Posted Dec. 2, 2022, 6:55 p.m. by Major General Charles Tenkiller (Vice-Commander, Colonial Customs and Defense Agency) (James Sinclair)
Posted by Lieutenant Sharah Fayth (Chief Star Fleet Medical Officer) in Three Isn’t A Crowd If You Don’t Want It To Be
Posted by Major General Charles Tenkiller (Vice-Commander, Colonial Customs and Defense Agency) in Three Isn’t A Crowd If You Don’t Want It To Be
Posted by Lieutenant Sharah Fayth (Chief Star Fleet Medical Officer) in Three Isn’t A Crowd If You Don’t Want It To Be
Posted by… suppressed (6) by the Post Ghost! 👻
<snip>“I never go anywhere without her. She’s in my apartment.” Hope was her constant companion. They could hear her take a long slow breath attempting humor despite the seriousness and uncertainty. “You can’t miss her, she’s my cherry blossom tree.” She peeked up at them trying to guage their reactions.
Sharah
Tenkiller looked at V and smiled. “Tree, huh? Well, sorry… thats a deal breaker. As you can tell…” and he gestured out the windows, “… I hate plants.” and he chuckled. He looked at V and said “Why don’t we all go and pick up Hope? And maybe pack a bag for a few nights? Sharah and V and Tenkiller and Hope… all under one roof. We’ll call it a sleepover. How does that sound to everyone? We can go get Hope and get Sharah some things, swing by V’s and let her grab whatever she might need for a long weekend, and then we can come back here and get sleeping arrangements hammered out.”
Tenkiller
Tenkiller’s easy acceptance made some of the tension rush out of her. Most people were disbelieving and off put by her connection to the plant. Hope was more like a cat to Sharah than a miniture tree. She thought Tenkiller understood that connection, he had melded with the melody so easily. Maybe she didn’t have to explain. Maybe he would understand if she did.
Yavia nodded, looking confused and mouthed, “Tree?” at him. How were they going to move a tree? How did Sharah even get a tree inside her apartment? Yavia loved being outside in nature. She’d told TK that their first date. She didn’t know much about taking care of plants though. She just liked them. They would just have to figure out how to move this tree. “Yeah, we can do that. I mean I don’t know about sleeping arrangements. Last time I had a sleep over, we didn’t sleep.” She winked at both if them, earning her a small snicker out of Sharah.
Yavia
Sharah found Yavia’s obvious confusion amusing, but didn’t correct her. The mention of clothes made her pause. She honestly hadn’t thought that far ahead, but she supposed if she was bringing Hope with her then she was going to be here awhile. Uncertainty gnawed her gut, but it was too late to back out now. At least, for Sharah it felt too late. She had agreed, sort of, and she would follow through.
Tenkiller snorted slightly and said “Well… let’s put a pin in that particular train of thought and concentrate on getting everybody settled and comfortable. How does that sound?” He looked over Sharah at V and mouthed SERIOUSLY? and grinned broadly at her. He then stood up and said “Now come along. We’re burning daylight.” and he held out a hand to each of them to help them off the couch.
Tenkiller
Yavia shrugged with a wicked grin. “I don’t know what you are thinking. My sleep ivers consisted of cheesy romance flicks, popcorn, ice cream, pillow fights, and juicy gossip.” She nudged Sharah’s shoulder gently. “I think he has a dirty mind.” She took his hand and stood leaning into his side a moment, waiting for Sharah.
Sharah couldn’t help it. She started laughing. “I think you like to encourage him.” They couldn’t be anything but themselves. They didn’t have to curb themselves or their relationship to be friends with her. At least…she didn’t want them to. She slipped on her shoes, and then let him helpbher up. She didn’t lean into him like Yavia did, but she didn’t let go of his hand either. Andbthat was huge for Sharah.
Then she followed them out to the car, pausing to stare at the semi wild space. She really just wanted to go get lost and listen. After a moment she let them usher her into the car.
Sharah
The three piled into the back and the car turned around and went up the steep incline and onto the street. Tenkiller put an arm around Sharah and said “Now start making a packing list in your head. Everything you’ll need for a few days. I’ll get Hope settled in the car while you two get whatever it is you need. Okay?”
