by Jariel Camen and Dane Cristiane
81213.01
Following A Handful of the Ocean
Soundtrack: Runaway Train, by Soul Asylum
-=/\=-
-=Orphanage in the Sanctuary at Altaan, Bajor=-
81213.01
Following A Handful of the Ocean
Soundtrack: Runaway Train, by Soul Asylum
-=/\=-
-=Orphanage in the Sanctuary at Altaan, Bajor=-
“I think you are well enough to return to your own room, and mix with the healthy children. Or take a walk outside the compound, if you like,” The beautiful woman, named Azalea, gave Milea the good news as she scanned with her tricorder.
Milea was relieved to hear it; she could not wait to get out of here.
She had never been around the others for so long. Too many people for too long had an effect on her she was too young to understand. It drained her emotionally, to the point where it took a toll on her physically as well. Most of the children were eager to arise and play as soon as they had enough strength to hold their heads up. Milea just curled up tighter, wishing more than anything for the solitude of the forest.
Azalea had grown concerned, believing the girl was simply not getting better. After a scan she discovered that the child was indeed improving, and her continued lifeless appearance was the result of depression rather than the fever. In fact the worst of it had passed at least two days before. Truth be told, Adams believed that Milea still needed bed rest to fully improve physically but at the same time she could sense that the child simply needed to get away from the other children for a while.
She was so much older than most of the rest. The incessant noise and chatter from the younger ones wore her down. Milea was a textbook introvert, trapped amongst a group of extroverted youngsters.
“Can I see Vedek Jariel?”
“That’s up to him. His hands are quite full, I must warn you. He is still helping Doctor Hartcort and I tend to the ill.”
Milea recoiled at the mention of Hartcort’s name.
“Now why do you do that? Every time Hartcort has tried to make the rounds you’ve refused his treatment and asked for me. I’m flattered to be sure, but he’s just as capable as I am.” Azalea fiddled with her sleeves as she spoke, keeping her eyes on the floor so as to not appear threatening in her line of questioning.
“He just looks like someone I know. It...kind of freaks me out.” Milea sat on the edge of the bed, pulling her shoes on.
“Would you like to talk about it? He’s a good man, I can assure you.”
“No,” Milea slipped past Azalea, and quick stepped towards the exit before the doctor could call her back.
Adams made a mental note regarding her behavior, and the fact that the girl would need some sort of counseling at some point.
As she left the orphanage, the silence was the first thing to grab Milea’s attention. Usually there was at least the sound of birds, searching for food in the flowerbeds under the windows.
Today, there was simply the quiet.
No crying, no moaning, no chattering. She was finally alone with her thoughts.
Jariel had wanted her to begin researching the plant life from the Plains, for their replanting efforts, but that would have to wait a bit. He would understand.
He always seemed to understand.
She saw the Starfleet ship, landed nearby. Most of the children would have jumped at the opportunity to see the Alchemy up close. Milea simply could not understand the appeal of it. Why would anyone willingly confine themselves to such a cold and lifeless place in the never-ending vacuum of space?
The ship was so small.
So confining.
So small.
So small.
She pictured herself in the corridor, and the walls immediately began to close in around her. She ran to the window, but there was nothing beyond. No escape out there. She beat on the glass, but no one could hear.
She heard footsteps.
She turned.
The Starfleet doors were gone. There was just the wooden gate with the latch and the squeaky hinge.
The window was gone.
The walls were just cold concrete.
It smells so bad.
The walls just kept getting closer and closer.
“LET ME OUT OF HERE!”
“Out of where?”
Milea put her hand on her chest. Her heart was racing and she could barely breathe.
“You’re in a forest." The man continued. "How much more ‘out’ can they let you?”
He was leaning up against one of the prettier trees in the area, and Milea frowned deeply as she watched him furtively snuff out some sort of cigarette under his boot.
Seeing that she was still afraid, the man seemed to soften a little. “Hey, come on, you need to see the Doctor,”
“No, I just got away from the Doctor. I’m fine, just daydreaming. Don’t worry about it.” She put her hands on her hips. “Don’t you know you could start a fire with those around here? Do you have any idea how old that tree is and how rare it is to find one that tall of that sort on this planet?”
Dane winced.
He hadn’t smoked in years, not since joining the Advanced Tactical Program for Temporal Investigations. The program he’d flunked out of, and been sent to Zanh Liis as a last resort to try to whip him into shape.
No, he hadn’t given in to the cravings in ages. Not until he’d returned from the Paradox a freaking nervous wreck and caught Carrick O’Sullivan sneaking a smoke in the Arboretum aboard the Sera.
The kid had offered Dane one to try to get him to keep the secret.
Later, Carrick had given Dane an entire pack after he’d found him brooding over Gira Lassiter at the Captain’s wedding reception.
