Joint Duty Log - Capn Ivanova LtCmdr Waterhouse - "They Let Me Know You Were Gone"

Posted on Sun Aug 24th, 2014 @ 5:09am by Admiral Rochelle Ivanova & Commander Amelia Waterhouse

1,762 words; about a 9 minute read

Mission: In the Dark

Amelia had cut it close getting on duty after the chance encounter with Dani. She usually tried to arrive ten minutes early, at least, and she slid out of the turbolift two minutes before her shift actually started. She was certain that everyone was looking at her because she had to be panicking for being later than normal.

Rochelle spent the morning in relative silence, watching schematics and programs run in simulation across her console as the Vindicator stretched her legs at full power for the first time since they'd chugged into port. It would be another day or so until she was ready to head out, but all signs showed that the old girl had life yet to live and that she'd made a miraculous recovery under the careful hand of Dahe'el and the crew of engineers that had worked round the clock to restore her glory. That was not to say, however, that she hadn't noticed the sudden change in pattern from Amelia. The normally early to shine woman had scraped in just by the skin of her teeth. A shake of her head had dismissed it all, chalking it up to Vlimar's presence.

The first hour of the shift had gone by quickly and quietly. The whole time, Amelia had been caught in her own head until finally she cleared her throat.

"Ma'am, if I could speak to you in your ready room," Amelia requested.

Looking up, Rochelle nodded. "You may." She responded and lifted herself to her feet, abandoning the comfort of the big center chair to cross the bridge and enter her ready room. The relative security of her professional 'den' had garnered much attention over the last few weeks, but the request was a new one. A professional one. "What's troubling you, Pond?" The shorter of the two dynamic redheads asked as she paused briefly by the replicator, just long enough to order up two sweet teas.

"I happened upon Dani by chance this morning," Amelia started, hand laying on the back of the hot seat chair in front of Rochelle's desk. "I had to make a quick decision that you may not like," Amelia added. "Vlimar had told me that sometimes XOs do that, make big decisions and not consult with their Captain first... but he also said I wouldn't necessarily tell you about it in the end. I think this one I have to tell you about."

"As an XO, you have a duty to this ship and to me." Rochelle responded, offering Amelia one of the cold glasses before she turned to round the big cherry wood desk and take up her customary position in Landon's seat. It would always be Landon's. "But that's a different discussion for a different day. What's going on with Dani?"

"And I think his point is sometimes that duty involves offering you a degree of deny-ability if my snap judgment proves to be off," Amelia returned, accepting the glass. She sat down in the hot seat by way of swinging one leg over the back, and sipped at the sweet tea once she landed. "We'll certainly be talking about that more. But Dani..." Amelia sighed. "Dani got it in her head she needed to go to Earth. Go behind the lines and help people."

Rochelle sighed and nodded, "I knew I saw something off when she reported in. There was just... She was a god damned spring too tightly wound."

"Once there's an idea in her head, especially one her moral compass is pushing for, there's no stopping her..." Amelia added, looking to meet Rochelle's eyes. She waited to see if her friend understood; she wasn't sure that the Captain would, but the little Phoenix should.

An eyebrow raised and another sigh blew, this time accompanied with the shake of her head and the sound of her fingers drumming along the desk top. "So..." She began, carefully choosing her words, "You let her go."

"It was either let her go, or lock her in the brig until the war ended." She sighed. It sounded like the Captain was completely in charge. So much for following Daddy's footsteps with his clean record.

The Captain's jaw set as she considered the situation, plucking the strings of thoughts and possibilities for a good long moment. The silence, she was aware, was deafening. Amelia was always going to march to the beat of her own drum, a drum that Rochelle would have to do her damnedest to control the volume and bass of now that they worked in a capacity where lives very much depended on their complete synchronicity. "You realize you've likely opened the bird cage door into a room of cats, yes?" She asked, looking up. It was true, Dani would have found a way — but in this manner the blood was now on Amelia's hands.

