Posted by Lieutenant Corinne Dalton (Scientist) in Meeting Her Junior Officers - Deck 8 - Science Labs and CSO’s Office

Posted by Lieutenant Commander Dev Siobhan (Chief Science Officer) in Meeting Her Junior Officers - Deck 8 - Science Labs and CSO’s Office

Posted by Lieutenant Corinne Dalton (Scientist) in Meeting Her Junior Officers - Deck 8 - Science Labs and CSO’s Office
Posted by… suppressed (5) by the Post Ghost! 👻

(snip)

Dev didn’t speak for a long time.

She just sat—completely still, spine straight, hands loosely folded in her lap. Listening. Not to analyze or extract. Just… to witness.

There were few things in the galaxy she still considered miraculous. But this—Cori—was undeniably one of them.

Dev didn’t weep. That wasn’t her way. But something had moved behind her eyes as Cori spoke—something quiet and reverent, like the way Bajoran acolytes watched the flame rise during the lighting of the Ranjen’s Vigil.

When Cori finished, Dev exhaled slowly. Thoughtfully.

“Extraordinary doesn’t even begin to cover it,” she said softly.

She leaned forward just slightly, resting her forearms on the desk between them.

“What you’ve endured… and survived… and reclaimed—Cori, I don’t know that I’ve ever met anyone who’s fought so hard just to exist. And not only to exist, but to love. To feel joy again. I don’t know what I believe about fate or faith anymore, but if you were sent here—of all places, to this ship, to him—then I think there’s something sacred in that.”

Cori smiled, something serene, contented. “I agree,” she said whispered. There were still so many unanswered questions, but she had time to seek answers. Her fate was note dependant on them.

Dev’s gaze lingered on Cori’s face, but her thoughts were already drifting beyond the room—beyond this moment—to shadows she hadn’t dared name in years.

What became of him?

She didn’t ask.
She wouldn’t—not yet.

But the weight of the unspoken question pressed against her ribs, tightening around her breath. Not just him, but all of it. Everything they’d left behind like wreckage buried under new assignment orders and the illusion of forward motion.

And now—now—Cori sat across from her, alive in ways Dev had long since stopped imagining. Not a ghost. Not a flicker in the system. But breathing. Scarred. Whole. And the ground beneath Dev’s past began to shift.

Her fingers tensed, briefly, in her lap. Not from fear. From memory.

Lily.

The name struck like a whisper in the back of her mind—small, sharp, inevitable.

Dev looked down for a moment, studying her hands as if they might answer something her mind could not.

She didn’t speak of her.
Not yet.
But the thought of her daughter—of who she might have become, or where she might be—had begun to stir again. Not like a wound reopening. More like a signal, long silent, finally reaching her through the static.

She looked up again, meeting Cori’s eyes.

“I’m honored you shared that with me,” she said quietly.

And she meant it.
Not just as a friend.
But as someone slowly remembering how to be human again.

Lt. Commander Dev ○●●
Chief Science Officer
U.S.S. Ogawa

She drew in deep breath that expanded her chest and lifted her shoulders, expelling it like a sigh. “I’m glad to be able to share it. As you can see, it’s not something I can go around telling everyone. The official story is that I woke up in a lab somewhere in this body and the doctors rescued me and brought me here. The captain agrees this is the best way forward, because someone eventually is going to notice that someone who has bene declared MIA is suddenly on active duty again. Which I am by the way. Just back to full duty for the first time.”

“I’m still trying to figure out what I want to do, and the previous CSO suggested that I might enjoy looking at larger galactic mysteries. Things on bigger scales, because, and he’s not wrong, when you’ve had the entire Federation library in your head, looking n a microscope seems far too… mundane.” Dalton shrugged. “But I’m open to suggestions. For now I’ve been shadowing people in the subdepartments to see where my interests lay.”

~Corinne Dalton

Dev nodded slowly, listening as Cori spoke—not just to the words, but to the quiet between them. The space of becoming.

“There’s no rush,” she said. “No one here needs you to declare a specialty like it’s a confession. You’ve earned the right to explore—at your own pace, on your own terms.”

Her voice held that quiet firmness of someone who had once not been given that freedom, and regretted it.

“And besides, what you’re doing now—immersing yourself in the department, shadowing the teams, feeling things out—that’s the mark of a good scientist. Curiosity first. The rest will follow.”

Dalton nodded. “More or less my thought. Gives me time to sit back and think about what I actually want for my life. When you’ve had narrowed options, having anything be possible is rather daunting.”

Dev sat back, one hand curling lightly around the other. There was a glint of something gentler in her expression now—almost playful, though muted by her usual restraint.

“You know…” she said, “if memory serves, you weren’t just a scientist back then.”

Her green eyes met Cori’s with the faintest spark of something unspoken.

Then, after a quiet moment, something softened in her gaze.

“I’m not sure why this just came to me,” she said, almost to herself. “But I remember something… a conversation maybe, years ago.”

She looked at Cori more closely, something warm flickering at the edge of her voice.

“Didn’t you also study ballet?” she asked gently.

Not an interrogation. Just… a bridge. Something human. Something shared.

Lt. Commander Dev ○●●
Chief Science Officer
U.S.S. Ogawa

At first the smile was wistful, but then it shifted into something brighter. “Yes. I even had my lat pair of point shoes with my on the Saracen. Kept them later as a momento and they’ve been lost,” she said, the smile faltering. “But my goal is to dance regularly. I’m getting there. My body had zero strength so I’ve bene building it up slowly. Don’t know if I’ll ever get back on pointe, but the option is there when I’m ready.”

