Posted by Captain Alexander Cochrane (Commanding Officer) in Captain’s Quarters - Dancing On Toes, Losing The Rhythm

Posted by Lieutenant Commander Faye Calloway (Counter-Intelligence Officer) in Captain’s Quarters - Dancing On Toes, Losing The Rhythm

Posted by Captain Alexander Cochrane (Commanding Officer) in Captain’s Quarters - Dancing On Toes, Losing The Rhythm
Posted by… suppressed (1) by the Post Ghost! 👻

(snip)

Faye snorted as she stepped through the large double doors and into the corridor. “Quarters. Tess will be pissed off I do that without her there, like she would know the instant I stepped in later.” She cast a sideways glance at Alex. “I swear they lied to me and she’s actually telepathic, not empathic and she knows,” Faye said nodding empathically before grinning. “Annoying as it is sometimes, I’m really grateful for her. I never thought I’d be a cat person but here we are,” she added with a laugh.

A few minutes later, Faye unlocked her quarters with a mindless tap of the keypad, the door swishing open to admit them.

Tess jumped off the new cat tree which served as a perch, scratching post and bed in one, chirping at Faye and Alex. Faye scooped her up and scratched behind her ears. A part of her intellectually had understood that getting an empathic animal was somehow allowed a deeper bond to be formed than usual, but it was hard to explain how bonded the two were now. Tess didn’t freak out over each and every flicker of emotions now that she understood Faye’s moods better, but she was constantly watchful and always there- a reassuring presence that was hard to articulate just how lovely it was.

“We’re going to call Uncle Gavin now. Prepare yourself Tess, this could possibly get bumpy.” For her part, Tess just looked at Alex and then back at Faye, then Alex again, as if to ask ‘now what are you doing you silly person?

“Grab a chair,” Faye told Alex as she began tapping keys to put in the call to the Alpha Quadrant, a feat that took a small amount of time on most days.

~Faye

Alex took a seat in a spot where he would hear clearly but not be on video. “If you run into any trouble getting ahold of him, let me know. Four pips means I get answered.” and he chuckled.

Alex

Faye snorted. “Well you can be all Captain buddy-buddy if we need you to be, but I suspect his curiosity will be enough to answer the call anyway.”

Several minutes of waiting, tapping her fingers on her desk and petting an insistent Tess who wanted love and cuddles, the screen shifted. A middle aged Human male, with nearly salt and pepper hair and a full beard. He had the same pale blue eyes that Shara did, the corners creased heavily from (what Faye could imagine) was a lot of smiling and laughing. In his Command uniform, Gavin Conner was the epitome of a seasoned Captain.

“Well, well, well, so it is who I thought it might be,” he said, his voice warm and rich.

Faye shouldn’t have been so surprised, but she was. “You know I’m out in the Delta Quadrant?”

Gavin grinned. “I’ve kept an eye on your career, invested in it as I am.”

It was so weird. There was no other word for it. It was weird that all this time she had had an anonymous champion in her corner. Sometimes when she thought about it, she felt similar to when she really thought about how integral Shara had been to her life in recent years and she’d never known it. It wasn’t that she felt tricked, but it made her a little sad sometimes. “Yeah… that was news to me. Only found out recently.” Faye was also starting to find it weird that they were just talking as if they knew each other, but all she knew about the man was his record and what her mom had told her.

“I was wondering if that had precipitated this call,” Gavin said with a nod.

Faye opened her mouth to speak, but was momentarily lost for words. Tess stirred in her lap, nudging Faye under her chin. “Yes, yes,” she said, looking down at the cat. “It’s fine.” She shifted her attention back to Gavin. “Tess here is my therapy animal. She reminds me to take a breath or a break when I’m dealing with difficult emotions.”

Gavin was quiet for a moment but then nodded. “To what do I owe the pleasure of this call, Faye?” he said softly.

It was a simple statement really: I’m getting married and I wanted to invite you. But it was more complicated than that and it came with qualifiers and addendums for context that Faye knew would shift this conversation very quickly into tricky territory. Confusion played across her face and Faye found herself looking to Alex. Did she just drop news of her mom in his lap? Not mention her at all? She didn’t know how to go about this. So silence ensued.

~Faye & Gavin

Alex cleared his throat and leaned into the video frame. “Captain Conner. Captain Alexander Cochrane. Pleasure, sir. You’ll have to give your niece some leeway to be quiet every now and then. She’s had… a lot… dumped on her the past few months. Handled it in a fashion that is a testament to her will power and the uniform, I have to say. She’s got news she wants to share with you. And family is family… hence her call here. Just be patient a moment while she collects herself.” and he leaned back and let Faye take the lead again.

