Posted by Lieutenant Auleraine Brison (Engineering Officer) in Pre sim - Guess who’s coming to dinner…

Posted by Lieutenant Commander Gravel Mardusk (Chief of Security) in Pre sim - Guess who’s coming to dinner…
<snip>

The place was actually huge and paths wound their way through the gardens. Gravel stepped next to her and looked down. He offered her his arm, and said “I’m glad you are here.” His tone held a bit of the uneasiness he must have felt asking her to dinner, but there was also relief.

Mardusk

She blushed at the compliment. Her arm reaching up to wrap around his. Her small arm, while not able to reach all the way around, still managed to get far enough to rest her finger tips on the inside of the crook of his elbow.

She let him lead them around a bit. Her free hand reaching out occasionally to run with a bare feather touch over the edges of some of the plants. After a few moments, she asked him, without looking up. “Why would you think I wouldn’t?” She knew, but hoped she was wrong.

Lera

He stopped as they passed by a bench, and he gestured for her to sit. The bench was next to a small retaining wall around a group of trees on a rise, and Mardusk sat on the wall. He took a deep breath and looked at the ground, and played with his fingers. Finally, he spoke.

“So this is gonna make you mad. I just really hope after you get done being mad, we can maybe try this again.” and he gestured ‘around’. “After our first meeting, I pulled your file. And I read the report of when you got held. And something just… well… it just didn’t sit right. Don’t ask what, ‘cause I really don’t know. Anyway, I had a crime scene recreation done. Took briefing statements, physical evidence, helmet cam recordings… and I had a guy dump all of that into the Computer and recreate what had happened to you right before the rescue.” and he kept his face down and he picked at his fingers as if he felt guilty.
“I don’t know how you did it, but you weathered that like a pro. Hell, I know Intel folks that would have cracked long before that rescue. But you took it, and you took it by choice. And that really impressed me. A lot. And then I thought about you and then what those bastards -” and he almost bit the last word as he spoke it, “- did that and I just knew.. knew… that whenever you’d look at me you could see them. And I really didn’t want to do that to you.”

Mardusk

She sat on the bench and watched him perch on the wall. When he started to speak, she watched him from the corner of her eye as she fiddled with her own fingers. She knew, of course. But to hear him tell it, she realized it wasn’t what she had thought. Whatever reason he set out do find when he started the project, it was here, there, in the middle of the room, chained to a post, that had distracted him.

When he finished, she stood up and walked over to stand close enough to rest her rest her hands on his arms. “I don’t see you that way, Mar. I don’t.” The shortening of his last name had been so common for her in her mind and when talking to Mike, it was automatic when she spoke to him.

“Perhaps, if Fleet or Ops had rescued us. Or if I hadn’t already been dealing with Orions enough to know that what happened wasn’t usual habits, I would have acted different to you. Maybe I would see this…” she ran her hand over his arm indicating his skin, “differently.”

She took a deep breath and let it out. “I was an ass the first time we met. You were right. I shouldn’t have jumped to conclusions. But when I turned and saw you. It was size, Mar…” she tilted her head and half bent over to try and look into his eyes. “JUST size, that startled me. I swear it to you.”

She sat back on the bench, but was on the edge of the corner closest to him. “After that, I thought maybe you had just kept your distance because you thought I feared you. That’s why I tried to get you to stay. To let you know I wasn’t scared of you. I had just been startled the first time.” She looked down at her hands once more. They had been at odds for the wrong reasons. And it had taken Mike to kick them back to sense.

Lera

He looked up and smiled a kind of sad smile. “Well… you certainly aren’t the first person to tell me that, at least.” and he shrugged his shoulders, the muscles there rippling like waves. “And I get that, absolutely. I mean this…” and he stood up and held his arms out wide, “… isn’t exactly the most comforting and zen inspiring frame to have come up behind you.” and he chuckled a kind of resigned chuckle and sat back down. He sighed and said “I’m really sorry, Lera. Last thing I want to do is make you uncomfortable. And I’m sorry I did that recreation. I know it was an invasion of your privacy in a way. But I deleted it, just so you know.”

Mardusk

She laughed softly and shook her head. “Honestly… I could get used to having that,” she held her hands out to reference him, “behind me. I’d feel safe.”

“And I don’t care about the sim. I wish you had told me, sure. But then I could have given you more information. More context for what you were going to see. I didn’t take it, the abuse, because I wanted an adrenalin high, or am a risk taker. I didn’t do it to be all heroic. I did it because I knew I would survive. Angela was a science geek. Great at her job, couldn’t lift anything heavier than a petre dish. Gwen, great security officer if she was in the office like Koll is. Much like him, knows the ins and outs, can fire a phaser, but would have broken out of choice. And Arie and Rebecca just weren’t built with bodies meant to withstand repeated blows.”

