| Author | Message | ||
     Captain Daren |
When Captain William Daren entered his quarters, she was there waiting. Sitting in the common area with a glass of something golden in color in her hand, Mishelle Singer stood when she noticed to doors fly open. He did not look well. Somehow she sensed a split second before he entered. "I'm never attending another one of those, ever!" Daren's gaze drifted to her. He'd spend nearly all of the past two days giving speeches at memorial services for crew lost in the recent attack. She offered him something to drink, but he declined with a shake of his head. She'd try to confort him, but she knew hi much better then that. Comforting him would just make it worse. He needed to be with his grief, needed to stare it through into it's deepest depths. Pushing it away with some 'relaxation' technique, or 'putting your mind ahead of you instead of behind you', were all childish cop-out's in Daren's view. Grief and loss we part of living. Part of surviving in the face of death. Even worse for him, the fact that he barely recognized the names of the lost crew. He'd know the names on the crew manifest for certain, but he was certain he'd probably never shared more then just a few words here or there with most of those that had been lost. It was the hardest of all. "You know what the worst part is?" She stood closer to him as he took a step toward the large windows. "I didn't even know them..." "Will, you can't possibly be expected to..." "They died under my command and I didn't even bother to get to know who they were first!" His pulse shot through the roof. "What the hell kind of Captain is that?" She touched his arm. "Listen. You remember how much of a wreck I was following Gryphon's loss?" Her hand squeezed into his arm, feeling his tension. "I felt worse. Losing people you are responsible for is the hardest thing we have to deal with. And it never gets easy. Who the hell would want it to be easy?" Damn, if she wasn't the most amazing women he knew, then he's be hard pressed to figure out just who was. He nodded, and the tensions began to melt away. She glanced at his chest, noticing his heat signatures leveling out a bit. "I'm going to make it a point to know the names and the faces from now on." He took a sip of her drink and glanced out at the stars drifting by at 'slow' warp. "I never want to feel like that again." "None of us do..." * * - * * - * * Musical Accompaniment: 'My Immortal' - Evanescence Captain William Daren Commanding Officer (IC) USS Coronado NCC-97901 Sim Executive Officer http://www.jestertrek.com/coro2400/bodies/depts/command.html#co ******************* As portrayed by: Chris Catterson Long Island, NY ccatt@optonline.net |