Posted by Civilian Dawson (Intelligence Operative) in Beyond the Spotlight

Posted by Lieutenant Commander Faye Calloway (Chief Intelligence Officer) in Beyond the Spotlight

Posted by Civilian Dawson (Intelligence Operative) in Beyond the Spotlight
Posted by… suppressed (6) by the Post Ghost! 👻
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Faye eyed him sideways. “I suppose you ad I would never have gotten along then.” She tilted her head, gaze drifting up towards the ceiling. “Though, I’m not sure grumpy would be the correct adjective people used for me. Callous, cold. The nickname Callous Calloway came up on one of my earlier postings. ” She shrugged and then looked at Dawson again. “I guess in some ways I embraced their reactions to me, even as I fought against them.” She chuckled. “I was more than a little mixed up back then. And in need of extensive therapy.”

~Faye Calloway, CIO

Dawson nnodded thoughtfully. “Grumpy to me is not necessarily calloused. Grumpy is when someone doesn’t get their way and pouts about it. Holds onto it until they get their way next time. But, just because I may find it irritating, doesn’t mean I can’t still care. I just care in a more…firey way?” he said with a deep laugh. “In truth it isn’t a deal breaker.” he added in jest.

“Well, it helps that I’ve done a lot of work on myself and once I stopped hiding from my past, a lot of things started to become easier. Never going to be a social butterfly, but I can handle some situations better than before,” Faye said.

Those words…once I stopped hiding from my past… meant something to him. Dawson had undergone some of his own mental transformations. When the borg had destroyed his homeworld, it broke him. It broke every El Aurian in a way. Some recovered faster than others. Dawson took many, many years to do so. Though his circumstances were exceptionally unique. He hid from the past, knowing his gap in years was extensive when he was recovered from the cryo-stasis pod he had been found in. Discovering Orvos was still alive brought the pain of the past to the surface in a way he didn’t particularly enjoy. So he spent time shoving it away, ignoring it. It was much harder to do so, however, when intelligence requested his assistance aboard the Athena.

He shook the thoughts aside and continued.

“So, tell me, what led to all this hmm? Why did you decide to go up stage with Rollin?” he decided to finally ask.

-Dawson “Stillwater”

Faye focused on her hand as it stroked the length of Tess’ body. She looked at Dawson, emotion shifting through her eyes as she radiated something akin to yearning. “He saw me. From the moment I met him in the lounge, he clocked me so accurately it was almost painful, and yet he did so in the most kind and generous way possible. Earlier in my life, I never wanted to be seen. It was too dangerous. But now, it’s different and he saw something in me that I don’t let out very often. He understood when he approached me tonight that just because I could let it out, didn’t mean I would then go on to always let it out. And rather than it be something forced upon me, he gave me a choice. A very public one, but if I had said no, he would have respected that.”

Dawson nodded as he took in the information. “It would seem that Rollin had a decent sense of maturity mixed in with his colorful personality,” he remarked.

“Singing isn’t my talent. Dance is. But I do sing and I’ve sung around people before. I grew up surrounded by music and our community gathering around it. It was present at every event, big or small. My mom is a gifted pianist and she has an amazing voice.” Faye shook her head. “I don’t know entirely what made me say yes other than I knew it was important I do so and I trusted Rollin. I was right to. It was an amazing experience, but the overwhelm just hit me so hard after”

~Faye Calloway, CIO

Dawson understood very well that feeling. “Doing something totally out of our comfort zone. It can be a challenge. But it’s great when we push passed and enjoy it for what it is. And of course, our realities and thoughts come crashing down on us once the experience is had. I can empathize with that. I’ve spent my entire life learning tactics and martial strategies. And through the centuries, those change when new tech is introduced. But you always have to be cautious when learning how to use some it. Multiple times I’ve found myself on quite the high when mastering something, only to have it all come crashing in on me afterwards. Perhaps its a bit different, but that feeling is relatable.”

She nodded. It was hard to explain the overwhelm that made her brain want to escape elsewhere. Faye had learned how to tame that particular beast, but it had been hard earned knowledge. Painfully so.

He continued. “You mention it was prevalent in your community growing up? How often did you sing in front of others back then?” he asked curiously.

-Dawson “Stillwater”

Faye thought back to those times on Tracken. What used to be too difficult to conjure she could now bring to the surface with far less pain. She credited the memorial service she and her mom held on the Manhattan for easing the pain. It still hurt to think of those she had lost and she tried not to rehash that terrible escape, but she not longer either avoided Tracken in her mind, or dwelled there. Huh, look at that. Progress.

