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

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

Posted by Lieutenant Commander Bethany Kovra Gadi (Chief of Security) in Gadi’s Quarters- Commiseration
Posted by… suppressed (7) by the Post Ghost! 👻

(snip)

Shara reached down and lifted the velvet bag. “So I guess you don’t want what I brought, huh?” she said with a gleam in her eye. “And how drunk do you want to be?” It was a good question for herself, since she wasn’t sure what the answer was.

~Shara Calloway, CIO

Bethany eyed the velvet bag, “We can do both. They say mixing your liquor makes you drunk faster.” Bethany sighed. She wanted to be so drunk she couldn’t hear or feel anything anymore. She couldn’t tell Shara that though. That was a secret she couldn’t let out. “So drunk I can forget everything for awhile. Maybe enough to give me permanent amnesia.”

Lt. Cmdr. Gadi, COS

“I highly recommend against killing brain cells,” Shara said wryly as she undid the ties and pulled out a squat bottle with a dark purple liquid inside. She got up and retrieved a glass from the drawer Bethy had gone to earlier and returned to her place on the sofa near Bethy. “This is called tola, from a planet I can’t mention and whose presence here in my hands I couldn’t possibly explain,” she said with a gleam in her eyes. “But it’s a curious drink, tasting somewhere between rum and whiskey. It’s… strong. Not quite Micah’s ‘shine strong, but it does go down so smoothly you don’t realize it’s actually affecting you.” She wiggled the bottle. “Game to try?”

~Shara Calloway, CIO

It was stupid. She’d already had the majority of a bottle of whiskey to herself. She should not be drinking. She didn’t normally, but being around Shara made her do things she didn’t normally do. Well she was in the mood for stupid. Being smart never got her much. “Give me a glass.”

Lt. Cmdr. Gadi, COS

Shara was being mindful about the situation, but in truth she was no one’s mother here, and they were both adults willing to deal with the consequences. She poured a double measure of the liquor and forewent any suggestion to try a small sip first. Bethy was drunk enough that she probably wasn’t going to be offering tasting notes.

She handed the glass over and poured the same for her. She lifted it. “To making it through. We might not be in one piece, but we’re here and that’s more then either of us expected.”

~Shara Calloway, CIO

Bethany took the glass and raised it. She didn’t return the toast. She hadn’t expected to come back, she hadn’t wanted to. Then that changed, and now she almost wished it hadn’t. She took a small taste. She wasn’t that far gone yet. She nodded, “smooth.” Then she knocked back a double shot worth.

Lt. Cmdr. Gadi, COS

Shara gave a taste of hers, remembering the first time she had it with a tiny fond smile before also knocking her back. The warmth spread through her even more than the whiskey had, and gave her an interesting sensation of floating on waves. It was soothing. “Is Betazed a place you would have gone to on your own?” She doubted it by context but she know she didn’t know the whole story.

~Shara Calloway, CIO

“No.” Bethany snorted and shook her head, watching the light refract through the glass and liquor. “There is absolutely nothing there for me. We left 3 months after the Dominion occupation ended.”

Lt. Cmdr. Gadi, COS

Shara nodded, deeply understanding. Though the places were different, their outcomes different, the sentiment was the same. “My son-in-law had suggested to Faye and I that maybe we could make something wonderful of Tracken again, so that the violence that destroyed it wasn’t the final message of the place. I’ve thought about it, but I can’t bring myself to be there without all the people who made it what it was. Midos is much the same way. There’s no one there I need to be around. Nadine could go and meet her father, if she chose to, and honestly going with her for support is about the only reason I could see myself choosing to go back to my childhood home. After all these years those two planets feel lost to me and I’m not feeling any compunction to find them again.”

~Shara Calloway, CIO

“Betazed doesn’t need me to help it reclaim itself. There are millions there doing it. It would be no great loss to never go back, but I always keep my word.” Bethany drained the rest of her glass. She shouldn’t, she wasn’t a drinker, but she could hold it. She held the glass out toward Shara. “Your daughter may not care to see her father. I never want to see mine again. With any luck, he’s dead.”

Lt. Cmdr. Gadi, COS

Shara threw back the rest of tola in her glass and then poured her and Bethy another. “I don’t know the context for your father, but if he was anything like mine… I get it.”

She had shared quite a bit about her and her father’s relationship during the night of the moonshine, but it had been in the context of talking about the baby girl she had given up for adoption. “Nadine though, her’s is a different situation. Curtis is a good guy. Decent. I don’t blame him for not wanting to be a father at sixteen. He did what was right for him, and I tried to do the same for myself. Nadine has hinted that she probably wants to meet him. Completing the picture of her life and all that.” She took a sip. “I did call him to warn him that he had a daughter who may or may not want to know him, and it was… interesting.” She broke into slight smile. “I think despite it all, I’m glad things went they way they did. I was never meant to stay on Midos and he deserved to have his own happiness. We could use more good people like him in this galaxy.”

~Shara Calloway, CIO