Cross Run

Posted on Tue Feb 5th, 2019 @ 5:16am by Commodore Jane Saulitis & Lieutenant Commander Angus Murphy

Mission: Run Afoul
Location: Brig, Deck 5
Timeline: following, "You Can't Run Away From Me"
1820 words - 3.6 OF Standard Post Measure

Jane was rubbing her left shoulder. She'd jerked in response to dropping her PADD and now regretted the involuntary movement to try and catch it. She probably should get it looked at, it had been bothering her more and more lately. But she was not in the mood to be poked and prodded. She really wasn't in the mood for anything now that one of her crew members, her second officer in fact, was in the brig. Jane practically pushed the doors to the brig open and gestured for Wilfred to leave. He took the hint and locked his station, hurrying from the room.

Murphy had been sitting on the edge of the bunk and watched Wilfred bolt from his station, wondering for a moment what the emergency was -- and then he spotted the Commander and the pit of his stomach tightened. He stood up slowly as she approached.

Jane paced and back and forth in front of Murphy. She wasn't even sure where to begin. She wasn't a yeller by nature but this was so stupid, so bullheaded, she just couldn't believe this of a senior officer. Finally she stopped and looked at him. "Care to tell me what happened?" She spoke with just a tad edge to her voice but it wasn't raised yet.

Murphy felt more shame in that moment, than perhaps ever in his life. He had to look away from her for fear of losing his own composure. "Sir, for what it's worth, I'm sorry." He knew she wasn't asking for an apology, but it seemed like a starting place. He rubbed his brow as he tried to formulate words that choked in his throat. His hands shook with emotion. "Every time I close my eyes I see him laying there in a pool of his own blood, feathers ruffled and broken, his head beat in..." He fought back a wave of nausea and shook his own head. "Or else it's the dead engineers and the smell of their charred bodies that I can't get out of my nose. I just... I just needed to forget. For one day, I just needed to not be living in that."

She let out a deep breath and let her shoulder slump though it gave her a sharp pain and she sucked in breath again. "So do I." She amitted. "And I can't undo what you've seen but that weight you're carrying around on your shoulders is mine and you know it. But, you don't see me drinking myself into a stupor and hitting people who are annoying but may be trying to help me." Her voice raised a little bit on that last sentence. "You need help." She finally finished. "And I could order you to speak to a counselor, even though we don't have a chief counselor yet. But I'm not sure you'd do it. You're so incredibly stubborn and blind and grumpy and a huge pain in my ass but I actually like you, so do most people on this ship. So I don't care what you think, you're going to sit down and you're going to tell me everything that's bothering you and I'll promise this moment that I won't repeat a single syllable of it to anyone."

"So you're admitting that Commander Sommers is annoying." Of all the nuggets to pull out of Jane's statement, that was the one that Murphy picked to ask about. He held up his hands in a defeated way, "I know, I know. Don't answer that." He thought now on her orders and he gave her a serious nod of understanding. "I'll try. I'm not the most open book."

Jane visibly rolled her eyes but decided not to grace his question with an answer. instead she stepped over to the console, typed in an access code and watched as the forcefield fell. Then she sat down on one of the benches in the cell and waited for him to start.

"Oh. Jeez. We're doing this now? Here?" Murphy had clearly thought this was a touchy-feely emotional exercise Jane was planning for sometime in the future and not in the stark white holding cell. "I don't know, cap, the book of Murph isn't something you can just open up to the middle and really understand. It's going to take... weeks to prep for this. Get my stories straight."

"I didn't walk all the way down here for my health," she quipped. "But if you want to wait a week that's fine. I'll just raise this field and you can have a nice little vacation in the brig. Mr. Wexler can keep you company, I'm sure he'll love that."

"And you said I was stubborn," Murphy huffed as he crossed his arms in classic defensive body posture. He remained standing. He face stiffened and his eyes shot up to the ceiling. He realized he'd never had to change the light emitters in a brig cell before and he started working out how he would do that when the time comes. "Are you even trained in counseling? An untrained professional can make matters worse, you know."

