Posted by Lieutenant Junior Grade Janna Kingston (Counsellor) in Holosuite HIke

Posted by Lieutenant Junior Grade Janna Kingston (Counsellor) in Holosuite HIke

Posted by Lieutenant Commander Serena Stone (Executive Officer) in Holosuite HIke
Posted by… suppressed (3) by the Post Ghost! 👻

(snip)

“I couldn’t imagine you using them for evil. Ebil though.” She returned the smirk. “From what I understand about empaths and untangling that mess… the first step is learning to understand yourself. What is specifically, distinctly you. Learning to find that line of separation, and paying attention to your own emotional and physical states. Makes it easier to know what is You and Not You.”

Stone shrugged one shoulder. “That’s what I hear anyway. A bit of mindfulness couldn’t hurt.” Chewing her bottom lip, she frowned. Questions floated through her mind, one giving way to another as her natural instinct to investigate reared its head. The problem of her alterations, how, when, where, and how to fix it was a knot she naturally wanted to untangle. Part of it was the scientist in her blood, and partly from her security background. All of it focused on helping a friend. Or at least dredging up more information.

Instead, she poked at the fire with a stick, shifting the fuel a little to burn more efficiently. Well, if it were a real campfire. Still the warmth was nice, and the smell brought back more memories.

Turning her mind back to the conversation, she rolled back through it. Her and Orvos were a thing. Then there was Faye and Daggum. Dawson and Marishka were practicing anatomy with each other when they could too. It was then Serena might have deflated just a little, her eyes staring into the fire without seeing it.

A heaved sigh escaped her then. “I’m not seeing all that much complication. You’ve got empathic and other psychic abilities that are developing. And you and the Captain a are a thing. I knew that something was going on there just not the particulars. But nothing’s really changed. So… is there something else?” There was a little confusion at the end. The whole thing was a matter of course, already accepted and filed away. To her it was mostly a simple matter.

Lt. Cmdr. Stone, Executive Officer

Janna laughed openly, rather delighted. “Ahh Serena, thank you for that. Truly. I know on some levels it’s all very logical and straightforward. If anything I wanted you to know. Not just rumours or wondering. And there are complications, but they are manageable. Like, while I have a department of counsellors who can step in where there conflicts of interest, I still prefer to be the one to see the senior staff, even if there are friendships and deeper relationships to consider. Orvos is not likely to see someone else, and I know the things that are important to know. But I’m not worried about my judgement in that very specific scenario.”

Janna gazed at the fire and held out her hands towards the radiating heat. Words sat there and they were surprisingly hard to say, but only because they were so unfamiliar. “On personal note, as friends…” Janna struggled for a moment and ran a hand over her blond curls before she looked over at Stone. “I love him. I’ve never loved someone quite like this. Young love, the kind imbued with infatuation, sure. But not like this. And it’s terrifying! Because when I’m around him, and especially when we’re aware of the intoxicating energy connection, it makes me impulsive in a way I never let myself be. Because it’s dangerous. Taking risks out of a sense of duty is one thing, but I’m always so careful.” Janna shook her head in bewilderment. “And I want to toss out the rules and say to hell with it all.” She leaned forward a little towards her friend. “So maybe as my friend, and someone who in their core is wired to see the consequences, and the danger, just… pull me from the ledge if you feel like I’m too… whatever.”

~Janna Kingston, CNS

A small smile played across Serena’s face as she listened. Images filled her head of Orvos and Janna, the push-pull of something like that, and how intoxicating it could be. At the request she nodded. “That’s kind of my job, but I know what you mean. At the same time, I trust you. I trust that you’d stay back from the ledge. You’re good people and have a good head on your shoulders.”

Janna knew it was true, but that didn’t stop her from giving Serena a skeptical look.

“And I know what you mean about wanting to cut loose and just say to hell with it,” she mused. Her gaze became distant again, her expression dropping with it. As her demeanor shifted a little, there was a momentary sense of aching loneliness, before like a shade covering a candle, it dimmed. Still there, it radiated outward like the flickering orange-yellow firelight. Then something else, recrimination, then determination.

“I’m happy for you two.” As long as it lasts, she supposed in silence. If anybody had the chance of making a long-term relationship work, it would be the two of them.

Lt. Cmdr. Stone, Executive Officer

Janna beamed. “Thank you. We’re still trying to understand everything, but all we now is that we took the leap and we’re going with it wherever it takes us.” She hadn’t missed Serena’s emotional shifts, and in fact, a part of Janna had been tracking them.

