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Midday Confessions - A Lifetime of Memories

Posted Sept. 29, 2020, 1:53 a.m. by Lieutenant Kate O'Neill (Chief of Security) (Kate O'Neill)

Shaun had asked Kate to come home early from her shift when she left in the morning. He knew she was curious after last nights debacle with the family meeting and his very bizarre behavior. That plus her throwing up, from the “overly salty” food she claimed this morning meant he was working on borrowed times. Her body was changing, and Shaun was scared. He never had been very into kids, everyone said you will love them when they are your own and maybe he would have but he couldn’t deny he was scared. The truth was his life had just been solidifying with Kate again after the separation than nearly drove them apart.

Sitting on the couch he had some candles lit, cinnamon apple and pumpkin spice scents came wafting through their place as he sat in front of the coffee table, bottle of synthole and a glass of whiskey. He wasn’t sure if he would let her see the whiskey or not but right now as he began to pour another drink he knew it was one of the few things keeping him calm.

Shaun couldn’t help but think back, it was a much more simple time when they were younger. Their fathers retired and opened up a distillery, some old dream to keep the Celtic spirit alive and well they claimed. Their mom’s often thought it was more so they didn’t have to spend all of their retirement with them. Regardless coming to earth where they planned to fulfill this dream in the outskirts of the West Virginia hills their two families became very tight knit. It never hurt their homes were literally half a mile apart separated by just the farm lands that they used to make the spirits their family had become famous for.

Times had changed, the main offices had moved to Morgantown, partly to get a larger space for the growing business, partly cause college kids always made the best targets for selling various spirits. Despite the bigger office space, and more high tech distillery factory where their fathers and their spirits engineers (which consisted mostly of the uncles, aunts, and various cousins) the vibe of the company still felt the fevered dream of two old soldiers wanting to settle down and drink away the night using flavors they discovered across the galaxy.

Shaun though remembered the first big adventure the Grecken/O’Neill clans had, or misadventure if some people asked. Kate was five and Shaun was seven as the Greckens agreed to go out, against many of their better judgments. While both families were Irish, Lauren O’Neill’s, Kate’s mother, had family that had lived out in the Ozarks for generations. The Grekcens had been city lads, growing up with their mother Molly in Dublin as Conner and Jim flew the stars. This led to some of the Grecken clans being a little unerved when their father agreed to uproot them all in some hair brain plan to make spirits in the middle of nowhere.

Still, the Grekcens and the O’Neills had been spending Christmases and Thanksgiving together for years, so what could uprooting and moving to the heart of Deliverance really be so awful. For Kate and Shaun, that first dual family outing got them branded as the trouble makers… and set the stage for the trouble the two would get into for years.

Twenty Years Ago

Little Shaun, seven and unsure of the forest as he looked around at the trees found himself wishing he had gone with Kate’s brothers, or even his sisters for that matter, the longer he wandered with little Kate. Kate and Shaun had never really gotten along at family outings, Shaun always wanted to be with the girls, and Kate always wanted to be with Shaun. The future would tell you that there was probably fate that bound them, but at five Kate was just a little girl and Shaun didn’t want to catch the cooties he often heard they had. His mom had long assured him his sisters didn’t have such cooties, but he often suspected other girls might be carriers.

“Come on Kate… you have been chasing that butterfly foreeeeever!” Shaun said with a small angry tone as he stomped his feet in a puddle as he began plodding after her once again. She just couldn’t stay put, which meant having to go further and further into the woods.

Grecken, Doctor

Kate stopped. Turning around she watched Shaun stop in the puddle splashing watery mud everywhere. “But you wanna see the secret clubhouse run right?” Her hands were on her hips in a pose Shaun knew quite well. It was the pose his mom took when she was about to lay down the law and the one his sisters struck when they wanted to boss him around. “Well, dontcha?” Her expression was one of childlike confusion. How Shaun was not excited and ready to continue the adventure made Kate roll her eyes.

“Do I gotta?” Shaun asked with a huff as he bent down as he find a tree twig as be began to remove off the leaves as he fashioned it into a poking stick, using it to move dirt and rocks around as he took a big sigh. He knew his mother wanted him to play with Kate, she was the youngest but his sister Fiona was her age, yet she wasn’t here. No she was with Dawson, which sucked for Shaun. Shaun and Dawson where the same age, they could hang out but somehow they both got stuck with the others lame sisters.

