Finding Joey

Posted on 21 Mar 2017 @ 8:29pm by Lieutenant Commander Joey Geisler & Commodore Harvey Geisler

3,202 words; about a 16 minute read

Mission: Endgame
Location: Deep Space 11
Timeline: MD17 || 1200 hours

Harvey, along with several officers from the Black Hawk and the Cochrane, materialized in one of Deep Space Eleven's transporter rooms. it had been nearly an hour since the battle had ended. The Black Hawk, his first command, had been laid to rest on the planet below. Though he was without a starship, he still had to resolve all matters regarding the crew. The crew was scattered everywhere, and the Cochrane was pulling in escape pods from the wreckage all around while reinforcements from the Alpha Quadrant had just arrived in the midst of the chaos.

Starfleet had won, but it was going to take days to calculate the cost.

For now, he had only one thing on his mind: Find Joey.

Sanchez came around the corner fighting to stay awake. She and her team hadn't been on board DS11 long, but after everything that happened, and not sleeping well the night before, she wanted nothing more than to crawl into a bed somewhere. Sadly those thoughts caused young woman to not pay attention to where she was going, and she walked smack into the chest of someone.

She blinked, fully prepared to apologize to the individual until she looked up. Shock set in at who she saw standing in front of her, and her apology was forgotten for the moment. "Captain Geisler?" Sanchez asked with a look of confusion. He was the last person she'd expected to see on the planetary base. "What are you doing here?"

Harvey hadn't prepared to answer that question. In fact, it hadn't even occurred to him until it was asked that twenty members of the crew of the Black Hawk had absolutely no idea anything had happened at all. For all they knew, the ship could have been docked somewhere nearby. "It's... it's a long story," he confessed, not really having the time to go through an explanation. "The comm circuits have been jammed for the last hour or so. I've been trying to get in touch with Lieutenants Di Pasquale and Corwin for a report. Any idea where either of them are?"

"I haven't seen Lieutenant Di Pasquale or her team, so I can't tell you where to locate her." Maria replied, not think much else about what he'd told her. After all, the entire ordeal was a long story. Even their part in the mission. "Lieutenant Corwin, though, she's in sickbay. We lost her once, but Miller and Gutierrez were able to bring her back. Doctor Green said she'll recover."

"Sickbay?" Harvey stammered. He knew that this would have been a great risk at every member of the security details' part, and he thought he had prepared himself for the worst. Of course, he didn't expect to lose the Black Hawk today either. "Lost?"

"Lieutenant Corwin's okay," Sanchez said, still not knowing about the two of them and their relationship. Rumors weren't flying like they thought they would be. "She took a pretty nasty hit to the upper chest/shoulder area. Her heart stopped, but Miller and Gutierrez acted fast. She's awake now, but they won't let her move around just yet. I can take you there if you'd like."

Harvey nodded. With all of the commotion on the station, he would reach out to Lieutenant Di Pasquale when he could. "Lead the way, crewman."

"This way," she said, turning to go back the way she'd just come from. The journey was a short one, but there was still chaos everywhere. That was to be expected all things considered. She came to a door and stepped through it to reveal more chaos. "She's this way." The crewman didn't abandon him, though, opting to see him all the way to his destination.

Joey was still resting on the same bed she'd been placed on shortly after her arrival. A large part of her uniform was missing from the blast she took. Despite being awake, her eyes were closed since the medication coursing its way through her system made her a bit groggy. So much so, that she was pretty oblivious to the fact that she had company once more.

Harvey closed his eyes the moment he saw her. She was alive, and right now, that was all that mattered to him. He'd focus on the details later. For now, he sat on some of the available space on the bed and gently clasped her hand. "Hey," he said softly.

Joey stirred around when she felt a hand on hers, followed by the voice. "Hey," she said softly, thinking she was dreaming again. She'd already heard the voices of a few others from her past, so maybe this was another of those moments. "Does this mean I died, but got to see you one last time?" Her voice was soft, and sleepy sounding.

He smiled. "I see your sense of humor made it through unscathed," he jested. "Sanchez tells me they nearly lost you out there. I'm glad you pulled through."

"That's what they told me, too, but I already knew. Gutierrez and Miller made sure it wasn't permanent, though," she said pushing herself to a sitting position carefully, but still winced. That didn't stop her, though, she reached forward to slip an arm around him. "I'm sorry, Harvey. I almost left you." Now there were tears welling in her eyes.

He held her close, refusing to let go. "I'm glad you didn't," he said, his tone cracking. Reality hit him the moment they entered the embrace. He fought back tears of both sorrow and joy. "I don't think I could have handled another loss today."

