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 (4) by the Post Ghost! 👻

Snip

“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

The flurry of emotions in Dante was confusing, to say the least. His Italian blood boiled at the thought she had never told him about her surgery or their baby, but at the same time he understood her. He knew Nat, knew how she would have reacted and felt and really, he couldn’t blame her. How do you just tell somebody that on their wedding day, not only would you not be there but also lost a baby? And why wouldn’t she tell him?

Before this, Dante had believed that the wedding was missed due to Duty, she had to save a life and to Dante, that was always going to be more important than a ceremony for the two of them to say on paper they were husband and wife. Just like their first attempt, Dante had been called away on Duty to save lives, and Nat had forgiven him completely, still loved him and accepted him. He had done the same for her, trusted her completely, and now that series of events had been shattered. She had not been saving a life, she had been losing the life of their own child through a tragedy that he hadn’t been there for.

He was standing at the altar, Duncan as his best man, while the life of their child, their family to be, had faded away and Nat, the woman he loved and would catch grenades for, had been alone without him by her side. Nobody on the Outpost had told him and he guessed, that was when Nat had removed him from the register. By the time he was back and arranged Duncans batch for the two of them to spend time in, it was a good way for Nat to get him away from the Outpost and the people that knew about it. He believed she had meant to tell him, wanted to, but he knew that the woman he loved would have done it tough, buried it like it never happened, like she was trying to do now. Play down how much it meant to her and affected her.

All together that made him angry, and filled him with a sadness that he couldn’t describe. They had been having a child together, him and Natasha, one he never knew about and never had the chance to love, or tell her that he loved her no matter what, he hadn’t been there and for every part of him that loved her, was an equal part screaming at him that he had failed her, that it was his fault that she had lost the baby as insane as that was, that he hadn’t been there to hold her and love her, and when she needed his love at that moment in her life she needed him the most, he wasn’t there.

Standing, Dante pulled her gently to her feet and into his arms. His heart beating, all at once he wanted to yell, to scream at her for lying to him, for not telling him. But over it all was love. Dante loved Natasha with everything he was, and while it was going to take some time to truly do so, he was going to forgive her, but he would never stop loving her. “Tasia” he told her as he wrapped her arms around her, “you should have told me. No matter how much it hurt. It was our baby, it doesn’t matter how far along it was, it was our baby. You had to have been so strong to go through that alone, knowing I wasn’t there for you. You must have hated me for not being there.” He pulled her closer to him and looked down at her, his jaw set with the anger he felt, but his tone and his eyes showing nothing but the love he had for her.

“I didn’t hate you but yeah you weren’t there so what was the point in telling you,” Natasha said defensively. She attempted to push back from his embrace but gave up the effort quickly. She knew this position and her boyfriend after a lot of years. Dante was either going to relax his grip and let her cry or hold her tighter so that she could not shut down on him by leaving the room. “It’s not your fault or mine or the universes. We choose this life. We enlisted in Starfleet and it is not going to change. It doesn’t matter if we are on the same ship or quadrants away. Things come up. We handle them and move on. That is what we do and this was just another example. I can list more. Hell I could start a laundry list but that would only make you think I am a horrible person.” Natasha could not help the venom in her voice. The baby thing was just a long series of regrets equally shared between them. Surgeries, injuries, neutral zone conflicts, and emergency meetings from headquarters had cause both of them to cancel plans over the years. Neither of them was more innocent or less guilty of putting life before them as a couple. They just had never spoken about it openly until now.

“How can I call you a horrible person? You are the mother of the child we lost, the woman I have loved most of my life, and the woman I want to be my wife and the mother of our children. You did what you had to so you could carry on, and I have no idea how hard that was for you. I can hate that you didn’t tell me, I can hate that you didn’t let me be with you, and I can hate that it took this many years for the truth, but I can never hate you, not once in eternity or in any universe.” He put his hands on her shoulders now and sighed, and just looked at her for a moment. “I love you. I’m sorry I wasn’t there for you. I don’t blame you Tasia, you’ve told me now, and we have the rest of our lives to make it right and show you it’s going to be ok.”

Captain Knight

“You’re right,” she said actually pushing free of his grasp. “We both know that so we need to do what we always do. Push through and wait for the morning because things always look better in the morning.” Walking over to the table she began to clear it. “So should w watch something or read or go play with Bruce,” she let the options roll off into the air. “We could go to the rec deck.”

Lt. Natasha Daye medical

Without words, Dante moved and began to help clear the table. He was trying, but the frustration inside him was mounting. Nat was doing it again, pushing him away by trying to ignore the problem or bury the feelings and event they had finally spoken about after so long. He knew she didnt mean to come off cold and harsh, that it was just her way of dealing with things that made her sad or uncomfortable. Of course they could sit and watch a movie, play a game or joke around, even go out for coffee or a walk. By the time the next morning came around the event would be less because of time and sleep, and she would find it easier to ignore it again while he would feel things hadn’t yet been resolved properly and the cycle would begin anew.

He had reached out to her with care and love, and Nat in her efforts to present a tough surface and deal with the feelings had seemingly brushed the event away, and with it his desire to be close to her and support her. It was her way of things, he knew that, and accepted it as much as he loved abd accepted her. It was just who she was, but it didn’t mean that he had to like it.

“You know what” he said to Nat, dropping a stack of dishes in the replicator and recycling them, “I can’t do this whole ‘it happened, doesnt matter anyway cause it doesn’t change anything’ thing you do right now. It was our child, and you needed me, and you never told me. The mornings not going to change anything, our baby still died Nat. I cant just pass it off and bury it and be so cold, it was our baby.” He turned and took a few steps, rubbing his hands over his face. The anger was gone, now it was simply frustration and sadness. He motioned with his hands to say something, but changed his mind and simply walked into their bedroom, doors sliding shut behind him as he sat on the edge of their bed and leaned forwards, hands behind his neck and elbows on his knees while he didn’t think, just felt.

Captain Knight, CO

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