A Parting Gift
Posted on Sun Sep 4th, 2022 @ 8:47am by Lieutenant JG Calanthe 'Cal' Diaz & Ensign Alexandra 'Lexi' O'Connery
Mission:
Mission 6 - Memory
Location: Crew quarters
Timeline: Day 302 9:00
3151 words - 6.3 OF Standard Post Measure
It wasn't so much that her breathing was obstructed, though the hand around her throat clenched hard enough to make each heaved effort a strain. Eyes wide, fingernails digging into the flesh between thumb and forefinger in an attempt to loosen his grip, it was the slow realisation that her body was starting to miss a beat here or there that drove desperation into the shove of a foot against his stomach. It earned her a plummet to the ground, her shoulder hitting the deck plating with enough force to coax a yelp, but what it didn't allow her was any sort of reprieve. Gasping proved futile, fervent attempts to suck air into her lungs were met with utter resistance, as if whatever connected her respiratory system to her neural network had been severed. Eyes that glittered with triumphant menace dominated her vision as the rapid depletion of oxygenated blood left her light-headed.
She used what breath she had remaining to curse hoarsely in his face. He laughed.
Burrowed beneath a mound of covers, always one to sleep cold, she gripped a spare pillow tightly against her stomach and grimaced, her features contorting in her sleep.
"Nobody is coming, sweet Calanthe. Least of all that proud, strapping boyfriend of yours; far too busy saving everyone else, I should imagine. Probably thinks you can handle yourself. His estimation of you is a little absurd, isn't it?"
Like a puppeteer working the strings, he'd released her from suffocation mere seconds before she'd succumbed. Now, rigid with paralysis she was powerless to break through, she poured every last ounce of her will behind the desire to bite at the hand patronisingly stroking her hair. They'd clashed from the outset; she'd never taken to his smarm and he'd never appreciated her candour. Retribution was goading him into grandstanding, which was wasting time. All she had to do was endure long enough for someone to find them.
A finger caught beneath her chin curled her lips into a snarl.
"Don't worry, I'll make sure he's next. Perhaps you can concoct a little fairytale about waiting for him on the other side. That seems to help some people."
The pain in her head exploded.
Under normal circumstances, Cal would have sprung upwards in bed and sat, tangled in bedsheets, whilst she waited for her heart-rate to settle and the last vestiges of the nightmare to pass. Given her position, her actual reaction was far less graceful and involved trying to push upwards through a mound of blankets, only to realise she'd worked her way so close to the edge of the bed that her momentum had her slowly sliding, blankets and all, to a puddled resting place on the floor. Disorientation in the darkness left her floundering, scrabbling and kicking herself free until she was pressed against the cold wall, staring in accusation at the disarray of bedding as if it alone was responsible for the cold sensation of dread churning her stomach. It was the sudden cold, coupled by the pierce of a returning headache, that finally wrenched her from fabricated torment to the genuine discomfort of reality.
"Nom de dieu. What on...fuck."
Squeezing her eyes shut tightly didn't do much to abate the stabbing pain in her left temple. Groping around, Cal turned on the bedside lamp and winced, squinting through pinpricks of vision to feel her way towards the bathroom. Dunking her face in cold water didn't help much but it felt therapeutic and at least allowed her to eventually focus on her reflection in the mirror long enough to admire the bags under her eyes.
Well, you look like shit.
For a brief moment, Calanthe recalled the doctor's instructions upon discharge, particularly regarding the reporting of any residual pain or side effects that might require additional treatment. As she blinked, a squint still favouring her left side, the brunette acknowledged the medical advice and promptly made absolutely no move to follow it. She wanted to sleep. Without medication. Preferably for at least a week. Slowly, she turned and moved back into the main room to ease herself down onto the bed, bent over so that her forehead rested in the heels of both hands. Whatever the nightmare had been, it was already dissipating, leaving behind only a vague sense of physical discomfort that settled mostly as nausea. She had no idea what time it was. With another day before she was cleared for any return to light duties, it hardly seemed to matter.
Lexi had been starting to take her role of unofficial morale officer seriously and had been doing the rounds of the ship making sure those effected by Smith’s finally assault on the ship were doing better. It was not hard but she could see that the effects were going to last awhile for a few of them. It was psychological pain more than physical for them like William. She knew he was struggling as he had thought of the man as his best friend, it was destroying to him to find out he had been betrayed. Lexi did not hold the argument against him but it made her slightly hesitant in mothering him too much so she had decided to check in on someone else. She pressed the chime and waited for the woman to allow her in.
Calanthe, having flopped back onto the mattress in her best impression of a starfish, groaned at the intrusion. "Nobody's home," she protested, though the second chiming of the doorbell didn't seem to pay her insistence any heed. Disgruntled and just a little woozy, the brunette hauled herself off the bed with dramatic over-exaggeration and leaned heavily on the door release to glare at the visitor. Seeing who it was didn't do a lot to curb her dissatisfaction, though it did allow her a certain carelessness for worrying about the state of her hair. She and Lexi had long ago stopped fussing about seeing each other at their worst. If anything, the other woman was about the only person on board Calanthe wasn't inclined to feign a good mood for. Cal stared at Lexi staring at her and, reading the unspoken sentiment in her friend's eyes, sighed and remarked, "I'm aware. Yes. Complete garbage. Thanks for noticing."
