. She watched him expectantly, and he took a sip of tea while he gathered his thoughts.
"My father was a busy man," he explained. "He was an exo-archaeologist, so he was off-world much of the time. It fell to my mother and my uncle to see to my primary education."
"Is that uncommon?" asked Sara.
"Not terribly, no. My mother herself held a position at the Science Academy, and I spent much of my youth in solitary contemplation. I would make heavy use of our holonet terminal, examining the media and ideology of other species. I suspect that played a part in my eventual divergence from Vulcan social norm."
"Exposure to differing cultures at a young age can have that effect, I find," remarked Sara. "Ula likes to pretend to be a member of a different species every couple weeks or so."
"This may be doubly true for Vulcan children, if only because it's so much more rare," said V'ruuk. "Most Vulcan children are aware of other species, and they do eventually study them later in their primary education, but most often the thing we're taught in our youth about other races is simply that we are different. We follow logic and reason, where other species foolishly allow their emotions to guide them to ruin. In so many words, anyway."
"So why did you start looking into them when you were a kid?" asked Sara.
"I think it was in part because of my father's profession," V'ruuk mused. "I wanted to know about the species he was researching, the cultures he was examining. What I found was most illuminating. I began to see the galaxy as this grand tapestry of differing and often conflicting cultural norms, a daring mesh of ideal and instinct that, from my understanding of a Vulcan viewpoint, should not have been able to exist."
Sara furrowed her brow in thought.
"That's an awfully profound realization for a child," she observed.
"Are you suggesting I was not an exceptional youth?" V'ruuk asked wryly. Sara smirked in reply.
"I didn't quite grasp all of that at the time, and It would be many years before I could even put it to words," he clarified. "But it stuck with me, lingering on the edge of my consciousness. I would ask my mother questions that were odd for a Vulcan youth. She would frequently ask why I was asking, and I'd say that the pursuit of knowledge was the logical consequence of existence."
Sara broke into a grin and gave a single hearty guffaw. V'ruuk couldn't help but smile as well.
"She hated it when I said that. She would just stare at me for a long moment before giving me a vague, dismissive answer."
"I'm gonna have to tell Henry that one," said Sara. "He's gonna be so mad that he didn't think of it himself."
"Doctor patient privilege?"
"I'm afraid I'm not currently serving in that capacity," Sara deflected. "Please, continue."
V'ruuk took another sip and gave a soft sigh.
"Things changed when I began my deeper study of the teachings of Surak," he began. "Here was the work of the preeminent Logician in Vulcan history, and I couldn't help but read his words from the view of all those cultures I'd studied previously. I understood the need to manage our emotional selves, but I could never quite justify suppression. I couldn't see the logic in purging ourselves entirely of emotional expression.
"When I expressed that conflict to mother, she... she didn't say anything at first. She just kind of stared at me before quietly excusing herself. It was some hours before she emerged from her room, and she gave me the speech about how the teachings of Surak were the foundation of Vulcan philosophy and society. She said that I was young, that I would understand in time."
"And you never really did," Sara reasoned.
"I did not," he affirmed. "It was shortly after I graduated that I released my first treatise examining the potential flaws of Surak's central ideals. The public rebuke was swift, to say the least. My mother and father expressed their grave disappointment. My mother blamed herself. She believed if she'd only been more strict with me, I might not have gone so astray."
"It's such a complete dismissal, isn't it?" asked Sara. "It completely invalidates your own internal experience."
"It does," V'ruuk agreed. "I think it's one of the worst things a parent can say to a child, but to be fair to my mother, that's simply Vulcan life. They see only one true path, and all others are folly. I cannot blame my mother for conforming to social norms."
"I suppose I can't blame mine, either," reasoned Sara. "Mom... if nothing else, she'd been married to dad for so long, I think it was second nature for her to blame herself."
"I can imagine why you might have been discouraged to resolve your own personal conflicts in that environment," he offered.
