Mind The Gaps, Part 1

Posted on Mon Nov 17th, 2014 @ 9:29pm by Commander Rylie Cattmor & Lieutenant Jensen Foster

3,109 words; about a 16 minute read

Mission: What Dreams May Come
Location: Holodeck Two
Timeline: Right after "A Theory Without Substance"

// Holodeck Two

When Jensen arrived at the holodeck, he was slightly surprised to not find Cattmor inside already. He had already changed into a pair of jeans and a black sweater. The jeans were an older pair, with holes in the knees and frayed at the hems; but they were his favorite pair. Stepping inside he stopped short, staring at the caged grid-like pattern of the metal composite struts and found himself feeling uneasy. He wanted the atmosphere to be comfortable if they were going to attempt anything tonight, and this caged grid just didn't help.

"Computer, open Foster Delta Six."

At once the area changed to that of a sitting room in muted earth tones. The floor beneath his feet was a deep, forest-green carpet, the walls a shade or two lighter, the couch and chairs were a rich, earth-brown, and the coffee table was made of rosewood. There were light fixtures in each of the four corners and a centered light fixture above him gave the area the right amount of illumination.

Jensen sat down on the couch, feeling himself relax a bit. After a minute or two he got up and went to the replicator. Scanning the device's selection of teas he said, "Jestral tea, hot." It appeared seconds later, in a small ceramic cup, steaming and giving off a subtle floral scent. It was comforting to Jensen, reminding him of his mother, Anora, who drank the tea regularly when he was growing up to relax for a few moments. He went back to the couch and gingerly sipped at it.

Which was how Cattmor found him when she entered a few moments later.

It was an odd mix of feelings; on one hand, Rylie felt fourteen again, and about to go on a first date. On the other, she felt severe apprehension about this link-up between Jensen and her, and for what might happen. The closest she'd got to something like this previously was with Nolin, the Betazoid on the Eridani when she had been picked up by them, and the results had been... unpredictable.

After going their separate ways from sickbay, Cattmor returned to her quarters and changed into something a little more appropriate for wandering around the ship, and for meeting others, and taking a deep breath in part to ward off a yawn, she exited and made her way to holodeck two - as it happened a little later than she expected, as it almost felt like she was intruding on Jensen's own program, him sitting on the couch drinking a cup of steaming liquid. "I could use one of those myself." she said taking in the surroundings that Jensen had chosen for this sojourn. She went to the replicator and ordered a drink, "Coffee, double strong, half sweet." Knowing full well that the effects would only be evident in these four walls.

"Nice place you have here; certainly not standard Starfleet decor," Rylie said as she sat on the edge of one of the chairs. "One of my father's study's was decorated with similar colours back home."

Setting his tea down on the coffee table, Jensen said, "Thank you. It's actually based off of my family's sitting room from when I was a child. It always had a calming and relaxing effect on me." Pausing a for a second, Jensen wondered whether to ask the next question, but figured that if this was to be the first of many attempts, they might as well get to know one another on a less professional stance. "Would you mind if we drop the ranks in here? I feel slightly awkward calling you 'Commander' in a setting such as this."

Cattmor thought about it for a few seconds looking slightly uneasy; after all it was customary for the senior staff to maintain a certain distance, formality speaking, with the crew, and even though she was the XO, the bridge between the officer crew and the captain, she still felt somewhat awkward moving to a first name basis.

Jensen must have picked her feelings up as he smirked just a bit before continuing, "And if it makes you feel better, you can call me Jenny -- though don't let anyone else find out about that nickname."

As soon as he'd had the thought and mentioned it, Rylie picked up his surface meanderings immediately. "Considering the circumstances in which you got it, I don't think that would be very appropriate." she said with a playful smile on her lips. "But considering the situation, I guess we could drop the formalities if you wish... Jensen."

A ghost of a smile flitted across his face before he answered, still feeling her unease with the situation, but continued none-the-less, "Well, Rylie, what was life like for you as a child? I'm actually curious, so please indulge me a bit."

For whatever reason, the question caught Rylie a little off-guard, and her bright green eyes seemed to almost glaze over as she cast her mind back. Quite a few years were blocked off, a side-effect of the mind wipes after each operation working for the her people's government as anything they required at the time. Even times before her even attending the Athera Psionic Academy could be hard to recall. Though, there were times...

"Normal," she said a little sadly, taking a sip of her drink. "Well, as normal as it could likely be for someone like me. We were... privileged, you could say. Growing up as part of one of the Noble Families of Athera, we, my sister, brother, and I wanted for nothing, and even our slightest whims were realised and catered for, sometimes even before we knew we had them. My siblings, even my parents to some degree didn't seem to appreciate the specialness of their positions though, so I tried to make up for it. I tried to explain to them that the people my father had working for him were people, just like we were, with families, hopes, dreams; just that life dealt them a lesser hand. They never understood."

