Posted by Lieutenant Tandra Mika (Counselor) in Starfleet Complex- Rewriting Narratives

Posted by Captain Eela Dasca (Lt. Governor) in Starfleet Complex- Rewriting Narratives

Posted by Lieutenant Tandra Mika (Counselor) in Starfleet Complex- Rewriting Narratives

(snip)

Mika allowed the silence to persist, waiting patiently for Eela to continue. Allowing people to find their own words was important, and so was letting them think and reflect on their own. A silence was not typically a bad thing. She nodded again. All good lies had an ounce of truth, that was what made them believable. And when those lies were about yourself, that could make them particularly difficult to manage. “You’re right, that does make it harder. But I have to say, we all have these negative qualities in some aspect or quantity. One could come up with endless half truths about any one of us and make us sound awful. It’s how we choose to act on them, or not act on them, that makes us who we are.”

~ Lt Mika, CNS

Oh and how she had acted! Right out the door, blowing up what was left of her marriage, though she new she was right that there hadn’t been anything left to save. But that action fed into one of those other beliefs she had been accused of by both Cory and her son. They all fell into place like players in a stage production reciting lines. She turned her head, pressing the back of her fingers against her mouth and pushing her hand into the crook of her shoulder. Her chest felt tight and Eela had to force herself to breathe.

“I ran away. I fled. To protect myself. Or that’s what I tell myself,” she said quietly. “But the truth is that Cory issued me an ultimatum and gave him the proverbial middle finger and did exactly what he told me not to.”

~Eela Dasca, Lt. Gov.

“Let’s take a moment and breathe.” Mika had been trained in body language and intonation and that was a stressed look if ever she saw one.

There was a slight tremble in her hand as Eela lifted her head and forced herself to take a deep breath.

After a few moments, she gave Dasca an even, level look. “And what exactly drove you to do that, to flee the situation? You cannot judge yourself based on actions taken in extenuating circumstances. Even if the rest of your marriage was perfectly fine and healthy, all that fighting in those final years or months, or however long it was, wears on you.” She sat back and shook her head, “I am not saying you were blameless, I can’t comment on that without more context, but you cannot judge yourself on a single action.”

~ Mika, CNS

It was the last number on a tumbler lock clicking into place. When Eela allowed herself to look at Mika tears sat poled in her eyes. “We… we had had some pretty terrible arguments, after I got out of the hospital. He was frustrated by the personality changes, and I was emotionally out of control, unsure how to navigate and tame them into something I could manage. At least at first. But I got better at it with a lot of hard work. And then I got recruited to the Diplomatic Corps. I didn’t retire from Starfleet. I was forced to take a medical discharge, for good reasons, and because I could not accept the alternative options they gave me. The only option for me was my captain’s chair and if I couldn’t have that, I didn’t want any of it. Period. So I walked away and it gutted me to do so. But then the Corps came calling and it was this chance to be back in space, to put my years of experience to good use. I had had plenty of diplomatic experience as command officer and I was trained n behaviour. It was a reasonable solution. But I didn’t take the job without Cory saying it was okay with him. We had spent twenty of our forty years apart, by choice, because our careers were too important to us for one of us to revolve around the other. So we debated it and he agreed that my going on missions was fine with him. I’d still be home far more than I had been previously and it didn’t interfere with his own work.

“But I accepted more missions because I could sense his growing frustration with me. Everything I did seemed to set him off and I thought we needed more space as I worked through my counselling on various issues. But it never got better. It just got worse and I gave as good as I got in those arguments. So, three and a half years in I was packing for a last minute and fairly short assignment and he comes home and sees me packing. The same old fight starts all over again and this time I call him out on it. I remind him that he agreed to me taking this job, that it felt like he just wanted his wife home waiting for him without any regard for my own career. He took exception and things disintegrated from there until he....” She paused to catch her breath. “He called me names, something he hadn’t really done before, but he said something rather vicious and I could feel he meant it. Cory apologized and said he didn’t mean it, but there’s a particularly sensation someone gives off when they are being truthful and I knew otherwise. He said he’d go to counselling again but I didn’t see a point. It had been horrible before and it didn’t feel like he wanted to do any of the work. He got angry when I proceeding to head for the door, that I should stay to fix our marriage. But I was so done with the argument. And then he issued me an ultimatum, said if I left I shouldn’t come back. I said goodbye and walked out that door. We separated more formally after I returned from that mission, but honestly maybe we should have done so sooner. Or maybe he had hit his turning point and I missed it because I was too angry with him. I don’t know.”

~Eela Dasca, Lt. Gov.