Insider Information

Posted on Tue May 21st, 2024 @ 1:01pm by Jeassaho Kea (*) & Delaney O'Callaghan
Edited on on Tue May 21st, 2024 @ 1:01pm

Mission: Fractures
Location: Messhall
Timeline: January 2398
2238 words - 4.5 OF Standard Post Measure

"I need a cheat sheet."

For understandable reasons, it had taken a while for things on board to return to some semblance of normal. Delaney treated this word with a healthy amount of caution because, as had been abundantly clear for a while now, what was normal for the Mary Rose tended to surpass any other vessel in a similar position and, all things considered, the redhead wasn't that keen to tempt fate. There hadn't been any incidents of people vanishing for at least 24 hours, and if she understood enough about the theories around what had happened to hazard a guess, Delaney would have said they were rid of any possibility of more fractures occurring. That came with no small amount of relief, but resolution of one problem had left her immediately in need of managing the next in line, and that had involved tracking down Jeassaho. It wasn't usually a very difficult task but the woman had been evasive, or at least more inclined to keep to her private spaces, and so even though this would technically count as Delaney's second breakfast, she knew well enough when to snatch up a rare opportunity before it disappeared again.

She slipped into the seat opposite the older woman, both hands wrapped around her mug of coffee.

"Preferably annotated with a list of emergency contacts for when I inevitably mess up and need an exit strategy."

As earnest as she was being, Delaney was doing her usual trick of failing to explain anything before launching into requests.

Jeassaho had just taken a gulp of her beer so had not been able to respond for a long moment as she savoured the taste and then thought about what she could possibly provide Delaney a cheat sheet for. Her brain was running on a lot lower bandwidth than normal thanks to the back and forth of time jumping so she would need to just ask if she was meant to know what she was assisting with.

“Well hello to you too sweetie. But to provide you with the cheat sheet I kinda need to know where it in needed for?” She finally stated.

"Surviving Betazed, and meeting your family."

There was an element, because there often was, of the overly dramatic about Delaney's plight. Usually, she was far less worried than she played up to in these moments, but the fact that she was bringing it up at all did hold an element of honest reassurance seeking. Over-stating things employed humour, which in turn was meant to de-escalate the situation, but beneath the flamboyance, a spark of genuine nervousness was responsible for the woman's slight wince. "The future has a lot to answer for, but I don't think I'm going to be able to convince him to wait." Delaney sighed and, having a rare moment of insight into her own fractured exposition, added, "He's talked me into having the surgery."

Jeasshao’s only reaction was one of surprise as she realised that the woman was deadly serious. “That it does.” The woman commented thinking of her own experience and the heart to heart she had, had with Reuben over his own health and stamina. He could not just jump off boats with a rebreather anymore in her opinion but they had left it as an open conversation. “Well I am glad that you have finally listened to someone. Did he say which one of my siblings or parents will be doing it?” She wondered knowing which one she would prefer.

Delaney spread her hands in an open shrug. "He just said to leave the planning to him, and it made total sense at the time because every time we got yanked somewhere, there were these rather ominous hints that certain health precautions might be a good idea, but now that we're not zipping around the multi-verse..." She wrinkled her nose. "I've never had an operation before. I was never even very sick as a kid." Reaching up, Delaney pressed the warmth of her coffee against her forehead. "And now I'm pairing it with meeting your entire family and trying not look like a complete headcase in front of them." Delaney's telepathic awareness, at least in terms of her connection to Leiddem, was a work in progress but she could only imagine what her jumbled, frantic mind would seem like to a more refined thinker. "At this point, I don't even know if I can assure them that I'm not losing my marbles."

“What specifically is worrying about you meeting my family?” Jeassaho wondered. She could not help but feel the same over how ominous some of the futures had been. It had been unnerving how each one had become as they investigated more. “Because I am sure that you will not seem like that you losing your marbles.” Jeassaho had never thought that about the woman.

"I don't know." The hunch of Delaney's shoulder lingered a moment before she relented and allowed them to relax with an exaggerated sense of deflated. "Nothing founded in reasonable concern, I bet, I just..." She screwed her nose up. "I'm over-thinking the whole first impression thing but I've never tried to impress a whole hoard of telepaths before."

“Ah…” Jeassaho said realising what the base of the issue was now that the woman had said about them being telepathic. “My family are not going to pry in your head. I have never done that to you and I learnt from my parents etiquette on speaking with non telepaths.” Jeassaho said kindly. “Reuben managed and he is no where near as …” She paused trying to think on how to say why she wanted without being rude about her husband. “People friendly. You are a lot friendlier.”

Reaching forward, Delaney picked at the edge of the table, a momentarily pensive need to fidget that was usually a good indication of her internal restlessness. She was, after all, a woman constantly in motion and recent events had taken that to an extreme that was difficult to calm down from. All the assurances in the world couldn't regulate her hyper-vigilance, and it would be a little while before Delaney could fully relax into trusting that she wasn't about to be yanked away to another version of her life that threatened to be confusing. Logically, she accepted that the incident was dealt with but anticipation was a difficult instinct to throttle back. Refocusing her fretfulness wasn't exactly helpful but it gave it an outlet nonetheless.

