The Sounds of Spring
Posted on Fri Jul 12th, 2024 @ 4:42pm by Lieutenant Christopher Blake & Lieutenant Sorine Kaida
Edited on on Mon Jul 15th, 2024 @ 9:20pm
0 words; about a 1 minute read
Mission:
Episode 2 - The Sins of History
Location: Holodeck 1 - Deck 4 - USS Artemis
Timeline: MD009 1300 hrs
Kaida had spent a good several hours tweaking the program to make it as close to her parents farmhouse as possible. Once she couldn't think of anything else to add or change she changed into the floral dress, ran her fingers through her wavy shoulder length blond hair, pinning it a few inches on one side and began creating the food for their meal. The bread went in the oven to rise as she started on the sausage and vegetable soup. She was so focused on what she was doing that she didn't even notice when the holodeck doors opened.
Chris walked in and looked around in awe. It was beautiful in it's rustic elegance. He was wearing a simple pair of slacks and a blue button up collared shirt. The smells of cooking food embraced him and welcomed him into the farmhouse as the arch closed and disappeared behind him. He nervously gripped the flowers in his hand. Honeysuckle, he remember reading somewhere that it was a nice flower and he'd been lucky enough to find that the arboretum had some he could take.
"I'm not too early am I?" He asked first as he came into the kitchen. He caught sight of Kaida and couldn't keep the lopsided smile off his face. There was always a bit of a shock when you saw someone out of uniform, and while this wasn't their first time hanging out in civilian clothes, it was the first time he'd seen her in a dress. Suddenly he felt under dressed himself. "Do you want a hand with anything?"
He paused for a moment before nervously offering Kaida the flowers he'd brought. "These are for you."
"You can never be too early for dinner on the farm. No thank you, I've got everything covered. Have a seat." Kaida turned towards him when she heard him say he had something for her and paused. She could count on one hand the number of times she'd been given flowers in her life and one of those memories wasn't pleasant. "Thank you," she said, touched. "Honeysuckle. Affection. Did you look that up beforehand or is this just a coincidence?" Kaida put the soup on low so she could put the flowers in a vase on the table. "I have something to confess. The first time a boy gave me flowers, I slapped him. I was twelve. And on Bajor I had witnessed Cardassian men giving out gifts. It usually meant you were taken as comfort woman or they were going to do some horrible despicable things to you. After I found out he liked me and just wanted to give me flowers I felt really bad for a long time. And the romance was broken. He wouldn't talk to me for the rest of the school year."
Chris frowned. He hadn't expected the flowers to elicit such a tragic memory for her. "I guess next time I stick with chocolates." He gave a slight shrug before continuing. "A friend of mine once mentioned something about Honeysuckle being an under appreciated yet beautiful flower, I guess it stuck."
He nodded as she relayed the memory. "You were young, and you were reacting to what you had seen first hand." Her life had truly been different from his own. At twelve he'd had his first innocent kiss with a girl. In their innocence they had even planned a wedding and a life together. They drifted apart soon after.
"What kind of soup did you put on?" Chris asked as he walked over to the stove, taking in a big whiff of the aromatic steam. "It smells amazing."
"Sorry, I didn't mean it to sound like I wasn't grateful. I love flowers. I don't know why I brought that up, it just popped in my head," Kaida assured him. "Oh it's Italian sausage and vegetable. At home I would have used fresh vegetables off the farm but this is as close as we can get this far out. And fresh blarney stone bread. And, this is as close as I could get to an exact replica of the house I grew up in from the time I was 9. Would you like a tour?"
"Of course." Chris replied. "After you."
He motioned for Kaida to lead the way as he followed behind. "You didn't sound ungrateful, I'm just a bit nervous. It's been a long time since I've been on a date." Chris chuckled. "Besides, chocolate isn't a downgrade as far as I'm concerned."
"Me too," Kaida admitted. "I haven't really dated a lot to be honest. I have a hard time relating to people and them to me. I guess that was the reason I asked. I felt like of anyone I've ever met you actually understand what it means to have an event change you. And under those shields you put up you're actually a really nice person who is worthy of being accepted and loved. And if there's hope for you, there's hope for me too." She gave a small shrug, embarrassed that she'd admitted her reasons. "So, living room obviously. About the only time we ever used it was when company came over. Otherwise we were scattered throughout the house." She said as she led him through.
Chris paused in his tracks as Kaida rhymed off her reason for asking him out. It was... eye opening. Albeit, not entirely in a bad way. She saw in him a kindred spirit of sorts, and if he thought about it, he saw the same in her. It'd been a long time since he'd thought about such things, and certainly not since before the incident.
"And you created this from memory?" Chris commented finally. "It's a beautiful place to live." He smiled his customary lop sided grin and continued to follow Kaida as she showed him around the house. "The most I know about farms is what I read in the old 'Little House on the Prairie' books they made us read in school." It was certainly a different upbringing than what he'd experienced, and how would his life have been different if this were his childhood?
