The Next Step

Posted on Sun Jun 21st, 2020 @ 4:35am by Lieutenant Kalin Brennan-Griffin PhD & Cailus Griffin
Edited on on Wed Jun 24th, 2020 @ 8:03am

Mission: New Moon Rising
Location: Corridors/Shae's Quarters
Timeline: After "The Dreaded Sickbay"

It was just as well that nobody was outside Sickbay at that particular moment, and that the deck in general was rarely visited by the crew at large. If they had, they would've seen the Chief of Security carrying the Chief Science Officer in his arms as they passing through the wide Sickbay doors, and neither lieutenant would have ever heard the end of it.

Hefting Shae in his arms as they left, Cailus strode down the corridor with purpose, her weight barely noticeable. "Comfortable?" he asked as they walked, trying to conceal his worry at being so exposed. There wasn't a chance in hell they wouldn't be seen, and it would play hell with Security once they caught wind of their boss doing something so blasted unprofessional as carrying his girlfriend through the halls.

Shae nodded with a soft 'Mhmm', then after a moment she released this little gem: "You're so cute when you're grumpy."

Rolling his eyes in amused exasperation, Cailus carefully angled Shae into the turbolift; even for her small frame, it was a tight fit. "It's a good thing you're my superior officer," he grumbled after ordering the 'lift to their destination. "I'd hate to try giving you an order. I'd always have to wonder whether there would be laughter involved."

"I'd have no problems accepting an order from you," Shae said. Then the lift changed directions and she squeezed her eyes shut as it turned her stomach. "Even now, if there was a situation and your assessment of said situation demanded that you give an order, I have enough sense to know when to defer to your judgment," she continued once her stomach calmed down.

"I'll believe that when I see it," Cailus quipped drily as the turbolift doors opened. From there it was only a few meters to Shae's quarters, the computer having thankfully diverted the 'lift as close as possible. They very nearly made it without being spotted; it was only at the last moment, as they passed by the quarters next to Shae's, that a blue-shirted man opened his door to see them passing by.

"Lieutenant, do you need help...?" the ensign asked, plainly at a loss.

"Oh no, we're good, as you were," Shae said in a weary but still cheerful tone to the Ensign, doing her best at suppressing her urge to giggle so as not to embarrass Cailus any further. Though soon after, they were in the safety of her quarters, which even Shae was grateful for at this point. "Mmmm, home sweet home," she hummed as Cailus took her straight to bed. Shae took a moment to shrug out of her duty jacket and blue work shirt, but didn't bother with her leggings or undershirt before she relaxed into the bedding. "I'm guessing you'll be heading back to work then?" she asked drowsily, fumbling with her hair to remove the clip that held her bun in place.

"Unfortunately, yes," Cailus said reluctantly, stroking her cheek as she settled into the mattress. After their revelatory conversation earlier, he found himself profoundly unwilling to leave Shae's side, especially with her still so uneasy; the pull of duty had never been so damned frustrating. "Just settle in, get some sleep. I'll pick up Aoife after my shift is over, alright? Then I'll stay with you."

"Make sure you check in with Nurse Davies," Shae reminded him. "Sometimes Aoife needs my attention during the day and Nurse Davies should know that I'm not available. Also, Aoife has physical therapy this afternoon, I try to be there as often as I can because she works a little harder for me, but I think she'll work hard for you too."

"If she follows orders as well as Mommy, I expect nothing less," Cailus said gruffly as he tenderly eased her out of the rest of her clothes, leaving Shae in just her underwear before pulling up the sheets. "Now get some sleep, love," he whispered, bending down to kiss her lightly on the forehead, forcing back concern; she was still burning hot. "I'll be back."

"Mmm, I like hearing you say that," Shae said, her heart skipping a beat when he called her 'love'. Her eyes closed and very quickly after her breathing slowed to indicate that she was already fast asleep.

As her breathing slowed and Shae curled up as she always did, Cailus' gentle look faded into grim thought as her words hit home. "And I don't care if your brothers were right," he whispered, knowing full well that Shae was too far gone to hear. "Even if you can never say it...I have faith."



That evening...

As it turned out, Miss Aoife Brennan did not like taking orders. No less than three times Cailus ended up having to abandon his work to rush to the child, including having to leave in the middle of a briefing, much to the irritation of half the Tactical Department. He didn't know if Aoife was just having a bad day, or if she somehow sensed that her mother was ill; either way, the little girl was becoming downright truculent. Even worse the ship itself was still crossing the dangerous Carnwennan Corridor, with constant ghosts on the long-range sensors which were giving everyone serious concern after the battle with the Tzenkethi.

