Not All Doom And Gloom

Posted on Wed May 29th, 2024 @ 8:09am by Jeassaho Kea (*) & Dr. Izriel "Jaxx" Lonn
Edited on on Fri Jun 7th, 2024 @ 4:07pm

Mission: Fractures
Location: Observation Lounge
Timeline: Jan 2398
3393 words - 6.8 OF Standard Post Measure

Jeassaho had put off the conversation for a couple of days but she needed to check in with the man as she had heard from people that he had, had quite the experience of time jumping. Timing was crucial, so she chose the moment when he would be alone, exiting sickbay, providing an opportunity for them to have a private discussion.

She carried a bottle of nectar and 2 glasses as she saw him leaving she pushed off from the wall and followed after him. “Me, you, and a bottle of nectar?" she proposed, looping her arm through the doctor's.

If queried on the current predictability of the passage of time, Jaxx would have found it hard to tell how long it had actually been since things had returned to some semblance of temporal normality. He had been somewhat of a jittery mess at first, as much from the physical ramifications of the sheer amount of displacement he'd suffered as any kind of mental overload from trying to process it all. Some of it was an incoherent jumble, especially towards the end where he'd been dumped out for less than a minute at a time. As far as he'd been able to tell, his experience had been caused by a 'wrong place, right time' scenario that had anchored his point of origin right in the midst of several overlapping fractures, and that seemed to be the best anyone could tell him.

It was only partially reassuring.

Most of the crew was feeling it, though, and that had kept Sickbay busy. Work was a decent enough crutch and certainly worked as an excuse for avoiding congregational areas of the ship, but he'd been expecting this particular visit. If anything, it spoke a little to Jeassaho's own stress levels that it had taken her this long.

"Just one bottle?"

It was a dry attempt at humour, particularly from a man who rarely drank.

Jeassaho raised an eyebrow but said nothing as she led the way to one of the observation lounge without comment out in the open. He was a doctor and had a slightly more higher status in the crew. She was the Captains wife but she was also just an engineer to most of the crew.

“Well neither of us drink much so it won’t take long with this bottle.” She let him go and sat down on one of the more comfortable looking chairs and looked out at the base that was there and open to the Fenris Rangers.

A wary glance out the viewport before he sat gave a perfectly decent outward indication of how Izriel was handling a return to reality; he hadn't quite started trusting it yet. To the woman now sitting next to him, this was hardly much of a revelation, since he was aware enough that his mood was atypically tense and agitated and that was difficult to hide from a telepath who had known you most of your life. "Are we celebrating or commiserating?," he asked dryly, already guessing the answer.

“You tell me, Jaxx. I saw a lot of futures but the one that interested me the most was one where me and you were together and… well it was complicated as much as it explained a lot.” She said pouring a large glass before putting the bottle down in front of them.

The silence that followed spoke volumes. It was not unusual for the Betazoid man to exude reservation, even on a psionic level, but it had always been a very natural sense of calmness and control that didn't so much resemble secrecy as it did humility. Izriel Lonn didn't announce himself to the cosmos in the way some of his brethren liked to, and was often so conservative in his emotional expression that he might have been accused of Vulcan heritage were his mother the type to even consider such things. Telepathically, his ripples were only ever pebble-sized but they were present and they were honest even if they were not particularly loud. That wasn't the case now. Somewhere behind the slightly vacant eyes was a mind that had very intentionally tucked itself away behind a privacy shield that was a little reluctant to budge even in current company.

"Yeah," he eventually settled on, lowering his gaze to reach for the bottle and pour his own. "I know."

Jeassaho wanted to venture into his head and have the conversation in a way that could offer so much more understanding but she needed to let him have some privacy and let it be said aloud. "So what is going on with Maeliana?" She asked taking a big gulp wincing at the way the Betazoid nectar burned.

If there'd been any opportunity to formulate a coherent reflection since things had settled down, Jaxx might have anticipated this. Technically he had, he'd just avoided worrying about it in any direct fashion and hadn't tried to rehearse what he'd actually say when challenged on several disclosures that were lacking. It didn't even feel like his situation to explain anymore, just a series of decisions that had been made that he hadn't protested to but probably should have. He swirled the contents of his glass around without taking a sip and opted for staring out the viewport rather than make eye contact.

"That's a complicated place to start."

Jeassaho knew it was the worst place to start but she craved an understanding for everything desperately. He was her first friend and more in the universe and despite loving Reuben more than anyone and everything she needed this man to explain what was going on and where things were. "Well, it might give me the answers for the rest." She commented staring ahead herself. It seemed easier despite the fact they both were trying to mentally prepare themselves for telling and hearing the discussion.

