By February Grace
80308.14
Hours after Fragments and Halo
-=Quarters of Grace and Reece=-
80308.14
Hours after Fragments and Halo
-=Quarters of Grace and Reece=-
From outside her line of vision, Dabin observed February as she sat in her favorite overstuffed chair, curled up quietly with a pair of audio buds in her ears.
She had her left leg tucked beneath her, and was rocking back and forth in time with the music, eyes focused intently on her fingertips as her hands worked on freeing a knot that had somehow developed in the skein of yarn she was crocheting with.
She wanted to make a little gift for Arie, she had said, to thank her for looking after Sparrow so well. But try as she might it seemed that the project kept running into one glitch after another. The latest being the knotted yarn she was trying so hard to undo.
Dabin sighed as he leaned against the door frame between the bedroom and the room where his wife sat, securely locked away from him inside of her own head. She was humming softly as she worked. It seemed to comfort her, the music, and he was glad that something, anything, at this point helped her find a moment's peace.
*We have so much to unravel,* he thought, *But I'm working on it, Bru, I promise you.*
After trying unsuccessfully to untangle the knot, February grew frustrated and tossed it aside. She yanked the audio buds from her ears and tossed them aside as well and Dabin stepped forward, his eyes questioning her gently.
"I can't fix it." She declared. "It's beyond saving. I can't find where it started let alone where it ends. It's hopeless."
"Naptime!" Dabin replied, taking her gently by the hands and tugging her up from the couch. Her discussion with Jariel earlier in the day seemed to have left her exhausted instead of energized as their interactions usually did, and Dabin knew that she still needed a lot of rest as part of her physical recovery.
Without arguing, February followed. As she climbed into bed, Dabin grabbed an extra blanket from the closet and threw it in over her. He moved to kiss her and she turned her head to the side, deftly deflecting the kiss as she had deflected every attempt he had made to show her physical affection of any sort since she'd returned from Sickbay.
She had completely retreated inside of herself as a defense mechanism, he knew and understood this clearly on an intellectual level. Still, she had never done it before, and so it didn't make it any easier to accept it when she worked so hard to push him away now.
His lips managed to connect with the side of her face, and February almost winced, as if somehow it was causing her physical pain. What she couldn't tell him was that she needed him so much, and was so afraid that she was going to lose him, that she was trying to figure out already how she would live without his affection once it was gone.
"I miss," She began, but her words died out.
He sat down beside her. "What do you miss?"
"Hearing you think that you love me."
"I do love you, February. I did from the day that we met, you know that." He hoped that hearing him say it might offer some small consolation, at least.
She closed her eyes and leaned back into the pillows. "It's different, hearing you think it than hearing you say it. It's so. . . automatic when you think it, you don't even have to try, you don't have to work at it. It just is."
She wished she could articulate how it made her feel, having a random thought from his head wander into hers. Being so closely linked to his bright and engaging mind, his sense of humor and of course, the unfathomably deep emotions which he hid so well beneath the carefully constructed, flippant and hyper-active facade he presented to the rest of the world. Most only got to see what he showed them.
She had been privileged to see so much more.
Without being able to access those parts of him through their connection, it seemed all the colors of the spectrum had drained away, and everything around her dimmed to monochrome in comparison to the way that life had been.
"When it comes to you and my emotions, the only thing I ever had to work at was trying to deny my feelings for you. That was the hard part." He brushed her hair back out of her eyes. "Proved to be a lost cause."
"You have a thing for those." She absently twisted the wedding ring on her finger. "It's your weakness."
"You're not lost," Dabin insisted, rubbing his hands up and down her arms. "He'll help us. I know he will." He finally pulled the blanket up over her and tucked it beneath her chin.
"Won't you tell me who it is that's coming to visit?"
"Not yet. I want you to be surprised."
"I'll be surprised if it helps."
Dabin tried not to let it show, but her uncharacteristic pessimism was beginning to wear away his own reserves of strength. "Sleep tight." He kissed her forehead, and then retreated from the bedroom.
He was just about to sink into the couch and grab a nap of his own when the door chimed. Dabin sighed, and reluctantly rose to answer.
"O'Sullivan?" Reece was not expecting to see the Security Chief at his door. He spoke softly, not wanting February to be disturbed. "This is a surprise. I'm off duty," he gestured toward his clothing, then realized that O'Sullivan was similarly dressed.
"As am I, Commander Reece. I'm sorry for troubling you." Keiran's voice lowered, instinctively mirroring Reece's. "May I come in?"
