An Old Man's Gratitude

Posted on Mon Jun 22nd, 2020 @ 11:36pm by Cailus Griffin & Petty Officer 1st Class Jun Takada & Ensign Dorian Rochester (Deceased)
Edited on on Fri Jul 10th, 2020 @ 5:15pm

Mission: Divided We Fall
Location: Sickbay
Timeline: Current

A Mission Post by Petty Officer 1st Class Jun Takada & Lieutenant Cailus Griffin & Ensign Dorian Rochester
Mission: Divided We Fall
Location: Sickbay
Timeline: Current
Wed Oct 3rd, 2018 @ 7:56pm

While many of the missing had woken with relatively few problems after their experience in the Bubble universe, not everyone had had a comfortable awakening. Cailus was one of them; after dying of old age, he was saddled with a severe neurodesynchronisation as his brain struggled to readapt to a young and healthy body, forcing the Security Chief to utilise a cane to walk around. Yet more, like Shae, Krysia and James, had yet to awaken, their minds still trapped in the Bubble until they finally, eventually died and could be safely revived on the Pandora.

And then there was Jun Takada and Dorian Rochester, both of whom were still comatose. Cailus hadn't heard much, but he did know that the yeoman and ensign had unusual lifesigns that didn't match anyone else's, suggesting that they might not wake as easily as everyone else had. Nobody knew why, only that Brookes and his medical staff were working double shifts to solve the problem, and so Cailus kept tabs on the process as he recovered his own strength. Thus, in the early hours of the morning when news came that Takada and Rochester might be about to wake up, Cailus got up out of bed to head down to Sickbay, arranging for Aoife's care while he was gone.

It took a few minutes longer than he would've liked to get to Sickbay, his cane clunking loudly on the deck with each step, but he got there nevertheless. Clad in his uniform despite not technically allowed to resume his duties, Cailus entered Sickbay.

By the time Cailus arrived, Takada was already awake. The petite Japanese woman was laying on her side sobbing her heart out, saying "They're gone, they're all gone!" in between frantic sobs as a nurse tried to calm her. Takada and Rochester had managed to break out of the Bubble, but in so doing their escape pod had ruptured the structural integrity of the universe; they had watched in horror as the Bubble collapsed before them, just before they lost consciousness. Now, here they were, the lone survivors, supposedly...

"I tried to stop him, I tried!" Takada pleaded with the nurse to understand, "I failed, and now they're all... Oh God!"

"Damn it," Cailus mumbled to himself before ambling swiftly over to Takada with his cane, ignoring the nurse. "Takada! Do you know my voice, girl?"

"Cailus..." Takada rasped out, recognition clear in her eyes in equal measure as confusion as she looked up at the terse Security Officer. "How? You... you died, we sent you out into space!"

Glancing up at one of the nurses with shared bemusement, Cailus sighed. "I truthfully don't understand it myself. The important bit is that we're home, Takada. All of us. The captain, Fick, everyone. Whatever happened in the Bubble wasn't real. Not physically." He reached down to grasp her shoulder in comfort. "I know it feels strange, but it's true."

"But... he killed them all!" Takada replied with a sniffle. She seemed to be having a hard time grasping the gravity of what he was saying. "Rochester, he stormed the Bridge right after we... you.... Dammit, we were gathered to mourn and he came in with weapons and he took an escape pod! Shae tried to warn him what would happen, I played along with his plan to get close to him, and I tried to stop him, I swear I tried, but he launched the pod, and we saw the Bubble collapse when we punched through," she rambled, which just devolved into more sobs. "I tried to save them, I tried, I tried, I tried..."

"Takada!" Cailus barked loudly, startling the nurse and doctor beside him who then glared at him reproachfully. "Do I look like a hallucination to you? You're smarter than that. We are all alive. All of us."

That succeeded in snapping Takada to her senses. "But it doesn't make any sense..." she mumbled as she finally brought a hand up to start wiping away some of her tears. Her face was a mess, and the nurse stepped in with some tissues, then helped settle her back with a pillow. It was then that she noticed Rochester on the next biobed. "Oh God, why isn't he in the brig?! Get him away from me!"

That prompted a frown from Cailus as he glanced at the comatose Rochester. The captain hadn't given any specific orders regarding the man, apparently wanting to deal with the sticky issue of murder after everyone was awake again.

"Lieutenant, is there something that we should know?" one of the nurses said uncomfortably, following Cailus' gaze. "A couple of the others have spoken of Ensign Rochester with similar suspicion. If we know why, it will help us treat him when he wakes up."

"Didn't you hear me before? He staged a coup and took over the ship!" Takada said as new tears threatened to fall. "It was him, Vieers, Matterson, and... oh, their faces are slipping away, I can't remember who else... Why can't I remember?" she said with a confusion, squeezing her eyes shut as she tried to recall who else had been part of the coup. "He had everyone else locked in the Ready Room or the Observation Lounge. I joined him just so I could get close enough and stop him from taking a pod, but it wasn't enough. Shae said if he broke through he would be killing everyone left behind, but he did it anyway, that makes him a murderer!" But she still sounded so confused, because Cailus was here and he said that everyone was alive. "But... they're still alive... this doesn't make sense..." she said with frustration.

That was new information, and it changed everything. Cailus' frown turned into cold restrained fury, remembering the community that he had poured his life into keeping together. The community that, according to Takada, a woman he had come to trust implicitly, Rochester had destroyed. He was sorely tempted, just for a moment, to have the traitorous murderer dragged to the Brig, as Takada wanted. To hell with the fact that the man's actions had, whether he had planned it or not, liberated everyone from their hell. The need for justice burned hot.

