Posted July 29, 2021, 11 a.m. by Civilian Micah Pikelsimer (Federation Security Agent) (James Sinclair)
Posted by Commander Shara Calloway (Chief Intelligence Officer) in Tennessee, Earth - Home Sweet Home
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
Posted by… suppressed (1) by the Post Ghost! 👻(snip)
Micah smiled slightly as he dried. “Oh, I ain’t one to say you shouldn’t feel what you feel. And she’s had a hard road, that’s true. But here’s the thing about your mom… your sister, too… aw hell, and me…” and he laughed a short laugh, “We gotta have the hurdles. We gotta have the roadblocks and pressure and the things to push past and the load to carry. We don’t do well in the normal day-to-day. We get bored easily. We get restless. And then we gotta do something. So… here we are.” He put a plate away and then turned and looked at her fully.
Hands still in the water, Nadine met Micah’s gaze. Whatever wariness she had had about him earlier had eased and so she was able to not hold back.
“And honestly.... I wasn’t protecting her in Portland. I was protecting you. The life she and I have had, the lives we’ve lived… I had to be sure you were who you said you were. I had to know you were the real thing. And now I’m gonna say something that is gonna make you hate me or run scared or maybe just let you know where all of us are really at.” and he took a breath.
“I had to have a plan in place in case you were an imposter or someone trying to get at Sha. You’re not, and I am really happy that you are who you are because I like you and I like having you here. But if you had been someone or somthin’ else… well… that’d be the end of it.” and he took another plate form her hand and started drying.
Micah
“That should surprise me more than it does,” Nadine said dryly, in what was clearly a familial-shared tone. “I can imagine it’d be quick and quiet, no mess,” she said, breaking into a chuckle as she washed a glass and handed it to him.
He gave her a half-grin and said “Oh… if you were someone tryin’ to get her? I think I’d make it last a while.” and he smiled at her. “You have your mom’s practicality.”
“Oh? And here I thought it was just being a primary teacher,” Nadine said, matching his smile. For all his gruffness and her surety he’d have made good on his contingency plan, Nadine wasn’t afraid of Micah. Well, not entirely.
“What about Faye and Shara? Shara said she just reentered her life recently. They okay? I mean I don’t want to make things worse. “
“Nope, not gonna. They just reconnected, yeah. And trust me… that reunion was magnitudes harder than this one. So don’t worry. You aren’t making anything harder than it has been. Hell… you’re making a lot of it easier.” He looked at her a minute and then said “You think you might ever call me dad? Not looking to replace yours… just maybe add to the deck a bit.” and he grinned.
In Vanessa, Shara was watching her daughter cycle through what was clearly dissociation but then…
Faye broke into laughter, and more than a little hysterical. “I have a sister!” She laughed. “And my uncle Gavin? He has a wife and a daughter,” she said to Alex.
Sitting there silently, Shara was trying to gauge Faye’s reaction and for the moment left Alex to deal with the situation.
~Shara & Faye
Alex looked at her for a long moment and then nodded to Shara. “Shocked, but still here. And I am betting through the peals of laughter the bride-to-be is waiting to hear about yet another familial addition.” and he gestured to her to start talking.
Micah and Alex
“See, eloping made all that easier,” Shara said with a smirk before she inhaled deeply and gathered her thoughts.
Faye leaned back into frame after picking up Tess and setting the cat in her lap, her hands moving over the soft fur. Tess seemed to be urgently attentive as she rose up on her back feet, and placing her front paws on Faye’s shoulder, nuzzling in against her. Faye seemed to instantly relax . Good girl, Tess, Shara thought warmly. She had known after doing all the research that the support animal would do wonders for Faye and she was glad to see she wasn’t wrong.
“Okay, so… fill me in,” Faye said quietly.
Nodding, Shara gave her the story she gave Nadine, but was able to add in more because Faye already had context from her life back in. She knew the stories that Shara had told previously. “So, you know how I ran away from home at sixteen?”