Turning back around she headed off into a thick layer of ferns. Pushing them aside, she stepped high so as to not trip on the roots and fallen logs along her path. “If you are a scaredy-cat go back to the camp. If not we can play Jungle. I like to pretend I am in the jungle when we come camping. Jungles have cool animals. Woods have nothing but duh,” she stopped to pull herself up and over a fallen log, “dumb bears.”

“I’m not scared! I just don’t like forests…” Shaun said with a grumpy sigh. “Dublin was much better, there was parks, but there was also malls and movies and phaser tag aernas… you could hover skate in the O’leary square… the city had everything you needed… not this place…” he said as he followed behind Kate as he jumped over the log behind her as he kept following her.

Hearing his words Kate spun around and pushed him hard on his chest. “You take that back,” she snapped. Her temper was fiery and she did have four old brothers. Shaun was big for his age but according to her mom that just meant that they fell harder. “No place is better than here. We gots real air and real water and the parks aren’t fake like on the hollerdeck.” Kate hadn’t lived here for very long because their home was the ship her daddy was Captain of. It was only recently had she come back here to live instead of just a place to vacation. Shaun however hadn’t lived on the ship which was why he had the silly notion Earth was better than space. Still Kate was super stubborn and competitive. “ We have DisneyWorld and Five Flags Galaxy Park and I have been to both. Who wants to go to the mall anyways? I hate buying shoes and clothes. Plus our movies are outside so …well… drive ins are just way cooler than a dumb ol’ movie theater.”

“I’ve been to those places… we have telepartution too ya know. Those places are in big cities though…” he said as he looked around, the place was pretty he felt but he was used to concrete and hovercars. Here, it just felt different, foreign even. “Besides… wouldn’t you rather be curled up watching Stargate, Eslpeth always told me that was based on a true story but I don’t believe her.” he said as he began to trot next to Kate. If he was honest, he wasn’t having a truly horrible time. Despite being a girl, Kate wasn’t the worst person to be in the woods with.

Kate opened her mouth to ask what the show was but did not want to look stupid for not knowing what the show was called. There were some shows she wasn’t allowed to watch but if Shaun was able to watch it she would make her Daddy let her. “Sometimes,” she shrugged not sure if she should say yes or no.

Part of Kate felt bad being mean to Shaun about Ireland. He had left everything for his daddy to start a new business. She was not happy about leaving her room on the USS Tieconderoga and it was nothing like her room here no matter what her mommy had promised. Maybe Shaun was just sad to be away from his old room and friends.
The truth was however, Kate didn’t have any friends here either even though they moved back to the place her family had always called home.

Embarrassed she had reacted by pushing him and scared he was going to leave her, Kate turned around fast and began walking again ducking branches “Ifa ya wanna leave you can go. I can go to the secret club house by my self,”. Please don’t leave me, she said silently to herself as she walked on.

The truth was, Shaun didn’t know how to get back to the camp even if he wanted to by this point, so it was better to be with Stupid Katie than lost in the woods for… “Wait did you say bears?” Shaun said as the thought of what she said came to him.

“Yeah but they don’t hurt you unless you bother them,” Kate said waving it off. “They just come around looking for snacks so that’s why we don’t leave food out for them like campers do for Yogi Bear.”

“What’s a Yogi Bear, is that another stupid American cartoon, Paddington Bear is much better than whatever a Yogi is!” Shaun said with a near defiant tone. It wasn’t that he disliked the things Kate wanted to share, but he felt like he needed an identity as he felt lost in the woods of West Virginia. “What’s so special about Yogi anyway? I always like Pooh bear, he seemed cool… is he like Pooh?”

“No he steals picnic baskets,” Kate giggled remembering the cartoons on TV , “and he has his own campgrounds. It’s not like here but has a pool, an’ minigolf, an’ hayrides. Daddy made fun of it when we went for Halloween but mommy told him to get in the camper.” Spinning around Kate stumbled more than walked as she shared her story. “You hafta have a camper an’ Daddy said that is not camping but gamping. I don’t know what gamping is but,” she lowered her voice and looked around suspiciously, “we don’t talk about it.” Turning around Kate hopped over several fallen branches like it was a hop scotch instead of a hike.

