Renewal in the Garden

Posted on Mon Jun 22nd, 2020 @ 11:54pm by Cailus Griffin & Lieutenant Kalin Brennan-Griffin PhD & Eva Griffin
Edited on on Fri Jul 10th, 2020 @ 5:16pm

Mission: Divided We Fall
Location: Brennan-Griffin Quarters / Arboretum

A Mission Post by Lieutenant Kalin 'Shae' Brennan-Griffin PhD & Aoife Brennan
Mission: Divided We Fall
Location: Brennan-Griffin Quarters / Arboretum
Timeline:
Thu Oct 11th, 2018 @ 6:23pm

It happened suddenly, a sharp jolt to full wakefulness. Cailus’ eyes flew open suddenly, his breathing accelerated before he even knew what was happening. Automatically Cailus reached next to him in the bed, and finding nothing, it took him a good few seconds to realise why that was wrong. He had been sleeping alone for the past week, after all.

But not tonight.

“Damn,” Cailus muttered, and in his groggy state of mind, an old dimension-muddled memory struck him, of all those other times that he had woken up alone unexpectedly. By simple habit, he flung the blanket off himself, already planning a search pattern of the Jeffries tubes, his thoughts becoming more urgent upon looking into Aoife’s cot and finding it empty. It was only when he was halfway through pulling on a red shirt that Cailus realised the blatantly obvious.

The resulting facepalm was loud, painful and richly deserved.

“Computer,” Cailus said with a roll of his eyes upon grabbing his combadge, “locate Kalin and Aoife Brennan.”

“Kalin Brennan and Aoife Brennan are in the arboretum,” the computer responded smoothly.

Relieved at their relatively sensible location, and rather grateful that he wouldn’t have to tell anyone about his momentary flash of idiocy, Cailus promptly strode out into the corridor. The arboretum wasn’t far.

Shae was sound asleep on the grass with Aoife tucked against her. She had brought a light blanket to keep them warm, but the arboretum was actually quite comfortable, and it was so peaceful; it reminded Shae of being back in the garden in the Bubble. Despite being quite deep in slumber, when the doors opened her ears stood tall as she lifted her head.

“Hello?” Shae said softly, cautiously. “Is someone there?”

“It’s me, Shae,” Cailus said quietly, almost in a whisper. He moved a little closer in, just enough to see that Shae and Aoife were comfortably cuddling in the clearing, before stopping next to a tree that formed the boundary of the mini forest. “I got worried when I saw you were gone, but...ah...sorry, I didn’t mean to wake you. I’ll let you both sleep.”

“Oh, sorry, I didn’t mean to worry you, it was just very loud in our quarters and… I guess I needed something familiar,” Shae said as she sat up. “The last few years, I ended up sleeping in the garden; with everyone, you know… leaving… the ship felt so empty, felt like the walls were closing in, for some reason it didn’t feel so terrible in the garden. Anyway, I know I should have told you where I was going, but I didn’t want to wake you. I’m sorry.”

So invited, Cailus stepped over to Shae and Aoife, moving carefully to keep his footsteps silent. He sat down next to Shae on the grass, looking at her with compassionate understanding while Aoife slept, blissfully unaware.

“Shae, it’s quite alright. I’m not your jailer. You don’t need to notify me whenever you go somewhere.” Cailus paused, looking over Shae’s face for a second, examining her features. “I’m just so damned happy to have you back. Both of you. It still feels a bit...unreal.”

“I know, I know… it’s just after I went a little… feral..” A little?! “I just don’t want you to think I’m trying to escape again,” Shae explained with a meek smile. “And it’s a bit surreal for me too, part of me is still finding this hard to believe… Even holding Aoife, I feel like… like I’m just waiting to wake from another dream, you know?”

“Dreams don’t get this good,” Cailus pointed out with a gentle smile, glancing down at Aoife pointedly. “Neither of us could have dreamed Aoife shouting ‘poopy’ every time she...ah...pooped.”

Shae giggled softly. “Yeah, that’s going to take some getting used to,” she admitted with a nod. “Truly, dearheart, I did not mean to worry you.”

