Trying to Settle
Posted on 02/21/2022 @ 11:21pm by Captain Thorrin & Adira Toril-Harrington
4,038 words; about a 20 minute read
Mission:
Mission 22: The Other Side of the Mirror
Location: Quarters of Adira Toril Harrington - Deck 2 - DTI Herodotus
Timeline: MD001 2000 hours
Adira tossed a go bag on to the bed of her small quarters on the DTI ship and looked around. She'd resisted considering this room hers by any stretch of the imagination, but the way things had been going, she was going to need to add a little bit of a personal touch here regardless. She now had her own home on the station where the kids could come, and here she would stay if she was needed for a mission.
She dropped her other bag and pulled out some physical books, she'd spent some time at a book store, trying to get familiar with literature from this universe, it was all so new to her and she wished she'd spent more time reading books before all this happened. Maybe she'd have seen the darkness that lived under the surface of the people here... the truth of the soul was always revealed in art.
Adira glanced up when the door beeped, "Come in..." she said soberly knowing it would wither be T'Penga or Thorrin, no one else had access to this ship.
Thorrin stepped into the quarters that he had assigned Adira. Up until now his new crew member had been performing admirably. However, he wanted to see how she was acclimating to the new position on the ship. He held a bottle of amontillado from his private stock. "Evening Adira. I thought I would pop in and see how you were doing. Perhaps share some wine."
"You always come bearing gifts of wine. I'm starting to wonder if you always like keeping your crew under the influence. You're going to turn me in to an alcoholic." she accused him with a smile smile. "Come on in..." she said waving to the tiny couch her room had. "I'll replicate some glasses." she said. "So are you really here just to give me wine and make me tipsy or do you have an alternate motive."
"Actually my dear Adira I am here for neither. I have come for your insatiable company. As Captain I do care a great deal for my crew and wanted to see how you settled in. I hope things with Captain Harrington and the children are going well." Thorrin sat down at the table and uncorked the 200 year old bottle. He inhaled the aroma of the wine deeply. "Wine this old needs to breath a bit before we can enjoy it."
"I'll take your word for it." she said before she replicated the glasses and moved to the table and took a seat. "As for Captain Harrington and the children... You know I thought it would be easier once the custody issue was handled and that horrible woman was gone... but honestly it feels like its gotten worse in a lot of ways." she sighed. "The new normal is not what I imagined." she said, trying to balance honesty with holding things back from Thorrin. Trust was not something she would give him easily, after all he was the one that reinforced Neils being unfaithful by feeling her half truths, She'd never forgive him for that, especially if it resulted in her losing Neil forever.
"It never is my dear, it never is. I must say that you comported yourself quite well on your first mission. Ninety eight percent restoration to the timeline is rarely achieved by a new agent. And yet here we are." Thorrin smiled. "In regards to the good Captain you are going to have to play the long game as it were. You see the powers that be do not view as a citizen and therefore you cannot be married. However, I have a plan. We establish you as a valued member of society, of the Federation at large. You complete a couple of missions or what have you and that will help back the claim up. Once that is done we can argue that one such as yourself is deserving of rights of a citizen."
Thorrin thought for a moment and poured the wine. "Per chance have you spoken with Lieutenant Commander Malbrooke in the JAG office. She is the legal mind in these waters and could perhaps see about granting you asylum. Then you would have rights of a citizen..." He smirked and picked up his glass. "To friendships... Mon ami..."
"What is Mon ami?" she asked as she copied him and picked up her own glass. "I've not spoken with much of any one other than Neil, Cara, and a therapist." she admitted, "And you, sort of." she said guardedly. "I want to be a citizen, I can't be secure here until I am. This universe wants to chew me up and spit me out, much like the other, but some how the other universe was simpler. Evil was more obvious." she sighed.
"Mon ami means my friend in French. I would tend to agree with you. Evil is simpler and definitely more obvious. The problem here is that no one is evil per se. Everyone wants to do good, the question is who they want to do good for." Thorrin spoke candidly for the first time with Adira. He knew that if he wanted her trust then he would have to earn it. Add to that if she were on his crew he was going to have to develop a rapport with her.
She eyed him for a moment, "And if they do good for someone who is evil?" she asked him. "See that's where I keep finding myself. Doing the bidding of evil." she said slowly, leaving the idea hanging for interpretation.
