Posted by Lieutenant Commander Faye Calloway (Chief Intelligence Officer) in Elsewhere- A Honeymoon

Posted by Lieutenant Commander Daggum Hammor (Chief Operations Officer) in Elsewhere- A Honeymoon

Posted by Lieutenant Commander Faye Calloway (Chief Intelligence Officer) in Elsewhere- A Honeymoon
Posted by… suppressed (2) by the Post Ghost! 👻

(snip)

Daggum’s eyes fell on the title and his jaw tightened. He knew the history of the book… what it meant. He now also knew that this Kodell still held feelings for Faye. And he had money. And they were on a planet where his money, and his name, meant something. But he also knew that Faye trusted him… at least somewhat. So he kept his breathing normal and held her to him. “How does that make you feel, Faye? Knowing that book is here of all places?”

Daggum

Lifting her face from his braid chest, she forced herself to take a deep breath. “Confused, I think.” She took another moment to gather her thoughts into some semblance of order before she spoke again. “We didn’t move on… he and I. I did finally after you came back into my life and I told you all about this place and him, but it took that long. That book tells me that he was either on the lookout for it or he specifically had someone track down a copy. He hasn’t moved on, Dag. He’s divorced, alone. I think… I think I feel sad for him. I can’t be anything for him. Not anymore. I came here for closure but maybe he needs it more than I do?”

~Faye

“Well… is that a conversation you feel like having?” Daggum asked, his eyes still on the book. “Or do you want to just let it be and go? It’s up to you, and you know I will support you however you decide. But… I do feel like this is the last time we come to Orion. Or, at least, maybe it should be… so this could be the last chance you have. What do you think?”

Daggum

He was right. She had no intention of coming back here ever, at least not without some very damn good reason. This was her chance. She inhaled a shaky breath. “I think there are things that need to be said. I told him as much. We need to say them and lay all the cards on the table. Not just for me, or for Koddell, but for you and I as a couple, for the family we want to have one day. I don’t want this hanging over me as something left unfinished. And maybe I can do something to help him.” She snorted. “Oh strange words given where we are.”

Having made up her mind, Faye took Daggum’s hand and led him down the spiral metal staircase into the atrium. She took a seat at the round table and waited.

Kodell appeared a minute later, slipping in through an arched glass door that connected to the wing of the house that led to the main bedrooms. “Sorry about that. I wanted to make sure I could give you my focus, rather than be distracted by tasks that needed doing.” He took a seat, folding his arms on the table.

Faye gazed at him, not sure what to say first, but of course she knew what had to be said. “You wanted me to find the copy of my father’s book. Why? And when did you acquire it?”

He gaze said it all but Kodell knew she needed him to say it. “Yes, I did. I wanted you to know I remembered. I found it about ten years ago.”

Ten years. Long enough that she was in the mire of her own life in Starfleet. Long enough for him to have already been married. She wanted to move, run away, but Faye managed to remain in her seat. She looked to Daggum for a moment, giving him a ‘Trust me’ expression before she focused her attention on the man who even now held this strange mixed up place in her mind and heart. “Are you still in love me? After all these years?”

It was Kodell who rose and moved away from the table. He stopped, his hand on the banister of the stairs, though on the other side so it was apparent was wasn’t trying to leave the room. “There will always be a part of me that loves you Faye. That loves that brief part of my life where you were in it.”

“Don’t lie to me. Answer my question,” she said softly, her voice carrying more than she remembered it could.

Kodell sighed and turned back to face the table, to face them, pain so visible in his eyes. “I’ve tried not to. I’ve tried to just resign you to some distant memory. But you’re everywhere I go Faye. Don’t you understand? It’s my penance, for all my mistakes. I can’t just walk away from this house the way I’ve always wanted to. So I’m consigned to all the ways you left your mark. On this place. On me. And now you’re here. Married. I don’t know what to do with that, though I will say this… once I realized what harm I was truly causing you all I ever wanted was for you to be happy. I hated sending you away and I knew you were angry with me about it, but I thought I was doing the right thing. I still believe that. I mean, look at you”-he beamed through blurred eyes-“and all you’ve become. A Starfleet officer. In love and married. You deserve to be happy Faye and I am so very glad you found it. Truly, I am.”