Even for a man with five years experience as a security chief, and eight years experience as a father, Cailus was starting to get worn out by the constant back-and-forth, especially after a particularly emotionally draining memory intruded during Aoife's physical therapy. As he brought Aoife back to her quarters, the exhausted girl half-dozing in his arms, he realised wearily that it was hardly a surprise that Shae had gotten sick. If anything, it was a miracle that she hadn't started to feel the strain sooner.

Ultimately, Cailus was so deep in thought that he was taken by surprise when he reached Shae's quarters. Quickly checking to make sure Aoife was still napping, he tapped the door control and brought her inside, noting the darkness, but decided against turning on the lights to avoid waking her. With Aoife stirring back into wakefulness at the familiar smells, however, he sighed at the belated realisation.

"Well, now, that really isn't fair," he murmured at her, standing just inside the dark main room as the doors closed behind them, with only the stars through the viewport to light the room. "How can I compensate for that super nose of yours, hm?"

Aoife simply shifted in his arms and nuzzled against his chest as she tried to go back to sleep, eager for a nap after her exertions; it was tough learning how to walk! In the bedroom, Shae was still sleeping peacefully, though her nose did twitch and her ears flicked in awareness of Cailus and Aoife's return, it did nothing to disrupt her rest.

Staying still for a moment to allow Aoife to doze off again, Cailus carefully made his way to Shae's bedroom in the dark, moving as much by memory as by feel; he'd come to know Shae's quarters better than his own, lately. After a moment's consideration he took Aoife with him to the bed, sitting down next to Shae's slumbering form.

Reaching out, he touched Shae's shoulder with his warm hand. "Slept all day, have we?" he whispered, the sound barely audible.

An ear raised at the sound of him sitting on the bed, and then with his words, but it took a moment later for Shae to finally show any signs of waking. Slowly, she stretched and then turned so she was facing him, her eyes reluctantly cracking open. "Hey you," she said with a tired smile, seemingly unaware that she had been asked a question. She was still quite pale, but she wasn't nearly as warm as she had been earlier in the day. "Goodness, what time is?" she asked, then issued a heavy yawn. "I haven't missed dinner yet, have I? I'm famished!" Famished was putting it mildly; even before her stomach started cramping up, she had hardly eaten anything at all!

"Good," Cailus said with gruff approval; Shae really did seem much better, with her tail's subtle movement much better than how limp it had been before.. "This little lady has worked really hard today..." (mostly by driving me to madness, he thought with amusement) "so I'll go whip something up while you say hello, okay? She's asleep right now..."

"I can see that," Shae replied, reaching out to take Aoife from Cailus. "All that walking wears you out, doesn't?" Shae said to Aoife as she cuddled her close. "I missed you today, little one; did you miss me?" Shae said lovingly as she combed her fingers through Aoife's hair. Aoife was too far gone to even try to reply, cozying right up to her mother and falling deeper into asleep. "Thank you for looking after her today; I know she's not easy to keep up with, but it means the world to me that you did," she said to Cailus.

Standing up, Cailus shook his head as he looked down at them, silhouetted against the bed by the starlight. "Computer, lights, half," he called out, still keeping his voice quiet as he moved to the replicator. "You know I don't mind, Shae. To be honest, seeing her be such a troublemaker today was good, as strange as that may sound. It's exactly what children her age should act like." Gesturing at the replicator, he asked "Got anything in mind?"

"Something light for me, like soup, just in case my stomach isn't ready for anything heavier. I think there's a nice beef and barley soup in the patterns I brought back from home," Shae said softly as she watched her daughter sleeping. "And Aoife will eat pretty much anything you put in front of her, just make sure she gets some vegetables in her," she added.

Scrolling through Shae's personal list of meals, Cailus glanced back at them wryly. "She's probably as hungry as you after all that work she put in with her PT. Rebekah looked happier than I've ever seen when we were finished, and Aoife was dozing off before we even left Sickbay."

"Aye, she's so close to walking, I can feel it!" Shae said with some excitement. "Just need to get these little legs straightened out and I'll bet there will be no stopping her after that," she continued proudly, nuzzling into Aoife's hair affectionately.

After the tray had materialised with a steaming bowl of soup on one side and an odd sort of vegetable-and-bread combination on the other, Cailus carried it over to a small table, looking back at the bed again with raised eyebrows. "Unless you want to risk the blankets, you'll have to drag yourself over here if you want your soup."

"I'm getting up, just give me a minute" she replied. Carefully, she laid Aoife onto the bed so she could continue to nap, then Shae slowly sat and worked her way out of bed to put on some comfortable pajama pants and a tank top to lounge in. She was still quite shaky as she made her way to the table to eat, but at least she was getting around on her own. "I'm going to let her sleep a little while longer," she said as she joined Cailus at the table.