"So am I," Joey said barely above a whisper, showing no signs of wanting to let him go even though pain was beginning to register in her mind. Another loss? Today? The tears she'd been holding back started to roll down her cheeks as she thought the worst. He didn't have their dogs with him. Did that mean Rico and Pequeno didn't survive the battle? Had he not been sitting in front of her, she would have thought he hadn't made it, either, and even though he was sitting in front of her, she found herself touching him in different places just to be sure. "What... what happened?"

Harvey closed his eyes before releasing her from the embrace. Opening his eyes again, he saw her emotions painfully present in each tear. Using his thumb, he started to wipe them away. "The... The Black Hawk..." Harvey found it difficult to finish that thought. "Rico and Pequeno are safe," he said quickly before she could fear the worst. "Mila got them out in time."

At the mention of the dogs and Mila making it out in time, Joey found it a bit easier to breathe. "The Black Hawk? Harvey, what happened?" She found herself asking as she gently took his face into her hands. Joey knew the ship suffered a serious beating the last few weeks, but she was a survivor. "She's okay, isn't she? We can go home after they discharge me."

He shook his head. "The Sovereign got our port side really good. We lost power, and control. We would have crashed in the Capitol City. Thankfully, we got everyone out in time. The ship... Well... there's something new to see in the Valley of Abnorath."

She blinked. After everything the ship survived... no. It wasn't that she didn't believe him, because she did. This was more of a matter of seeing it for herself. Joey pushed the covers from her form and swung her legs over the side of the cot she'd been placed on, ignoring the pain and dizziness hat threatened to get the best of her. "I want to see her," she said, and now that there was a location, that would make finding the ship's location even easier.

After all... the Black Hawk was the first stable place she'd been able to call home since making the choice to give up her career as a CPO, and now she was finding out... "I have to see her," she said as more tears began to spring to her eyes.

"Not so fast," Harvey declared, pressuring her to lay back down. He was a doctor, at least in a previous life, after all. "That shoulder wound says you need to stay down." Before she could protest further, he called for a nurse. He wasn't about to have the nurse help keep Joey down, but rather bring them something they could use to see the ship. "You're not going to see her from this high up anyway."

She allowed herself to be settled back down, but had it been anyone else but him, she would have fought her way out and gone to the surface. "It looked a lot worse than this from what I was told," she pointed out. Despite that, though, Joey carefully pulled the covers back over herself. "When you leave, though, I'm leaving with you. After what happened, I don't want to be too far away from you." And there it was. The fact that she had almost been lost forever made her want to be as close to him as possible.

Momenta later, a nurse appeared next to them. "Do you need something to help you relax?" She asked, holding a hypospray in her hand.

Joey looked up at the older woman and shook her head. "No. I promise not to get back out of bed until he leaves. I'll do whatever you need me to do, but I can't stay here."

"Can you bring us a PADD?" Harvey asked the nurse. She nodded and left, leaving Harvey to turn back to Joey. "The best place for you right now is here," he insisted. In fact, when he left sickbay, he had no idea where he would go, much less where he'd be sent. He had a feeling the moment Commodore O'Connell found out Harvey was alive that he'd be shanghaied into some sort of administrative duty on the station. He'd heard Terlexa and her Consortium command staff had escaped and that the station was somehow functioning without leadership. The damage here was severe too, and another evacuation might be in order.

But one step at a time. For now.

"I'd rather be with you," she said softly, but sounded defeated. She'd been trapped in some kind of limbo while Gutierrez and Miller did their thing, but if he preferred she stay, she wouldn't argue with him. She wouldn't really like it, either. "But... I know they'll probably need you here to help get things sorted out. You should go see about that. I'm okay now. Maria, Allen and Ricardo don't leave me alone for too long."

The nurse returned with a PADD, which Harvey used to access the external sensors. "I'd rather be with you too," he told her as he tried to pull up images from the valley. "I'm not sure what my role is in all of this yet, but with a red collar and four pips... it's hard to blend into the crowd." Finding the crash site at last, Harvey paused. He'd been on the ship until a few seconds before it crashed, Even when the Cochrane pulled him out, he wasn't ready to see the ship like this.

He remembered the first time he saw her, docked at Deep Space Nine. Her majestic, smooth lines had been bent and crumpled by the crash. Her sleek hull was pitted and still burning. The port catamaran, just as he had assumed, had been sheered off by their fall. Both nacelles were gone, as was the pod. Even in space, the ship would have been declared a total loss. It was hard to know if there was anything worth salvaging.

Collecting his composure, Harvey handed the PADD to Joey. "Here she is," he said softly, his tone nearly defeated.

Joey took the PADD in her hand and with a little hesitation, turned it to see the images displayed on the screen. She wasn't sure what she'd been expecting, but what she saw definitely wasn't it. Tears rimmed her eyes, but this time, there was no holding them back. They flowed freely down her cheeks as she scrolled through.

