Posted by Lieutenant Commander Thomas McGregor (COS) in Clearing the Air - COS at Home

Posted by Lieutenant Commander Thomas McGregor (COS) in Clearing the Air - COS at Home

Posted by Lieutenant Commander Thomas McGregor (COS) in Clearing the Air - COS at Home
After a long (but not interminable) shuttle trip, and a visit to the public transporter, Thomas was staring at the home he’d grown up in. It hadn’t changed a bit from when he’d last seen it three years ago, following the funeral reception for his mother. He could pick out the window from the room that had once been his, just over the door to the garage where his father kept the “toys” – ATVs for most seasons and snowmobiles for the winter. He’d liked it because it was easy to sneak out from, and much less dangerous than having a three-meter drop to the front lawn. Half a meter onto the garage roof, then shimmy down the drainpipe and he was out of the house and into the trees.

He let a small smile creep onto his face as he remembered using the route to try and learn parkour as a teen. He’d only broken his left leg once, his right ankle twice and various bones in his arms three times before giving up on that particular skill.

Still, standing here and reminiscing about things from more than a decade ago weren’t why he’d come home. Adjusting the strap of his bag on his shoulder, he forced himself to walk up the drive. He made it far closer to the door than he expected before he saw movement in the front room, through the gauzy curtains that provided only the barest minimum of privacy protection, particularly given the sensor pods mounted on the fence posts at the end of the drive.

He strolled with precision and grim dignity up the three steps onto the porch, but before he could reach down and ring the chime announcing himself, the front door opened to reveal his father: Commander Conor McGregor, retired.

Both men stared at each other for a moment.

“Thomas,” Conor said, evenly, looking at his eldest son.

“Dad,” Thomas replied, the wistful smile replaced by a tight expression. Anxiety was roiling in his gut, and before he fully registered what he was doing, he’d closed the gap between them, raised his right arm and punched his father in the face.

COS

The punch was returned with a left to Thomas’ gut, before the younger McGregor let out a yell and tackled his father into the entryway, kicking the door shut behind them.

The split in his attention to do so gave his father an opening and the older man took advantage, quickly pinning his son in a half-nelson hold.

“Not exactly the welcome home I was expecting to give you, Thomas,” he said from behind him. “Nice to know you’ve kept up with your hand-to-hand combat training though, I’m going to need a minute with a vascular regenerator tonight.”

“Sorry,” Thomas said. “That wasn’t exactly the plan for this visit, no matter what I told my Captain.”

“If I let you up, will you explain just what you are doing here less than a month after you sent a message indicating you were on a deep space exploration mission in the Beta Quadrant?” Conor asked.

“Yes,” Thomas said. “It’s something we really should have done three years ago.”

“Alright,” Conor said, abruptly releasing his hold and standing, then offering Thomas a hand to pick himself up off the floor. “Is it something we should do over a drink?”

Thomas paused and considered the question. On the one hand, he didn’t want there to be any possibility of alcohol clouding the discussion and causing something to be misunderstood or ignored, but on the other…

“Yeah,” he said. “But just beer, no hard liquor until afterwards.”

“Fair enough,” Conor replied, beckoning his eldest son to follow him further into the house.

COS

The pair sat across from each other, each holding a frosted mug filled with a light amber-colored beer, capped with a healthy head of foam.

“We’re going to talk about Mom,” Thomas said, before taking a deep swig from his mug that left him with a foam mustache. “And specifically, your pigheadedness that ended up with her dead and then not telling any of us anything until the day after your starliner returned.”

Conor frowned, his grip on his own mug tightening. “Why, son, do you insist on blaming me for your mother’s death? It was a disease that took her, and you know it. Gods know you’ve spent enough time pouring over every record you could get your hands on immediately afterwards trying to prove otherwise.”

“Yes, I know it was a disease that killed her. But I also know she got it on the trip, a trip you wanted to take and arranged, and I also know you delayed letting her visit the starliner’s medbay until the disease had progressed to a point where they were unable to do anything about it,” Thomas replied with a glare. “You don’t think I bothered asking the ship’s medical crew about what they learned?”