That grin was his best feature, she was sure he didn't know he could use it as a weapon. She resisted the urge to shiver. "Yes. The layout is correct but I wouldn't swear to the decor being exactly right. I haven't been there in a few years. But we still keep in touch." She smiled. "I read those books too, or more accurately I had them read to me by my adopted father. He thought he was imparting an important lesson about history and mostly what I remember are the gross things like using buffalo patties for fuel and butchering a pig and the children playing with the bladder." Kaida headed for the stairs that were tucked to the side of the living room. "My childhood bedroom." Her door was first on the right. It was a bungalow style with pointed arches over the windows. The room was painted a soft yellow and had mostly blue and white furniture with a quilt over the bed. Kaida sat down on the bed and pointed toward the window. "I spent a lot of time there gazing at the stars and wondering just how far away Bajor was."
Chris opened his mouth and quickly shut it again. She wasn't interested in the actual stellar cartography he quickly realized. She had been a child yearning for home. He walked over and sat next to her on the springy bed instead. "I looked at the stars and just saw a destination." He shook his head at how single minded he had been. "I fancied myself up there making a name for myself like Kirk, Paris or Mayweather."
"Do you get to Bajor often now?" He asked, following her gaze to the window. "Or is it like the old adage... you can never go home."
Kaida shook her head. "I haven't been back since. I think I'm slightly scared to go honestly." She gave a small shrug. "Scared of what I'll find or what I won't find." She switched subjects to what he had said. "Do you still imagine yourself being like them?" A smile was forming on her face as she imagined him staring up the stars daydreaming. "Because . . ." she said carefully. "There isn't any reason that you can't still be that person."
He thought on what she said for a long moment.
"I honestly don't know." Chris said with a sigh. "I'm so used to thinking of myself as a failure with something to prove to someone that it's all I hear now." He offered a half shrug before continuing. "I'm standing in my own way too much. I can see that, but hell if I know how to push through."
Just saying it out loud seemed to make the world a little brighter and less foreboding. But the shadows in his mind still lingered and he was starting to realize he might never be rid of them and would just have to learn to live with them. It was those same shadows that had driven him into a shell and cost him his old life. He didn't want them to have that power, and he knew he needed help. Chris glanced at Kaida and grinned. He wasn't about to tell her this, it was a lot to put on someone especially on their first date.
"Thanks for listening." He said finally.
"You're welcome," Kaida answered. "But you shouldn't thank me yet because I see a spark in you and now that I have a project you will never be rid of me." She bumped his arm teasingly. "Might not work but I thought maybe we could work on things together. We both have issues. Baby steps," she assured him. " But in the meantime we need to finish the tour and eat the dinner I'm making which hopefully is not boiling over and burning down the house." She stood up and offered her hand to him. "Lesson one, I'm really good at using humor to deflect an uncomfortable situation. If that bothers you tell me to stop." Kaida held onto the hand once she had it and guided him down the hallway, not wanting to let go for fear that if she did this wouldn't be real.
"As long as your sense of humour doesn't involve trying to stick magnets to me, I'm good." Chris said with a chuckle. Feeling the warmth of her hand in his was different, but comfortable. As she guided him along, he made sure to keep his grip on her hand as well. In a room full of holograms, it was good to have one real thing to hold onto.
"I've never been referred to as a project on the first date before." He grinned slightly. "At least you're honest with you intentions."
"Would magnets actually work?" Kaida put up her free hand quickly. "Kidding, kidding. You're not really a project." She bit her lip for a moment wondering if she should say this. "I just hate how I see you so . . . hurt and unhappy. And I know your happiness is not my responsibility. But, I really want to try and make you see what I see in you." She gave a small shrug. "Which is a very sweet person who has had a terrible thing dealt him and is still willing to entertain a crazy Bajoran woman who tries to take him up a mountain and drop him from the top, drag him out to sea on a boat and make him drive her around . . . you get the idea." She was still holding his hand and hadn't even really realized it until they reached the stairs to go back down. "Let's go eat. You must be starving and I haven't poisoned anyone lately, life is getting boring."
Chris thought for a moment about what she said, silently following her down the stairs. Part of him would have recoiled from such an honest and accurate analysis of him. But Kaida was so earnest, she wanted to help him but allow him to do it on his own terms. He could appreciate that.
"We could always go hang gliding from the top of a mountain... falling with style." Chris smiled and followed her into the kitchen, as they passed by the fridge his eyes widened at the luck.
As casually as he could without alerting her, he plucked a small yellow magnet shaped like a banana and quickly stuck it on his occular implant where his eyebrow would have been.
"I can't be poisoned anyway," Chris said finally. "Cybernetic stomach. Like a removable hepa filter."
