Comfort In The Storm

Posted on Sun Jun 21st, 2020 @ 5:28am by Cailus Griffin & Lieutenant Kalin Brennan-Griffin PhD
Edited on on Tue Jul 7th, 2020 @ 1:38pm

Mission: Into the Wild
Location: Shae's Office
Timeline: Before "The Edge of Freedom"

A Mission Post by Lieutenant JG Cailus Griffin & Lieutenant Kalin 'Shae' Brennan PhD
Mission: Into The Wild
Location: Shae's Office
Timeline: Before "The Edge of Freedom"
Thu Aug 3rd, 2017 @ 8:16pm


It was quiet for the moment; Aoife had finally stopped crying and fell asleep on Shae's chest as they lay on Shae's office couch. If Aoife had seen anything during the mass hallucination that had briefly taken over the ship, she wasn't able to tell anyone, but even if she didn't experience anything Shae knew that the shaking of the ship had been more than enough to cause an upset.

"Here, let me get these off of her," Rebekah spoke up from the dim of the room. Shae opened her teary eyes to watch as the nurse removed Aoife's leg braces. "There, that should be more comfortable for both of you," she offered with an empathetic smile.

"You really don't have to worry about it, I've got to get back to work soon," Shae said. She tried to sit up, but her core muscles ached so terribly, she couldn't suppress the small grunt of pain that escaped her. Relaxing back on the couch, Shae ran a hand over Aoife's hair as the child on her chest whimpered in her fitful sleep.

"Don't worry about it, Shae, Aoife will be going to bed after this so I needed to take these off of her anyway, and you can spare a little bit more time to get your head in the game," Rebakah scolded gently. "Now, are you still in discomfort?"

"A bit, yeah," Shae conceded with a sigh. More than just a bit, she was so sore she couldn't even sit up! Rebakah began to gently palpate Shae's tender belly. "Ah!" Shae exclaimed softly with a sharp intake of breath, then took slow measured breaths to work through the gentle massage. The nurse pulled away abruptly and went to the replicator, bringing back a heat patch. She carefully opened Shae's uniform and applied the patch which quickly began to warm up upon contact with Shae's skin.

"There, how's that?" Rebekah asked as she straightened out Shae's uniform.

"Ohhh, you are a life saver..." Shae moaned out with relief as the warmth emanating from the patch helped to relax those sore muscles. "Thank you for bringing her by, I think we both needed this," Shae added with a weak smile.

"Anytime," Rebekah replied. "Now, while the two of you are resting, I'm going to check around to see if anyone else requires medical attention." After all, she was still a nurse... Shae simply nodded in response and closed her eyes, hearing the gentle switch of the doors as Rebekah left.

Walking down the corridor on his way to Shae's office, Cailus frowned as he saw Rebekah leave. The Security Chief looked unusually out-of-sorts, with his grey uniform jacket ripped around the bottom and his hair ruffled, but in conjunction with the phaser at his belt and a dark look in his eyes, it only seemed to make him look more dangerous.

"Rebekah!" he called out sternly, then winced at his tone as she turned around. Striding swiftly up to her, he whispered urgently, "Shae, Aoife, are they okay?"

"Cailus!" Rebekah exclaimed at the sight of him. "Yeah, they're fine, they're both rattled but otherwise okay. I'm more worried about you; are you injured or is there anything you need me to take a look at?" she asked, her eyes wandering to the rip in his jacket.

It took a moment for Cailus to realise what she meant, and he shook his head, the frown deepening. "I'm fine," he said dismissively, subconsciously pulling the mutilated jacket down straight, although it didn't help fix his appearance in the slightest. Glancing at the office, he sighed, unhappy; even 'rattled' was too much distress for his liking, especially for Aoife. "Thank you for looking in on them. I won't keep you from your duties any further."

Rebekah nodded. "Shae said she still has work to do, so I'll be back around in a bit to collect Aoife to put her to bed, but take your time with them, I've got things to do so I'll be a while," she replied, continued on her way to check in with other officers in this section of the ship.

