Posted by Captain Dante Knight (Commanding Officer) in Captains Quarters - Dante Comes Home

Posted by Lieutenant Natasha Daye (Doctor) in Captains Quarters - Dante Comes Home

Posted by Lieutenant Natasha Daye (Doctor) in Captains Quarters - Dante Comes Home Posted by… suppressed (1) by the Post Ghost! 👻 Posted by Captain Dante Knight (CO) in Captain's quarters - Dante Comes Home : Posted by Lieutenant Natasha Daye (Doctor) in Captain's quarters - Dante Comes Home : : Posted by Lieutenant Natasha Daye (Doctor) in Captain's quarters - Dante Comes Home : : : Posted by Captain Dante Knight (CO) in Captain's quarters - Dante Comes Home : : : : Posted by Lieutenant Natasha Daye (Doctor) in Captain's quarters - Dante Comes Home : Snip : : :  : : : Turning the hand that had Nat’s on his, he took her hand in his own and held it while he chewed. This let him absorb her answer for a moment rather than just react to it, and she couldn’t growl him for being rude and not replying because his mouth was full, so he chewed slowly. Savored it. It tasted far better than the load of rubbish she had just tried to feed him with the need to get away, oh he did not doubt it was real and had a factual basis, but it also wasn’t an answer to what he had begun to talk about. He didn’t know if she was aware that he had already realized this tactic of hers a long time ago, they had been together too long for him not to notice her habits, the way she hummed slightly before telling the little white lie or bent the truth to suit her better. It was one of those habits that was cute as hell and annoying all at the same time, but he rarely pulled her up on it.  : : :  : : : “Shore leave or being worried doesn’t land you in sick bay with the Chief Medical Officer covering for you” he told Nat, “and it certainly doesn’t explain why you removed me from the list of people with access to your medical records” Dante slowly and deliberately spooned more of the Butter Chicken into his mouth and ate it just as slowly, he found that this gave him something to focus on, rather than trying to use the sledgehammer. Maybe Tasia would need that later on tonight, but for now, he had to get the proverbial blood out of the stone. The time might let her realize he wasn’t buying her deflect and parry pity party story this time. “Talk to me bub” Dante said to her, gently. “I love you, you know that. Eat with me and talk to me, then lets curl up on that couch, let me hold you, stroke your hair, tell you we are good and let you fall asleep to my voice as I talk to you.” : : :  : : : Captain Knight : : : CO : :  : : Natasha tried to pull her hand back but couldn’t. Dante wasn’t holding it that tightly but tight enough to show even metaphorically that he was not going to let this or her go. During their long years together, he always bent to her demands, whims, wants, and needs without question or reservation, until he didn’t. This rare point zero, zero, zero, zero, nine percent was the area that made Daye uncomfortable. It meant that there was no highway but Dante’s and the ruthless, tenacious determination that was required of his job from time to time was now going to be released on her. Dante would wait until she answered before they moved or changed the subject. This was evident in the huge helping of dinner he was chewing a half a spoonful at a time, the calm but steady gaze of his eyes, and his grip on her hand. : :  : : “You were a thousand million miles away on your ship. It made no sense to have you as my emergency medical contact,” Daye said in a clipped tone. “Think about it. When I needed medical attention you weren’t there so I listed someone else. I told Boja to add you so this point is moot.” Natasha took a deep breath to calm herself. She hated how quiet Dante could be in moments like this. After all their years together, Natasha Daye had learned that while Dante had no problem yelling and raising his voice because God knew they had their screaming matches, it was when he was silent or using a level tone was when he was the most deadly serious.  : Dante paused in his meal as he listened. Once he had Natasha talking, he would let her speak, explain things and just listen. That way he could concentrate on what he was being told, and pick out the absolute truth from the parts that got tweaked for posterity. Keeping his eyes on her Dante nodded when she explained about the emergency medical contact, a nod of understanding but his eyes showed he didn’t accept it. Multiple people could be added and Dante knew that she still wasn’t giving him the proper truth, just a version of it, missing some vital piece that for some reason she was hiding, the piece that would explain the why, not the what.  : So he waited, silent, looking at her and knowing that at some point, more would come. : :  : : Natasha toyed with the edge of her napkin with her free hand deciding how to proceed. She had wanted to tell him but never could find the time. Now she had the time and didn’t know how to start. Setting her mind into the clinical doctor mode, Natasha raised her eyes to his. In a clear voice, she said simply. “I was pregnant.” : :  : : Lt. Natasha Daye, medical :  : BUMP ~ Sheesh are you that stunned Dante....I mean it is a baby not a terminal condition. Say soemthing! :) ~Natasha Daye : OOC: Of course!! That’s kinda a big thing :P : IC: The words left Dante stunned, and his face showed it. Not a horrified stunned, but more of shock, surprise and something else. Butter chicken forgotten he came forwards in his seat and shifted his hand, making sure hers was in his and he didn’t let her go, he never wanted to let her go. “You were Pregnant?” he repeated after what seemed an hour but was only a minute, actually speechless. “With a baby?” Dante shook his head slightly to clear his thoughts, “I mean, ours? But you took me off the medical list because you were pregnant?” His face had moved to confusion as he tried to process the revelation. : His face began to show signs of understanding, maybe hurt. “You took me off the list so I couldn’t know. It wasn’t ours? You said you listed someone else.” He closed his eyes as he tried to think clearly, the possibilities didn’t sit well with him as a million different situations and reasons hit him at once and he was left unable to process anything as he just sat there, stunned. “When?” he asked her, then something else hit him and he looked at her, his face turning very slightly from hurt to anger. “When you left me waiting at the altar? You were pregnant?” : Captain Knight CO

“Yes,” Daye said calmly as if she was breaking unthinkable news to a patient. In a sense she was. “Yes I was pregnant and yes that is why I did not show up to our wedding which is why our joke best two out of three works.” Her joke fell flat. It was not meant to be funny, only slice through the tension that felt suffocating in the room. Natasha could see Dante struggling to process the information. He was also processing it wrong. Clearing her throat, Daye averted her eyes to regain her focus and put Dante on the right track. The situation was going to be bad enough without him going in wrong directions.

