A Time For Reflection

Posted on Sat Jan 6th, 2018 @ 7:30pm by Lieutenant Temperance Zachary

Mission: https://wellington.pegasusfleet.site/index.php/sim/missions/id/4
Location: Quarters

It had been a few days since the intervention had happened, and Temperance had deliberately avoided going back to Cally's quarters out of fear of upsetting the other woman. She knew Cally was in for a really rough time, and the last thing she would want was a stranger, how ever well meaning, hanging around and bothering her. But now she felt the need to check in and see how the other woman was handling the process.

Pressing the door chime, Temperance stood back, holding a giant teddy bear in her arms, waiting. There didn't seem to be any kind of protocol for a "I'm sorry I helped force you to get sober" type gift, and Temp really wasn't sure if the liked chocolate or not, so she figured a teddy bear was a safe bet. If she didn't want to hug it, she could at least beat the crap out of it.

The door slid open and Calypso stood there, hair only somewhat messy, as if she hadn't combed it that day, but less than an absolute and total mess. She was in sweatpants and a sweatshirt, hands hidden in the sleeves. She flashed the barest hint of a smile to Temperance when she recognized her, also noting the bear in her arms, then her eyes went down and she shrugged a shoulder in an invitation to come in, "Afternoon." She said quietly.

Stepping into the quarters, Temp held out the bear, offering a smile. "There didn't really seem to be anything appropriate to say 'Sorry for getting involved in your personal business when I just met you,' but I figure if you didn't like bears you can just beat on it a bit, picture me when you're doing it and you might feel better?" She held the giant bear out to Cally as the doors closed behind her. "But, seriously, how are you holding up?" she asked, her voice resonating with genuine concern.

Cally seemed to shiver as she stood there, but grabbed the bear and squeezed it to herself, "Thank you..." She said quietly, "I'm... Doing better, mostly. Can I get you anything?" She shuddered again.

Temp shook her head. "I'm just here to make sure you're ok..." She frowned as she took a step closer to Cally. "You're not really okay, are you." It wasn't really a question, more a simple statement. "Do you want to talk about it?"

"I'm frazzled." It was a coherent thought and statement, more than she'd really been capable of the last three days and Cally walked over to the couch, still clutching the giant bear and glanced at Temperance and then around the sitting area, "And yeah, I'm cold..." She shook her hand out, showing at least one long sleeved shirt under the sweatshirt. She shivered again and got the hand inside the sleeve again.

"Do you want me to get you a blanket?" Temp asked, her voice full of concern. "I can make you a hot chocolate if that will help?" She walked across to the single chair and sank down onto the edge of it, feeling resoundingly guilty for the part she had played in making the other woman so miserable, even if it was necessary.

"Doesn't really help. Doc says it's my body trying to tell me something's really missing, like it wasn't before. New doc, little redhead." Cally crossed her legs under her, huddling into as much of a ball as she could make herself, "Can't cry anymore either. Too exhausted for it."

"I can't even begin to pretend that I understand what you're going through, because I don't, not really... but, I will do anything I can to make it easier for you. I know you don't know me, so you don't have any real reason to trust me, especially not given... well... this... but I'm here for anything, I can make cocoa, I can fetch blankets, I can listen, or I can sit here and talk random nonsense. Any which way you like it." Temperance finally stopped talking, suddenly aware she was rambling a lot.

"Can you make the voices go away?" Calypso asked very quietly, "They keep coming back asking me why. Why I lived, why I didn't let them live, why I wasn't a better pilot, why, why, why, why, why." She closed her eyes and squeezed them tightly, "They were there, then they were gone, all of them, just gone."

Temperance exhaled softly, realisation suddenly dawning on her as to what the root cause of all Cally's problems were. "It takes a long time to make them go away," she said softly. "And then, for a long time after they stop, every time you hit a weak moment, the voice is there again, the face, questioning, begging..." She shook her head slowly. "It's hard, feeling like you're going crazy because no one else sees and no one else understands, but to you it's the most real feeling in the world, the feeling of constant torment."

