Posted July 23, 2021, 1:02 p.m. by Commander Shara Calloway (Chief Intelligence Officer) (Lindsay B)
Posted by Civilian Micah Pikelsimer (Federation Security Agent) in Tennessee, Earth - Home Sweet Home
Posted by Commander Shara Calloway (Chief Intelligence Officer) in Tennessee, Earth - Home Sweet Home
(snips)
“To family,” Shara said, followed a beat later by Nadine. The two women tipped their glasses together and Shara reached out to tip hers to Micah. Nadine followed suit, but even as they did so, there was an import about the moment, the action.
“Let’s dig in, shall we?” Shara said after letting an appropriate moment pass.
“It looks delicious. Did you really catch the fish yourself, and gather the stuff for the salad?” Nadine asked, momentarily bewildered.
Shara grinned. “You bet I did! When I lived on Tracken Two, we needed all those sorts of skills. We had to be self-sufficient, so as a community we made sure we all pitched in and that everyone was fed and clothed and had whatever they needed to be happy and content. Or as close as we could manage.”
“Tracken… that was the Maquis colony, yeah?” Nadine asked before she inhaled sharply. “I’m sorry. I’m not sure what I should or shouldn’t ask.”
Shara shook her head. “No. We’re going to get nowhere if we dance around things. I told you I’d be as honest as I could and I meant it. So yes, let’s enjoy this lovely meal we all contributed to and go ahead and start to answer the questions you have.”
“I don’t know where to start,” Nadine said.
Shara gazed at Micah for a moment and realized that this would all be new to him too. Good. She didn’t want to have secrets from him that weren’t work related. “Well, how about at the beginning. That seems to be an appropriate place I think.” Nadine nodded. “It’s not a complicated story, just… hard. And do understand I’ve never told anyone this story until Micah here. But on, let me grab something first,” Shara said as she got up from the table. She grabbed a PaDD off the coffee table and wandered back. “Was my trunk there for pickup?” she asked Micah.
~Shara & Nadine
Micah shook his head at her and said “Now do ya think I wouldn’t have told ya if it wasn’t, wife? C’mon… miss the chance to hear you rip somebody a new one? That’s one of my favorite things in the whole world… provided it ain’t me.” and he chuckled and took a bite.
Micah
“You ain’t seen nothing,” Shara said with a gleam in her eyes as she settled back in her seat. “I need to go through it, so after dinner, we can go treasure hunting.”
Shara slid the PaDD to Nadine. “Read it if you wish to, but that’s the basic info I pulled on your father. For the record, he and I haven’t spoken since he found out I was pregnant and we went our separate ways. It wasn’t malicious either. We were sixteen, Nadine, and he wasn’t ready to be a father. I can’t speak for him and his choices, but he likely doesn’t know I went through with the pregnancy. He also wouldn’t know I gave you up for adoption.” She cut off a bit of her fish and watched Nadine pick up the device and begin reading.
“Curtis Allen,” Nadine said softly. “Who was he… to you?”
Shara smiled sadly. “My first serious boyfriend. Met in school. He sat behind me in math class and teased me about being a slacker. He knew better though. My brain loves math. It sees it everywhere and so I was bored in those classes most of the time and so I did other things, other work. But we slipped notes back and forth on a PaDD.” She chuckled. “We made up our own code so if the teacher caught us and read our messages it wouldn’t make sense. Seems I veered towards the covert rather naturally.”
“He’s moved around a bit. A civil engineer,” Nadine said as she skimmed. “Whoa! There it is! Huh.” She looked up at Shara and Micah. “Doctors chuckled at my DNA. I’m quite the mix. I look Human, but my DNA says I have at least one grandparent who is Betazoid and one great-grandparent that is Vulcan. None of that yours, is it?”
Shara shook her head. “Very Human. But yeah, Curtis’ mom was Latina and his dad a Human Betazoid Vulcan mix. I always loved that you had slightly pointed ears but they were’t obvious. Like a little secret.”
Nadine studied her for a long moment, growing serious. Shara knew too much for it to be a simple adoption handover. There was more to it. “So what happened? Why…”
“Why did I give you up?” Casting her gaze away, Shara wanted to hide the pain, but she couldn’t. Not entirely. “Because I couldn’t do it on my own. I tried, Nadine, I really did. For one month you and I lived in this tiny apartment on Alpha Centauri. But I had to work to support us and I couldn’t rely on anyone. Or so I thought at the time. But I couldn’t go home to Midos. They didn’t know I was pregnant. I ran away. My mother had died two years prior and we were all just devastated. And my father who was a bitter man who drank a lot, got worse after she died. Rarely did he go so far as to hit me, but shortly after Curtis decided he could’t be a father, my father and I got into a big fight and he hit me… hard. But I hit back! And that’s when I knew I couldn’t stay. It wasn’t safe me there. Gavin had a better relationship with him than I did and I knew he’d be okay. So I left it all behind and tried to start over. But… I was so overwhelmed and you were so small. I cried for two days straight before I walked over to the adoption agency and asked them to make sure you had a good home.” Shara had became very still, as if even a deep breath was too hard. “I don’t regret that decision, but it broke me for a long while.” An understatement and a piece of her story as of yet untold. So many of them in fact that sometimes it was hard to know what she had and hadn’t told people.
Nadine sat there holding the PaDD, her own tears welling. “I’m so sorry you went through all of that.”
~Shara & Nadine
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