Posted by Lieutenant Celina Rodriguez (Chief Tactical Officer) in Jack’s Quarters The Persian Water clock

Posted by Commander Ardashir “Jack” Creed (Executive Officer / CIO) in Jack’s Quarters The Persian Water clock

Posted by Lieutenant Celina Rodriguez (Chief Tactical Officer) in Jack’s Quarters The Persian Water clock
Celina sat in her and Jack’s quarters feeling like a tightly wound coil ready to snap.   Her eyes were glued to the door in almost a hypnotic stare.  The only sound in the room was the soft tick of an antique clock which acted as a metronome both containing and fueling Celina’s emotions.    

The clock was not something that kept precise time as did digital ones but it did keep time.   When Jack had shown her how it worked years ago, Celina marveled at its simplicity and genius.     For those that didn’t know it’s true function, they would only see two bowls, inside one another sitting on a block of wood.    Without the ornate mosaic patterns, a guest might just assume it was last night’s dinner set aside in the coffee table instead of back in the replicator.    Like all things about Jack however, this was far more than its simple appearance.   

The clock measured time through the funneling of water.   The large bowl was filled with water and the smaller empty bowl was placed inside it.   The smaller bowl bore a tiny hole in the bottom.    Over the course of an hour, the smaller bowl would eventually fill completely and submerge to the bottom of the larger bowl.  

In ancient Persia, a man called the khaneh would then empty out the submerged bowl to start the clock again.   Depending on the size of the bowls and the width of the wholes, ancient Persians, Greeks, Egyptians, and Native Americans used it for a multitude of purposes.   Ones as small as the specimen in Jack’s quarters were used mainly in political debates to ensure everyone had the exact amount of time to speak.   Jack said he bought it for them as a reminder time was always resetting itself when you needed it to.  The gift was meant to be symbolic for them.   That the universe might keep its own pace but this clock was for them to set their own pace. 

Like the sentiment of the clock, this one was built with a surprise.   Water clocks were basically aqueous hourglasses.   The soft ticking of this one was due to an apparatus in the box manually raising the bowl to reset the time interval.  It was a clever innovation someone in the ancient past has developed to preserve the ancient past but keeping it modern as the age of pendulum clocks became the more common way to mark time.  Jack said he selected it to always keep them on course even when they both might have forgotten the direction.  

“Two,” she said aloud tightening her grip on the mug as the clock marked another passage of an hour.  The silence of the room was filled with the steady drip of water emptying the smaller bowl.   Celina had mentally given Jack an hour to find her.    Already it had slipped into two hours.   There would not be an hour three.   
In her hand was a mug of coffee that had long since grown cold.   It was made out of habit as she returned to the quarters after her shift.  The color was dark brown with strange pockets of tan beginning to creep across the edges indicating she had never stirred it or sipped it once it was made.   Only osmosis was beginning to mingle the colors.   

Looking down at the mug, Celina gripped it tighter and tighter until the ceramic threatened to shatter.   Her hand ached as her knuckles turned whiter and whiter.   She had been in this position before and it almost killed her.   In the days and weeks following Jack’s falsified death, she lost countless hours staring out a window waiting for him to return.   On Orion, she had the sun and moon to mark the passage of a day from her seated position next to the window.    On the Manhattan, she only had the damn water clock.   The view from her window now was perpetual darkness.    Absently thinking back on those days it was probably good she had not been stationed on a starship.     Orion wasn’t the most picturesque of spots but the cold isolation she felt then as she did now was amplified by a never-changing view.    

Directing her gaze back to the door, one thing crystallized to perfect clarity in her mind.   Life with Jack was going to kill her and she could not let that happen again.  

Lt. Celina Rodriguez

It wasn’t too much long after that Jack entered the quarters as he came in with a sullen tired face. The day had been long, far longer than he had experienced in a lengthy time. Entering it wasn’t hard to miss Celina as she was very prominently in the middle of the room. Jack felt a tilt of his head as he wondered why she seemed to be sitting and waiting right at this moment, coffee in hand as she seemed to stare right through him with icy knifes. The day had been insane and now it seemed happy wife happy life wasn’t on the table from the way she was looking.

What have I done? Jack asked himself as he began to play out all the scenarios in his head. It wasn’t her birthday, that was October 23rd he knew that for certain. It was the day she first arrested him, a sort of anniversary until they get married they often celebrated. That was May 5th, did his sister call and yell about something? Or maybe he pissed Nadia again. He often clashed on religion with Nadia, taking a more open approach to faith, while she was very strict in hers. But his lost conversation with Nadia was about the churo cheesecake she loved so much as a kid, which he had been planning for next week as a surprise date for the two of them.

