See Me

Posted on Tue Jun 23rd, 2020 @ 12:28am by Captain Nycolas Temple & Lieutenant Kalin Brennan-Griffin PhD
Edited on on Fri Jul 10th, 2020 @ 5:18pm

Mission: Death in Paradise
Location: Observation Lounge, Deck 9

A Mission Post by Lieutenant Kalin 'Shae' Brennan-Griffin PhD & Captain Nycolas Temple
Mission: Death in Paradise
Location: Observation Lounge, Deck 9
Timeline:
Sun Oct 28th, 2018 @ 6:07am

A lone figure sat in the dark, a light 'tap tap tap' of knitting needles in her long fingers as she worked some lofty wool yarn into a blanket. Shae had started this blanket for Emilie, but in the Bubble it ended up going to Aurora; now she had a chance to finish it and give it to its intended recipient. Not even watching what she was doing, Shae's fingers moved on auto-pilot as she watched the stars moving by at warp. Near a century she had gone without seeing the stars, and it had driven her mad as an Astrophysicist. She didn't have the best view from her quarters, and the Box was far too loud, so she retreated to the Observation Lounge on deck 9 while she waited for Aoife to finish her lessons at school, just watching the stars, so beautiful...

Nyx meanwhile was wandering the corridors aimlessly. Being trapped with only three decks for so long had given him yearning to spend as much time as he could walking around the whole ship. To be able to descend past deck 3, to have the turbo lift operational so he didn't have to climb through jeffries tubes, to hear and see what it was like to be part of a complete vessel; these seemed like luxuries now. His walk had been mostly uneventful, though he'd stopped in to talk to any of the junior officers he came across. Sometimes forgetting the name that belonged to the face. Still, he enjoyed reacquainting himself with the Pandora.

Hearing the knitting needles as he passed the darkened Observation Lounge, curiosity got the better of Temple and he couldn't help but stick his head inside the room. "Hello?" He called out.

With her ears standing upright at the sound, Shae turned to see the familiar face of Nycolas Temple, a face she hadn't seen in near 100 years, at least that's how it felt with the memories from the Bubble still fresh in her mind. "Captain," she greeted softly, putting her needles down and setting the fluffy blanket aside on the long table. "It's... so good to see you, sir," she said with a sigh and a small smile.

"Good to be seen." Nyx replied playfully, leaning against the doorframe. "I hope I haven't disturbed you?"

"You're fine," Shae replied. "I was just enjoying the view while I waited for Aoife to finish up with her lessons. Oh, and knitting..." Shae gently touched the near finished blanket and smiled. "I started this before we were pulled in to the Bubble, and now I get to finish it again and give it to Emilie."

Nyx marvelled at her work, and though not being particularly skilled in haberdashery himself he appreciated the talents that were required. “She’ll love it.” He nodded, but he also felt a little guilty that Shae was working on the blanket so soon after waking up. “Thank you for making it. I’m sure it could wait though, if you’d rather be resting?”

"But I am resting," Shae replied with a warm smile. "I find knitting to be quite relaxing, almost meditative, and it's so 'automatic' that I can watch the stars while I'm at it. Besides, it helps for me to feel like I'm doing something, other than just laying about," she explained. "By the by, how is Emilie? I imagine that this must have been difficult for her, and for Katrine as well."

“Sounds nice.” He smiled as he stepped into the room and sat down on a nearby armchair. “She’s well, they both are. We’ve been talking a lot. Sometimes I feel like no matter how much we explain what happened and what we went through, it’s still something you had live through to really understand. But they both ask questions, like how did we eat and wash our clothes. Emilie asked about relations in the Bubble, which I couldn’t really answer.”

"From an outside perspective, it must seem quite outlandish, unbelievable really," Shae replied with a nod. "I think Nurse Davies has wanted to ask me a lot of questions; it always seems like she's holding her tongue, biting back a myriad of questions that beg for answers... For the moment, I'm grateful I haven't had too many people accosting me with unnecessary conversation, because it's all quite overwhelming being back; at the end it was just me and Kaleri's granddaughter for a few years, and after that kind of isolation, being around so many people invokes a near irrepressible anxiety. Och, and the sounds... Remember how unsettlingly quiet it was when we first found ourselves there? I'm finding myself in a bit of shock once again now that I can hear all the functions going on in the ship; it used to be a comfort, now it keeps me awake a night." Not to mention the fears of waking once again in the Bubble, but for the moment she assumed she wasn't the only one with that fear.

