Posted by Civilian Karilan Massat (Owner, Quill and Parchment Books) in Eela’s Apartment- Processing (TMODJ)

Posted by Captain Eela Dasca (Lt. Governor) in Eela’s Apartment- Processing (TMODJ)

Posted by Civilian Jal’na of House Duroc (Head of Physical Therapy - Sacred Heart Hospital) in Eela’s Apartment- Processing (TMODJ)
Posted by… suppressed (6) by the Post Ghost! 👻

(snip)

Caridee left her mother to soak and wash and moved down the hallway into the kitchen. “I don’t know if she will eat anything, but what about you? Did you feel like some dinner? I know Sinna did stock the fridge, and my mother visited the market before the gala on Saturday, so there should be something to work with. That or we can order something in. Goodness knows we’re all tired as it is.”

~Eela & Caridee

Karilan smiled and said “All of us are going to eat. I’ll cook. You keep an eye on her. I cleaned the bedroom -and yes, I know the police may want to examine the room. I scanned and recorded everything first. But I’m not going to force her to sleep in guest room while the police waffle back and forth on whether or not they need anything from there. So let’s get her clean, fed, hydrated, and then we will put her to bed.” They turned and began to open the chiller when they said “Oh! And bring me her back brace. I need to get the power cell swapped out. It sounded like it was struggling earlier.”

Karilan

At this point Caridee had seen Karilan and her mother together enough to understand that Karilan had a special insight into her mother and could trust their judgment. “She probably just needs a recharged one. Who knows whether she had a mind to even think about it this morning. I’ll grab both after I unpack her bag.” Caridee moved off down the hall. She took care to put the canar back exactly where she had found it this morning and then brought the brace and one of the spare battery packs back to the kitchen for Karilan.

Karilan nodded in acknowledgement as they began chopping vegetables. A pan with oil heated up on the cook top and Karilan set the knife down and gestured to the other pile of uncut vegetables on the counter. “Chop those and then get them in the oil when it’s hot. They should pop and snap when they are dropped in. Then just stir them until their color brightens up and drop them in the pot over there. I’m tired of this brace.” they said as they moved and took the brace and set it on the island. They walked over to where their bags were set and they picked one up and brought it over. A small black case came out and then a few cases of tools. Karilan deftly removed the power cell cover and removed the spent cell. They glared at it a moment and then said “Who in their right mind would make this so you had to recharge cells? Moronic. And a complete lack of forethought.” They opened the black case and pulled out a silver cylinder. “Now this is a power cell. Life span of, well, longer than she will ever need.” and they grinned as they began inserting and adjusting the various connections. A few minutes later, the brace whirred and the small power readout on the side ran smoothly up from red to green and stayed there. Karilan ran a few test and then sat back and smiled. “There. No more charging. She can take it on and off as she wants, no worries about if it will conk out on her.” and they looked at Caridee and smiled.

Caridee shook her head. “My mother did not exaggerate in her descriptions of you,” she said warmly as she dropped the vegetables into the hot oil. She stirred continually.

Caridee matched their grin. There was something infectious about Karilan and she could see why her mother was so drawn to them.

“If she said I am the total package… looks and brains… then she was absolutely correct.” Karilan said with a grin. It was a remarkable change for them. Not long ago they wouldn’t have had the confidence to even make an appearance in the midst of all the current turmoil. Now, mostly thanks to the woman in the bath, Karilan had truly come into their own.

Meanwhile, Eela soaked in the tub after washing and just enjoyed the solitude, as much as it was. She realized it was the first time since she had left this morning that she had actually been alone in a room while she was awake. Yes, there were others nearby, but that was okay. Right now she was just trying to figure out what the hell to do next. She laid there for awhile but staying in that one position for too long was making her back ache more. She sighed. “Dee?” Eela called out.

Her daughter appeared. “Ready to get out?”

She nodded. Dee grabbed a towel and draped it over one arm while she helped Eela stand in the tub using the bar hold on the wall. The towel was wrapped around her body and Eela leaned her weight on Caridee as she stepped safely onto the bath mat. “I’m okay from here.”

“Okay. We’re in the kitchen- Karilan is cooking. Take it easy getting dressed, okay?”

“I’ll be fine. But can you bring my workbag to the kitchen?”

“Of course.” Caridee left the bathroom and, after grabbing the bag, made her way back to Karilan. “Can I help with anything?”

