Posted by Lieutenant Luke Wyatt (Chief of Security) in Computer Science Lab 2- Post Party

Posted by Lieutenant Faye Calloway (Mission Specialist) in Computer Science Lab 2- Post Party
Slipping back to her quarters, it was taking everything Faye had to keep herself from just losing it. She understood where one mistake she had made was, but the rest of it? Indecipherable. Whether it would remain that way or not, depended a lot on Wyatt and if they could talk and actually hear each other. She shook her head as she stepped into her bedroom and very gently unpinned the medal. She’d have to ask Alex for the box, but for now she simply rested it on her bedside table as a much needed reminder. When things started to spin out of control while she worked through everything that had gone down in the last week, when she felt like she didn’t know which way was up, she knew that the medal itself was give a helpful reminder of the things she knew for certain.

Changing into a pair of yoga leggings (dark blue with colourful nebulae on them) and a relaxed fitting purple top that hung low over her hips, she then slipped the amethyst hairpin out of her hair and let the bun unwind itself. Holding that hairpin in her hands made her feel even more confused and right now she needed to hold on to the tiny bit of clarity she had clawed out of the situation on the hill. The pin was tucked away in her bedside table.

Faye brushed out her hair before she came to stand in the middle of her quarters and, for a few minutes, came into Mountain pose and closed her eyes, letting herself feel the energy in her body and noting where she was feeling the tension. Breathing deeply, she she channelled breaths into those areas and felt her body relax a bit more.

Ready to attempt one last time to find at least some common ground the with frustrating Chief of Security, Faye secured her combadge and headed for her lab.

---

CS Lab 2 was a much tidier place than it had been even ten days ago. After she and Alex had brought the last bits of the program online, and things proved to be secure, she had been able to at least tidy away more of the crates. There were still several crates tucked neatly along the back wall, but the central work table remained clear and for the most part Faye only needed the three large displays she had set up to work together along the bank of consoles that formed the workstations.

The door to the lab was unlocked.

Inside, Faye was sitting in the middle of her three screens and there were task chairs on either side of her. She was leaning back in her chair, with one knee up against the edge of the console in a rather lounging pose while she periodically looked at her screen. Other wise, her hands were behind her head while she listened to one of her very eclectic playlists. It wasn’t so loud that she couldn’t hear anything or the music would seep into the corridor, but it was enough to drown out any useless idle thoughts that tried to creep in. She had been honest that it didn’t matter if he came or not, this was the first time she had had to properly check that everything was okay, and since she still wasn’t technically on duty, she wanted to do he due diligence and keep tabs on a couple potential issues she was monitoring.

Her fingers tapped to the upbeat music as she closed her eyes. As far as she was concerned it was still her party and she was going to try and keep it that way. “I’m burnin’ through the sky, yeah, two hundred degrees, that’s why they call me Mister Fahrenheit, I’m travelling at the speed of light…”

OOC: Because… it’s Queen! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HgzGwKwLmgM

~Faye Calloway

Luke could hear the music before even entering, by his timings he had a minute to spare. He had taken the time to head back to his quarters and change into something a little less formal. He had ditched the usual federation fatigues and opted for some dark blue jogging trousers, a grey sports top and a grey hoody with “The only good Ferengi is a quiet Ferengi” slogan. It was an inside joke from his academy days which reminded him of when things were certainly simpler even if at the time he didn’t think so.

He entered the room after a brief pause “I came” Luke tried on a smile, this was in his mind maybe the last chance they’d get to find the common ground hoped they’d find it and he hoped even more that he wouldn’t do or say something wrong. He noticed her hair was down, something else he hadn’t seen before, that and the screens were on.

• Luke Wyatt

Eyes still closed, Faye placed the side of her index finger to her lips and then pointed to the chair next to him.

As the song ended, it moved into another but Faye called out, “Computer, lower audio to 10%.” The sound dissipated but you could still hear the words to London Calling by The Clash. Dropping her knee, Faye sat forward again and watched her screen directly in front of her. After a few seconds she reached out and tapped a couple keys. The screen in front of Luke was on but currently blank.

Information scrolled swiftly down Faye’s screen and her eyes tracked the one thing she was curious about. After another moment she reached forward and tapped a few more keys. Then she leaned towards Luke, but tapped a couple keys on the console in front of him. The screen began to display a bunch of data. Faye with drew her hand and the gesture was notably unprovocative and entirely perfunctory.

Finally, Faye swivelled in her chair to face him. “I have a couple things I need to say before I show you what I want to show you. I need you to let me say both, *then * you can comment and we’ll go from there.” It wasn’t a request, but her tone was resigned and perhaps even tired.

“First, I recognize that despite how hurt and angry I was, I said something that was not okay. The point I was trying to make come out wrong but I should never have even mentioned your PTSD in the first place. It was unfair and I’m sorry,” she said sincerely.

She paused for a moment and then pointed to the screen in front of him. “There’s so much you don’t know, that is hard to explain to people. Oh, there are details on a file they could read but that doesn’t tell them the whole story. My head sometimes feels like that screen looks. At any given moment I am working through multiple permutations of any given situation. Even as I’m talking to you I’ve already worked through about seven different possible outcomes to this little chat of ours. My brain is so full of information and it is running so fast all the time that a lot of things happen. One of those is that I don’t always think through what I’m going to say. I see, hear and feel everything around me so much that steps get skipped. It’s not an excuse for bad behaviour, just an explanation for one reason why things go sideways when I interact with people. Learning to calm and slow my brain down enough to think through a situation had been a hard but crucial part of things having gotten better for me. And it’s something I’m still working on.” And it was there that she chose to stop and see how he would respond.

~Faye Calloway