Kaida turned around when he spoke, saw the magnet and burst out laughing. It was the unexpected kind of laughter, the kind that comes from surprise as well as finding something humorous. She barely registered his words about the poisoning but eventually gave him a look, trying to determine if he was telling the truth or not.
Chris watched her reaction for a moment before smiling. "Kidding as well."
"Well I'm pretty sure it's edible for even the most sensitive of stomachs." The soup was coming along great and the bread had gone in the oven to bake, it wouldn't take that long before it was ready. "Can I ask you something? Are we allowed to talk about your cybernetics or is that off the table?"
Chris winced, but didn't shy away. "I don't generally talk about them. I don't like them." He shrugged. "But the general answers are no, I'm not enhanced. They specifically did what they could to make them as close to my bench line as possible." He tapped the plate over his red occular implant. "The only thing this gives me is the occasional headache."
"They do remind me of my failures." Chris said after a moment. "It's like this was the only way they could put humpty dumpty back together again was with these gaudy implants that shows everyone that he fell."
"Oh I know you don't like them. You did answer my question though. I wanted to know if they caused you pain." Kaida was mulling over what he'd said about failure. "Everyone fails and falls, if we didn't we'd lead very boring lives. I don't know if this will help or not but I didn't know you before the accident so your implants are just part of you as Chris. I'm curious about them only because it helps me understand your view of the world and who you are. I don't tie emotion to them, I don't fear or loath them for example." She paused for a moment trying to decide if she wanted to ask him something else. "One more question and I promise not to ask you about them again. Is there anything they do that's better than it was before, like eyesight or reaction time?"
"Nope." Chris shrugged. "That is an option, but we found that the enhanced reaction times or sight was actually a hinderance. I've got my own rhythm and flow. The enhanced timings were throwing off my own reaction times so they're calibrated on par with my existing capabilities."
He leaned back against the table and watched her for a moment before continuing. "You said that it seemed like we've both known a lot of trauma, and I've no doubt with what you've gone through. You just seem a lot more put together than I am. Or I could just be really bad at picking up on any signs."
"Well it's been 18 years. So some of that is time but also," she paused for a moment actually embarrassed by what she was going to say. " I've had a lot of practice at hiding it. I avoided people for a long time. I pretended that I didn't see guys who looked at me. I didn't live by any sense of the word except for doing my job." She gave a small shrug and a sigh. "And I don't know what's made me change." Looking toward the stove she suddenly remembered dinner and jumped up to get the bread sliced and to dish up bowls of soup. She set the bread down with butter and brought the two soup bowls over, setting one in front of him. "I don't stand on ceremony. Enjoy!"
"Well, maybe you figured you can't fill someone else's cup if your own is empty." Chris replied with a smile. He picked up the spoon as she placed the bowl in front of him. The soup smelled delicious as the steam wafted up from the bowl. He dipped the spoon in and came back up with some vegetables and a piece of sausage. Blowing on it a moment before he put it in his mouth. He chewed slowly, deliberately. The flavours came through clearly and distinctly, the spices and different flavours complimenting each other but not competing.
He put his spoon back down on the napkin and leaned back for a moment, looking Kaida in the eye before continuing. "This... this is amazing. I'm lucky if I don't burn water, but this..." Chris took another spoonful into his mouth. He nodded instead of finishing the sentence, figuring it was impolite to talk with his mouth full.
"Glad you like it but I wouldn't get too excited. Soups and breads are about the only thing I like making. But cooking just takes practice and experimentation. Even people who burn water can learn. I'd offer to teach you but it's your turn to decide what we're doing next. That is . . . if we still want to do this?"
Chris paused sipping the soup and blinked his eye at Kaida before reaching up and adjusting the magnetic banana on his implant to make it look as if he'd raised an eyebrow. "Why wouldn't I?" He managed to keep a straight face for about a second before chuckling and removing the magnet from above his ocular implant.
"Kaida," He began after he finished chuckling. "After a bit of confusion as to why me, I've been having a ball. Regardless of what happens next I'm coming along for this ride for as long as you'll want a co pilot."
He held up his glass of iced tea in a toast. "Terga yan."
Kaida smiled. It warmed her heart to see him actually teasing a little bit. When she first met him he'd been so serious and closed off. She hadn't even realized he'd had a sense of humor until recently. "Good. Just checking. Nagging thought in the back of my head." She waived her hand as if shooing the thought away but could feel herself blushing for some reason she didn't quite comprehend. Before reaching for her glass to answer his toast she reached over and took the banana magnet off of him and snapped on a mustache magnet. Then she clinked her glass with his and smiled even more broadly.
A Joint Post By
Lieutenant Christopher Blake
Chief Flight Control Officer, USS Artemis
Starfleet Criminal Investigations Unit
Lieutenant Sorine Kaida
Criminal Investigations Officer, USS Artemis
Starfleet Criminal Investigations Unit
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