Posted by Captain Alexander Cochrane (Commanding Officer) in Wedding Bells- An End and a Beginning

Posted by Lieutenant Commander Faye Calloway (Counter-Intelligence Officer) in Wedding Bells- An End and a Beginning

Posted by Captain Alexander Cochrane (Commanding Officer) in Wedding Bells- An End and a Beginning

(snip)

“Five and a half minutes. You’re late. I swear, this whole wedding thing is really throwing you off, Calloway. Maybe you should call it off.” Cochrane said with a grin as the Faye settled in and he lifted the runabout off the deck. “And no, you can’t fly. Rank has it’s privileges, Commander. And besides…” and he looked at her and grinned wider. “… I’m a better pilot than you.” and the runabout shot out of the docking bay and dove into the blackness of space.

“As if,” Faye said, breaking into a grin. “I’ll bet my unorthodox, flying skills fine-tuned over the years and tested against the Romulans any day.” She was teasing. Mostly.

Cochrane rolled the ship slightly and banked around so they flew in a large, slow circle around the Manhattan. “Take a look, Faye… next time you see her you’ll be on board as a guest, not crew.” He turned his head to look at her and said “How does that feel?”

Cochrane, CO

“I’ve been trying to think about it,” she said, her voice dropping. Her dress was hung in the back with her stuff and as she sat next to Alex, she could feel very distinctly the end of this particular era coming fast. “I’m sad,” she added at length. “But excited too. It’s all very bittersweet. Even Tess is off. She’s been very weirded out by my packing. I don’t blame her.”

“I thought coming to the Manhattan would be the biggest challenge I’d ever face because I was choosing something for me for the first time. But this is bigger. I’m not just choosing something good, I’m walking away from something good in the hopes that this next chapter is even better. A part of me beleives that wholeheartedly, but I can’t shush my inner skeptic all the time.”

~Faye

“Everyone thinks hard choices are the ones between two bad options. Those are the simple ones, Faye.” Cochrane said quietly. “You know no matter what you choose, it’s going to be garbage. It’s just how much crap you want to go along with it. But choices between good things? Those are the hard ones. Because you will always wonder ‘What if?’. And no matter how good your choice is, that question will always be there somewhere. When you and Hammor have a fight… and you know you will… that voice will get louder. And when that happens… think about it.” His fingers manipulated the controls and the runabout banked slowly again and they started to head away from the Manhattan. “Think about what might have been. It’ll help. The trick, though, is to then weigh what might have been against what is. And I can promise you… ninety-nine percent of the time what you have is going to be better. Because it’s real, not a dream.”

As they gained a small amount of distance from the Manhattan, her stomach twisted. It was nerves, plain and simple. But she was also determined to enjoy these next couple of days and hold on to each moment. She had fought hard to even be able to have beautiful moments and she wasn’t going to toss these ones away becuase she was anxious about the future.

The Runabout aimed it’s nose at the vector to take them to warp towards the wormhole ten hours away, and Cochrane paused before engaging the warp drive. He looked at Faye and smiled. “You ready?”

Cochrane, CO

She gave a concise nod. “Let’s go,” she said quietly, eyes fixed on the stars. Her future awaited, and so did this whole surprise Dag had concocted.

~Faye