Posted by Major General Charles Tenkiller (Vice-Commander, Colonial Customs and Defense Agency) in Safe Harbors

Posted by Lieutenant Sharah Fayth (Chief Star Fleet Medical Officer) in Safe Harbors

Posted by Lieutenant Sharah Fayth (Chief Star Fleet Medical Officer) in Safe Harbors
Posted by… suppressed (6) by the Post Ghost! 👻
Sharah had the most important things she needed, and it wasn’t like she couldn’t stop and get whatever she wanted from a merchant on her way home. Or tell the computer and it would be delivered. But there were personal things she wanted though, and as she stood staring at the dresser drawer she realized a week’s worth of uniforms wasn’t quite the same as a week’s worth of normal everyday clothes. She slipped into a pair of jeans and soft cotton, off the shoulder shirt. Plus the plants she had back in her apartment had to be cared for. She couldn’t just leave them. She also had her next appointment with Korczak. It was her day off, so she’d have time.

She made her way upstairs, and it was quiet. Yavia was at practice and she could feel TK in his studio. She didn’t want to bother him, but she thought she should at least tell him she was going out incase he went looking for her later. She walked through the den and over to the door and knocked softly. “Umm…Charles, I’m going out…I’ll probably…be gone awhile.”

Sharah

There was a brief moment of silence and then the door opened. Charles was in jeans and barefoot with no shirt on. His hands were covered in a bright array of colorful specks of paint, and some had gotten on his chest. In one hand was a paint brush,in the other a painter’s palate covered in bright colors. He smiled at Sharah and said “Hey! Ok, no worries. I’ll be here if you need me. Just call and I’ll come a’runnin’.” and he chuckled.

Tenkiller

Oh he looked good like that. Slightly disheveled, boyish happiness, and all male. Sharah shook her head and grinned, “Oh I know you will. Just…” her grin turned slightly mischievous, “make sure you put clothes on. Don’t think you wanna go running around the fleet barracks in your birthday suit.” She kissed him, attempting to avoid the paint splatters.

Sharah

He laughed and said “Naw… this show-” and he stepped back and did a slow turn with his arms stretched out and a grin on his face, “- is just for you and V. I promise no nude streaking through Fleet facilities.”

Tenkiller

Sharah let out a slow wolf whistle as he turned. “Oh that’s good, because I think Yavia’s bat might get a little too much practice if you did.” She stepped back before she decided distraction with him was better than doing what she needed to do. “Shoo,” she waved him back into his studio, “or I might not let you get back to it.”

Sharah

He grinned and turned to walk back into the studio. He stopped at the door and looked at her. “You got this, Sharah. I believe in ya. But if you need me, just call. Love ya, gorgeous.” and he winked at her and walked back the piece he was working on, humming softly.

Tenkiller

His words made her unfathomably happy. He and Yavia both, kept telling her that over and over. Eventually, Sharah would be able to remind herself of those things. She left out the front door, choosing to walk and think, rather than take the car service.

After their dinner date, things had gotten much harder as the noise and storms returned, seemingly with a vengeance. Sharah had become withdrawn, losing that playfulness and flirtatiousness (it was there, just buried so deeply it couldn’t breathe or see the light of day). She wasn’t as severe withdrawn as she had been before. But it was quite obvious now how much it took out of her. She spent a lot of time in her room, the need to be still, to decompress, the feeling of the plants growing in the soil above her became a haven. Sometimes she closed the door, a lot of times she left it open. It was a small gesture, but some days it was the only one she could make to ensure they knew she wasn’t hiding or shutting them out. She didn’t sleep well and so had tried sleeping in her room because she didn’t want to wake them. That had been totally unacceptable to both Yavia and Charles, and surprisingly (to Sharah anyway) she slept better being next to them. Sometimes it was so bad all she could do was cry, others were easy and she was present and active and lively in their combined life. But always she was worn down and tired. Things were also different, with her, with her condition, and she couldn’t quite put her finger on how.

These thoughts bounced around in her head as she walked. She was surprised to already find herself a block from her old apartment. Wasn’t that strange? It was her old apartment. The line was short at the coffee stand, and remembering the last time she was there she seriously considered not getting a hot chocolate, but it was an indulgence, and she wasn’t quite ready to return yet.

Sharah

Sharah waited quietly in the line, and then taking her hot chocolate with her she walked the last block to the building where her quarters were. She was grateful the security officer at the door didn’t ask any questions about where she had been. Of course she worked a lot of long and odd hours. She moved through the beige and grey corridors until she reached her door. She stood there staring at it before finally placing her hand to the lock and stepping in.

A week and half away from this place had given Sharah a new perspective. Well being away from this place and the influence of the two most significant people in her life. She stepped through the door and it hissed to a close behind her. She let her eyes scan the room and take in what she was seeing. Taking a step back from being in it, to looking at it from outside. Oh, she’d been in trouble. She’d known that though, it’s why she’d reached out to Korczak, but this was....Sharah shook her head. No wonder Charles and Yavia had been so insistent on getting her out of there. She had known but hearing the thought was much different than being able to understand it.

Sharah wandered the apartment at first, just taking it in. This was not her…when…no how had she let this happen? She took a breath, time for that question later, and not here, not alone among…whatever this was. She walked over to the table and found a PaDD on it. She had to start somewhere. She picked it up and turned it on.

Sweetheart, at some point you are going to come back here. Maybe we’ll be with you, maybe you’re alone, or maybe it’s with someone else. But don’t sit in the silence. Get out of your head a bit, okay. So before I followed you and TK out of here, I put together a playlist for you. Listen to it, feel the beat and listen to the words, and let it fill you up. Then when you’re done, listen to the very last song, and come home to us, okay.

