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

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… suppressed (2) by the Post Ghost! 👻

(snips)

She shifted her gaze away again, seeking something that would help her understand how to make sense of all these bits and pieces. Her hands returned to her lap and Eela sighed. Maybe she was making a big deal of nothing. Maybe it was just a bad situation. Period.

But why was she left the one ripped apart? She didn’t know how Cory was handling things right now aside from what she could glean from their call when their decree was issued. He seemed… okay? Like he knew it was the right path too. She hadn’t expected that shift in him. Hell, even their conversation the day Roger came to see her about a job opportunity (one she now currently held) had still been tense and full of needless barbs.

Except she thought about that list of false beliefs and how gutted she had felt sitting at her desk in her beautiful office. She, a woman of power and responsibility had felt like curling into a ball. They were just words, right? But they had had such a power over her and she was struggling to understand why.

~Eela Dasca, Lt. Gov.

Mika sat quietly for a while, allowing Dasca to think and stew on her own. It was, as Mika had discovered when she took her first CNS posting, a part of the job to sit quietly and let someone think. After all, what point was introspection if one did not allow time to, well, introspect? At last she spoke, politely and softly, “It will take time to sort through everything. There are a lot of complicated emotions at play and giving yourself time to feel them and think about them can only help.”

~ Mika, CNS

“Well that is how I ended up in this office,” Eela said dryly. She blew out a breath. “I can do introspection just fine. I did that and now I’m trying to figure out what to do with the direction it all leads me.”

She tipped her head back for a moment before gazing at Tandra again. “When I was in the Corps, I went on a lot of different assignments. Some of them were difficult. One in particular… it gutted me,” she said quietly. “I witnessed a group of people die and it shook me up a lot. So much so that I couldn’t go another assignment for awhile. I had to go back to counselling and I was no longer angry. Instead I either couldn’t feel anything or I felt despair. But I didn’t know how to talk to Cory about any of it. When we were around each other, all I felt was disappointment from him. Frustration. I wasn’t the same woman he remembered, that he fell in love with. So during this time I kept it to myself. And that seemed to make it even worse between us. So I went back to work, just to give us space. I wasn’t ready though, but it was another one of those best of bad options you spoke of. I kept wanting him to be my partner and he disappeared. The problem is that I’m not sure exactly when that was. Was it just because of the accident, or were there signs before then that we both missed?”

~Eela Dasca, Lt. Gov.

“A lot of times these things just happen, slowly. It probably built over time, little things that most people wouldn’t pay attention to. But when you were injured, a spotlight was put on these little changes, putting them in hyperfocus. To me it seems you both wanted the other to be the same person as when you first met but people grow and change, over time, and especially when you spend that much time apart, sometimes you grow apart. And when you were together, you were laser focused on trying to be a good couple… until you weren’t.

Mika was quiet a moment while she considered, “You’ve done a lot of talking today, but I don’t think we’ve really delved. I am happy to discuss what changed, and when, in your marriage, and I want to come back to that, but I would really like to discuss what we were talking about before, these thoughts that have been hurting you. Can you tell me what they were? Or, if it’s easier, we can have you write it down.”

~ Mika, CNS

She didn’t know which option was better- even writing them down had been painful the other day. But to speak them aloud felt like they would give even more power to them. Silly, wasn’t it? But that was the whole point. Words had power. Her breath caught in her chest and Eela had to force it in and out. “It’s not easier to write them, no,” she said, her voice softening.

Closing her eyes, Eela recited them as they had appeared on that piece of paper. It was the only way to spit them out. “I wrote… I have nothing else worthwhile to give. I can’t get anything right anymore. The Steadfast was the pinnacle of my life and nothing else will surpass it. I’m as broken as my body. I ran away from my life and it was cowardly.” She paused very briefly to take breath but kept going. “There was more I should have done and if I had my life wouldn’t have fallen apart. I’ve lost my heart.” By the end she was whispering and when she opened her eyes, she was blinking back tears, her shoulder hunched slightly forward.

~Eela Dasca, Lt. Gov.

Mika nodded slowly, listening quietly and intently. She waited quietly for several moments, allowing Dasca to feel what she was feeling. “Agonizing over what you did or didn’t do, doesn’t help. And whatever it is you might have done, may not have changed the outcome anyway. Now, hearing that, and believing it and doing it are two very different things and the latter is hard to do. But I think you can get there. Letting go of what might have been.”

She paused briefly and then continued on, “These are incredibly harmful messages for yourself, and I can see why they hurt, not just to think about, but to verbalize. They are things that take time to move past. Let me ask you: Why does leaving your situation make you cowardly? What haven’t you gotten right since you arrived here? I have been here less than a week, but all I have heard is what a good job you do. Is your work here less important than your work on the Steadfast? These aren’t questions you need to answer now, instead, I’d like you to contemplate them yourself.”

~ Mika, CNS