Reunion

Posted on Sun Feb 3rd, 2019 @ 8:08pm by Lieutenant Commander Mnhei'sahe Dox & Jaeih Dox-t'Aan & Commander Rita Paris

Mission: Earthly Visitation
Location: Earth, San Francisco, Starfleet Intelligence
Timeline: 2396

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L0BUsDf0dxY

In the turbolift at the headquarters of Starfleet Command, Lieutenant Mnhei'sahe Dox fidgeted nervously with her uniform. For the tenth time, she readjusted her crimson tunic and checked for stains on her Comm Badge. Over her shoulder was slung a small black duffle bag.

Currently she was on her way to do something she hadn't done in almost 7 years... stand in the same room as her mother. Her mother, Jaeih Dox, had been in the service of Starfleet for over 15 years since her capture as a smuggler and former Romulan Engineer and the last time the two spoke in person was after Dox had just graduated from the academy. However, at that time, Jaeih was simply in protective custody. Now she was interred as a consultant with Starfleet Intelligence, and it took a little doing for the young Lieutenant to get the clearance for a visit.

Standing beside her in the lift was her friend and First Officer, Rita Paris, who had bent over backwards to make it happen. The young lieutenant had seen a very different side of the friendly first officer when the guard assigned to the front desk of Starfleet Intel’s separate bank of turbolifts with Starfleet headquarters had attempted to refuse them entry. After a few pleasant inquiries had come a gentle request for the guard to allow Paris through with a +1. As he could not access Paris’ file for clearance, that in and of itself served as clearance in her case. But he remained adamant until Rita had grown creative.

“You know my name, Petty Officer Stantowicz. So that means that if I start making phone calls that I’ve been held up in the course of my official duties, whom do you suspect is going to be taking the call for Commander Paris’ clearance?”

It was a bluff, of course, because Admiral Owen Paris likely would not know Rita from Adam. But the advantage of bearing the name of a Starfleet legacy family was that people tended to not want to argue with it, lest they incur the wrath of the brass. Admiral Owen Paris was not someone any enlisted man wanted to tangle, so after an appropriate identification and sign in, with another argument over bringing in outside materials, they were on their way.

“I just want to be clear, Mnhei’sahe, I’m only here to throw my clout, such as it is, behind getting you in to see your mum. You two need time alone, and that’s what you’ll have. I’ll be outside when you’re done, but this is a mother and child reunion- no first officer is necessary unless there is one hell of a catastrophe. I don’t want nor do I need to intrude here… okay?” With all of the time they had spent together, Dox had learned how to understand the straight-shooting first officer, who said what she meant and meant what she said.

"I understand. And... and thank you for making this happen. Seriously." Dox continued looking forward in the lift as she spoke, working overtime to keep her nerves in check. She was excited and terrified all at the same time, but she was glad Rita was at least going to be nearby.

“You’d do the same for me, shipmate,” the ancient astronaut replied. “Because it’s the right thing to do.”

With a woosh that actually made the anxious aviatrix flinch just a bit, the turbolift doors opened on the secure level where her Mother now lived. Taking a deep breath, Mnhei'sahe stepped out into the plain corridor with Rita behind her. Across from her was the door to Jaeih Dox's quarters.

Turning back, Dox flashed Rita a nervous smile, which was met by a knowing nod that clearly indicated You go on now, you got this.

Stepping forward, the door to her Mother's quarters wooshed open and Mnhei'sahe took a breath, stepping inside. The quarters were fairly large but undecorated, and standing in front of the far windows facing the door was Jaeih Dox.

The taller, slender Romulan woman had her hands behind her back for a moment, but upon watching Mnhei'sahe enter the room, her practiced, rigid posture slackened as her hands slumped to her sides. Her jaw opened slightly, and instead of her customary greeting of 'Jolan'tru’, she simply whispered, “M… Mnhei'sahe…”

She was prepared this time for a visitor, but was unprepared for the rush of emotions at the sight of her daughter in front of her for real. This wasn't a recorded message or a hologram. This was her daughter for real. Again, she whispered, “Mnhei'sahe.”

Across the room, Mnhei'sahe Dox was frozen in place, not knowing how to process her feelings as she replied with a cracked voice. “Jolan'tru, Mother.”

They stood for a moment in silence before Jaeih walked slowly towards her daughter. Stopping just an arm's length away, she raised a trembling hand up to touch the side of Mnhei'sahe's face softly. “You… you're here. You're really here. She said she would bring…”

“I'm here, Mother.” Mnhei'sahe replied, putting her hand over her mother's and holding it tightly. An instant later, Jaeih shot forward to wrap her arms around her daughter. The two embraced for what felt like a full minute.