Lexi smiled as she heard the noise inside that was trying to tell her that her friend was not in. She laughed and shook her head knowing that the woman was not at all happy at the moment. Maybe her visit was much needed just like others had appreciated. The communication officer struggled to open the door one-handed and haul herself in side. What she did not expect was her friend to look so bad. “Well I cannot help but notice how crap you look.” The English woman commented closing the door to the compartment behind her. “What is up?” She demanded as she saw the tangled sheets and darkened room.
"You mean, aside from having scrambled eggs for brains?" Still inclined to wince in favour of her left eye, Cal rubbed the associated socket and succumbed to the sensation of wobbliness by heading back to the bed to take a seat. "I was trying to sleep," she added, kicking out at the bundle of blankets with her foot. "Turns out I'm no more successful here than I was in Sickbay."
“Well scrambled egg is not optional for a lot of people at the moment so yes sleeping is required.” Lexi could feel some sympathy for how the woman was feeling after her injury she had felt like that after the painkillers had stopped. “How come you cannot sleep?” She wondered moving to sit in the chair that for once did not have laundry waiting to be put away.
Cal's first impulse was the shrug, though she immediately frowned because ignorance didn't feel like an entirely accurate claim. She had some idea, she just wasn't sure how to explain it. "I was asleep," she started. "Something woke me up though. I guess a mixture of the headache and..." Frowning deeply, Cal reorganised her limbs to allow her to sit cross-legged and leaned her head to the side so that she could rub once more at her left eye. "I don't know, Lex. It's like I can still hear him."
"Who? Smith?" Lexi asked quickly confused why Smith would still be heard. He was gone, it had been confirmed and the senior officers were looking at ways to make sure he never came back every again. "Why would you be able to hear him?" She demanded worried as she leaned forward to look at her better.
"It's not like actually hearing, more... An echo. Maybe a memory." Except that didn't feel quite right, the snippets that wove their narrative around her waking mind's preoccupations didn't fit any kind of lingering evidence. There was certainly no physical proof that she'd been half-strangled, for a start. "Or it's just a sign that I'm slowly losing my mind. Probably that, mystery solved." Patience, particularly when it came to any form of potential vulnerability, was not Cal's strong point.
"Oh well that is not something new but I am glad you might be realising it," Lexi commented in a throwaway comment before she grew a little sober and worried looking at her friend. "Our memories are all a little fuzzy. Maybe it is all of that leaving us. As someone who has finally admitted something majorly important to her boyfriend, do not hide it inside, it makes you ill," She commented.
Despite her splitting headache, Calanthe's eyes found her friend's, eyebrows raised. "That sounds like a story I definitely need repeated." As tempting as it was to distract herself with other gossip, Cal was still unnerved enough to heed a portion of her friend's warning, at least, if only to attempt to convince herself it wasn't warranted. "I just..."
The hand on her temple drifted to rest lightly against her throat. "On the one hand, I don't remember much from the messhall. Some of it, maybe, but it all runs together. But then I go to sleep and it's like..." Calanthe closed her eyes and tried to focus on a single recollection that might explain something. With a huff of impatience, she shook her head and frowned, eyes opening again to glare at the floor. "It doesn't make sense! I remember..." She looked at Lexi finally, her expression a mixture of incredulity and uncertainty. "I swear I remember him killing me."
Lexi smiled a little at what she started to say but the dawning worry hit her hard as she watched the woman’s face slowly change in front of her as tried to explain what was on her mind. “But he did not, Calanthe. You are very much here in front of me.” It sounded silly to say it aloud but it was the only logical thing she could say.
"Masterfully deduced, Sherlock," Cal teased, her exaggerated deadpan at least a lot more familiar than the slightly haunted look of trepidation. "I don't know how else to explain it though." For a moment, the linguist sat and attempted to gather her wits, eager as she was with any problem to actually arrive at a solution, or at least an explanation, that satisfied her. A niggle at the back of her mind jostled for attention again and provoked a more subdued silence before Cal chose her next words carefully. "I did die though. I mean, he did kill me. Ben..." She sighed. "Ben talks like he knows me, which means there was a version of me on his ship, and since she wasn't on the pod, I guess she's dead, right?"
“I like to think I am very Sherlock like.” Lexi said moving from the chair to the bed and wrapped her arms around the woman as she gathered herself to explain about it all. “But that is not you, sweetheart. That is someone else.” Lexi said firmly knowing a few people had been deep in that tunnel thinking about the other version of them.
