Kitchen and Hearts

Posted on Wed Jan 12th, 2022 @ 7:30am by Ka'see 'Cassie' Anderson (*) & Laurier Cami
Edited on on Thu Jan 13th, 2022 @ 9:40am

Mission: Mission 14: Holoworld
Location: SS Mary Rose
Timeline: MD 04 00:10
2103 words - 4.2 OF Standard Post Measure

Ever since the whole affair with Dixoho being put into stasis, Cami had developed a late-night habit of what she called 'time with the Prophets'. At first, it had been a good solid half-hour of time spent in silent meditation, speaking into the ether in a very unpracticed way. She wasn't sure what she was doing. After a few weeks, that time had turned into her doing other things to try to remind her of home. One of those things was her grandmother's hasperat recipe, which she had slowly been working on perfecting for a little while.

She was surprised to arrive in the normally silent kitchen to find it already occupied. Peering around, she spotted the other individual: Cassie.

"Oh. I didn't think anyone would still be up. Do you mind if I...?" she pointed at the cooking utensils.

Cassie looked up as the woman came in and offered a small smile to the woman. She looked at where she was pointing and shrugged. She was not using anything other than a bowl and a spoon.

“Be my guest. I was getting some soup that is left here as I finished late.” It was not often that she finished late nor was hungry when she finished but that night she had been.

"Cool. Cool." Cami fell awkwardly silent as she hit the cupboards and started to mix some of the ingredients together. The silence seemed to hang uncomfortably for a minute, so she decided to be the one to break it. "I never was all that good at cooking. Growing up with Vedeks and holy people...they don't really teach you much about food preparation. Best they managed was some bad stew."

Where Cami thought the silence awkward and uncomfortable Cassie found it weirdly therapeutic after hearing chatter nonstop all shift. Cassie listened interested as the woman spoke about what her past had been like. It was surprising the type of people that were on the ship.

“I was not aware Vedeks and holy people allowed children to grow up among them?” She wondered aloud before venturing into her own checkered past with cooking. “My mother could not cook at all.” She offered up as an offering as she leaned against the counter where the huge soup pot was left just bubbling nicely for anyone who was hungry that night.

"It was like a...well, an orphanage. I didn't really know my parents all that well." It was a small miracle she'd even met any of her real family. "My grandmother would visit me every season to see how I was getting on and teach me things. Sewing...cooking..." she shrugged as she started to chop up some of the root vegetables.

Cassie bit her lip hard and felt her inner human who could feel and express emotions kicking her hard for not considering that the woman had been in an orphanage before her statement. "I am sorry to hear that. Sometimes parents are not what we need in our lives." Cassie said thoughtfully thinking of her own parents and their failings. The man who had failed as a parent and a husband when his wife left him and returned to earth and the woman who had spent more time in a lab than with her child. "Can I help at all?" She wondered having nowhere else to be then and there.

"Hmm," Cami looked at the ingredients. "Well, you could grind up some of the pacha leaves there. We'll need them in a moment. Be careful to do it gently, though...too much and they'll lose their flavour." She paused, returning to her own task before she pressed with a question of her own. "Sounds like you didn't have much luck on the parental front either, then?"

Cassie looked at the ingredients and nodded. She quickly put them in the mortar and pestle. It was a slow process doing it gently. “I had a lot of luck in my way. My mother was human and my father Vulcan. And you can imagine one hundred and fifty years ago it was a big thing and they could not cope with the pressure.” She admitted with a shrug. It had hurt at the time but now she could understand the pressure they had been under.

"It must have been weird though. Like, I never really understood Vulcan parents...I know that my folks didn't exactly hate me or anything, but to have gotten like, zero emotion out of them? Must have made it difficult with your dad never really showing you much?" Cami wondered, rolling the tortilla-like flatbread out and starting to arrange the vegetables carefully across them.

"Vulcan parents love the same as anyone else to a Vulcan," Cassie stated. It was a common misconception that Vulcans could not love. Her Vulcan husband had loved her a lot and had supported her through a miscarriage before she had run away. "My parents did their best with the time. I was born before hybrids were a thing in most species. My parents created me at a time when they loved each other dearly. My mother loved my father's bravery and skill and my father loved my mothers' smart attitude and brain. It was only after I was born and my mother felt trapped on Vulcan with people who hated or feared her that they realised it was just not enough." Cassie said sadly.

Cami silently thought about that. Her family life actually sounded a bit less complicated than Cassie's. Normally she could get away with the whole 'abandoned kid' thing, but sometimes there were others who had it worse. She rolled the wrap together tightly, then took the knife and sliced it into two. "Family often leaves us with both the good and bad. Not usually what we want, either." After a moment, she offered one half to the woman beside her. "Try some?"