In a brief moment of uncharacteristic agitation, Izriel scrubbed his hand over his face and then leaned back in his chair to slump in defeat. "Well, specifically, she's currently settling down into a new living arrangement with the woman she's been seeing for the past..." He paused to calculate. "I suppose it's getting close to a year." Hazel eyes, so much darker than usual due to lack of sleep, shifted sideways to regard the other telepath. "Which, yes, is totally with my blessing and wouldn't matter if it wasn't. There are a few...details that I guess we've kept to ourselves, first being that we're not formally married. I'm not even sure if you'd count us as ever being de facto, if it comes to it." Jaxx stared at his friend for a moment before downing half his drink in one swig. "But I'm guessing you already found all that out."

"I did, I just do not understand why?" The Engineer wondered clearly still not sure at all what was really going on with the situation. Mae had not mentioned it and had kept her the pretence when she had spoken to the woman before the new year. She wanted to offer some type of comfort but she had no idea what had caused it all.

A huff of weary laughter was not without an element of tired affection. "Why anything where Mae is concerned." With a final sigh of defeat, Izriel kneaded at the tension in his neck and tried to find a way to summarise the past few years of his life that made sense. "With everything she's been through, she's only perfected the art of self-destructive impulsiveness." Even when they'd been younger, the other woman had been the most unpredictable of them, capable of academic brilliance and startling emotional intelligence as long as it didn't apply directly to her own life. "Married impulsively, didn't tell any of us, miscarried his child only weeks after his disappearance..." He didn't imagine that Jeassaho was any wiser to these specifics than he'd been, having been fed much the same watered-down version. "I don't know where her need for secrecy stems from, Jay. She was like it as a kid, always trying to suffer in silence whilst telling half the story. This hasn't been entirely her fault," he conceded, before it sounded like he was lumping all the blame for his own dishonesty on their friend's shoulders. "But things got complicated once she moved back. I let her move in, got her the position at work, things were a little greyzone but we were making it work. And then, Oryn. He was planned."

This was not, perhaps, the most expected confession.

"Mae desperately wanted a child, I was desperately waiting for that moment where it felt like I was more than just an emotional crutch. As it turned out, having him has been a blessing, since he's provided as focus outside our own mess and forced some hard-earned perspective. Ever since he was born, we've had a much clearer idea of what our relationship is, and what we mean to each other. She's one of my best friends, and the mother of my son, but she is not my wife nor should she be. It's taken this long but she has finally opened herself up to a relationship that I do believe is what she wants. It's just a shame we're having to deal with the dead returning, that whole situation has been particularly messy."

The woman shook her head and closed her eyes as she started to understand it all to a point. She had always been sure Oryn had been planned, neither was foolish enough for that. “Of course, you were a crutch. You are too sweet to be more to her.” Jeassaho said with a roll of her eyes she winced at her own words but it was just the truth. Mae had only ever used either of them as a crutch when it came to emotional moments in her life. They had weathered every storm as a group but it seemed that she had been left out in the cold which hurt her the most she was starting to realise. “But I do not get your need for secrecy. We have never had secrets even when Mae chose to have … moments.”

There was a flicker that bordered on annoyance, right on the cusp of Izriel's natural control over his emotional projection, that went a long way towards providing an answer on its own. He had often been the peacemaker, whose tendency towards deep introspection gifted him an empathy that sought to excuse rather than accuse. Jeassaho's feistiness was undoubtedly a requirement at times but it had always been the case that he didn't harbour the same level of frustration for their mutual friend as she did. Nothing had really changed in that regard.

"Because the problems we've faced now have been far more complicated than the ones we dealt with as children. We underestimated how much Alden meant to her, and what losing him, and now regaining him, has cost her. All of which she dealt with on her own, Jeassaho. Neither of us were there." The flick of an eyebrow sought to remind her that she had left them, had chosen not to return and could hardly expect the same level of awareness via subspace as when she was physically present. "Some things, even now, are not for me to say, even on a professional level much less a personal one. I will encourage her to talk to you," he relented wearily. "But just know that when she moved in, she was not in a good place and what followed was the best I could manage. Once she started telling people we were married, there didn't seem to be a lot of good contradicting her, even if it was never likely to be true."

Jeassaho bit her tongue but her thoughts turned more annoyed as she resisted the urge to throw back that she had to escape for her own sanity and that the time she missed was because she had been stuck in another universe that had thrown her back three years after she left. “This is doing no good. I have no idea why you did not contact and let me know of all the people. This was complex but I could have helped. This is why when I called and asked for help you came so easily?”

"You have not always been the most forthcoming yourself," Jaxx shot back, allowing himself a moment of cracked resolve. He simmered quickly, however, and simply shook his head. "I would urge you not to mistake an absence of explanation as a lack of wanting to reach out to you. It hasn't been easy." For once, the truth of that reflected heavily in his eyes. "I would have given anything at times to pick your brain but to do so involved divulging information that just isn't mine to tell." Jaxx held eye contact for a moment before tiptoeing as close to the line as he was prepared to go. "I will seek her permission and then I am happy to fill you in entirely. Just know that a lot of it hasn't been entirely intentional on her part, there are...extenuating circumstances."