"I just don't want him to spend the whole time worrying about me," she eventually confessed, her tone softer. "And I don't want my health to be something that he argues with his family over, not when I'm pretty sure this is going to be straightforward and no where near the kind of big deal all this fear-mongering has made it out to be." As she'd already said, the future had a lot to answer for. "I guess too..." Delaney paused, trying to find the right words. "My family are, for the most part, incredibly close. And I'm not saying that yours isn't," she added in a hurry, "But Lei' doesn't always seem like he really misses home."

Jeassaho looked mocked offended for a moment before laughing. "Because he has the best part of his home onboard." She laughed. "hard to miss it when you have your sister 50 times a day asking if he has drunk water and slept okay." She said revealing how close her and Leiddem were despite the teasing and mocking of each other regularly. "Our family are going to be amazed one that he has gotten someone as amazing as you and 2 he is willing to bring her home to meet them and allow them the honour of helping him. Leiddem has not allowed anyone to help him ever so this is a big step and my mum will probably try and wed you two whilst there."

The prospect caused Delaney to squint in thought. A Betazed ceremony was intimidating but intriguing as hell, she just wasn't sure her own family would be that impressed at being pipped at the post for participation rights. "Well that's good, one extreme to another." She laughed, mostly because the entire purpose of the conversation had been to vent some nervous energy in a different direction so that Leiddem wasn't forced to deal with her anticipation exclusively. Delaney seemed satisfied, at least, with the reassurance because the next words out of her mouth were a fairly predictable change in tact. "Do you go home much?"

“Oh goddess no. Why would I when I have the best part of my home onboard." She laughed thinking on her previous words. She had not been back in years through situations and just not needing to. There was a lot around her past that she did not always want to confront. "Hard to miss it when you have your brother 50 times a day asking if you have drunk water and slept okay."

An exaggerated roll of her eyes saw Delaney snort back a laugh. "You really are as bad as each other. Okay, so you might not be a contemporary expert, but as a native-born you still get to have an opinion; where should I visit?" Blue eyes sparkled with mischief at the change in focus, though for Delaney that meant a decent amount of acceptance in regards to any advice given.

"You say that like a bad thing." Jeassaho teased taking another swig of her beer. "You need to visit the art galleries near my family's compound and make sure he takes you to one of the tourist beaches." The Engineer was sure that the woman would not appreciate one of the Betazoid beaches but maybe that was something she did not need to know about the woman at all.

After a moment or two of looking vaguely puzzled, Delaney's expression cleared and then promptly became incredulously amused. "You mean a non-nude beach. You know Earth has nude bathing, right? Maybe only in a handful of places but still, I had a week in Greece not that long before I joined up here, actually, that more than qualified me for Betazoid cultural expectations." Circumspection hovered for a moment before she added, "Though I might need to send out a public service announcement regarding sunglasses before I venture towards any coastal region." Holding out an arm, Delaney examined it and screwed up her nose. The jury was still out on whether she was ready for Leiddem to count how many freckles came out to play once she stood in the sun for ten minutes.

"Well, aren't you a dark horse?" Jeassaho laughed impressed. She knew that things were not quite as like Greece on Betazed but at least it would not scare her off. The woman had been the best thing ever to happen to her brother since he had joined the Marines. "You'll be fine. We are all as pale as you." Jeassaho's tan was purely from working with plasma welding but she knew Leiddem was just as pale.

"To be fair," replied Delaney, for whom honesty was never much of a challenge, "getting drunk and braving it at the crack of dawn might not strictly count as the kind of casual nudity required for honorary citizenship on your side of the galaxy but I like to think I've grown as a person since then." Her lips twitched. "In attitude if not in cup size."

Jeassaho laughed loudly. "I think you will be fine." She assured. She was not at all worried about sending the woman off to her parents and her culture. She would be fine and Leiddem's relationship would be fine which was the most important thing to her about it all.

"I'm mostly looking forward to it," Delaney confessed. "Maybe less-so the operation part but I'm trying not to focus on that since, from what I can tell, recovery is pretty fast. I haven't been to many different planets and part of leaving Earth was to get the tourist miles under my belt. This has more meaning, of course, since I'll be retracing the steps of little Leiddem as he tries valiantly not to look uncomfortable amongst his own people." A flash of mischief crossed her face. "I don't think I'd be able to convince him to take me were it not for the surgery, so I guess that's a point in favour of heart conditions you didn't even know you had."

“Leiddem would have eventually. It’s just hard for him to be the person our parents wanted him to be. They wanted a healer and they got a Solider.” It was a hard adjustment for their parents and whilst Leiddem took the easy route and left without a backward glance their parents came to terms with it all but nothing had ever been discussed openly.

"Well that," Delaney declared as she rose with mug in hand, "is where they're wrong. Maybe it's a good time to show them that their soldier boy grew up and became a beautiful butterfly." With a parting grin, the redhead flicked the older woman a salute of thanks. "Thanks for the chat, I'm sure I'll think of a dozen more things to freak out about before we leave."

Jeassaho just offered a smile. She’d be waiting with wine for when it happened.