Reaching Out

Posted on Sun Jun 21st, 2020 @ 5:20am by Lieutenant Kalin Brennan-Griffin PhD
Edited on on Tue Jul 7th, 2020 @ 1:26pm

Mission: Into the Wild
Location: Shae's quarters
Timeline: before entering the Inconnu Expanse

A Mission Post by Lieutenant Kalin 'Shae' Brennan PhD & Lieutenant Katniss Wakefield
Mission: Into The Wild
Location: Shae's quarters
Timeline: before entering the Inconnu Expanse
Thu Jul 20th, 2017 @ 10:23pm


Since coming aboard and with the incident with Shae's child, Katniss had kept her distance. Buried her head in the sand, wrapped herself up in her own lab and locked the world away. But by doing that she had kept people at arm's length, she hadn't intermingled with the crew and hardly anyone knew her, but that was going to change it had too.

After the recent mission it had taken a visit from the Captain for her to realise what really had happened, the loss and damage the ship had taken and she was oblivious to it all. Yes Shae's daughter was an unanticipated problem, the child reminder her of her own loss, but she had buried those memories, those feelings right to the back of her mind and down to the deepest cavities, but seeing that little girl cling to her mother, looking so vulnerable, it had brought her memories gently back into reality. But she couldn't let what had happened to her in the past affect her work, affect her working relationship.

Perhaps she shouldn't be disturbing the Lieutenant in her own quarters, but she needed to clear the air, she needed Shae to know that she was there for her and that she could be depended upon. So armed with a doll that used to belong to her own child and a bottle of wine from her own personal stock, here she was outside of the Lieutenant's quarters, she was pacing back and forth, she was struggling to actually commit to that final step.

Unbeknownst to Katniss, Shae was not currently in her quarters. It was the time when most Officers were in their quarters settling in for a meal, but Shae's day was a long one and she was only just returning to her quarters now with Aoife on her hip. Aoife seemed distracted by some new contraption that had been strapped to her spindly little legs, a set of braces to help her learn to walk, and she tugged at a strap in a desperate attempt to get it off; it wasn't so much the braces she didn't like, it was the shoes, Aoife did not like shoes, but the braces were useless if she wasn't wearing shoes. Shae came around the corner from the lift and saw a nervous Katniss pacing in the corridor, and from the looks of it she was outside Shae's door!

"Lieutenant, pleasure seeing you here," Shae asked softly, a pleasant smile on her face as she approached Katniss. "Were you coming to see me? I hope I haven't kept you waiting long," she continued, unlocking her door and stepping inside. With a simple sweeping gesture of her hand, she invited Katniss in.

Katniss jumped for a moment, suddenly being pulled from her own world and back to reality, she shook her head as she noticed Shae and looked at the now open door. "My apologies," she said looking at Aoife and giving a smile. "I thought I would drop in and catch up, the Captain has asked me to help out in science labs and work on some recent data we have gathered together." she gently said as she acknowledged the hand gesture and slowly walked into Shae's quarters for the first time.

Katniss took it all in for a moment her head turning exploring and admiring the nicely decorated quarters. "I like what you have done with the place." she said before she held out the bottle of wine "For you." she said looking at Shae, before smiling and turning to Aoife before kneeling down, she noticed the braces and wondered if the doll would help. "And for you little one," she said shaking the doll that used to belong to her own precious child in her hand.

By this time Katniss' heart was ready to pound of of her chest, her pulse racing as she tried to keep her composure, a line of sweat forming on the top of her forehead.

"Thank you, this is very kind of you," Shae said, taking the bottle of wine and setting it on the table. She then set Aoife down to stand on her own two feet, and Aoife clung to Shae's furry leg to keep from falling over. Then Katniss was kneeling before the small child and offering a doll, which Aoife inspected with great interest, her vulpine ears standing tall amongst her ebony curls to punctuate her insatiable curiosity, though she looked up at her mother for approval before taking the doll.

"It's alright, little one, go ahead," Shae assured her daughter with a warm smile. Aoife took the doll and gave it a hug, though once it was in her arms, she paused to give it a good sniff; someone had loved this doll before her! "Don't forget to say 'thank you'," Shae said with amusement, and Aoife looked at Katniss and offered a cheerful chirp, her curly little tail wagging happily.

"Sorry, she doesn't really speak yet, that's really the best she can do at this point," Shae said to Katniss. As she continued to talk, Shae took one of Aoife's little hands and guided the child over to a chair that she could hold onto so Shae could have her leg back. "I appreciate you coming by to offer to help; I've been a bit overwhelmed as of late, and without an assistant-" Shae abruptly halted her conversation when she noticed Katniss' distress. "Lieutenant, are you alright? You do not look well, and your heart is racing!" Shae then remarked with genuine concern.

Katniss tried to catch her breath, then looked down at little Aoife. 'Get it together, Katniss. You're going to have to get used to children.' she thought to herself as she looked at the frail little girl playing with the doll, before giving a little smile as she felt her eyes filling with tears.

"My apologies" Katniss croaked out as she quickly spun her head from the child to face Shae. "Painful memories," she said as her hands began to shake. "I thought I had managed to get my feelings under control, buried deep and out of sight, but seeing children again on the ship...I" she stopped and slowly got to her feet. "I lost my own child. The doll belonged to her, but now it's time an actual child got to love it instead of staying in a box in my quarters."