“Nope. Rice is almost finished and we just need some bowls.” they said as rhey reached i to a xabinet and pulled three out.

Eela appeared a short while later dressed in stretchy wide legged black bottoms and her Academy t-shirt. She moved slowly and it was hard to say if the bath had helped at all, but as she ran a hand over her damp hair, she knew that at least she felt a bit more… well, something. Moving down the hall into the large kitchen space, her bag was sitting on the wide island and she reached in looking for her comm. “I’m going to message Jal’na and ask if she can bump our appointment this week forward to tomorrow morning,” she said, sounding weary even to herself. Something about having left Kenzo’s had made everything real again, or rather, pulled her out of her immediate focused state. There had been something to occupy her mind for so much of the day and now she felt adrift in her own thoughts and feelings.

“That sounds like a great idea,” Caridee said.

~Eela Dasca, Lt. Gov.

Karilan helped her to chair and then said “You do that, and then try on your brace. I put in a new power supply so you don’t have to swap power cells any more. Should make it run a lot smoother.”

Karilan

Eela cocked her head towards her friend. “Really? I should be less surprised when it comes to you, but I wasn’t expecting that. Thank you, Karilan.”

Karilan looked directly at Eela and opened themselves fully to her. “Anything for you ” they said; and the blanket of care, compassion… and yes, love… wrapped around Eela and held her for a long moment. Karilan then swiveled her hand and said “I’ll start dishing up dinner. And yes, you are eating.” and they walked back into the kitchen.

Eela accepted the feelings with more ease than she expected, but even she understood that something had shifted today between them and while it was hard to articulate just now, she was appreciative. “I’ll try. I never have much of an appetite when I’m stressed.”

As she looked over the four-chair round table she was sat at and through onto her patio, Eela mused how used to ‘making do’ she had been. She had always just accepted what she was given and made the best of it, especially after everything with the Steadfast. She had had no say in any of it because she had been in a coma. When she had woken up, it had been what it had been. Done deal. But now people were offering her better options and she was finding herself wanting to accept them.

She sent a simple message to Jal’na: ||Hello Jal’na. I’m sorry to bother you at this hour. My body is struggling a lot right now and I was hoping we could move our appointment later this week to tomorrow morning, preferably before I need to head out to attend to matters. Let me know if you’re free and I can explain the situation when you’re here. ~Eela||

Setting the device down, Eela looked over at Caridee and couldn’t help the guilt and regret that surfaced after everything she had put her daughter through. “So much for your vacation for Batarael, huh? Four days in and I bet you are wishing you were back on Earth,” she said with a smirk.

But she should have known better than to think she could hide anything from Caridee. Her daughter moved over and pulled a chair so she could sit in front of her. Caridee took one hand in hers and placed her other hand on Eela’s cheek. Her vision blurred slightly and she dipped her head slightly. “I know,” Caridee said. “I know how hard all this is, but I will say this as many times as you need to hear it: you are not a burden, Mom. Helping you is an easy choice because I love you. We are family, and I know that family sticking by each other is a complicated idea for both of us, but you and I are good. Always. I will always hate to see you struggle so hard, but you are strong and resilient and I admire the hell out of you.” She rose from the chair and placed a kiss above her mother’s forehead ridges before sitting back down.

Nodding, Eela was overwhelmed with love and gratitude for her daughter and wiped at the tears, momentarily lost for words. So far it had just been a hint of emotion since the reconnection from the Kuskaaritz, no big washes… except for that dream. And it wasn’t that she didn’t like people helping her, but even she knew that one of the lingering mind games from Cory was this resistance to inconveniencing or imposing on others for her own person issues. How dare her needs override those of others, even if it was a crisis and perfectly natural. It was just something that she couldn’t seem to switch off, try as she might.

“Now,” Caridee continued. “Speaking of Batarael… the Governor and I were talking and we decided that we should let you in on one of the surprises I had told you about.”

“Oh?” Eela said, reaching for the brace and folding up her t-shirt to just under her chest.

Caridee nodded. “I figured you’d be contacting him soon, if he didn’t find out and beat you to it, but we have an extra guest for the celebration.” She grinned, filled with excitement.