Alex

“Of course,” Gavin said gently.

Faye cast a grateful look Alex’s way before inhaling deeply and closing her eyes, gathering all the pieces that still seemed incongruent but formed the basis of the situation. When her lids slipped open, she exhaled and gazed at this man who had been integral to her life in a way she was only just starting to appreciate. “So… I only just learned that you were my Academy sponsor. From mom.” She paused and watched her uncle’s expression shift, his brows knitting together as a frown tried to suppress the astonishment.

“Shara told you that. Recently?” Gavin said, doing an impeccable job keeping his emotions under control. He was a captain, after all, and every captain she’d ever known that was any good had a terrific poker face they could deploy at a moment’s notice.

Faye gave an exaggerated nod. “I asked her who my sponsor was because I had actually finally stopped to think about it and the person who told me they were couldn’t have been, so I asked her if she knew. I figured if anyone would, she would, given she’d been knee deep in my file on behalf of Intelligence.” Again she paused to gauge his reaction. He as taking it well, mostly, but she could see the tiny details that told he his mind was racing.

“Intelligence. Well… colour me surprised, but that does track, I suppose. I mean it’s as good a reason as any to have disappeared for decades.” Gavin fully frowned now.

“Don’t judge her too harshly until you know the whole story,” Faye warned. “There are things you need to know but I’m not the one to share it. It’s her story, it needs to come from her.”

“Fair enough.”

She took a deep breath. “But the reason I’m calling is that a lot has changed in my life recently, including the fact that I’m engaged to be married.” Faye found herself naturally breaking into a smile.

His frown shifted to match her smile. “Congratulations, Faye! That’s wonderful news.”

“Yes, it is,” she said with a nod, still smiling. “And my fiancé, Daggum, and I are both people who’ve had hard lives and where family is an awkward thing. He’s of the mind that we should have any and all family worth having there should be invited, and he suggested I invite you, even though we’ve never met. So… yeah. I’d like to invite you. And I guess your wife and daughter too while we’re at it.”

“I’m honoured,” he said, and while she didn’t know him well enough to gauge fully, he seemed sincere enough.

“Mom will of course be there.”

Gavin nodded. “I expected no less. I’m going to be honest with you, Faye, that I’m not sure how that will go, but I promise I won’t do anything to ruin yours and Daggum’s day.”

The implication that it would be her mother who’d do the ruining actually amused her a little but she also knew that it was not something that she’d leave to fate. She was going to have to make another call and it might not be a pleasant one either. But back to the matter-at-hand. Her task was done, but there was the little matter of questions she’d love answers to. “Why did you sponsor me? How did that even come about, anyway?”

“Well…” Gavin began, “I was contacted after your application hit people’s desks. Obviously you needed a Starfleet officer of a certain rank to vouch for you. I’m friends with the Admiral who was processing and I came up in the background search as family, so he contact me. It…” Gavin sighed. “Look, I’m not proud of how I handled everything back then with Shar and Ed, but the way I saw it was if you wanted to achieve this thing for your life after what happened to Tracken, then who was I to stand in your way.”

Tears welled in her eyes. “She didn’t want to tell me, you know. But I pushed her. I knew she had a brother and I wanted to know why we never talked to you, why you weren’t ever mentioned anymore. So she finally told me what you said in that final exchange after they decided to let the Maquis come to Tracken. I still don’t understand it. I can’t make sense of what would have changed for you in the span of a few years to make you think differently. Was it just guilt?”

“Faye-“

“No!” she exclaimed, startling Tess who was still fixated on her person’s moods. “No one was asking you to join the fight, but you threw us away! She told me. Did you or did you not say, and I quote: You are being misguided and reckless. Well don’t come crying to me if things don’t go the way you want them to. You deserve whatever the hell happens to you.” Her heart was racing and her eyes were stormy and fixed on the man who had such an important role in her life and Faye realized she resented him for it. But why?

Gavin Conner winced as his own words were fed back to him from a woman who had only been a girl, a child when she had heard them. “Faye…”

“Did you say that, yes or no?” Faye demanded.

“Yes, I did.” It hurt to admit that but she deserved nothing less than the truth.

“Well, congratulations, we certainly got ours!” Disgusted with him (with herself), Faye pushed her chair back and leapt to her feet, Tess jumping off to the desk with a low mew and look that could only be worry. Starting to pace, she moved out of view of the screen.

Gavin wasn’t sure what to say either.

~Faye & Gavin