The Fallen (Part 1 of 3)

Posted on 31 Mar 2025 @ 1:02pm by Chief Warrant Officer 3 Lamar Darius & Lieutenant JG Sofie Ullswater

3,516 words; about a 18 minute read

Mission: Episode 21 - Helix
Location: USS Galileo-A - Deck 4, Corridors, Darius' Quarters
Timeline: MD 04, 1529 hrs

[ON]

A damp, dark gray exercise towel was draped around the back of Chief Warrant Officer 3 Lamar Darius' neck when he exited the turbolift on deck 4. A light sheen of lingering sweat glistened across his dark-complexioned skin in the exposed areas of his face, shoulders and bare arms. The Nova-class' two holodecks had both been occupied when he'd tried to get some PT in and so the ship's small gym had to suffice for an hour and a half. He'd just completed enough cardio on the treadmill to cover the next couple days, he suspected, and now trudged back to his quarters with his head down and a small workout duffel bag dangling from one hand.

Lamar reached the main corridor junction separating starboard from port and prepared to hook a left to section 32, but not before spotting a familiar silhouette out of the corner of his eye in the opposite direction. The shorter height of the feminine figure, hair style and gait... He raised his head and quickly adjusted course to intercept. "Hey, Sofie!" he called out in an attempt to catch her before she finished rounding the slow corridor bend and disappeared from sight.

Sofie stopped in her tracks and turned to see where the voice came from. She blinked a couple of times, she was clearly tired and it was taking a moment for her to shift focus from whatever she had been thinking about. Sofie's face was really showing the physical burden that her emotional turmoil had placed on her. She'd lost weight, there were bags under her eyes and she had a general sickly aura. Meanwhile Lamar looked like he'd just run a marathon and could probably do another the next day if she asked him.

Now fully aware of who it was she quickly moved towards him. Before any works could be exchanged and in a very uncharacteristic show of affection she flung her arms around him in a hug. "Lamar. It's good to see you." Her voice was soft and she spoke lyrically. He was pretty sweaty. She did not care.

He held up a hand to wave then slowly lowered it when she approached at a rapid pace. Something appeared different to him about her since the last time they'd seen each other; her physique...maybe facial features? She looked tired. Slimmer. The science officer kept coming and before he knew it, she'd embraced him. The words of her speech felt candid and private in nature, and once the surprise wore off, he returned her hug. "Hey...good to see you too. Everything, um, going okay? Where are you coming from?"

"Work, it's been a bad day." Sofie disentangled herself from the hug and shook her head, the smile on her face showed her happiness to just be around her friend again. "Bad week honestly. Sorry for coming on a bit strong there. Want to head up to Callisto, grab a drink?" She shook her head again, realising that the suggestion likely didn't align with his priorities right now. With a wave of her hand she dismissed the idea "No, I'm sure your headed back to your quarters to freshen up and such. Maybe later? Would be nice to chat."

A slight narrowing of his eyes accompanied a curious tilt of his head. "Are you asking me out for the night?" he interpreted before revealing a small smile. "Thought you'd never ask. I've been wanting to catch up with you, too. Co'mon, I do need a shower but it won't take long. You can come wait in my rack. If you don't care about a little bit of a mess."

"I don't." She might. It would depend on just how little a little bit was. Sofie breathed out a sigh of relief, finally a friendly face and perhaps a moment to relax. The fibres that made up her body felt like they'd been knotted up into a million little balls of stress. She rolled her shoulders as she began the walk to his quarters. "I hope you're feeling prepared to endure my nattering, I feel I could waste an entire hour complaining about this day."

He smirked at her proposition then lightly shrugged while walking alongside her. "Might as well start now. What's got you stressed? Haven't heard of any issues with the ship's sensors or nav systems...so what's going on?" He glanced at her pale features again. She looked pretty even through her semi-dishevelment. "Wait, don't tell me. It's about this new planet we're tasked to investigate?"

