round 18 Cpt Jalana Rajel - Gestures

[+ Hutch]

Gestures, in love, are incomparably more attractive, effective and valuable than words.
~ Francois Rabelais


(( Trill - Laxyn Residence )) 

:: Time was one of the few things one never had enough of. One of the things that one needed more of, no matter what. But sometimes there was too much time and there was no way to fill a cosmic time account balance and use it for later. If so Jalana would have some extra hours on it now to use on something important. ::

:: The silence in the room was eerie. At some point her mind had turned off the receptors for the steady beep coming from the life-signs scanner monitoring her father in his sleep. Strong and in exact intervals, just like its owner. It had become a background noise and then it was gone. Not really, just not heard any more. She waited now for him to wake up, after having slept a couple of hours. Her own tiredness wasn't important in the light of her worry for the man who looked so tiny in the king sized canopy bed. :: 

:: A moan drew her attention to the source. He was waking up. Steps hurried closer and to nobody's surprise her mother entered the room, looking to the bed first and then to Jalana. She nodded to her mother, who then walked over to her husband sitting down at the edge, while Jalana stepped to the medical equipment on the other side of the bed, checking for all the details which were streaming in now that his body began to return to consciousness. :: 

Caline: Hey. 

:: Her mother's voice sounded soft and warm, as if she didn't want to overwhelm her husband with a sound too loud for him. Jalana smiled slightly, she had seen that almost every time when a loved one woke up in sick bay or a hospital. :: 

Vivan: Caline. ::There was a pause.:: Why am I home? 

Rajel: ::Turning towards the bed.:: Because I told mom to bring you here. 

:: His head jumped around so fast, she thought he'd become dizzy from the motion. His gray eyes stared at her as if he'd seen a ghost, then it whipped around again to look at his wife. :: 

Vivan: What is she doing here?

:: A dagger sliced through her heart as he asked the question. Not even to her, but her mother. He did not even do that? :: 

Caline: She is our daughter, and she is the best doctor we know. 

Vivan: Pah! 

Caline: She dropped everything the moment I called her.

Vivan: ::grumbling:: Should have stayed where she was. 

:: The older redhead looked up to Jalana, her eyes full of sadness and the attempt to apologize for his behaviour as she had done the rare times Jalana had been able to talk with her ever since her father had kicked her out. The younger Trill just nodded slightly. She knew her mom tried, but he was just pig headed. No doubt where Jalana had gotten that tendency from. :: 

Rajel: I'm here to make sure, that you'll get better. :: He did not say a word. :: I can do that without you talking with me, but it'll just lead to me having to stay longer than you want me to be here. So talking with me would be -

Vivan: You still talk to much. 

Rajel: ::smirking:: See that wasn't hard. Now let's see how you are doing, shall we? 



(( Timeskip )) 

:: After that little intermezzo with her father -in which he had spoken more words to her than in the last 10 years combined- Jalana had taken the results with her and let him get some breakfast and talk with her mother. The results looked good and the doctors who had done the first response and first treatment had done well to make sure he was stable. Seeing this she would not have to come here, he had been in good hands. But she knew how scared her mother had been and still was. So she didn't regret coming at all. :: 

:: When she heard her mother leave his bedroom next door, she gave him a few more minutes and then decided to return to the lion's den to have the doctor talk with him. Quietly she entered and saw him sit in his big chair at the window. He was fully dressed in suit, as she had always seen him in. He was a proud man, who didn't want anyone to see him in his sleeping garb, not even his family. The silence was deafening. And Jalana had the intention of popping that bubble. :: 

Rajel: How are you feeling? 

:: For a while nothing happened and she believed he had decided to stop talking to her again, before he finally spoke, but not in the way she had expected. :: 

Vivan: Your mother said you are a Starfleet Captain now. 

:: She looked over to him and nodded, before realizing he couldn't see it. :: 

Rajel: Yes. 

Vivan: What about your... dream. Being a doctor. 

Rajel: I am. I was Chief Medical officer, earned my doctor degree and Starfleet thought I was the right person to command a starship. 

::Silence, for another minute.:: 

Vivan: And you left your ship, because of me. 

:: There was no way to say it any differently. And one didn't lie in this house. Ever. :: 

Rajel: Yes. 

:: When he did not say any more, she walked over to him and pulled a chair from her mother's vanity, to sit down next to her father at the window. There she sat in silence with him, giving him time to mull things over in his head. :: 

Vivan: How is it? 

:: The question came so sudden that it felt like a gunshot. :: 

Rajel: How is what? 

:: He turned his head and looked at her, for the first time in many years, without the usual obvious disgust and disappointment. :: 

Vivan: To be joined. ::he paused:: Your mother told me. 

:: She couldn't hold back the smile. She was the first in her family to be joined, no matter how far back one would go in the Laxyn family tree, nobody had done that. It was something to be proud of, and she was. It felt good to see him show interest in something she did or had achieved. :: 

Rajel: Exciting, overwhelming, fascinating, fantastic, scary... everything at once. I have so many memories that I know are not mine, but they feel like they are. I still get that confused sometimes. 

:: He was quiet again, before he reached to the little table on his right and took a book from it. She recognized it immediately. It was one of hers, no Olen's. And it was not one of these dreaded fiction works that ruined his life, no. It was one of his early works. :: 

Vivan: When your mother told me your name, I remembered I had this. Is that the same Rajel? 

:: She took the book he held out to her and gingerly held it in her fingers, her fingertips brushing over the worn leather. It was old, so old. And it was in great shape, obviously taken care of. Her dad had such a big library that she had never seen all of his books. She had no idea that he even owned this. :: 

Rajel: Yes. He was the first host. ::She remembered how much these books had meant to Olen, how painful it had been to have to let go, to write something he never liked to earn a living and to then be awarded for that hated work. So much pain - She raised her eyes to look at her dad.:: The first of Six before me.

Vivan: That is a lot of memories. ::As she handed the book back to him, he put a hand on the top of it and pushed it back.:: Keep it. It's yours, you should have a piece of your lives. 

:: Speechless about that gesture she looked at him, only seeing a blur through the veil that lowered over her eyes. Her throat closed up and she had to bite her lip to keep it from quivering. Jalana reached out and put her hand on his, covering it as she squeezed gently. No words in the galaxy would have expressed how much this small gesture meant to her, how it washed over the mine field of hurt and rejection that had built up between them in the last decade, soothing the soil which had been turned to ashes in the wildfire. :: 

:: Maybe not all was lost. :: 

:: Maybe. :: 

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Captain Jalana Rajel
Commanding Officer
USS Constitution B
Image Team Facilitator
A238906JL0