We Have to Stop Meeting Like This

Posted on 22 Mar 2017 @ 3:17pm by Lieutenant Commander Camila Di Pasquale & Lieutenant Commander Joey Geisler

2,397 words; about a 12 minute read

Mission: Endgame
Location: Sickbay/DS 11
Timeline: MD 17 || 1400 Hours

Camila had worked with the loyal Starfleet Security officers from the surviving ships in getting Consortium controlled personnel rounded up until a Commander had taken over, thanked her for her efforts and essentially dismissed her. She remembered what Sanchez had told her about Joey and made her way to the Secondary, or was it a tertiary sickbay that her Assistant Chief was in. She briefly stopped to get a cup of coffee before she continued on her way and after a long turbolift ride and a set of directions that put her in the Operations center of the massive base, she found herself in the sickbay.

She approached a nurse and inquired about Lieutenant Joell Corwin and was pointed in the general direction where she could be found. Everywhere Camila looked were victims of the assault and where some had superficial injuries and were just waiting for treatment, others were clearly trauma victims who had teams of nurses and doctors swarming around them doing triage.

Finally, she came to the area where Joey was supposed to be and looked around before she spotted the chesty Amazon laying on a cot and moved over to her. "Joey," she said as she looked over the sling the other woman wore. "We have to stop meeting like this."

Joey stirred around when she heard the voice. Thankfully, the meds were starting to wear off, and she'd been fitted with a sling as well as a change of clothes. She looked to Camila and smiled at her, shifting around carefully since her right side was now immobile. "Tell that to the ass that shot me," she said with just a touch of bitterness in her voice, which was not directed to her friend by any means.

"I had a fair bit of that coming my way, too," Camila said quietly. "I lost half my team thanks to the damned Selamat making them turn on each other." She paused to rub the small of her back. "Winchester tackled me, too. I owe him for that one."

The brunette woman frowned at the mention of those that were lost, thinking back to the woman on her own team that lost her life far too soon. "We didn't run into any Selamat, thankfully, but then again, we didn't make it that far before things went down hill fast. I'm glad to see you in one piece, though. The team will need you whole."

"Thanks," Camila said as she knelt down by the side of the bed. "Well, most of them will. Commander Bast, on the other hand, will have to do without me." She shook her head. "We did get some external help from an Orion woman whose quarters we drilled a hole into. She came with a couple Security officers when we were trying to get into the secondary core, but I don't know where she went when the smoke cleared."

"She's got to be around here somewhere. There aren't a whole lot of Orion women running around on the base. If anything, go to her quarters," Joey said, turning her attention over to Camila. "Did anyone tell you what happened to me?"

Camila shook her head. "I got ahold of Sanchez after we mopped up at the Secondary Core, then I got recruited to help round up the prisoners who refused to believe that the Consortium wasn't loyalist Starfleeters and still viewed us as the enemy. A lot of them simply surrendered, but you know how some people are. They just won't give up. I still haven't been able to raise the ship, though."

"Sanchez told me what happened. I guess the shot I took was enough to kill me. I remember talking to my grandfather. I wanted to stay with him so bad, but he wanted me to come back," she began as her brows furrowed. His voice... a voice that faded from her mind over time... was with her once again. "Miller and Gutierrez saved my life. I wouldn't be here now if it wasn't for them."

"It killed you?" Camila asked, stunned. "Remind me never to complain about getting hurt in the line of duty ever again. "We're going to have to put them in for commendations. As for your grandfather, he knew that it wasn't your time. Do you know anything about the ship? I heard someone say there was still jamming in effect. I was lucky to get through to Sanchez to find out about you."

"Yes. That's what they tell me. My heart stopped for just over a minute," Joey stated as she frowned, trying to recollect something. "I... I don't know if it was a dream or not, but Harvey came to see me. He... he said the Black Hawk went down in the Valley of Abnorath. I... saw images. She's..." There was no way for her to finish that statement as tears started to well in her eyes once again. This just didn't seem real.

"It...went down?" the blonde asked with a blink. "I haven't seen anyone other than you since I got dismissed by the station's acting Security chief. "You really need to stop putting yourself in the line of enemy fire, Joey. I can't have you laid up in Sickbay every time you go on a mission."

"I won't know for sure until I get out of here," the bed ridden woman replied as she already started making mental plans to see if the ship going down was a dream or horrible reality. Joey kept those plans to herself, though. Others would likely try to talk her out of going, and that wasn't happening.

Joey took a deep breath and let it out slowly. Such a small and simple act still caused her a bit of discomfort. "You know as well as I do that Security as a whole puts themselves in the line of enemy fire. As far as me being laid up in Sickbay every time I go on a mission... I don't think we're going to have to worry about that anymore."

"I know," Camila said. "It was more of a sick joke than anything else, Joey. Wait...what are you talking about? Did someone give you an immortality cure?"

"No... no one gave me an immortality cure," Joey replied, shifting around a little. Now she was uncomfortable, and didn't really want to bring any of this up until she talked to Harvey about it. "None of this is written in stone as of yet, but I've been doing some thinking since I've been laying here. It might just be time for me to hang my belt up for good."

"You can't stop now, Joey," Camila said, but it clearly wasn't an order. "You caught a few bad breaks, true, but you're an officer. We don't hang up our belts when things turn sour. We knuckle down, improve and expand our horizons."