Sharah nodded. She didn’t need to pack. The Star Fleet personnel were getting ready to practice emergency call outs. In anticipation, Sharah had already packed a bag with everything she might need. Yes the Centurion had replicators, but Sharah preferred to be prepared and organized. She would have to make sure her comms were set to forward to her personal PaDD incase the call came while she was gone.
A sxant few minutes later the car stopped in front of Sharah’s building. Tenkiller got out and held out a hand to first Sharah and second V, helping each one out and giving them both a quick hug. He looked at Sharah and said “Lead on, Doc.” and gave her a wink.
Tenkiller
Oh they were actually coming in with her, okay. She wasn’t going to run off, she didn’t think. She led the way into the building stopping at the security desk. “Afternoon…uh..Lt?” The young man was one of the new arrivals and he knew he recognized the doctor but it took a moment, he’d seen so many people since he started literally that morning. “…Fayth, CMO right?” Sharah nodded, “Afternoon En Klee. How was your first shift?” She placed her hand on the ID biometric scanner. The ensign made a vague response while Sharah added both her companions to a PaDD. “Ms Yavia Crockett, with Sacred Heart, and Major General Charles Tenkiller, CCDA.” The young man held the bioscanner out for each of them. The ensigns reaction to them both was, unfortunately, cliche.
Yavia placed her hand on the scanner, and had to resist the urge to drag Sharah into a hug and love all over her, just to shock the poor Ensign. But Sharah would probably disappear and never come out if she did that. The young man was looking at Yavia like all his hopes and disappointments rested solely with the Deltan woman. Yavia sighed and moved out of the way.
Tenkiller brushed past V and whispered just so she could hear “You have a fan. I’m so jealous.” and he smiled at her before moving forward to place his hand on the scanner.
Yavia chuckled, it was rich and sultry and it did NOT help the situation with the poor ensign. She whispered back, “Now you know how I felt at Diamond Jim’s.”
His reaction to Tenkiller was a bit mixed. He knew what the CCDA was and his bearing altered subtly. He didn’t want the man to find any fault with SF Security. He looked perplexed though. “Do you have family in Star Fleet, Sir? I could have swore my cousin mentioned working with a Tenkiller on OP42 right before it was decommissioned. Such a shame. My cousin really liked being stationed there.”
Tenkiller looked at the Ensign and said “I might. What is your cousin’s name? Maybe I heard it from somebody.” Tenkiller asked. He was, in fact, that Tenkiller that had been the Chief of Security on the now decommissioned station.
“Chief Petty Officer Topir,” Kree replied as he waited for the computer to finish scanning and identify the person before him. All three names came through green lighted and he pressed the control for the inner door. “Let me know if you all need anything.”
Tenkiller smiled. “Tell CPO Topic Skip said hello. And he still owes me ten slips from our last poker game.” and he laughed and gave the Ensign a nod.
Sharah led the way down the main floor, all the way to the end, then right and left again to the very last set of doors. Anyone with a mind for mental mapping would realize this particular apartment was the the furthest away from the main activity of the complex. She paused in front of the door. She had really come to hate this place. She pressed her hand to the control and the door opened. They were typical of fleet quarters with the standard furniture and colors. Sharah was a meticulously neat and organized person, which made the utter chaos of the area shocking. It wasn’t like her at all. The work station to the immediate left of the door was surprisingly empty. There were a couple of PaDDs next to the work console and a single framed photo laying flat on the desk, like she’d been staring at it. It was a picture of her, around 4 years old, and a grey and white kitten. They both looked a little blissful. There were a couple of photos on the shelves behind it. One of her, as a teenager, in a hospital bed, with all kinds of nodes stuck to her head, and a young man, given the resemblance must have been her brother. A second picture of her, maybe a couple of years later, with a couple that was obviously her parents. The final one was another picture of Sharah, about 8, sitting in a ship’s arboretum with a science officer, he had light dusty brown hair and there were probably about 15 planets and pots and a lot of dirt spread out around them.
The shelves were filled with medical journals and reference books, books on botany and plants around the galaxy, as well as old and current reference books to natural healing. Then there were books on fiction, fantasy, historical romances, biographies, contemporaries, classic sci-fi. It didn’t seem Sharah had a preference for genre, but she did have a preference for books of any kind.
