Shared Experiences

Posted on Sat Jun 28th, 2025 @ 6:32am by Lieutenant JG Calanthe 'Cal' Diaz & Commander William Gerhard

Mission: Remnant
Location: Deck E - Mess Hall
Timeline: 409, prior to "Offering Dreamless Sleep"
3178 words - 6.4 OF Standard Post Measure

William took his mug of tea, or rather the Starfleet Ration Pack's version of it, and carried it and his tray over to one of the nearest empty tables in the mess hall. Being on reduced power had hit the galley first, and he had already grown accustomed to what meal he had gotten based on the weight of the packaging. He sighed as he read the label without really having to. "Chicken Tikka Masala...again," he said softly before he took a sip from his mug and began removing meal from its packaging. He knew that if Lexi were there, she would eagerly offer to trade him for whatever she had. She had already promised to take him to her favorite restaurant that served proper Chicken Tikka Masala when they got back home, though now it was more like if they got home. As he chewed his food, he wondered if the hydroponics bay would be able to start taking requests on which crops to grow next.

Given the lateness of the hour, it was hardly a surprise that the Executive Officer was halfway through his meal before the doors opened to permit another last-minute diner. In her defense, Calanthe hadn't intended to be trying to cram dinner in only an hour or two before she'd need to try to get some sleep, but sending crew off-ship reduced her team considerably and there was an understandable priority being placed on making sure no alien vessels caught them unawares. Scouring the comm. frequencies for any sign of impending visitors wasn't the most thrilling part of her job but Cal had difficulties, now that it was her overall responsibility, letting anyone else do it.

At the least the coffee was black.

Her tray ladened with culinary pot-luck, the Communications Chief was tired enough that she nearly missed the occupied table as she clattered her way clumsily to her preferred seat near the viewport. She paused as the fork disappeared from her jostled tray and landed on the ground with just enough ruckus to be obnoxious. Setting her food down on Will's table, the first words from her mouth were a muttered string of disgruntled French, pitched at a volume too low for the translator to pick up. The next thing was a far more decipherable, "There's rice all over the floor down here, what the hell."

William had been lost his his thoughts when Cal had set her tray down on his table which made him jump. His action caused him to knock over his bag of reconstituted rice. "Fyfan," he said in his native tongue. The image of him knocking over rice due to being surprised was what frustrated him more. The Executive Officer and Chief Armory Officer couldn't be seen as jumpy. He looked over at Cal as she straightened up holding her fork. "Good to see you too," he offered before he pushed back his chair and knelt down to scoop up the bits of rice with his napkin. Straightening up, he gave Cal an upraised eyebrow, "And the rice was not ALL over the floor."

"Practically on the other side of the room," Cal exaggerated, though she stopped short of pushing the matter. Protocol would dictate that Gerhard had managed to elevate himself beyond the realms of being the target of playful yet pointed banter but there had never been any actual disrespect intended from either of them. It was why Cal didn't really think twice about leaving her tray where it was and helping herself to the spare seat. "What's today's culinary adventure?'

"Chicken Tikka Masala...again," William said after rolling his eyes at her comment. He then pointed with his fork at her own tray, "What about you?"

"An attempt at carbonara, apparently." The unenthusiastic jab of a fork did little to promote the meal's merits.

"Sure does make you wonder who came up with the menu choices for ration packs," he said before taking another bite of his meal. He looked over at her as he chewed before swallowing and raising an eyebrow. "You burning the midnight oil as well" he asked.

"What's left at the bottom of the barrel after it's been scraped clean," Calanthe amended, knowing that the fatigue etched into Gerhard's face was every bit reflected in the bags under her eyes. With Lexi down on the planet, the Communications Chief had run out of colleagues she could leave listening to the void and not be struck by a compulsion to keep checking on them.

William chewed again as he looked over at Cal and noticed that she looked more tired than usual. He knew that she had spent most of her watch checking on the people down on the surface, as her frequent reports to him had indicated. But there seemed to be something more than just fatigue lying below the surface. He decided to try and probe just a little without being outright with his questioning, "You been getting enough sleep?"

"What are you now, my mother?"

The protest, made around the remains of a mouthful, didn't appear to have been provoked by any offense, at least. At most, Calanthe seemed to take the question at face-value, with an expectation that it was more a passing obligation than any real attempt at interrogation. It was the silence that followed that gave her pause for consideration, another mouthful halfway towards being devoured, and she lowered her fork to frown as the need to clarify became apparent.

"You know, if you're going to tell me I look like trash, you could just come out and say it."

“Hmm, most people wouldn’t say I have motherly attributes,” William said firing back with a slight grin before he turned back to his food while they both ate. The silence between them drew out, and when she made her comment, he looked over at her with an upraised eyebrow, “Well…that’s a little harsh self assement. Though, I understand if I’m the last person you’d want to confide in.”

