STF

Brig, Day 2- Disentanglement

Posted Oct. 9, 2020, 3:14 p.m. by Lieutenant Faye Calloway (Mission Specialist) (Lindsay B)

Posted by Lieutenant Commander Zef Rollo (Counselor) in Brig, Day 2- Disentanglement

Posted by Shara Calloway (Intel Liason) in Brig, Day 2- Disentanglement

Posted by Lieutenant Commander Zef Rollo (Counselor) in Brig, Day 2- Disentanglement
Posted by… suppressed (2) by the Post Ghost! 👻

(snip)

For a moment Shara wasn’t even sure she was brave enough. Maybe it was too much to ask, of both of them. But she had started down this path for her daughter’s sake and it was her duty to see it through. At least that much was clear to her. “At the facility,” she said, struggling to spit it out. “With the Tal Shiar…”

Dots connected in her mind like little flashes of light bursting behind her eyes. Details seeking out other details in an attempt to link one memory with another in order to make sense of the cascade of knowledge that had just been handed to her. She had been there. Pointed details.

The toast tumbled out of her hand to the floor.

Faye rose to her feet slowly, eyes unfocused. The buzzing was back.

~The Calloways

Shara’s eyes missed nothing and she was immediately on her feet watching Faye, as a frown slipped onto her face. She snapped her fingers. “Faye! Hey, come back,” she said firmly. “It’s okay,” she added more softly. Nothing happened. Edging closer to the forcefield, she snapped her fingers harder. “Faye!”

Faye blinked.

If her daughter hadn’t reacted, Shara had been ready to demand to be let into the cell. Others may not understand what was going on in this moment, but Shara sure did. And it was concerning. Understandable, but concerning. Her earlier worry for her daughter’s long-term well being had clearly not been misplaced. “Take a slow and deep breath.”

Faye’s head snapped in her mother’s direction and the confusion was all too evident. But Faye did as instructed and took that precious and centring breath, eyes dropped to the floor.

“It’s okay, Faye,” Shara said, wishing there was a better way to go about all of this.

“Like hell it is,” Faye muttered. Looking up at her mother, she studied the woman intently before she spoke again. “It was you, wasn’t it? You were the woman whose voice I could hear sometimes, that I thought I hallucinated. And you helped me escape too.”

Shara nodded. “I had help from your friends in the Movement, of course, but yes, as soon as I was able to and it was safe for both of us, I got you out of there.”

Both of them. It made sense in a way that she hadn’t expected and even more strange was the feeling that it somehow made the situation better. Not the reality of it, but given how out of it she had been much of the time Faye’s memory had more holes in it than the cloth Ristow used to use to make that weird cheese of his back on Tracken. Moving once again, Faye sat back on the bench and took a sip of her lukewarm coffee, not caring about the temperature. It still tasted comforting.

Shara once again adopted her stretched out position on the floor, satisfied that the worst of the stress for Faye was past, or at least manageable. “You can ask it… the question that’s been on your mind since you first saw me in the ready room. I promise you’ll get an answer, even if it’s hard for both of us.”

Toast still on the floor where she had dropped it, Faye traced the outline of it with her eyes before looking at Shara, at this woman she wasn’t sure how to feel about at all. She had started this conversation feeling like a stranger, but the reality was far more complicated. When she finally looked back over at the older woman, the question was clearly known to both of them. She just needed the answer now. “Why didn’t you contact me? Even after I got back to Federation space. Clearly you came back too, so… why now? Why I am only just hearing from you now?”

Shara traced her thumbnail with the pad of her index finger, hating that this was the reality, that they had both lost out on so much when they both truly could have used each other. But others had understood better than she could have that she wasn’t able to be what Faye needed then. “At first I wanted to, damn what anyone else said. But I… I was not okay, Faye. I had to go into hiding after your escape and then it took me a few weeks to get safely back to Federation space. By the time I did and I went through debriefing, it was clear that I was… struggling.” She sighed. “I was diagnosed with PTSD, Faye. Apparently watching your child be tortured for months on end is bad for you. And as much as I wanted to, I had my own healing to do before I could be… anything to anyone.”

Faye’s jaw tightened. “But you’ve been working on this… investigation for awhile now.”

Shara nodded slowly. “Yes, because it was seen as something I could focus on that wouldn’t interfere with my therapy,” she said matter-of-factly. She wasn’t embarrassed to have needed it, but even Shara understood that Faye might be reacting badly to the idea that her own suffering caused it in someone else. “I wasn’t expecting you to be caught up in any of this, but… the reason I am allowed to tell any of this to you is because you had a deal with them. You wanted to know what happened to me and they agreed you could know. I’m so sorry it took this long, but…” What else could she even say.

