How the Heart Works
Posted on 26 Sep 2022 @ 10:49pm by Commander Calliope Zahn
Edited on on 27 Sep 2022 @ 7:50am
Mission:
M3 - Into the Deep
Location: Pathfinder, Quinn & Zahn Quarters
Timeline: Late Evening, MD 06
1050 words - 2.1 OF Standard Post Measure
Lance, sleepily satisfied, folded Calliope's fingertips lightly in his own and, bringing them to his lips, kissed the top of her hand, just like a knight out of a tale from his chivalrous roots. It was a final little gentlemanly gesture he typically ended their sweet liaisons with, a silent act of gratitude between beloved. Sighing, she laid her ear over his heart to listen to the racing of it calm and to track it as the beats settled into a steady rate.
The repeated rise and fall of his chest was reassuring and she felt her own heartbeat ease in a matching metronome with his. She listened to his breathing deepen and slow as he drifted into sleep, accented by the occasional nasally snore. She couldn't help it, even his snoring was endearing to her. This was real. This moment, now.
Although he could somehow sleep, Calliope still found herself staring off for what felt like an indefinite time. Not just time without an end, but in a kind of presence to which there was no beginning either. Her trance was reinforced by the view through the portal displaying the passage of the tiny pin lights deflecting around the warp bubble which fled swiftly from fore to aft of the ship as the vessel tunneled ahead seamlessly at speeds faster than light itself. Technology and magic being indecipherable in moments like these, she remained willfully mesmerized.
Entwined together, ensconced in cabins of ships at warp... this was commonly how they began or ended their time spent together— the familiarity of one another's arms in the transient spaces of travel. Only now? When she woke up tomorrow morning they wouldn't send their luggage in separate directions and hug goodbye at a spaceport. Tomorrow, they would share the mundane. They would share the sonic, take a little breakfast, and leave the cabin in uniform. Tomorrow this dream wouldn't end in goodbyes shunting them away to their separate lives.
She contemplated those waking, working hours. Lance was, of course, performing beyond all expectations at the job to which he was far over qualified for. She traced her fingers through his chest hair, not knowing how, but only being certain at some point they would be forced to address the glaring problem with his personal sacrifice. The problem being, he was unhappy with the work. He was sacrificing everything so they wouldn't have to say those goodbyes any more. So they could have more moments like these.
She'd gotten past most of the guilt about herself being the impetus for that sacrificial choice. It had been Lance's choice, after all, and he had chosen *this*. He'd even chosen this in spite of all her faults and brokenness. She no longer felt guilty so much as forgiven, loved, and most of all, known. Truly known. Tears slipped from her eyes as she relived the relief of not having been rejected. Lance had somehow absorbed her pain and made it his own. She felt more whole than she'd ever been before.
But tomorrow... Tomorrow there would be the job, the slog, his barely restrained snide comments. His disdain for the staff around him, his disillusion with working *down* to everyone else's level and his complete lack of field training... She knew it was going to be unsustainable. At some point Lance would offend someone who wouldn't overlook it, someone who wasn't deHavilland, to whom he seemed to get a pass for his impersonal, abrasive nature. And if Calliope had her way and was fully restored to her position as first officer, it would mean she would inevitably be the one in the future to have to correct misconduct concerning some way Lance had poorly managed or dealt with a personnel situation. It was an event that was probably overdue. And it was not an event she wanted to just brace for and deal with the fall out from, either in their personal or professional lives. There had to be a way to pre-empt it, and to keep this dream and their working lives both in tact. If she could find it, most of all there also had to be a way for Lance to work to his real potential beyond a primary job description of mere reactor maintenance.
They'd finally found this piece of heaven together and she wasn't going to let it be bittered. "We'll find a way," she whispered as she slid down from his chest and nestled against his side, pulling the sheets around her. "We've got this far. We'll figure it out."
She let her eyes fall closed to try to break the spell of the trailing lights— to try to sleep. She knew that she needed it more than most. Before, the aches of her body seemed lost in ecstasy, but now as she relaxed, the enduring pain and fatigue reminded her of her limitations. Still resisting sleep, her eyelids floated open again, now tracing the faint outline of things on the night stand beside her: the pillar of little supplement shot cups she had stacked tall as she had tossed each one back, and standing like a trimmed off cone, there was her faithful holo-arm brace emitter, dented and scratched from years of dedicated use on so many away missions. She stretched out her fingers to check for the comfort item she knew wasn't there- the gift from her mother. The pocket knife. It had been missing since the Attack on Obsidian Command. The missing knife had never been turned in at any of the nurses stations. As far as she knew, it had been de-replicated with the suit they had cut her out of when she had been admitted to medical months ago.
Her hand returned to the only thing she wore now. The necklace chain and little loop of Rhodium wire Lance had fashioned for her when she graduated academy, when he'd promised her they could survive distance and time.
As she fiddled with the necklace, she recalled to herself the inscription on the knife— Draw your own constellations and find your way home.
"Mom," Calliope remembered saying. "That's not how stellar navigation works."
"I know baby." Calliope heard her mother's voice as she finally drifted off to sleep. "But it's how the heart does."