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Security Office

Posted Dec. 15, 2018, 9:44 a.m. by Captain Mathias McGarrett (CO) (Adam W.)

Posted by Lieutenant Sofia Demakis (Chief of Security) in Security Office

Posted by Captain Mathias McGarrett (CO) in Security Office

Posted by Lieutenant Sofia Demakis (Chief of Security) in Security Office
Posted by… suppressed (8) by the Post Ghost! 👻
Sofia settled into the chair behind her desk, intent on putting a dent in the minor mountain of paperwork that had greeted her this morning. Setting her mug of coffee down, she perused the PaDDs, prioritizing them according to how easy it was to complete whatever was needed on them. She’d whip off the easier ones first, they were minor annoyances that could quickly be taken care of.

Then the rest could be worked on as her day progressed, prioritized in order of deadlines.

~Sofia Demakis~

Mathias sighed. Of course he actually felt like he needed to speak to the counselor a couple days after she got reassigned. Normally he’d ignore those feelings, stuff them down, and move on. Captains really didn’t have time for inconvenient things like emotions. Usually that was his approach. But something drew him to his new security chief’s office this time. Funny that he’d go to her and not one of the many officers he’d long served with. He thought it made sense though. He pressed the chime and waited.

Captain Mathias McGarrett, CO

“Come in,” Sofia called, pondering who was stopping by to see her this morning.

~Sofia Demakis~

Mathias strode in and stopped a few feet into the room. “Good morning, Lieutenant.”

He opted not to start with what actually brought him here. Perhaps Mathias would change his mind and not go there after all. “I haven’t see the report yet about the incident that happened in the gym. I’ve never heard of a fight breaking out during ballet practice before. I’m expecting you’ll be providing me some entertaining reading.”

Captain Mathias McGarrett, CO

“It’s probably in here,” Sofia indicated a few PaDDs on her desk, “I’m just working through the reports, unless I get interrupted, you should have that report in a few hours.”

~Sofia Demakis~

“That will be fine,” said Mathias.

There was a silent pause as Matthias realized he didn’t exactly know how to bring up the topic he was thinking of discussing with her. He had concluded earlier that it had made sense to have this conversation with Sofia, despite barely knowing her. But now here he was, in the moment, a moment which he had thought he had mentally prepared for. He was normally a natural at winging it and portraying confidence when he wasn’t exactly feeling it. But this wasn’t a typical conversation for him and the words didn’t come out as easily as they normally would have.

“Lieutenant, I normally don’t care to show hints of weakness or let my guard down with people I’m just starting to get to know. But I’m wondering if you might have some advice for me. I’m aware of one very traumatic experence you went through. All Starfleet officers who’ve been serving for some length of time encounter intense and difficult experiences, but as someone coming up through the security discipline I imagine you’ve had to deal with it more often than others. How do you move on when something like that happens? Maybe you have it more figured out than I do.”

Captain Mathias McGarrett, CO

“I don’t know if I have it quite figured out,” Sofia spoke, “But I think recognizing your emotions as normal helps. Even if you only admit that to a few people. I mean, I was hunting down my superior’s killer, fortunately I had enough a rapport with the Counselor that I was able to work through the sadness at the loss of a man who was definitely a mentor and the fear that I’d be next since I essentially got his job after it happened. I was able to be vulnerable with someone and that was what I needed, I was able to present a stoic front before everyone else.”

~Sofia Demakis~

Mathias nodded occasionally as she spoke and was intently listening. “I think you’re on to something. I’ll have a chat with the counselor once we get one in here again. Well…I can let you get back to your work.” He could have pressed onward in the conversation, but perhaps it was enough to ponder her advice and wait until the counselor vacancy was filled.

Captain Mathias McGarrett, CO

“If you need an informal ear to listen to you before the counselor is appointed, I can help,” Sofia offered, “I’m by no means an expert, but given my history I spent a lot of time with counselors and part of my job involves reading people and understanding them.”

~Sofia Demakis~

Mathias sighed. He had nearly gotten to the point of burying the whole thing back down, but that probably wouldn’t make anything any better. “Thanks for offering. I suppose waiting until later wouldn’t really be taking you up on your advice. And we’re already almost talking about it.”

Mathias sat down in the chair on the other side of Sofia’s desk. He spoke calmly and confidently as he typically did, but there was a hint of sadness that his eyes conveyed. “Four years ago I led my first away mission. I was a lieutenant on the Kepler. The first officer and five others were being held hostage on Drapus IV.” Mathias fell silient for a moment.

“It’s weird, you know? It’s been years since I talked out loud about this to anyone. Anyhow, our security chief, Lieutenant Charles Dennison and I were good friends. We had a tactical disagreement right before we beamed down. I won the argument. My plan didn’t work and he didn’t live through it.” His eyes had ended up drifting to the floor and he refocused on Sofia when he had finished.

Captain Mathias McGarrett, CO

“Survivor’s guilt is something people use to justify the feeling, but I’ve often found the term doesn’t fully cover every facet of what you go through,” Sofia replied after a moment, “I had it and at the same time I still had to show up to work and figure out who the heck killed my superior officer. Do you find yourself second guessing command decisions as a result of this event or is it simply something that crops up from time to time?”

~Sofia Demakis~

“No,” blurted out Mathias very quickly. “It’s not that I started questioning my command decisions. I think in some ways it’s actually helped me to realize that I’m not always the expert in the room in every situation even if I am the one with the most pips on my collar. But I’m still confident when I make a call and I still trust that I’m as good of a choice as anyone out there to be sitting in the captain’s chair. I don’t even think about it all the time anymore. I guess it is like you said, it crops up from time to time. Denny is dead and it’s because I didn’t listen to him. It doesn’t pop up in my head as often as it used to. But when it does, well, it’s hard to know what to do with that.”

Captain Mathias McGarrett, CO


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