STF

Kalani's Quarters

Posted Jan. 4, 2019, 2:20 a.m. by Lieutenant Commander Jarred Alindor (Chief Engineer) (Steven Sigle)

Posted by Ensign Kalani Kāne (Scientist) in Kalani’s Quarters

<snip>

“I… I don’t know. I mean… yes I never had kids on the plate love. At all, neither did Lilly. To be honest, I haven’t really had anyone I even had a chance to think about that with. After Lilly it was Ayla but that ended about as soon as it began, and I loved Cori but… I can’t really have a child with her. There has been a few other even smaller flings, but everyone was either fleeting or just… not right. No one I have been with has ever wanted to bring that conversation back up.” Jarred said, it was about as honest as he knew himself to be right now.

“I know this, I love you. Kids… they weren’t in my plans back then but time has gone and passed. I hated Lilly for leaving me, dumping Elizabeth on me, my father for all his pushing and nagging and demanding. I put so much on everyone else but I made my choices, and they weren’t great and they were not right but they were mine. So yes, I would love to have a crack at being a father, and maybe a....” Jarred paused as he felt himself flush as he took a deep gulp as he looked her right in the eyes. “Maybe even a husband to you. So yes, I want kids, and I want you… and I couldn’t imagine anyone more suited to help me through this path.

Alindor, CE

“Except maybe your family: Your Mom, Your Dad. I will be here for you but I am not the one most suited to help you down this path. Your family is the one you need to lean on more than me.”

“Only difference is they are going to be gone… I can’t rely on them forever.” he said as he bowed his head softly. In many ways he was on his own here, even with Kalani. She wasn’t obligated to do anything, and part of him felt like he had no right to even begin to ask her any of this.

“Jarred…baby I love you but you know nothing about Elizabeth except from the questions you have asked and the specific answers you have received. I can fire off a litany of what’s her favorite color, movie, song, food and you can answer each one of them but there is so much more to raising a kid than that. Do you know the answers to the subjective questions like you do the concrete ones? Do you know what Lizzie does to push your buttons? Do you know how to handle her when she does? Do you know if she actually wants to live with you? Not the lip service you get over a call or the promises made after the few days of leave you give her what once…twice a year? Does Lizzie beg and dream of giving up everything she has ever known to live on a starship with a man she barely knows?”

“Oh God no, I don’t know anything love. Why do you think I am so nervous. I want to do right by her, I do. The only issue is I am flying blind as can be here. I am going to have to have crash courses on everything. I don’t think this is ideal at all but… it’s the right call. I know that, a child needs their father… even ones as terrible as I am. I can do better… I have to do better for her sake.”

Kalani knew her words were harsh. She felt a slight twinge of guilt for saying them yet throughout Jarred’s story one theme was explicitly clear. Lizzie’s life was on Earth and Jarred for all his love and attention was more like an uncle than a father. “Would you be taking her if your father had not become ill? I have no doubt you love her and only want the best for her but this thing between you and your father has got to be mended because he is going to need you in ways you can’t imagine and you will need him to be the best father you can for Lizze.”

“Yes, I did. I wasn’t sure how, about a month before we meet I had a holocall with her. Asking her what he day was and I tried to have one once a week from then. She… she seemed eager to talk at first but part of me thinks my mom just forced her. Still, I have needed to do this for her for a long time. My father’s illness just forced the point. Lilly doesn’t know he is dying, they are moving to a facility to care for him and she can’t be there. I even told my mom I wanted to be the one to talk to her on this, that’s how I know I am the last on the list. Peter, Lucy… her best friend Candice family… she even tried to see if it was okay to just go to an orphange, she had been reading Annie and thought that sounded better than it was.” Jarred looked at her with a feeling of forlorn, he wasn’t sure how to explain the feeling of your daughter wanting to live anywhere but with you.

Kalani reached out her hand hoping Jarred would take it. “I am here for you. I am not going to cut and run even when this gets tough because it is going to get tough. I just think we need to rely heavily on your family to help this transition go as smooth as possible. I will be here to pick you up or talk you down,” she gave him a half smile, “but it is your mom and dad that you need to lean on. Once we get our sea legs at this parenting thing, that may change but for right now, you are going to have to defer to them at times even when it is the last thing in the world you may want to do.” Maybe all the years of impromptu counseling sessions at the dinner table made this clearer in Kalani’s mind than it did in Jarred’s. All Kalani knew was that in the time Jarred had left with his father, he needed to try and reconcile on 30 years of real and perceived wrongs. It was a huge task but she would be there as long as he wanted her.

Ensign Kalani Kane science

“Hon I am going to rely on everyone… but you are important. I know you are odds are as nervous as me. You are going from a girlfriend to… well not a mom but… close. As close as you have been outside of caretaker to your animals. I can understand you being scared, I wouldn’t find it odd if you haven’t but as much as I am going to rely on their advice I have to do this here and now. Part of the includes you yes… a large part in fact. In the end though you can be as close or as far as you need to be. I don’t want to make you feel you have to plunge headfirst. I just want you to know as much as I am going to be there for Elizabeth I am going to be there for you, this doesn’t change that.” Jarred said as he took her hand in his own as he kissed it gently.

Alindor, CE


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