Shae looked at Katniss with a sad yet knowingly sympathetic gaze. "I'm so sorry to hear that," Shae said softly. "If this is too uncomfortable for you, I can stop by your lab first thing in the morning to finish this conversation," Shae offered, doing her best to accommodate Katniss.

Katniss smiled, she was grateful for the concern. "No..it's fine, sometimes just hits me with children about, I'm just not accustomed to it." she said as she gestured to the bottle "Fancy a glass, it's from my own personal stock," as she glanced quickly back at Aofie playing with the doll. "Then you can get me up to speed with what help you need in the labs."

"I understand," Shae replied with a slight nod. And she did understand, especially seeing how memories of Victoire haunted Cailus on a regular basis, but she wasn't about to tell Katniss about Cailus' personal matters. "And I shouldn't drink too much right now; I'm sort of going through... a thing... but I think I can manage a taste," Shae replied somewhat awkwardly, then replicated a couple of glasses and brought them to the table. She uncorked the bottle and poured a glass for the both of them. "As for the lab work, stars above, I don't know. At this point, I feel rather lost; I've managed Cartography teams before, but never a whole department, and I don't have an assistant to help manage the workload. It's strange, you know, as a junior Officer you file reports and you know they get read and processed, but it never occurred to me until I was promoted just how much work goes into managing a department. Maybe I should request a yeoman so I don't drown in all the paperwork..."

Katniss picked up the glass Shae had just poured. "I'll help where I can, don't worry about it." as she took a mouthful of wine while closing her eyes and relaxing, it certainly tasted good. "I know I haven't been around much, but anything you need and you can always call on me."

"It's alright, I know you've been busy, just as I have been; I wanted to come around to check in on you from time to time, but other things kept getting in the way," Shae said. She breathed in the enchanting aroma of the wine, savouring for a moment the way it danced over her palate before finally taking a sip. "That's lovely," she said approvingly, offering another smile. "I do appreciate the offer for help. Perhaps if you come by my office in the morning, we can sort out a few tasks that wouldn't be too intrusive to your regular routine; as much as I need the help, I certainly don't want to offload so much onto you that I'm distracting you from your research," Shae said carefully, when in reality she wanted to ask outright for Katniss to be the Assistant Chief for the Science department, but whatever Katniss was researching Shae knew it was important, or at the very least important to Katniss, and Shae didn't want to encroach on that.

"Busy, no. Not really, my main research won't start until were are firmly in the expanse, especially the medical monitoring of the crew, and no official mission from Starfleet Science yet, so I can certainly help you out." she replied before taking another sip "And our labs will be working closely anyway so our work is always going to cross over so if I can ease the burden I have enough energy and time to assist you whenever and however I can." she said with a smile, watching Aofie out of the corner of her eye. "After all you don't get much downtime even off duty." nodding towards the child, who was still engrossed with the doll. "Family comes first, let me take up some of the slack. I don't want the CSO crashing and burning when she can utilise my skill and expertise, plus I like helping out my friends."

"I can't tell you how much of a relief it is to hear you say that," Shae said with a smile. "I've been stretching myself so thin, I ended up working myself sick." That was a vast oversimplification of what had recently happened to her, but it was still true enough. "I appreciate that you're stepping up to help, I'll send work your way; just let me know when you need to focus on your own work so I know you're not available."

Katniss raised an eyebrow as she took another sip of the wine. "Well as a doctor I can tell you working yourself into the ground and making yourself ill won't do you or your family any good. I'll take whatever work I can from you immediately and my own work, well I can schedule that in around things, I'm due to select a few crew to begin monitoring any possible effects of the expanse on and do some basic medical scans, but other than that, I don't have a great deal on, apart from some information and data that the Captain wants us to both go over, it was from the previous mission, but I can fill you in on that tomorrow. This is personal time." she said again smiling.

"I know, I should take better care of myself, but I thought I was managing my time well enough and then I was blindsided by... something unexpected. Since then I've been getting help with Aoife and I'm delegating at work more, so that's made a significant difference," Shae assured Katniss. Shae took another sip of her wine, before continuing. "And yes, we can go over that data tomorrow, and while this is personal time, it would be impolite of me not to ask how you're settling in at your lab," she offered with a smile. Over at her toy bin, Aoife was taking all of her dolls and stuffed animals out to introduce the new doll to them, making conversational little chirping noises to imitate the polite conversation she heard from all the grown-ups.

"The lab in great, just waiting to get stuck into something to try all those new machines out." she replied laughing and smiling at the child as she chirped at her dolls. "Anyway, I should really let you get settled, I have taken up enough of your time" as she drink the last bit of the wine in her glass. "I'll catch up with you tomorrow and you can start to assign me some of that paperwork that no doubt is backing up."

"It was no bother at all, I appreciate that you came by," Shae replied with a smile, rising with Katniss to see her to the door. "Come by my office in the morning. And do let me know if you need anything to help you find your feet."

Katniss smiled back "Try and get some rest, you look exhausted." she she as she approached the door before turning and kneeling down "Good bye little one." she said giving a little wave.

"I'm working on it," Shae replied, then looked over at Aoife. "Aoife, say bye," she said to her daughter in a sing-song tone, and Aoife responded with a cheerful chirp and offered a wave goodbye to Katniss, still hugging her new doll close.