Maybe she just had a bad day too, ship on lock down… who knows what she had to run around and do while the damned plan Faye and Cochrane cooked up. came through Jack’s mind. His head still spun a little, as he hadn’t really approved of any of the plans they had done today. Faye and Cocrahne seemed out of their element, but as Cochrane was the Captain Jack’s hands became literally tied up. “Everything okay Moosh?” Jack finally said to break the silence in the room. “You will never believe the day I had.”

Creed, XO

Celina was at a loss for words. Things were not okay. How could Jack even think they were in the ballpark of acceptable. Her grip on the mug became so strong her bicep began to tremble as a knot formed in her throat preventing her to lashing out the first thing that sprang to her mind to answer his question or reply to his declaration. “I am sure I can take a guess. My day was not stellar either there Ardashir.” Uncharactersitically, Celina did not reply with a firey tone intersperced with blurbs of Spanish. Her tone was strained but in a slightly lower than normal volume.

Ardashir? Jack thought to himself as he looked her up and down trying to gauge why she was seemingly so angry. She never called him by his first name, not since she learned his real name at least. When they first meet he went back Maz Jarbroni but after his return she always refused to call him Ardashir. She claimed it was too hard to spell, she would stick with just Jack. An idea he did find amusing seeing as her full name had more letters and syllables than his did. “Okay… something’s off here… you never say my first name.” he finally said as he stepped fully in the room as he began to unzip his uniform jacket as he tossed it at the chair to the left of Celina.

Staring at Jack in the doorway, Celina slowly released the death grip on her mug. Her years of tactical training prevented her from lobbing it at him the second the door pneumatically slid open. Nailing him in the head with the coffee mug would only make him mad. It would not make him sorry. The only thing that might make him sorry was when she explained why they were over. Probably not permanently but definitely in the short term. Seeing Jack however was not spiking her anger. Seeing him was diluting her anger into a well of regret.

“Baby…” Jack said in a soft low tone, his face contorted as he was trying to discern the look of Celina. This was not a side he felt he had ever seen of her. Anger, jealousy, lust, joy, happiness, sadness… all of those she had at one point or another thrown at him. Right now though it felt much more than anything like that, it felt like something new and raw as he waited for something else to come from her.

People spoke all the time of emotions that destroyed relationships: Jealousy, angry, fear, spite, loneliness…the list went on and on. Just about everyone forgot about regret until that was all you had left. “I can’t do this again,” she stated firmly and with conviction as she rose from the table.

“Do what? What the hell is going on?” he asked as he began looking around as if to see if there was some clue to these words as she stood up, his day had been hell and coming home was one of the few luxurious he had to look forward to this day. There was so much to do and talk about, but so much he couldn’t talk about either. His position as both XO and CIO tied his hands more often than not. It could be hard in any relationship when trust and honesty is something that is striven for in all things, but the job often forced you to stay quiet and keep things hushed.

“And before you start to give me all that blather about rules and regulations remember I forgave you once. Once,” her voice rose sharply until it cracked. Closing her mouth she let her tongue peek out over her bottom lip to moisten it. It also bought her time to regain her composure. Looking into his eyes, she realized this was not the time or place for this conversation. Maybe there was never going to be a time or place. The gentle click of the water clock resetting to the next hour felt almost symbolic to her as the barely whispered whirls and clicks of the clock emptied out the bowl of water. “We can talk later,” she instantly shut down pressing her fingertips to the edge of the table as if trying to regain her balance. “I have bridge duty in thirty minutes. Your’re right. A lot has happened today. Good bye Jack.”

Lt. Celina Rodriguez

“Just wait a minute… what regulations?” Jack said as he put his hand in front of her, trying to understand just what had happened in this moment that seemed to destroy all they had rebuilt. They were engaged, planning a wedding that felt perpetual and never ending. “What are you talking about? Bridge duty can wait, if you want I can get Ensign Bolye to take over, he has been wanting a chance to helm tactical for awhile been begging me to let him on the bridge… this isn’t going unsettled here… that is one thing I learned with you is to always talk things through and fight it out if needed… so hit me with it, what are you so angry about?” Jack said, his tone firm but there was still that look of love mixed with confusion on his face as he stared her over unsure of just what to make of this moment.

Creed, XO