Nyx nodded, “It seems just as others cannot fully understand what we went through, I don’t think I could fully understand what you went through. All those years on this ship, seeing a generation born and pass away. That’s going to have an effect on you for some time, Shae.”

Shae sighed as she gazed out the window, her eyes transfixed on the stars with a faraway gaze. "In a way, I'm almost grateful for the experience," she confessed softly. "I was raised by humans, but I've always known that I would have to watch my family die, to watch Cailus die... I was always afraid of that future, it terrified me because a human upbringing could never prepare me for it, but now that it's happened, even in a dream, it's... I don't know, stripped away that veneer of innocence, maybe? I still feel the weight of all those years, so I guess what that means is when it happens for real, when time takes away all the people I love, I'll be ready for it. I know it'll still hurt, but now I'm prepared." Shae looked over at Nyx once again, her expression somewhere between a sad smile and perplexity. "Does that make sense?"

"Yes." Nyx smiled. "It's an awful privilege to have faced our own mortality and then lived to tell the tale. A privilege I hope not to repeat any time soon." He said very simply, adding a shrug at the end. "Not to get too personal, but Emilie did ask me about whether or not I considered... finding other company? I mean, I can't say there would ever be enough time to pass to make me forget my wife, but I was only there for thirteen months. You, on the other hand, were there for much longer. Did Cailus ever ask you the same question?"

"He wasn't going to, but I could tell he had something on his mind, so I made him talk," Shae said. "Thing is, this was something we'd talked about even before the Bubble, we were both aware of my potential lifespan and he wanted me to move on after he was gone, to live my life to the fullest. But in the Bubble, there was no one from the original crew that I was particularly attracted to, and it was hard to think about any of the grown kids romantically when you've helped change their nappies, not to mention the dangers of living in the Bubble after Rochester pierced the epicenter, it broke our little universe, so romance was the furthest thing from everyone's mind after that."

"I doubt anyone but Emilie would have been able to handle me anyway." Nyx said with a rueful laugh. "Even if we had put everything that was happening there aside, there was never a possibility of anyone else. I suspect you'd feel the same way about Cailus, correct? That's a small positive I'm trying to take from this. An absolute assurance of my commitment to her."

"As I told him, he was not so easy to replace," Shae replied with smiling eyes. "Nor will he be in the future we now have together again. I know eventually, hopefully after a long full life together, I'll have to move on and find someone else, but when it happens I know it will be of my choosing, not out of some desperate need for companionship like many of the crew experienced in the Bubble. I know I'm not alone anymore."

This caused Nyx to smile. “That’s a wonderful thought. The end bit, at least. Please don’t hesitate to reach out if you ever want to talk about what we went through. I know you’ve got Cailus to share with, but I think it’ll help everyone to talk about what happened and how we’ve been adjusting. I don’t want anyone to hide anything away.” The Captain was mainly referring to Fick, as he felt a residual feeling of having failed the young man, but he also knew Shae had experienced her own isolation. He hoped that they could heal through conversation.

"You know, about that..." Shae started, shifting uncomfortably in her chair. "In the Bubble, when you were dying and you shared your memories with us, is that something you can really do? Or, I guess what I'm really asking is if something like that could work in reverse? Would it be possible for me to show you something?" There was a lot she had to hide away, for obvious reasons, but in all that there was something she needed him to see, something he wouldn't be able to understand from words alone.

Nyx itched his nose, "I'm not sure. I've never tried it before." This wasn't something he normally would do, but he trusted that Shae and Cailus would be discreet about what they experienced and, more to the point, what he had been able to do. Seeing that this was clearly important to Shae and her nervousness while asking, Temple felt like he should at least try. For her. Without speaking, he stood up and closed the Observation Lounge door then placed a secured lock on it. He turned around a gave a deep breath. "Are you sure?"