"You might not have heard about the sensor issues we've had today but that doesn't mean they didn't happen. In fact the only reason you didn't hear about them is standing next to you. She managed to get it fixed before the real problems started." Her voice was bitterness and tiredness, the voice of someone who had too many problems to list and was struggling just to stay afloat. The voice of someone who just needed to vent. "Now don't even get me started on this Nekomi search project that Tarin has put me on. If I have to read one more trade ship's manifest..." As they walked off towards Lamar's quarters she just kept going.

They approached the door to Lamar's quarters which hissed open upon detecting his biological presence. The interior of his senior officer habitation arrangements mirrored those of Sofie's and other department heads in its configuration, but his living room was littered with several yet-to-be-recycled food replicator trays and worn uniform garments which hadn't quite made their way to the recycler mere meters away on the far wall. The rest of his living space was unremarkable. Minimal decorations adorned the bulkheads, mostly holopics of his Starfleet Marine Corps unit during various stages of their deployments. A well-worn Type III-C phaser rifle was mounted on the nearby wall along with a necklace consisting of close to twenty small pointed tooth-shaped objects attached to it. An ancient vinyl record disk on the side wall rounded out the extent of his personalization. "Sorry for the mess," he commented while kicking a pair of black duty pants on the floor out of her way when she entered. "Make yourself at home."

With a little laugh Sofie shook her head, she always thought of Lamar as someone who had his life pretty well together, aside from all the chaos she brought to it, so it was amusing to see a little mess "Don't worry about it. I'll do your recycling." It was what she would do at home and he had said... She gave a nod in the direction of the bathroom and bent down to pick up some trays. "Go on, go get cleaned up. I promise I won't get rid of anything you wouldn't."

He privately smiled at her remark then tossed his small workout bag into a nearby chair before undraping the moist towel from his neck and handing it to her with gratefulness. Lamar took a deep breath while relishing in the cooler-than-average climate at which he kept his quarters; it now helped to lower his core temperature while he swiftly peeled his sweaty shirt and pants off without much care in the world for his friend's viewing presence. A couple shakes of his feet kicked his shoes away before he bent over and tugged each stubborn sock from their temporary homes. "At least my kitchen's clean. They gives us these cooking areas in our quarters but I can't remember the last time I ever really used it..." he casually spoke while wandering into the open bathroom in the nude and entering the sonic shower. The sound of its distinctive activation reverberated through the bedroom and out into the living spaces while he closed his eyes and rested his hands against the wall. "So tell me more about the sensors. And the Nekomi? That's Ensign Mimi's species, right?" he queried over his shoulder through the soft buzz.

"There was a significant misalignment, someone had incorrectly calibrated multiple elements of the long range array." She was still standing there, a food tray in one hand and a towel in the other. She hadn't moved since Lamar had undressed in front of her. She was confused as to why he had felt comfortable doing that. She was also confused as to why she didn't feel more uncomfortable with him doing that. True, she had seen his naked body through Sera's eyes more times that she'd like, but not in person, not like this. The fishhooks of the bond tugged at her insides, calling her to follow him. The nausea quickly followed.

She blinked a couple of times and placed the two objects she was carrying in recycling before wandering over to the bathroom and leaning on the door frame. "I'd blame that on someone else, it's not the sort of mistake I make. Tarin gave me this job because I don't make those kinds of mistakes." She kept her eyes averted from the shower area, for all the complicated churning feelings in her stomach she was grateful to speak to a friend, to admit how much trouble she was in. "I'm ill. I am making those kinds of mistakes. It was almost certainly my fault. I'm losing it and I'm ending up doing double the work checking over my own mistakes."

His head turned to the side so his ear could fully receive her words. "What do you mean you're 'ill'?" The pulse vibrations continued to clean his epidermis and unlodge the day's sweat, grime and old outer skin layer into the air before dematerializing it. "You're sick?" He thought back to her recent appearance minutes ago. Yes, she'd been a bit disheveled compared to her normal self but that was normal for working stress and duties. But she also looked much slimmer than he remembered. "Have you been eating?"