"I know that," Cal mumbled, not ashamed to lean into the hug. Physical proximity and affection had been part of her make-up since infancy but it was damn well hard to come by when you were stuck 150 years away from the opportunity to expand your social network. Lexi would have always been someone Cal gravitated to, but their circumstances had earned the other woman additional importance. Resting her head on her friend's shoulder, Calanthe heaved an exaggerated sigh and tried to unravel herself from illogical concerns. "I guess it just lodged itself in my head. Ben... The others," she corrected quickly, "being here make it hard to forget, that's all. The new doctor kept checking on me like a mother hen and I don't even know his name."
“Smith does that.” The communication officer kept the woman close not flinch in a moving when the woman grew closer put on her head on her shoulder. It has been a few weeks since Lexi been close to anyone like this other than William was nice to just chill out and talk even if the subject was off. “You keep mentioning Ben a lot. Something you wanna share there?” The blonde asked.
"Uh..."
It was already too late to mask her hesitation, and though Cal could easily have blamed it on her current headspace, the truth was there had already existed a messy little compartment amongst the normal turbulence of her thoughts for that particular situation. And for some reason, which she couldn't explain to save herself, Cal felt protective of it. It had never been something she'd spoken about before, so finding a way to broach it now felt...awkward.
"No. It's just...weird seeing him again. So many similarities and yet they're different people, right? At least some different experiences, maybe different outlooks as a result. I keep having to remind myself I don't know him."
“I did not realise you were close.” Lexi replied pulling back a bit to get more comfortable. She shifted a little and stretched out her leg relieved that it was no where near as painful as it had been as previously.
For once, Calanthe didn't have a response for that. An inability to define was the entire reason she'd never broached the subject with her friend in the first place, and somehow the appearance of another Ben had only convoluted the situation. He'd been there, in Sickbay, when she'd woken up. She'd been so glad that he was that she hadn't taken the time to wonder why.
"We hung out a bit," she replied non-committally. Something in the back of Cal's mind flared for a moment, provoking a frown. That proud, strapping boyfriend of yours.. The phrase floated without context, fluent recollection sitting just outside her grasp. "How's your better half anyway?," she nudged, carelessly throwing implications into the mix without realising how her phrasing made things sound.
“Mmmhmm.” Lexi said narrowing her eyes at the woman but let it go at the mention of William. “My better half… pfft… I will tell him you said that. He is okay I guess. Be a few more days until he’s back on duty properly even if he thinks he can get away with bribing the chief medical officer to let him get back onto some type of shift pattern.”
Thinking back to her conversation with Gerhard in Sickbay, Cal huffed wearily at the stubbornness in her friend's tone. "Going to be the battle of the century then." With a groan, she stretched backwards and eventually allowed herself to just flop onto the bed, arms flopped over her head towards the wall, to stare up at the ceiling. "It better not be a few more days before I'm released for duty," Cal grumbled, the prospect being all the more reason to not make a fuss about the fact that, unlike medical predictions had told her she ought to expect, her headache hadn't really gone anywhere.
“Typical day.” Lexi said with a shrug. “We all have our stubbornness on this ship. Why Earth Starfleet chose us.” Lexi said quietly before shaking herself out of the thoughts of us that she had survived. “I am sure you will be quicker, he had CPR performed on him.” The mere thought of Jamesson not having been there hurt to think about.
Cal considered that a moment and then nodded her head to the side to acknowledge the point. "He did look kind of banged up."
Not, if she recalled her reflection moments earlier, that she looked much better. Sprawled on her back, staring glumly up at the ceiling, Calanthe considered her options. In order to get cleared to return to duty, she was supposed to stay confined to quarters and rest. That had been the deal, and she'd really only negotiated it because Sickbay was a little cramped and she could sleep anywhere now that her vitals didn't really need constant monitoring. Resting, however, was proving to be more of an exacerbating irritant than healing measure. Admitting defeat meant going back under medical scrutiny, however, and that really wasn't an option. Not if they wanted her to maintain any kind of sanity.
"I just need this headache to shut up," she lamented, having been cagey about mentioning it too much prior. As far as she could tell, everyone else seemed to have reported a decrease in discomfort since Smith disappeared. Cal wasn't really sure she could say the same. "And I guess to try sleeping again. Maybe I'll dream about rainbows and lollipops this time."
“That he did.” Lexi nodded and took that as a hint to leave by standing up awkwardly reaching for her crutch. It would not be too long until she was able to keep her weight on her leg fully again hopefully. “You should try and if you can’t get to sleep go to sickbay and get some support okay?” Lexi demanded knowing the levels of stubbornness that her friend went to.
"Oui mère," came the sleepy reply, somewhat muffled by the pile of blankets that was unceremoniously dumped on her from the floor. Cal listened as her friend fussed over several more things before leaving and then released the sigh she'd been holding back under the guise of having her shit far more together than she really did. With any luck, the symptoms would fade on their own and she could get on with the business of forgetting Smith ever existed. For now...
She shoved her head under a pillow and made promises to the darkness.
...a good night's sleep didn't seem like too much to ask.
