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

(snip)

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

Kodell nodded, and it might have seemed to simple a reply, but he had been taking in everything Faye and Daggum were saying. His mind slipped to the casual remarks his mother used to make about sport and he all but shuddered. He had been avoiding it yes, and Kodell could taste bile in his throat. “I’m sorry to you too. It might not have been me specifically, but you’re right, traditions are no longer a good enough excuse to keep doing something.”

He wanted to tell Daggum to take care of Faye, but he knew all too well that Faye didn’t require that. Kodell gazed at Daggum thoughtfully. “Faye can take care of herself, but in the moments when she can’t, I’m glad she has someone like you to help.” It wasn’t a line either. Kodell was utterly sincere.

Upstairs amongst the books, Faye had opened her pendant and let the warm heady spice and citrus scent ground her into reality. She was fighting the urge to be back there in those moments. To remember them with more innocent eyes. But that would only hurt her. Tears slipping down her face, she leaned against the side of a bookshelf a moment before sliding down, letting out a quiet sob. Cameron’s expression of regret and sadness, and yes of disgust, was more prominent than she would like right now. His was a tragic story that should never have been that way. Neither was hers. But here they were, him dead and her walking a delicate tightrope between standing tall and slipping into a dark pit of despair. Yes, she had done the work, that much was true. But that night on the holodeck when she had had her breakdown and confessed this whole thing had only been a piece of it. Even the subsequent conversations with different people had been just about admitting it had happened. This right here though was the reality of it all. This now was her facing a demon and the realization that it would never be okay. It just… was. She had been through something unimaginable and her mind still reeled with the pain. But as her tears slipped down her cheeks, she could feel a little bit of it slipping away with them. One by one. Would it all disappear? No, never. But it wouldn’t be this painful weight she struggled to carry.

After a few minutes, Faye appeared in the atrium, her steps down the stairs ever so slightly lighter. She surveyed the two men. “Glad to see everyone intact,” she said, a tiny smirk tugging at her mouth. She gave Daggum a reassuring nod that she was okay, despite her red eyes.

Focusing on Kodell, Faye took him in, letting her mind puzzle over things until she came to a conclusion. “There’s one thing you can do for me.”

“Name it,” Kodell said easily.

“Sell me the copy of my dad’s book.”

“Faye… you can have it. I owe you that much.”

Faye shook her head. “No. Then it’s a gift and it will be yours. But if I buy it outright, it’s mine and there is no debt between us, no matter how subtle. I can’t be tied to this place anymore. So you can sell the book to me, at a discount from its likely high price if it makes it easier, and we can call this done.”

There was finality to her words and in that moment Kodell understood that this time would truly be the last time he saw her. No matter how he felt about it, what she was asking was for control over how they parted. Of all the things he owed her, that was the least he could do. “Consider it done. I’ll bring it out of the case before you go. You were going to go see Linella again, yes?” Faye nodded. “All right then, I’ll go do that and meet you by the door.” Kodell rose, bowed to her, and then moved up the staircase, leaving Faye and Daggum alone again.

Shaking her hands out, her eyes blurred with more tears. “Ohhh, you have no idea bow badly I want a drink right now.”

~Faye