"Sometimes. Not nearly as much as I should. Can't keep anything down." Sofie closed her eyes, sighed and rubbed the bridge of her nose with one hand. After two weeks of secrets and dodging questions about her health she was finally in a room with the one person who she could tell anything. She didn't know how much he knew of the bond she shared with him and his lover and how much it was hurting her, so she asked "Have you spoken to Sera recently? The two of us talked about it."

Her mention of lack of food intake was concerning. Every body needed energy and had to procure it to survive...at least, that's what they'd taught him in the Corps. Lamar was about to protest when the subject of their conversation shifted. "Sera?" he repeated with an unseen frown. What was his friend referring to? "No...about what? We haven't seen each other in days," he reluctantly admitted.

On a ship this small how had he managed to not speak to her? Sofie knew it was true though, it had been a while since she had last felt the two of them together through the connection. With a sinking feeling she asked herself if maybe her interactions with Sera the other day had somehow damaged the relationship, if perhaps because of her Sera was avoiding him.

"Are things alright between the two of you? Just busy or..." What right had she to poke around in their private business? Just because she had accidentally intruded on their relationship didn't mean that the two of them should be allowed no privacy. "I'm sorry, don't mean to pry. I'm here for you though, if you ever need to talk about things."

A long pause of silence followed while the sonic shower continued to perform its pleasant mechanical task of cleaning his body from head to toe. "We're fine. I think. She's a Vulcan and I'm a Human...we're still learning about each other," he finally replied through closed eyes. In a different reality, he'd probably have married Sofie. Or at least tried to. She was his friend, the closest one on the ship with which he shared the deepest - and darkest - secrets of their shared deployments. And she was very attractive in her own physical and cerebral scientific way. "Why do you ask?" his brow suddenly furrowed.

"Because I worry I might have made things more difficult." There was no time for hiding the truth and this was not a person Sofie wanted to hide many truths from. She would have preferred it if Sera had spoken to him already, relayed what had happened in the arboretum but that wasn't how it happened and things had to keep going. She turned slightly, still leaning against the door frame, to look around Lamar's quarters. As her eyes darted over his collection of personal objects she felt guilt. "Do you ever get my thoughts in your head? Memories that don't belong to you popping up next to your own as if they were yours?"

Her thoughts. Current, past or future? He shared a lot with her which he'd never spoken aloud. Not because he'd been afraid, but because he still wasn't sure what was real versus a time travel artifact versus the cold station's entity he denied was inside of him. Her question was loaded and Lamar again went silent for close to a minute before he tapped the sonic shower's control panel to cease its operation. He was clean enough. Sofie needed his attention. He turned and wiped his glistening face before stepping out of the hygiene chamber to stand in the doorway in close and nude proximity to her. "Yes," he quietly revealed, his eyes fluttering from her gray irises then down to the floor. "Do you? About me?"

"I remember, from the future, being with Sera in the shuttle. At first I didn't understand but then I realised that it hadn't been me who needed to do maintenance on that shuttle, it had been you. It wasn't my memory, it was yours." She turned away from him, half to respect his modesty and half because she felt guilty about how much she had seen. She didn't want to face him. "I remember being with you on the surface of Remidia. In the tent, by the stream. But I never set foot on the planet, those were Sera's memories."

"It might not have been intentional but I have deeply intruded on your relationship, seen things that should have been private." Still leaning she crossed her arms, looked down at the floor. She'd tried to keep her tone balanced and factual but it was hard not to detect the guilt and misery seeping through the words. "I'm very sorry for that. I am trying, with Sera, to work out a way to sever this connection and stop this."

Lamar couldn't make sense of what she was saying. Not at first. His brain registered the words the chief science officer spoke but didn't quite process them in their entirety. "You...what?" He looked back up and noticed her posture now facing away from him. And registered his own uncovered loins. "You have Sera's memories? From our shore leave, between her and I?" He hastily grabbed a nearby towel from the hanging rack in the bathroom then wrapped it around his waist and exited the chamber into his bedroom. "How?" None of this made sense. Unless... "Did you mind meld with her?"

"No, it was us." Looking up from the floor back to Lamar her face was grim "In the geology lab the other week. At least I think that's when it happened. Could have been earlier, maybe on the Cold Station itself."

