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Calloway's Quarters- Sins of the Mother

Posted May 10, 2022, 11:21 a.m. by Commander Shara Calloway (Chief Intelligence Officer) (Lindsay B)

Posted by Commander Shara Calloway (Chief Intelligence Officer) in Calloway’s Quarters- Sins of the Mother

Posted by Commander Shara Calloway (Chief Intelligence Officer) in Calloway’s Quarters- Sins of the Mother

Posted by Commander Shara Calloway (Chief Intelligence Officer) in Calloway’s Quarters- Sins of the Mother
Posted by… suppressed (5) by the Post Ghost! 👻

(snip)

Shara held her breath until the call ended and as soon as the blank screen appeared, Shara exhaled. Except it wasn’t a breath. Hands shaking, she pushed back her chair as if she needed space from the desk. Hands shaky, she pushed herself to her feet, momentarily forgetting Micah was even there. What had she expected? That Faye would never ever mention it? They they could just pretend that Shara had gone off for a little solo vacation in the middle of a war? Yes, she had skills that were useful to the other cell and she had done great work for them right up until the spatial anomaly plucked the Val Jean out of the Alpha Quadrant and dropped them into the Delta. It was an excuse. An easy one, with some truth, but an excuse nonetheless.

The words ‘I forgive you’ hadn’t been uttered, but Shara knew Faye. She knew her daughter’s heart well enough to know that that had been implied by them being ‘okay’. Because at the end of the day Shara didn’t need Faye to forgive her. She needed to forgive herself first. And that was going to be a harder journey.

Turning, she cast her gaze upwards, away from the floor and blinked. Micah was still there on her bed and she all but shuffled towards him, feeling dazed. A part of her wanted to hyperventilate, but it was like she suddenly lacked energy. She reached out to her husband, not trusting her body’s movement. Hand outstretched, she was all but pleading for help, for reasons she didn’t understand in this moment, her inability to speak baffling. But it was all there in her eyes.

Her reckoning had come.

~Shara & Faye Calloway

Micah had lived a life of hypvigilance, so even without intending to, he had heard every word. And when the call was over, he laid still… waiting for the inevitable crash of history and present on his wife. And when she reached for him, he took her hand and helped her fall back to sitting on the bed.

The warmth of his hand precipitated the sudden shifting of her position as the mattress seemed to rise up to cradle her body. She nestled in to Micah, curling into a fetal position, safe within his company.

“Like felling a tree… took the base out from under ya and down you came.” he said softly, taking her in his arms and letting her lean against him. He held her for a long time in silence before he kissed the top of her head and said “You wanna talk? Drink? Or pass out? Or maybe all of the above?”

Micah

What did she need? Well that was certainly a question. One she wasn’t sure she knew the answer to, except that his generous of ‘all of the above’ was usually a good bet. “Maybe not in that exact order. There’s whiskey in the bottom cupboard of the bedside table,” she said, her voice strangely echoey to her own ears. Was drinking a good idea? Maybe, maybe not, but at least she wouldn’t be drinking alone.

~Shara

Micah shifted slightly, and soon there was the tinkling of glass on glass the soft gurgle of spirits moving from bottle to glass. Micah handed her a two fingers-deep whiskey and said “Take the edge off, but you should talk.”

Micah

Shara sat up, crossing her legs as she took the glass from him. Lips to the edge of the glass, warmth spread down her throat, smoothly coating her esophagus. Her lids dipped closed for a moment, a silent… acknowledgement. Not a prayer. Shara was never, ever going to be that… whatever. Her right middle finger traced the bottom of the glass, a soothing repetitive motion. Words were hard. But not impossible. “She’s right, you know. I hide from her and I can guess at why. Alcoholic father, teen pregnancy, blah, blah, blah. That’s too easy. Ed could cut through, just like you can, but Faye was just a child. The most unusual and extraordinary child I expect either of us have ever seen, but a child nonetheless. There I was wanting to do things better, be better than I had had, and what did did we do? We inflicted all the same shit on her.” Shara shook her head and downed a good amount of the whiskey.

~Shara

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