What He Took 

Posted on Fri Feb 13th, 2026 @ 1:40pm by Consul Josephine Carlyle-Cragen

Mission: Season 6: Episode 6: Conglomerate
Location: USS Elysium
560 words - 1.1 OF Standard Post Measure

Josephine did not speak immediately.

She sat with her hands folded, posture precise, pregnancy disguised beneath her uniform — a habit she had not yet unlearned. When she finally looked up, there was no hesitation left in her eyes. Whatever she had come to say, she had already said the hardest parts somewhere else.

“There are kinds of captivity people understand,” she began quietly. “Fear. Isolation. Violence. Those fit neatly into reports.”
She paused.“What Kyle did was quieter.” Her gaze drifted, not unfocused, but inward. “He didn’t shatter me all at once. He reshaped me slowly. Gave me choices that weren’t really choices. Rewarded compliance. Punished resistance without ever raising his voice.” She exhaled. “He called it love.”

Josephine’s expression did not change when she said his name. “He knew me from a century where I had no protections. No records. No witnesses. I think that made him feel entitled — as if survival itself had been consent.” She shifted slightly in her chair. “I met with him before I rejoined the Elysium,” she said. “While he was already imprisoned. Fully restrained. Surrounded by safeguards that would have made him furious in any other context.”

The counselor remained silent.

“I asked for the meeting,” Josephine continued. “Not because I needed answers. I already had those. I needed the story to stop being unfinished.” She folded her hands more tightly. “He still thought of me as his wife. Still spoke as if law and time were inconveniences.” A faint, humorless breath escaped her. “I presented him with the divorce papers. Federation-recognized. Final.” Josephine lifted her eyes.

“That was the moment I knew I was free.” Her voice steadied further as she went on. “I told him my name. My real one. I told him he would never use another again.” She paused. “He signed the dissolution. Voluntarily.”

The counselor’s presence grounded the silence that followed.

“He also relinquished his parental rights,” Josephine said softly. “Not because he was compelled to — because, for once, he understood the cost of his presence.” Her hand rested unconsciously over her abdomen. “He wrote a will. Named our daughter. Asked nothing in return.” Josephine closed her eyes briefly, then opened them. “For a long time, I thought the worst thing he did was what he made me endure.” She swallowed. “But the worst thing was convincing me that endurance was who I really was.” She straightened. “I am not Sephine,” Josephine said firmly. “She was a wound shaped like a person. I don’t hate her. She kept me alive.”

She met the counselor’s gaze.

“But she does not get to define me.” The counselor asked what Josephine wanted now — having spoken all of this aloud.
Josephine considered the question carefully.

“I want the story to be finished,” she said. “Not erased. Not rewritten. Just… closed.”

Her hand tightened slightly, then relaxed. “Kyle Cragen does not get my silence anymore,” she continued. “But he doesn’t get my life. Not my child. Not my future. Not my name.” She exhaled slowly. “I divorced him before I returned to this ship,” Josephine said. “I did not bring him with me — not in law, not in memory, not in identity.” When the session ended, Josephine did not feel lighter. She felt settled. And for the first time since captivity, that felt like victory.

--