Posted by Major General Charles Tenkiller (Vice-Commander, Colonial Customs and Defense Agency) in Tenkiller’s House- Tipping Point, Day 2

Posted by Captain Eela Dasca (Lt. Governor) in Tenkiller’s House- Tipping Point, Day 2

Posted by Major General Charles Tenkiller (Vice-Commander, Colonial Customs and Defense Agency) in Tenkiller’s House- Tipping Point, Day 2
Posted by… suppressed (4) by the Post Ghost! 👻

(snip)

“You are welcome.” he replied without moving. He liked the morning sun, it reminded him of drinking coffee on the front porch of his house on Earth with his dad. “How are you feeling?” he asked, and then finally raised his head and opened his eyes.

Tenkiller

“A bit like a wrung out cloth, but I’m centred. Or at least centred enough to do what I need to,” Eela said before reaching for the coffee to take a sip. She could tell that Sharah and Yavia had left, and given they had said they had to be at work early today, she didn’t comment on it. She did take another bite of breakfast sandwich, and it was very tasty, but she still had little appetite.

She crossed a leg and chuckled. “And I’m sitting about in my pyjamas on a Tuesday morning, so… that’s amusing, if short-lived.”

~Eela

Tenkiller shrugged and said “Just enjoy it while it lasts. Days like this seem to be coming fewer and further between.” He took a drink and turned to face her more fully. “I need you to know that you are okay, Eela. You may not feel it right now. And inside may be bruised and hurting… but you are okay. And you will be okay. I’ve seen more incidents like this than I care to remember. And you are doing fine. Just keep going, okay. Don’t stop, and you will get through this more quickly than you think.”

Tenkiller

She met his gaze, not trusting her words for a moment, but Eela nodded after a time and ate more of the sandwich. In a way she was buying herself more time, but more than that it was as she had said: she was centred. And a centred Eela Dasca was not careless with her words. She chose them thoughtfully, just like she had when she wrote that response.

Finally, Eela reached out and rested a hand on his arm. “I resent Cory for a lot of things right now, but one of the biggest ones is turning our relationship into an incident, into a statistic. I think that’s why I reacted so badly yesterday to the vid and why it was so much harder for me to write a response that felt true. I didn’t want to be that person. I’m a trained psychologist, and a decorated Starfleet officer. I feel like I should have seen it coming, and could have avoided it.” She smirked. “There’s a whole helluva lot of denial I’m fighting. Good thing for me I’m not adverse to therapy because I’ve got a lot of that in my future.”

“But more than all of that I also know that this ended okay because I’m here, with all of you. Had this happened on Earth before I got this job? Even if he had left my apartment willingly, I know myself Skip. I know that I would have been too embarrassed and ashamed that I’m not sure I would have told anyone. I am so fortunate, in so many ways, which made my heart break just a little more reading the responses to my post. Yes, not feeling alone in something is so very important, but I think we can agree it’s a terrible thing that it’s necessary at all.”

~Eela

Tenkiller leaned in and stage whispered “I’m gonna let ya in a little secret… sentient beings suck.” and he laughed. “Don’t get me wrong, we do a s#!t ton of good things. But given the opportunity? I’d say a good seven outta ten will choose themselves over others when the chips are down. Thats why folks like you… V… Sharah… Hyrushi… are so important. You balance out the Corys of the universe. And when the Corys of the world get one over on us? Well… it sucks. But its an outlier… an exception. And because of that, I know you’da said something. So don’t sell yerself short. You’re better than you know.”

Tenkiller

“You forgot to include yourself in that list,” she said with a wink before she drank a good portion of her coffee and took another bite of her sandwich (of which she actually might consume the whole of).

Eela drew in a slow and deep breath and shook her head. It wasn’t a condemnation of herself at all but a simple fact of knowing the place she had truly been in, especially after she left that night in San Francisco. “It’s not about my qualities as a person, really. The thing I’ve always been willing to do is admit my own role in things and own my own actions. You all got a good taste of how volatile my emotions can be when I’m under extreme stress, and that was me in control. It was so much worse in the first year and even after that it was a constant process of learning in order to keep myself functional. I might not have instigated a lot of the arguments, but I sure as hell could escalate them,” she said with a bitter chuckle. “I say that because before Oed, before I had the physical space away from where everything disintegrated, I would have very easily took the blame. I would have told myself it was my fault. And yes, Roger and Caridee might have figured out something was wrong, if I stayed put on the planet long enough for them to see, but no, I don’t think I would have said anything. Not immediately, anyway. Maybe after it consumed me a whole lot, perhaps. Hell, even here I can see a scenario where I didn’t let everyone in. If we all hadn’t gotten to know each other, if we hadn’t become, as Yavia pointed out, family, would anyone have known me well enough to know something was wrong? I’m not so sure. I’ve always been a very independent and private person, and these last few years have been very lonely ones.”

She patted his arm and withdrew her hand. “Which is to all say how glad I am that things went as well as they did, and how grateful I am for you, for all of you.” Eela was still contained, but her smile was warm and touched her eyes.

~Eela

Skip looked at her for a long moment, and then leaned in and kissed her cheek. He pulled back and said “Eela… that what family does.” His words had a finality to them that seemed to resonate with both sincerity and rock-hard truth. He stood up and offered her his hand. “Come on. You and I have an apartment to clean and some ancestors to ask for help.”

Tenkiller

Reaching out, she rested her hand in his and pushed herself to her feet. “I suppose,” she said with a smile and a feigned sigh. She grabbed her empty plate and her mug and moved back into the house and it was clear that there was an ease within her that had not been present at all the last couple of days. Was she ‘better’? No. Was she a lot better than she had been? By lightyears. It wasn’t that she didn’t understand how family worked, but her sense of it at this point in her life had been disjointed. That had changed and coalesced into this beautiful new thing.

Moving downstairs, Eela changed into back into her black leggings and embroidered pale purple tunic and brushed her hair out. It took her all over one minute to pack her well-worn bag from the Diplomatic Corps. She took a turn around the room with the beautiful waterfalls on the wall and smiled.

Moving back upstairs, she was as composed as she could be, her trepidation well hidden. She patted the side pocket of her bag. “I have demon banishing equipment handy. Ready?”

~Eela