Faye nodded. “You and your dad got into a big fight and not for the first time, he hit you. But this time, you got so mad you hit him back. It stunned him, but made him even angrier, and you fled the house. Gavin had been in the room at the time, but you didn’t have time to do or say anything before leaving. And then you left the colony that night. You never went into details but I could tell how terrible that time was for you, so I didn’t ask more.”
“Yeah,” Shara said, forcing her voice to be above a whisper. “When I left… I was pregnant. Not very far along yet, but the guy I was with, Curtis, he was only a little older than me and not ready to be a dad. I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do, but I knew either way I was on my own through it. When my father hit me, I just knew it would be a terrible place to raise a child and everyone on Midos knew my mom and I couldn’t bear their looks of pity or shame. So I went to a friend of my mother’s and told her that I needed to get off the colony that night. She said she’d keep an eye on Gavin as best she could and helped me out.” Shara paused briefly, trying to keep her emotions together. “I ended up on Alpha Centauri and it was there I had the baby,” she said, struggling to keep her voice even. “For a month I tried, but I had no one there and was just trying to get by. I was a little too proud to go ask complete strangers for help but I also knew by the end of that first month that I wasn’t meant to be her mother. I couldn’t do it, not like that. So, one day I walked into the adoption agency and surrendered her. I signed away my legal rights in a closed adoption which forbade me from ever making contact myself. When she was twenty, she’d be legally allowed to access her adoption file, but it would be up to her, not me, if and when contact was ever made.”
Faye was extraordinarily still and for a moment Shara was worried Faye had dissociated again, but the long exhale told Shara otherwise. “And today she found you?” Faye said.
“Not quite. Long story short, after confessing this all to him, Micah checked the records to see if she ever made any inquires that hit official channels. And she had. So he went out to Portland to see her, get the gist of the situation. She had been looking for me since she was allowed to, but hit snags after everything went down on Tracken and Voyager.”
“And you changed your name!” Faye said, leaning forward. “She would have hit a dead end and it wouldn’t have made sense to check Starfleet, not right away, and then of course they’d have told her sh!t-all, given you joined Intelligence.”
Shara nodded. “Exactly.”
Faye shook her head. “But I don’t get it. I get the closed adoption, but why the secrecy? Why didn’t you just tell dad and I that you had a kid when you were super young and gave her up for adoption. I would have known there was a sister out there but…” Faye shook her head again.
Shara could feel the tears welling, clouding her vision. “Fear, probably. It was just so painful, and it was years before I could bear the sound of babies crying or children playing. And then I met your father and everything changed. We got married and I knew with him I could do it right, I could give a child what they needed. And then we had you and everything just felt… right. I didn’t want to mess that up.”
Tess was nudging her head against Faye’s jaw, but if it was helping, it wasn’t obvious. “This is a lot.”
“I know…” Shara said.
“I… I just need some time to process this. We can talk more later, but I need to go right now.”
What was she expecting? Faye to jump up all excited as if this were the best news ever. It wasn’t bad news, but it was a lot to process and she didn’t blame Faye for having a hard time with it, especially after the chaos that had been her life the last few months. “Faye…”
Alex’s face appeared behind Faye and he gave Shara a reassuring nod.
Faye shook her head. “No, don’t. I love you, but right now I’m a little more angry than I think I have a right to be. I know all of this was hard for you, but all these years!”She blew out a breath. “I’ll call you later.”
The screen went blank and Shara covered her face with her hands, the tears taking hold as she slid into silent sobs.
~Shara & Faye
Micah finished up with the dishes and looked out the front windows at Vanessa. Hands in his pockets, he chewed his bottom lip. “Tell ya what…” and he looked back at Nadine. “You know how to make coffee? Real coffee, not replicated? If so, everything ya need is in that cupboard by the stove. Get a pot on, if you would. If not, I’ll do it when we come back. Make yourself ta home. I’m gonna go check on Sha.” and he walked out the front door.
A few moments later, he put an arm around his wife and said “Easy, wife… easy… its gonna be ok. It will. Just give it some time. This is just the first day… gonna take some adjustments on all our parts to get this worked out. Shhhh…” and he rocked her gently.
Micah
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