Dining on Ashes

Posted on 22 May 2018 @ 11:26pm by Lieutenant Lake ir-Llantrisant & Chief Petty Officer Crispin Snow & Commander Scarlet Blake
Edited on on 21 Aug 2023 @ 1:28pm

1,945 words; about a 10 minute read

Mission: Episode 16 - A Far Sun
Location: USS Schofield - Starboard Cargo Bay
Timeline: MD -12, 2330 hours

[ON]

A midnight call from the Captain echoed with a knell of foreboding. In Lake’s experience, a midnight call meant disciplinary action, a death in the family, or a Captain with a bad case of throbbing conscience. But Lake ir-Llantrisant wasn’t marching down a corridor towards the Captain’s Ready Room, nor to his Sickbay posting. While smoothing down the front of his uniform with the palm of his hand, Lake was making his way towards a cargo bay. Lake was forced to wonder: What in the Areinnye would Commander Scarlet Blake need from a cargo bay in the middle of the night?

When the heavy-duty doors wheezed open for Lake, the only answer that struck him was pathetic fallacy. The environmental systems were on the night shift settings… the lights were low and the towering compartment felt airless. None of it provided any answers to Lake, but it all intensified the feeling of foreboding. The steps Lake took into the cargo bay were hesitant, slow, but he kept moving with a steady gait.

Blake hadn't arrived, only one of the ops officers, CPO Snow, was waiting. "Good evening, Lieutenant." He took a step towards the romulan. "My condolences on your loss."

At that word, Lake's footing went unsteady. His body swayed from side to side and he came to a halt, blinking once, blinking twice. "My, uh..." Lake muttered, but his thoughts turned into a whirlwind. Given his thoughts were with Commander Blake, Lake couldn't quite fathom what had brought Snow to this place, or what loss the man was describing. Lake had never even had a full conversation with Snow before this night. Tilting his head to the right, Lake blinked again, and again. When he spoke, Lake sounded short. He said, "I'm sorry, Chief, what do you mean?"

Snow frowned in surprise. "Did Commander Blake not speak to you?"

"Speak to me?" Lake said in response. He squinted at Snow in response, struggling to understand what that meant and why they were all meeting here. Shaking his head slowly, and answering in an uncomfortable stilted cadence, Lake said, "No, I, uh, got instructions through the computer."

Snow indicated the edge of a crate. "Please, Lieutenant, sit for a moment."

Hunching his shoulders forward, Lake squinted at Snow with twice as much incredulity. Lake couldn't have studied Snow with a more puzzled expression even if Snow had spontaneously transmogrified into a Klingon. "Sit?" Lake replied, "You only ask someone to sit when--"

The doors opened and Blake moved in quickly, looking to Lake with a frown. The entire journey to the cargo bay and made her heart thump with sickness a little more. There were some duties of a commander that she really didn't appreciate. This was one of them. She was torn. Having seen Kellin's and Lake's relationship blossom for herself, a part of her wouldn't have wanted anyone else to do this. The other part of herself wanted anyone else to do this grim duty. "Thank you for meeting us, Lake," she decided to use his first name regardless of Snow's presence. "We have some news for you." Despite being Lake's current commanding officer, it still felt strange being the one leading the conversation after so many counselling sessions with the man who had led them.

"You can tell me," Lake said quickly, barely above a whisper. The anxiety surging through him was written all over his face. "You can tell me the... news."

Scarlet nodded softly at the assurance, taking a deep breath, her features neutral and voice calm and steady. She was unsure how much he already knew. "Kellin Nertlinge...some weeks ago now, he...lost his life, in the line of duty."

Having been holding his breath, Lake let it out in an, "Ohh, yes," and he actually sounded slightly relieved, as if the news could have been worse. Much worse. And then he said, "Yes," again, but this time he sounded wistful. "Starfleet informed me," Lake affirmed; "I was still his emergency contact after--" but he didn't say after the divorce. Lake shook his head and he asked, "Has Starfleet released the cause of...?" The words came out quickly; his need to know was evident. But he trailed off at the end. As much as Lake needed to know how Kellin had died, he didn't want to know.

Scarlet frowned at the question, only able to shake her head as she looked down. It wasn't the answer she wanted to give him. It only made it harder, to be kept in the dark. "However, the investigation has finished and he has been cremated, as were his wishes," she said softly, looking back up to meet his eyes. "You are still listed as his next of kin, so...he is being returned to you."

Snow came forward with a case, a plain beige case with a metal inlay. "He asked to be cremated, apparently." he held out the remains.

When Snow stepped forward, Lake was still staring at Scarlet. He was staring right through her, rather than at her. He didn't respond to the words, aside from his expression turning slack-jawed. Only when Snow moved towards him, Lake recoiled as if Snow had tried to strike him. "Whu--" Lake coughed out haltingly, followed by a similarly strangled, "Nuh--" Lake raised his fists in a defensive posture -- and he could only vocalize a, "yeeargh," kind of yelp, stumbling back away from Snow. Away from the case.