“And what about you?” she said, fighting back her own tears. He was right- she had moved on, and most strongly with the man sitting next to her.

Kodell shook his head. “Maybe, one day. But like I said, penance.” He shrugged.

Faye didn’t know what else to say to that so she just looked at Daggum, a deep sadness settling over her. Wasn’t there a way for everyone to have something good?

~Faye & Kodell

Daggum gave Faye’s hand a squeeze that said ‘I got this, trust me too.’ and then he snorted derisively. “Penance? What a crock. It’s not penance… it’s cowardice.” and he stood up and crossed his arms on his chest and glared a hole through Kodell. “You’ve hidden yourself. From everything and everyone. I mean seriously… look at this place. Faye even said it’s just like she remembered… and its been, what? Twenty years? And you sit and mope and whine and carry on about the girl you once had. And thats a crock of shit, too. You bought her. She was a slave… like that lady in the kitchen. Oh, you may treat them better than most, that I’ll give you. But they are and were still your property. Bought by you and your family. So you go and fall in love with a slave… and a human at that. Oh my, but what a scandal that would be in the Merchant Houses.” Daggum moved around the table and stood face to face with Kodell, looking down at the smaller figure.

Fury flashed in Kodell’s eyes, but he held his place. The two men all but faced off, but Kodell simply guarded his expression so Daggum wouldn’t know he had truly struck a chord. Or at least that was his hope.

“You are a coward.” and he stuck a finger in Kodell’s chest hard enough to make the point. “You had the means to make her yours. You had the money, the influence… you just didn’t have the guts. So what did you do? You sent her away. Not to protect her, but to save yourself from being embarrassed. And then you justified your actions by maintaining this… this… daydream of what might have been. You kept everything the same. You found her favorite book. Oh, and I’d be willing to bet there are others, too. You hid yourself so you wouldn’t have to first face anyone teasing you about the red-headed human. Or that you just might discover that Faye wasn’t the only one you could love like that. But then it just became so easy, didn’t it? To just pretend that it was all some tragic Shakspearian love tale.” Daggum smiled his not nice smile that he saved for arrogant Quartermasters and lazy dock workers. “I bet you even put pen to paper and composed something about it, didn’t you? Sure you did… because that was easier than dealing with the very real facts that you bought a slave that turned out to be more than you ever imagined someone could be. But instead of standing up and being true to yourself and to her, you sent her off. Awww… how sweet. And how many women have you loved since? How many have you let yourself get to know? I’m betting that’s a big fat ZERO. And that is your doing, Master Kodell… not Faye’s. Not even the memory of Faye. She scared you… and you can’t handle that.” Daggum went back to his chair and took a seat, his eyes never leaving Kodell.

For a moment Faye was certain Kodell was going to punch Daggum before he stepped away. The gritted jaw told her enough about Kodell’s anger. She was pretty sure she couldn’t handle these two men duking it out, so as tension flooded her body, Faye focused on steadying her breathing and taking comfort from Daggum’s presence as he returned to the table.

“Now this is the part where you sit your fat, privileged ass in that chair and deal with your past. Because if you don’t, you will never not regret it.”

Daggum

She winced on his behalf, though Faye knew Daggum had the right of it here. Regardless of how the sequence of events had played out and kept Faye alive, there was no getting by the fact that a lot of her life in those years had been hell.

Silence filled the atrium and it was several moments later before Kodell moved back to the table and took a seat, breathing deep and even. What else was he going to do? Demand Daggum show respect? Ha! He was right, and deep down he had always known that.

Faye’s mind was a whirl of trains of thoughts and she wasn’t sure what needed to be said now. “I will be the first to admit that things could have been a lot worse for me. You were right that Adrella could have sold Cam and I to someone else and who the hell knows what would have become of me. But it took Cam’s escape attempt and you letting the guards kill him, and a two-week bout of dissociation for you to realize you had done wrong by me. You said as much yourself back then. So then you invited me to become a student again. I was good with that. It meant that I had a purpose beyond menial labour. But this thing between us started before then. It started even before that first interaction in this house by the stairwell.” She turned to Daggum to explain. “He caught me reading, or at least browsing, an Orion book of poetry. Picking out the odd word or phrase that I had picked up in the house.”