"Didn't do it when I left, either," Sara lamented. "The Academy, all I wanted to do was have fun. I wanted to feel free, and I did. I drank, and I partied, and I fucked, and became a kick-ass pilot, all while completely ignoring the permanent pit in my soul."
"It's a different kind of pressure, isn't it?" asked V'ruuk. "But it's still pressure."
"Yeah. I don't know where I would have found the time to deal with it, then, and I've just kinda been going non-stop since. And I've tried to pick up little pieces along the way, you know? Patch little holes, weave in little tidbits of the 'grand tapestry,' and all that."
"You tried to piece together a life," V'ruuk surmised.
"And I feel like I did," Sara agreed. "It's rickety and full of holes, and I've used nails where I should have used screws, and a stiff breeze might blow it over, but it's there."
V'ruuk didn't respond immediately, instead making a few notes on his PADD while the pair sat in silence for a while. It was Sara who eventually broke it.
"How do you view your life, counselor?" she asked. V'ruuk raised a brow.
"In what context," he asked.
"This refusal to follow Surak's teachings," she answered. "This thing that has become core to your identity. Do you regret any of it? Do you think you did the right thing? Would you do anything differently if you could?"
V'ruuk sighed and though for a moment.
"I regret the pain I caused the people I love," he explained. "I regret that cold stare my mother would give me as she fought to quell her emotional response. I do not regret the stance I took, however. As you say, this disagreement, for good or ill, is a core aspect of who I am as a person. I could no sooner cast it aside as I could choose to breathe underwater. And I cannot change how my mother feels about that, or my father, or anyone else."
"And would you have done things differently?"
"No, I wouldn't have."
Now Sara raised a brow.
"So sure," she observed.
"I have done what I felt was right given the circumstances," he offered. "The only things that I can truly control are those things that are within me. I cannot control the events around me. I cannot control how others feel, or what they think. The only life I can live is one authentic to who I am at my core."
"And have you always been so sure who you are?" she asked.
"No," he conceded. "There were certainly times when I doubted myself, my convictions. But the truth of the matter is that those were the times that forged that identity. Those were the periods of time that I truly learned who I was. And, knowing that, I wouldn't change that either."
Sara didn't reply, simply staring at the ceiling as she digested V'ruuk's words. She could picture herself as a glowing, white-hot ingot in a forge, and she imagined all the little pits and craters in her heart and mind as the roaring fire eradicating the impurities. In her heart, she knew what the reality of the situation was. When all the chatter was burned away, when all the worries and fears were put aside, even though her destination was obscured, her path was clear.
It was only hard because she was trying.
---
Sara slumped into her office chair, thoroughly drained. They had made it back to the Alpha Quadrant. That was, ostensibly, a good thing. Her crew was home. There were in familiar territory. They had support. Things were not back to normal, however.
They had to submit their report to JAG about the incident with Ensign Tallush. They had submit their reports on the events in the Delta Quadrant. Sara had to submit a report on her being relieved of duty. She had to call people to let them know she wasn't dead. She had just finished a multi-hour conversation with Henry, and that was after an hour of trying to get a hold of Tony to apologize for not being there when he was released.
They had been back less than 24 hours, but part of her was already done with the Alpha Quadrant. She still had over 300 news alerts to sort through, which she decided to try and portion out over the next week. And none of that even touched on what she viewed as an inevitable conflict with Cardassia, which had unleashed its own torrent of existential quandaries. For as good as it was to be home, the fact that they still hadn't figured out how to enter the underspace tunnels didn't bode well.
She couldn't imagine the stress Raqiin was under. Raqiin.
Sara had known the moment she relinquished command that Raqiin would tell the Hirogen dissidents 'no.' She had forced herself to accept that, and she had fought mightily against the urge to change her mind, to stay in her chair so she could make that important decision herself. She had spent months trying to accept the ultimate result of that decision. She hadn't quite been successful.
Worst of all, Sara knew she wouldn't be able to forget it. It would forever color how she viewed Raqiin, her assessment of her character, and that wasn't even close to fair. In truth, Sara had no one to blame but herself, but that didn't seem to be much relief.
