Tears and Gears

Posted on Sun Jul 31st, 2016 @ 11:43pm by Colonel Damian Highsmith M.Eng & Master Chief Petty Officer Tanner Willeg

Mission: Zero Week
Location: Main Engineering
Timeline: Mission Day 5, 0630 Hours

ON:

It was the hum, the vibration: even amidst the shouts, grumbling, and general conversation, Tanner could feel the hum and vibration of the engine. It was something that calmed her, put her at ease. This was what she knew and recognized, it was familiar, and something she understood. This was her crossword puzzle, her Sunday newspaper, her daily report, her status update. More than that, it was her bedtime story, her lullaby, it was what kept her going. Engines and food. Functionality and sustenance. Both soothed her nerves, and sometimes caused her to wrack her mind. But it was a beautiful thing, a thing that kept her moving, kept her thinking and gave her purpose. In both regards, the answer was simple: it's better to do something than to do nothing, and if it doesn't work, adjust, fix, or start over as needed. Start over, and find a new path, a new answer, because there is an answer. There's always an answer. Standing this close to it, she could feel the vibration of the engine run through her, could almost hear the tone of it, or so she thought. Everything has a rhythm.

Damian strode through the massive doors to Main Engineering, two steaming cups of coffee in one hand and a PADD in the other. Sliding to one side as a rather flustered Senior Chief walked past him yelling, “Damn devil woman telling me how to do my job! That’ll be the day!” As the man walked through the door, steam coming from his ears, Damian knew exactly what could cause that level of frustration in a normal human being- Tanner. Continuing to move at a leisurely pace, Damian noted that things were still extremely chaotic, with engineers screaming orders and notations at each other. For reasons Damian couldn’t fathom, Tanner enjoyed working amongst this chaos, with its constant noise, odd smells, and strange problems. He swore to himself that one day, he would attempt to convince Tanner to try something new that didn’t involve a warp core or twisted machinery.

Walking over to Tanner, he placed a cup of coffee next to her. “I hope it’s the way you like it. I picked it up from Sam this morning.” he said sheepishly, looking around. “Judging by the reaction of that Senior Chief, you really pissed him off.”

Still standing in front of the warp core, eyes closed, Tanner sucked in a breath, and let her head fall back. One hand reached out to pick up the mug set beside her, bringing it up to her face, she drank half of it down, not caring if it was to her preference or not. “Coffee regular,” she noted and finished the last of the glass before setting it down again. “You remembered. But actually, I drink it black, these days.” Tanner smiled as she turned and placed a hand on Damien’s shoulder, “McGarry’s just upset because he spent the last five hours re-calibrating the engines, and I just told him it’s still off. He disagrees, which I understand, because he’s put in the time and work. And he doesn’t like the fact that I insisted, yet haven’t run a diagnostic of any kind. Thanks for the coffee.”

Damian frowned. “You’re welcome but you can’t go running off every single senior engineer that the Corps of Engineers sends down here or Captain Bartlett is going to have my ass for breakfast.” he said, sighing slightly. Captain Josiah ‘Jed’ Bartlett was one of the most well-known Engineers in the fleet with over 100 design credits to his name. He was also a notorious drunk who was quick to anger and had a tendency to turn the hardest men to babbling fools.

“I don’t intentionally run off engineers, senior or otherwise. If they have a legitimate idea, I listen. If they don’t like or understand my ideas, it’s because…” Tanner sighed. This wasn’t an argument worth her time. He knew who she was, and he wasn’t asking her to stop being herself. Damian was basically asking her to not get him into trouble, not to force him to choose between backing her up or keeping his command. She tilted her head, slightly curious as to the reasons he thought he might need to back her, she'd always been more than willing to do that herself. Then she bit her lip, there was a time you wouldn’t have minded someone having your ass for breakfast.

Erupting into a fit of sputtering coughs, Damian cleared his throat and attempted to breathe normally. Bending down, he whispered into Tanner’s ear seductively. “And I still don’t mind, mi amore.” he said, his face slightly red. He recalled their occasional trysts in the Jeffries tubes of the New Jersey when they had both managed to run off from their respective duties for a while and forget about performance reports, supply requisitions, and repair orders. Looking up, he noted that this particular ship only had three Engineering decks as opposed to four and the core was more streamlined than he had anticipated. Sneaking a peek at the console, he pointed for Tanner to look. “Your core revolutions are a few thousand cycles higher than they should be.” he said playfully.
“A minor adjustment with a major difference. I’d say….” Taking a breath, Tanner took a step back, needing the distance to pick up on the vibration she’d felt earlier. “Twenty-eight fifty. But it’s going to take another three days to readjust the ODN to refit the new cycle, just to avoid any other issues, because the internal systems have been reflexively working within the parameters they’re currently running on.” Tanner pulled her hands behind her back, straightening her spine and made the intentional effort to appear professional, “which is why the Senior Chief is upset. Nobody likes hearing they’ve got a week’s worth of all hours shifts coming up. There will be complaints about the hours. Maybe from him, definitely to him, and…” Tanner shrugged. “It needs to be adjusted. He’ll get over it and/or figure it out after a level two diagnostic confirms it.”