As Shae dug into her soup across from him, Cailus watched her with his patient brown eyes, thinking hard. "Shae..." he finally said hesitantly, before glancing away at the stars as they raced by. "About earlier...about Aoife. I wish you'd told me how hard it's been, taking care of her on your own." Pausing, his heart accelerating, he took a breath. "I...could've helped. Could still help."

"I would never turn down an offer for help, especially now," Shae said bluntly. She took another sip of her soup then set her bowl down to really give the matter some thought. "I didn't tell you because I... I know how hard it is for you to deal with Aoife and I didn't want you to feel like you had to help out before you were ready, so I've refrained from asking for you to watch her unless I had no other alternatives. I guess I was hoping that with time you would offer to help simply because you wanted to, but I had no right to ask you to play father to her when it was clear that you were still struggling to cope with your loss. And maybe my pride got the better of me, but I really thought I was handling everything well enough on my own," she explained softly.

"Well, let me put it this way," Cailus said drily, leaning back into his chair. "Have you dropped her yet?"

"Excuse me?" So baffled was Shae by this question that her ears stood up as if to hear him better.

Struggling to contain a grin, Cailus shook his head; she really was adorable on the rare occasions he actually managed to confuse her. "The simple fact that you're so surprised by that question means you're doing fine as a parent. Much better than I did, at any rate." Standing up and moving again to the replicator, he ordered a couple of drinks before returning with his cider and her tea.

"Shae," he said more seriously after he sat down, "consider this me...offering."

"You- you've dropped.. Victoire?" Shae tried to suppress her giggles, not just because she didn't want to embarrass Cailus but also because it still hurt her stomach a bit. She had let Aoife fall a few times, but it wasn't really a fair comparison as it had been during PT; Rebekah wanted Aoife to learn how to fall and pick herself back up. "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, I know I shouldn't laugh, I'm sorry," she babbled as she calmed her giggles. Grateful for the tea, she took a sip, a big smile still on her face. "And thank you; I guess I didn't realize just how much I needed the help until today."

"For as long as you'll have me," Cailus affirmed simply, repeating her words from earlier as he shrugged off his uniform jacket. Glancing at Aoife's slumbering form, he couldn't resist a pointed smile. "For as long as you'll both have me, I suppose."

Shae smiled with a blush at the sound of her own words being recycled for such a perfect response. "Move in with us," she said, somewhat astonished that she managed to even ask. "I... I know that in the grand scheme of things, we haven't been together that long.... well, long enough for a pregnancy scare but... it really hasn't been that long for us. Even still, it feels right; you spend most of your nights here with us anyway, so I was kind of hoping we could... yeah..." Her blushed continued to rise as she spoke until finally she just stopped talking and took a sip of her tea, waiting with breath held for him to answer.

Even before she'd finished speaking, Cailus was already smiling, the muted light reflecting oddly off his brown eyes. "You're right, it's quick. Very quick." Before she had a chance to panic, he carefully caught her eyes with his own. "Yes, of course. Waking up with you every morning is...I don't know. I don't have the words for it. I'm not...eloquent, like you."

"Sometimes you don't need words; sometimes being speechless says enough on its own," Shae replied with a shrug. She had this glowing smile, overjoyed to bursting that he wanted to move in with her! "You should probably go wake Aoife; if she's this tired that she hasn't woken on her own already, then she'll probably go to bed early tonight, but she still needs to eat and take a bath."

Standing up, Cailus nodded, once more stern and serious, although he couldn't conceal that barely-perceptible gliimmer in his eye. It wasn't a particularly big change in practice, but still...the idea that "home" would now be here, with them, filled him with surprising warmth. "Since I'm apparently about to move in, I might as well do that. And...I suppose I'll bring my gear over tomorrow. I might need an anti-grav pad for the models Sophia's husband sent over, though, they're a bit heavy..."



To the distinct relief of Cailus, feeding and bathing Aoife proved simple, even easy. Despite almost a century passing since he had last taken care of a child, it proved oddly routine, and Aoife was strangely cooperative at having someone new navigate the mush-laden spoon into her mouth. After she was washed (and after a somewhat bemusing experience of learning how to dry a tail without any subsequent growling), he laid her gently down into the crib, an utterly alien soft smile on his face as he did so.

Shae was just beaming all the while; Aoife must have been really tired if she wasn't fighting Cailus, or maybe she simply liked Cailus that much? Which brought to mind something that she had intentionally been putting off telling him, something she wasn't certain how he would react to, but now felt as good a time as any...