Breaths became a bit harder and Faye had to force herself to take full ones as her chest heaved. “I get it,” she said, her voice shaking. “And I’m glad you told me. But I need you to go now. I can’t…”

Shara nodded in understanding. Oh how she understood. There wasn’t much more they could say until they knew how this all went down. And it wasn’t fair to expect anything of Faye right now. After all, her daughter was sitting in a brig cell and regardless of the circumstances, there was only so much Faye could do or be expected to handle emotionally. “I’m sorry,” Shara said as she rose to her feet.

Faye didn’t reply as she watched her mother move over to Pretha, though tears slipped down over her cheeks.

Shara tried to adopt a mask of indifference but she just couldn’t. So it was with a weary expression that she spoke to Oberon. “I’m going to call the counsellor. It’s not optional. Faye needs that support right now.”

With a final deep exhale, Shara stepped out of the brig and leaned against the corridor wall by the door. =/\=Counsellor Rollo to the brig.=/\= She would wait for her and fill her in on her observations.

~The Calloways

The message came over Zef’s combadge during an appointment. There was no information except she was wanted in the brig. The only person she knew who was definitely there was Faye Calloway, but it wasn’t her voice that sounded in the office. She pressed her lips together, a combination of thoughts in her mind. ‘It was about time Faye called for her’ and ‘that she couldn’t walk out of a session unless it was an emergency’.

“Excuse me, NEnsign Porter.” The young man sitting opposite her nodded sheepishly. Getting up, Zef walked to the private bathroom and closed the door for privacy.

=/\=This is Counselor Rollo. I am in the middle of something at the moment. Who is this and why are you calling me to the brig?=/\=

—Rollo, CNS

=/\=Commander Shara Calloway with Starfleet Intelligence,=/\= Shara’s replied with a slight pause before she continued in a softer tone. =/\=Faye needs your help. It’s urgent. I can explain more outside the brig when you arrive. Please,=/\= she all but pleaded. Her name might ring a bell with Rollo, but it might not. Her status as Faye’s missing mother was anecdotally known to most people who dealt with Faye but this whole situation was complicated and the hardest part was they couldn’t just give it all away either. Too much depended on Faye playing this out just a little bit longer.

~Commander Shara Calloway, Starfleet Intelligence

OOC: Sorry, been dealing with a sick mom

OOC: No worries!

IC:
There was no question that she would go. Immediately. =/\=Cmdr Calloway. Let me end my current session and I’ll be right there. Give me five minutes.=/\= As soon as the channel closed, Zef returned to the seating area and apologized.

“I’m sorry, NEnsign, but there’s an emergency I must attend to. We’ll reschedule today’s appointment and dig a little deeper into your feelings about your DH. For now, keep practicing your deep breathing when they get under your skin. You don’t want to explode on them and hurt your career.”

They walked out of her office together and stopped at Dave’s desk. “You need to reschedule Porter. I have been called to the brig on an emergency. Contact me there if you need me.” Zef started to leave the outer office for the corridor. “Oh, cancel the rest of the afternoon. This might take a while.”

A few minutes later she came upon Cmdr Calloway standing in the hall outside of security. “Cmdr, I’m Zef Rollo. Tell me what you need.”

—Rollo, CNS

Under different circumstances Shara might have dissembled, but not only was there no time for games, it wouldn’t help Faye. She gestured with her head to follow her and stepped a few paces away from the two guards standing at the brig door. They didn’t need to know what was happening with Faye in this instance.

Taking a deep breath, Calloway resigned herself to the reality she had contributed to. “I’ve been out of Faye’s life for almost twenty-five years, and while some of it we had no control over, Faye got to learn the exact reasons why that was. And she’s struggling with the reality of that situation.” She swallowed. “This is not how our reunion was ever supposed to go but I can’t guarantee anything about the future. This might have been the only opportunity for Faye to learn the truth about my whereabouts from me herself. And if there had been any other option, I would have taken it. But Faye is in the brig, Counsellor. And while others on this ship won’t know what to look for or observe, Faye is definitely being triggered by all of this. And we’re not talking about just a discomfort about being in a similar prison situation. This crew doesn’t have a clue what they actually did to her, about how they would try to confuse her sense of reality by placing her in simulations of her previous ship posting, on top of all the pain and hallucinatory states they would inflict. Faye’s way of coping was to separate herself. Which anyone could understand. But for her, with her BPD, it’s a sign she’s not okay. I just watched her dissociate, and though I was able to help her come back to reality, I’m worried that she’s not going to be able to make it through these next few hours without re-centring herself. I can’t do anymore to help her right nw. But you can. You can help her remember her coping skills so she can make it through the next few hours, because one way or another her fate will be sealed. And if she chooses not to, or is unable to fight for herself, for her future, it’s all over.”

One might think Shara was being dramatic, but she wasn’t. It wasn’t her style, nor did her immense amount of training allow for that. But she also couldn’t be objective in this situation

~Commander Shara Calloway, Starfleet Intelligence


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