"I never said I was the only one you were going to have to talk to." Jane reminded him. "But at this moment, I'm the best you've got and I'm also the one holding the keys. I don't want to counsel you, I want you to tell me why you ended up here in the first place. Lay it on me, all of it."

"I'm not really a lay-it-all-out-there kind of guy," he muttered, lips tense, hands wrung together as he started a slow pacing from one corner of the brig cell to the opposite. "And I've seen counselors. I'm not opposed to... this. Whatever this is." He stepped a few more paces as he searched for words to tell her. "When Martin died, I blamed myself for a long ti--" He exhaled and shook his head. "Hell, I still feel the blame and the guilt and a hundred percent of the loss and I know it wasn't my fault, that there's nothing I could have done except die with him. But that would have been so, so, so much easier."

Jane nodded. She didn't know exactly how he felt but if anything happened to Hak she was entirely sure she wasn't strong enough to make it without him. "What does that have to do with the explosion and Patrick?" She nudged gently.

Patrick? His eyes shot up at her when she said the name. He'd yet to mention Patrick to her in the course of this conversation and he wasn't convinced he would have, if left to his own storytelling. He didn't want to go there, but she was clearly determined to take him there kicking and screaming. There was a long moment of silence and he finally gave a shrug. "I suppose when Patrick got hurt-- when, really, all the people down there got hurt, not just.. him-- it brought about these feelings again. And then he just wouldn't let me detach from that, to bury myself in my work. He just wanted me to take time away from the job and didn't understand when I couldn't. There's not time for downtime. I need to get everything back in order, back to 100 percent. And then I'll rest. Then I'll decompress. Then I'll process what I'm feeling."

"You're not a robot Murphy. You do need rest and to let other people take over for you. We have other engineers on this ship and if I gave you the impression that I wanted you to work yourself to death then I'm sorry. That was never my intention."

"This is not on you!" he snapped, pointing a finger at her suddenly. "Commander, it's my job to make sure this ship is safe and sound. I'm not going to rest well when that's not the case. Yes, maybe I can put a little more trust in Cravens or Ren... but at the end of the day, I'm the one that reports in and attests to you that she's safe. Don't take that away from me. Don't tell me I should be stepping away from my responsibilities. I have to make sure it's done the right way. Maybe that's a trust or a control issue, I don't know, but don't... just.. don't."

Jane sighed, though she'd been startled by his sudden outburst. "Fine, blame yourself but deny me the same pleasure I don't care. So you slugged Lhaes because you were drunk and upset about trying to do your job and Patrick reminded you of your husband and couldn't see that in the middle of an investigation you didn't have the time and energy for his affections?" She rubbed her face. "I'm generalizing but I'm trying to understand why you're torturing yourself with this."

Murphy closed his eyes. "I slugged Lhaes because he was being obnoxious, but yes, the booze didn't help that. It was a poor decision. And Patrick... Patrick is nothing like Marty, was, but yes. I'm afraid he's going to get hurt. I'm also afraid of being pampered and coddled in front of the people I am leading. They don't need to see that side of me. There's no room for a relationship in my job. I don't think he gets that and I was dumb for thinking it could happen."

"Hmm," Jane sighed slightly. She tucked a loose strand of her dark hair back behind one ear. "I have a boyfriend." Patrick was the only person on the ship, that she was aware, who knew of Hak's existence. "Actually technically he's my fiancé though we've never married and the question was asked years ago. But we've remained . . . close."

"Do you think you could do your job if he were here with you every day? If you had to worry about him all the time?" Murphy asked directly. "Or worry that he might bring you an omelette, just randomly, while you were in crisis mode?"

"Hak takes better care of his life than I do of myself. He understands my job though, he might scold me but I don't think he'd interfere unless he thought my life were in danger. But Patrick isn't in Starfleet." Jane suddenly got an idea. "Do you want me to talk to him? I have a thought about how to make this work." Knowing full well she was overstepping her bounds she stood up and left the cell. "You stay there for one hour and I'll be back to let you out."

"No, I don't want you to--" Murphy started to object, raising his voice as she walked further away. He threw his hands up and shook his head.


Lieutenant Angus Murphy
Chief Engineer and Brig Occupant
USS Majestic

Commander Jane Saulitis
Commanding Officer
USS Majestic