As she left, Cailus sighed again, rubbing his prosthetic hand over the face and relishing the fresh cold feeling. He entered Shae's office cautiously, and in the dimmed light, he could clearly see Shae and Aoife curled up on the couch. Cailus had come purely to talk to her about her use of the photon torpedoes as navigation aides, but he immediately abandoned that thought upon seeing them.

"Shae?" he whispered from the doorway, not wanting to wake either of them if they were sleeping.

Shae's eyes opened and the light from the hall reflected in her eyes, causing them to glow. "Hey," she said softly. Though he was shrouded in the shadow of the room, she could still see that Cailus was not his usual calm and collected self. "Are you alright?" she asked.

"About the same as you, I expect," he said grimly, still keeping his voice down. Cailus moved over to them, crouching down next to the couch, and gently reached out to stroke Shae's hair. "How is she?" he murmured, watching Aoife as she slept, the girl still looking faintly distressed even in slumber.

"She was pretty distraught when Rebekah brought her in, fell asleep almost as soon as I got her to stop crying," Shae replied. Now that Cailus was closer, he could see the tell-tale moisture of tears on her own cheeks. "At least she didn't shut down completely, so I'm hopeful that she didn't experience any painful memories in that... hallucination, or whatever it was..." Shae sniffled, bringing her hand up to wipe away some new tears forming in her eyes; and here Shae thought she had calmed down, she couldn't believe she was about to start crying again.

"It's okay, love, it's okay," Cailus murmured senselessly, wiping the new tears from her cheek with his thumb. The sight of Shae so clearly hurt pierced his own emotional turmoil, and he took a ragged breath to compose himself, determined to stay strong for her.

"I saw... felt... it was like I was back in that cell, the day she was born," Shae confessed as the flood of tears renewed. "I was so scared, Cailus, it hurt so much, all I could do was pace in my cell not knowing when it would end or if she would be alright, and I was all alone until right at the end; they ambushed me during a contraction, when they knew I couldn't fight back, I've never felt so helpless, so paralyzed," she sobbed as quietly as she could. "And then they took her from me! I wanted to die, Cailus, they had taken everything from me, and I tried... I tried to let go and just fade away..."

It was the first time Shae had spoken about the day of Aoife's birth, and Cailus felt fresh anger burn within him at hearing what horrors she had been forced into on what should have been the best day of her life. He knelt, frustrated that he couldn't take her in his arms to comfort her as he wanted, and instead simply kept stroking her hair as she sobbed. He knew from experience that there was nothing to do but ride out the storm, and so he simply leaned down and pressed his forehead against hers, uncaring of how her skin burned against his, forcing down his anger to simply be the strength that she needed. Normally Cailus loved how Shae and Aoife could so effortlessly slip past his defences, but now he hated his own weakness, every quiet little sniff stabbing right through him.

The press of his forehead against hers was just the comfort that Shae needed, and with him here now to help give her focus, this moment solidified her resolve to solve the mystery of the Expanse so that she would never be forced to relive that day ever again. "I'm sorry," she finally muttered as her tears began to subside. Thankfully, Aoife was so worn out from her earlier bout of tears that Shae's sobs hadn't disturbed her. "I'm so sorry, I can't believe I lost it like that; I really need to hold it together better when I'm on duty," she chastised herself as she wiped her tears away. "I've never told anyone about that before..."

Pulling back his head to give her some room, Cailus smiled patiently, grateful that Shae's distress was easing and even more grateful for the distraction.

"Hallucinations," he said simply as a weak attempt at humour. "That rubbish never plays fair."

"These aren't your garden variety hallucinations either," Shae said with a dull laugh, wincing in discomfort. "I hope you didn't see anything quite as terrible as what I did, though with everyone else seeing Borg... I'm sorry... I'll find out what caused this so no one has to see these visions again."

At the mention of the Borg, Cailus' face darkened, the smile vanishing, and he looked away for a long moment. "Yeah," he said noncommittally, forcing himself not to remember his own experience with the ship still very much in danger. Thinking about Shae's wince when she had laughed, he looked at her stomach worriedly. "Rebekah said you were okay. Are you sure you don't need to go to Sickbay?"

