Midnight Conversations -- Part III

Posted on Friday, 14 May 2021 - 4:14pm by Ensign Oriana Skye Sety & Lieutenant JG Hayashi Hamura

Mission: Operation: Neu Reich
Location: USS Standing Bear | Crew Quarters
Timeline: 2394 MD 08 -- Almost midnight

ON:

Oriana moaned as her eyes opened. They focused on the bedside clock. Almost midnight. She sighed as she rolled over onto her back. She was still in her clothing; she hadn’t changed since her return from sickbay but locked herself in her room and cried. She hated that people had seen her in a panic attack. She felt vulnerable, exposed, and embarrassed. These ‘episodes’ had been her secret. She’d learned to deal with them early on in her life and she’d always dealt with them.

There were days when she could predict their coming and other days, like today, when they took her by surprise, but she should have known. The letter had taken her off guard. She hadn’t even opened it or read it.

Sighing she stood up and rubbed her eyes. Feeling tired beyond belief she unlocked her door and found Hamura asleep on the floor across her door leaning against the sofa.

She walked over and knelt down. “Hamura-chan?”

At her voice Hamura stirred and looked up. “Are you alright?”

“Why on earth are you sleeping on the floor here?”

Hamura stretched and yawned. “I was worried about you.”

It touched a part of Oriana that she didn’t know existed. Hamura was worried? Nobody worried about her. She’d always worried about herself. “I’m alright.” She said looking down.

She should have known that Hamura would not have let that slide. She felt a hand on her face, a gentle hand.

“No, you’re not. I can tell. You’re in pain, not physical but emotional.”

Those words brough tears to her eyes and they began to spill down again. It was weird, she would have thought herself cried out.

She felt herself being pulled into strong reassuring arms and almost sensed a peace and strength wrap around her heart. Was that possible? Were Betazoids able to project like that? She didn’t know nor did she care she allowed herself to be held, just this once. Normally physical touch was… foreign to her. She never understood hugs and what people saw in them but she did now. She felt safe, she felt, heard, for the first time.

“It’s alright to cry. I’m right here.” Those were gentle words the hug it just made her cry more. She clung to Hamura with a desperation that she didn’t know she was possible of. She had never needed anyone or anything. She was her own support yet here it was clinging another.

It was a good hour before she felt all cried out. She pulled back. “I’m sorry…I...”

“No apologies, okay?”

She gave a nod.

Hamura didn’t press her, didn’t ask, just sat there. Another half hour passed before she spoke again. “I think I was seven when I had my first panic episode.”

Oriana noticed Hamura didn’t move, just sat there staring at the wall, listening, really listening.

“I was always a sickly child and it was after a hospital visit. The next day I had a check up and I told the doctor and he said it was a panic episode, as if it as a delightful show. He told my parents to monitor me and that was that.”

“It happened a lot of times after that, in school, at home. I was always so embarrassed and I think everyone got sick of it. Eventually I learned how to feel them before they came on and I was able to go to my room and just ride it out.”

She noted a flexing of Hamura’s jaw and then, “What did your parents say?”

She shrugged. “That I need to learn to relax, once. We didn’t talk about it much I was…a burden to them. When I got stronger, I think they were relieved that they didn’t have to deal with it.”

“So, what brought this one on?”

She shrugged. “I got a letter from a sibling. It was addressed to me and said please read…I didn’t, I can’t. I had hoped when I left home at fifteen that they wouldn’t find me. I changed my name and life was okay…”

“Why did you leave?”

She shrugged again. “As I said I was a burden to them. I remember hearing my family talk and my mother say how she wished I had been a boy and how she apologized to my brothers for ending their outing early because they had to take me to the hospital. She said that she should have been more careful after my last brother was born that they’d agreed to stop having kids and I was an unhappy surprise.”

She saw Hamura’s hands ball into fists. She swore she felt anger radiating in waves from Hamura but Hamura said nothing.

“I decided I’d been too much of a burden and if they were gonna have a normal life I should leave. So, I packed, I took what I needed and thankfully I had enough credits saved so that I could really get an okay start. I mean … my grandparents were amazing, I used to get these gifts and stuff. I took some of those with me too, I went to a pawn shop and got more credits and I left the city, the family. Shortly after I found my new home, I changed my name.”

Hamura looked at her. “What was your name before?”

“Kitana Sky. I changed it to Oriana Skye with an E and Sety because I loved reading books by this author with the same name.”

Hamura gave a nod. “I like that, Kitana. Kitten.”

She blushed a little.

Hamura smiled. Gently Hamura took her hand. “Now they found you and you got scared?”

She shrugged; she didn’t pull her hand back. “Not scared just felt cornered. I mean… I haven’t thought about them in a long time. I finally had a life. It wasn’t the best but it was something I did myself, I didn’t bother anyone, I wasn’t a burden and when you found me and took me to sickbay…”

“You felt like a burden?”

“Yes.”

Hamura turned to her and lifted her chin so that they were looking one another in the eye. “Never a burden, Kitten.”

She blushed. “Hamura-chan, you don’t want to waste your time on me. I’m a complicated person.”

Hamura chuckled. “Yeah, so am I but how about we take complicated slow. I think we could be friends.”

She smiled. “Me too.”

“I have never said this to anyone but I think we could be more.”

Oriana looked at Hamura. “I get that feeling too but I’m too complicated. You won’t want that.”

“Slow, we’ll go slow and build a friendship. I’ve never been so comfortable with anyone like I am with you.”

“Me either,” she admitted. Oriana looked into Hamura’s eyes. “We should go rest.”

Hamura stood bringing Oriana up too. “Then I’ll say good night.”

Oriana watched as Hamura took her hand and kissed the inside of her wrist. She smiled and headed to the bathroom. She needed a shower and to change and get a few hours sleep before she faced the day.

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