Posted by Civilian Revna Freya McKenzie (Diplomatic Attache) in Find the Grace (Tag Sair)

Posted by Civilian Sair Songz (Counselor) in Find the Grace (Tag Sair)

Posted by Civilian Revna Freya McKenzie (Diplomatic Attache) in Find the Grace (Tag Sair)

(snip)

Revna smiled, or maybe she grinned, and blushed and glowed. She was still very much in the blushing bride/honeymoon stage when it came to Mike. “Mike is…well I’m certain there’s no one else quite like him, anywhere. Most people, when they first meet him, only see a big burly bar tender who doesn’t put up with crap. And he is, but he’s also insightful and compassionate in a way few people are. He’s an absolute savant when it comes to music, he has a flair for performance and holoprogramming, has a wicked sense of humor that gets me into trouble, and knows how to pick a drink that’s worth drinking.” The last statement made Revna grin - remembering. “I have no secrets from Mike, nothing that I’m afraid to tell him, afraid might hurt him. If I haven’t told him something, it’s simply because it hasn’t occurred to me.” Revna took a long pull of the cider and set the mug down.

“I met Mike two weeks before I left for my lung replacement surgery. At first I think he was flumuxed by it all, by the circumstances, by…” she grinned again, “by Fate. Now we are simply thankful for it, though sometimes the best we can do is laugh rather than be overwhelmed by it. When he first found out about my injury he was angry, frustrated even, because the doctors hadn’t given me new lungs. That it had taken a year to get my surgery, but it wasn’t the doctors’ fault. I had refused. When I told him that he was angry, furious with me. He takes absolutely no crap from me about my health. No hedging, not vague-alities, no excuses, even over subspace. After my surgery we talked every week, well it stated that way, then it was almost every day. He knows about the recording Shauwn left for me. He helped me decide what I wanted to do after. Then…then we stopped talking for awhile, we had a disagreement.” That memory made her sad, but then she smiled wiggling her ring finger, “But it all worked out. Mike, is the best bet I’ve taken and lost, and I’d do it all again.”

Revna McKenzie

It was easy to skip over the difficult parts to get to the good stuff, the happy stuff. Everyone did that at some point. “Tell me about this disagreement and how did it evolve into you two getting married?” Sair asked, needing context here.

~Sair Songz, CNS

Revna thought about it....where to begin with that. “So I have to go back just a bit. I ended up leaving Atlantis almost a week early because Centurion was ahead of schedule. I went to see Mike and tell him. He gave me this really exquisite bottle of brandy and told me when I got my new lungs to drink it and if I was alive afterwards I’d know my new lungs worked. Now fast forward to my recovery. Like I said we talked at least once a week, more most of the time. He knew all about my wanting to leave Star Fleet and why and we talked a lot about what I would do and if I should leave. How leaving fit or didn’t into what I wanted for the rest of my life. Then suddenly this offer from the diplomatic corp dropped into my lap. In the end the disagreement came down to I wanted him to tell me he wanted me to come back to Atlantis but I didn’t say that. I didn’t want to push that level of seriousness on him. He wanted me to come back, but didn’t want to stop me from taking the opportunity and so he didn’t say anything either. Eventually things left unsaid became to big to move forward and we stopped talking. He wasn’t taking my calls and I wasn’t taking his because we didn’t know what to say. We drove my sister up the wall.”

“So fast forward a month or so and I had a stop over on Earth. I was able to visit my parents and I was just miserable. And my Da, asked me what was wrong and I told him I’d really messed up. He told me that you’re going to mess up. The success of a relationship doesn’t live or die on mistakes but what you do about them. He asked me what I was going to do about it. So I wrote Mike a letter and attached it to the bottle of bourbon and sent it back to him. Well I sent it to my sister who was still on Atlantis and asked her to make sure he got it and read the letter. Mike never read the letter. He took several transports out and was on Event Horizon 6 days before I arrived. He has a bit of a flair for the dramatic, but that’s another story tangent. Anyway, he found me and he told me he didn’t care what I did or where I went. I was going to go do it and he was going to wait for me. Then when I got back he was going to marry me, or he’d marry me first and then I could go. Either way he wasn’t willing to have a life that I wasn’t a part of, ‘so there, that’s how’s it’s going to be, get used to it.’ And I think there was something about a solar sailed ship in his little speech too.”

“We went ahead and got married.”

Revna McKenzie

As all therapists did, Sair listened attentively to all that was said and not said. “So that was his decision and how he went about it. Why did you agree? What made you say yes?” While there was a happy romantic air to the story, sheer stubbornness was usually not a slid reason for any heathy decision and she wanted to understand how Revna welcomed this change in her life. Or if she truly had.

~Sair Songz, CNS