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

(snip)

Faye’s eyes slipped closed as he recited, drawn deep into the memory of sitting in warm dark room beneath the surface of Unroth, candle flickering off the walls, casting long shadows as Lansait moved around her. His piercing and yet tender gaze as he knelt before her and recited this very poem. Faye murmured the last few lines along with Alex, and when silence fell over the room, Faye opened her grey-green eyes and found her vision blurred, her cheeks wet.

She wiped at the tears with the side of her hand, her sleeveless shirt not much use in this instance. But Faye was careful to not get them on the precious book she still cradled in her right hand. “Sorry,” she murmured. “Just…” Faye shook her head. She wasn’t sure there were words and she wasn’t sure if they were even necessary.

~Faye Calloway

Cochrane slowly opened his eyes and raised his head. “No apologies needed. Her words are quite powerful. Couple them with strong memories, and you would not be near the first to shed a tear.” and he smiled. “You know, I once saw a Ferengi pay ten thousand bars of latinum for a first edition of Volume II? He paid it and then burned the book so that no one else could ever own it…” and he smiled at the memory.

Her jaw dropped and she gazed at him in horror. All she could think of was the loss of something so beautiful and precious. She could also think of someone else who would be equally horrified and quickly brushed that memory away. It had no place here.

“Yeah… she has that kind of effect on people. You should see her in person.” and he laughed. “You haven’t lived till you have seen a Vulcan willfully and emphatically hug a non-Vulcan. It is a sight to behold…” and his eyes took on a twinkle of humor, “… and really hard on the ribs.” and he chuckled.

Cochrane

“Oh I can believe it,” Faye said as she gently closed the book and held it out to Alex. “I get Vulcans more than most people for one very simple reason: I’ve been through pon farr,” she said with a grim sort of expression. It was a detail in her medical file from her time on the Curie, but not something she had spoke of to many people. It was so tied up in the other things that had happened that often she happily skipped over it all.

~Faye Calloway