"She thinks you're her father," Shae said softly as she joined him at the crib, putting her arms around him and gazing down at the peacefully slumbering Aoife. "I know you've heard us making sounds at each other; Rebekah thinks it's good that we can communicate in our own way, but she's barred me from Aoife's speech therapy because our way of communicating is hindering her ability to learn proper verbal communication. Anyway, Aoife has a unique sound for everyone she knows; Rebekah, Dr Kolbeck and even his cat, my mother... Although she uses the same sound for the both of us, she doesn't differentiate, she doesn't see you any differently than she sees me; you've always been there, you've comforted her and me, we sleep together so our scents are all over each other, so in her eyes you are every bit as much her parent as I am. I... I haven't tried to encourage this, but neither do I have any way of telling her otherwise, so..." Shae trailed off with a sigh, uncertain of what else she could say.

"It's strange." Cailus' voice was a murmur, his hands resting on hers. "When I thought you might be pregnant...hell, I reacted badly. Stupidly. I was terrified, and I'm sorry. But you, telling me that?" Pausing as Aoife turned over in her sleep, he sighed, turning around to encircle his own arm around Shae, looking down at her. "I know we haven't talked much about the future, and...Aoife will learn the truth eventually. But for now...if you're comfortable with it..."

"I understand why you reacted as you did, and really it's fine," Shae assured him, then rested her head on his chest. "But this... it's something that has weighed on my mind for some time, and I didn't know how to tell you. I confess, I was somewhat worried you would react as you did earlier, which I wouldn't fault you for it you did, but I am relieved you are willing to accept this, accept her and a place in her life. This means more to me than you can ever know." You mean more to me than you can ever know...

Holding her for a long, timeless moment, Cailus broke it reluctantly with a kiss on the top of her head as he felt Shae's legs quake against his own, a reminder that Shae was still not in the best shape. "Come on, now, let's get back to bed," he said quietly. It was still extremely early, of course, and he still hadn't exercised or done a dozen other things, but it had been the kind of day that made even the best laid plans go awry.

"That sounds lovely," Shae said with some relief, pulling away to ease herself back into bed. She watched as Cailus dressed for bed, then turn out the lights and slip into bed beside her. Shae was quick to move closer, nuzzling against his chest with a contented chuff as they settled in for the night. "Mmm, mine," she said happily.

With a silent chuckle as he snaked his left arm around her, Cailus smiled in contentment against her hair, happier than he'd been in eighty-eight years. "I really should complain about being treated as property...but in this case, I don't think I mind," he murmured into her ear, his voice teasing.

She gave him a little nip to his chest as if to reprimand him. "Not property. Mine," she said as if that cleared anything up.

"Ow," Cailus joked, chuckling again silently; even so, despite his humour, he felt that subdued thrill as he realised what Shae was building to. "Yes ma'am, whatever you say..."


Later...

As they sat there on the bed, their faces so close that they shared the same, ragged breath, he looked directly into her eyes and just basked for a long moment. Finally he lay back down, easing Shae down with him, his eyes locked with hers all the while.

Occasionally her eyes would catch the light of a star zipping by, causing them to glow eerily in the dark, her gaze never breaking from his as they lay there together. Though after a while, her eyes began to tear up, and with a sniffle she turned her head to look away from him.

“Hey, hey,” Cailus murmured with alarm, surprised by that sudden turn. He instinctively put his strong arms around her small frame, stroking her hair without conscious thought as Shae buried her face in his shoulder, her damp eyes a sudden cold spot on his skin.

Holding Shae tightly, with her tail quivering upon his knee, he frantically thought back; had he hurt her? Done something to upset her? It had been bloody wonderful...amazing. Not just physically, but beyond the physical, impossibly perfect. They had kissed so wonderfully and she’d been so fierce and simple and loving at the same time, and he had said...

Oh, you damned fool. You know exactly why she’s hurting.

Still cradling Shae, Cailus lowered his forehead into her hair, his mouth touching her ear.

“I know, okay?” he whispered with as much meaning as he could. “Shae, I know.”

Shae’s head rose so that she could look at him once again, and once again the words were caught in her throat. There was so much she wanted to say, but it all seemed to become muddled somewhere along the way to her lips. But he knew, how?

“I try, but… I just- just can’t,” she said sadly.

Tucking her chin gently, Cailus smiled ever so slightly, eyes crinkling. “I know, and I have faith, Shae. Forget the words, the labels, the pretense. We’re together. It’s all we’ll ever need.”

Shae smiled, the tears in her eyes changing from sadness to relief and happiness. She closed the distance to brush her lips against his, a tender offering to show her happiness and gratitude.