Looking it over, Damian thought for a moment. “At this point, we don’t have a choice. We’re slated to depart in less than three days and I really don’t want us having a warp core breach because someone was too damn tired to show up for work!” he said, frustration building in his voice. He had already lost one ship to an engineering mishap and he did not intend to lose another. He trusted Tanner to do what needed to be done but he had his own concerns about the engineering teams that were being brought in just based upon the fact that they weren’t his people. These were engineers and civilians brought in to fill a temporary need, and if something happened when they were thousands of lightyears away, there wouldn’t be a way to rip Bartlett a new orifice for his mistake.

With anyone else, Tanner might’ve gone on a rant, felt affronted, and taken a moment to list off her qualifications. She knew her personality had caused issues in the past, but she knew her job, and anyone who questioned that… The black eyed engineer blinked, her chest rose as she took in a deep breath and let it out, once, twice… After several moments she stared up at Damian, “I’m capable of getting along with people.”

She’d been a COB too long not to figure out that she needed to find a way to soften the edges, and appear more diplomatic. The last time they’d crossed paths that hadn’t been the case, so she couldn’t begrudge him the concern. Tanner had been the person who shouted, argued and just kicked things until they did what she wanted. She’d poked at people the same way she poked at machines, and people weren’t as unbiased or reasonable. “I’ll make it work.”

Damian gave Tanner a look of acknowledgement. “I know you will. You’re the best engineer I know and you’ve managed to repair worse problems than this with nothing more than a bubblegum wrapper and a ham sandwich.” he said, in all seriousness. “So this is going to be nothing compared to this.” he said, stepping closer and kissing her on the forehead. Not even realizing what he’d done, he immediately pulled back. Kissing her had always been sort of a reflex for him but he was never one to do things like that uninvited.

“It was a tomato sandwich. And that wasn’t me, it was…” Rolling her eyes, Tanner turned and leaned against the rail. “I’ve never been great at electrical work, merely feasible, but I did learn something new that day. Something about acidity.” She laughed-- not just because of the memory, and the entertainment of it, but there was also something wonderful and amusing about the fact that he’d remembered it. It made her look back and remember telling the story. He’d been both shocked and amused when hearing it, and Tanner remembered the greatness of someone who got the joke, and also understood and respected the impossibility or perhaps the kismet of the mishap.

It was always a haphazard effort to keep up any defenses with Damian, and always had been a problem. But that was then, and this was now, so rather than making an issue of it, Tanner simply let out a breath and reached out a hand. Her finger tapped the end of his nose, she smiled, head tilting to one side, and her finger trailed along the ridge of his jawline. No shame, and no regrets, Imzadi.

Damian felt the familiar buzz of excitement and a slight tingle in his skin as Tanner moved her fingers ever so slightly near his jaw. Bringing his own hand up, he held hers in his and felt the warmth of her skin. Smiling slightly, he let go. “No regrets.” he said, letting out a small sigh. Thinking for a moment, he remembered why he was there in the first place and handed her a PADD. “Just to make things official.” he said “You’ve been assigned as my Command Master Chief. Unofficially, you could still do things down here if you wanted to.” he said, preparing for the backlash that he was about to receive. If there was one thing that Tanner had despised, it was being behind a desk and he wasn’t going to try to sequester her in an officer for the remainder of her career. “It wasn’t my intention to yank you out of here but Personnel didn’t exactly give me a choice in the matter.” he conceded. “Something about a computer glitch that they couldn’t rectify.” Damian couldn’t shake the fact that no matter how far across the cosmos they ended up from each other, they always managed to make it back to the same assignments time after time. It was almost like some Personnel Officer was having fun pulling them apart and putting them back together.

It’d been years, but Tanner flashed back to the moment they’d met. She raised a brow and smirked, “If I wanted? You couldn’t keep me out of the engine room if you tried.” It only took a fraction of a moment for her to realize her mistake. Part of the reason they’d drawn apart was due to that very characteristic. “For someone without regrets, you’re making way too many excuses. You don’t have to explain yourself to me.”

Damian leaned against the railing. “I’m only making excuses because I know how much you love this.” he said motioning to the expansive engineering decks. “If I pulled you out of here, you’d be unhappy and despite my need for a Command Master Chief, I need an engineer more.” Sighing again, he looked at her. “I still care about you, much more than you know and I need you here.” Taking another long draw from his coffee, he looked Tanner over. She was as beautiful as ever with her hair out of place and smudges of oil on her cheek. She was home here and it would be the epitome of stupid to remove her from something she was naturally good at.