“Sometimes it is not want we want but it is something we need,” Cassie replied with a shrug. It was simple for her to take the good from it all and to leave her parents 150 years in the past. It was not hard at all for her, her mother had died before she had been stuck in the transporter and her father had disowned her pretty much when she had run off back to Starfleet. It was what it was in her mind but the woman was kind for trying to comfort her. “Okay. I thought it would need cooking.” Cassie admitted taking the offered item.

"Can be eaten cold," Cami shrugged. "Some people like them warmed, like in the winter. I kinda prefer the vegetables a bit crunchier though. Nothing worse than a soggy hasperat..." she giggled. "Did you ever try to look up any descendants when you, y'know, came out of the pattern buffer?"

The woman nodded as she took several bites of the food. She was not sure which she would prefer but the Vulcan and human hybrid had to admit she liked the crunch as well. Cassie put the hasperat down and thought about the question. “I um… I did I work up and my connection to my husband clicked in and led me to discover that I have children and grandchildren.” She admitted sounding sad suddenly.

"But..." Cami frowned, trying to piece it together in her head. "You were married, but didn't have kids before you went in, right? So you had kids you didn't know about? I don't get it."

Cassie nodded indicated the small bench and stool that the kitchen crew used and sat down herself. “That was exactly my look when my husband reappeared as I went into…” She paused remembering that in that time Vulcan pon farr was not as stigmatised nor was it hidden like some dirty secret. “Pon Farr… he was over 180 years old. He had moved on from me with a new wife as I was dead to him from his point of view, my ship lost with all hands on board. Before we parted back in 2243, I froze embryos as I was having trouble conceiving.” The pain that she felt inside for her failing body surfaced for a moment before she swallowed it down.

"So they used your embryos..." Cami murmured, not quite believing it.

Cassie looked at her trembling hands and squeezed them tightly. “My parents had the same issue and I was created. My skill set is genetics and I was determined to work out why I was not able to make it happen with Tevir. After I disappeared, he used a surrogate and created children with my father's permission because it was logical for his and my bloodline to continue. They… It is complicated as you can most likely tell.”

"Woah." Cami lowered the food in her hand as she stared wide-eyed at the woman across from her. She couldn't imagine what that must have been like. In some ways, nobody would have ever expected her to reappear, but by the same token, to know that her DNA had been used, and she was a biological parent like that... "Prophets, that's...what a mind job! Did...did you ever go and find them? Your biological children?"

“Sorry. I should have kept that in and not spoken out loud.” She shrink in a little on how she had let it all out and sighed. “I met two of my grandchildren. They were with Tevir.” She said fondly thinking of the Starfleet officer and the young teenager who had been with him. “I thought it best to stay out of their lives. Tevir and the woman he married after I are their family.” She wanted nothing more than to find them but it felt wrong from a selfish point of view on her part.

Cami hesitated. Being on the other side of that; with absent parents, she had never been given the opportunity to know, she had always been a little resentful. Almost unwanted. "Do your children even know about you?" she asked quietly. "Because...well, they should. I would want to know - to be given the opportunity to decide for myself."

"No." Cassie quickly said. She was sure her grandchild had realised something but she had not said anything in the awkwardness of the situation of her elderly grandfather going through pon farr. "It would be too late. They do not know about me. They have lived their life for 150 years without me." Cassie said maybe it was why she was so reluctant to have children now the fear of another miscarriage combined with not having the best role model. Plus Gregnol had said no kids on the ship so it was not something she could consider with her life the way it was right then and there.

"I'm just saying..." Cami said softly, feeling a little chastised. "I would want to know. If it was me."

“And if was you I would have said but it is too complicated. I would be in rooting two generations at least.” Some of her grandchildren were old enough to have their own grandchildren. It was too painful to change peoples lives on that scale to her.

"I guess." Cami looked down at her unfinished hasperat. A personal reminder to her of family connection; the flavours and smells were imprinted in her head so that every time she felt those senses again it would trigger fond memories of better times with her family. It made her feel sad for Cassie that those memories would never really be there for her. Nor for those grandchildren. "Family is complicated."

Cassie looked at the woman. She was so sweet compared to Cassie. Cassie was convinced that somewhere in her genetic make up her parents had left something that made her ice cold. “It is.” Cassie took a nibble of the food before rising with the plate. She was going to take it with her. It was too good to waste and she was hungry after all it had been why she had been there. “I should get going,” she said thinking she needed more time to think but this time she needed to think along somewhere.

"Yeah. Thanks for sharing." Cami raised the food as if to indicate that was what she meant rather than the personal story. But the look in her eye said that it was both. "Good night."

Cassie said nothing more as she passed the woman other than to squeeze her shoulder for a second. It was an unusual gesture but it was from the heart... the heart she was not sure she had anymore.