"I at least held the cage up where the bird could go to the rafters," Amelia protested. "If I had stopped her she would have left here pissed off whenever she managed to go, she wouldn't have listened to me when I told her how to reach my family still on earth, and she would have gotten sloppy because she was angry. At least now she has the cloak of Intel protecting her until she gets to Fed space, and she knows how to get help if her contacts aren't enough." She set the sweet tea down on the desk, after wiping the condensation off on her uniform's leg. "Family does stupid things sometimes, and all you can do is point them in the right direction and hope they don't trip."

"The cat has to come down to feed, Amelia." Rochelle's voice rolled low, like thunder, announcing they had tread onto dangerous territory. "Amelia... We'll all do things, stupid things, for family. But this is a war. People die. We sometimes have to do things for their own good that they aren't going to like and they're going to pout and stomp and whine and cry." She shrugged, "While we're a family, we're command officers and we have to be the law here. You need to come to realize this, the sooner you do the happier we'll all be. It's a fine line and a fine balance, you have to learn how not to cross it or rub it raw and when it's ok to bend it."

There was silence then, Rochelle falling back into her own mind before shaking her head again, "Can you live with the guilt if she's not successful?"

"I'm going to have to, her decision to go took that choice out of my hands. It was either help her, and know I did what I could to give her a fighting chance; make her sit the rest of the war in a holding cell, and probably come to hate me — which might have been a worthwhile trade; or blame myself when she took off without my catching her, like she did in the mines..." Amelia slumped forward, forehead in hands and elbows on her knees. "You know she still hates those artificial eyes of hers, yeah?"

"I'm aware. But that was a choice she made, not you." Rochelle replied, sitting back in Landon's seat and crossing her legs, "You can't be the bleeding heart and blame yourself for everything that happens to people around you. They make their own choices, pay their own piper. We may not agree with their reasoning, but... C'est la vie." She said, blissfully unaware of the parallels her advice drew when it came to how she mourned and lamented Landon.

"I knew I needed to keep an eye on her, I knew I needed to stop her going off... and I let myself get distracted by Garren. I mean, he needed to be put down like the dog he was..." Amelia fell quiet. Her hand half wrapped around the base of her sweet tea, tapping her nails at the glass. "I couldn't go with her this time, but I could at least help her."

"You can't control everything, Pond." Rochelle tutted lightly, "Things are going to happen that are going to go completely pear shaped and you're going to have to learn to let go."

"But I could have done something in the mines, and I had to do something this time," Amelia's eyes rose again and met Rochelle's, her hand clenching at her glass. "Dani's like water. Just when you think you have her contained, there she is slipping through some crack you didn't even know was there. All you can do is shore off the canals, and hope she flows the right way."

"But there's a line that needs to be drawn. You can't keep shoring away when the levee is going to break anyway." She replied, huffing another sigh before leaning forward. "Dani is going to do what Dani wants and I'm all for turning a blind eye to some of her shenanigans, but eventually it will catch up to her and nothing you, nor I, say or do is going to make the least bit of difference. I'm sorry you feel guilty for her eyes, but there's really nothing you could have done to prevent it."

"Which is why I let her go this time... but I still had to do something to help, instead of just turning a blind eye." She finally picked up the sweet tea again, taking a sip.

"Next time, if there is a next time, you need to counsel me first." Rochelle warned gently, "This is my ship. I'm ultimately responsible for every life on her and you share that responsibility. Are we green?" It was a slap on the wrist, a nothing retort to what should have landed the Commander in the brig for a few days. It wasn't worth ruining someone's entire career over.

"Super Green, ma'am," Amelia returned, realizing just how easy she got off. "Thank you."

The Captain nodded, dismal and dark as she watched her friend. "Don't thank me. Just do what you need to do." Sometimes being the boss wasn't all it was cracked up to be.

"Yes ma'am." Amelia made a mental note to pick Vlimar's brain on the disconnect between what he'd said, and the conversation she'd just had with Rochelle, leaving the specifics out of course. He didn't need to know about Dani, the more people who knew where she went and how, the more danger she was in.

---

Captain Rochelle Ivanova
Commanding Officer
USS VINDICATOR

Lieutenant Commander Amelia Waterhouse
Executive Officer
USS Vindicator

 

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