Switching gears, she reached out and activated her terminal, switching it to FNN's livefeed.
"Finally, we have word this evening that the USS Chiron has been found, having been missing for more than three months," summarized an Arcadian woman.
"Fuck me," groaned Sara, as she slumped further into the chair.
"There was some controversy earlier this year regarding Starfleet's failure to list the ship as missing, despite contact having been lost for a significant period of time. Admiral Walker of Starfleet Command eventually addressed the situation, apologizing for not being more public with the designation and confirming the vessel's disappearance. Since then, a number of other ships have gone missing, including the USS Bradfield, the USS Tarket, and a civilian cargo vessel named the Heaven's Gale.
"Multiple sources within Starfleet Command, speaking on condition of anonymity, have reported that the Chiron had somehow been transported to the Delta Quadrant, an incident quite similar to that of the USS Voy-"
Sara switched off the terminal, a renewed pit in her stomach. The questions would be coming hard and fast, now. While her opinion of FNN was mixed, she couldn't deny their tenacity. She couldn't help but remember that damned interview after the Order of the New Kai had blown her crew to shit, immediately filing her with bitter resentment. She drummed her fingers on her desk for a moment before fishing her combadge out of her desk and giving it a tap.
"Sumner to Doctor Evans," she called. "It's time."
---
The hours since the announcement of Seleyan Sun had seemed like days, and Sara had been forced to retire to her Ready Room in order to avoid pacing a trench in the bridge's carpeting. She knew, logically, that it was unlikely that the Chiron would be called into the battle. It was too soon after their return. They still needed crew replacements, and repairs were still underway. It made sense to keep the Chiron in the Alpha Quadrant for now.
She still hated it. It just felt wrong not to be involved in the conflict she had a hand in starting. It felt wrong for all these other ships to fight and die while she sat pretty in the Alpha Quadrant, with only the Cardassians, Vaad'waur, Tzenkethi and Breen to contend with. Alright, so maybe the seat wasn't so pretty, but the point remained:
Sara had helped start this war. She wanted to help finish it. She wanted to be there when Karn was forced to surrender. She wanted to be there when all those turncoats were told to stand down. She wanted to be there when Justice won out over Cynical Pragmatism, and whatever other rhetorical devices she could use to assuage her fear that she simply had bloodlust.
It was hard not to think of that first encounter with the Vaad'waur, when Sara had ordered Marcus to fire upon their vessels. Sure, she had tried to make contact with them, and she couldn't have known their vessels would be so fragile. Going by the book, firing had been the correct decision, but that didn't do much for the guilt. If the Federation came to blows with the Cardassians, that would be the third war she had played a part in starting. Add that to ordering the eradication of an entire sapient species, and it was easy to see why she didn't have the most confidence in her record.
I cannot control the events around me.
It was easy to see how Starfleet and the Federation might view her record with suspicion. It was easy to see how some might second-guess her worth as a CO.
I cannot control how others feel, or what they think.
If she had to do it all again, would she play it more by the book? Would she be more deferential? Surely a more pragmatic approach would have at least cut down the drama of her still-young career.
The only life I can live is one authentic to who I am at my core.
It wouldn't be Sara Sumner's career. It would have been someone else's. Twissel would still be stuck out of phase. Section 31 would still operate with impunity. Carraya would have been decimated by those Tzenkethi warships. Some things would have been better. Others would have been worse. In the end, Sara could only ever be who she was, even if she wasn't always sure what that meant. In the end, she could only do what she believed to be right. In the end, she had been doing it right all along.
Sara was pulled from her contemplation by a familiar beeping from her desk. She switched on the terminal as she sat in her chair, her eyes scanning the mission orders before her. She vaguely recalled hearing about the Voltaire. She had wondered if it had been the Vaad'waur, and she'd distracted herself with another internal monologue. That had been what drove her into the Ready Room, in fact.
Her frown deepened as she read about the Maquis.
Her heart stopped as she read the name of the suspected Maquis ship.
