Posted May 27, 2023, 3:46 p.m. by Lieutenant Séan Iven (Counselor) (Matt Evans)
Posted by Lieutenant Tandra Mika (Chief Mental Health Officer) in Operation Restless Night
Posted by Lieutenant Séan Iven (Counselor) in Operation Restless Night
Posted by Lieutenant Tandra Mika (Chief Mental Health Officer) in Operation Restless Night
Posted by… suppressed (18) by the Post Ghost! 👻
<snip>
“I know you saw my pictures.” Mika looked at him, “The girl in the first photo… She was my girlfriend, for three years, up until… Earlier this year.” She sighed again, shaking her head. “Never go long distance. It just… Doesn’t work.”~ Mika
Séan brought his hands away from his face as the embarrassing moment passed and he regained his composure. “I wouldn’t know and I don’t intend to find out. I’m sorry that it didn’t work out for you though. Is that something you would like to talk about? When I’m not making a fool of myself I’m told I’m a pretty good listener.”
Counselor Iven
Mika gave him a goofy smile, “No, that’s okay. It was months ago, and I’m kinda maybe seeing someone else? And you just got here, and we work together! You probably don’t need to hear about my relationship problems.” And then, almost immediately, she sighed, “It’s just, we dated since we were in Academy together. And then we graduated, and we were both department heads on Challenger together.”
~ Mika
Séan felt like he nearly got whiplash from the initial rejection to talk about Mika’s relationship problem that immediately led right into talking about it. “From what you said about long distance relationships not working out, I’m guessing you were posted to different ships after that. Did the relationship begin on the Challenger?”
Counselor Iven
She nodded. “We both did our Academy cruises there. Sharah- uh, Doctor Fayth, the CMO at the hospital? She did, too. She was my Cadet after I graduated.” Mika huffed, “And then the next class graduated, and we were shuffled off to new positions in other fleets. Like… Fleets on opposite sides of the Federation.”
~ Mika
“I could see that posing a large strain on a relationship seeing as how travel is quick but still take weeks by shuttle.” Séan said as he settled into counselor mode. “Were there any opportunities to meet up before you came to Oed V? Subspace calls just aren’t the same.”
Counselor Iven
“We broke up before I was transferred to Oed. It was… Last February. Just before I got sick.” It really hadn’t been her year so far. “But… No, we really didn’t get the chance to meet up. I’ve been transferred six or seven times in the two and a half years I’ve been out of the academy.”
~ Mika
“That sounds rough all the way around.” Séan commented then asked. “What is her name?”
Counselor Iven
“Aili McMorran. She’s Scottish.” Mika replied, looking at him. “She’s a Chief Science Officer.” She shrugged, “It wasn’t… you know, a bad break up. Just a… We’d been apart so long we didn’t feel it anymore break up.”
~ Mika
Séan nodded in understanding. “Letting go is difficult especially when you look at the good memories and the time you’ve invested into a relationship. Do you look at the relationship as a positive overall?”
Counselor Iven
Mika gave him a look. “We’re out here to walk, not to give me an off the clock counselling session. I doubt that’s what you want to do with your night.”
~ Mika
Séan grinned back at Mika. “But we’re not walking right now and I can’t help but do what you clearly need. I can’t turn it off and you need to talk this through. So… was it positive overall? Do you feel things were left unfinished in some way?”
Counselor Iven
Mika side eyed him hard. She held the look for several moments. Then she sighed and shrugged. “It was positive, yeah. I guess I just… Wasn’t ready for it to end.”
~ Mika
Séan’s grin shifted into a smile, though not smug but satisfied that Mika continued to talk. “I don’t think anyone is really ready for something to end. Has that caused you to be hesitant on starting something else? You mentioned before that you were ‘kinda dating someone’, so what’s going on with that?”
Counselor Iven
“I don’t know,” Mika sighed with a shrug. “Her name’s Kaleesa, and she’s a betazoid, and we’ve only been on two dates. She’s the girl from the Klingon wedding.” She shrugged again and shifted like she was uncomfortable, “I mean, it’s not that I don’t like her or the dates weren’t nice. I don’t know.”
~ Mika
“Uncertainty is understandable especially with it having been just a couple of dates.” Séan said back softly with his Irish accent coloring his words. “I don’t mean to imply that you need to jump into something serious right away or avoid anything that could end up being painful down the line, but instead ask yourself if you’re ready to move on and what is the motivation for getting back out there. Everyone ‘gets over’ a break up in different ways and differing periods of time.”
Counselor Iven
“Maybe I’ll give her a few more dates and see how it goes. I don’t feel like I’m rushing into it. I mean, it has been months.” Mika looked up at him with the smallest of grins. That accent was coming out again. “If you grew up on freighters and Eridani, why is it you sound Irish?”
~ Mika
He wasn’t sure if Mika was deflecting the conversation away from her ‘relationship troubles’ as she put it, but that’s something he could swing back to if the opportunity arose. Séan smiled at the question she brought up. “Well I blame my dad for that. When you spend as much time with someone as I had with him, just us for months at a time, you get kind of steeped in it.”
Counselor Iven
Mika was definitely deflecting. All the relationship talk was bringing up why she was sad in the first place… Well, among the other things, anyway. She was subdued compared to earlier when she looked up at him and smiled slightly, blowing air through her nose in a half-laugh. “You were raised in mini space Ireland,” she joked.
~ Mika
Séan gave a short laugh as it was an observation that made sense but he’d never thought of it that way. “Yeah, I guess I was. I have mixed feelings still about the whole experience because we were both grieving for quite a long time but we were also trying to rely on each other. It was tough because I was a kid who didn’t really understand anything about the world or even myself and my dad was constantly reminded of his loss when he looked at me.”
Counselor Iven
Mika nodded. “That sounds hard. Did it get easier later on? When you were older?” She asked. They had been talking long enough the sky had turned from mostly blue and pinks to dark purples and blues, stars becoming visible, street lights turning on around them.
~ Mika
“Not until I met my mentor. By that point I had a whole lot of anger boiling inside of me and my dad had further withdrawn into drinking. He kept the drinking lower when we were on voyages because it doesn’t help to be blackout drunk but every time we docked he’d binge for a week, two, or however long it took and that left me alone to get into trouble.” Séan shared with a sad smile. “When I picked a fight with the wrong, small asian man and got put on my rear, well things turned for the better with me and my dad.”
Counselor Iven
© 1991-2023 STF. Terms of Service
Version 1.13.2
RSS Feed