Cally reached up and tapped her head, "No, not just that. They were up here, I FELT them and then I didn't. I felt nervousness, fear, excitement, determination. Then nothing. One moment, everything around me was alive, the next I felt alone in my head, and I had my copilot all over me, a hole in the cockpit. Jesus, he was a kid, just a kid." She started sobbing, no tears coming out and she buried her face in the bear.

Temperance jumped up, moving to the edge of the couch and resting her hand on Cally's shoulder. "It wasn't your fault Cally," she said gently. "He doesn't blame you, none of them do, but that doesn't help as long as you blame yourself."

"It was my fault." Calypso said, muffled by the bear, "I saw the pattern of incoming fire and did what they wanted. And then I kept control of the shuttle and got her on the ground. I knew what I would see, but I didn't want to believe it. And then I was a coward and stayed alive."

Shaking her head gently, Temperance disagreed. "No, staying alive wasn't cowardly. It was the hardest and most bravest thing you could have done. There would be no honour in cutting your own life short," she said softly. "It takes a very strong and courageous person to do what you do, it takes an even stronger person to keep going afterward. Cally, you are incredibly strong..."

"Bullshit." Cally said, glaring at Temperance, "If I were strong, I wouldn't be in this position in the first place. If I were strong, I could have dealt with it by just going to a counselor, by going to my friends, but wait, I didn't have any friends. The counselors on the transport were booked for weeks, so I did what I needed to do. And I kept on until I didn't hear them anymore. Bullshit I'm 'strong'."

"But that's what makes you strong," Temperance replied calmly. "You are strong because you have gotten this far... You are have showed so much strength and courage to get this far... but you don't have to do this alone now, because you have friends here who care about you..." her voice trailed off and she sighed softly. "When I was 18 my best friend was killed. I was a headstrong cadet in my first year at the Academy and I made myself involved in something I had no business being involved in, he came along because he was my friend. I tried to tell him not to come, but he wouldn't listen and came anyway. He was the one that paid the ultimate price. I got to go back to the Academy, I got to move on with my life, but every single time I closed my eyes I could see his face, I could see him reaching for me, crying out to me..."

Temp paused for a moment, closing her eyes. "I didn't have friends to talk to and to be honest I couldn't bear the thought of talking to someone and having them tell me it was all my fault, because I already knew that. Survivors guilt is a very hard thing to have to live with. Every day I kept wondering what could I have done differently. Could I have argued more and made him stay away? Could I have done something different to save him? There was not a single day that went by that I didn't feel guilty, and there still isn't... I just found different ways to cope with it."

"I found discovering the bottom of bottles helps." Cally said quietly, "But what happened? What did you walk into?"

With a quick shake of her head, Temp tried to smile. "The bottle only delays the inevitable," she replied sadly. "You need to find a healthier way to cope, because killing yourself slowly with alcohol poisoning and liver failure isn't a nice way to go. Now you just need a little more courage to get through this next part, and things will be ok. They aren't going to be great, but they will be ok... and they will get better all the time, I promise."

"Tried running, tried lifting, tried sports, tried pretty much everything I could think of. Hell, tried switchig to the Fleet itself." Cally shook her head, "You have any ideas?"

"Have you tried talking to them?" Temperance asked quietly. "Telling them goodbye? Say anything left unsaid?" She paused for a moment. "I know it sounds ridiculous, talking to a dead person... About 2 years after Dom was killed I paid a Ferengi to create a holodeck program for me where I could go and sit and talk to Dom... after I threatened to rip his lobes off and made him recreate it without the sleazy stuff, it helped. I know it was just a holoprogram, but it gave me a chance to tell him how sorry I was, how I wished I could have made it different... it gave me a chance to say everything I never got to say to him, it helped to give me closure."

"What is there to say? 'Sorry you died, shit luckthat I turned the wrong way'? Yeah, perfect thing ti say." Cally was starting to get nasty again, a sure sign that she was backsliding.

