The Child That Remembers

Posted on Mon Jan 18th, 2021 @ 8:17pm by Cailus Griffin & Lieutenant Kalin Brennan-Griffin PhD
Edited on on Mon Jan 18th, 2021 @ 8:17pm

Mission: The Gauntlet
Location: Shuttlecraft "Katherine Johnsom"
Timeline: Immediately after "The Fury of Mama and Papa"

As soon as the shuttle was in orbit and Shae had witnessed the explosion on the planet’s surface, the shuttle broke orbit and jumped to warp, its general direction aimed deeper into Federation space. Glancing down at Aoife, then over to Cailus, Shae realised that they required immediate medical attention, and while she could give them both an emergency patch up, Cailus in particular would require far more attention and supplies than she had available. Working one handed as she continued to hold her sobbing daughter, Shae searched for the nearest Federation friendly starbase and altered their course. Then she set the autopilot so she could tend to her family.

In her arms, Aoife’s sobs were subsiding as exhaustion took over, and as Shae turned to embrace Cailus with Aoife sandwiched between them, the sense of safety and contentment she felt despite her pain allowed the child to slip into a deep, dreamless sleep.

“Cailus…” Shae said in a soft whimper as she held her mate gingerly. “I saw you on the ground and for a moment I thought you were dead,” she said, her eyes closing in relief that this was not the case.

“Close,” Callus said in soft reply. His head was still ringing, his stomach threatening to rebel, his entire body screaming in pain, but in that moment, Callus didn’t care. The mission was complete. Aoife was safe. The enormity of that struggled to penetrate Cailus’ concussion, but actually seeing Aoife, knowing she was there…

He gently pushed Shae away, smiling weakly. “She saved my life,” he said in a half-awake tone. “Down there. Hell of a thing.”

“Och, you must’ve taken quite the knock to your head,” Shae said with a chuckle, shaking her head disbelievingly. “Come, let’s get you on a bunk, I’ll take a look at your injuries,” she continued, standing and offering her free arm to help support Cailus back to the bunks.

Too groggy to protest, Callus let Shae help him to the back of the shuttle, hobbling slowly. Sitting down on the lower bunk, however, he took Shae’s free hand, his eyes fixed on the sleeping Aoife on her hip.

“Shae, I’m serious,” he said, frowning as his brain finally managed to catch up. Carefully, Cailus reached out to stroke Aoife’s hair as the girl slept. She was very different to the daughter he’d lost a few weeks ago, he knew. She was much thinner and weaker, her hair more wiry, her tail limp, but…

“She remembered me,” he said with more surety, looking up at Shae with a deadly serious glint in his eye. “She called me ‘papa’. Threatened to… to hurt herself if that bastard didn’t stop. That’s not the… the concussion talking.” He winced at a fresh migraine, closing his eyes briefly, but fought through it. “She has the other Aoife’s memories. I’m sure of it.”

“But…” Shae muttered, her head now swimming with confusion as her eyes darted between father and child. “How?” she asked, not truly expecting an answer. Shae blinked back the tears forming in her eyes then helped ease Cailus back onto the bunk so that he could rest. “We’ll figure this out, somehow,” she said in a distant tone as she took one of her throwing blades and started cutting Cailus’ clothes off of him so he didn’t have to struggle through disrobing. Shae was starting to go numb, it was all too much! The loss, the weeks of limbo as they travelled, the assault and seeing those horrible abominations in stasis, seeing Cailus and thinking he was dead and that transformation the sight had evoked, the catharsis of ending the Director’s life and getting Aoife back, it was all too much for her to process in this moment, so her brain simply started to shut down emotionally and she worked to free her husband from his clothing in a numb haze.

Thoroughly beaten and battered, Callus let Shae work until his grey fatigues were just rags on the floor. Reduced to his underwear, the true scale of Cailus’ wounds were apparent. Nasty red bruises covered his chest and legs, a purpling mark on his side speaking to at least one bruised rib, possibly even broken. His hands were badly burned, shaking even as he sat there, the wound in his shoulder still bleeding, while his left knee was a wreck. A burn on his cheek was reddenning by the minute.