She stood up and walked a few feet away, a deep breathe in and out to calm herself. “We discovered they liked the fight, the struggle, the resistance. If we laid there, and took it. They got bored. It’s why we weren’t raped after the first night. When they tried with me the next time and I shut down, he got mad.” She shook her head, “Furious… I told the others. They laid there, and then they were left alone. By the fourth day I had made the connection. The guys calmed the girls to keep them docile as much as possible. I was the ruckus raiser.” She laughed cause it was almost ridiculous in thinking. “It didn’t stop the abuse on them all the time. But it shortened their ordeals. They found they could rile me up by hurting the others. Once I peaked in rage, they left off the others and used me.” She went silent, her back to him still. Then her voice got almost quiet. “I’m sorry you had to see it.”

Lera

Mardusk looked at her. He hadnt known about all of it. His blood boiled, but his face just showed hurt. Hurt for her. Not pity, but hurt because she had suffered.

“I didnt see it all… just the last moments before the rescue.” and he looked down again. “Your face was caught on one of the helmet cams. I saw you… your eyes… Defiant. Angry. But not broken. Not scared. It… it’s really impressive, Lera. That you could take all that and not give up. It says a lot about you. And that’s why I wanted to know you… that kind of will is… well… it’s a rare thing.”

Mardusk

“I guess…” she said. She turned to look at him, her brows furrowed with curiosity. “You thought I would reject you cause you are Orion. Why aren’t you shunned by the ordeal I went thru? It’s obvious I was broken, no matter what those eyes told you that you saw. Which I don’t believe was anything but survival. And I won’t lie, Mar… I don’t know how to act around you. Around others, I know what I am. I’m a protector. I’m the one who takes the blows cause they can’t. But I can’t take the blows you would fear.” She laughed and shook her head. “I told Mike that this morning. But it’s true. So how do I act around you? Because posturing as your body guard will merely make us both look foolish. Me for doing it and you for letting me.” She shrugged at her loss of what to do.

Lera

Mardusk looked at her and shook his head. “You can act however you want.” and he stood up and came and actually knelt down on his knees to look at her directly. “Or you dont have to act at all. You can just… be. You dont even have to talk, if you dont want to. You can just be near me. I wont judge. Or feel sorry for you. Or ask you to talk about it. Of if you do want to talk, I’ll listen.” and he slowly rose to his feet.

“And I dont see you as broken. Not now… not then. Hurt and tired and scared? Sure. But you were never broken. Because if you were really broken by those bastards… you wouldn’t be standing her talking to me about how you dont know act around me. You’d have fled the ship the first time you saw me.” and he bent over and put his face in front of hers, emerald-like eyes looking directly at her.

“When I see you I dont see what happened. I just see you. Right now. And I hope and wish that when you look at me you just see me, not the past.”

Mardusk

Her hand rose without thinking and touched the side of his face. “I don’t see the past…” she said to reassure him. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. Opening them she smiled, but it was almost sad. “I’m gonna press your buttons. I’m gonna push, and kick and shove and do things you won’t like.” She laughed then, “Or least try damned hard to. I’m gonna stand up to you, and for you, and end up looking like like some small pup chomping at the heels of a large warg. Can you live with that?”

Was this happening? Was Mike the reason, or were they managing on their own? She didn’t care. The look she saw in his eyes was something she wanted to see always. A man who didn’t know of her past and either try and tiptoe around her like she was made of spun electrum. And didn’t go the other extreme to become overbearing thinking that was what she wanted or needed.

Lera

A smile crept across his lips and he said “I can if you can. And push all the buttons you want. I can take it.” and the smile grew onto a grin. He reached out and took her hand, and it disappeared into his.

Mardusk

Her heart was racing, but it wasn’t from fear or uncertainty. She laughed softly, her other small hand resting on top of his. “I think I can handle one Orion Male…” She wanted him to know he was certainly not in the department with the others. Leaning over, she kissed his forehead. Realizing what she had done, she blushed and tried to back up, stammering her apology. “I’m sorry… I didn’t… I should have asked.”

Lera

His speed was almost as impressive as his size. With a sudden motion, he had scooped her up off the ground and set her in his arms. He bent his head low and placed a single, soft, delicate kiss on her lips. “You dont ever have to apologize for that. No matter what or where it happens. Ok?” and his hand brushed a strand of hair from her face.

If she was paying attention, she would realize he was holding her with one arm.

Mardusk