Shifting her attention back to Kodell, Faye leaned in. “I’ve made my peace with the fact that after a terrible tragedy, I was brought here against my will. But I was alive and you didn’t hurt me in the way others might have had I been sold elsewhere. I was fifteen at the time Kodell. You are eight years older than me, which was a lot at the time. Yes, you were careful to wait till I was older, but we always knew there was this strange thing between us. But I was too young to know better. I gave something away to you without understanding the consequences. Had you just said you were setting me free, that would have been another thing. But that’s not what happened. You made it a bargain. You made me trade my body for my freedom. Did you know I asked Linella why you didn’t sleep with me out of just feelings? Why you had to make it a part of my leaving? She told me it was because in this world you exist in you were used to things being transactional. Especially because I was not Orion. Because I would never fit into this society. I wanted her to be wrong, but she wasn’t was she?”

Kodell blew out a breath. “Faye… you were not a transaction.”

“Yes, I was! I’m not saying that it wasn’t a wonderful experience. That after all the terrible things that had happened to me, you gave me kindness and joy I didn’t think I was allowed to have. But that doesn’t change the fact that I was not okay, Kodell. Mentally, I mean. And then I was forced to fend for myself after having skipped the whole normal transition to adulthood. Yes, I could be self sufficient, but I was alone, on my own. Those years after I left here were hard Kodell. I sold the book you gave me because I was hungry and hadn’t eaten in over a week. I had no other choice! I was forced into a life that hardened me worse than I was, and between that, here, and the Dominion, I suffered. And there have been consequences. I have a mental health disorder that took me a very long time to get diagnosed and treated for because I was so ashamed of the things that had happened to me. Well, that and my father making me promise not to tell anyone I was Maquis. And because of circumstances, I will always have it. You all bloody trapped me in my own mind. Don’t you see? You might have saved me from a worse outcome as a slave, but you were not my saviour Kodell. I was. I pushed through and kept myself alive. I was the one who worked hard to get myself into Starfleet once I realized it was still an option. I was the one who did the hard personal work to deal with the subsequent traumas I experienced. So many people, including you, played a role into nudging me in the right direction, but at the end of the day I know one thing that is true out of it all: I am my own hero.” Faye breathed out a shaky breath, astonished to have found herself with that much to say.

A subtle shift had progressed through his eyes. It was a deepening of sorrow, of regret, of, yes, shame. Kodell wanted more than anything to look away, but he held Faye’s gaze. “There is nothing I can say that can truly make any of it right or better. But you’re both right- I never considered the consequences of my actions, at any point. And for that I am truly, deeply sorry for the pain I helped inflict. And if there is anyway I can make up it up to even even just a fraction, you have but to ask.”

She didn’t know what to say, but suffice to say that Faye was overwhelmed. She hadn’t expected an apology (what Orion Master would ever apologize to anyone?), but she wasn’t sure how to place his words amongst everything she knew and felt. Reaching a hand out to Daggum and placing it on his arm, Faye was nearly in tears. “I just need a minute alone so I can stay grounded.” She tapped the place beneath her shirt where her aromatherapy pendant rested. “Try not to kill anyone,” she said with a wink.

Throughout it all, Daggum hadn’t taken his emerald eyes off of Kodell. “No promises.” he said as Faye stood up.

Moving away from the table, Faye slipped back up the staircase and into the library. Kodell sat there decidedly uncomfortable alone with Daggum. “Will she be okay?” he asked quietly.

~Faye & Kodell

“She will. She is resilient. She’s had to be.” Daggum said flatly. He was quiet a long moment and then said “I know you, you know. Not you per se, but I know your family.” He pulled his sleeve up to show Kodell some of the brands that decorated his body, enough so Kodell would know what he was… or at least, what he had been. “She deserved better from you. So did all those kids your family had butchered for sport. I f you seriously want to know what you can do to make up for what you did to her? Do better by all of us. Use that money for something good. Not to build a mausoleum to a lost love…” and he gestured around them, “… not to keep yourself hidden from pain… not to keep up the ‘traditions’ that have led our people to be seen as nothing more than pimps and butchers across the galaxy. Make a difference. Thats what Faye did. Thats what I have tried to do. You want to make amends, Kodell? Then be better. And yeah… it really is that simple.”

Daggum