"Actually, word has it you're pretty decent at keeping secrets."

A pointed look over a bite of her food bought Calanthe the time to consider how she was actually going to respond. Deflection would have worked a few months back but the increase in responsibility had made it far less likely that Will would just roll his eyes and let her get away with the final word these days. Either that, or Lexi had broken code and tipped him off.

"I left Earth a champion sleeper," she eventually settled on. "Could have won medals for it. I don't think I'd even make the reserve team now."

William gave her a look for a moment, wondering what she might be referring too. But he quickly dismissed it as it could be numerous things. Her comment made him take notice. He'd had his share of nightmares, in fact he still found himself waking up sometimes in a cold sweat. The memories of the ordeal with the creature who had chosen him to prey on were always there, the figure's haunting image...

"I know the feeling. We've all had our fair share of horrifying experiences. I still sometimes wake up in a cold sweat," he said softly while staring down at his food.

Calanthe raised her eyebrows. "You too, huh?"

It dawned on her a little too late that what was delivered as a flippant show of understanding actually divulged a little more than she tended to chat about. Lexi had some understanding and, once in a while, it became the inevitable topic of her conversations with Ben because she was still inclined to muddle her own memories with those she'd acquired. Actually sitting down and documenting just how often she woke from yet another vivid recollection of the last minutes of her own life, albeit by proxy, was something Cal specifically avoided however. Suddenly preoccupied by her food, she added, "I guess there are some thing they didn't think to include on the recruitment brochure."

William glanced over at her for a moment before he turned his attention back to his own meal, though he forced himself to eat. He recognized by her response that Cal was still guarded, and he didn't want to press too hard on the subject. The last thing he wanted to do as cause their casual teasing relationship into one of actual resentment or hostility. There was a brief moment of silence between them before he spoke again, "Not something they covered in basic really. Sending us out into the unknown, not really preparing us for the mental hardships we would face. Hell, there's not even a dedicated psychologist on Starfleet ships."

In truth, William had never felt the need to see a shrink. His childhood on earth had given him his own share of childhood trauma to deal with. The frigid cold living above the Arctic circle with his Uncle had forced him to bury his childhood problems and develop his sense of hard work and resiliency, but it hadn't fully cured him. Juvenile delinquency and the threat of incarceration had forced him to make a decision, which was what brought him into Starfleet. The comradery he'd found with his fellow recruits and shipmates had given him some sense of purpose, but he still had never really talked with anyone about his own mental scars.

His recent ordeal, and revelations to Lexi had made him reevaluate his previous feelings about his mental health. Lexi and he had had conversations about his recurring nightmares, and she supported him by always assuring him he was safe. But, there was something to be said about talking to someone who had a shared experience. It was one of the reasons he and Sloan had mended their relationship, both being victims to severe mental violations.

"Lexi and I still talk about what happened to me. She knows that its affected me, but she's what's been able to keep me grounded when I wake up in the night," he said before pausing to take a sip of water, "Though I think she realizes that its hard for her to empathize seeing as how she didn't experience anything close to what I did."

"That won't stop her turning herself inside out trying."

The wry humour was full of shared affection, for Cal's friendship with the man's fiancé was more than just a product of being stuck together with limited options. By now, the pair of them had been expecting to go their separate ways with renewed insistence of staying in contact and there was no doubt in Cal's mind that it would have happened. It helped, knowing that there were people here she would have cherished long after their shared voyage was supposed to come to an end.

And yet, it hadn't, and they were instead left to lift each other up in an endless rotation that ensured the weakest of them, at any point, was not squashed under the burden of the team. In Will's case, he felt the pressure to rise above it for the sake of the crew and his wife-to-be. Cal considered for a moment her own sense of obligation and found it differed only in the sense that she carried partial protectiveness for an entirely different crew, or at least the remnants of it. Messy. That's what life had become since the alien's infiltration. Chaos that no amount of basic training could have anticipated.

She was picking at her food now, a more frequent loss of appetite that highlighted the stark contrast between 'then' and 'now'. Adjusting to the limited diet didn't allow for the same relationship with food that Cal had grown up with but it was still unlike her to push food around her plate. Setting down her fork, she reached for her glass of water instead.

"Do you remember much?"

The question was a hesitant olive branch, the equivalent of toes pressed against the line while she considered how far across it she wanted to step.

William grew quiet, staring down at his own food as the desire to eat left him. The sounds of those around him seemed to fade away as he thought about Cal's question. Lexi had asked him the same thing before, and he had always danced around the answer, thought not because he wanted to keep the true answer from her. But rather because it was a difficult question to answer. He looked over at Cal for a moment before answering, "Every second of it..." He trailed off as some form of realization passed between the two before they both returned their gaze's to their respective plates of food.

