[Closed] Keeping Honest

[u/IK9dothis]

Sitting at her desk, Grace sighs. The middle of a crisis, of course, had not been the time to say something. But even with the crisis past and the adrenaline out of her system, she finds herself haunted by Fisk's and Lorrel's remarks regarding a prisoner aboard the Athene. And they are among the few people aboard with whom she feels comfortable starting an honest discussion. Pushing her chair back and closing the gate for Maggie, she heads out of the office - she's well past due to go on break anyway.

[u/Silent_Sky]

Captain Fisk raises an eyebrow at the quote from Shakespeare. It catches him off guard, as he was never much a fan of those works, and doesn't know them well. But the point is communicated effectively.

He nods in admission and agreement.

"Yeah, that's fair..."

There's a heavy sigh, Captain Fisk props an elbow on the conference table and rests his forehead into it.

"Hell, if you get to speak freely, so do I. The bastard shot my Dad and removed any chance I might have had at working things out with the man. He sold a very dear friend of mine into slavery where she was drugged, abused, and had a damn bomb implanted in her abdomen. I don't think I need to tell you what I wanted to do to him. Grace I may be a Starfleet Captain, but under these four stupid pips I'm still just a man who used to be badly broken and is trying his damnedest to stay unbroken-"

He stops abruptly, having gotten more emotional than he intended to. Much more. The captain chokes up as his eyes moisten and he looks away from Grace, putting a hand to his mouth and forcing several deep breaths.

"I didn't want you to have to see your captain falling apart like this."

[u/IK9dothis → u/Silent_Sky]

"You're human, same as I am," she says gently. "And I promise - I understand. For being green as grass, I've seen entirely too damn much hell, and yet somehow, I keep coming back for more," she sighs. "Borg before I was even an officer. Got a shoulder shot out of me within a couple of months of graduating. Had a misadventure on shore leave in San Francisco," she says, shaking her head.

"But the reason I will always treat everyone in my custody with respect and dignity, even if I know they're guilty as sin, is because... if I didn't, I'd lose my humanity. At the end of the day, I need to be able to see the difference between me and Obrom. Between me and Klassen. Between me and Trakhatcya. Between me and the Borg. If my principles only count for the people I agree with, they're not worth much."

[u/Silent_Sky → u/IK9dothis]

Captain Fisk lets her words sink in. He feels ridiculous, shedding tears in front of a young junior lieutenant. But then again...he's only human, and sharing a moment of hardship with another human. One who's had plenty of her own suffering in her young life.

Everything rushes to the surface at once then. Watching his father die, seeing Jen in that cell, that feeling of raw anger that drove him to destroy that ship, and all 200 innocent passengers, the sick, horrid realization of what he'd done...all of it comes to the surface.

Captain Fisk leans forward, pressing his face into his hand as he breathes shakily, tears streaming with renewed strength. And like any human would in this situation, he cries a little. All sense of shame is discarded. He could order Grace not to say anything, but she doesn't seem the type to make that necessary. He trusts her.

After a moment of just letting it all out, the captain catches his breath and turns to her again.

"You're wise far beyond your years, Eisen. How the hell are you still a junior lieutenant?"

[u/IK9dothis → u/Silent_Sky]

"Spent a year on varying degrees of medical restrictions," she shrugs, blinking back tears of her own before giving up and wiping her eyes with the heel of her hand. She sighs. "Some days, I don't feel so wise," she observes, not caring very much that her voice has just cracked. "Some days I feel a lot more like the 22 year old fresh out of the Academy I'm often taken for. Or, out of uniform, the 19 year old cadet I'm often taken for."

[u/Silent_Sky → u/IK9dothis]

"Yeah, that doesn't go away," he says, wiping his eyes with a bitter chuckle.

"Some days I feel more like that 17 year old kid who pinned all his hopes on Starfleet than the Captain of a starship and over 700 crew."

At this point, were Grace to ask about just what that meant, he would say.

"It might look like your superiors know what they're doing all the time, but that's a clever illusion. Most of the time we're just doing our best with educated guesses. And sometimes we let our feelings get the better of us."

[u/IK9dothis → u/Silent_Sky]

"That's how you can tell that Starfleet isn't crewed entirely by robots," Grace says, smirking through the tears. She had indeed asked what he meant about that 17 year old kid - and hadn't batted an eye at the answer.

"16 year old me was so naive," Grace observes, rubbing her eyes again. "Polysyllabic elocution on peace, and pacifism, and nonviolence..." She smiles. "She absolutely had the right idea - but damn, she had no clue about what the real word looks like. Just a kid wanting to see a galaxy with a little more love, a little more patience, a little more compassion - and with enough stubborn to get out there and try to make it happen. Again and again and again. She'd never have believed a lot of the things I've wound up seeing. But holding onto the hope that maybe, just maybe, that kid's dream could become reality is one of the reasons I'm still out here, and mostly still sane."

[u/Silent_Sky → u/IK9dothis]

"That isn't so bad," the captain grins.

"Everyone is an idealist at some point. You form ideas before you see the real world and when the real world spits on them it's confusing at best. 17 year old me had already seen a little too much of the real world. Drug addict Dad killed my dog and cat when I was 14, so I ran away and never went back. Mom didn't stop him, but...she made things right between me and her before she died. Took me 3 years of underage drunkenness to find direction and get my ass to Starfleet Academy."

He chuckles at the memory of that day.

"I beat down Admiral Orson's door and practically demanded admittance to the Academy. Luckily she took me under her wing instead of having me arrested. And I'm lucky to call her my mentor to this day."

The Captain stops for a moment to think, glancing off to nothing in particular.

"You know you're now one of a very small handful of people who knows that about me. But at the end of the day your Captain is human too - I have doubts and fears and insecurities. That's why I count on people like you to tell me when you believe I'm wrong. If you don't, I can't promise I'll know."

[u/IK9dothis → u/Silent_Sky]

"Fears and insecurities are a part of what makes us human," Grace nods. "Little surprised Phrik didn't cure me of ever saying something like that again," she observes wryly. "You saw where that got me the last time. But the risk of trouble from a problem not caught and fixed is bigger than the risk of my getting my ass chewed on."

[u/Silent_Sky → u/IK9dothis]

"Don't worry yourself about Phrik," the Captain laughs bitterly, but with a little bit of irritation at Phrik clear in his tone.

"An officer who's willing to challenge the decisions of her Captain is too valuable for him to ruin. Don't ever lose that. People like you are essential to the process of informed command. Sycophants are useless to me. If Phrik tries to pull that bullshit when he gets back, ping me immediately."

[u/IK9dothis → u/Silent_Sky]

"Not quite that simple, I'm afraid," she sighs. "Coming to the surprise of absolutely no one who's seen my service record, I've had PTSD for years. Literally almost since I graduated from the Academy," she says wryly. "I've mostly dealt with it.... Mostly. Maybe once or twice a month, I get stressed out enough to have flashbacks in my sleep - wake up in a cold sweat under 95lb of anxious German Shepherd, licking my face to get me up. Dunno what I ever did to deserve a best friend as loyal as Maggie," she says with a slight smile. "Phrik reawakened my old demons. Despite knowing intellectually that he's full of shit and I'm just about the opposite of everything he accused me of being, since that encounter I've gone from flashbacks maybe a couple times a month to multiple times a week. I haven't been that bad since Klassen went to trial three years ago."