A pit formed in her stomach as she thought of that ship's Captain being involved.
Finally, just as the room began to spin, she read who their SFI liaison would be.
"Mmmmmmotherffffff-"
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Post by Einar on Apr 12, 2018 9:38:47 GMT
"Mmmmmmotherffffff-" is right
Amazing log as is the norm with you CJ, fantastic writing
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Post by Deleted on Apr 12, 2018 9:40:49 GMT
CJ, your writing is truly exceptional. I often feel quite envious.
(But minus points for not mentioning Thalev... :-p)
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Post by Einar on Apr 12, 2018 9:41:30 GMT
CJ, your writing is truly exceptional. I often feel quite envious. (But minus points for not mentioning Thalev... :-p) who?
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Post by aoibheni on Apr 12, 2018 9:48:30 GMT
CJ, your writing is truly exceptional. I often feel quite envious. (But minus points for not mentioning Thalev... :-p) who? No, Andrew, it's spelt "Tony", and he did get mentioned, silly...
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Post by Deleted on Apr 12, 2018 9:57:37 GMT
How can I love you guys, and hate you guys all at the same time? It's weird!
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Post by Nola on Apr 25, 2018 9:32:59 GMT
Departed (With Aoibhe as Niamh Danann)
Jonathan's portrait stood on a stand next to his symbolic casket, which was draped in the flag of the UFP. To a casual observer, his smile might have seemed calm and dignified, peaceful even. To Sara, it seemed strained. She had seen Jonathan give a genuine smile on occasion, usually while drunkenly reminiscing.
This was not one of those. This was a front - a well-practiced and refined front, but a front all the same. Combined with her grief, and her bitter rumination on the symbology of wrapping a broken man in the flag that broke him, the whole display left a foul taste in her mouth. Fortunately, she hadn't yet had enough scotch to make a scene, so she followed Jonathan's lead and put on a front.
She turned away and wore a placid expression, looking over the gathered crowd in the hangar bay. Thalev was conversing with old acquaintances, and she didn't immediately see anyone she needed to comfort, so she reverted to wallflower mode and sought a corner to hide in.
Which, of course, was where she found Niamh Danann.
The red-haired Commander had a far-away look on her ashen, freckled face. She was clasping a short, heavy-bottomed glass in her right hand. Her arms were tightly crossed across her immaculate white uniform, and her fingers were pale, her grip evidently tight on the half-shot of whiskey. She'd briefly considered brandy at the small bar table, out of respect or whatever, but something about that seemed disingenuous. And anyway, anything that reminded her that he had been a real person was simply too much to bare.
Losing a legend she could handle, losing a mentor, a friend, not so much.
Sara's jaw clenched a bit as she read the woman's body language. This wasn't particularly good, but she could imagine it being worse. She tried not to think about the last time she'd seen the Commander, which only made her think of it more. She took a deep breath and consciously put those thoughts aside as she approached.
She stepped in front of her and tried to think of something to say, but Nia's visible anguish just dredged up her own, and tears threatened to fall anew. So, she did the only thing she could think of, and held her arms open in invitation.
Movement in front of Danann snapped her back from the reverie that had been circling her mind since the day began. Her green eyes visibly focussed as she recognised who had approached her and her right hand shook, threatening to spill her glass.
She hesitated, her face cracking with sorrow before she marshalled herself. Stepping shakily forward, she put her glass down, threw herself into Sumner's arms, and squeezed. “I swear to god, Sara, if you tell me I was lucky to serve with him...” she mumbled, her voice raw, raspy and a little slurred next to Sara's ear.
Sara didn't tell Nia she had been lucky. She didn't say anything, in fact, as she pulled her into a tight embrace and buried her face in Danann's flaming red locks. The only noise she made was a few muffled sobs.
Niamh's grip tightened, the fingers of her right hand grasping the fabric of Sara's pristine uniform soundly and hanging on to her like she was a life buoy in a tempest.