This was a huge hit. Not only to Harvey, as the Black Hawk was his first command, but it was a huge hit to everyone for various reasons. She was home to so many, and now she was gone. Forever. Her heart broke in ways she hadn't even thought possible. For him. For her. For the rest of the crew. This meant they were all homeless now, and had the potential to be split up if that's what Starfleet chose for them.

She couldn't look anymore, powering the PADD down and settling it on her lap. This hurt worse than any injury she'd ever gotten throughout her career, but the fact that no lives were lost made it an easier pill to swallow. Without a word, she was sitting up again and slipping her arms around him once more. She felt he needed it just as much as she did.

"On the bright side," Harvey said, purposely taking the PADD back. He didn't want her lingering on the images when he left. "Starfleet sent reinforcements through the wormhole. They'll be here any minute." He smiled at her and took her hand again. "The Consortium... it's over. They're gone. We're going to get to go home."

"Home? We can go home home?" Joey asked just as something else settled in her mind. It was just the two of them now, and no one else could hear their conversation. "I... I think it's time for me to hang up my Security hat. This... it was a very close call. I don't want to leave you, Harvey. Or the dogs. I love you. All three of you."

"I don't know when, exactly," Harvey said. In fact, he wasn't even sure that they'd be able to return to the Alpha Quadrant immediately. "If it's anything like what's happened after major battles during the Dominion War, there will be a few days of processing, questioning. Hell, the planet will probably be under blockade for a bit to make sure the Consortium remnants are contained."

He smiled anyway. "But for now, one step at a time. The safest place for you right now is here. We have each other and rank right now. It'll be a while before we're reassigned, I'm sure. I do, however, have more than two hundred days of leave saved up. I intend to use them."

"I have a bit saved, too, but asking me to stay here... I don't think I can. I need to be with you. What if something else happens, and we get separated?" Joey asked, her mind going into panic mode. Tears began to stream down her cheeks once again. "Please, don't make me stay."

It genuinely hurt Harvey. For the moment, he was homeless. They were homeless. He couldn't just get temporary quarters on the station or check into a hotel. Deep Space Eleven had no operating staff, and most of New Bajor's Capitol City was aflame. Hundreds of thousands had to be displaced by this point. Joey was, for all intents and purposes, better here in Sickbay. "I'll stay with you for a little while," he told her. He could get by for maybe half an hour before someone came looking for him. But, when the time came, he would have to go. At least he would be able to get a better handle on the situation and maybe even figure out where they could stay. With her wound, there was no way she'd be placed back into duty so soon.

That was more than she could have hoped for even if she did prefer to be with him. Soon, someone would come calling because of his rank, and she'd have no choice but to let him go. "I know.. I don't need to be so selfish when there's this much chaos going on around us. They'll eventually need you to help them," she said, settling back down once again. Joey was still a bit groggy from the medication. "Will you lay with me until I fall asleep?"

Harvey nodded with a weak smile, reaching over and squeezing her hand. "Of course," he replied.

Joey knew this was completely out of the norm for him. She returned the squeeze to his hand, then brought it to her lips to press a kiss to his knuckles. "Go. I know with everything happening around here right now, they can use your help. I'll be okay. I promise," she said, giving him a reassuring smile. This was one of those times she couldn't be selfish. Not when so many, like themselves, were displaced with nowhere to go. "Try to find Zachary. I'm sure he could use someone like you helping with this. I'll have my time with you soon." Of course, she wasn't going to mention the fact she planned to spring herself.

"No, no," Harvey said. "I'll wait." A smile still shone on his face, though it was still weak. He was just beginning to absorb everything that happened. In fact, he imagined that it would take a few weeks to process it all.

"Somehow... someway... we'll find a way to get through this," she said softly, giving his hand another squeeze. Joey believed that to be true, but it would take some time. Maybe getting away for a while and going back home would be just what they needed to help. "You have me in your corner, and I'll do whatever I can to help you." Despite being gone for more than a full minute before being brought back, she was more worried about him.

It was time for her to be honest with herself, and him. He wasn't Betazoid, and didn't know what she felt, or what she was thinking. "Harvey... if what happened today has shown me anything, it's that I don't want to ever leave you. Willingly or unwillingly. You asked me to promise you that I'd never leave you, and I'm making you that promise. I promise you here and now that I will never leave you. Wherever you go, I will be right by your side. I love you, and whenever I say those words to you, they're not said lightly."

"I know," Harvey said, patting her hand. He could tell that the medication was beginning to take effect. If anything, it was a heavy sedative and a truth serum. Harvey could appreciate her honesty, even though she was about to slip back into unconsciousness. "I love you too." And he would remain true to his word, waiting to leave before she was sound asleep and safe in medical care.

With her hand still in his, Joey drifted off to sleep. The sad thing, when she woke up again, she'd think it was all just a dream, but a dream with him in it was one of the best one's she could ever have.

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