"Of course." Dabin stepped aside, allowing the man entry.
Keiran surveyed the room, looking for Grace. "Is it possible I could speak to your missus?"
"Now really isn't a good time, sorry," Dabin apologized. "She's resting. Is this official security business? Or is there something else that I might help you with instead?"
"It is, and it isn't." Keiran replied cryptically. "It is, in that I am conducting an investigation of sorts, but I'm not technically back on duty so," He and Reece shared a look of understand. "You know how it is."
Reece nodded. "Maybe I can help?"
"Perhaps so. I need to ask her about some incoming and outgoing messages that have been flagged by my routine security cross checks."
Dabin laughed. "Are you serious? You're investigating what's contained in February Grace's mail." He shook his head. "You haven't known my wife for long, Commander, so I understand how you might be concerned if something came up and was flagged by the system. But I assure you, she is no more of a security threat to this ship or anything else than. . ." he pointed to the cat, who was contentedly grooming himself on the couch and looked as harmless as anything you could ever expect to see in your life. "Than he is."
"I believe you. But certain phrases were flagged and all I could recover of the original messages were fragments. It appears that they were recently deleted, within the past few hours and so a total purge hasn't yet taken place. I could have gone in and forced them out of the system, but out of respect for the Lieutenant's reputation and record, I wanted to ask her instead to tell me what they said."
"This must be pretty important, if you're willing to start marching in and asking to read people's personal correspondence. Or entertaining the thought of forcing them from the system."
Dabin didn't like the sound of this one bit, but Reece was an old and experienced soul- so Dabin knew that if this request was made, there was a damn good reason for it.
"It is."
"Very well." Dabin relented. "I'll wake her."
"No, wait, Mr. Reece." Keiran hated to see February upset if it could be avoided, given her current state of mind and health. "You two, you're unique even among married people, that so? This, link thing, that you had."
"That we still have." Dabin corrected. "It's just. . .on hold right now."
"Of course. Well, being that you two are so close, I don't suppose that the lieutenant would mind if you gave me access to your comm system and maybe you and I can handle this little misunderstanding together, and never have to trouble her with it?"
"Thanks, Sully," Reece was grateful for the man's discretion. "I'd appreciate it. Consider it a favor, even."
"No need. Shall we?"
"Oh, right. Yeah. Sorry. Here." Dabin pulled up another chair beside the one at the desk and sat down. He began manually inputting commands using the touch-screen, and silenced the computer's audio responses so that they wouldn't wake February. "What can you tell me about the fragments that you're trying to reconstruct?" He whispered.
"The messages were deleted a few hours ago," Keiran handed Dabin a PADD with the information. Dabin interfaced it with the main comm and frowned.
"Hold on." Using February's pass codes, which he knew well from having spent months taking up residence in her thoughts, he was able to retrieve cached copies of the messages in question, which had yet to be purged from their terminal's memory. He displayed them on screen and both he and O'Sullivan read in silence for a few moments.
When he was finished, Keiran looked at the floor. Dabin's face was red, and his eyes flashed with an anger beyond anything he had experienced in a very long time.
"It's obvious that there's nothing I need to concern your wife about here," Keiran said softly, rising from his chair. He officially crossed February Grace off his 'suspect' list as far as having been in contact in any way with Angela Nolan.
Grace's correspondence which had included the word "Mother" was purely personal.
Dabin nodded, unable to speak through his fury.
"I'm sorry to have bothered you, and for intruding on a private family matter." O'Sullivan offered as he retreated to the door.
"You were just doing your job," Dabin's hand hovered over the comm. He wanted to shut it off, but he couldn't stop staring at the text. "Actually, this is something that I really needed to know, and I may never have found it if you hadn't," His eyes shifted to O'Sullivan. "Thank you."
"Thank you for your help, Commander Reece."
As Dabin reread the message from the beginning, he could not believe what he was seeing.
February had been in contact with her parents, or rather, had attempted to be. She had written to tell them about their marriage, and more to the point, Reassociation.
Not only had she chosen not to tell him about the letters home, but about the fact that in the eyes of her parents, she no longer existed.
Dabin's mind spun, and he realized that this may be the leading string of the knot he'd been trying to untie for days. He grabbed his combadge from the desktop and tapped it.
"Reece to McKay."
[Here.]
"Could you meet me in my lab, please? There's something we need to discuss."
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Lt. (sg) February Grace
Senior Flight Controller
USS Serendipity NCC-2012
Lt. (sg) February Grace
Senior Flight Controller
USS Serendipity NCC-2012