“Dance…” Cori closed her eyes briefly before she sighed. When she opened her eyes and gazed at Dev, her almost electric eyes (a feature one of the Drs Kane felt important to keep) held the weight of her lived experiences, of the unspeakable. “I’ve been orphaned twice. Dance was the thing that got me through the second time, when my world was turned upside down. I almost auditioned for a large dance conservatory, but Starfleet won out. My curiosity was larger than the need to express things with my body, and I figured it was an entirely portable art form, so I wasn’t really losing anything,” she said, breaking into a light laugh that eased something tense within her.

~Corinne Dalton

Dev smiled, a quiet curve of the lips that didn’t reach for brightness—but for understanding.

“I know what you mean,” she said softly. “I told myself it was portable too. That I could do both—serve, and still move.”

Her gaze drifted, not out of disinterest, but memory. Something half-sweet, half-lost.

“I danced almost every day at the Academy. Even during field training. Sometimes especially then.” A pause. “But it got harder, after the Saracen. The spaces changed. I changed. And somehow I just… stopped.”

She let that admission hang between them, unguarded. It wasn’t regret. Not exactly. But something like it.

Cori breathed in that admission and understood all too well the way life sometimes made dance fade away.

“I’ve been away from it longer than I’d like,” she said finally. “And lately I’ve been thinking—if I don’t find my way back soon, I might not be able to.”

Her eyes returned to Cori, and this time the smile came more easily.

“Maybe we don’t need to wait for the right time. Or the perfect space. Maybe we just start again. Together.”

She lifted her chin slightly, a subtle challenge softened by affection.

“What do you say? Two stubborn scientists with a shared past and questionable turnout, clearing a corner of the holodeck to see what still lives in our legs?”

Lt. Commander Dev ○●●
Chief Science Officer
U.S.S. Ogawa

She grinned. “I’d like that. I’ve been doing barre work in the gym, but I’m getting a little tired of tendus and I have the core strength and endurance to have passed my fitness tests at the bare minimum.” She breathed in and let it out like a sigh.

“At first I was really focused on doing ballet specifically, and I still think a lot of the technique is important. But…” Cori paused, her teeth pulling on the inside of her lower lip for a moment. “I think I’m ready to just… play. Move. For me, I think it needs to be about reacquainting myself with my body and the way it is now, not how I remember it to be. I don’t want to go back to ballet class. I just want to move to express myself, whatever that looks like. No perfection, no stress. Just… flawed necessity.”

~Corinne Dalton

“Flawed necessity,” she repeated quietly, tasting the words.

“I’ve spent most of my life chasing lines and precision—on the floor, in the lab, everywhere. I can’t say I’ve ever been good at moving for the sake of moving. But maybe that’s the point.”

Cori tipped her head to the side for a beat in agreement.

Her gaze softened. “If we do this, we leave the mirrors off. No correction. No comparisons to the people we were ten or fifteen years ago. Just motion. Music. Breathing in the fact that we can.”

She straightened, the spark of challenge returning. “We’ll still keep a few tendus in there, though. Out of respect for the craft.”

A brief pause, then: “When you’re ready, we’ll book a holodeck. And we’ll see what comes out of us—unpolished, unmeasured, but ours.”

Lt. Commander Dev ○●●
Chief Science Officer
U.S.S. Ogawa

Dalton’s eyes lit up, the delight spreading downwards into her cheeks, her mouth. She stuck out a hand. “You have yourself a deal, Dev Siobhan.”

“And yes, we’ll keep the tendus,” she said with a light laugh. “Or else Madame Larro will magically appear in the program with us, tap me on the shoulder and frown. And then scoff at my too muscular arms and my horseback riding.” Her brilliant blue eyes intensified, even as she tried to stay in the character of her petulant teenage self. “Well, sorry Madame, I am a farm girl after all.” The throaty chuckle felt so good. It felt good to talk these small details of life on Ajilon, these details that did not come naturally to her and she had to force herself to remember were important. It wasn’t that she hadforgot- her positronic brain was magnificent that way- but she was a Human with Human preoccupations and a tendency to think about teh present and avoid the past or the future. All that was changing though and it was lovely.

~Corinne Dalton

Dev’s laugh came low and warm, like a note struck from deep inside the chest.

“I think every studio has a Madame Larro,” she said, shaking her head. “Mine was Madame Reska—sharp enough to slice you in half with a look, and somehow able to spot a sickled foot from across a room full of mirrors.”

She took Cori’s offered hand, the clasp firm but not formal—something closer to camaraderie than a bargain sealed.

“I’m looking forward to it,” she added, and the sincerity in her tone left no space for doubt.

For a moment, she let the silence between them settle—not empty, but full. Full of the strange, unexpected comfort that came when the past didn’t feel so far away, and the future didn’t feel quite so impossible.

Then she released Cori’s hand and leaned back, the corner of her mouth curving faintly.

“Holodeck, no mirrors, a few tendus out of respect…” Dev’s smile lingered as she released Cori’s hand. “How about we claim an hour tomorrow evening? End of shift—quiet, no interruptions. Just us and whatever music feels right.”

It was a small thing, this plan between them. But it felt like the kind of small thing that could make room for much larger ones.

Lt. Commander Dev ○●●
Chief Science Officer
U.S.S. Ogawa