Reclaiming reality.

Posted on 30 Sep 2023 @ 9:46am by Lieutenant JG Hannah Wagner

Mission: M4 - Falling Out
Location: Hannah's quarters
Timeline: 2 days post return.
1268 words - 2.5 OF Standard Post Measure

There was a message blip blinking on her console, that with every flash of the green reminder light increased the guilt that gnawed inside her. She hadn't spoken to her father in quite some time, and she knew the man worried about his only daughter. He was one of the few in her family that didn't view her Starfleet career as a betrayal.

She pressed the Comm connect button and waited for the connection to be established all the way across the universe. There was enough of a delay that she got a cup of cinnamon roll coffee and a plate of assorted cheese and crackers. Her mouth was full when her Papa answered the call.

"Hannah!"

Chewing and swallowing, she forced a smile at her father. "Hi Papa."

"You do not look happy."

She laughed at her father's straightforward, immediate piercing to the heart of the problem. She didn't look happy. In truth Hannah wasn't happy at all. Nothing was going to her personal plan for her life, and she was more than a little upset by her life's departure from the control she liked to have over it. How did she regain her happiness? How did she find balance again in herself?

When she didn't speak, he continued, prompting her..."Something on your mind Spatzi?"

"Lots of things. I don't even know where to begin. I shouldn't be surprised, not really. I know how Starfleet works but..." Sighing she covered her eyes with her hand.

"But what love? You might have to explain and perhaps start from the beginning. Your Papa is old and I don't know the backstory or the context to what you're talking about."

"I requested a new posting a while back. I was really in need of a change. I was hoping that a Starbase was enough of a change to be interesting, since the Einstein assignment was so boring. It did let me get Board Certified in Trauma Surgery, but that was the extent of its value to me. I arrived and my chief, wasn't thrilled that I was posted here, except to lighten her workload. In all reality, I think she would have cheerfully fired me but she didn't, because I could lighten her workload. She was very pregnant so, I can't imagine she was very comfortable doing anything. I was doing mostly scheduling and paperwork, not so much actual medicine. I was supposed to rotate through the doctors over the whole range and that sort of happened. I had a few moments where I actually felt like a Doctor, most recently on a mission that took me away from the station. It was....". Her face changed and she trailed off...the silence stretched for a long while and she didn't come back to the conversation.

He made a noise for her to continue, an affectionate smile on his lips.

"Sorry Papa. Well anyway....She dies which is almost unbelievable in its own right and there's immediately another chief appointed. Im not even sure where he came from he got there so fast. Probably the Alexander. Actually, I'm sure he came from there, because I was supposed to rotate there for training, I'm not sure anymore."

A deep sigh escaped her and she licked her lips to wet them. "I'm not sure I'm ever going to get to advance here, and I'm not sure how I feel about that."

"Do you want to advance?"

"I do."

"What's stopping you then?"

"I don't actually know. I thought this assignment was going to be something I could build a career on. I actually really like it here. The station is spectacular and its like nothing I've ever seen before. I want to build a life here, maybe a family. I thought eventually someone might retire and the commanders might actually give me a chance. But, when it happens and the position is open its a lateral transfer from a Starship. I'm not actually sure why I thought I would get the chance to operate as chief, being the assistant chief. But for some reason I did, and they didn't and now I'm just trying to work through my own headspace. I feel like I'm invisible. I suppose to them I am, but it doesn't really help me here." She tapped her forehead gently to indicate her own mental health. "My anxiety is bad enough as it is, without feeling like an errant child who can't be given any serious responsibility. "

"You really feel that way?"

"Not all the time, of course. But situations like this arise and all I hear is Mother in my head. I find myself anxious, practically all the time, some days I can fend it off, but others I'm....well....a disaster inside my head. There's no rhyme or reason to it, and the counselor I was making some headway with just up and left. " She neglected to mention that she'd developed some feelings for him, that was unnecessary at this time. "She'd laugh. Tell me I should have focused on the pure sciences like a proper Grayson. Not caring at all that I was born a Wagner."

"That does sound like something she would say."

"I just...I wish everything in my life wasn't so complicated."

"Nothing worth doing is easy."

"Oh spare me the platitudes Papa, it's not like they're helpful here." A hint of German accent came out of her in her apparent ire.

"They'll see your worth, just like I do Spatzi. You just have to give it time. "

"I have nothing but time." her voice was a bit defeated and she rubbed her forehead with the back of her hand. Her fathers face was kind, and she felt bad just verbally spewing everything that was bothering her. She didn't have anyone else though, not since Jai left. "Sorry to dump on you...How's Vic and the rest?"

"Oh Victor...he's as suave as ever. He's going to make me a grandpa with that new catch of his."

"WHAT?!" she shrieked, knocking over her glass in the wide gesture of astonishment. Scrambling to drop a towel in the liquid so it didn't ruin her rug, she came back to stare at her father.

"You heard right." His wide smile belayed the tone of his voice, and took away any indication that he was actually unhappy by that information.

Jesu Mary and Joseph, Papa! You should have led with that information. That would have absolutely killed my need to gripe at you! That's bloody fantastic."

"Oh aye, if the girl would marry him it would be great. But she won't. It's driving your mother absolutely insane."

"Oh, I bet it is. Mother never did like anything that made her perfect little world anything less than perfect." The bitterness in her voice showed only for a second. "So Victor's going to be a Papa. His ladyfriend, tell me about her. What's her name? What does she do and most importantly, when's the baby coming?"

"Her name is Kyra and she is due in February, around the 10th. You'd like her, she keeps Vic on his toes. He's really smitten with her, and the baby has him practically licking her boots. He's proposed a couple of times now and she's turned him down flat."

"Whats the hangup there?"

"Oh you wouldn't believe me if I told you."

"Oh I'd believe anything...tell me everything!" She turned the console so she could sit on her couch and absorb the whole story from her father, who turned animated at the thought of telling her the whole sordid tale.