"I'm fine," Shae said with a reassuring smile. "It's just that... when I saw what I saw... see, the brain can't tell the difference between reality and a memory if it feels real enough... and I felt contractions, so I started to contract for real. It's stopped, but I'm still a little sore. I've already been checked out and I promise you I'm okay."

"Okay," he said in reply, still preoccupied, although he couldn't quite escape the nagging guilt of being with Shae when the ship was red alert. "Look, I came to talk about the torpedoes, but it's not critical. You can get some rest until Rebekah can come back to take Aoife."

"I can multi-task; what's the issue?" Shae asked as she tried to sit up, grunting in her discomfort, but even still she managed to swing her legs over the edge of the couch and pull herself upright. Aoife stirred slightly at being moved, but Shae was quick to pet one of her ears to keep her calm, and so asleep the child remained.

Cailus initially stood straight out of sheer habit when talking to a superior officer about ship's business, but the sheer ridiculousness of that was too much, even for him. He instead sat down besides Shae on the couch, careful not to disturb Aoife. Even being that close to them was a balm to his own troubles, but Cailus forced himself to focus on the job.

"We're running low on photon torpedoes," he said quietly, barely audible even to himself. "The torpedo techs have worked up a new torpedo dispersal pattern using the local gravitational harmonics, so we can get by with using only half as many torpedoes for mapping the dark matter. It might compromise your sensor accuracy of the dark matter fields by 10% or so, but it saves us a lot of munitions that aren't easily replaced."

"I talked to the Captain a little while ago, I stressed the importance of refitting the deflector array to emit metreon particles so that we don't need to use the torpedoes, and he said he will reach out to the Palatine to restock our supply, but until then I agree that we are burning through them very fast. Do you have any specs I can look at for the modified dispersal?" Shae asked.

"Yeah," Cailus replied simply. He looked around her office before spotting a PADD on Shae's desk, and soon back on the couch with the PADD on hand. It was the work of a moment to access the ship computer and bring up the refined torpedo dispersion pattern, and he handed it to her silently.

With a meek smile, Shae took the PaDD and started looking over the specifications for the proposed dispersal system. "I know you're not alright," Shae said as she studied the plans and worked things out in her head. "I can see it in your eyes, and I also know that right now isn't the best time to talk about it, I just want you to know that I'm here for you whenever you're ready." Then she looked at him and handed the PaDD back to him. "The specs look solid, and the conservation of materials is worth the reduction of sensor efficacy, so let's give it a try."

With just Shae and Aoife there, Cailus couldn't help a rueful smile. Of course she saw right through him. Of course she knew that he didn't want to talk about it, not with them both having responsibilities with the ship still in peril, not with the memory so fresh.

Rather than speak his mind, however, Cailus said instead, "Very well. The torpedo techs will be happy that you approved their plan." Somehow Cailus managed to sound disapproving, as if the thought of his subordinates being happy was criminal in some way. "I need to get back out there. A lot of people are still rattled by all this dark matter hallucination junk." His tone softened, just a little. "Take care of yourself, okay?"

Shae reached out to brush her fingers over his cheek, reserving more personal contact for their quarters, but she would not hold back the desire to comfort her lover even in this one small way; she would never try to force him to talk about whatever he clearly wasn't ready to talk about, but this small contact was an affirmation that she would always be there for him. "You take care, too," Shae said, drawing her hand back. As if she needed to tell him to be careful, he was always careful. "Let me know when you make use of the modified torpedoes so I can compensate on sensors."

"Aye aye," Cailus remarked with the briefest flash of humour. In an instant it was gone, and he was once more Lieutenant Griffin as he stood up to return to duty, moving to replicate a new uniform jacket to replace the one he'd mutilated for Emilie's sling. The stern Security Chief, now back to his normal self by all appearances, stole a moment to watch Aoife sleep before turning away and striding into the corridor.