Dante stared at her for a moment, what felt like eternity really as what she was telling him hit home. He had never guessed that the reason she had not turned up to the wedding was because she was pregnant. He knew that she had been called into the sickbay on Op42 right before their wedding, on Duty he had thought for an emergency operation. She had told him that much and he had never questioned it, seeing as they both had careers and shortly after their wedding had been called off he had again been called away on Duty like their first failed wedding attempt. When he had returned a week later they had spoken about what happened, and events had carried them both forward like they always did. He still held onto her hand, but now he rose and came around the table to her, kneeling down and lifting her hand to his chest, placing his other hand on her thigh as he looked at her. “You were pregnant” he repeated, the look of confused anger and hurt still on his face, but quite obviously the man cared for Natasha deeply, loved her with all of his soul just like he always had. “With our baby? Tasia talk to me.”

“The baby,” Nat’s voice hitched a bit before she recovered, “was yours. Ours,” she corrected it almost immediately. “The baby was ours. I got pregnant during the Outpost Halloween party,” she said with the first hint of a smile. “You remember. The one where I went as the German bar wench and you showed up as the Allied GI guy on liberty.” Her expression took on a far off look as she remembered that night. “It was a good night,” she let out a breathy half laugh looking down at her hand in Dante’s. “It would have been perfect. I had the best wedding gift,” she said. Her voice broke again but Natasha recovered quickly. Sniffing back her nose was the only outward sign this was tearing her apart. Years of being a doctor had taught her stocism. This story was sad and was hers but it was not the first time she had to retell a sad story that affected her.

Lt. Natasha Daye Medical

A smile broke through Dante’s face, ever so slight as he remembered that particular Halloween party and the events that happened before, during and after it. That smile faded as he came back to reality and Natasha in front of him. “It was an amazing night” he told her, “and we were having a baby, a little Tasia” he said, and his thoughts ran over things she had told him, and obviously hadn’t told him about it. She had never told him she had been pregnant, and quite obviously no child was in their lives now.

“Baby what happened” he asked her, reaching his hand up and lifting his hand to stroke her cheek softly with his fingers. “It would have been the perfect wedding gift, I have always wanted a family with you, always wanted to hold you and our baby at the end of the day and watch the two of you sleep.” He could see that she was torn about this and that it was affecting her deeply, part of him wanted to say they could talk about it later and just take her to their bed, lie down with her and hold her until morning came, when everything was always better. Dante knew though that it wouldn’t go away, and now it was in the open, they needed to talk about it openly and honestly.

“You don’t think I thought the same thing,” she said her tone getting angry for the first time. “You don’t think I wanted to tell you what happened. It was going to,” her voice caught in her throat and stopped her from speaking. This is why she never brought it up. The look on Dante’s face. The half anger, half frustration tone of his voice. There was no good way to bring this up. There never was when lying was involved. While Natasha did not lie directly to him she had omitted the truth which was just as bad. In this case, it made it worse because her omission was letting Dante jump to every wrong conclusion possible.

“What happened Nat?” he asked her softly, “Why did you never show up to the wedding? What happened to our Baby?” he asked her through slightly gritted teeth, he almost didn’t want to know the answer, he already felt like he had failed her by not being there for her, not being the man she deserved, and under it all the feeling of guilty anger that she had never told him, had kept all of this a secret when she had professed to love him and expected him to trust her.

Captain Knight
CO

“I had a miscarriage at six weeks. The baby was not even really a baby,” she tried to take on a professional tone but was failing miserably. “The baby was an embryo. I guess that is how I had to look at it. TO deal with it,” she wiped a tear before it fell. “That is how I dealt with it. It was just something that happens. I was not special or did anything wrong. The miscarriage was specifically an ectopic pregnancy. I didn’t even know I was pregnant until I wasn’t. I was on duty and thought I had menstrual cramps. A few minutes later I started to hemorrhage. Luckily I was in sickbay. They took me into surgery. Paige was on vacation. Gunny and Jessica on a mission to some colony. By the time it was over it was over. I lost a lot of blood and was out for about 36 hours. By then I was missing the wedding and…and I didn’t want to talk to you. To have the world know that the day that was supposed to be my happiest was never going to be anything but the day I regretted the most. When I finally got out of my head and tried to comm you, you were pulled away on business again. When you came back, I didn’t want to remember or talk about it. You had rented Duncan’s cabin and was so excited to get away just the two of us.” Natasha looked at him with almost a pleading expression. “Yes I am a horrible person and you had every right to know but I just wanted to forget.” Nat looked into Dante’s eyes hoping that at the best he would no walk out and at the least he would not walk out of the room.

Lt. Natasha Daye, medical