“I thought it was a cold!” his father insisted. “It wasn’t like she was cramping and vomiting the first few days, she just said she felt a little off. I thought she was having her time of the month.”

“An attentive husband would have sent her to the medbay on day two, if not immediately,” Thomas retorted. “But then, that would spoil your trip, wouldn’t it?”

“It was a trip for both of us,” Conor began, but Thomas slammed his hand on the table and cut him off.

“It was your trip. She didn’t give a rat’s ass about ancient Andorian monasteries or Vulcan spy nests, she just wanted to spend some time with her husband for the first time in thirty Godsdamned years!”

“Is that what this is about? You think I neglected my family?”

“Hard not to, when I can count on one hand the number of times you were physically present for any of our birthdays. I’m not entirely sure you were even present for Garrett’s actual birth,” Thomas retorted. Both men exchanged glares and took deep drinks from their beer. “But then you sent that Godsdamn patronizing holiday message and it touched off something in me, that sent me to the Counselor, and a recommendation that I come home and actually try to hash out all the issues I’ve had with you in person.”

“How long have you got?” Conor asked.

“Up to six months,” Thomas replied. “But I think one of us would kill the other long before then, so I’m hoping to get the worst of it done in the next two weeks, so we can be civil enough that I can stand to be in the same room as you without trying to turn your head into a Jack o’lantern.”

That elicited a laugh from his father.

COS

“Are you going to tell your brothers and sister you’re back?” his father asked, once they’d each finished their first beer, and each gotten a second.

Thomas swirled his bottle around. “Eventually,” he said. “I’d like us to all get together as a family before I go back. I haven’t even sent them so much as a birthday e-card in three years, to my shame.”

“Why do you think we all sent the message?” Conor asked. “Hells, son, the only way we knew you were still alive was that I hadn’t been visited by a CACO. You didn’t even call when you had a ship shot from under you.”

“Er, about that,” Thomas said. “I didn’t have the ship shot out from under me… as much as I kind of wrecked it.”

His father gave him a flat stare, then took a deep drink from his bottle. “There’s a story in there, I’m sure.”

“Yeah, well it’s not exactly one of my prouder moments space-side. Sure, I was cleared of any wrong-doing by the Captain and the Board of Inquiry afterwards, but I still think it was a damn stupid, crazy idea and I’m amazed that I had it, and that I voiced it, and that it was okayed. I still can’t believe it worked, and didn’t kill us all in the process,” Thomas replied, taking a deep drink of his own.

“Besides, we’re getting off topic. This conversation is supposed to be why I hate you and basically completely separated myself from all of you the last three years, not about me.”

“Sorry, bud, but sounds like the two topics are inextricably linked to me,” Conor replied with a smirk. “Can’t talk about why you are upset without talking about you, now, can we?”

Thomas replied with a scowl and a glare. “That right there is part of it. You’re not a counselor, Dad.”

“Legally, you’re correct. I never bothered to take the licensing exams. But as part of my Security training at the Academy, I took a lot of Psychology courses, and even after graduating I took some continuing education in the subject, and made friends with several qualified counselors to keep up to date in the subject. It helped me understand the criminal mind, and was particularly useful in counter-espionage ops.”

Thomas was grudgingly impressed, and said so. Unfortunately for his mood, that only made his father’s smirk bigger.

“They didn’t make me a Commander for my good looks, son,” he replied.

“Yeah, well it’s not like they hand out Lieutenant Commander’s pips like candy, is it?” he asked, gesturing towards his own collar before remembering he wasn’t in uniform, and so his pips weren’t on display.

“You got promoted again?” his father asked. “Congratulations. At this rate you’ll have my rank before you turn 30. Might even manage to make Captain yourself.”

“How would you handle me making a higher rank than you?” Thomas asked, entirely unprepared for his father to break out in an honest-to-the-Gods smile.

“Are you kidding? I’d be more thrilled than when Anthony introduced us all to Felicity. Marriage is all well and good, but having your own Command would be something else. Now, you’ll drop down the list again if and when those two give me a grandkid, but if you make Captain first, well…” Conor said, tipping his beer bottle to his eldest.

Thomas, beyond all his expectations for this visit, did something he’d hardly expected to do this afternoon: laugh.

COS