So What Now

Posted on Thu Sep 1st, 2022 @ 5:10am by Ensign Isaac 'Zac' Hughes & Chief Petty Officer Manishie Karalo

Mission: Mission 6 - Memory
Location: Guest Quarters
Timeline: In the aftermath
3402 words - 6.8 OF Standard Post Measure

It seemed weird. Manishie knew the corridors were perfectly the same. Still it didn't feel right. The lights were dimmed to simulate the day night cycle and give the people onboard some semblance of normality. Normal. None of this was normal. As she reached for the door to notify the room's occupant of her presence, she saw her hand tremble. "It was just a dream." She scalded herself. Just a stupid dream and yet here she was, in her PJs, hitting the chime on the door of the only person she still truly knew.

It would have been more of an intrusion had Isaac been asleep, and even then, he would never have called it such. Already a man prone to late nights, it was not difficult to attribute this bout of insomnia to the cerebral strain of recent abuse, coupled with the psychological burden of whatever the hell they were meant to do now. Isaac juggled his obligations in this matter between his usual priorities; the bulk of his attention focused on the adjustment of his fellow survivors, and a small sliver set aside for private grief. Late night seemed the only time to process what next steps could possibly resemble and so he had taken to staying up and writing. Mostly to his daughter, who would never see the words, but sometimes to the universe in general.

The self-same universe that probably didn't really care all that much about him. It already had its own Isaac Hughes to contend with.

The chime of his door lifted the doctor's head from its consideration, bent over the pen and paper he'd been able to request as a preference for these kind of personal musings. For a moment, his brow flickered into a faint frown, and then Zac rose to activate the door release personally. He wasn't sure what he'd been expecting, but Manishie's night-time look had not even rated on the list of possibilities. Immediately concerned, Isaac's frowned deepened. "Hey." Already his evaluative gaze was scanning her face in an attempt to diagnose. "Did I miss a slumber party invite?"

Manishie thought herself a strong independent woman. She had made her life for herself. Sure there was a supportive family back home that cheered her every step she took. Home, the word alone created a knot in her throat she couldn't swallow away. She barely registered the quip when the doors opened. She pushed herself past Zac into the room and threw herself on the bed. "This sucks."

In another time, and place, an eon ago it felt, he would have made some groan-worthy remark about having no control over the quality of Fleet-issued furniture. That had been the cornerstone of their friendship, the banter that had built over time to something that actually felt like a connection to Zac, who had admittedly found it hard to adjust to life without much privacy. Right now, the impulse rose and fell in the same exhalation; she looked too agitated for flippancy.

"Yep." He went for agreement instead and crossed to sit on his armchair. "No argument from me."

It took Manishie by surprise that Zac just seemed to agree with her. "Aren't you supposed to ask what's wrong? Aren't you supposed to be that kind of a doctor?" She rolled around on the bed and looked at the man whose cabin she just crashed. "Then I can say nothing's wrong. And then you insist. I insist that someone can simply come to visit a friend at 0200 hours. You insist it's not normal and would question when we'd officially become friends rather than colleagues you get along with." She planted her head back into the pillow on the bed and let out a loud groan.

It was at least in keeping with expectations that Isaac didn't interrupt. It was also not far outside the realms of a normal reaction for him to smile faintly, as much as it lacked the potency to spread its warmth to his eyes. With his weight leant forward against the press of his forearms to his knees, he considered her restless impatience and offered a very slowly hunched shoulder. "At this point, asking what's wrong would just sound disingenuous. I also try not to psycho-analyse my friends at 2am, even if they do march into my quarters in their pyjamas and beat up my bed." A soft huff of laughter that carried no mirth at all betrayed Zac's own weariness. "If I had to hazard a guess, I'd say you can't sleep."

"I can't sleep." Manishie lifted her head again and looked at Zac. "Well. That's not entirely true." She pulled her legs closer to her chest and balled up on the bed. "I keep seeing them. Flashes of them. The bodies on the floor. The face of Kowalski." In a conspiratorial whisper she added, "I can still feel him in my head."

