Moving Forward

Posted on Fri Nov 3rd, 2023 @ 10:41am by Consul Josephine Carlyle-Cragen

Mission: Season 6: Episode 4: Memory Lane
Location: Josephine's Cabin
Timeline: MD2 - sometime in the night
660 words - 1.3 OF Standard Post Measure

Josie sat quietly in her cabin, her new-born daughter slept beside her in the small bassinet she had, had replicated. Liberty was a quiet child. And Josie was grateful for that. She had a lot to think about. So much in the past 11 months had happened and she needed to come to grips with it.

Kyle, Arri, Liberty, her parents were barely able to look at her, not that that was a surprise. They wanted her to just do the right thing and get back with Arrianna. After all, they had worked with Arri’s family to find her. And they liked her family. They had also advocated for her to give the child up for adoption as it was too late for a termination. That was never going to happen. Liberty was her second chance, and Kyle would never forgive her if that happened, nor would she forgive herself. To make sure she would be able to share memories with her parents (she loved them still) and eventually with Kyle via correspondence, she took holos and recordings of Liberty. Yes she was only a few months old but infants change a lot in their first year. She stored them on a chip charm attached to a bracelet she wore around her left wrist.

What they didn’t know was that the trauma that Josie had faced ran so deep that she could barely look at Arrianna sometimes. Not that was a problem now, Arrianna being dead and all. She had point blank refused to go through her things. Leaving that to Kyle Reece who was the lover of Arrianna’s cousin. In fact, she had refused to have anything to do with Arri’s Will and such. And she had wanted nothing from the things left to her. She had donated them to other crewmembers. Even clothes that had once belonged to her, when she had been dating Arri, had been given away, as Arri had kept them in her closet. Arri was not fully at fault for the break in their relationship she owned her own part of it.

When she had moved back to the ship, she had been granted a small single berth cabin, which she did not mind at all, and had in fact, argued against the need for more than one bedroom. Her daughter would not need her own bedroom for at least 12 months, and she would wait for that. Maybe by that time they would be back on Earth, where she could take Liberty to Kyle’s holdings and let her daughter grow up there, a normal childhood without being on a starship.

A dream that would be, would Starfleet allow her to just quit? She had so much on her dossier that it was a wonder she as even allowed on a starship and not locked away in some black site somewhere. To be able to sit under one of the vast trees at Kyle’s estate, on a blanket, with her daughter playing on the grass was a dream one she knew better than to dwell on.

Her time alone with Liberty was growing to a close, she would need to speak with the Commodore and Captain about it. She was not sure diplomacy was the best fit for her. She had only been placed there because of Arrianna. And she didn't want to go back to science now, and she needed to do something that allowed her time to be with Liberty at night.

Sighing, Josie slid from the chair and moved to the bed in the corner of the cabin to settle down for the night. Maybe tonight she would get some sleep.. dreams were not fun these days. Not fun at all. The last thing she wanted or needed were more dreams about the past year. She so did not need them. She pulled the blanket over her form and closed her eyes and willed herself to sleep.