Rylie thought hard, "My sister's the only one left now back home. I never really knew her all that well, and vice versa. Marrying into another Family, I doubt anything has changed." She sniffed lightly, took another sip of her drink and placed it on the table. "Let's see," she began again taking a breath; this was extremely difficult for her, opening like this, she was always such a private individual. "I was home-schooled, didn't go, wasn't allowed out much, and leading such a sheltered lifestyle under the wing of one of the most powerful families on the planet, my parents were able to shirk off my emerging abilities. They said that I was just an incredibly insightful and compassionate young girl, able to easily read facial features, body language. I didn't find out the truth until..." she stopped dead mid-sentence thinking back on one of her most painful clear memories, a clear lump in her throat forming, a tear slowly encroaching on her eye.

Sensing the pain that came suddenly, he looked at Rylie and said, "You don't have to mention anything you don't feel comfortable sharing, Rylie. I... understand. I've had my share of painful incidents."

"It's all right." Rylie stated plainly before taking a breath and going on, recounting the events clearly troubling to her. "I was fifteen, when my latent abilities truly manifested themselves." she said quietly. "I was out with a few... acquaintances - I wasn't really allowed to have proper friends - when it felt like a dagger had been driven into my skull. I heard distant voices in my head, people I knew, people I'd grown up with; and then sometimes on picking up one of those people, it all just stopped. I don't recall what really happened, but I know that I ran as fast as I could back to the tower," she continued now with a definite tear in her eye, "and the guards downstairs were dead, shot. The closer I got to the top floor, the more I could see and hear, the louder in my head it seemed. It was as if I were in each person's head at the very moment they died, that they were murdered."

Cattmor took a brief moment to attempt to compose herself, though not sure how competent she was. "It's a strange thing, to know all about someone, what they were thinking, how they felt, to know them almost intimately, and carry that memory with you because you were there, in their mind when they died. I felt both my parents die on that elevator ride, and arrived just as my brother received an ablative round in the back of his head as well." Thinking once again of this moment was extremely hard, she'd had frequent dreams reliving this point in her life since that fateful day. "I was so tired and distraught, I collapsed on my knees. He said something to me, the killer, the orchestrator, but it didn't really register, or matter. The next thing I know, despite the observation dome being able to withstand anything anyone could ever muster to throw at it, the entire thing just shattered, the floor cracked like a web around me, with damage to fifty floors below as well as the surrounding area half a kilometre in any direction. It was a wonder the entire tower didn't collapse."

She took a deep breath, coming to the end of her story, or at the very least all she planned to share on this occasion, "I was so scared, I didn't really know what had happened, what was happening to me, I just ran, and didn't care where I ended up. Looking back on it, I guess I should've done."

Jensen was feeling Rylie's emotions, to the remembered events only she could see, so acutely that he worried for a second that he might loose himself to them. But when she'd taken that moment to reign in her emotions, he'd been able to breathe and find his center briefly. He wanted to offer something in a sympathetic tone towards her, but found that he was at a loss for words. When he did speak it was to change the subject slightly placing emphasis on himself.

"I grew up on Betazed, enjoying many pleasures and excitements as a young little tyke. It was just Mom, James, and myself growing up. Dad was home every two to three weeks seeing how he was stationed on the USS Valern as their Chief Medical Officer. Mom worked as a Counselor at the primary Starfleet installation on Betazed. We were a tight-knit little family, keeping nothing from one another and always being honest. It worked then, and still works now. We rarely got into arguments and always had a picnic every Sunday after observing prayers in the morning. James and I were inseparable, especially after we turned seven and my abilities became... unstable."

He reached for his tea then, closing his eyes briefly as images flashed across his mind and voices whispered from the dark corners there. Since his stationing on the Ranger, Jensen found himself wishing that his brother were here to help. Just as he'd wished his brother had been there when things went not as planned on the Zenobia. He also regretted not taking long enough of a sabbatical after the Vevaria incident.

Helping Jensen along, especially sensing exactly what he was thinking about, Rylie spoke up, "My family were close, but not tightly knit. My best relationship was with my parents, but it was always separately; they were hardly ever in the same room. My sister and I rarely saw eye-to-eye, though she would likely tell you a different story, and my brother, I guess I could describe it in two words - sibling rivalry." she finished, forcing a light smile.

Regaining control of his faculties, he smiled apologetically and said, "Sorry, I'm not normally this... morose." He suddenly felt the urge to tell her about Cal'n, the young Vevarian male he'd fallen in love with and Kai's older brother. "Do you mind if I share something with you? It concerns Kai." Suddenly a face so heart-breakingly beautiful came to his mind's eye. Hair the color of a blue gas giant, eyes a shade darker, and a smile that could melt your heart.