"If that's what you want to say, sure. Personally I'd probably word it a bit differently, but each to their own." Temperance shrugged slightly. "I don't know, maybe it won't even help, maybe you shouldn't do it. Maybe you should just go back to the bar and drink yourself dead, but then what honour does that serve their memories? If you take the cowards way out after being strong for this long." She stood up and moved back to the single chair, sinking down onto it gracefully, watching the other woman carefully.

"Strong, right... Everyone thinks I'm strong! You, Hailey, that other doctor, that goddamned NURSE!" Cally's voice rose, "I'm not!"

“What do you want me to say?” Temperance asked. “Do you want me to tell you that you’re a coward? Do you want me to tell you it’s ok to drink yourself to death and hide from reality?”

"I want you, and Hailey, and the others to stop telling me I'm a strong-ass woman! I'm just another Betazoid! I'm not special! I'm weak, like everyone else! I can be wrong, I can have faults, I can, I can, I can..." Cally trailed off.

“You’re right....”. Temp finally conceded. “You’re weak. You’re just another weak-ass Betazoid who would rather drink herself to death than face reality. You know what, yes, Reality is an absolute bitch sometimes, and life is damn hard, especially when you’ve been through hell and back. But I don’t have to tell you that, you already know. The difference is right here and right now you have friends who want to help you, to give you strength and to get you through, but if all you want to do is spit in heir faces. If you want to drink yourself to death then go ahead, say the word, I will unlock the doors for you right now and let you go for it. Just don’t expect your friends to stand around and watch. The choice is yours Cally.”

Of everything, that shut Calypso up. She was just arguing because it helped get the hurt out, but now she'd just had that thrown back at her. She remained silent for thirty seconds and stared at Temperance. She opened her mouth and shut it again, saying nothing.

“So tell me, Cally Two Ways, which way is it going to be?” Temperance’s frustration softened a little and she sighed. “Look, i’m Sorry, I know you’re hurting, I know you are angry, I know you are suffering... but you have people here and now who want to help. You just need to make the decision to let them in.”

"Just Cally, or Calypso." Cally sighed, "And I don't want to burden anyone else with my failure. Hales doesn't tolerate failure in herself, I can only imagine what she'd think of me if she found out what a wreck I am and why."

“Cally”, Temperance started to speak softly. “If Hailey, or anyone else, thought you were a burden, no one would be here. Hailey is here because she cares about you.” She drew a deep breath. “And god knows, so am I. I have so few friends I can’t afford to even let a potential friend fall by the way side. If you don’t want me to be here, just say so... I am not going to force you, it seems I have already totally screwed up in that part... so, you need to tell me Cally, what do YOU want now?”

"If the Skipper finds out, I'm fucked." Cally said quietly, "That's probably why Hales took me off duty on leave for a coiple weeks, right? I... I don't know what I want. Oh, I WANT to find the nearest bottle of whiskey and drown myself in it, hell a keg. But if I get canned, most likely I'm going to disappoint my parents even more and take a dive out of a shuttle without a 'chute."

"Seems like you have a good reason to not disappoint anyone else... but what about not disappointing yourself," Temperance said softly. "What do you want for yourself. Because the one thing I do know is that if this isn't in your heart then nothing you do will ever work. Until you want it for yourself, all you're going to do is go through the motions to make others happy."

"That means I need to go back towards Earth." Cally sighed, shuddering and finally released the death grip on the bear, "I need to find Jerry's parents and Shelly's husband. Find out if they hate me for surviving. They should."

"They aren't going to hate, you, I can promise you that much... you have a communications console in your desk right there don't you?" Temp asked softly. "You can talk to them any time you like."

"I will." Cally said after a few more seconds of thinking, "Tomorrow. Not today, today I'll find out who and where they are, then tomorrow."

Temperance nodded slightly. "Well, if you want company, I'm just a call away..." She stood up and smiled wanly. "I think I've done enough damage today, I'll leave you in peace for a while... take care Cally..."

OFF:
Lieutenant Temperance Zachary
Chief Strategic Operations Officer
USS Wellington

Lieutenant Calypso Skyie
Chief Flight Control Officer
USS Wellington