The doctor's demeanour, already sombre, immediately softened. He'd been prepared for this, had anticipated it if only because he knew first-hand what she was talking about. "That's going to take a while to fade," he agreed, and leaned his head to the side to get a better look at her face. "And I know the memories aren't pleasant, Nish, but it's important that they're coming back. It means you're healing."

Manishie was battling back tears. She tried to shrug but only gave a half-hearted shoulder roll. The images, the faces of the people she had called friends, contorted in pain. The person that had clawed at the doors, trying to pry them open to the point where their nails had torn off. Proud, capable, strong people were reduced to blind panic. "I don't think I want to heal." She immediately rolled her eyes and sighed, running an arm across her eyes to dry away the tears. "I'm sorry, that's all a bit too teen angsty." She pulled her knees closer and put her head on her knees.

After a short moment of just laying like that in silence she looked back up from her position on the bed. "Shouldn't you be offering me something to drink? You're a lousy host, Zee."

"It's two in the morning," Zac reasoned, dressing up his gentle humour in professional tones. "And this is definitely some cleverly orchestrated attempt to blame me for you being interrupted by your bladder the minute you finally drop off." He pushed to his feet anyway and reached over to press an index finger to her forehead. "Fine. Nish, my dear friend who definitely doesn't have to take copious bathroom breaks every duty shift; what would you like to drink?"

"Hey, my physician said that it's unhealthy to hold off on bio breaks. Are you saying he doesn't know what he's talking about?" Manishie stretched out on the bed and leaned her head over the side looking at Zac upside down. "Maybe some soothing tea?" She knew how much he disliked boiling the kettle and derived slightly too much satisfaction from making the request.

As he had attempted to explain too many times, Isaac had nothing against tea. He had nothing against coffee, which he was far too dependent on now that nicotine was out of the question. What he objected to was the unnecessary elitism that dictated how often you should wash a teapot and whether or not adding cream constituted excommunication from the empire. Nobody really needed to comment on the fact that his version of a good old-fashioned English breakfast was maybe remembering to jiggle the teabag a few times before throwing it in the bin. Who the hell calculated seepage times anyway...

He made, mostly because it was expected of him and a sense of normalcy was addictive currently, an inordinate amount of noise over what eventually became two mugs of very weak, very hot black tea or some sort of equivalent his quarters had been supplied with in small amounts. He'd added slightly too much sweetener, which always earned the obligatory protest but she never failed to finish it. Apparently there were 'acceptable sugar ratios' that could be violated too.

"I'd offer you something to eat but I have exactly nothing in the cupboard."

"Disappointing service, two stars." Manisie sat upright to hold the mug of piping hot water. She started to sip the liquid carefully and quickly determined that it wouldn't be ready for at least another five minutes. She still held the tea close to her, the warmth emanating from it soothing her. "How have you been holding up?" The mirth and jest were gone from her voice as she looked at Zac intently.

As usual, with the spotlight deflected back on him, Zac resembled the lonesome figure whose only contribution to open mic night was the one melancholy tune he could play on the banjo. It had been the same when they'd first been left to adjust to the reality of being so far from home, back when there was still some purpose to hanging onto that small sliver of hope that 150 years would turn out to be a high estimate. He dealt with his own problems by helping everyone else with theirs.

Which invariably meant he never really dealt with his at all.

Manishie tended not to let him get away with it and, since it seemed kinder to find a way to humour her attempt at distraction, Zac settled on a response that was at least a partial confidence. "I spent the afternoon helping their doctor examine and discharge the latest victims." He looked down at his hands and sighed. "Feels like it ought to have been more of a celebration than it looked like. Last I saw any of them..."

His voice trailed off. Having been attacked to the point of disorientation himself, Isaac's recollection of those last frantic moments was a blur still unravelling into a coherent narrative. He had definitely treated people today that he had declared dead on scene last time around. Scrubbing a palm over his face, Zac rallied with another intake of breath and lifted his gaze again to watch her. "And then there's Ben."