Thank you. Tanner understood that what he was doing was taking care of her, something he’d always wanted to do, and something she’d often rebelled against because of the way he wanted to do it. But she was, at this point, honestly grateful that he seemed to understand that he couldn’t change her, that despite whatever instincts he had or care he had for her, she was going to make her own decisions, and he wasn’t always going to agree. She’d spent a significant amount of time hearing Damian tell her she shouldn’t be in engineering, that she shouldn’t work so much, that she needed sleep, that she should take a break. At first, it’d made sense, she was a workaholic, to a degree, and a pseudo-insomniac, and he had a point. But there were circumstances where that mentality had shifted from someone trying to make her better, help her relax, into a set of circumstances that didn’t allow her to be herself.

She was already ruffling feathers, and while she didn’t have a problem doing so, that wasn’t her goal. Scanning the room, Tanner once again lifted her chin and looked Damian in the eye. She considered reaching out a hand, as though to shake, but instead decided it wouldn’t be inappropriate to simply place her hand on his shoulder. When she did, everything she felt, everything she knew passed between them. Tanner immediately turned away, but she couldn’t undo what’d just been done. Things just hadn’t been the same since Dany. I do know. There might not be any such thing as more than I know… Not with you, anymore. There was something sad about her tone, as though she regretted it, hated herself for it, but she didn’t know what to do about it. She hated that she’d taken some sense of privacy from him, where once she’d been able to sever that connection and allow him that, but she couldn’t not tell him the truth.

With a sharp intake of breath, Damian grasped his chest as if he was drowning. His head was pounding and he felt a flood of tears well up in his eyes. There were new and foreign memories rushing through his head and connecting with his own. Looking down at her, he pulled her close and simply held her, the tears falling freely now. It had been years since he had cried and this was one of those few times. His body became wracked by silent sob as the memories continued to flood his mind and crush all reason that had been there before. “Why didn’t you tell me?” he asked, the sadness apparent in his voice.

Tanner was surprised that he seemed to be hugging her, pulling her closer and pressing her to him. Her brows furrowed, “I couldn’t, I just…” Biting her lip, Tanner let out a breath, “I thought you’d hate me for it. It was just easier…. well… It was just easier.”

Damian simply stood there, holding Tanner as he tried to process the waves of sadness that were washing over him like a sailboat in a hurricane. He couldn’t speak since it took all of his energy not to erupt into tears. What hurt him the most was that Tanner thought that he would hate her if she actually opened up. Damian had never been one to push people away for their emotions, especially something of this magnitude. Wiping away the last of his tears, he tried to steady himself and breathe normally but the spasms in his chest were still there no matter how hard he tried to suppress them.

The people in engineering were, at this point, intentionally and consciously ignoring them. Tanner really couldn’t blame them. Nonetheless, it was foolish at this point to pretend to be detached, pointless to attempt to regain appearances. Reaching up, the Betazoid engineer placed her hand at the back of Damian’s neck, she pushed herself up on her toes, and pulled him down until her forehead pressed against his. “Overwhelming, isn’t it?” That’s all it is, Damian. It was very overwhelming, and I couldn’t tell you, couldn’t tell anyone, could hardly talk about it without feeling like I was crazy, without feeling like… “It used to be hard for me to let people in. It was easier with you, but you know…” I never was entirely comfortable with it, or knew how to handle it.

Damian sighed for what seemed like the umpteenth time and held Tanner tight and closed his eyes, taking in her scent and the sound of her breathing, his muscles finally untightening.

=A= Corporal Lansley to Colonel Highsmith, Priority One transmission from Starfleet incoming to the SCIF, sir. =A=

Letting out a huff, Damian looked ruefully in the direction of his commbadge as he heard the slightly whiny voice of his aide, Corporal Simon Lansley, who, despite repeated warnings had refused to stop identifying himself by rank over the comm channels. Damian felt that it was not only annoying but incredibly pretentious as well, especially for a man who had been denied an officer’s commission more than three times. It was almost like a cosmic joke at Simon’s expense.

Finally deciding to respond, Damian spoke. “Patch it through to the Chief Engineer’s Office, Corporal.” Damian responded wearily. This must have been incredibly important for Starfleet to need to locate him in the middle of a refit. Letting go of Tanner, he walked the twenty feet into the nearby office and took a seat. Tapping the button to accept the transmission, Damian was greeted by the face of General Chavez. Raising his eyebrow, he regarded the man suspiciously.

“To what do I owe the pleasure, General?” Damian asked, his voice slightly sarcastic.

General Chavez smiled, apparently relishing what he was about to say. “Colonel, I’ve got new orders for you.”

Damian leaned forward. “I’m listening…”

: OFF