JL | RAdm's. Indi Hawk & Cintia Sha'mer | The Fuzziness Of Time

Posted on 241708.21 @ 4:32pm by Rear Admiral Cintia Sha'mer

Mission: Reconciliation & Reconstruction [Fleet Plot]
Timeline: SD 241708.21

Time.

Time was a fuzzy thing.

Sha'mer drifted in and out of sleep, occasionally opening her eyes to look around, noticing then that she was lying in an actual bed in an actual room. Not a rag-filled cot or an old, lumpy pilot chair, an actual bed. No control panel in front of her she had to keep an eye on, because the dilithium matrix tended to become unstable if not corrected every few hours, or the long range sensors were glitchy and a warp speed collision would get very messy very briefly, or a thousand other things which could go wrong if she napped for longer than two or three hours. So now, even after stimpack crash, her body simply couldn't break out of that rhythm, and she woke up every two to three hours, lifted her head, glanced around, noticed she was no longer in space, and dropped back down again.

Eventually, though, sleep danced out of her reach. She had a stimpack hangover (gah! That thing must've hit like a cargo carrier!), she was thirsty and above all still weary to the bone. That last thing was not something which would be resolved with one good night of sleep, probably not even with two or three.

Sighing, Sha'mer sat up and flipped the covers. It was still mostly dark in the room. She was supposed to say something, to do something about it… Oh, wait, right. "Computer, lights."

A window became transparent and illuminated the room. It was bare, utilitarian: a bed, table, nightstand, couple of chairs, a recessed wardrobe, one door leading to what was presumbly the bathroom, the other leading out. A pair of crutches leaned against the wall next to her, clean clothes were placed on the table, a pair of boots underneath it on the floor. One thing this room didn't have was a replicator.

After washing (luxury: water shower!!) and dressing, Sha'mer left to find a mess hall or equivalent. As she entered the corridor, she finally became aware what her mind had been trying to tell her all along. The feeling of 'everything's good, everything's fine, everything's safe' didn't only come from a soft bed and a hot shower. There was something else, one of the voids inside of her was no longer empty, there was an old and trusted presence, nearby-

She stumbled to a stop, frantically scanning around, Indi Indi INDI.

Indi had been sitting in her own assigned quarters, a couple of floors down. Hours before, she'd woken up with a splitting headache. She barely remembered being dropped off by a driver - she had to remember to thank Sidra for that - somewhere in the middle of the night, after a night out - she had to remember to kill Sidra for that. Taking a generous amount of painkillers had done much to make the rest of the day more bearable.

She'd spend most of the day sitting on her bed, staring outside. San Francisco was alive all around her, and yet she was doubting if the same went for her. Too much had happened the past couple of days. Too much to digest and to process. Too much to put it behind her. At least for now. The hangover headache had been mostly replaced by a headache driven by frustration. What the hell was she doing here?! She wanted to throw something at the window, at San Francisco, at the people around her, at the happiness. But then, something touched her mind once again. No, it couldn't be. She refused. She couldn't. No! She grabbed the light that stood on the nightstand and threw it at the window which shattered like thunder raining down. It seemed to happen in slow motion and she let out a heavy sigh.

Nearby. Somewhere close. Where? Talk to me, Indi, she pleaded futilely through the link. Tell me where you are.

A sense of anger, frustration, outburst, broken glass, shattering sounds. Sha'mer followed that thread, stumbling ahead, unmindful of her surroundings. End of corridor, turbolift, where? Down down down, STOP, back one up, out and into another anonymous corridor, this one painted in more of an earth tone than in baby blue sky. Close now, very close.

Talk to me. Where are you?

Yes, where was she? Where had she been all those years? Too many questions without an answer. Too many answers she didn't want. And yet, she knew it was futile to hide. Cin would never stop looking now that she'd caught on. Briefly closing her eyes, she sent a reply. The link had been dormant, non existent, for years. She had to concentrate to direct her message through it. Instead of sending a vocal (thought?) reply, she sent enough images, feelings and sensation to guide her to the right door. Fear encompassed her as she waited for the knock on the door.

GOT you now! And another talent, long blocked and recently released, flexed a mental muscle and she arrived-

At the wrong side of the door, since that was where Indi had been looking at, from the inside of the room.

Silence. Sha'mer had seen herself in the mirror for the first time in (years? time was a fuzzy thing) and knew what Indi would see: Sha'mer, thin and space-pale, with hair which had been kept short or shorn off up until recently and which was now beginning to grow back, only an inch or two in most places. Identations high on both temples where permanent blockers had been attached for years. And her eyes: hungry, eager, but most of all afraid.

Indi was aware of someone appearing her quarters unannounced. It could only be one person, but the sensations that flooded (involuntarily or not?) through the link didn't match what she'd come to know as 'familiar'. She was still sitting with her back to the door, afraid to turn around. She didn't want to see, didn't want to be seen. So many years had passed.

Slowly, every so slowly, she turned around to look at the woman now leaning heavily on her crutches near the door of her quarters. She didn't know what to say. She didn't know where to look. She didn't know what to do.