"You consider my heart stopping for over a minute to be a 'bad break'?" Joey asked softly. To her... it was so much more than that.

"I didn't mean it like that, Joey," Camila said as she set her coffee aside. "Besides, you're here now and you have people who need you. Think of Harvey. What would he do if you resigned and went back to Earth? I saw Captain Cranky before you came aboard and he's no fun."

The brunette smoothed her free hand over the covers before she looked toward Camila once more. "I am thinking of Harvey... and everyone else who needs me, Camila. Harvey lost his wife, which had a hand in him becoming Captain Cranky as you put it. I've had more than my fair share of close calls during my career, and now that I have Harvey in my life, I need to think about him... about us. If, and as I said it isn't written in stone, I choose to resign, I wouldn't go back to Earth. I would stay with him."

Camila reminded herself not to push the brunette because she knew it could push her the opposite way. Still, it was Joey's choice to make if she did retire and if she had made her mind up, Camila doubted that not even the Captain could get her to change it. "I'm glad that you haven't set it in stone. You're a damned fine officer, Joey and I'd have to lose you."

She paused to rub her lower back. "Especially with officers like Winchester tackling me and Thatcher....being Thatcher. I wanted to do a check to see if she's related to Cooper, but I never had time."

"If you want my opinion, they both need to be put through further training," Corwin said. "You should note it in their files as a precaution. Since we may be homeless now, there's no telling where Starfleet will put us."

"I had planned on it," Camila admitted. "it seems to me that they were pushed through the Academy just to make room for new officers. But, one or two always manage to slip through the cracks." She sighed and shook her head. "Good grades, but insane plans that don't show."

"Then, you know what you need to do," she said, laying her head back against her pillow once again. "No matter what happens, everything will work out."

Camila looked around the room. "I agree with you there," she said. "We may not have a ship, but we still have each other. Well, for the most part. All I want to do is go home and get my head on straight and hope that Bast doesn't follow me."

"That doesn't sound good," Joey said.

"I decided to end it with him," Camila said. "He was supposed to be on my team as an adviser since he has experience with the Selamat. Instead, he tried ordering my team around, told me to act like I was in charge when I called him on it and harassed the Orion civilian who was trying to help us."

"Civilians in an operation such as we were undergoing has great potential to be extremely dangerous, but harassment is taking things to a level it just doesn't need to go to," Joey said with a shake of her head. It truly baffled her how someone could claim to love another individual, but want to end it when there was a disagreement. If everyone lived that way, then the entire galaxy would be quite the miserable place. Thankfully, she knew better than to throw her two cents in on anything like that. "I'm sorry to hear it, nonetheless. All I can do is hope you both nothing but the best in the future."

"I probably seem prone to change my mind quickly, but it's a lot of little things that added up to one big thing," Camila said. "Admittedly, our relationship started with a lot of booze on New Risa and that isn't the best way to start one. Honestly, I believe it was more a physical attraction than anything else and those rarely work out anyway. Still, it's for the best. I can't be with someone who is going to accuse me of things that they had no say in."

Joey wasn't one to hold back, and for this one, it required that she stand. The nurses could freak out on her later. "Camila... you and I have grown close lately, and I know I'm overstepping my bounds right now, but I don't give a shit. You told Temerant you loved him. Was that all just a lie so he could hear what you felt he needed to after he was held hostage by the Confederation? Do you not remember drinking yourself to sleep every night because you were so worried about him? Or the night you were so distraught that you may not have ever seen him again that I literally tucked you into your bed and stayed with you until you fell asleep?"

Now that she was going, it was hard for her to stop. "So the two of you had a disagreement on how to handle things during a mission? If everyone did that, the galaxy would be a miserable place with everyone constantly going for the throat," she said, trying to keep from snapping. "Everything I just described doesn't sound like the actions of a woman who was telling a man something she thought he wanted to hear, but what I'm hearing now... You never struck me as being so selfish. I bet you didn't even attempt to talk to him about it."

She shook her head. There was so much more she wanted to say, but it was better if she didn't.

"Maybe you're right and maybe I'm wrong," Camila said. "I'm not selfish, but the fact is that if he's willing to override my decisions in a hostile situation, then accuse me of not being in charge of it tells me that it would only be a matter of time before he started doing that in our personal lives. Maybe I did just tell him that I loved him after he was rescued from the Confederation. Maybe my head wasn't screwed on straight from all the pressure I had on me. Maybe I'm just an idiot. I don't know. What's done is done and if we see each other again, maybe things will be better."

She came to her feet. "At any rate, I got you worked up over something I should have kept personal and I'm sorry, Joey. I'll be going and let the nurse know that it was my fault. I'll try to get ahold of you before I leave, but if not, maybe we can meet up on Earth. Take care of yourself and the Captain, Joey," she said before she headed for the door.

Well... that escalated quickly, Joey thought with a frown. She crawled back into bed and pulled the covers over herself. This wasn't how she expected things to go, and she should have just stuck to her guns and kept her damn mouth shut. Her grandfather always told her to keep her nose out of the business of others. She needed to listen to the advice he offered her when he was still with them, and right now, she found herself missing him more than ever.

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