| Comfort |
| Summary: | Cidra and Quinn pass the night in Sickbay following the detainment of Rear Admiral Michael Abbot, waiting for word on the casualties. |
| Date: | 2 Jun 2041 AE |
| Related Logs: | Rex Mortuus Est |
| Players: |
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| Sickbay |
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| Medical stuff here. |
| Post-Holocaust Day: #96 |
Cidra eventually finds her way to Sickbay about an hour after the ship was secured. After Admiral Abbot was locked up. The Raptor that will pick up the Corsair's CO seen safely off. It probably didn't need her supervision, really. Perhaps she felt she had to tonight. Or she was just looking for a way to occupy herself. She's still in her off-duty dress, arms bare, belt at her waist empty. She went through the entire night unarmed. This was touched off near the chapel, after all, and that's not a place the devout woman would enter armed.
Quinn has been lingering a bit with Tillman, but he's been damn busy. Then she had a medic grabbing her aside to rebrace that knee and look it over to make certain the damage wasn't any worse than some fresh bruising. Finally, about 20 minutes after Cidra gets there, Maggie is freed herself. She looks over, watching the woman for a few heartbeats before she limps over as quiet as her crutches will permit. No words. Just a silent nearing… offering quiet, simple support.
"Maggie…" Cidra turns to Quinn, blinking as if to get her eyes to focus. There's a tension to the way she holds herself. Trying very hard to maintain her composure. And not at all succeeding. "How…the wounded, how are…they? Clive, Sophronia…?" She trails off, running her fingers through her dark hair. It's still down around her shoulders, loose. "…all of them. What happened? I lost track of them all when they left the chapel."
Quinn nods slowly, "…fine… everyone will be… fine, or so it seems." Except for Gabrieli, she knows. Still touch and go rather dramatically from what she's heard. So she lingers close, her eyes flickering up to the CAG's, trying to be both reassuring but also still worried…"And how…how are -you-?"
"Everyone? Major Tillman did tell me Dominic…Captain Gabrieli was shot critically," Cidra says. She's not about to leave that alone. As for the question, she sighs heavy, dragging herself over to an area where chairs are arranged. She doesn't so much sit as collapse. "It should not have been this way, Maggie. I never thought I would see it. Us turning guns on one another instead of the Cylons. What have we done…?"
Quinn limps over quietly, a frown brushing her mouth, "…He… he's still touch and go. I thought you'd heard. But… he's still here. He's fighting, he's strong. It'll be alright." Maggie actually does seem to believe that, perhaps it's false optimism…"He's fighting. He'll pull through." She murmurs a bit quieter before she lowers herself down into a chair next to Cidra. The last questions receive a slow shake from her head. "…What we had to do in order to survive. To… to get our men and women back…"
"What comes will come," Cidra says. There is no false optimism from her. She digs into her pockets, digging out her prayer beads. Lacing them around her long fingers. Slowly, with a practiced sort of ritual. The methodical quality of the activity seems to give her as much comfort as the object itself. They're old things, made of plain rosewood and well-worn. "As I said before. There were no good choices left. I only pray we did not make the worse one of those available to us. Well. It is done now."
Quinn nods quietly, "It is done… now just pray for the future, don't worry about the past." And with that, Maggie falls quiet. She allows Cidra her time with the beads, her prayers. Maggie doesn't own beads of her own, but she'll keep vigil next to the woman quietly, staring across into the room, head turning at any bit of change or noise…
Cidra isn't praying at the moment. She is, perhaps, trying but nothing seems to come for her. So she just twines the beads around her fingers. The clicking of them is soft, methodical. She calls into the rhythm of it without even really thinking. Yet there's nonetheless a restless quality to the way she does it. She is quiet for a stretch. Quiet is not something that bothers the CAG. Her head lulls back against the wall, hands in her lap idly working the beads. When she finally does speak she says, out of nowhere, "Dominic and I were lovers."
Quinn doesn't exactly look surprised at the news, but she does seem a hint surprised that the woman brought it up. She gives her a quiet, long look. "…I… I figured as much. The way you reacted… Gods, Cidra, I'm…sorry. It wasn't suppose to be you walking in those shoes…" It was supposed to be me. She expected to be sitting in the exact position Cidra was now. But she's not. So, all she can do is reach across, resting a warm, quiet hand against Cidra's arm. "…How long?… Tell me about him?…"
Cidra shakes her head a little, sighing heavy. "It is not…" Again, she trails off. Head tilting back against the wall, eyes closing. Again, she's silent for a beat. Albeit not as long a one as before. "We served together some six years ago. Might be more now. Aboard a carrier vessel called the Marsyas. My husband had died not long ago then. He…well. We were in similar places, he and I. And we understood each other. It was…a distraction. And at times a very pleasant one."
Quinn smiles faintly, "It always is… doesn't mean it's not a worth while one. We're not machines, Cidra… all work and nothing else. We need…Distractions. it's what makes us human." She admits, watching the slightly older woman's features, concerned and curious now…
"We were not in love," Cidra says. Starkly, but it's a fact. "I was…there were years I was not a very kind person to be with, Maggie. Dominic and I at least understood each other. We got what we wanted from it, and it was comforting. He is one of the few other Gemenese officers I have served with. When he talked to me, it sounded like home. And I was, at times, very lonely…" She opens her eyes, though she still keeps them focused ahead. "I read on the crew roster that he would be here. That he had been involved in the ship's construction. I was glad. He is a very capable man. But we did not…not again until after the attacks. It is very easy to fall back into old patterns."