"What about him?" If there was one thing her time as a police detective had taught her it was not to assume anything and ask open questions. And while she was one for long ramblings of her own, she knew when to shut up and allow room for a conversation to breathe and for the other person to feel space filled with their thoughts and feelings. She shifted a bit on the bed and conjured up a meek smile to encourage Zac to continue speaking.

Isaac's chin lifted somewhat as he realised, with some chagrin for not having drawn the conclusion earlier, that she had been rather too unconscious at the time to witness their Executive Officer's private descent into hell.

"I don't know how he's going to cope with being here. This crew buried their version of him a while back, and..." He exhaled as a huff. "Well, Cal's here. Or rather, Cal's not here." The doctor's brow furrowed at the recollection. "Kowalski trussed her up for Ben to find. We tried to get her down, I did what I could, but she was gone. We got the other three to the escape pod and, when I turned around, he was gone. I half convinced myself that was it, there was no way he'd step foot off the ship with the bastard still on board, but 12 minutes before the launch cycle wound down, he showed up. With you in tow." Isaac spread his hands. "You'd have more luck knowing how that came about, he didn't even talk for the first few hours."

The last hours on their own ship were a blur of nightmares and half-remembered faces. It's the exact reason Manishie had come here. She didn't remember being pulled onto the pod. She didn't remember Ben being the one doing it. She remembered a feeling of dread and panic and fear and then the soothing rest of a sedative taking over. "I have no idea." Why was she the only one? What had she been doing in those last moments on the ship? The last thing she truly remembered was waking up that morning and going for breakfast in anticipation of the long, arduous task of figuring out who was responsible for the murder.

Carefully she sipped at the mug again. "There's another me here."

A slow bob of his head became several more. "Yeah, I know." Reaching across to stick a finger into his own tea, Isaac promptly yanked it back out and determined that it wasn't quite the right temperature to drink yet. "I mean, I've not seen her but I've scanned their manifest." One aspect of being permitted to assist with medical assessments was gaining greater access to information.

"I'm sure she's delightful." Manishie looked at him and winced a bit as he voluntarily burnt his finger in the freshly made tea. She decided not to comment on the stupidest way to gauge the temperature of one's tea Zac decided to apply. She slumped into the bed, it seemed to take the wind out of her contemplating the situation she had found herself in. "I'll be utterly superfluous."

"That's not true." Even as he rushed to reassure her, Isaac wasn't without some empathy for her plight. His doppelganger impression was far less immediate, however, and currently represented only a distant and intangible threat that dangled enticingly out of reach, biding its time before it tried to ruin his life. Manishie's was very much front and centre. "For all the likely similarities, you're still two different people. Your experience matters," he added softly, reaching out with his foot to nudge her shin.

Manishie slid her foot around his ankle and just sat there for a moment, feet locked into each other, glad for the touch of human connection. She took a very careful sip of the tea. "I wonder how different our experiences will have been." It really felt like she would be an intruder on this ship, especially with their recent experience with Kowalski or Smith or whatever the entity was actually called.

"Only way to know is to ask," Zac replied pragmatically. "I'll bet she's every bit as curious." It was easier said that done, Zac realised, and so he pressed on gently. "Have you met her yet?"

With a single shake of the head, Manishie indicated that she hadn't. "I haven't. But I'm sure she's a delight." She seemed dejected in her assessment as she took another sip of the tea. "And knowing myself, yeah she's curious. It's so damn weird though. How are you going to have that conversation?" She mock extended her hand and shook the empty air. "Hello Manishie, nice to meet you, I remember the first guy you had sex with, oh and that one time you had a bad shrimp and puked all over a crime scene."

"Assuming she experienced either of those things." It was something Isaac had given some thought to himself, since there was no guarantee his counterpart in this universe had maintained exactly the same trajectory. He appeared to have the same career and had apparently also wound up in Starfleet, but for the same reasons? "Why don't you think about what you want to ask her, make a list rather than leaving it up to spontaneity. Writing stuff down helps me," Zac added.