After that minute or so, Jaeih let go and stepped back to compose herself. “Jolan'tru, Daughter.” the elder Romulan woman straightened the dark grey Starfleet Intelligence tunic she wore, the same cut as her daughter's though bereft of rank or insignia.

Stepping over to the small kitchenette, Jaieh poured two cups of strong Romulan coffee from a small pot she had been brewing. Then she looked at the cups and paused for a moment. “I… I don't. Do you still…”

Leaning her head back, she sighed. “I don't remember how you like your coffee. I'm sorry.”

Smiling slightly, Mnhei'sahe walked over to help. “Black. That's perfect, Mother. Thank you.” Taking the offered cup, the young pilot walked over to the sofa and sat down. Jaeih sat in the chair across from her.

“So,” Jaeih gestured with her cup towards the door to the hallway. “That's her. The… what did you call her. 'the most human human that ever humaned’?”

Forgetting the unusual description Dox used for Rita during their last conversation, she chuckled a bit. “Yes. That's Commander Paris. She's been an… exceptional friend to me.”

Taking a sip from her coffee, Jaeih nodded. “Indeed. I found her to be quite interesting myself. I can see why you've… latched on to her emotionally.”

Becoming somewhat embarrassed by the idea, Mnhei'sahe blushed. “MOTHER! I'm not. That's not fair.”

“You misunderstand me. I'm actually quite glad. If I'd met more humans like her, I'd likely have a better opinion of them as a whole. Most haven't impressed me near as much, so there's that.” the Jaeih realized she was straying into territory likely to cause tension and changed course.

“I know there's virtually nothing you can tell me about your ship or your assignments, of course, but… how are you.” Jaeih asked, leaning forward slightly.

Taking a sip, Mnhei'sahe looked down at her feet as she thought. There was so little she could say. She couldn't mention becoming a Baroness of the Artan Pirate family. She couldn't mention meeting the literal embodiment of Death. She certainly couldn't confide in her about the disastrous mission at the Section 31 research station that still haunted her. Everything related to the Hera was classified. So instead, she talked about her day to day life. She talked about the friends she made, avoiding names or rank. She went on about the progress she was making in her meditative training with Sonak.then, after a while of meandering conversation, she paused.

“Mother…” she asked, somewhat sheepishly at first. “I have… there's something I need to ask you about. Something I couldn't ask over subspace frequency.”

The tone was serious, and Jaeih straightened in her chair expecting the worst.

“I need to know. Who is Dralath Tr’Rul?”

There was a tense silence in the air as Jaeih's face went wide. "Dra... Dralath?" She paused for moment to compose herself, but Mnhei'sahe interjected.

"Sonak. Commander Paris told me she mentioned his name. Sonak's been teaching me medatative techniques. To help me calm my mind and to help me clarify the memories that have been unlocked." The young pilot took a sip of her coffee.

"When I meditate, things come back to me sometimes. Details. Faces. Names. I remember him. His face and his voice." Mnhei'sahe kept the key detail of having seen the same man just weeks ago at a Pirate auction, but wanted to avoid anything about her recent inclusion into the Artan Pirate family.

She also neglected to mention that she had learned from her fellow Artan Baroness, Schwein Von Alcott, that he was former Tal'Shiar. Mnhei'sahe's trust of her mother was shakey at best and she wanted to hold on to that information to see if Jaeih would volunteer it herself.

"The memory was a pleasant one. Who... was he, Mother?"

Standing up, Jaeih took her coffee and walked over to the window. She had sworn to Rita Paris that she would never lie to her daughter again. But in the moment, the former Romulan soldier and Engineer felt the pressure in the room and the overwhelming desire to not open up her own heart to that memory.

"Yes, we knew Dralath tr'Rul. It was when you were younger... after I had sent your father away. He was a Romulan smuggler that was a provider of Kali-Fal for us. He had... Designs on me and stopped working with us when I rebuked his advances. This was all when you were quite young."

From behind her, Mnhei'sahe put her coffee cup long enough to reverberate throughout the mostly empty room. Jaeih snapped around at the sound with a start. Standing up, the younger woman looked around with an intensly sad look across her face. Pained as if struck. After a lifetime of lies, it was clear that her Mother couldn't quite not do it.

"Dralath tr'Rul was a Tal'Shiar agent. And he called me by name. He called me 'Mnhei'sahe', Mother. You told me I couldn't bear to hear that name after what my father did. So which is the truth, Mother?" Her sadness was now being replaced by anger.

"This is it. Once I'm gone, we won't be able to talk about any of this over subspace frequencies. Why can't you just tell me the truth?" Dox raised her voice as she spoke, barely keeping it under a yell.

