Lieutenant JG Valin Dermont - In the Here and Now

[Brell]

((USS Atlantis, Dermont’s Personal Quarters - Deck 4))

(OOC:The day they were scheduled to depart the moon)

 

::Three hours ago, Dermont had walked into his quarters after a full day of finishing the refit to deck thirteen.  He had been pleased with the results, despite having to give a Romulan a secure, unmonitored comm line off the ship.  That hadn’t set well with him, but he was learning to get over it. Of course, some brig time thanks to his overly paranoid self had begun to teach him a lesson about assumptions.::

 

::He had entered his quarters, rather exhausted, but in surprisingly good spirits.  He still hadn’t really bonded with the engineering crew at a personal level, but professionally they were really hitting a stride and that was really all he wanted.  They still came to him with issues more often he really wanted, so he had made crewman Yelchin a sort of middleman to filter out the garbage.::

 

oO The man should really consider becoming an officer.  He’s got the knack for paperwork…Oo

 

::He tossed two PADDs onto the chair in front of him and glanced around at the bare walls.  His luggage with his personal belonging still sat by the door to the bedroom.  He had barely brought anything out since he had boarded.  He clapped his hands together and made his way over to the bags.  He wasn’t going anywhere any time soon and it was time he made this place a bit more personal.::

 

::So the three hours had passed and now the place had a bit more life to it.  He had reached out to Toryn and had the other man shoot him a copy of the holopic taken from their trip on top of the mountain.  The Al-Leyan had sounded rather surprised at the request, but had sent it over almost immediately.  It was not in a frame right beside his favorite chair.  Raga, Lambert, Serala, and himself in the front with a backdrop of a majestic mountain range.  Off to one side you could see rows of beautiful ice palaces and the Atlantis set down among them.  It was quite an image.::

 

oO See, I’m growin’ up.  Even got me a picture of a Romulan in the livin’ room! Oo

 

::He touched all the items in the room one by one.  A painting his daughter had made with her watercolors.  A model of the Enterprise NX-01 pieced together by him and his son back when they were much closer.  His old Klingon disruptor, now completely useless as all the internal components were missing.  Now it was just a piece of junk on a wall, but he was glad to see it nonetheless.::

 

::He stopped on the wall next to the door.  On it was a large holopic.  The men and women in it were all smiling.  It had been a big day.  They dropped the largest cargo they had ever hauled that morning and fortune had favored them when their original buy had backed out.  The new buyer they had found had paid thirty percent more and they made enough profit to begin plans to turn the unused Captain’s mess into a small holosuite.  Of course the actual refit would have been a nightmare and they never got around to it, but just the idea was enough to put everyone into fine spirits.::

 

::He reached up to put on hand on the edge of the frame.  Three humans, one Betazed, two half-betazed children, six Bolians, one Andorian, one Catullan, and one Klingon...the finest crew he had ever worked beside.  They had been his responsibility.  And with the exception of his now ex-wife and his two children, they were all dead.  Only luck had them off the ship at the time of the attack.  He put a finger to each of his crew as wished them luck in whatever came after this world.::

 

Dermont:  Norman...Chesh...Preena...Prium...Gloria...Chel-var...Meudar...Dolmak...Ciat...Gard…::A pause at the Bolian with the wildest and most alive grin he had ever seen.::  Maz…

 

::It was time he moved forward.  Time to stop hiding what had happened behind anger and hate.  These men and women had been his family for years.  You don’t bury that kind of love and connection.  You celebrate it.::

 

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Lieutenant Valin Dermont

Engineering

USS Atlantis

A239410VD0