Her gaze had been fix on Tess, and given her intense focus on her thoughts, Dawson would be forgiven if he thought Faye had actually just dissociated. She had not. She turned her head and gazed at him, head tilted as she broke into a smirk. “I did not. At least not in any performance capacity. We sang happy birthday when we celebrated for someone, but the reality is that my memory is really good, Dawson. Not quite eidetic, but I retain much of what I focus on. So all the music my parents and others listened to, especially repeatedly, I remember. My brain likes patterns, so music is something that resonates with me. I just express it through movement rather than vocal of instrumental performance. But I can’t remember a time on Tracken when there wasn’t music. It was in my house, at community gatherings at the community hall, both my parents best friends played instruments and sung.” She shook her head and smiled. “When I need a happy memory of Tracken, that’s what I turn to.”

~Faye Calloway, CIO

Bump

Dawson listened with interest, prodding her on with more questions. “Sounds like it really resonated with you. Was there a bit of dependency on music for you? Did you rely on that for happiness or contentedness? And if so, what was it like to transition into a life where it’s hardly heard? I don’t hear much music playing on starships in the way you speak of it on Tracken.”

-Dawson “Stillwater”

Faye picked at the cuticle of her left thumb with her index fingernail, while her other hand rested on Tess. Her gaze shifted away, taking in the surroundings of her and Daggum’s home. “I wouldn’t say there was a dependancy, no. I think I felt most content and happy on Tracken when I could predict things, when people and events were understandable to me. It’s not that people couldn’t change, and they did, but there were certain things that stayed the same- T’Lora and Jaris playing music together, my mom playing the piano- these things are just embedded in me at this point. Now, I look for things that can be predictable to help ground me when everything else is chaos, including me. But even when that isn’t music, when it does come around I feel”-she turned her gaze back on Dawson-“transported back to a time when things felt safer. I was twelve when my parents taught me to use a weapon, Dawson. Out of necessity, because they knew they couldn’t protect me fully. The Cardassians wouldn’t care that I was a child. Everything after the Federation signed the treaty with the Cardassians became so uncertain, that even now I cling to those tiny little memories of softness, of kindness, of music.” She shrugged. It was hard to sum thins up, but she at least tried.

~Faye Calloway, CIO

Dawson nodded thoughtfully. “So it wasn’t the music per se. It was the pattern of dependable or reliable structure. One that, in particular, creates a safety net as well. I’m curious, is that how you experience the world around you? Through consistent patterns?” Dawson was, at this point, deep into the conversation and he felt little restraint in asking those deeper questions. The better he could understand Faye, the better their working relationship might function.

-Dawson “Stillwater”

Faye sucked in a deep breath and closed her eyes. “Gla-tor k’fai wuh ret. Gla-tor mesakh, she said before exhaling the rest of that breath. She opened her eyes and gazed at Dawson once again, those stormy grey-green eyes suddenly intense. “It’s Vulcan for ‘See through the spaces. See beyond.’ My mentor, T’Lora would tell me that. She saw early on that mind worked differently than others, that I was gifted in a way that was hard on a tiny colony on the Caradassian border. She gave me room to play within the vast spaces my mind could tap into.” With one hand stabilizing Tess (who barely acknowledged the movement now that her person was calm again), Faye turned her body to face Dawson more. “My mind sees patterns but it’s more than that. It sees possibilities. All the possibilities. It take the variables and follows them down their logical path, but more often than not I’m working on multiple branches at the same time. I can pick the path that the situation requires more easily because I can calculate the odds very quickly. Make an informed choice. Unless of course it’s an area I have less experience in, or struggle personally with , like social situations. In those cases, I can try to predict outcomes so that I can feel more comfortable, but people are rarely so predictable, and thus I tend to end up in conflict with them, either because I’m overwhelmed and don’t know the right way to respond, or my feelings get hurt and I don’t have the right response to make that situation go smoother. This is at least a small part of why people think I can be cold or, not to put too fine a point on it, bat-shit crazy. I do overreact because of a lot of reasons, and many of them involve trauma, but as I’m exploring with Dr. Kingston, I also might be autistic. So maybe I’m just operating on a different frequency than others and I haven’t quite figured out how to tap into the social translator with many people. Some people, like Daggum, don’t need one. They get me intuitively and that makes conflict with them easier to manage. I know I won’t be shunned because I get it wrong too many times.”

~Faye Calloway, CIO