Quinn nods quietly, "It is… I… I never intended any of this for Clive and I… he was married, for gods' sakes… But after the attacks…" Maggie shakes her head slowly, "It seems stupid to… wait. To put things off… To pretend we'll all be alive in five or ten years. We have to take comfort where we can. You included. I…I don't blame you." Maggie whispers gently, her fingertips lingering against her boss' arm..
"I worry for you in that, honestly, Maggie," Cidra says. And it is said kindly, with true concern. "I wed Daedrek Hahn when I was twenty-four years old. He was the first man I ever…well. He would not be the last. We were together just four years before he died. He was a Viper pilot. Training accident in Canceron spot. Combat flight maneuvers in asteroid fields. Musses with the DRADIS. He got into a blind spot, collided with another plane. Just…gone. In an instant. And I was not…not kind to those I was with. For many years. His death left an empty place inside of me and it was not whole for some time. Perhaps it still is not. But at least I am more honest with myself now. I do not…I hope you do not get hurt."
Quinn turns her muddy green eyes back to Cidra, listening to the story, not daring to interrupt. Her brow furrows just a bit tighter, no protests coming immediately. She sighs, letting her fingertips drop away, folding her hands in her lap now. "…I know. I worry too… and if… if things had gone worse, and the gods had taken Clive… it would have hurt. Hurt like hell. But we've all lost… so much. And we'll lose a lot more before this is over. Possibly everything. It… it doesn't mean we stop trying, does it? Stop loving or caring… hoping?" She genuinely asks that, seemingly wanting Cidra to really think about that question too.
"No, it does not," Cidra does agree softly. "But the past lives with us, Maggie. Much as we try to bury it. It lives in our hearts. And those ghosts stay with us, even moreso if we try to ignore them. Well. I hope you and Clive have something true. I really do." Her beads click softly together, still going through that same unconscious rhythm.
"I… hope so too. Perhaps not, but… " Maggie shrugs faintly, "I'm in this position… I've gotten a chance that… I never dreamt I would have… not certain I can turn my back on this all just because it might go horribly wrong… Maybe that's stupid of me." She sighs, actually sounding a bit guilty. She rubs one hand across her features. "…He'll come out of it, Cidra… and when he does… even if it's just… a fling… go be happy with him, alright? You deserve it too…"
"Do what is right by yourself, and your now, I suppose. You are strong woman. Stronger than I in many ways…" That is muttered in a low tone by Cidra. More to herself than Quinn. As for the reassurance, she shrugs. "That is up to the gods now. And his own strength, and our good doctors. I have faith in all them." Yet there's no false optimism there. "What will come, will come."
Quinn smirks quietly, shaking her head…"Strong? No… just… Just me. Strong would have been… giving up the chance, fighting through a few weeks of PT and getting back on the flight deck as soon as humanly possible… this… This was just selfish, it feels like." Maggie admits quietly, her eyes falling to the ground for a moment.
"Selfishness? No, I do not think so. Selfishness is hiding from your troubles and trying to make them…disappear. They do not, of course. The ghosts always haunt you…" Cidra trails off again, still not looking at Quinn.
Quinn relaxes a bit as one of her fears over this whole situation eases a touch with Cidra's words. Maybe she isn't being as selfish as she feared. "Perhaps…" She echoes, stifling a bit of a yawn as she sinks deeper in her seat. Her eyes flicker over Cidra's face, searching for the woman's gaze, even if it never comes to her. "…Don't…hide away, Cidra… I know you're stronger than that too."
Cidra does indeed keep her eyes fixed straight ahead. She rarely avoids eye contact. If anything, she can have an unnerving way of holding people with that cloudy blue gaze of hers. But her eyes are faraway now. Fixed on something beyond the Sickbay wall. "I live with my ghosts, Maggie. You learn the hard way you cannot ignore them. I just pray I do not gather more." Her left hand keeps clasped to her beads, but the right unwinds from them, reaching over to take Quinn's.
Quinn gently, immediately, takes Cidra's hand in her own cool palm. She squeezes gently, hanging on tight, "…we'll pray together… hopefully the gods will hear." She whispers, looking back ahead for the moment, into the room though, not as far away as Cidra looks.
Cidra keeps her fingers clasped tightly around Quinn's, head bowing, and then she does pray. Lips moving in an almost soundless whisper through the invocations to the Lords. Athena, as always, has a high place in her prayers, but she goes through the litany to Poseidon in particular as well tonight. She's done with conversation, really. She just prays, and waits for some word on the condition of the chief engineer from whatever doctor will eventually become available.
Quinn's head follows a few moments later, eyes shut, and she begins through the prayers she hasn't said in ages. Her grandmother's words, praying for the strenght of life, asking quietly not to let the tides turn or the harvest come too early. He was in the prime of his life, it was not time to cut the man down… She prays that his season does not fade, and she sits with her CAG… for silent hours she will be there, as long as the woman needs. As long as Gabrieli needs.