[Watermelon] Kill him

Posted on Saturday, 31 December 2022 - 4:49pm by Captain Pippa Whitley & Lieutenant JG Adrianna Eberhardt

Mission: Shore Leave
Timeline: 3 months after Adrianna joined starfleet

It had been three months since Adrianna had been extracted from Italy and had given over all the information she had on the Baciami group. Arrests had been made, warrants had been written and bounties had been teased. The fresh, recruit had been going a little stir crazy being cooped up in a ship. The intense training and limits on where she could go. That said, the USS September Was now docked at some good forbidden starbase, light years from anyone Adrianna would know, hopefully.

The woman decided to stretch her feet. She'd yet to be fitted for a proper uniform, so civilian clothes would have to do. First point of call: a bar. She wandered in and propped herself up at the bar, requesting the strongest tuff they had, just to be somewhat disappointed t the realisation it was synthetic. She put the glass down and sighed.

Just what need thought Dan Harrison as he explored the social sphere that the starbase had to offer. A lovely looking lady who for his convenience was alone. What he had not realized was that the tingling sensation he was getting was not because she was attractive. It was because she was familiar...very familiar.

He had failed to realize until it was too late. He had taken up a seat next to an old flame, one he had burned. "Not nearly as good as genuine authentic alcohol," he said before she turned revealing her face to him.

It felt like his balls dropped and were held in a vice grip by a very strong and dominant Betazoid woman. He cleared his throat and shifted in his seat. "Adrianna," he said her name. "I was not expecting to see you here. The September docked here?"

Adrianna looked over to him. So many emotions ran through her head, most of which were not positive. "It is, for a few days," she paused, "what are you doing here?"

"Work," Dan replied simply. "I am here because work has brought me here. I did not know the September was this close by" he explained. That he certainly meant. He was not aware Adrianna was this close to the starbase. Had he known...

The woman nodded and sipped her drink, punctuating the silence as she thought for a moment. "In the past few months, I've imagined what I'd say or do of I ever met you again. So many legal and illegal options."

"Likewise," Dan responded. "The words I'm sorry come to mind, but I think you are owed more than that, and you are not going to like if I were to explain it was work."

"I think I would have accepted 'sorry, someone killed me'," she shrugged, running her fingers over the rim of her glass. She watched the condensation drops a moment before looking back to him, "so, tell me. What is your excuse? I wasn't privy to the report."

"You were not privy to a lot of things, Adrianna" Dan swiftly replied. He snapped his fingers and asked the bartender for a drink. It may have been synthetic, but the mood merited a drink nonetheless. "I had to do what I did. I had my orders, it was not personal."

Interesting, Adrianna thought to herself, "not personal. There's a phrase I don't believe." She waited for the bartender to pour a drink and walk away before she continued, "perhaps it was only personal to me. I thought so, anyway. After everything, you didn't even give me a heads up, nor goodbye. You didn't even check in on me. You ghosted me."

"How do you tell someone that you've spent a long time getting to know, sleeping with, inching dangerously close to making a family with that all of it..." He paused. "What I was feeling was real, but us meeting was not. I left the way I did because facing the truth was going to hurt the both of us a lot worse."

"It was real to me," she replied, "I deserved honesty." The woman felt rage stir within herself. Her eyes darkened and her voice became cold and almost murderous, "because of your cowardice, I spent three days under intensive care. I woke alone, in pain and praying for mercy or death-- whichever was quicker. I betrayed my family without support. I wondered where you were. I knew nothing. Do you think, for one mere moment that what you did was right?"

He did not have the response necessary. "You took an oath to Starfleet. You serve. You wear a uniform, and maybe it is too early to see it yet, but there will come a time that you're going to placed in a situation where your duties may conflict with your personal interests."

"At least I would have the common decency to find a way to check in and explain I stead of ghosting," she paused and sipped her drink, "I'm not fully fledged yet. I could still find a way to make it look like an accident and get away with it."

He winced a bit. "I know and I would deserve it. I'm angry with myself for what I did to you, but you are right I ghosted. I ghosted because that is what my orders were, that's what the job called for...collect the information, get close to you, and leave. The problem was I got too close and I fell for you."

"Just so that you know," she rubbed the bridge of her nose, "if Starfleet had been five minutes later, in figuring out that you'd not handed over properly, my blood would have been on your hands, and I have the scar to prove it."

"I played with fire and took a gamble," he quipped. "You got burnt, and I was fortunate that there were not blood on my hands" he added and scoffed a bit. "I do not know what to say. I can apologize to you, but I do not believe that will satisfy you."

"Do you know why it won't satisfy me?" She asked, curious.

The man scoffed and shrugged. "I don't know Adrianna. I could say a billion things, but you aren't easy to read. I just know if I were in your shoes, I'd be livid."

Adrianna chuckled a little and shrugged, "sure, I was upset - most definitely angry. The part that stung the most for me was that even though my father was many bad things, he was right about one thing. He was right that I, as would any of the Baciami children, would find it hard to find love because my name meant too much. He predicted that I'd be the one hurt the most because I always fall too easily. You - I fell for you the hardest." She nodded as she chose her next words carefully, "I'm not angry that you chose your ego and career over me. I'm not angry that, to you, I was merely a job. No. I'm angry that you proved my father right."

"You'll prove your father wrong, Adrianna. Do not mistake my job and what I had to do for complete lies. The things I felt for you were true." He shook his head. "That's why I left. I was dangerously close to choosing you over my career."

"Perhaps," she shrugged sipping her drink, "perhaps, one day, you'll get the courage to choose. Perhaps, one day, I won't feel guilty for betraying a family for love. Perhaps, one day, I won't bare the physical or emotional scars of that betrayal. Perhaps, one day, I'll find someone. There are a lot of 'perhaps'. Until they start resembling an actuality, I will remain unreadable, hm?"

Dan grabbed a glass from the bar and raised it. "Perhaps one day to many things, but I don't want to walk away from here back into the shadows, not without putting this to rest." He looked at Adrianna "I'm not asking for forgiveness, but forget me. Find what you deserve, find better than me."

"A person should never forget a lesson learned," Adrianna had finished her glass. She turned it over, avoiding the toast. "I hope you one day realise how wrong you were. If that day is today, choose to grow from the lesson it has taught you." The Italian stood up, still stiff from a healing gunshot wound and headed for the door.

He watched her leave and said nothing. It was her time to walk away. He was not going to interfere with that.