"Not really, but there's something I need you to know, something that words alone cannot help you understand," Shae replied, sitting up a little straighter in her chair.

Silently nodding he walked the few steps back towards her and dragged the armchair into position in front of Shae. He sat down in it and looked directly into her eyes. This wasn't like a meditation or a Vulcan mind-meld, it was like a conversation between two souls. All he could do was sit and wait for the feelings and images to arrive. Quietly he said, "When you're ready, concentrate on the strongest emotion you feel from this memory."

Shae nodded and she gazed into his eyes as she let herself drift back to the memory in question. The only problem was the remembering part was easy, it was letting her mental barriers down that was the real trick! She could block all thoughts and emotions from prying telepaths, which for someone like Eiri Ashshy was a blessing as he couldn't shut out all the mental voices around him, so for him hearing nothing from Shae was nothing short of a miracle, but it meant having a 'conversation' like this with Nyx was all the more challenging after so many years of keeping those mental barriers in place. But she trusted Nyx, so after a deep breath she closed her eyes and let it all go, and when she did Nyx was immediately inundated with the presence of another awareness within Shae that resided alongside her own consciousness, a primal force that pushed back against his probing consciousness, but it was surprisingly playful in this gesture, almost affectionately so; after all, this side of Shae trusted Nyx as much as she did. But along with this primal being, he also felt a deep sense of humiliation from Shae and she let the memory carry them off.

When Shae opened her eyes again, she as no longer in the Observation Lounge, but in a cell smaller than the Pandora's brig cells. She sat on the cot in the cell, little more than a mattress on the floor, and she wore a grey medical smock; she didn't want to be back in this memory, but he needed to understand! She looked out to the hall and there was Nyx gazing in a girl who couldn't have looked any older than fifteen years of age, and her spirit was so utterly broken. Then a pair of orderlies appeared and took down the shield to take her away.

"I don't want to be here," Shae said to Nyx, the fear evident in her voice as the orderlies hauled her to her paws and ushered her down the hall. "I don't want you to see, but you need to understand how they broke me," she said, almost pleading. Of course the orderlies didn't hear it because her words weren't a part of the memory she was reliving. Soon they were in a lab, but when the orderlies tried to get her onto the exam table, she resisted and fought back however she could, but the larger men wrestled her to the table, forcing her to lay face down and strapping her in place. Then they opened her medical gown to expose her back and she felt a chilly hand caress her bare skin. A man in a lab coat stood over her now, his visage faceless because she had never seen his face, but she knew his voice and his scent, which she would never ever forget.

"For that little rebellion, we get to do this without sedation," the man said as he retrieved a laser scalpel. "Now remember, don't move or you could hurt yourself. And try not to cry this time, the noise is so distracting," he said as he began to cut into Shae's back. Shae turned her head to find Nyx once again, tears streaming down her face, but as the man had requested, she neither moved nor made a sound; thus far, she'd had a lot of opportunities to practice this level of restraint despite the pain. Memories began to bleed into one another, just one more procedure like this after another for days, weeks, even months until finally something within Shae snapped and she ripped herself from her restraints and became something beastly; instinct took over as she became what had been documented as 'The Brute', a bestial biped that tore the orderlies apart until she was stopped by several tranquilizer darts from the faceless man.

"I was never the same after this," Shae said softly as she slowly changed back to her normal shape. Then she was dragged, naked and bleeding, back to the table where she was secured with a force field. Even though she had a chance to gaze up at the man who had tormented her, her drug addled mind wasn't able to clearly see him, so she still didn't know what he looked like. "What happened in the Bubble, the attack on Kaleri, when I threw you, and when I went feral after my miscarriage, it all came from what he did to me. I used to be one whole person, but after this I was broken, my mind fractured, and he used this to make me into a killer. I tried to explain it to you in the garden, but words can't capture this," she explained to Nyx as the faceless man began to mend her injuries. She turned her head to look at Nyx, her eyes hollow and empty "After he forced me to give birth to my own clone, I had no fight left in me, I let him mold me into something awful. I always did my best to hide that part of myself, but it was so hard... But I know now I can't hide it, it's still a part of who and what I am, and after what happened in the Bubble, I knew something had to change and I certainly had the time to make peace with that side of myself."