"I'm sorry..." she said, her voice barely audible as her heart broke anew. "I forgot you knew him too..."
Sara sniffled and pressed her lips to Nia's cheek before whispering her response.
"As much as anyone could," she said. "He was a hard man to know, but I want you to know he was proud of his crew. He was always proud, even if he couldn't show it. Okay?"
Niamh's memory flashed briefly to her last sighting of Rome across that disintegrating, smoke filled bridge. She released Sara with a reflexive shudder and immediately grabbed, then downed the end of her whiskey. It did nothing to lessen the wave of grief that threatened to engulf her.
"Seems every time I lose a man, you turn up," she managed to joke, forcing herself to stay strong. Tasteless, inappropriate, crude, but she was beyond caring
Sara hesitated for the briefest moment before letting go, semi-discretely wiping her eyes as Nia drank. She nodded a bit at her deflection, not surprised - Jonathan probably would've been proud of that, too.
"That's me," she says. "Patron Saint of The Rebound." She put on as cheeky a smile as she could muster. She thought about asking how Nia had been, but that seemed a bit foolish, given the circumstances. So, she instead reached out and caressed Nia's cheek, drying an eye with a gloved thumb.
Moments later she felt Danann's fingers sliding into her hand and holding on, the redhead's face registering a brief, lopsided flash of tender appreciation.
"Can't imagine either of us will have as much fun tonight."
Niamh gave the assembled crowd a quick, paranoid scan, then pulled Sara's gloved hand over to her lips and kissed it.
"Were you here for the speeches?" she asked, trying to focus on something more benign.
Sara gave a nod, not able to keep the small smile from her face as Nia took her hand. A torrent of mixed feelings washed through her - grief, affection, fear, and longing - which she did her best to ignore.
"Yeah, we were," she said. She gave Nia's hand a squeeze then felt the other woman release her hold. "I, uh, was gonna give one myself but I dunno... I guess I had too much to say and not enough time to figure out how to say it."
"Yea, not sure I did much more than blub," Danann admitted of her own trip up to the podium.
"You did fine," Sara assured
"Yea..." Niamh's eyes hardened. "Coulda done without the Admiral's little recruitment drive, though." Her voice grew louder as she spoke. "'We need more men like Jonathan'... 'Jonathan'" she chided. "The man dies saving an entire colony and every member of his own fucking crew... after a goddamn lifetime of service, Sara, and he's reduced to a civilian by some jumped up stuffed shirt with more pips than brains!"
Anger was easier to feel than grief. Several heads turned.
"I'm not letting them do that to me too," Niamh added, picking up her empty glass and gesturing with a pointed, index finger to one of the wait staff.
Sara didn't turn to see if anyone was looking, nor did she try to assuage Nia's anger. In fact, she felt a good deal of it herself, and if she'd had more to drink than she had, she might have joined in the scene-making. As it was, she only felt her heart sink with the weight of Nia's implication. She wanted to say a lot of things, like 'don't go,' or 'stay where your friends can help you,' or more importantly-slash-selfishly 'will I ever see you again?'
As her lip trembled and tears threatened to spill anew, she said exactly none of those things.
"You're leaving," she reasoned.
"Resigning tomorrow. I'm done with whatever this is."
It was the first time she'd given voice to her plans and suddenly, horribly, it felt real. "This," she waved a free hand at the murmuring masses, "is my last official duty." She picked at the small collection of commendations pinned to her chest as a waiter approached with a bottle. "Last time I'll have to get all fancy for the brass."
She held out her glass and waited for it to be filled.
"Maybe I've had enough, maybe I've finally lost too much, maybe the scales have fallen from my eyes, I dunno." She took a mouthful of her drink as soon as the waiter was done pouring. "But if I can handle a Prometheus in a category three spacial anomaly, you can bet your sweet ass I'll be able to get work as a freighter pilot."
Hearing it verbally seemed to steel Sara's nerves. She gave a small nod, trying mightily to fight past the pit in her stomach. She took a deep breath as Nia's glass was refilled, nodding again.