The windows had no curtains. Instead rods were mounted above them with long hemp twin hanging down. 15 to 20 teeny tiny glass bottles were tied to the string and growing out of each one was growing various air plants, ranging in color from deep greens, to mints, to pinks, and peaches. The room was divided with what looked like indoor trellis pots. Meant to create walls, but none held plants. There were seed packets and split dirt, and gardening tools laying about. It was like Sharah had started the project, but never finished. A blanket had been stuffed down between a table and the couch. Out of sigh, out of mind. None of the clutter included dishes.
The most noticeable thing was the mess on the floor. Paper and colored pencils and charcoal. Some of the paper had incomplete sketches on them, most were finished and they were remarkable. Not just for the extreme amount of detail and accuracy, but something about the shape of the lines, the shading and blending of the colors and they way they seemed to radiate out and fade, the observer could feel the emotion of the moment in them - it was tangible.
Out the windows was a the start of a garden that contained, if one was familiar, an extensive variety of medicinal plants. What was not seen in the room or outside was a tree, of any kind. Sharah stepped into the room, and it was like watching Atlas have the world dropped onto his shoulders. “Come in. I’ll be right back.” She hurried across the room, picking up random sketches, about 6 of them, and a small PaDD. The sketches she placed into the replicator and recycled them. The PaDD she tossed into to a drawer at her desk and scooped the rest inside and locked the drawer. Then she disappeared into the bedroom.
Sharah
Tenkiller went to the recyclers and hit ‘Stop’ before the process started. He opened it and retrieved the sketches, casting a glance at the bedroom to make sure Sharah didn’t see him. “Make sure you get your toiletries and such. Favorite toothpaste and whatever.” he said to the doorway and then looked at the sketches. He looked at V and said “Help her real quick, and let me see what this is about.”
Tenkiller
Yavia glanced around, this was not like Sharah. She was always so neat, to the point of compulsion. And there were signs of that neatness everywhere. The organization of the shelves, the neatness of the desk, the fact there were no dirty dishes about. That could mean either, Sharah wasn’t sloppy or she wasn’t eating. But there were no drink glasses either. It was just a feeling of a house beginning to crumble into ruins. Yavia stopped to look at the pictures, the one of Sharah in the hospital bed drew her attention, it was the most recent and it had to be at least 8 or more years ago. She looked tired and transparent. The color gone, even her obsidian eyes looked dull. She noticed how Sharah seemed to cling to him, and that the young man had taken great care that wherever they touched there was fabric or pillow or blanket, something between them. Not touching her directly.
Yavia looked up and nodded. She started to say that maybe they were private and he should respect that, but they also needed to operate on a little trust and patience. She hurried into the other room to help Sharah.
Yavia
The pictures were jumbled in a pile with no real order, but if he took the time to examine them, he would quickly find a pattern. They all shared the same common feeling of being a dream or a distant memory. Marked by the shades of grey that permeated everything with only touches of color to things. Hair, eyes, maybe some physical item in the picture. The lines were all mostly blurred giving a hazy uncertain quality to them. The first would be the most chaotic, several figures in different locations that all seemed to blend into one, but it was hard to tell where one ended and the next started.
The second picture was of an older man, the details hazy except the face with only a hint of color to his cheeks. He was from the first picture (in fact all of them seemed to come from the first picture). He was not the closest or most prominent person from the first picture but he was the most clear. The single sketch seemed to bring him slightly more into focus. So it went with each picture. Someone from the first sketch was brought into focus, but still with the blurred soft lines and edges of a dream like state. A woman with a colorful flower in her hair, a child swaddled in a pink and lavender blanket, a woman looking away with a bright red ruby necklace, a Vulcan turned away, the landscape in startlingly rich color. The final was a man with dark chocolate brown hair, grey eyes, the a science uniform, he seemed to be standing in the shuttle bay of a star ship. That sketch was full of color and precise detail, but like the others it was clearly a dream or memory and like all the others it carried heavy grief and sorrow.