Five minutes more of hiking led Kate and Shaun to a break in the brush and woods. Spinning around she held up a hand like a crossing guard to stop him. “Okay so before I show you we need to do the secret handshake. All clubs have one so that only members can be a part of the club,” she said confidently, “only I haven’t made one up yet. Wanna help me make one?” Her tone was hopeful as Kate looked up at Shaun. “It needs to be better than Will and Ryan’s handshake. They won’t let me see theirs. They turn their back so…do you know any handshake for us?” Kate nervously began to roll her hands up into the edge of her shirt not sure what to do if Shaun wasn’t going to help her.

Lt. Kate O’Neill COS

Shaun looked at her as he pondered the question, “I just know this.” he said as he tried to put up his fingers like that pointy ear officer that served with their fathers used to do. “It’s a .... Volcen salute… something like that.” Shaun said as he tried to separate his fingers but found it hard, as he had to force his fingers apart with his other hand. “It means life long and prostate I think.”

Grecken, Doctor

“Oh oh oh I know that,” Kate copies Shaun’s gesture separating her own fingers with her other hand like he did. “Okay so now for the secret part. Hold still,” she ordered. Turing her hand, Kate stuck the V shape of her hand into the V shape of Shaun’s. A huge smile filled her face. “Okay now hold my hand and raise your pinky finger and pointer ,” she instructed Shaun. “Like in that Sunday school song. Here is the church here is the steeple only when we open the doors to see all the people it’s only us!”

Shaun wasn’t quite sure what she was doing, but he went along “Saint Mary of the Grove didn’t believe in singing, we just had to read about why we needed to not be bad… how does this steeple song go?” Shaun asked her as he mimicked her as he followed along.

“You don’t getta sing in church? Singing is the only thing that keeps Daddy awake. That and mommy’s elbow.” Her expression was one of deep confusion. Singing was the best part of going to church. She shook her head as if to knock the thought out of her head. “Okay do this,” she shook out her hands. Placing the back of her hands together, Kate entwined her fingers,and made a fist as she started speaking. “Here is the church. Here is the steeple. Open the doors and see all the people.” Kate twisted her hands around so that her fingers were wiggling at Shaun. “We close the doors to let them pray,” Kate folded her hands in prayer. “We open the doors and they all go away. We aren’t going to do that part though. We are going to do it special like this.” Interlacing thier hands again, Kate went back to the original position where only their two middle fingers were in the church.

Kate beamed with happiness showing Shaun that somehow only their two middle fingers were sticking out instead of all their fingers like the story poem usually did. “See,” she wiggles her fingers. “And my four brothers,” she counted off the fingers in the outside of her had ,” and your four sisters can’t come in. Only us,” she twisted her hand back to show him the two middle fingers pointing now to the air.

Shaun smiled widely. It was a simple gesture Kate was doing, but she wanted him to be apart of her world too. She wasn’t excluding him, even he he hadn’t always been nice to her. Taking a deep breath he sighed “Okay, I like that… it can just be us… but you can’t tell the kids at school I like you unless I do it first!”

Kate didn’t say anything but just nodded her head biting down on her teeth hard. She wasn’t sure if she should cry or hit him. No one had ever not wanted to be her friend. She was Captain O’Neill’s daughter so everyone wanted to come play in her quarters except now she didn’t have quarters. She only had a house. Maybe that made things different. Taking a deep breath Kate focused on what made her happy instead of sad: The adventure with Shaun.

Kate enjoyed the silly moment with Shaun a lot. While his sister was her age, Fiona tended to like doing more quiet girl things. Kate had always been a tomboy so doing a puzzle or reading a book was not her idea of a good time.

“Okay ready to see the secret club house,” Kate asked him eagerly.

“Yes!” Shaun shouted, excited by the idea of a secret place to call t heir own.

“Then follow me.” Leading Shaun another two feet from where they were standing resulted in the entrance to a small cave. In reality it was a mine shaft but to two small kids it was a dark space in the ground so that equaled a cave. Grabbing her flashlight out of the small back pack she was wearing, Kate turned it on. Instantly the space was filled with a bright white beam of light. “Come on,” she motioned excitedly for him to follow.

Lt Kate Oneill.

“Does it have tv? Or juice boxes?” Shaun asked her, wondering what was going to make this place so exciting as he followed her into the cave. He had a feeling neither of those items were going to be found deep inside, but he could hope.

Grecken, Doctor

O’Neill, COS


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