"If one does good for someone who is evil, then the question you should be asking is are they evil. Good and evil like beauty is in the eye of the beholder..." Thorrin's voice trailed off as the second part of Adira's statement settled in his mind. He mocked indignation and insult. "Me, I am evil. That is to laugh. I do a lot of bad things for the greater good. the good of the many as the Vulcans say and that is nowhere near evil."
Adira leaned back on her couch as she eyed the man. "Really... See you still confuse me Thorrin. You hold my life in your hand, showed me the power you hold over me, and yet you helped me be a part of my kids lives, and I have free reign of the station, except when you need me here. Holding that power over me, keeping me in fear... its evil. And yet you have done good for me. I can't figure out if you are evil or just an asshole who uses fear for power, like my Dead husband... the Empress... and Lucia Harrington." she said bluntly. Maybe too bluntly.
Thorrin cocked an eyebrow. It had been a rare time since someone cut him to the core, and took such a scathing approach to his personality. The El Aurian found it quite refreshing. He sipped the wine and looked Adira squarely in the eye. "Listen, I do not hold your life in my hands. I have no intention of harming you or anything else. Quite the opposite in fact I am one of the major voices in attempting to keep you here. As for the power I hold over you, it is the same power that you could wield if you would just see your own potential." He saw in her what could be a protégé, and he hoped that she would see it too. But first he had to make sure that she believed him.
"I could wield?" she scoffed. "My life, my marriage, my kids... they are sitting on a knifes edge. I could lose them all in a moment and yet I have power. Why would I want power like what you have? Destroy a life for the greater good. Give back whatever lives I find useful to me?" she asked. "So tell me. why would I want it and what would I do with it?" she demanded.
"You have at your fingertips the power of time itself. You can see all and every outcome and prove that your method is the best outcome for all involved. That is why I am assisting you. I have already checked the timelines and I have learned that this is best. In fact the only thing that you are missing is patience. The same thing I was lacking when I first was recruited into the DTI." Thorrin sipped his wine again and leaned back in his chair. He hoped that Adira would see her potential, and see it soon.
She narrowed her eyes slightly as she considered his comments. "Knowing my future may provide some comforts, but does it change the natural line of my life? I look in to the timelines and I see the future I want, am I cheating fate and causing a ripple effect by persuing the path I want to be my future?" she wondered. She paused, "How did you get roped in to this?" she asked.
A brief fleeting moment Thorrin was both pleased and perturbed by Adira. Pleased that she was grasping the concepts, and beginning to understand. Adira had a long way to go, and Thorrin knew it but she had taken the crucial first steps. Perturbed because she had asked the one question that he was not sure if he wanted to answer. Thorrin sipped his wine and squinted at Adira as he considered if he was going to answer. He arrived at the conclusion that they could relate through his story.
"You see like you I was shanghaied into this. My career started many many years ago in Starfleet. Roughly one hundred and fifty one years ago. My actual Stafleet career is inconsequential to this tale. In the year 2289 I applied to and joined the Department of Temporal Investigations and left Starfleet. There I worked until 2394... In 2394 I was a Deputy Director for the DTI well on my way to running the whole department. Admiral Katherine Janeway would take a shuttlecraft back to the year 2378 and change all of that. She did that to bring the USS Voyager home with less loss of life. I believed it to be a breach of the Temporal Prime Directive and wanted to set things right. However, I was told to leave it alone and then drummed out of the DTI. My Starfleet file was reactivated and I was given this command. So you see we are in a way two peas in a pod." Thorrin finished his tale with a salute of his glass and sip of wine.
Adira listened to his story, but behind her eyes she was wracking her brain to recall the events he was referring to. In the end she decided the events must not matter, but the crux of the story did. "So someone broke time, took away your promotion, when you tried to change it you got shuttled off to this area of space?" she asked him. She eyed him a moment, "This Admiral who saved lives... do you still think she was wrong?" she asked him.
