Posted by Lieutenant Commander Royal Sinclair (Counselor) in Counsellor’s Quarters- Corinne

Posted by Lieutenant Corinne Dalton/SARAH (Ships AI/Avatar) in Counsellor’s Quarters- Corinne

Posted by Lieutenant Commander Royal Sinclair (Counselor) in Counsellor’s Quarters- Corinne

(snip)

Sinclair calmed as he listened, and when she was done he said “You said you can see a pattern. Do you know why this pattern keeps occurring? Do you thnk it is fate? Or do you think it is something you do, choices you make?”

Sinclair, CNS

Silence filled the space between them and Cori took the moment to look out the window and then chuckled bitterly. “Oh, it’s all me, I know that much. I don’t believe in fate.” Her vivid eyes looked back at Sinclair. “No, this is all about me finally learning to connect with people and let them in but somehow not finding the balance. They become my whole world, my whole existence. And then when they are gone, which will happen regardless of who enters my life, I’m left devastated even more than I might because it feels like I am left with nothing. I know intellectually that’s not true, but that is is how it feels. And it’s pathetically sad on my part really.”

~Corinne Dalton

“Not at all.” Sinclair replied. “And in a circumstance as unusual as yours, who is to say what is sad or not except you?” and he paused for a moment while he sat and watched her.

“Here is a thought. You said that when you let someone in, they become ‘your whole world, your whole existence’. Could that be you trying to reclaim some of the humanity you feel you have lost? Living for a single, tangible person… investing yourself in them in order to connect with your own humanity?”

Sinclair, CNS

She shrugged. “Oh, I’m sure it’s something like that.” Cori thought back to those first days after she ‘died’ and then wasn’t dead after all. The fear (both her and from those around her) had been strong. She was suddenly an unknown variable that no one knew what to make of. But it was too easy to just rest everything on that one event. No, this sensation of all or nothing had been with her much longer than that.

“I… think, perhaps, that it’s simply about connection,” she said softly. “I’ve lost my parents, twice. I’ve survived, twice, when I logically should have died. Connecting after the attacks on the colony was… hard. At the Academy it was much easier to just slip through and interact on surface levels. No one could hurt me then, because if they left, if they were gone, then it wouldn’t painful. But after the… incident“-she used air quotes as she spoke the word-“I was even more separate form everyone but now on a fundamental level. When I did start to connect with people, it was like finding water after travelling through a desert.” She looked at him directly again. “You know how it is, don’t you? When you’ve denied yourself something for so long, and then you discover how much you not only need it, but want it, you… binge. And when I fell for Levi, oh Royal, I binged. I threw myself into it so fully I couldn’t see the forest for the trees. And even after his betrayal, I binged every time someone came into my life. Because they chose me. Don’t you see?” she said, hearing the annoying desperation in her voice. “They chose me, often despite this weird new existence. And I can’t help but want that, even as it feels like it’s slowly destroying me at the same time.”

~Corinne Dalton