Posted by Lieutenant Faye Calloway (Mission Specialist) in Event Horizon- Amongst the Stars

Posted by James Sinclair in Event Horizon- Amongst the Stars

Posted by Lieutenant Faye Calloway (Mission Specialist) in Event Horizon- Amongst the Stars

(snips)

This part was harder but at the same time, she had been honest that Luke having left the ship was okay. Everything was okay now. “We took a walk together and were talking, and again there was that connection. He asked to see my favourite tree, and I was taking him up to the bench with the dew-drop tree I took you to, Dag, and I went to show him the view…” She paused, feeling that strange pain of being so misunderstood in what was supposed to be a poignant moment. “He made a joke about whether this was where I killed him. As if standing there with a medal of valour was nothing. Such a casual joke but he might as well have stabbed me with a knife. I yelled and stormed off. He followed and we argued. A lot. And then something shifted, Dag. Earlier in Alex’s ready room, he explained exactly why he thought I’d make a good commanding officer. And I felt that. So I stood there and for the first time ever I thought, ‘What would Captain Calloway do in this moment? How would she handle this?’ And I knew that she’d take a moment, think through the options and find a compromise. So I told him to give me thirty minutes and meet me in my lab. If he showed up, we could talk more, if he didn’t, that was that.

I went and he showed up. It was the first time he’d been in my lab and I explained the crux of my work, about the experimental side to protect agains the virus. I could tell he wasn’t fully following just how grave the situation was and how complicated my project was, but he did seem to understand when I explained how my brain works, and that all the multiple thought trains going on at once and how that means the wrong one can surface at the wrong time. Very rarely am I trying to be hurtful. It just happens and I’m often mystified myself when it does. Long story short, the part of me that wanted to feel good wanted to put the argument in the garden behind. Pretend it didn’t happen. So I made a move again and this time he didn’t turn me down. But Dag… you have to know that my decision making there was entirely cerebral. It wasn’t that I didn’t care about Luke, but I was in crisis. And when someone like me is in crisis their own emotions are buried under everything else. Being with him didn’t make me feel better, but it also didn’t make me feel worse. And that’s how I know being here with you is different, they we are different. Because I feel everything here with you at the same time as I’m thinking through it all. It’s not one or the other but both. That’s how I know what we have is different from everything else that’s come before.

Blowing out a breath, Faye braced herself for the hard part of the story. “Long story a tiny bit shorter, I had dinner with Alex and Luke came up, and oh Dag… when he explained his perspective on the whole thing”-tears began to blur her vision-“aside from Kodell and how Dez made me feel, I have never felt quite so ashamed. I didn’t know what to do with it all, but I knew I had to tread carefully with Luke. That I had already made a big mistake and I couldn’t take it back. Luke had a similar sort of moment with Alex and they had had a massive an argument over it all. And when we met up in the garden the next day I ended the causal agreement with I had with when he told me we could make each other happy. He wanted to damn everyone else and just do our own thing. I had explained about my BPD to him but he didn’t get it. I couldn’t have a relationship with him but Alex was right, he had already put us in one. And Luke was sooo angry with me when I said I wasn’t sure under the circumstances of we could even be friends. We were too dangerous to each other. I was right then, even if it could have gone back to friendship once I was out of the weeds.” She squeezed his hand firmly. “Luke stormed off and the next thing I know I’m on the holodeck with my Mom and Alex in my Muir Beach program. I can’t fully explain just how terrifying it is to have no memory of how you got from one place to another. And that’s where it happened. The counsellor was called and we went there and I finally brought up Kodell. Because it was the answer to my mom’s unspoken question about what happened to the people we loved on Tracken and what happened to me after. I disappeared, Dag. She couldn’t find me alive after Voyager got back to the Alpha Quadrant because I was on Orion, a non-person.” Faye exhaled audibly. “I went to bed that night with a sedative after a lot of talking because Kodell was going to invade my dreams. I knew that. I could already feel him touching me and it was two decade ago! The next day I told the story to Alex. All of it. All the details, including how mixed up I was about you. And that’s when he told me to tell you, that night. So I planted the Glow-orbs and went and called you. And here we are,” she said through shining eyes.