Cal'n..., Jensen thought.

Cattmor saw the face too--he was cute, in his own way. She also didn't have the heart to say 'no', despite the fact that she sensed the conversation before it even happened as it formulated in Jensen's mind; it was so clear that Jensen wanted or needed to talk about him, so nodded the affirmative picking up Jensen's thought immediately, "Who's Cal'n?"

"He... he was my last partner. Someone I cared for deeply and had even begun to love." Pausing he smiled softly, his gaze reflected inward. "No, I did love him. I still do, in a way." Coming back to himself, his eyes blinking quickly -- as if dispelling a cherished memory, he continued. "Cal'n was Kai's older brother. They were inseparable, always together and reminded myself of James and I at times." A tender smile played over his face for a few seconds. It faded almost as soon as it had come, quickly being replaced by a look of deep sorrow. "He and Kai were the reason..."

"But you need someone to take the fall, sir." He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. He didn't want to remember that right now. Exhaling slowly, he opened his eyes and said, "It's still hard for me. But all I'll say is that those two and what happened on Vevaria are why I requested a transfer to the Ranger."

Looking over the brim of her cup about to take a sip, Cattmor paused and closed her eyes briefly before lowering the cup to her lap; something wasn't right with what Jensen had just said. He'd admitted something, something very deep and personal, but he'd also unknowingly revealed a dark secret in his thoughts, almost like reading between the lines, and so there was something else that felt very wrong. "You're lying... about the transfer. You didn't request it."

He turned his gaze away from her, the memories coming to the forefront of his mind as if... He stopped then, feeling shame, regret, and heartache war within himself. Yes, he was lying about the transfer, but didn't think a half-lie would hurt. Then he sensed Rylie's emotional response to what he assumed were his thoughts. He looked at her out of the corner of his eye, but didn't say anything.

Rylie just glanced down at her cup, and from any outsider, she would have appeared uncomfortable. "Jensen," she said softly, "don't forget who I am or why we're here." and finished before she even looked up with an almost sad expression on her face. "It's a hard thing, to not pick up the details when something is as close to the surface as this is, I wouldn't even have to push. But I know that you're not telling me the truth about your transfer here. If any of this" she said motioning to their surroundings, "is going to work, we have to be honest, even brutally honest with each other."

She paused slightly before concluding, "Humans love to paraphrase sayings. There's an old adage of theirs they like to adapt; what happens on the holodeck, stays on the holodeck."

Turning back to face her, his face a ragged mask of the three emotions twisting inside of himself, Jensen knew that she could clearly see the tears that were falling down his cheeks and dripping off his chin. He didn't know where to start, but her words had gotten through to him. If there was any way to hope for a new start he had to be honest, even brutally so as Cattmor had said. If not with himself, then with her. How honest he wanted to be at the moment, he was still unsure, as well as how much of the story he wanted to tell.

Clearing his throat and rubbing a hand over his face, Jensen spoke soon after. "You're right. I didn't request the transfer. Not in the traditional sense anyway. I was given three options to choose from: court martial over what happened down on Vevaria, court martial leading to trial of the same, or to 'request' a transfer to another vessel. The choice wasn't easy for me. And what happened down on Vevaria... I feel great shame and regret over my actions. I let my head be driven by my heart..." He had to stop then for both of the young men he'd loved flashed in his mind's eye then. Closing his eyes tightly, he finished with, "It's a long story, which I would much rather save for another time, if that's alright."

Cattmor's first instinct was to say 'no', if not for this exercise, then for the future of his position on this ship. As an officer on the Ranger, and a senior officer at that, and her being the XO, it was her job to know all there was about someone, in order to evaluate them in their current role and to aid them to excel in their career. Her second impulse was to peek, to get the information directly from his mind, but that hammered down on her moral compass, and it would be bypassing the trust they were attempting to build; and it would be cheating, and she did abhor cheating. Her final response was to evaluate the look on his face, a look of great sadness, "Okay, another time."

Taking a deep breath, Jensen let it out slowly. "Thank you." He got up from his seat, grabbed his cup, and went to the replicator. He needed something warmer than the cool liquid in the cup. He watched it de-materialize before asking for another Jestral tea. Once it appeared, he took it in his hands and then went back to the couch.

Taking a sip, he took the silence in for a few minutes, allowing his mind to clear and his emotions to settle down. That's when he heard Rylie speak.

Looking to change the subject, "So," Rylie said, finally picking up the courage to begin something which was her idea to start anyway, "how do you propose we do this thing?"


...to be continued

 

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