Living with the Past
Posted on Wed Jun 12th, 2013 @ 8:15pm by Captain Vorn Krace & Lieutenant Commander Sara Archer
Mission:
Renewed Beginnings
Location: USS Iapetus - Lounge
Timeline: Backpost - During Journey to McAllister Nebula
Krace stood at the forward-facing windows of the Iapetus' lounge-come-mess hall with his hands clasped loosely behind his back, gazing out at the streaking stars as the ship travelled through warp to its destination. He could have enjoyed this view from any number of locations on the ship, including his own quarters, but he liked the mixture between the calmness outside and the activity within, and most of the crew who hadn't been recent additions following their last layover were comfortable enough with him to continue their discussions without altering their behaviour any. On reflection, Krace decided that it had been too long since he had come down here and just immersed himself in his crew.
Sara sat alone near the corner of the lounge, gazing out at the stars in front of them. She sipped her Glaapian Fireheart, a reminder of yet another missing friend. She seemed to go through friends faster than the warp core burned through deuterium. Like Morgan, Jordan had a special place in her heart. At least he was reassigned so that he could be with his family following his brother's death. Morgan's loss was much more of a gut punch. The new security officer tried to shake these thoughts from her head. She was the last person on the ship that could afford to be emotionally compromised. Hopefully the Fireheart does the trick.
Krace noticed the security officer out of the corner of his eye, and could immediately tell that she had something that was preoccupying her. Though since she had come aboard he could hardly describe them as close friends in the way that he knew she had been with Jordan, he felt that he had come to know her well enough to be able to make an accurate judgement in this instance. Moving from his place standing in front of the window, he walked over to her table.
"Penny for your thoughts, Commander?" he asked, leaning over to try and bring himself into her peripheral vision.
"I'm not sure they're worth that much, Captain." She didn't say much else, just continued gazing out into space.
Picking up instantly on her particular down-beat attitude - a charging rhinoceros coming through the mess hall right now might be harder to miss - the captain moved to take a seat beside her, looking at her with concern. "Well they certainly seem to be worth something to you right now," he countered, probing for more information. "Anything that I can help with?"
She shook her head. There certainly were a lot of thoughts going through her head, but so far her medically mandated counseling sessions had done very little. Part of that was stubbornness on Sara's part. She simply refused to admit that she had problems, even if they were obvious to everyone else. The other reason they were failing was that some of her deepest issues came from trauma suffered during classified missions, events that she swore and oath to keep secret, even if it killed her. She could tell that the captain wasn't going to back down, but she wasn't sure what she could do. "I'm just going over past missions, sir. I'm not really sure there is anything worth sharing."
"I know you can't tell me about most of your missions before you joined us," the captain said, after a few moments. "But even if you can only speak the details to yourself, you don't have to keep all of the emotions bottled up. Starfleet can't classify your feelings," he said, with a slight grin to try and lighten her mood a little.
It might have helped, but only a little. "Have you ever lost someone close to you, Captain?"
"Not through the line of duty," Krace answered, silently grateful for that fact. Though he had lost people under his command over the years, he had yet to ever lose someone really close to him. "But I did lose my father to lung cancer a number of years ago." The memory of that time, when he had received the message from home still brought a sharp pain to his chest whenever he dwelt upon it. In truth, with modern medicine his cancer should have been treatable; it was only his stubborn attitude that had stopped him seeking help before it became terminal.
Sara never took her eyes away from the window. "I've lost many, all in the line of duty. My father was killed in a Tholian attack when I was five. My mother was at Wolf 359. I was nineteen. That was when I started to really stay away from personal relationships. Everyone I ever really knew, save my aunt on Earth, died on the Yamaguchi. Then there was the war. I met someone. Someone very special. He treated me a way no one else had ever treated me. When I was with him, I felt like I could finally start to love again. And then, when we were on a mission together, he died too."
Vorn was silent for a while as he digested what she had told him. "We all lost people during the war," he finally said. "But I had no idea that you had lost so much." It was surprising really when he thought about it that Sara hadn't gravitated towards her aunt as her only remaining relative - every time she had been in range of Earth, Krace had the impression that she had always been somewhat reluctant to spend a great deal of time with her. Searching for something more comforting to say, Vorn realised he didn't have a clue what it should be. He finally settled on a simple question; "Did you ever see any counsellors after the war? Ones that you told about this, that is."
She shook her head. "No, there were no counselors." Sara debated if she should tell more. For so long, she had to live alone with the pain. But nearly fifteen years after the end of the war, some missions were becoming declassified. This was one of them. "I was under orders not to reveal details of the mission, even to counselor staff in the Intel department."
Deciding that he was going to see what information his own clearance level would let him see on some of Sara's past missions, and if he could pull any strings through Acle's contacts as well, Vorn reached out and put his hand on top of hers in what he hoped was a comforting manner. "Well if you ever need someone to talk to about it; either just the feelings or the events if you can, I'm here. I bet my clearance lets me see a lot more of your past than a counsellor's does, anyway," he said, with a slight smile.
Sara didn't offer much in response other than a half-hearted attempted at a smile and a nod. "Thank you, Captain, but I've lived with it this long. I can continue to live with it."
Captain Vorn Krace
Commanding Officer
&
Lt. Commander Sara Archer
Chief of Security & Second Officer
USS Iapetus