“We did it,” Callus muttered, closing his eyes as he gingerly lay back on the bunk. He opened his eyes again to look at Shae and Aoife, as if to confirm they were still there, before closing them again. “It’s done…”

“We did it,” Shae affirmed numbly as she looked him over and wondered where to start. In the end, she decided that she needed to start with herself; she couldn’t tend to Cailus with bloody hands, so she gently set Aoife down next to Cailus where his body warmth would keep Aoife cozy, then Shae stood to take off her own clothes, a task that took little effort seeing as most of the seams had split as a result of her transformation and her clothes were just barely hanging onto her.

After washing up and pulling on new clothes, Shae checked that the data drive had stayed in her jacket, then set it someplace safe, then hurried off to collect the surplus of medical supplies they had brought along in anticipation of severe injuries. Dermaplastic grafts went over the burns, and Shae took her time cleaning his bloodied shoulder and running an autosuture over the wounds. She administered a number of drugs to reduce the pain and inflammation, and after giving him a quick scan to confirm that the swelling in his head was slowly reducing, she allowed herself a moment to relax

Then Shae had to turn her attention to Aoife. Even in this numb haze, it broke her heart to slowly peel away the medical smock the child wore, revealing just how thin she was. Stars above, she was worse off than the other Aoife… There were open ulcers around the child’s hips, a sign of her lack of nutrition and sedentary life. Shae flushed these wounds and ran a dermal regenerator over them to start the healing process, then patched the child up with the few dermaplastic grafts that were left in their supplies. Finally, Shae started an IV to administer fluids, glucose, and pain medication to help stabilize the child’s condition until she could be seen by a professional.

With her tasks more or less complete, she covered father and child with a light blanket so they could rest, and wanting to stay nearby in case they needed anything, Shae parked her backside on the deck plating with her back against the bunk where she began to doze lightly, never letting her rest go to deep lest she miss an alert from the cockpit or a need of her family.

Hours later, Callus slowly drifted back to consciousness from a dreamless slumber. His head still ached a little, but far less than before, and immediately Cailus noticed the tiny weight laying against his side. Opening his eyes slowly, he held back a groan at the light of the shuttle and lights of the warp field from the bow viewports, immediately looking down at Aoife.

She seemed alright, relatively speaking. Pulling the blanket back, Callus noted that Shae seemed to have taken care of them both, at least as best as she could. With his head clear now, he thought back to what had happened earlier and immediately felt the urge to throw up. The memory of the blood, the bodies, the violence, the death, was still fresh; he could still smell it, could still hear the screams, the cracking of his bones as that Director had beaten him to an inch of his life.

Looking down at Aoife, Callus knew that it was worth it, all of it. Every single person they’d killed had been a monster, in any case. Nevertheless, he sighed as he realised that there would be consequences for them all. Hell, Aoife saw her father murder an unarmed man, then watch her mother transform and rip another man’s heart out with her bare...hands? Claws?

“What a mess,” Callus grumbled under his breath. As carefully as he could without waking Aoife, he got out of the bunk, noticing that Shae seemed to have dozed off lying against the bunk. She seemed unharmed, unlike him and Aoife, and indeed, she looked as beautiful as ever sitting there in her sleep. Her white hair was a mess, flecks of blood still visible on her lips, but she was beautiful nevertheless.

It was also, Callus knew, the first time she’d slept in days. Aoife’s death (the other Aoife? the original Aoife?) had hit him hard but it had damn near killed Shae, just as Madeleine’s death had once destroyed her. Seeing Shae able to sleep was, besides seeing Aoife returned to them, the best thing Cailus could’ve hoped to see when they’d left the Pandora two weeks past.

Hobbling on his damaged knee, he focused on getting dressed. It was a difficult affair, given his injuries, but Cailus eventually managed it, his shoulder no longer hurting at all, even if it hit very stiff. He quickly checked their course and status in the cockpit then headed back to replicate some coffee. Knowing that the sound and smell would inevitably wake Shae, he shrugged and replicated some of her favourite tea as well.

Though asleep, Shae’s ears remained upright and alert, swiveling to follow the sound of Cailus getting dressed and moving to the cockpit, then again when he returned to the replicator, but what really bolted her to full alertness what the robust smell of coffee, and for some reason, she wanted some!

“Mmm, that smells good!” Shae said, then yawned and stretched, ending with a glance around her at the mess she’d made with all the medical supplies. She hadn’t cleaned up, but she could do that once she had something in her stomach. She checked Aoife’s vitals before clamoring to her paws and walking towards Cailus, although when he offered her the tea, she took the coffee.