I love you, Sharah.

Yavia

Sharah grinned. Yavia never ceased to surprise her. She opened the file and connected it to the speakers in the room and let the music play. Then she made a call to ops asking for some transporter tags, and anti-grav sled, and storage crates. The very first thing she did was check her plants. The ones outside would be fine, but these…some were in need of water, some were going to need a lot more than that. The seedlings Charles had planted were doing well, the seeds hadn’t broke the surface yet. The memory made her ache and she cried a little, but it was a good cry.

Then she began to pick up the chaos and actually listen to the music. The sketches, paper, pencils and other clutter on the floor was scooped up in large stacks and put on the table to sort. The table ended up being a total mess, but she thought it was better to sit there than on the floor amongst the chaos. About half way through the list, Sharah laughed. Each song had been carefully chosen and the order as well. Yavia’s point was quite clear. She was in the process of collected the clothes scattered like so much trash about the room when the chime on the door rang.

“Hello, ensign. Just place them there.” She pointed just inside the door. Spotting the pots and seed trays, “You helping set up another garden, Lt?” Sharah smiled, she supposed it could be looked at that way, “I am. It’s easier to have it all transported rather than try to carry it myself.”

“If you want to go ahead and give me the coordinates, I’ll give them to the transporter chief, so he can just send them over as you activate the tags.” Sharah nodded and taking an empty PaDD from the desk she put the coordinates in and handed them to him. “Thanks, I appreciate it.” If the disarray of her quarters didn’t seem to phase him much. They saw all kinds. He figured the doctor was just really busy. He took the PaDD back and left.

Sharah returned to straightening up. The pieces of her life, of herself, discarded and tossed where they landed. The evidence of manic desperation, fear, and hopelessness were everywhere. The person who had lived her was not okay. She was not fit. How did no one notice? Sharah was packing clothes into a crate and sank on to the edge of the bed as the truth came to her. Because she made no connections with people. Korczak pushed her to find those connections, to make them, to try. Why was it so hard for her to attempt those connections? Because she let herself buy into the fear and untruths her people fed to her growing up. She left Betazed because it was never going to be home…she took a breath, no she left to find a cure so it could be home. That wasn’t going to happen. Even if she did find a ‘cure’, she would never be accepted. She couldn’t change them, but she could change herself.

Sharah took a breath and wiped her face and stood up. If only it was that easy, to think it and make it happen. She checked each drawer, under the bed, and the closet before closing the crate and placing it by the door and slapping a transporter tag on it. ‘Yavia.‘

Yavia paused, stepping back from the batting cage. Her telepathy didn’t have the range Sharah did, but if she formed the thought she knew Sharah would hear her. ‘Sweetheart, what is it? Are you okay? Do I need to come home?‘

‘*I’m fine, I just…thank you for the music. No, you don’t need to come. Enjoy your practice. I love you.”

Things weren’t so easy after that. The next thing needed to deal with was the painting. It was half crated and was labeled for the Oed museum. She loved it, it had made her feel…seen. Wasn’t that wild. But in the aftermath of the protest and loneliness and fear, it had been too hard to look at, and…well she recognized now, that she had been finalizing some things. She had wanted the painting to go where others could enjoy it. The painting held so much more meaning now. She removed the label and placed a tag on it. She packed her books, her PaDDs, a few various keepsakes. The blanket she’d half stuffed behind the couch went into the recycler.

It was the plants though, that broke the dam. The ones that Charles had planted. What he’d done with the sketches, everything he and Yavia had done since then, everything they had done since then. Breaking down and packing the various planters and supports, securing the small seedling starters that hadn’t been planted yet, the seeds, food, soil, etc. But this, all this work half done, half abandoned, left almost forgotten, ashamed of, until Charles decided to do something with it. This was a project she’d wanted to complete for…well it had bounced around in her mind for years. She had never quite embraced it, until she came to Oed and then everything fell apart. More than her incredibly empathy that made her such a skilled doctor, it was her connection, her affinity, for plants that Sharah really felt illustrated who she was. She’d always hidden it, kept it a secret because it was strange and weird and it made her more different. She hid it because it made her even less normal, but she needed to stop comparing her normal to others’. She was packing the whole project up again, but she could do whatever she wanted with her room. He said it was her space. Charles walked right in and just acted like it was totally normal that she couldn’t leave behind a potted tree. Hope had to come with her. He took the thing she hated most about herself, those invasive sketches, and used it to care for what she loved most, her plants. Like it was perfectly normal.

The dam broke and she began to cry. Sobbing really, but this time it was a cleansing cry, a release, letting go of things that she didn’t need to take with her from this place. Suddenly it came back to her, what he’d said to her, when she’d sat in the shower sobbing. When you need us… whether you want us or not… when you need us, call us. She needed him. She wasn’t sure she needed him to come running, but she needed him, at the very least to know he was there.

A moment later the comms at the house sounded followed by her voice, “Charles?”

Sharah

He was still painting,but the comms stopped the music he was listening to when she called. =/\= Hey, hun. You doin’ ok?” he asked, the Oklahoma accent more noticeable on the comms. =/\= I’ve been thinkin’ ‘bout ya. How ya holdin’ up?”

Tenkiller

There was a telling shuddered breath over the comms, and if that wasn’t enough the strain and catch in her voice told him she was crying. Sharah looked around the quarters and the still slightly manic disarray with spots of…improvement. =/\=Better than I should be…but not as well as I wish I was.” In other words she didn’t really know for sure. “It hurts. I wanna come home....but I’m not done.” There was a long silence. “I can’t come back here.=/\=

Sharah