"Takada," Cailus said instead, clutching the distressed woman's hand, "focus. Come on, girl. Think about your life before that damned Bubble swallowed us. Think about your family, your friends, your shipmates." He opened his mouth to elucidate before remembering that Takada had never spoken of her past life while tending to her elderly patient, except in the most general terms, a strange choice that no amount of needling had changed. "That's where you are, right now. You were under my command for twenty six years, so don't you dare disobey my orders after all that. You are safe, secure, and so is everybody else."

"Before?" Takada said uneasily. "Before... How can I go back to what I was before all that?" She had been little more than a paper-pusher, and she had been good at it, she was proud of her job, but the Bubble had changed them all, how could any of them go back to before? She held Cailus' hand like it was the only thing keeping her sane, and for the moment it was; there was so much going on in her head, more than she could ever say. "Watashi wa chichi ga hoshidesu," she said softly, which the universal translator returned with 'I want my father.'

The universal translator was unnecessary for Cailus, who understood the Japanese easily enough even if he hadn't spoken it for nearly ninety years. "I may not be your father, girl, but you took care of me at the end of my life, when I couldn't take care of myself," Cailus said gruffly. "I intend to be here for you as you were there for me. It's alright. You can rest easy."

Takada said nothing in response, instead she simply held his hand tightly with a weak, strained smile of gratitude on her face.

Dorian Rochester had kept his eyes closed for most of the conversation. He had been awake for some time; trying to listen and take in the exhange with a curious silence, though his heart was beating loudly in his chest. Hearing Griffin say they were out of the bubble and none of it had been real was all the affirmation that he needed. His plan had worked; Griffin and the Captain were both alive, which wasn’t an insignificant relief for Dorian, and everyone was back in the real world. It had taken drastic action and clearly Takada still didn’t appreciate his plan. As he lay there quietly, he knew he’d have to defend his choices.

Unfortunately, Nurse Louis came by at that time to check his vitals and administer a hypospray. Louis immediately noticed that Rochester was awake as he flinched when the spray was pressed to his neck, causing the Nurse to exclaim, “Ensign Rochester?!”

Slowly opening his eyes, Dorian frowned, “Five more minutes.”

That prompted a dark look from Cailus, who patted Takada's shoulder lightly as he stood up and moved to Dorian, leaning heavily on the cane as his knees protested against the movement. "Mister Rochester," he said with an icy, reserved tone. "I see that you have recovered."

Dorian raised his head slightly off the bio-bed to look at Griffin. Seeing the once old, frail man standing before him now younger (well, for Griffin) again was an adjustment, and it took him a second to fully accept this was indeed the Security Chief. But there was also a cruel irony that of all the people to awaken from the bubble, it was Dorian Rochester who was the least distraught. He’d been expecting this.

“Sir, it is very good to see you.” Dorian replied, “Has everyone else woken up okay?”

"Not yet," Cailus said coldly. "From what Miss Takada tells me, something happened after my death. Elaborate."

"I didn't hurt nobody!" Rochester immediately replied, voice rising in protest. "Takada attacked me! I only had the weapons as a deterrent so nobody would stop us. I swear to it, Lieutenant, I gave clear instruction for everyone to be managed peacefully."

Takada quickly shot upright to look at Rochester, immediately regretting the move with the way her head was suddenly spinning, but she made no attempt to lay back down. "You came at us with weapons, what I did was self defense!" Takada shot back. "There was no way of knowing it was just a dream and no one had any reason to suspect that we would have to die to wake up, so it was pure luck that what you did saved us, and it doesn't change the fact that you killed everyone in the Bubble to do it." Then she looked to Cailus. "Shae tried to talk him down, but when she couldn't I took an opportunity where I saw it. We didn't know, and we didn't want to die..."

Rochester could only shrug, though his face was conflicted. "I can't change what I did in a reality that didn't really exist. But that bubble was already killing us, physically and mentally. Of course I would never act that way in the real world! I felt every moment of those years in imprisonment, knowing what I did to the Captain, but after I was told of Lieutenant Brennan's calculations..." He frowned, wondering if Cailus remembered this moment, "I decided I wasn't going to sit around and wait to die or go crazy like everyone else. I had to try something that I thought would work and to quote yourself, Takada, I took the opportunity where I saw it."

"You're a moron, Dorian Rochester, we all believed it was real at the time, including you," Takada reminded him. "You were warned that what you were doing would kill everyone, but you could only ever think of yourself, like when you killed the Captain. I don't care if it was all just a dream, or that you saved us all, I'll never be able to to trust you after what you did."

"Enough," Cailus said quietly, although the steel in his tone was enough to silence any more chatter. Regarding Rochester for a moment, he frowned, shaking his head. "The consequences for your actions will be dealt with by Captain Temple. I advise you to focus on recovering and stay out of trouble until then." Cailus sighed. "I won't lie, Dorian. I'm disappointed in you. I expected better."

"The feeling's mutual." Dorian muttered as he slid back down in his bio-bed and rolled onto his side.

With a grim look, Cailus limped back over to Takada, leaning more heavily on the cane now at his exertion. The muscles in his legs were actually fine; his brain just couldn’t quite process the young and healthy body in which it was housed, so it resorted to the default, when his legs had been arthritic and barely capable of supporting his weight. Takada had been there through it all, helping her disgruntled captain for those last, painful years, and Cailus was determined to repay her.

“Rest easy, kid,” he said to the girl gruffly. “The captain will want his yeoman back, I expect. As soon as Shae wakes up, I also want you to finally meet our daughter. I waffled on about Aoife enough times while you took care of me. Seems only fair that you get to see her for yourself.”

Takada reluctantly lay back on the bed and closed her eyes. "I think I'd... like that..." she said wearily, a tear slipping down her cheek. That had been an offer she'd never expected, but she could hardly turn it down, especially when she'd always wanted to see that little girl.