“Every since my accident I have felt like I have been living on borrowed time. I’ve kept waiting for the inevitable to go wrong, for my illness to finally do what we all know it can do. I’ve been so afraid of living I missed that I am alive. Alive when the odds said I shouldn’t be. Alive when the accidents I have had should have made me seek out a quieter life where I might be safer. But it’s like I tell my mothers, living at all is dangerous. I’m in just as much danger of a random thing happening on some planet, than I am out here. And I really have believed that, even when my own actions didn’t demonstrate that belief. This thing with Orvos though has shaken me out of my tiny little bubble and reminded me that I have a lot more I can give and that my fears don’t have to call all the shots anymore” She gave a lopsided smirk. “But I’m not going to lie and say it’s all easy now. I’m still tripping over those fear all the time.” Her grass green eyes were intense as she gazed at Stone.

~Janna Kingston, CNS

She nodded. “Fear is the mind-killer,” Serena murmured. “Anything can happen. Transporter accident. Turbolift malfunction. Fusion reactor tries to melt down. Warp core breach. Trip over the carpet and smash your head on the coffee table. Eat something and find you have a food allergy you didn’t know about. Aneurysm. Anything can turn the lights off at any time. The simplest of things. Doesn’t matter where you are or where you live. Safety is an illusion, there is only safeer. So screw it. And living in fear only creates more of it.”

Lt. Cmdr. Stone, Executive Officer

Janna nodded and smiled softly. “Exactly. Doesn’t stop my mothers from wanting me to be back home with them, which I do get, but they also have accepted that I am happy out here.”

Janna took the steam and watched the water ripple as it flowed. “But physical danger was somehow an easy excuse to not let people in. Yes, my profession makes connection a bit difficult at times, but I have had to admit to myself that I’ve kept people at an arm’s length, even as I share myself with them to help them therapeutically. And I think I held people back because I didn’t want them to get attached and have to watch me die in the terrible way that is very likely because of my condition. Not guaranteed, as we’ve established, but I’ve lain on the floor of my office, pinned under my desk and bleeding from my head. I’ve come back to that moment now and again and struggled to convince myself that this was an okay outcome for friends to experience.” She shook her head. “Despite all the tools in my toolkit, some fears are just bigger beasts to tackle than others.” She looked back at Serena. “So I’m letting other help me with them, so they don’t feel so overwhelming, so… necessary. I’m trying to find ways to let them go, little by little.”

~Janna Kingston, CNS

Stone nodded but stayed silent for a long moment, letting Janna’s words turn over and over in her mind.
Finally, she said, soft but certain, “I know I said ‘fear is the mind killer’… but some fear keeps us safe. Keeps us from doing dumb things.”

She offered Janna a wry smile—a flash of humor that vanished almost as fast as it came.
Then she shifted closer, sliding one strong arm around Janna’s shoulders and pulling her in without hesitation, it’s weight grounding, reassuring. The space between them disappeared in the golden firelight. Close enough that the space between them disappeared.

“Miss Kingston,” she murmured, voice low and warm, “listen to me. And listen well.” The words could have been a reprimand—but they weren’t. They wrapped around Janna like a thick, heavy blanket, sheltering rather than scolding.

“Any real friends you have would want every moment they could get with you.
Even if…” Stone’s voice caught, but she pushed through it. “…even if a disease was slowly killing you. Even if all they had left were a few more painful, precious moments.
It would still be a chance to say goodbye. To send you to the stars knowing you left surrounded by people who loved you.
People who would’ve traded places with you without a second thought.”

The words dragged old ghosts into the clearing, born of blood and smoke. Stone blinked against the sudden burn in her eyes, but it was no good—tears spilled over before she could stop them, running hot tracks down her cheeks. She could barely see, but she didn’t let go.

Part of her knew she was talking to herself just as much as she was talking to Janna.
Holding people at arm’s length had become second nature—especially in a job where any away mission might end with someone vaporized, spaced, or buried by an empty uniform folded into a flag. Rank, duty, regulations… all of it felt small and stupid in the face of loss.

Stone wiped at her face roughly, huffing out a shaky breath. “Sorry.” It took her a second to find her voice again—steady, but softer now.

“Building those connections—holding on even when it’s terrifying—that’s its own kind of bravery. Even if it’s just with a few people. The ones who matter.”

She pulled back just enough to meet Janna’s eyes. “I promise you—your people would want you for as long as they could have you. Pain or no pain. The good outweighs the bad. Always.”

Stone gave a small lopsided, watery smile. “You would be missed, Janna. More than you know. But more than that… you’d matter. You already do. So keep coming back. I could use more friends around here. And I’d be proud to count you among them.”

Lt. Cmdr. Stone, Executive Officer