“All is forgiven,” Cailus said sincerely, and as he had done so often since Shae had woken up, he wrapped his arm around her shoulders. It was a simple feeling of intimacy and comfort, but the three of them had been cuddling more in the past twenty four hours than Cailus would’ve thought possible. “You know, I felt the same way when they woke me from cryostasis. This feeling we have, it’ll pass. Then we can move on with our lives.”

“Like… get married again?” Shae replied with a sweet blush as she leaned into him. It hadn’t escaped her notice that when she first woke in Sickbay that there was no ring on her finger, yet later the ring was there, and it had warmed her heart to know that his impromptu proposal in the shower all those years ago had come from a decision he made before they were trapped in the Bubble. “And make good on your promise to adopt Aoife.”

“That was the agreement,” Cailus said with mock seriousness belied by his subsequent smile. “This time, though, we can do a real wedding when we get back to Earth. Your parents, your brothers, all our friends. The whole thing.”

“That sounds lovely,” Shae said as she looked up at him, leaning close enough that her lips could brush against his, just a hint of their first kiss in more than 20 years for Cailus but so much longer for Shae. “Oh stars, I missed you,” she said against his lips, suddenly wishing that Aoife wasn’t cuddled up against her. “I remember laying awake at night, aching for you… I thought I would move on eventually, but I couldn’t; maybe it was because I had cheated us out of years with my grief, and I know you forgave me, but I never forgave myself for putting you through that heartache, and once you were gone… nothing else mattered. I wouldn’t dishonor you by succumbing to my grief once again, but I knew that once the crew was dead… that I would see you again,” she admitted, then offered a soft laugh. “But this is so much better, although no less disconcerting.”

Cailus made a low sound of agreement, glancing down to little Aoife. Her little ears twitched, as if even asleep, she knew that her papa was watching her. A faint sense of relief washed through him, to know that Shae hadn’t fallen in love again after his passing...but then there was yet more guilt. He’d wanted Shae to move on, to find someone else, even if that wasn’t necessarily possible within such a small community in the Bubble, even if it had complicated things now. Being glad that she hadn’t was a selfish feeling, but there it was, nevertheless.

To distract himself, Cailus changed the topic. “I know that you’re not up for work tomorrow,” he said quietly, “but do yourself a favour, Shae. Go see Nyx and his family. They’ll be happy to see you.”

“I will,” she replied softly. But Shae noticed the sudden relief that washed through Cailus and she didn’t know what to make of it. “Cailus, is something wrong?” she asked.

“Hmph,” Cailus grunted, frowning, before he relented, an inevitable surrender when Shae looked at him like that. “Suits me right for forgetting that you’re a Listener. I...Shae, I wanted you to move on after I died. To find someone else, maybe have more children. I’m more grateful than I should be that you didn’t, but having to spend all those decades alone...I’m sorry that you had to go through that.”

One of Shae’s delicately arched brows raised, then she reached out to grab his ear, as though discipling a child. “Dearheart, if you think that I would move on to such low-hanging fruit simply because it was there, then you have a lot to learn about me,” she said with a smile, then pulled him close enough for a kiss, a good proper kiss with tongue and a little sigh of contentment. “You are not so easy to replace, my love,” she informed him when they broke for air.

The kiss having quite thoroughly smothered Cailus’ inner demons, he grinned as they parted. “Consider me duly scolded, fiancé,” he teased. Looking around the arboretum with its lighting dimmed to simulate night, he realised that the idea of bringing Shae and Aoife back home was a lost cause, at least for tonight. The grass was wonderfully comfortable beneath them, Shae looked at peace, and Aoife was sleeping better than she had in weeks. It was a bizarre thing indeed to sleep in the ship’s arboretum, something that Cailus would never have done before, but Shae always did have a way of making him do new things.

Thus, without saying a word, Cailus guided Shae down to the ground so that she was lying on her side, with Aoife ensconced within her mother’s body. He lay down on his side behind her, wrapping his muscular arms around Shae in a protective embrace.

Shae lay down and relaxed into him, and for the first time in decades she was content enough to begin purring as she slipped into a deep slumber, no longer afraid of where her dreams would take her.

END