"I understand," she said. "I don't blame you, really. It's definitely... losing someone like that makes you question things. Re-evaluate."
"Damn right it does..." Danann sighed, the far-away look returning once more.
She gripped her glass, her bare fingers whitening under the pressure as before. "Everyone has their line and..." she glanced over to the photo sitting beside the empty, flag covered box, "I guess this is mine."
Her control faltered then, her eyes filling with hot tears and her pale features contorting in desolation as she acknowledged finally how much she had truly loved Jonathan Rome. Her loyalty to him had been complete. She knew, instinctively, that he was a good, brave man, and in a world full of unscrupulous cowards, that made him precious. He was good. Truly, truly so.
Sara was quick to wrap Nia in her embrace once the tears returned, her jaw clenched to prevent her own. She carefully petted the woman's hair before planting a small kiss on her forehead.
"I, uh, I'll miss you," she managed, her voice a whisper. "I still feel... just, wherever you go, whatever you do, if you need me, call me, okay?"
Silently, Niamh nodded, giving space to her grief as it rose up inside her. She rested her forehead on Sara's chin and let her tears roll freely. Time meant nothing to her as she clung to Sara and cried.
After many deep sobbing gasps she found she felt a little stronger, so she tilted her head up and looked into Sara's beautiful eyes. She opened her lips to say... something; a word of gratitude? To voice some regret? To suggest a completely inappropriate proposition? She wasn't sure what, but something caught the corner of her eye. She smirked and rolled her eyes.
"There's a er, an Andorian over there looking for you..."
Sara glanced over her shoulder and cast her husband a warm smile before looking back to Nia.
"He just likes how my ass looks in this uniform," she murmured. Like Nia, she seemed poised to say something meaningful, but everything she could think of seemed either hollow or problematic. She didn't want to add to Nia's grief. She didn't want to try to guilt her into staying. So, not caring what anyone thought, she framed Nia's face with her hands and kissed her gently on the lips, letting it linger for a moment before pulling back.
"Take care of yourself, okay?" Sara whispered. She avoided the urge to add 'come back to me.'
“When I get, um, settled somewhere...” Niamh began, the kiss confounding her completely, “If you ever wanted to...um” she blinked, struggling to regain her lost composure after so intimate and public a gesture, “I mean... if...” She took a deep breath, winced.
"I will," said Sara, bailing her out. "I promise."
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Post by Einar on Apr 25, 2018 12:46:06 GMT
that was just amazing CJ and Aoibhe. You two never cease to amaze me
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Post by Deleted on Apr 25, 2018 13:37:00 GMT
Hear hear, amazing! Can't wait to see what happens in the arc!
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Post by Nola on May 3, 2018 13:12:27 GMT
Unwritten Rules (With Einar as Tony Adalberto)
Sara planted her hands on her shiny desk, leaning over it and looking at her reflection while she thought-slash-panicked about what she wanted to say. Perhaps is wasn't too late, and she could just say 'nevermind,' and they could go back out the bridge like she hadn't voluntarily lit the fuse to their little powder keg. It wouldn't work, of course, and yes, it was too late to try.
She took a deep breath before lifting her gaze to Tony Adalberto.
"The fuck are you doin', Tony?"
Tony strolled over to the shelf on the wall, examining the music albums on display "Can you be a little more specific, Captain?" Sara gave an exasperated chuckle, pushing off the desk.
"You know damn well what I'm talkin' about," she replied. "You come back here to a crew you up and walked out on, and now you're handin' out orders and making eyes at my Chief Medical Officer? Like it's old times? I don't appreciate this particular front, Commander."
"Walked out on?" he spat back, raising his voice as he turned to face her. "I lost everything! I lost my whole life and then, in some stupid act of defiance and grief I decide... hey, let me do this one more thing for my crew."
Tony grabbed a bottle of something dark looking from her cabinet and two glasses and slammed them on the desk "Tell me again how I walked out on you, Sara... where the fuck were you when I needed you!"