Nyx had felt paralysed by the images and the overwhelming fear he felt. He wanted to reach out to Shae, to fight off the orderlies and this faceless man - but he couldn't. He was merely a spectator to the horror and it was one of the worst feelings he had ever experienced. He tried to tell himself that at least it wasn't happening now, at least it was only a memory. But the stark coldness of the room, the smell of the instruments on flesh, the sheer cruelty of proceedings, made it impossible for him to detach himself. Through welling tears, he nodded, "I'm so sorry Shae. This is beyond barbaric. No one would blame you for whatever you needed to do to escape this torture."

"But I didn't escape," Shae said, and the memory went dark only for them to find themselves in the brig of the USS Tornado. Inside the cell, a human-looking Shae uniform sat staring out at Nyx and a very terse (and bearded) Cailus. "They started to do to Aoife what they did to me, so to make them stop I became complicit to their demands until I was caught doing something that cost the lives of innocent Officers. And I was so tired of the lies, I didn't fight back when I was apprehended, I was ready to face punishment if it meant I wasn't being used to hurt people anymore. And... I had done it all to protect Aoife, and when I finally got her back and was given a second chance, I had a taste of freedom, and happiness, and it tore me apart to be separated from her again. I know it doesn't excuse what I did in the Bubble, I just wanted you to understand why it happened, and that I've had decades since then to ensure it doesn't happen again."

His head was woozy from the shifting scenery and he realised how disorienting this experience could be. Shaking his head clear again, Nyx was faced with the image of a bearded Griffin. “Oh, I forgot how grumpy he looked.” He smirked as he turned back to Shae, “What was it that you told me in Bubble? ‘We've all made mistakes, done things we wish we could undo; you are not the only one to wrestle with the past.’ If you can’t listen to me, at least listen to yourself.”

"Aww, what's wrong with grumpy? I fell in love with Grumpy!" Shae teased back with a laugh. And she was glad to hear that he had listened to her as he lay dying. "And I don't want to wrestle with my past anymore; as much as it hurt to dredge it up so you could see it, it otherwise doesn't bother me as much as it used to just thinking about it. After a century in the Bubble, I'm not ashamed of what I am anymore, and that includes this-"

The scenery changed again and they were on the Carnage, in the Engineering section where Shae (once again looking human) was taking out the Engineers with brutal efficiency, but not killing, she was only knocking them out unless they gave her enough trouble. And one of them did, a large boorish Cardassian gave her no choice but to draw a weapon, and so she flung a throwing knife at him; somehow the clunky Engineer managed to avoid the projectile, allowing the dark carbon fiber weapon to whip by and become deeply embedded in the bulkhead next to Nyx's head, but the dodge also gave Shae an opening to tackle him down and use a pressure point to disable him. Once all the engineers were down, Shae looked to Nyx.

"They may have trained me to kill, and I was frighteningly good at it, but I do know restraint, and what I did on this day was nothing to be ashamed of. But this is just as much 'me' as the gentle scientist you know, not that I'm jumping up to volunteer for more work like this, just that I know now it's nothing to worthy of shame if I have to utilize this side of me. Coming to terms with my past meant coming to terms with this aspect of who I am, because I can't carve this out of me or pretend it doesn't exist, not anymore," Shae said.

The knife and then the tackle. It was a brilliant move and Nyx marvelled at her skill for the moment. There was something familiar about it, though, and it struck him as a tactic he had seen before. Before he could remember where that thought came from however, Shae was talking about. "I agree with you, Shae. I was surprised to find out you were capable of... well, this. And I know I overreacted in my fear that Starfleet would not understand what happened on the Carnage. You now know that part of my fear came from my own actions on that ship. I guess we both have sides we can't pretend don't exist."

Shae nodded. "We are who we are, Nyx," Shae said in affirmation. "But by far, I enjoy being a mother and a scientist the most, just as I know how much you cherish your family and commanding the Pandora," she said, the sound of Katrine laughing as she sped through the halls, a shocking enough sight seeing as they were on the Carnage, but then she was followed closely by Aoife, chirping excitedly as she tried to keep up, their friendship nigh inseparable. "I know it's a delicate balancing act, but knowing our children are safe, I have no regrets, no doubt at all that we did the right thing that day."

