Remembrance and... Poop?

Posted on Sun Jun 21st, 2020 @ 8:42am by Cailus Griffin & Eva Griffin
Edited on on Tue Jul 7th, 2020 @ 1:50pm

Mission: Into the Wild
Location: Cailus/Shae’s Quarters
Timeline: Current

A Mission Post by Lieutenant JG Cailus Griffin & Aoife Brennan
Mission: Into The Wild
Location: Cailus/Shae’s Quarters
Timeline: Current
Fri Dec 22nd, 2017 @ 12:47pm


It took a while for Aoife to get to sleep. While she was undoubtedly getting better, Aoife still underwent real distress at any kind of disruption to her daily routine, especially when that meant being separated from her mother unexpectedly. With Shae on the away mission to make first contact with the Mendazians, that left Cailus quite alone to take care of the precocious little one. She had been remarkably well behaved, eating her supper with only minimal food splatter, but as time passed without any sign of her mother, Aoife had become increasingly dour. It had taken a happy bedside story of Cinderella (with additional comic voices from Cailus) to finally comfort Aoife enough to go to bed.

Now standing in the bedroom, the lights dimmed, Cailus waited patiently for Aoife to ease into slumber in her cot, staying completely still so as not to disturb her. There were times when Aoife seemed to prefer a familiar presence nearby to help her sleep, much like Shae often did, and Cailus had learned to use every trick he could muster when it came to Aoife. As he watched the little one's breathing slow, Cailus reflected that he was getting better too. Only a couple of months ago he would never have been able to stand there for half an hour without distress of his own, remembering the times he'd watched his own daughter go to sleep, but now it felt oddly...peaceful. Even the frenetic, desperate fighting on Salvaxe the previous day felt like a distant memory when he stood next to Aoife’s cot, watching her slowly drift into slumber.

Finally satisfied that Aoife was fast asleep, Cailus turned to leave, pondering whether he should get some work done before he turned in for the night. Instead, as he left the bedroom, one of the pictures on the set of drawers caught his eye, as it often did. He hesitated at the doorway, looking back at the picture of the smiling young woman in the cadet uniform. Her pale blue eyes seemed to stand out more than usual in the dimmed light, bright and happy, and it took a physical force of will for Cailus to wrench his eyes away and leave the bedroom.

After replicating some chilled syntheholic cider, Cailus sat down at the desk in the main room and turned on the display. His gut squirmed at the thought that had occurred to him, an idea that hung in his mind tenaciously. Perhaps it was seeing Victoire's final moments in that blasted holoprogram, but now...dammit, he wanted to see her. The real her, the one he remembered. It made Cailus physically ill to consider it, but hesitantly he reached out and beginning typing on the display, conscious of waking Aoife by using voice commands. Her hearing seemed just as acute as her mother's sometimes...and he wanted to get this done before he lost his courage.

The computer responded immediately, and Cailus' mouth opened in mute amazement at the sheer quantity of information available. A person could amass an immense digital archive over the course of a lifetime, and it was apparent that Victoire had lived a very full life indeed. If he so desired Cailus could find a picture of his daughter from every single year of her life, or her essays from high school, or even (his gut rebelled again) what looked like some kind of singing recordings from competitions. Scrolling downward, he realised that even Victoire's full declassified Starfleet record was included in the data files. It made sense that Starfleet would include that, and Cailus was certainly entitled to it as Victoire's father, but he still felt strangely grateful to the faceless bureaucrat who'd thought of sending it on.

Still, Cailus sought something else. It took a couple of minutes, but finally he found the date: 5th March, 2300. An image popped up on the screen of a happy little eight year old grinning proudly up at the camera, holding up a silver ribbon with a big number two upon it. Cailus stared at her for a infinite moment, agonising over every detail of her features. She looked so much like her mother…the same dark hair, the same fierce joy, the same Japanese inheritance...except the eyes. Victoire had her father’s eyes.

Looking into those penetrating light blue orbs, frozen in the past, Cailus felt his jaw clench. Damn it, he could remember it all too well…




Eighty eight years ago…

In a small silver-grey corridor, the family walked slowly to their destination. The Starbase corridor was virtually deserted, with only the occasional passing technician besides the family. The bearded father, looking quite crisp in his brick-red uniform, was talking quietly to his wife, a short Japanese woman clad in a similarly crisp blouse and skirt. Their young eight-year old daughter hung onto her father’s hand as they walked, and thinking that her parents didn’t notice, she deliberately walked as slowly as she could get away with, staring out the vast windows all the while. A large Federation starship hung outside the starbase, connected to it by a long tube, and it completely absorbed the little girl’s attention as she examined every inch of it that she could see.