He slowed his motions while he started to re-dress. Bent over one of his drawers, he temporarily abandoned his pursuit of a fresh uniform. Her words cut deep into his thoughts - and reignited a suppressed element of his psyche. "The Flayed Man," he whispered as if to confirm.

She chose not to confirm or deny. The exact mechanisms of what was happening weren't all clear to her yet. Sofie instead continued, returning to where they began "Anyway, that's what's making me ill, I think. Its a lot of mental strain to have these incongruencies in my thoughts. I know what is true but it doesn't stop the feeling that I am your wife, it doesn't diminish the desire I have to please you."

Sofie stood up straight again and shrugged. When she next spoke there was some clear frustration "I just wanted to grab a drink, have a chat. Didn't want to have to deal with all of this but it would have been wrong to hide it."

"...that I am your wife...the desire I have to please you," Those words shocked Lamar perhaps even more than the recurring episodes of PTSD he occasionally experienced as a result of the Jem'Hadar's 'houdini' subspace mine weaponry. At least those were unpredictable but a known enemy. This entity? It was infiltrating their lives - their relationships. "...I'm not your husband, Sofie. You know that and so do I." A reluctant confession then came to pass. "But you're not crazy. I feel that same way around you right now. Especially with you here in my quarters." An ephemeral twinge of yearning momentarily forced his eyes closed.

"Exactly. What I'm feeling is how you and Sera feel about each other. It isn't me, it doesn't come from me. When you think that about me you're thinking about Sera. We need to be aware of how this thing is affecting us or..." She shrugged once again, an act of indifference that conversely revealed just how much she cared about appearing not to care. She didn't want to finish that sentence, didn't want to put into words what she was afraid might happen if the two of them ever lost control of their rational thoughts. "I don't want either of us to end up doing something we'd regret."

"I hate how this makes me feel. I've been avoiding you both. I think avoiding you is probably for the best until me and Sera can get this fixed." Before she spoke again Sofie's eyes looked down to the floor, there was a sigh and a shake of the head. It was as if she was about to admit to some horrible secret. "But you're my friend and I'm not doing well and I don't want to be alone. I need a friend right now." For Sofie it was a shameful admission, she had failed and been proven imperfect and needed help. Sofie never liked feeling like she needed help.

He started to say something but couldn't form a coherent train of thought. Especially on the back of her own confusing statements. There was a lot to sift through which began to frustrate him. "You and Sera? How the hell can the two of you 'fix' this?" sounded his first question. "And if you wanted to avoid me, you wouldn't be here in my quarters right now...but here we are." He procured some underwear and a new pair of athletic shorts then started to redress. "Sounds to me like you know what you want to do. Look, this thing inside of us, it's there, but we're still in control. For now. And the choices we make are our own...for now." Were they, truly? Private thoughts of approaching her and placing his lips against her neck tickled his consciousness. "Do you want to go get a drink? Or...stay here with me for a while?"

That same idea that played at the edges Lamar's thoughts found itself lodged in Sofie's head too. She scratched the side of her neck without thinking and rested her hand there. She wanted to know what it felt like to be held by him, not what it felt like when he held Sera but how he would hold her, Sofie.

She could feel the control of her rational mind slipping. How much longer could she stand in his quarters without losing it completely? "You were right, it's worse in here. I should wait outside while you get dressed and we can head out."

"I'm almost done," he replied with a shake of his head to himself. Stop getting yourself into trouble, Lamar, his brain chastised. The conn officer retrieved a gray Starfleet t-shirt from his dresser then tugged it over his head to complete his return to modesty. Darkness fleetingly consumed his vision beneath the cloth, and in the absence of light, his eyes turned black. To the other side. "I think you should stay, Sofie. You want to stay. With me." His muffled voice masked the inflection of the dark entity and his shirt remained half-covered across his torso with its collar stretched around his forehead while his arms slowed mid-motion.

To Be Continued...

[OFF]

--

LTJG Sofie Ullswater
Chief Science Officer
USS Galileo-A

CWO3 Lamar Darius
Conn Officer
USS Galileo-A
[PNPC Tarin]

RSS Feed