Snow pulled the proffered urn back and glanced at Commander Blake. "Is everything all right, sir?"

"What are you trying to do?" Lake snapped at Snow, as if Snow had just swung the sharp edge of a sword at him.

Scarlet held her hands up slightly, as if showing she meant no harm, taking a careful step to him. "That's his ashes, Lake," she said quietly. "He...wanted you to have them."

Lake didn't even think; he just clapped back with the first thing that crossed his mind. "I don't want them," he said firmly, but hat firmness came across with volume, rather than any specific emotion. His intonation stayed at a monotone. Given how long he'd known Scarlet, he wasn't in a state of mind to remember his sirs or ma'am. Taking a step back from Scarlet, Lake shook his head and disgust edged into his voice. "That's unhygienic," he said, waving a hand at the box, "I want you to have them."

Scarlet had seen a lot of different reactions to death in her time. Even so, she'd never heard that one before. She looked to Snow, tilting her head slightly to him before taking the box, wanting to show him that he had nothing to fear from holding it. "Do you think that's what he'd want, Lake?"

Lake waved his hand from side to side in front of his face. The movement was jerky and desperate, as if his palm was a magic talisman that could protect him from this moment. "No, that's-- that's not fair," he said. Although he stumbled with his words, there was hard certainty in his meaning. "That's a cheap trick coming from an ex-Counselor. And I know from cheap tricks." --Lake shook his head, but he didn't blink; he glared right at Scarlet-- "Kellin is a box of dust. A box of dust isn't capable of wanting things."

Scarlet looked down to the box, frowning at the accusation. She had toyed with asking the chaplain to join them and had dismissed the idea, thinking Lake would prefer to keep it as private as possible. Now she wondered if she'd made the right choice. "It's not a trick," she said quietly, meeting his eyes. "I cared about him. What he wanted matters, even if he's gone now...." she took a deep breath, pulling her shoulders back a little. "So...if you need me to keep them for now, then I will. But only until you're ready to have them."

Trying to stay mostly within Scarlet's field of vision, Lake paced from side to side, still looking ready for a fight. Involuntarily, his hands balled into fists. Lake was mindful to loosen them up again, but the next thing he new, they had calcified into fists again. His pace slowed, though, because Lake was fueled by inertia. Those words --Scarlet's words-- had cut through him. Cut right into him with the sharp edge of the truth. Slowing to almost a stop, Lake tilted his chin down at Scarlet and kept his eyes up on her. "How will we know?" he asked. His voice was soft and tentative, like a child. "How will we know when I'm ready?"

Scarlet was silent for a long moment as she watched the box in her hands, not wanting to give a cliche or easy soundbite of an answer. "When...the pain dims enough for you to actually want and need something of him close to you again. Right now, the closeness to him is just making the pain worse."

"He never--" His voice cracking, Lake said, "He never got to be a father." And now he was looking at the box, because he couldn't bring himself to meet Scarlet's eyes. He feared he would die, right on that spot, if he had to see anymore sympathy in her eyes or any others. "It's all he-- it's the only thing he wanted. And he never-- He joined Starfleet because he knew how fiercely Starfleet protects its families, because it would have been a perfect adventure for our--" But Lake looked away, making a frustrated snarling sound, rather than finishing that thought aloud.

"For your child," Scarlet said softly as she watched him with pain. She wasn't the kind of person to say 'I understand' when it wasn't true. She had a daughter, regardless of once having shared her doubts on motherhood with Lake when he'd been her counsellor. No, it was insulting saying something like that. "He may not have had a chance to be a father, Lake...but he did have a family. He had you, and he had Starfleet. It's a kind of family that is unlike any other," she meant it as she watched him, reaching out carefully to touch his arm. "He loved. He was loved. And he protected and fought and ultimately died for his family. It's not fair, it's not right....but some people don't even get that much of what they want in life." She knew the words were unlikely to sink in yet, not so close to his grief. She hoped they'd help one day though.

He knew he was being unkind about it, but he had to admit Scarlet wasn't far from wrong. To Lake's ears, those words sounded like hollow rhetoric. Looking at the box, once more, Lake had bigger mountains to climb than esoteric thoughts about the meaning of life. He tilted his head back, meeting Scarlet's eyes. "Will you really hold onto it?" Lake asked. "For now? For temporary?"

"Of course," Scarlet assured him gently, shaking her head slightly with it. In truth, at least it would feel like a practical, useful thing to offer him. Something to help, however small. It was worth it.

Lake put a hand on Scarlet's forearm, the forearm connected to her hand that was holding onto the box. "Thank you," Lake whispered, and he squeezed her forearm again.

[OFF]

--

Lieutenant Lake ir-Llantrisant
Chief Counselor
USS Schofield

CPO Crispin Snow
Operations officers
USS Schofield

Commander Scarlet Blake
Acting CO
USS Schofield

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