“Are you sure you’ve got everything?” Harriet asked for what felt like the hundredth time, her eyes flickering down to their distracted daughter as she spoke. “Only one duffel bag is just ridiculous, especially if you’re out there for an entire year…”

Cailus gave her an exasperated look in response. “If you ask me that one more time…” he grumbled.

“Then you’ll roll your eyes and pretend to be offended, I know,” Harriet teased, rolling her own eyes mockingly. “I don’t care how long you’ve been on that ship, you still forget things. Remember last year, when you left your mom’s birthday present in your quarters on the ship?”

“Oh, I completely forgot about that,” Cailus retaliated dryly, the sarcasm as subtle as a supernova. “Maybe you need to remind every week rather than every other week…”

Harriet grinned, reaching up and ruffling her husband’s hair, which Cailus answered with a mock threatening glower. All the while Victoire padded along, far too used to her parents’ banter to care.

“Look,” Cailus said in a more quiet, serious tone, “I am sorry that I can’t make it to your brother’s wedding. If you need help with the organisation, Franz and his wife just moved to Paris and I know they’d love to be a part of it. There’s Pascal too, she’s great with this kind of thing.”

Harriet sighed, half torn between frustration and amusement. “Cail, I love you, but you worry too much. If I can organise diplomatic summits between Tellarites and Betazoids, I can do a simple wedding…oh.” She stopped, regarding the airlock they’d arrived at with surprise. “We’re here…”

“Yeah,” Cailus said reluctantly. With a sigh, he put down his duffel bag and crouched down in front of Victoire. “How are we doing, honey?”

The eight-year old scowled, suddenly looking very much like her father. “Papa, our suitcases are just in the room…Mama and I can still come with you...”

Sharing a knowing look with Harriet, Cailus sighed again. “Honey, we’ve talked about this, remember? It’s not allowed. Anyway, what about your friends at school? What about Yōkino?”

“But Claire can come too!” Victoire said, suddenly excited. “Her mommy is in Starfleet and she’s a letennent too, and I know she’d love to go! Oh, and she said her uncle would love to live with Yōkino, he has a real big yard for Yōkino to play in and other dogs and toys! Mama can teach me math and stuff when you’re working too, and we’re only going for a little while!”

“I’m sorry, Victoire,” Cailus said, forcing the words out with difficulty. It was plain that Victoire had been planning this out for a while, choosing this exact moment to spring her scheme on them. Glancing at Harriet, he read the unspoken message she was sending, and so responded with their own little plan. “Anyway…we have a surprise for you. Remember that other really big starship we saw docked outside the starbase? On the other side?

“Yeah,” Victoire said warily, sensing the trap. “It’s bigger than yours.”

“Well,” Cailus continued, pointedly ignoring the comment, “Captain P’Len is a friend of mine, and the Federation Council wants your mom back on Earth really soon, so-”

“WE’RE GOING ON A STARSHIP!” Victoire squealed, breaking into a dance on the spot. “Yes yes yes yes YES! We’re going to see the bridge and the engines and we’re going to go so fast and…” she broke off and looked between her parents, suddenly crestfallen. “You’re only saying that because you’re going again…”

Cailus winced, while Harriet shot him an unmistakable ‘I told you so’ look. “You’re getting cleverer all the time, honey,” he said sadly. Glancing behind him at the airlock, he took a deep breath. “It’s time to go.”

Then Victoire launched herself at her father and trapped him in the tightest hug she could manage, burying her face in his shoulder. Cailus felt her faint sobbing, and he embraced her as tightly as he could too. “Please don’t go papa,” she mumbled, her voice muffled.

“I’m sorry, honey,” Cailus whispered, stroking her hair. It was strange that this parting should feel so much worse than the other times he’d left his family, but somehow it did, and he felt himself buckling. Then he felt pressure on his other shoulder, and saw that Harriet had crouched down as well to place a supporting hand there. She smiled sadly, lovingly, but with another undeniable message in her eyes.

“I love you, Victoire,” Cailus whispered into his daughter’s ear. “More than anything in the whole universe.”

