Posted by Captain Alexander Cochrane (Commanding Officer) in Captain’s Quarters- If You Can’t Stand the Heat

Posted by Lieutenant Faye Calloway (Mission Specialist) in Captain’s Quarters- If You Can’t Stand the Heat

Posted by Captain Alexander Cochrane (Commanding Officer) in Captain’s Quarters- If You Can’t Stand the Heat
Posted by… suppressed (3) by the Post Ghost! 👻

(snip)

She nodded with appreciation, but also the pieces of his story fit together suddenly. “I think it often does. But then again hindsight is a strange thing and sometimes it can remove the… intensity of the moment. I think that’s why maybe I couldn’t see my recent decisions the way you could. I had almost too much hindsight.” She gave him a lopsided grin. “That and a lot of really intense emotions. Gets me every time.”

“But I think knowing that, Jaris would be secretly honoured,” she said with a deciding nod.

With her fingers, Faye tested the dough, immersed momentarily in the small joy of poking at something soft. Then she flipped it, pressing it down with her fingertips despite the heat. Clearly they hadn’t been babied in the past. “I said I don’t teach people how to make this, and the reason is that Jaris was too special to me and despite everything else I can isolate this one memory out of all the others as actually being happy. Even though he himself makes me sad, this doesn’t. It’s like there is a special shield around this memory, because it was from before.”

~Faye Calloway

Alex nodded and listened, quietly watching Faye. “Its those memories that keep us going. It’s those kind of things that center us and keep us from becoming… lost… I think.” He watched her work the dough a bit longer before he said “So once all of this shadow business is behind us… what are you going to do then, Faye? Have you thought about it? Or are you just going to let fate steer the ship?”

Cochrane

She shrugged. “Maybe a bit of both,” she said as she pulled the flatbread off and set it to the side. She gestured to the skillet. “Okay, your turn to try,” Faye said as she stepped to the side to give him room.

“I have some stuff to work through that’s clouding my head, and my work here is still vital so this is what I’ll be doing for the foreseeable future, but…” Faye looked at Alex, chewing on her lower lip, almost embarrassed. “I though while I was here that maybe I could do some distance education. You know… some command training stuff. I’d need a really good reference though,” she added with a tiny smile.

~Faye Calloway

Alex stepped up to the dough and began frying it as she had. One of the reasons he was such a good dancer and musician… mirroring movements came naturally to him. As he worked the bits of dough in the skillet he stuck his chin toward the desk. “Go grab that PaDD and pull up the most recent file.”

Casting him a curious glance, Faye moved across to the desk and lifted the PaDD.

The PaDD was dark laying on the desk, but when activated it showed a single file had recently been created… it was a request to begin Command Training Mentorship. Mentor: Captain Alexander Cochrane. Mentee…

Lieutenant Faye Calloway

Cochrane

She snorted. “I don’t know if I’m amused or a little creeped out. Are you secretly a telepath there Cochrane?” Faye teased.

Faye waved the PaDD. “How did you know?” Such a simple question, with possibly a very simply answer, and yet the whole thing felt weighty to her in a way she couldn’t quite explain.

~Faye Calloway

“Nope, no mind-spy in my genetics. And I knew because it seemed the next logical thing to do.” and he stopped frying and looked at her. “Because after all this, I know you are ready. You have learned the one thing they can’t teach in Command School… the need to invest all yourself in what you do. Because at the end of the day, what all Command Officers know whether they admit it or not; is that no matter who we are or what ship we are on… the greater good always comes first. You chose the greater good… even knowing what the cost may have been. And unlike most… you didn’t hesistate. And that’s when I knew.” and he went back to cooking.

Without looking up, he said “Now, you are going to brush that off by saying something like you just weren’t thinking that far ahead… but you and I both know that when you do say that you will be full of s^%t. So do us both the consideration of just taking the damn compliment, okay Faye?” and he smiled as he flipped the now cooked bread.

Cochrane

Faye had opened her mouth to saying thing ad promptly stopped, her cheeks warming. Busted. But she tossed him a grin as she set the PaDD down and moved back to the kitchen. “I hate you sometimes,” she said, still grinning.

Moving to the warm pan of vegetables, she gave it a stir to check it was still doing okay. “Okay, once the flatbreads are ready, all we do is spread a thin even layer of the veggie mix over the surface, leaving the edge clear. Then you roll it up and voila, hasperat!”
She was always going to share this part, but there was a moment when she hesitated and Faye gazed at Alex. And of course, they were now past that point of needing to clarify each other’s trustworthiness, so she simply leaned into the next part of her story. “I don’t talk about Tracken, Alex. I’ve never really talked about it with anyone. Sure, the odd anecdote here and there, but it was always just ‘the colony I grew up on’, even after my being a former Maquis came out. But the thing that always got me if that there’s been no one to talk to about it who was there, who remembers. When I made the original offer to teach you to make this, I knew I would tell you more of the story than I’ve told others, but I didn’t know until tonight just how much.”

She had to steady her nerves and take some calming breaths before she could continue. “It took only three days for the Dominion to destroy every Maquis settlement and holding. We were so far away from where any possible help from the Federation might come from that it wouldn’t have mattered if we could have sent out a distress call. It was always going to be too late.” Inhale. Exhale. “I was on the other side of the settlement when the alarms went off. By the time I made it to the centre, near what was our community hall, it was already half over. The Cardassians milled about like they owned the place while the Jem’Hadar… well, did what Jem’Hadar did best. The plan in an emergency was to get to specific safe spots and to the ships. So that’s what I did. Had to kill a Cardassian glin I ran into but eventually I made it.” It came out the way it sounded in her head- a glossed over point that allowed her to not think too hard about the fact that that had been the first person she had looked in the eyes and killed. On purpose. “Just before I got to the ship, I ran into my dad and he hauled me on that ship as fast as we could. The boy I was sort of seeing, my best friend Cameron, was there, as were T’Lora and Jaris, who were getting the ship ready to take off.” She had dropped her gaze at this point, since eye contact through this part was too much. Instead, he watched the flatbread cook. “Long story short, my dad made me promise to get away from there and live and go live a different life. He didn’t want me to be Maquis so I could have a chance. And then he left me there with his best friends and went to buy us time to get off the surface. Cameron tried to make me not watch the Cardassians take him down, but it seemed cowardly given he was sacrificing himself.”

She meant to keep going, but suddenly Faye felt that numbness start to creep in from the tips of her fingers and toes.

~Faye Calloway