Outwardly, Indi hadn't even changed all that much. Older, yes. A few more lines, not many, only if you knew where to look. But there were subtler signs, the way she sat, the way she moved, the way she wore her uniform: not with the ease of long practice, but like a child playing dress-up, trying to adapt to a role which didn't fit. Indi, too, had to cut off parts of herself simply in order to survive. Unlike the Admiral she had been talking with (uhh… yesterday? Time was-) who wore the scars of similar experiences, Indi's wounds were still raw and bleeding.

And what of herself? Sha'mer only needed to look inside the minefield which was her mind to know that there was quite some mess as well.

Silence.

So many things she wanted to say, she considered and discarded them all – though she was sure that Indi picked up on any of them: Good to see you… I thought I'd never see you again… I've missed you so much… How are you… You're looking good… You're back in uniform… Have you heard from Michael? From Ra'lin? How have you been?

In the end, she gamely settled for: "Hi."

"Hi," Indi replied slowly. They looked like quite the pair indeed. She picked up a lot of things from Cin, but they felt alien. They didn't belong in her undercover life. Love didn't fit into that life. Family didn't fit into that life. Hell, she didn't fit into that life. And yet here they were. Staring awkwardly at each other. Come to think of it, she preferred the hangover headache over this feeling. She tried to close the link, at least in so far that it didn't spill everything into her mind. She didn't want to hear all those questions. Wanted to answer them even less. "It's... been a long time."

More silence. The link narrowed, though did not close down completely. "I can come back some other time. If you want."

Indi nodded slowly. "Okay," she spoke the words she'd never thought she'd speak.

"Or I could just sit here." Sha'mer awkwardly lowered herself to the ground, leaned the crutches against the wall next to her. She closed her eyes and rested her head against the wall. "I don't suppose there's a replicator in your room, is there?"

A.. replicator? She'd expected many things, but not a referral to a replicator. "No," Indi replied automatically. She hadn't been together with someone in her quarters for this long in years. And it had been with the woman who was now sitting on the floor next to her bed. That had to mean something. Right?

"Why do you need a replicator anyway?" she added in an afterthought.

"Breakfast," Sha'mer said without opening her eyes. "Walking without a brace is a bitch." Walking was a bitch, period. Her bad leg hadn't felt a brace for (years? time….) and she had been (dragged, hobbled, kicked) (Don't got there). Getting around was going to be a challenge for the forseeable future. So what more was new. "Well, damn," she muttered, resigned.

"It's 4 in the afternoon," Indi frowned. Not that that was necessarily a reason to not have breakfast, but it was still odd. She opened the linked just a bit wider, enough to probe with a few leads, suggestions. The feedback she got, made her wince. And afraid. And.. concerned? That same fear and concern hung between them like a fog. It was in the room with them. Mistrust. But why? Indi forced her eyes close for a moment. "I can get us some breakfast, if you like."

Four o'clock. Another random association. "Teatime! …I don't like tea." A crooked smile appeared briefly, faded again. "Breakfast, tea, whatever. Food will do. Or something to drink. Just no mush."

Twenty minutes later, Indi had returned with a couple of bags. The mess hall downstairs was open, but was obviously not serving breakfast anymore. So she'd grabbed a variety of stuff that could qualify as 'breakfast' and added lots of coke and raktajino to the mix. Back inside her quarters, she put the bags down on the sole table and motioned for Cin to join her. She could do food with somebody. She'd done drinks with someone. She could do food, too.

"Thanks," Sha'mer muttered sleepily when she saw Indi enter with all the food. She scrambled to one knee, but it took a few tries before she finally stood. Then she dragged herself over to the table and dropped ungainly in a chair. "No, I mean it, thank you." For what? For letting her stay, for getting food, for-" being here. She sighed and looked at the food and drinks on the table. "Hah, raktajino. I've forgotten how it tastes."

"What happened?" It just slipped out. It really did. Indi didn't want, need, aimed at, desired, wished to ask a loaded question. But there it was, out in the open. And now, all she wanted to do, was take it back. She didn't want the question returned to her. It wouldn't be fair though. "Forget it," she added immediately before concentrating hard on the coke swirling in the bottle she was holding.

"I'd almost say, the usual story," Sha'mer said with deceptive calm. "Got captured, escaped. They did leave out the deliberate torture this time. We were worth too much for that." She looked up, briefly. "No, I won't ask you the same. You'll either tell me when you're ready. Or you won't." She broke off a bit from a Norellian twist bread and nibbled at it.

Indi thought that through. It wasn't that it was such a secret. Or bad. Or anything like that. But she had no idea of her reality right now. What was real, what was the dream, what was past and what was future. Talking about it wouldn't make that any easier. She wasn't hungry, so she pushed her plate away from her. She kept the coke close though (of course she did). There was so much to say, and yet nothing at all.

They sat staring at each other, or at least in their general direction, over a table filled with food, of which almost nothing would be eaten. The gulf separating them was far bigger than that table. Words were spoken, but nothing more, nothing real, seemed to be said.
After a few more minutes, the dam finally broke. Indi near jumped to her feet and shook her head. "I have to get some air. I'm sorry. I need some air," she said in a rush just before vanishing out the door.

"Of course." If Sha'mer could have bolted, she would have done that some time ago. She stared ahead for some time after that, seeing nothing but holes in her mind.

Eventually, she crawled into a corner of the room and fell asleep.

RAdm Indi Hawk
Commander,
Alpha Quadrant Security

RAdm. Cintia Sha'mer
As of yet unassigned