As the old saying goes...
Posted on Fri Feb 10th, 2023 @ 12:57am by Chief Petty Officer Calley Loreth
Mission:
R&R: The Reprieve
Location: Esquimalt Base
1017 words - 2 OF Standard Post Measure
Calley sat on her bed as she pulled her hair down, hand over hand as she pulled in an almost absent-minded movement. The entire experience with the multiple realities and all the different types of people and things that had come into the Vesta that she had been on had been taxing, to say the least. While she had not gone over to any other realities, she had seen the ones that had come here and even heard the rumour that she herself had potentially come over to this reality from another one.
The rumours were bugging her, she couldn’t help it. This other Calley had apparently been dressed like a doctor and had immediately jumped in giving Martin… Dr Sorensen, a run for his money apparently in dealing with some of the harder cases.
All it made Calley think was why couldn’t that be her?
Why wasn’t that her?
Where had she gone wrong in this life versus that one that had led her to be at this point in her life?
She was unhappy, she was falling apart still, unsure of who and what she was. Was she a Romulan? Was she a human? Was she truly both species like her genetics said she was?
She just didn’t know and it pulled at her insides, at her mind, at her thoughts. It plagued her.
It had only been 2 weeks since the Vesta had returned to Esquimalt Starbase and here she was sitting on her bed, pulling at her hair, contemplating who and what she was. Something that had become an almost regular occurrence for her that never seemed to go anywhere. Her mind moved in circles, her thoughts back and forth.
All Calley knew was that she had been lost, and while she wasn’t as lost as she had once been to the point where she had actively sought out things to hurt herself now, she sat here lost in her own thoughts.
This other Calley, one of the other nurses had told her about her. Her about her, what an odd thought for Calley to really have. Someone else had told her about herself, but not herself, another herself one from another reality.
This Calley had long hair, she was happy, she was true. She had apparently put Martin in his place by simply saying a few strong words and all but commanding him into his office where he had taken a break.
She had been forceful, light and happy.
All things Calley wanted to be.
Or things she thought she could be.
Calley continued to pull at her hair, its natural light waves being pulled to straight from the… how long had she been sitting here thinking about this other version of her, this version of her that was successful and everything that she wanted to be.
Too long, she had been here too long thinking about herself in that way.
But here she was, thinking about herself and Martin, or this other herself and Martin. Something that she felt could happen, or not happen, it didn’t matter, it was just the pure thought that something like that could happen was putting her through spirals.
This Calley had been so happy, and here she was destroyed, picking up herself up from the beginning all over again. She had to build herself up from the base blocks. Could she truly be someone that was happy like her other self was?
Someone that could find a partner, or former partner, or just someone that would care about her enough to make her feel something that wasn’t shame?
Shame.
That was it wasn’t it?
She had felt shame, she had always felt shame. She had lived in that shame and based her entire life around that shame.
She had let it dictate her life, the shame of her mother being a spy. The shame that she was half Romulan instead of a Half Vulcan.
The shame that she was who she was.
She didn’t even know if there was a way to get over this shame at this point in her life. She had lived in this shame for so long in her life that it had become a part of her. What would happen if she even took it out of her core identity and tried to be someone who didn’t feel shame about who they were and what they were?
Would she be able to survive?
Calley just didn’t know.
She didn’t know who she was without that shame, but obviously, this other version of herself had known what it was like to live without shame. This other Calley, she could use her as an example for herself. She could strive to be this version of herself, one that didn’t feel shame about her past, the one that didn’t feel shame about her mother.
The one that didn’t feel shame was Calley Loreth.
Yes, Calley Loreth, that was who she was, and that’s who she could no longer feel shame in being and the only way to do that was to be herself. To ignore the part of her that forced her to feel that shame over herself and who she was.
But how?
And so, Calley continued to sit there, pulling on her hair in an absent-minded fashion. She was stuck in her head, trying to figure out how not to feel the shame of being herself. Maybe eventually she’d figure out that she should talk to someone, but for now, in her mind, she already knew the first step. This other Calley had felt pride in herself, so Calley would do her best to emulate her. She’d grow her hair out, and dress in a more positive manner the way the recordings had shown she was dressed, her other self that was. Yes, that was what Calley would do, she would change, she would…
What was it that humans had said for so long?
Fake it until you make it.