“Oh, that hits the spot,” she said after taking a sip, then after another sip, she carefully considered Cailus. “How are you feeling? I’m amazed you were able to get up and dress on your own; you’ve got two broken ribs, four bruised ribs, and your knee… I have no clue how you’re even standing right now,” she admitted.

Callus, looking slightly put out at Shae nabbing his coffee, simply shrugged as he instead sipped some tea. “I’ve had worse,” he said nonchalantly. “Besides, you used some powerful painkillers.” He glanced at Aoife with concern, the child still fast asleep on the bunk. “How is she?”

“She’s in bad shape, but stable,” Shae said, then sighed. “I’ve been trying to process what you told me, but I’m still finding it hard to believe. I mean, I’ve no reason to doubt your words as true, but it’s still so mind boggling, and also somewhat terrifying… Just makes me wonder what her state of mind will be when she wakes, and how much does she remember, and how do we treat her? She’s Aoife, but not our Aoife, but she’s the original that the other Aoife came from! I’m struggling with how to feel about all this!”

“She saved my life,” Callus repeated firmly, locking Shae’s eyes with his own. “I don’t know how she found the strength, how she even knew to do it, but she took a laser scalpel and… threatened the Director. With herself. Stopped him from finishing me off. That bastard had me dead to rights, but she stopped him. She’s ours. We’re hers. The rest…”

He sighed as he leaned back against a bulkhead, sipping some more tea. “Hell, Shae, I don’t know. The… the other Aoife, the one we lost… was a clone. Like a sister, right?”

“Oh my stars,” Shae gasped when she heard that Aoife had threatened her own life to save Cailus. But he was right, that was their daughter, the rest… it was just meaningless details… “You’re right, they are like sisters…” she echoed softly.

Just then, the sensor probe she’d left stuck on Aoife sounded a small alert, and Shae set her coffee down and rushed to their child’s side. “It’s okay, her body temperature is just getting a little low,” she said with relief as she checked the readings, then gently picked up the child, being mindful of the IV and careful not to wake her. “She won't be able to self regulate her body temperature until she puts on some weight. The other Aoife had the same problem in the beginning.”

“Right,” Callus said with a frown as he sipped his tea. “We’re still three days out from the starbase, but there aren’t any ships on our long range sensors. I don’t want to risk a distress call, either, not when we don’t know who could pick it up. We’ll just have to make do.”

“It’s alright, I anticipated this,” Shae said as she held Aoife close to share her body warmth. “There was a nutritional supplement the other Aoife was on to prime her belly for real food and help her gain weight, I made sure to hit up the medical replicators for a few batches of it before we left, as well as other supplies. Like you said, we’ll make do,” she explained, offering her mate a smile, then sat on the bunk where she gazed at Aoife in awe.

Silent for a moment, Callus simply looked at Shae and Aoife before stepping over to them. He licked his thumb and rubbed it over her lips, wiping away the flecks of blood that were left there. He and Shae were both in desperate need of a serious clean in the shuttle’s shower, of course, but that could wait. Instead, Callus considered, looking down at mother and child, ignoring the growing protest from his knee.

“We’ll have to explain this all to her one day, you know,” he said quietly. “About her… other self. Her sister. The other Aoife. Damn if that isn’t confusing. I never know which Aoife we’re talking about.”

“We could change her name, but that doesn’t really seem fair to her considering that if she has her sister’s memories then she knows her name is Aoife, and it wouldn’t be fair to her sister to retroactively change her name either, seems disrespectful… I don’t know how we’re going to deal with this,” Shae admitted with a sigh. “I just don’t know…”

That did it. The little helpless note in Shae’s voice was unbearable to Cailus, so he gently placed a hand on Shae’s cheek, turned her to face him, bent down and kissed her. It was gentle, loving and brief, just a reaffirmation and a comfort.

“We’ll work it out,” he reassured her with a voice that, while quiet, was as hard as iron. “We have years to work it out, love. A lifetime.”

Shae sniffled as she rested her forehead against his; oh how she had missed her husband these past few weeks… “Aye, we’ll figure it out, and we don’t have to do it all in one day,” she said, her features now more relaxed.

Aoife was now starting to stir, shifting around slightly in Shae’s arms to get more comfortable, and in her half-sleep daze she uttered the little chirps for her parents, and that finally broke Shae into tears.

“It’s her, it really is her…” Shae said with joy as she nuzzled into Aoife’s wiry hair, tears streaming down her cheeks.

END