Posted by Commander Shara Calloway (Chief Intelligence Officer) in Gadi’s Quarters

Posted by Lieutenant Commander Bethany Kovra Gadi (Chief of Security) in Gadi’s Quarters

Posted by Commander Shara Calloway (Chief Intelligence Officer) in Gadi’s Quarters
Posted by… suppressed (3) by the Post Ghost! 👻

(snip)

Bethany watched her pace back and forth and then sit down again. Bethany was quiet while Shara contemplated whatever thoughts had her attention at the moment. She listened quietly while Calloway talked and then before considering an answer, “From your mouth to my ears only. I promise.” Then she was quiet giving though to what she had been told. It was a situation that Bethany had absolutely no experience with. “I guess the first thing you have to decide is if you feel like he told you as soon as he possibly could. Withholding information is part of the job, but as you said there is nothing normal about this. You both need to find where the line is between where the job ends and where your marriage takes precedence. Of course I have absolutely no experience that comes close to this, so high probability I am totally wrong.”

Bethy took a deep sip off her mug. “I’m going to tell you something, and maybe it helps and maybe it doesn’t. My mentor and her husband and her best friend served on the same ship together for many years. During their tenure her husband, Jake, died 5 times. Well was presumed dead. Jake told me it got to the point where each new mission just put more and more strain on both of them.”

“Now what you have to understand about my mentor, she’s half Vulcan, but she was raised human so none of that pure emotionless logic there. Now Jake is one of the most emotional men I’ve ever met, but he always deals with it head on. So he’d try to talk to her, hash it out, and well, she’d spent too many years doing the work we do, and keeping it to herself, so she’d get more and more logical. And that just drove Jake crazy, he couldn’t stand it. Till one day he’d just had enough.”

“The idea of putting her though that again, putting them both through it was just too much, and there she is all calm and logical. He said he kind of snapped and started yelling and screaming at her. He said she looked at him, blinked, and then started screaming back. He said some of the things they said were absurd, irrelevant, childish, even comical but needed to be said because that’s how they felt. He said after that, each new mission they’d have a screaming match, get it all out. Then they were able to decide how to do their duty to Star Fleet and the Federation, but more importantly how they were going to help each other get back.”

“I’m not saying, Shara, that you and your husband need to have a shouting match, but you need to get it all out, ever last drop of every thought and emotion your having, so you can see it, deal with it, and then make a plan. And sometimes just straight talking isn’t the best way to get all that out.”

Gadi, CoS

She didn’t know how, and that was a strange and simple truth. Shara opened her mouth to speak but wasn’t sure what to say. There were things buried so deeply she rarely let them to the surface and all of a sudden they were sitting right there. But she couldn’t let them out or they would destroy her. Especially now. her lungs expanded fully as she closed her eyes and held her coffee tumbler against her chest. “I’ll keep it in mind,” she said quietly. “Micah and I haven’t really had a fight before. I want to say that we’re too old for that nonsense, but I suppose that’s foolishness. Edward and I never really fought. It’s been so long Bethy. I’ve forgotten what being married is like. I’m not sure I know how to be a wife anymore, or what that exactly means at this point in my life.”

Commander Calloway, CIO

“I’m not saying have a fight, just that some emotions, some…fears are too big to deal with calmly. As for how to be a wife, I have no idea. I have never even come close to considering the idea with anyone. I always assumed that you just continue to be yourself. That’s the person he feel in love with and married, right? I guess that’s how it is in my fantasy. We both can be ourselves because who the person already is allows us to just be who we are and vise versa. I think I’ll stop rambling now though before I accidently say something offensive in my naivete.” Bethany watched Shara closely though. The pulled in tumbler to her chest and the closed eyes. She couldn’t fathom the choice Shara was having to make or the consequences and Bethy knew she didn’t know the whole story. That was okay though, instinctively she knew she didn’t need to know and she always trusted her instincts.

Gadi, CoS

Shara couldn’t help but chuckle. “That’s just it. Micah and I have only been married a handful of weeks. We’re still figuring out how to be together and we’ve not had major conflict before.” She shook her head and blew out a breath. “He and I haven’t really known each other all that long. Three months. But…” a smile graced her slips as she opened up her eyes. “I was engaged for a brief time after I came back to the Alpha Quadrant. But it was wrong. He was the wrong one for me. I wanted him to be someone he wasn’t. But Micah? Ahh, Bethy, he knows our work, what it costs us. HIs had cost him too. He knows what I’ve been through. I think this is why this mission is so hard. Because he knows what he’s asking of me. And it makes me angry, but the stakes are too high for me to be angry. So maybe you’re right. Maybe we need to hash everything out whether it makes sense or not. But I’m not good at that, at losing my control.”

Commander Calloway, CIO

Bethy grinned, “Well then it sounds like you two know each other really well then. It’s experience and not time that connects two people. Why don’t you just start by telling him what you told me and see what happens? And if you feel the need to not be calm, not not quite out of control, that’s okay too.” Bethy took a long swallow of her coffee. “Tell you what. You’re at the end of the corridor and it’s just me as your neighbor. You call him down here, and I’ll make myself scarce. I’ve got plenty of work to do.”

Gadi, CoS

Shara shook her head. “I appreciate that bu Micah and I will sort our shit out when we’re ready to, and knowing how stubborn we both are? Not a damn minute before. But I gotta get to work too. Apparently we’re undertaking major covert operations here and someone went and made me Chief of Intelligence.” She shrugged. “But I asked for it, didn’t I?” She swallowed the last of the coffee.

“Thanks for the joe. Shall I keep the tumbler for now and bring it back clean, or leave it here?” she asked.

Commander Calloway, CIO

Bethany nodded, “Offer stands whenever. I’ll take care of the tumbler and have it ready for you again tomorrow.” Bethy took both and set them on the desk to clean. “Well I have to go see how good my tactical officers are. If you need anything from me or the dept just let me know.”

Gadi, CoS