Thorrin thought long and hard about the answer. Adira had backed him into a corner, and he could almost hear her response already. But he was not one to back down from a verbal fight. He began by correcting her by way of elaboration. "I was not sent here as punishment. I was demoted to keep me quiet. As a Director I had the power to send ships like this one on missions. It wasn't that I wanted to change it, I wanted to complete my mission, to do what the DTI is here to do. Prevent people from tampering with time. But, since Janeway's incursion went their way it was okay and here I am to keep my mouth shut...." His voice trailed off as he sipped his wine. "She was wrong for being selfish. She decided that her happiness and her friends were more important than anyone or anything. I cite an example... One of the people saved by her incursion was her first officer Commander Chakotay. Since he made it back he was able to marry and father children, and become a grandfather. All of that sounds grand until you learn that his grandson is going to hijack a Starfleet vessel, kill its crew and use the ship to take over a planet. So I ask is Chakotay's life worth the many that his grandson is going to kill. Remember one stone creates a ripple... So I ask you why does she get away with it and no one else."
He spoke with passion, with fervor. The nonchalance that was normally there was gone. Adira had stepped on a landmine and she did not even know it. There was definitely some pain in his eyes as Thorrin spoke, something more to all that he said.
Adira tried to follow his line of reasoning. So they knew that there was going to be a disaster in the future because of this. "Now that you know, you can take strides to prevent in other ways... security measures and such... adjusting a bad future doesn't have to be done by fighting what has happened. Maybe some timeline changes were supposed to happen for us." she commented. She took a breath and frowned, "Adira was never supposed to die was she? Her life may have changed the direction of Neil's life, which would change the direction of this stations, life, which in turn would change the lives of every one here. Hell, including this sector of space..."
"My being here set most of that back in motion didn't it?" she asked him. "I solved a problem with minimal interference. So you do already think of out of the box ways to prevent future disasters."
Thorrin smiled and nodded. He did so enjoy it when someone finally understood, when their eyes were opened. "Indeed we do... But there are sometimes people or events that one cannot go outside the box for. Katheryn Janeway is one of them. For you see no matter what one does to correct her interference it somehow gets back to her way. It all goes back to her. If we were to act upon our future knowledge that would cause grievous harm to the timeline as well. For example, let us say I took the Herodotus to the point that Chakotay's grandson was born. I make sure the child is never born and thereby prevent the massacre. However, in doing that I have skewed the timestream, now at some point before the massacre this grandson may have saved someone's life, and the life he saved may go on to do great deeds. Now that will not happen..." Thorrin's voice trailed off and he exhaled sharply through his nose. Then sipped his wine as he was lost in thought for the moment. "...However, you have hit the nail on the head. We are either going to have to convince someone to let us go back and stop her, or we are going to have to come up with a way to stop him."
He thought for a moment as he wrestled with a problem in his head. Thorrin came to the conclusion that telling her what would happen to the prime Adira Toril Harrington would not harm anything, after all he was making it so she could remain here. "In reference to your deceased counterpart you should know something. Adira Toril Harrington would have lived for a short time before dying of illness. Our data shows that if there was no interference in your universe you would not have survived. It is for this reason that it is not too much of an issue to have you here as her. The two of you are just temporally switched."
She considered his words a moment, "Short time hmm?" she mused. "So when the day comes that Adira would have caught this... illness and died, as I am living her life differently, I will not die. What happens then? Will we be unswapped ,and I sent back to the other universe to face my execution to maintain the time line? Was my life here temporary?" she asked him.
"No when the time comes, history will record that the illness never happened. It is why I am working with you instead of against you. I admit that when we first met I wanted to do my duty and send you home. However, after listening and reading I have come to the conclusion that you should be here. So, I am working to make it so. It just takes time and has to be done gradually as to not upset the timeline. No one but myself, T'Penga and now you know what was supposed to happen to Adira on this universe. So we can change things when we need to...." Thorrin held up a hand to stave a comment from Adira, as he felt he knew what she was going to say as her body language spoke volumes. "...Now before you say anything yes I know the hypocrisy of my statement. But what we are doing for you and what Janeway did is different as, no offense, Adira's effect on this timeline is minimal save for your children when grown with a mother do great things, as opposed to horrible things without a mother."
She leaned back thinking of the kids, everything she was doing was for them. SHe earned Tess and Mikkys love as a mother and she always had the twins. "Well I suppose i'm greatful that you are working to change things. When was this supposed to happen?" she asked. "I feel that if I know the moment... It will be a new day of birth for me... the day when new moment is my own."