Nyx gave a smile, seeing the two kids playing together. He had been considering leaving the Pandora, wondering if it was better for his family. But he couldn't deny that Katrine had made her home here on the ship; her friendship with Aoife was evidence enough of that. It would be cruel to separate them now. As much as he wanted to share Shae's mantra about the choices they've made, it still weighed on him. "But what if the Carnage wasn't a one-off? Or the Bubble, for that matter. What if all we do out here is fight and kill?"

"What if we go back to Earth and we have another Borg attack? Or the Dominion? We could retire to Risa and the weather control systems could fail and we could die in a tsunami," Shae said with a chuckle. "This is life, Nyx, there are no guarantees. And I don't know about you, but I would be bored out of my mind if I had to go back to the monotony of updating star charts for sectors that have been pioneered by someone else. Maybe there is an element of extra risk here, but it's one I accept, as does Cailus. I know it's harder for you because Emilie doesn't understand our dedication to Starfleet and exploration; no one would fault you if you chose to put the needs of your family first."

This earned a small laugh. "You knew exactly what I was thinking." He marvelled. Although their minds were connected, it was Shae's perceptiveness and their friendship that had filled in blanks. "I have a decision to make, that's true. But I know now that no matter what happens, you will be okay. And that's such a relief, Shae."

"I'm not quite okay, yet," Shae said as she let the Carnage fade away that that they were once again sitting in the Observation Lounge. "It's taking a little longer for me to readjust to reality than it has for everyone else, but I'm getting there," she added with a meek smile."I will be fine, though; I have Cailus and Aoife, and my friends who are as dear as family to me... Although planning for my wedding is threatening to undo me. Oh, speaking of which, you will officiate again, won't you?"

“Of course!” Nyx replied happily, looking around the Lounge as he blinked heavily. He was getting used to waking up out of these alternate realities lately. Leaning back in the chair he rubbed his eyes for a moment. “I found out I apparently need special authorisation from the Federation to marry someone. But I’m sure they won’t mind. Where were you thinking of having the ceremony?”

"Here; well, probably the holodeck," Shae replied, rubbing are her eyes as well. "We did briefly talk about waiting until we could get back to Earth, but we don't want to wait that long; although without a defined date in mind, it's proving to be quite tricky making sure my family can get the time off to attend, but we're working through it."

"Sounds good." Nyx nodded. The strain of feeling someone else's emotions was weighing on him and he started to feel tired. "Thank you for sharing your memories with me, Shae. I think I understand now why I stopped doing that, though, it's rather draining on my energy levels." He couldn't stifle the yawn that was coming and he exhaled out loudly.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to cause you any distress," Shae said. "But you did feel it, didn't you? The other one, a part of me but not quite me?" Speaking of, her primal instinct was still there at the fringes of her mind seeking to show Nyx a gesture of familial affection to make up for the strain she had caused, but Shae was resisting this urge, not wanting Cailus to get jealous that she was nuzzling up with other people, aside from the fact that it was inappropriate to nuzzle one's Captain.

"No, it's okay." He said, yawning once more. "I did feel it, completely. It tends to... overtake my own thoughts and emotions and the adjustment back is like coming off of a rollercoaster. Thank you, again, though, for showing me that."

Shae smiled meekly. "Thank you for being willing to listen," Shae replied. His fatigued state didn't escape her attention, and so she gathered up her knitting and placed it in a little tote bag. "Here, I'll walk with you to your quarters before I go pick up Aoife," she offered as she rose to her paws.

“That would be nice.” Nyx nodded, hoisting himself to his feet with a slight groan he tried to make as inaudible as possible. He waited for Shae to gather her belongings before looping his arm around hers. “Whenever you’re ready, Mrs Griffin.”

With her knitting bag in hand, Shae left the Observation Lounge with Nyx at her side, and to help her Captain save face, she even hooked her arm in his under the guise that he was walking her home, not the other way around.