It was the exact wrong thing to do, but Sara wasn't quite able to stop herself. Whatever facade of control she had left was now gone, and in a quick, fluid motion, she sent the bottle and glasses careering towards the wall.
"We were RIGHT HERE, TONY!" she shouted. That wasn't technically true, of course - they had been on the Bremen, but she was beyond such details at this point.
"ALL of us! TOGETHER! WE were your family too, and you didn't lose us, you gave us up! You should have grieved with us! You should have leaned on us! But no, you had to go on this-this fucked up self-punishing bullshit, and you abandoned us without a word, and you weren't there for us! You weren't there for her! We were there for you the whole fucking time, but YOU! WALKED! OUT!"
Sara trembled with a rage she hadn't really known was there, hot tears spilling from her eyes as her visage broke. She fought, desperately, to regain some semblance of control, knowing full well how bad this had been.
Tony just stood there, his arms at his side as he took the verbal beatdown, then glanced at the mess she had made on the floor. "That bottle looked expensive."
He looked back at her, his eyes brimming with tears and a sad smile on his face. "I guess we both deserved that."
Sara slumped into her chair, hiding her face in her hands as a torrent of rage, grief, and shame swirled within. She knew better than to say what she had. The old Sara had known, anyway. This new, angry, volatile version of herself had stared the consequences of what she'd done right in the face and did nothing to try and stop it.
Once she'd regained some semblance of control, she dropped her hands and looked to the spreading pool of bourbon. It had been expensive.
"Neither of us did," she replied, her voice softened considerably.
For a moment he didn´t know what to do. Would he comfort her? Share his own grief?
He pulled out a chair and sat down gently, his eyes on his former Captain and former friend. "Sara. I´m sorry....I didn´t know this is how you felt....I, uhm..." He looked around, exasperated, and sighed. "I felt abandoned by you, by Raqiin, by Starfleet....you know you and Mackenzie were my only two visits I received during that time on New Zealand? I like to tell myself that the warden confiscated my letters....but I know I didn´t receive any.....now I know why at least."
Sara huffed slightly as she wiped her eyes.
"Please don't start moping," she admonished. "We don't hate you, Tony. We knew why you left. We knew you were dealing with shit. That's why we didn't chase you down. I can't tell you why nobody else visited you, but after the Bremen, we all had to find something to do with ourselves. We all had to be apart, and it sucked."
Tony nodded and suddenly felt the loss of that bourbon greatly "I don´t hate you either. But I don´t want to be here, or carry out this mission....but I have no choice, and I have to do it well. As much as I fear Nia´s wrath upon her arrest....I fear Intelligence more. At least now, we can work on getting her in safely and building a case -for- her, not against her."
"Which we're already doing," she said. "If we can prove she had no knowledge of the attack on the Voltaire, she should be fine."
Tony merely nodded at that, then crossed his arms. "It´s not that simple. However, I have provided your Doctor with the information that the goods stolen were lifesaving goods. If we can convince Starfleet to take that into consideration, she might be let off easy."
Sara rubbed the bridge of her nose, doing her best to not be swept away by the various tangents tied up in the situation. Some part of her yearned to tell him. Some part of her wanted to rub it in his face. Mostly, though, the thought terrified her. Were they not wading through the Badlands in search of a fugitive freighter and a hijacked battlecruiser, maybe she would have had the courage to tell him. As it was, there was too much going on to open that particular can. That's what she told herself, anyway.
"I'll do what I can for her," she said, after a long moment. "Might have a favor or two left, though we have to find her, first."
Sara stood, thinking to head back out to the bridge, but she hesitated, looking to Tony with a mixture of frustration and condolence. She stepped up to him and put her arms around him, hugging him close.
"We're still your family," she whispered. "There's shit to work out, but we're still here."
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Post by Deleted on May 3, 2018 13:42:31 GMT
Holy shit guys!
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Post by spacedaisy on May 3, 2018 14:41:19 GMT
This was the log I was waiting to read this week and you guys did not disappoint! That was... wow.
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