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

(snips)

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.

“Right back at you, Faye.” Alex replied flatly but with a small grin. He slid the breads onto the counter.

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.”

Alex knew better than to speak to Faye at that moment. He didn’t even look at her. He reached over, squeezed her hand firmly one time, and then went about assembling their meal.

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

Alex finished rolling a hasparat and after picking up some of the spilled filling and popping it in his mouth, rubbed his hands together a few times before turning to Faye and wrapping his arms around her. He squeezed her tight for a long time and then, wordlessly, let her go and simply went back to rolling. He didn’t pry. He didn’t question or try to get her to talk. The hug said it all… It’s ok to not be ok.

Cochrane

For someone who had been rather touch adverse as an adult, Faye was finding the magic in it. How something simple as a small hug or hand resting on a shoulder could ground her when she needed it. Part of accepting his gesture was to just carry on. Faye hunted for some plates and stepped around him, helping roll one up. “We almost made it, whatever that might have looked like. We got off the ground, through the atmosphere, and even into warp. But I was just so… numb that my memory isn’t great here. Time is this unknowable thing. All I knew for sure is that it was quiet for awhile and since Cam had lost his mother and we were with T’Lora and Jaris, that that meant they were suddenly our guardians. And I liked that idea. It seemed somehow fitting. But it was just a thought because suddenly we were under attack and T’Lora yelled at us to hide. I had never heard that woman raise her voice once, but she sounded scared, Alex. And in the end both her and Jaris were killed. Just… gone, like everyone else.”

She grabbed a couple forks and tucked them in her hand while she also picked up a plate. Her free hand grabbed her glass of wine off the other counter. After all that it was finally time to eat! “And this is why I can’t tell everyone the story,” Faye said as they made their way to the table. “Because it’s too much, for one, but it’s also hasperat and tied to Jaris, a man who fought hard to reclaim his life and in the end died holding on to what he believed in, and T’Lora, who loved quietly but fiercely and was the one who first planted the idea of Starfleet in my head.”

Faye held up one of the rolled flatbreads. “A toast, to Jaris and T’Lora,” she said with a smile.

~Faye Calloway