"At the moment I cannot tell you exactly when that would happen. Time is after all a finnicky thing. But I will make you a promise... After the moment has past and it can no longer be effected without technology I will tell you. For that is the best I can do at least in the here and now." Thorrin understood the woman's need for rebirth and to start again. It was something he constantly felt, and continued to seek.
Adira smiled briefly, "Deal. I can respect that." she said feeling like she had something to look forward to. Maybe she would throw a party that day. Maybe she would even invite Thorrin. She smirked at the prospect.
"I appreciate the sharing you are doing." she told him. "I'm sure its no surprise I still am resisting trusting you. But conversations like this help. You sharing about yourself is helping. You know everything there is to know about me, and I'm sure there is more you know about me that You haven't told me. That kind of knowledge makes it hard to trust someone. So. I suppose I should applaud your effort to win my trust other wise."
"I may be a lot of things but first and foremost I am a Starfleet Captain. You are a member of my crew, for that relationship to succeed fully there must be trust. So here we are two people who are resistant to trust attempting to trust one another." He smiled and raised his glass of wine in toast. "There is not much to me, like all El Aurians I have lived more lifetimes than I care to realize."
She toasted with him, but then gave him a look. "Thats bullshit." she said bluntly. "Its comments like that that make people wonder what you are hiding. Someone who has lived more lifetimes than other people clearly have deeper experiences. They also are more likely to have a number of things to hide in their lives, so not much to you... I call that a bluff." she countered him.
It wasn't as much a bluff as it was an evasion. Either way she called him out on it and he could not help but think he had been training her well. Thorrin thought for a moment that he should chastise her for her language to a superior officer. Then he realized with a chuckle that she had no rank and therefor operated outside the rank structure. "My dear Adira there more things to hide in my experiences than I care to remember. The problem is I remember them all, and do not wish to project those horrors upon anyone. This is way I answer vaguely. However, if there is something specific you would like to know. Feel free to ask, as I said I keep no secrets..." Save for the ones that I have to keep... he thought.
She met his eyes for a moment, "Alright then." Interviewing, she knew how to do that. She used to be a journalist. "Tell me about your biggest victory." she said with a bit of challenge in her voice.
"My biggest victory? I a bet that you have never heard of the Klingon invasion of the Federation..." Thorrin began he knew that she hadn't, no one had. But he waited for Adira to shake her head no. "It seems that somewhere in the former Romulan Empire there is someone that does not like that the Klingons and the Federation are allies. So they made sure that the Enterprise C never made it to Nervanda III. At the time I was aboard the Herodotus. So the time change never effected me or my crew. We went back and made sure that Captain Garrett didn't miss the party. The only downside is that no one will ever know it actually happened..." As Thorrin finished speaking he really felt the weight of no one knowing his accomplishments. It was the downside of working in the DTI.
Adira tipped her head, "Well, I can't say that I understood any of that, but I suppose thats a part of the job. I'm sure we'll come across times where I help change something an no one will ever know it.." she sighed. "Which goes against my nature of telling stories and documenting everything." she glanced over at her desk where her nice new camera was sitting. She was enjoying relearning the art of imagery.
"Precisely, which is why we do it. None of us in the DTI do this for glory, or honor, or medals, or any of it. We do for the sheer purpose that someone has to. Someone has to guard our past and protect the future from those that would use it to their own ends..." Thorrin's voice trailed off for a moment as the full measure of what Adira just said sunk in. "There are some that will know of your accomplishments, you will know, Neil will know and most of all your children will know." He raised his wine glass to toast. "To unsung heroes like us my dear."
Adira didn't toast with him, instead she just nodded. "So I can speak to Neil about all this?" she asked him. "Not that we're really speaking about anything right now." she sighed heavily, feeling alone again. "And I'd never burden my kids with the knowledge of all this. Its too heavy for me, I could never put it on their shoulders." she told him before she bit her lip. "We may be the unsung Thorrin, but I'm not yet convinced we are heroes."
"Yes you can talk to Neil about as much or as little as you would like. He is the XO of this vessel so there is nothing to hide from him. As to your kids, believe me when I tell you that when you and they are ready they will know of the sacrifices that were made. I have no worries you will be convinced of your heroism before everything is over." Thorrin replied. He knew that he could not win her over all at once. However, he was happy to see that she was taking things in stride.
Adira Toril Harrington
Temporal Field Agent
DTI Herodotus
Captain Thorrin
Commanding Officer
DTI Herodotus
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