"What about you," he asked softly, his own question hovering between them. He knew whatever her answer was, some bond between them had formed that went deeper than mere friends.

In a much more obvious display of loss of appetite, Cal pushed her plate away and sat back in her chair. Drawing one foot up to perch on its edge so that she could wrap her arms around her bent leg and rest her chin atop her knee gave the impression of self-protection, though anyone who knew her well enough was well-aware of Cal's inability to sit in a chair properly when given a choice.

"Most of it." Like Will, the lack of elaboration stemmed more from an inability to put most of it into words, much like trying to relay a dream often fell flat. Her long stare gave the impression she was studying the table intently but was unfocused enough that her thoughts were likely outside the room entirely. In the silence that followed, Cal weighed her options, possessive of the truth not only for her own benefit but others equally as effected. When she did look up finally to catch the eyes studying her, it took that brief second of contact, and of recognising a familiar haunted grief in Will's expression, for her to blurt, "He killed me."

It almost immediately required amendment.

"Well, not me. Other me." Cal hesitated. "Ben's me."

She let that sit as it was. Will was smart, he'd put it together...probably.

"When he took us out in the messhall, he..." Her features grappled with a frown of tentativeness over the best way to phrase it. "Dumped as much as he could from feeding on her into my head." The hunch of a shoulder saw a usual reluctance to play victim attempt to minimise the issue. "Not as much as he wanted since I'm not crazy yet but it's been...interesting."

Will nodded softly. Based on her description, Cal's other version had played the same role he had in their universe. She had been the main object of the creature's insatiable appetite. He remembered what he had been told, how Will's other self had lacked the emotional fullness that he had craved. He remembered the intense feelings he had felt, how the creature had mocked him, and yet he'd still been powerless to withstand his mental assault.

"So, that means you and Ben were...," he said letting the statement drop off. Her slight nod confirmed what he already knew to be true. It also explained Ben's reaction when he had seen Cal after coming aboard. "He fed on the intense emotional bond that the other you had with Ben. It's why he chose me in this universe. Because of my feelings for Lexi. It was one of the things he told me before he could...finish the job," he said.

Cal winced at the accuracy, not to mention the immediate sympathy and regret of knowing someone else had experienced the dubious prestige of being Smith's favourite toy. "She didn't like him much, turns out he just used that to his advantage. You could argue she got the last laugh," Cal tried some patented optimism on for size, even if her tone didn't quite sell it. "It clearly bothered him enough that dumping what was left of her in my head made him feel important."

A huff of humorous laughter managed to convey weariness more than anything else. In some respects, their situations were different. Will was a surviving victim of what her counterpart had failed to endure, and all that she'd been gifted was the thoughts and memories and faint residual emotions that Smith treated as by-products, not nearly nourishing enough to hold onto. The final 'fuck you' from a powerful being still pitiful enough to succumb to petulance in defeat.

"Could have done without a giant plant trying its own mind games but I guess we're still standing, right?" There was no doubt that the recent encounter had exacerbated symptoms, Cal was still waiting for the promised stabilisation after that particular re-exposure. The silence hung for a moment, a mutual melancholy that suited neither of them and yet was so damned hard to fight against some days. Cal rallied, the ramble of her thoughts arriving at something she thought might skew the conversation towards something Will would find amusing.

"You know, she was gunning for your job." The lilt of an upswept eyebrow made a decent effort at switching up her mood. "The other Cal. They took far heavier casualties than us, she retrained over to the Armory."

William glanced over at Cal and let out a slight laugh. "Is that so? Well things must've been quite dire if you were gunning for my job," he said before looking over at her again. "It's probably a good thing that you prefer communications though. I don't think the ship could handle you working for me," he said before pausing and taking a bite from the food on his tray, "Then again, as XO, you do kinda already work for me." He braced himself for Cal's inevitable jab that was going to come in response to his slight jabbing.

Never let it be said that Calanthe shied away from obvious bait. "Adjacent, perhaps." He wasn't wrong but outside of an emergency situation, the rapport amongst the crew, particularly the Bridge personnel, didn't really foster top-heavy authoritarianism. "Enough that we can get away with some degree of false reassurance anyway." She avoided mentioning that, by all accounts, she was easier-going than her alternate counterpart. There'd be time enough to point out how much worse things could get the next time he stood in the doorway and intentionally refused to move.

Adjusting her position again, Calanthe picked up her fork and dug into the cooling remains of her meal. "You're safe for now, Commander, I don't think either of us would survive your wife-to-be's fussing if the Captain started sending both of us ahead to clear a path. Just do me a favour..."

She jabbed an empty fork towards him.

"Next time you want to wrestle with a psychadelic potplant, leave me out of it." After a pause, Cal conceded an amendment. "Or at least warn me first."