"You and your lists." Manishie was never really a list person. Of course she was thorough in her job and documented everything about crime scenes very meticulously, but somehow that never translated to her personal life. She was much more of an off the cuff kind of person. She wanted to make a mean comment about him putting his suggestion on a list of unhelpful advice to give to a friend in distress, but instead she relented and said; "I wouldn't know where to start."

Regarding her for a moment, Isaac soon stood and crossed to the desk he'd been sitting at when she'd first tried to wear out his door chime. Picking up the notepad and pen he'd been using, he abandoned his tea for the moment to sit next to her on the bed, turned towards her with one leg bent across the mattress between them. "Don't try to categorise any of it yet. Tell me what you're wondering and I'll write it down. Once you've purged yourself of all the initial wonderings, then we can look at just how crazy any of it sounds."

"Oh, don't worry, it'll sound plenty crazy." Manishie scooted closer to him on top of the covers that had, prior to her melodramatic swandive, been tucked in tightly. "Let's just start with the basics."

Isaac looked at his friend for a moment as if peering over the top of a pair of spectacles and then, because he knew her stalling tactics by now and wasn't about to have a bar of letting her get away with floundering around in panic without purpose, took it upon himself to jot down the first question. "Do you believe that pie is inferior to cake?"

Manishie nodded knowingly before adding her own; "Alright, so how about pineapple on pizza, tropical surprise or culinary abomination?"

The doctor pointed the pen at her in immediate approval and jotted down the question before adding another of his own. "Is cereal soup?"

His lips twitched at that one, a fondness for the kind of pointless conversational topics that tended to occupy their friendship. She gave him hell on a regular basis and he rewarded her tenacity with obscure hypothetical situations that could spark an hour-long debate with no satisfactory conclusion. These weren't the kind of questions he'd really had in mind when he'd suggested the exercise but there was something pleasantly normal about them diving off-topic almost instantly.

"I think we have that thoroughly covered. There's no way she'll side with you on that one." Manishie sighed and leaned over towards Zac, looking at the notes he was making on his notepad, before resting her head on his shoulder. It was nice to feel a bit of normalcy restored.

"Thanks, Zee."

The gesture took Isaac by surprise but then so much of what his friend did often had that affect. For a brief, poignant, selfish moment, he was glad that Jamesson had found her in time, even if that meant being subjected to this current emotional and psychological mess. Quite aside from the obvious relief of her continued existence, it made the prospect of rebuilding yet again slightly less unpalatable to know that she'd be part of it. After a moment's pause, his chin found the top of her head and he huffed softly.

"I give it a week before you're both inventing ways to gang up on me."

Manishie let out the shortest of chuckles. "Do you really think so poorly of me?" She closed her eyes and smirked. "Three days, tops."

"Call me a hopeless optimist."

And because they were sitting on his bed, which suddenly didn't feel very big at all, and also because it was late and both of them probably should have been asleep and clearly such things were very awkward to consider when dealing with a suddenly-very-small-bed, Isaac distracted himself with a very quickly sketched self-portrait. The exaggerated ear-size was impressive, as was the somewhat-lopsided sign the caricature was wearing on its head that read Dingus.

"We'll figure all this out," he eventually murmured, taking a moment to shade a scraggly beard. "Nothing's changed, my door's always open if you want to come rant about which direction the toilet paper was loaded."

Having almost drifted away into sleep Manishie's eyes opened wide at the mention of the toilet paper debacle. "I've moved on," she said through gritted teeth, "I left them the original design specifications from the patent clearly showing the correct way to hang the roll and I've moved on."

With that, she closed her eyes again and let out a huge sigh. Despite everything, this moment was a nice one. She was happy that Zac had made it out with her, or rather that he had made sure she made it out with him. It was a warm embrace in a cold, ruthless, universe.

 

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