Across the room, Jaeih stood rigidly in place. Her expression was stern and blank, not betraying the whirlwind of emotions she was feeling. "What would you have me say, Mnhei'sahe? Not everything is about you. Not every secret is the key to your soul!"

Her anger no longer contained, the young officer snapped back, no longer speaking in English but in her native Rihan tongue. "No, Mother! You don't get to be the victim here. And you don't get to call me that when you have NO idea what it means!"

Fighting back tears that were welling up, the elder woman just stood and absorbed it. "You told be that we were Rihannsu. You taught me that meant adhering to the principles of honor. Of truth and ruling passion, no matter how difficult. All of those things the Tal'Shiar regimes bled from our people with their lies and manipulation. All those things that turned the Rihannsu people into the Romulans that the Federation always believed we were!"

Standing by the window, Jaeih was barely.containing her own emotions and her eyes betrayed her heart as they shine with the tears she was trying to bury. "Then you already know the truth about him. So you came, what, to test me?"

A single tear escaped and rolled down her cheek as she spoke. "Am I not entitled to anything of my own that you need to be about you? Do you have enough truth or do you need me to weep for you, as well?"

"I need you to stop lying to me as a default setting, Mother. I... I want you to be a part of my life. But I need to be able to trust you." Mnhei'sahe pleaded across the room. But Jaeih remained as stone faced as she could.

"Have you stopped to consider even once that your quest for identity could open wounds for anyone but yourself? I did everything I could do to be there for you. I gave up everything for you." Jaeih paused for a moment to consider her words carefully.

"Trust me or don't. As always, you will do what you will."

Standing across from her, Mnhei'sahe looked down for a moment and took a breath. "This isn't what I wanted, Mother. I wanted to believe we could... be more than this."

Sighing, Jaeih looked across the room at her Daughter with sadness cracking through her facade. "I want that too. But I don't know if you will let that happen."

Picking up the small duffle bag she brought in with her, Mnhei'sahe placed it on the table. "I'm not asking for the universe, Mother. Just a little trust."

The tension in the room, built up over a lifetime, had become too thick. Both women stood on either side, neither moving any closer to each other. After a tense minute of silence, Mnhei'sahe slowly turned towards the door to leave, feeling completely defeated.

As she did, Jaeih lurched slightly forward to reach out but pulled her hand back. "M... Mnhei'sahe." she called out weakly.

At the door, the crimson clad officer paused and turned back around, waiting. From the other side of the room Jaeih stood silently, struggling to find the words that refused to come for nearly a full minute before Mnhei'sahe broke the silence.

"I love you, Mother. And I'm sorry for this." She said.

There was a brief moment of silence as Jaeih replied, her voice cracked. "I... Love you too, Mnhei'sahe." But she said nothing more.

Nodding sadly, the door hissed open. As Dox stepped out into the corridor, wiping a tear from her cheek. After a second the door closed behind her.


A blind man could have read the situation. Those slumped shoulders, the hangdog expression after the yelling which could be heard surprisingly well- apparently they didn't heavily insulate minimum security quarters at Starfleet Intel. What had happened had happened. As much as she might want to rush in and try to make peacemaker, she'd stayed out of it for a reason.

No one could get under your skin like family.

The only time she'd seen fear in Enalia Telven's eyes was when the possibility of encountering her mother came up. Rita's own father still haunted her life an impotent ghost, yet reflected in the lessons he had taught his only son that his daughter had embraced. While Mrs. Dox seemed fine to Rita and eager to see her daughter, family had old patterns and old blood, good and bad. Family had been there from the beginning and had been very formative. Family knew who you were, ans where all the weak spots were.

Approaching slowly, Rita Paris said nothing. Placing her hand on the redheaded Romulan's shoulder, the lost navigator steered her friend away from her past, and into her future.

--------------------

In the room, Jaieh listened to the sound of the turbolift doors close as her daughter left. From the other side of the room, she looked at the small bag for a long moment before slowly walking across to sit down in front of it.

After staring at it for what felt like an eternity, she unzipped the top and reached inside, pulling out two small framed photographs. The first, a picture of Mnhei'sahe Dox as she was today, standing proudly in her Starfleet uniform.

The second, a copy of the same picture that Dox had on a shelf in her quarters on the Hera. The only picture of Jaieh and her daughter from years ago, taken during her childhood on the Forager. A photograph that Mnhei'sahe had kept for years that Jaieh had thought was lost forever.

As Jaieh stared at the two pictures, the facade she had struggled to maintain cracked entirely as the elder Romulan woman wept. Through a flood of tears and a broken voice, to the empty room she whispered.

"I'm sorry too, Mnhei'sahe."

Words spoken too late now.

 

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