"My reasons were much more universe-shattering." Starfleet Intelligence's control over her and the crew had thankfully gone away but it left a taste in her mouth even years on that she could not get rid of. As if trying, she downed the drink and started to pour another. "Then I will wait patiently to see what these extenuating circumstances are." She sighed holding the now fall glass in her hand as she stared at it.

"I'll explain what's happened here to Mae and see if I can get her to talk to you, or at least...let me explain. I'm sorry, for what it's worth." Never had the man looked quite so wretched, though the heavy bags beneath his eyes were contributing significantly to ageing the Betazoid a good decade or so. "I'm here because you asked, for sure, and also because it was time to step away a bit." Izriel released a sigh of tension. "If the recruitment pamphlet had included mention of an unguided tour around multiple potential timelines, I might have packed some stronger analgesics though."

Jeassaho stayed silent thinking of all the potential futures she had seen and the pasts that had brought up some of the worst moments of her life. “I am sure I would have packed stronger booze.” Jeassaho said softly. … Or something a lot stronger. She added mentally.

The only response at first was an overly cynical huff of laughter, which didn't suit Jaxx at all, forgivable though it might have been. It was then that he chose to down the entire contents of his glass, which met with a grimace and a choice, at least for now, not to refill it. "I was there when she went into labour." It was a change of subject but, in many ways, this was more the point of the conversation even than his own marital status. It wasn't that Izriel was inclined to read much into anything that he'd experienced; the universe and its many iterations were infinite in possibility and there wasn't a great deal of a stretch to suppose that somewhere out there, under certain circumstances, the pair of them would just choose to rely on each other and push forward. The pregnancy, which he honestly didn't know if Jeassaho had also experienced, was where things got a little raw.

Jeassaho nodded quickly her eyes on the image of herself in labour. “It will have been terrible so it was probably for the best you escaped. It was last time.” Jeassaho said opening her eyes but kept them firmly on the stars in front of her. She tried not to think about a potential future but it was hard when she had seen it with her own eyes.

"I disappeared again before anything really took off. Towards the end, when I was flipping through places with barely any time to register where I was, I think maybe I went forward far enough to see her." Jaxx reached his hand up to knead at the back of his neck. "Then again, it could have been anyone's kid." He cocked an eyebrow and, for a moment, an element of amusement shone through. "Doesn't seem to be a shortage of those to look forward to." It occurred to him then that, given recent issues around disclosure, that it might have been prudent to mention the other child he'd met that was reputedly his but that involved another mother, an other crewmember, and it didn't sit right to bring it up at all if not with her first.

“I doubt it. It was one of many futures.” Jeassaho nodded as she savoured another sip of the nectar. “I try not to think on her.” Jeassaho admitted sadly. “It brings up Alexis and I do not want to think on what would have had to change for me to consider a child.”

"I don't think we need to lose sleep over any of it," Jaxx lied, if only because it was a sentiment he wasn't likely to put into practise easily, at least in a very literal sense. "Too many possible permutations, too many variables. And that's assuming the whole thing was entirely random and not a botched attempt at a hypothetical simulation based on a very warped interpretation of current possibilities." He stretched out a foot to gently nudge her leg. "Even if it was based on something tangible, I saw too many scenarios where one or both of you had decided to duck out early. Consider yourself both under prolonged medical observation. Doctor's orders; no dying."

“Love to see you try.” Jeassaho stated after a long moment where she was stuck on the day when she had given birth to a child that would never survive thanks to the traders who had attacked the shuttle, taken Gregnol and left the rest of them for dead. “You might not lose sleep but I will certainly will be.” She admitted. As a child and teenager she had been the passionate one who would over think and burn far too brightly too quickly and it had not changed as a grown up.

"Didn't say I wasn't bound to be a hypocrite. Besides, since when have you started taking me literally." His smile didn't last but there was an effort, at least. As Izriel's features returned once more to their closed-off introspection, he turned his attention to the view and sat in silence for a moment before continuing. "We just need to live the life in front of us, Jea. Whatever happened to me right at the end, when it just kept spitting me out over and over with barely any time to take breath, it made at least one thing abundantly clear; there's a lot of potential shit on the horizon. Trying to account for all of it is just going to drive you crazy."

Jeassaho downed the rest of her drink and nodded. “There is so much coming our way.” She agreed wondering if she should tell him to run and hide and save himself but then the little part of her felt selfish that if any of it came to pass she would still have him. “I… Izriel… I want to tell you … this is a mess in my head.” She sighed rubbing her temples.

The other Betazoid raised his empty glass. "Cheers to that." With a half-hearted huff of laughter, he set the glass down again without refilling it. "I think I've probably seen a good assortment of what the future has to choose from. Not all of it was doom and gloom." To be fair, most of which he'd experienced at any length had contained an element of at least gloom but overcoming adversity still seemed to be an overarching theme.

"Well let's just hope that things are not quite as depressing or complicated as they turn out." She sighed raising her own glass not at all convinced but she needed time to think through it all properly but at the very least this conversation had cleared up a couple of things for her.