~Faye Calloway

Daggum’s heart hurt for her, and his own eyes shimmered with her shared pain. He reached up and cupped her cheek, his thumb brushing aside a tear that threatened to fall. He smiled at her and leaned forward slightly.

“Faye… my darling, darling Faye… I am so well and truly sorry for your pain. I’m sorry you had to go through all of that to get to this point with yourself. But if it’s any consolation… this Faye, sitting here with me right now? She is absolutely amazing. And the best part is it’s still you… just more… open. There is a light inside you, Faye. I saw it that first time I saw you on the Manhattan, I just didn’t know it.” and he smiled at her. “That light shines so much brighter now, Faye. It’s like someone turned a dimmer from quarter light to full.” and he stared at her eyes and shook his head slowly.

“I know,” she said softly, feeling so very connected to him right now. Daggum had shown time and time again that he had an incredible ability to hold her emotions with incredible care and she felt that more so right now.

“I told you that I loved you since that first moment, remember? And that is wholly and completely true. I have loved you since I first met you. But this is so much more you than I have ever known… then you’ve shown me before. And I am forever grateful you can show me all of you. We have pain, Faye… lots of pain, you and I. But to see yours being acknowledged, visible, unshadowed… and you accepting that pain as part of you and still being who you are? That’s… Faye… Faye thats amazing to see. And to be a part of it is… intense. But it is an intensity I wouldn’t trade for the universe.”

“Faye… I love you so much it hurts sometimes. A good hurt though.” and he smiled again. “I wouldn’t change or fix a thing about you. And I want you to always remember, no matter what, I love you… not parts of you. Whatever you bring to the table, I’m going to love because it’s part of who you are. And who you are is the most amazing woman I have ever known.”

Daggum

A wide, sincere and warm smile spread across her face, and once again she was just in awe. But not just of Dag, of them. “I love Daggum Hammor. I’ve loved before but this? This just might be the first time I’ve ever accepted it fully. I can’t say I won’t have my doubts and I won’t have days where I’m symptomatic and am bent on testing you to make sure you’ll stay, because it will happen. But when they do”-she lifted their conjoined hands and kissed his knuckles with her dark red-black lips-“remember this moment, this dinner, this night, where everything is exactly as it should be. And I don’t make promises Dag. I rarely have in my life unless I knew I could keep them. So hear this with everything I mean it to be.... I promise you that no matter what, I’ll always find my way back to the light, to our light. I have no more secrets left other than the ones the Romulans put in my head, and those have no bearing on us. I have lots of stories still to share, or extensions of some of the ones i’ve already told you, but I feel safe, and accepted, and cared for. I didn’t know I was looking for you all this time, but here you are. And I will never stop being soooo incredibly grateful you called me exactly when you did. My Mushroom Boy. My Gem.” Yep, sappy. And she loved every moment of it.

~Faye Calloway

Daggum smiled and the scooted his chair back and leaned over and kissed her fully and deeply. He pulled back a moment later and said “Hold that thought… it’s almost time, my love.” and he sat back down and looked at their crystal glasses.

At first, nothing happened....

Then there was a soft pop and silver cracks appeared in each glass, spider webbing through the container… but no water came out. Instead, a soft vapor of crimson and pink and blue glittery sparkles started to arise from them. Soon, it seemed the glasses were erupting… but they were shrinking. As the vapor leapt to the ceiling and disappeared, the sparkles fell down like soft rain and the they too disappeared. In a few moments, the water and the glasses were gone as if they had never been.

Daggum looked at Faye throughout the display and when it ended he said “I love you. Through this or any other life you want to have with me.”

Daggum