“I love you too papa,” came her mumbled reply, and finally, Victoire found the strength to let go, the tears fresh in his eyes.

Cailus stood up reluctantly, then embraced Harriet with one arm, kissing her lingeringly, before letting her go too. “I’ll call over subspace as often as I can, alright?” he said.

“Any time, any day, my love,” Harriet said with a smile, now taking Victoire’s hand in her own. “We’ll see you in a year.”

Nodding, Cailus took his duffel bag, turned around and walked into the airlock. He chanced a glance back as the doors closed, and he just barely glimpsed Harriet and Victoire standing there, waving him goodbye, before the doors shut them off forever.




In the present, Cailus cleared his throat roughly, wiping his eyes. Dammit, his chest felt like it was being torn in half. How the hell was it fair? He angrily hit the control to shut down the display, wiping Victoire’s face away, but then hated himself in the next moment for doing it.

Taking a deep breath, Cailus’ self-recrimination was disrupted by an all too familiar smell that nearly made him gag. Without hesitating he got up and moved back to the bedroom, and sure enough, the smell got even worse. Looking into the cot he saw that Aoife was still fast asleep, but that wouldn’t last. Her nose was already starting to twitch.

Carefully, he reached down and picked the toddler up. “Alright little one,” he said gruffly, still blinking hard to clear his eyes. “Let’s get you cleaned up.”

Aoife responded with a disgruntled little squeak as Cailus lifted her, clearly unhappy with being woken up, but she was fairly used to this disruption by now and didn't make much more of a fuss; Shae had the clean-up routine down to an art, usually so fast that Aoife was rarely fully waken. So what really got her attention was his sigh when he discovered just how messy a diapered child with a tail could be, which apparently meant she was getting another bath to clean her tail as Cailus took her to the bathroom and began running water in the tub. When he set her down to undress her, she finally noticed the sadness in Cailus' eyes. For all the pain that Aoife had been through, she somehow had this remarkable well of empathy within her, and she reached up to give him a gentle pat on the cheek with her now chubby hands, chirping in an attempt to cheer him up.

Cailus took the comfort with befuddlement, even smiling reluctantly. “How do you do that?” he asked faintly. “You even tried to help me on Mars with your mom, and you barely knew me then.”

Aoife was finally at a point where she understood a lot of the words adult used to communicate, and while she could understand the individual words, she couldn't comprehend the actual question, not yet anyway; even if she could understand what he was asking her, she couldn't answer in any way he could understand, so instead she simply smiled, a smile which grew even brighter as he put her into the tub. Aoife loved water, so instantly it was playtime in her mind!

Cailus’ own smile grew at Aoife’s antics, and he let her splash around happily as he attended to the business of cleaning. He noted ruefully that he’d have to ask Shae how she cleaned Aoife so efficiently, since the tail really did make it all so much more awkward. At least, Cailus thought as he finished, he was more accustomed to the smell this time round. He’d damn near fainted when Victoire had first pooped in the hospital room, much to the amusement of Harriet and the nurses. Hell, he could still remember tiny Victoire’s odd cry that had forecast the impending torpedo.

Still smiling at the memory, Cailus drained the bath and began drying Aoife. “Okay, let’s get you back to bed,” he said, running the towel along her tail. “For real this time.”

Bedtime again? But she was having so much fun! Nevertheless, Aoife let Cailus towel her off and even remained patiently still on the bed while he went to fetch clean clothes for her. She did, however, attempt to dress herself, something she had been doing more and more as of late, which usually ended with her getting stuck and needing either Shae or Cailus to help untangle her, but at least she was trying! Although tonight she ended up putting her little nightgown on backwards.

Cailus had only turned his back for a moment to prepare her cot, and when he turned around and saw what Aoife had done, he couldn’t help but chuckle. At times it seemed that Aoife was rather impatient, always wanting to learn quicker and do things faster rather than letting things happen naturally, and while it sometimes proved a headache for Cailus and Shae, they were fiercely proud of her every single time she pushed her limits.

Having fixed Aoife’s gown, Cailus gently laid her down in the cot, much as he had only forty minutes ago. Cailus glanced at the picture of Victoire, her blue eyes still as bright as before, but the smile only faltered a little before recovering. Cailus stroked Aoife brow, knowing from experience that the repetitive sensation often made Aoife drowsy, and she really had to be tired after such a long day.

“Good night Aoife,” he murmured as Aoife’s eyes began to close. “I love you too.”