It didn’t take Sharah long. She could feel Tenkiller’s curiosity but didn’t make much of it. The noise was loud enough to prevent her from catching everything, and she didn’t find it odd for someone to be curious when visiting someone’s living space for the first time. She was packed already. Toiletries, uniforms, extra clothes, pajamas, unmentionables, even a sketch pad and pencils. Enough for a week. The only thing she had to add was a spray bottle and a PaDD for her work. Yavia kept her busy for a couple of minutes. Finally Sharah just let her rummage through the bag. She picked up an 10” diameter pot off of her side table and turned to look at Yavia with a grin. “This is Hope. A bonsai or miniature tree. She was almost 20” in spread depending on how Sharah trimmed her back, and she was in full beautiful pink bloom.
She lifted her pack and stepped back into the living space. She would have to come back and straighten up eventually, there were sketches everywhere. She stopped short, gasping loudly in distress as her eyes landed on him and the sketches that should have been destroyed. She rushed across the room, setting the pot down, incredibly gently for her speed, on the desk and then over to him and snatched them away.
Sharah
Charles leaned against the counter and said “Those belong with you, not in the trash.” softly and then left the kitchen and looked at V and the tree. “Well, at least Hope seems happy.” he said and then looked around the apartment. He had seen such behaviors in people before… but usually when he’d been called to do welfare checks on crew members that were dealing with depression and / or trauma. “C’mon, let’s get her as far from here as we can.” He walked over to Sharah and gently touched her arm. “Time to go.” he said softly.
Tenkiller
She was sitting at the table. She shook her head not getting up. “No.” It was a denial but not a refusal to go with them. “You don’t understand.” Her voice was quiet, but adamant. She set the sketches face down on the table. “I need you to understand.” She needed to tell them this, now, before they left. Before it was lost and easier to not talk about it later.
Yavia pulled out a chair and sat down, “Okay.”
Tenkiller took a seat and leaned forward, looking at Sharah.
He had seemed…worried and disappointed. Not quite accurate words for how he had felt to her when he told her they didn’t belong in the trash. “Those,” she waved at the scattered sketches around the apartment, “I will not hide from you, I will not get rid of, I will let you see them whenever you ask. But these…you can’t have these, and neither can I.” This was always so hard for her. Others treated it like it was nothing, but it mattered. She looked really sad as she forced herself to meet his gaze. Sad and trapped in a nightmare she couldn’t change. “I’m not hiding myself, or the darkness, or depression, or anything like that. You asked for privacy earlier. I can’t give that to you, not the way you think. These,” she tapped the pile of sketches, “these are not my memories. They belong to people here on Oed. They didn’t tell me about them, I took them, right out of their thoughts, without their knowing. These happen to be their sorrows, regrets, grief, loss. I don’t want to know them, I don’t want to take them, or be aware of them, but I have no control over it. The sketches…” she stopped to breathe, to ease the ache in her throat and to blink her eyes clear of the weight of combined grief, “they are therapy, a necessary coping technique, destroying them is the only way I have to protect a strangers privacy.” She looked through them, and pulled one out and set it aside. “Only that one belongs to me. The rest are someone else’s secrets.”
Sharah
Tenkiller paused for a moment and then nodded. “Okay… I get it. I understand. But… these weren’t taken, I bet. Not intentionally. You didnt set out to steal secrets, right? Just like a comm station doesn’t seek out specific messages. It just gets the ones sent to it… whether they’re supposed to be or not.” He looked at Sharah and he smiled. “I have an idea. Just… sit. Watch.” He stood up and began working.
First, spulled soil ws gathered and the carpet swept. The small empty pots were gathered along with seeds and seedlings. He put the empty pots in the racks and then went to Sharah and took the sketches that ‘weren’t hers’. He then began to tear them into very small pieces. Those pieces he sprinkled into the bottom of each pot, filled them with soil, and planted seeds or seedlings as needed. After he was done, he watered each and then took a seat in front of Sharah. He took her hands in his and looked at her directly.
“Secrets are hard to keep, and rarely bring anything good. But here-” and he inclined his head towards the pots, “- here they will. The paper will hold water, and the soil will stay moist longer giving the seeds and seedlings time to grow. Thats what we are going to do with you… give you the right environment to grow in. That isn’t here. Okay? And the secrets will stay buried… where they should be.”
Tenkiller
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