All Dane had done every chance he got to hide away for a moment since then, was light up.
*How easy it is, * he thought, *to backslide. * He blushed.
Despite her size, something about the way this young girl lit into him… maybe it was the dark hair and the ridges on her nose, he couldn’t be certain, but she put him in mind of his Captain.
“They’re bad for you. I know. That was my last one. I’m done.”
She smirked. “Sure you are.”
“But wait. We weren’t talking about me. You shouldn’t be around here.” He scolded. “Wandering by yourself. You should either be in the sanctuary or on the ship playing with the others.” He narrowed his eyes at her. “Supervised.”
“I can take care of myself.” Milea declared proudly. She had, after all, been doing it most of her life.
“I’m sure you can.” He recognized something else in her; a defiance that he’d had himself, at her age.
* The year when everything went from bad to horrific…*
“But you still shouldn’t be wandering around alone. Dangerous times on Bajor. You don’t know what people are capable of.”
“I have an idea.” Milea blurted, not having meant to say it out loud. “Besides, what do you know about bad people anyway? You’re one of the good guys, right? You work for Starfleet. Out to save any world but the ones that really need your help.”
“Come on,” Dane took issue with her assessment of the situation. “We came when they called us, didn’t we? We’re here. We’ve done our best to help.”
“This time.”
She spoke with a wisdom far beyond her years, and the haunted look in her eyes made Dane’s stomach ache.
“So what do they call you?” She suddenly, kicked a loose rock from the floor of the forest off into the distance.
“My name is Dane.”
“Simple.” She replied after giving it some thought, and seeming to decide that it would do. “Suits you.”
“Hey now,” he folded his arms. “Are you saying I’m simple?”
“I didn’t mean it that way. Sakes, you’re even more paranoid than I am. I’m just a kid. What do you care what I think about anything?”
“You won’t be a kid forever.” Dane slid down the bark of the tree and took a seat on the ground, figuring that keeping an eye on Little Miss Attitude was more important than going back aboard the ship and monitoring non-existent comm traffic for the umpteenth hour. He decided on the change of position so as to seem less imposing to her, as tall as he was.
“No. I won’t. And soon as I can, I’m leaving.”
Warning bells rang off in Dane’s head. “What do you mean, leaving?”
“Going out on my own. Get away from everything and everyone. No more kids, no more noise. Just quiet.”
“Listen. Milly,”
“My-lee-ahhh!” She pronounced her chosen name slowly and broken down into small, easy to understand syllables for the Starfleet Genius. “You’re not an engineer are you? That thing can’t possibly stay in the air if you are.”
“Okay!” Dane did begin to take offense now. “Fine, I get it. It’s Milea.”
“Very good. Now, what?”
“What do you mean, what?”
“You said ‘listen’. To what?”
Dane sighed heavily. “Listen…you’re not thinking of running away or anything, are you?”
She laughed, a little too easily, a little too quickly for Dane’s comfort. “Why would I do that?”
“I don’t know. You tell me.”
“You are the one who seems to know what everybody is going to do. You tell me why I’d run away.”
“Okay, I will.” Dane suddenly realized that this child was in greater peril than anyone around her had previously realized. “Because no one understands you here. Nobody wants you around. You’re only in the way, and always causing trouble. You just want to go somewhere that you don’t have to take any help from anybody else. Where you can just be on your own, have someplace quiet to sleep and just…be.”
As he spoke, the self-satisfied expression that she’d been wearing began to erode, a little more with each word.
By the halfway point of his remarks she was blinking rapidly, and at the end, she had turned away from him completely and folded her arms tightly around herself.
She seemed to be shrinking, right before his eyes.
“What you don’t understand is what can happen to you out there, Milea. There are people just waiting to take advantage of a, what, twelve, thirteen year old girl like yourself? People that, once they find you, you can’t get free from. They own you, body and soul and they do what they want with you. The world is so huge, Milea, and you’re only one person. One person who still has a hell of a lot of growing up to do before they’re really ready to take on that mean world on their own.”
“What the hell do you know?” She turned toward him, angry and crying now. “You don’t know anything. I can get work as a housekeeper, or taking care of somebody’s brats, or-“
“Milea, do you realize that within forty-eight hours of going out on their own, even on most Federation worlds that’s all it takes for a runaway to be sucked into the criminal world? Do you understand that the chance you’d be taking would be with your life?”
Vedek Jariel Camen
Ship’s Chaplain, USS Serendipity
Currently on Bajor
and
Ensign Dane Cristiane
Communications Officer
USS Serendipity/Alchemy
Ship’s Chaplain, USS Serendipity
Currently on Bajor
and
Ensign Dane Cristiane
Communications Officer
USS Serendipity/Alchemy