As she fitted the brace around her torso, Eela knew instantly who Caridee was talking about. “Roger’s coming?” she said, perking up. Eela couldn’t explain exactly what it was other than a mixture of missing him deeply, her previous conversation with Kenzo about that man, and the conversations she had had with him recently about Cory. They had such history and he truly had been her rock for decades now. She desperately wished he was here now.

“Yep!” Caridee said, smiling and looking over at Karilan. “I think you know how hard it is to actually surprise her, so you can imagine the logistics of all that and the group of people it took to make it happen without her knowing.” After all, getting an Admiral on the planet without the Commander-in-Chief of the Starfleet forces was no small feat. Her mother was rather nosy that way- it’s what made her excellent at her job.

~Eela Dasca, Lt. Gov.

Karilan looked at Caridee and said “The trick is spontaneity. If you don’t know about the surprise, then she won’t either.” They looked at Eela and gave her a wink and a grin. “So when is he going to arrive? And do we need to break out the good china?” they asked and giggled as they dished rice and seared vegetables into bowls and set them on the table.

Karilan

Caridee chuckled as she got up to grab cutlery and distributed them about the table before sitting again.

Eela laughed openly, something that surprised even herself given everything. “Oh goodness, no, Roger is a pretty laid back person. People hear ‘Admiral’ and assume stuffy and formal, but he’s genuinely warm and easy going. I think you two will get along great!”

“As to when he’s arriving, as far as I know everything is still on schedule, so one week from today, ahead of Batarael. Everything has been arranged, so you don’t have to worry about a thing.”

“Please don’t tell me you have him staying in some hotel,” Eela said.

“Hey, that was his decision. Take it up with him.”

Eela’s comms chirped with a reply. ||Yes, Eela I can come in the morning. Unfortunately it will have to be at 0600. If that is too early, we can try for tomorrow evening.||

Jal’na, Lady Duroc

Eela paused in her eating to check the message and drew in a breath before sending a reply. ||0600 will be fine. See you then and thank you for fitting me in|| She doubted she would sleep that late anyway, but starting her day with some bodywork would go a long way towards helping the rest of her. Or so she assumed.

“Oh I will,” Eela said. “I have a perfectly good guest room that no one uses, and given everything I’m adverse to him being elsewhere on the colony. I’m very certain he’ll see my logic.”

Caridee smirked. “Or just throw his hands up and give in because he knows how stubborn you are once you’ve made up your mind.”

“That too. It’s how I won him over in the end after we boarded the Berlin.” Eela smirked. “Well… partly. There was the whole actually forcing him to have an eval and he got to see first hand that I actually knew what I was doing.” She speared a vegetable and eyed Caridee. “Any other surprises I should know about?”

“No,” Caridee said simply, digging into her own bowl of stirfry.

Eela smiled at Karilan. “Which is not ‘no, there’s no surprises, just ‘no, I don’t get to know about them.”

~Eela Dasca, Lt. Gov.

Karilan looked at her with mock shock. “What? Are you suggesting that your own daughter is keeping secrets from you? Why, Eela Dasca, how could you?” and they stabbed a vegetable and popped it in their mouth with a grin and mischievous twinkle in their eye.

Karilan

Eela snorted. “She only gets away with it because I’m not an outright telepath.”

“Thank the Gods for that,” Caridee deadpanned, with her own lit up eyes.

Eela just shook her head and looked at Karilan. “I’m doomed, that’s all there is to it. Between you, Caridee, Roger, Kenzo and probably everyone else, I’ll be dealing with all your nonsense.” But she was entirely joking and in fact there was warmth to her voice and she exuded affection. The levity was nice right now.

“We love you too,” Dee said with a grin.

Eela responded by popping a bite in her mouth, holding back a smirk and then looked at Karilan. “Thank you for cooking, Love. I may not be hungry, but it is lovely.”

They continued eating and after about ten minutes, when Dee noticed that her mother was only barely picking at her food, she rose from the table. She grabbed the med kit and pulled out the tricorder. “Just carry on. I want to see where we’re at before I go.”

“Well?” her mother asked, twirling her fork.

Caridee bobbed her head. “Still moving towards baseline, but taking its sweet time. Definitely take your muscle relaxant and just know that in the morning you might still feel unbalanced.”

Eela nodded and sighed. “Jal’na will be by at 0600. Going to have to set an alarm, but thankfully, I’ll be up at pretty normal time for me.”

~Eela Dasca, Lt. Gov.