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Aftermath

Posted on Mon Aug 22nd, 2022 @ 3:26pm by Lieutenant Aemilia "Millie" Stepanova

Mission: Magic Mirror
Location: Millie and Evelyn's quarters

Millie ran her thumb around the rim of the glass in her hands. The vodka was rapidly approaching room temperature, but her mind was a million other places. Evelyn was asleep in their bedroom, the sedative from Sickbay helping her to rest after the ordeal she and the other crew members had been through.

She should have known something was wrong. She should have noticed, should have reported her suspicions. Why didn’t she?

The chime beeped and a moment later Patricia entered. She held the neck of a bottle by the neck. She plopped down in a chair. "So….anything exciting happen lately?"

Millie huffed out a single breath. “I’ve been sleeping with someone from a mirror universe while my partner was trapped on the other side of a mirror we bought on shore leave.” She gestured with her head towards their kitchen area. “You know where the glasses are. Help yourself.”

Patricia gathered a glass and returned to the chair, pouring half a glass of the amber colored liquor. "You can't blame yourself for what happened. There's no way you could know."

“I knew something was off, Trish. We came back from shore leave and–” Millie ran her hand through her hair. “She was different. I noticed something was off, and tried to talk to her about it and–I just fell for the lies she fed me. And this whole time, Evelyn was a prisoner on the other side just [i]waiting[/i] for me to figure it out. I should have said something to Henry–”

“Listen, if there is a poster girl for woulda coulda shoulda, it’s me.” She took a long sip. “You can’t change the last couple weeks, all you can do is be thankful that it’s over and she’s back.”

“Things would have likely gone very differently if you and your army of yous hadn’t come through the mirror when you did.” Millie took a sip of her own drink. “I keep waiting on Henry to say something about what I did. All he did was hand me his handkerchief to wipe off my face and walked away.”

“Yea, that was pretty badass…” she took another drink, refilling her glass. “And he didn’t say anything to you because you kinda freaked him out. He’s used to it from me. You? Not so much. So I told him we’d have a girl talk.”

Millie rubbed the back of her neck. “I’m not sure why I did it–the face thing. I was thinking about how I needed to protect her, you, the Captain, the rest of the crew, and I just–once I was able to get a couple of phasers, it just felt like one of our training holoprograms.” She paused. “I killed some of them, didn’t I?”

Patricia shrugged. “You did protect your people and sometimes you can’t help break some eggs. I think the reason you did the facepaint was because the last time you went to war was with the trees. But I’ll stress what I told you when we started training. This isn’t you, deep down, so don’t let it become you. The fact you’re even thinking about what happened to some of the people who wanted to replace the crew says you’re not stone cold killer material.”

Millie tucked a leg up, curling up in the chair a bit more. “You think the crew is going to want to bare their emotional souls to me after watching me smear blood across my face like warpaint?”
.
“The senior staff adores you and you fighting to protect them is not a blemish. You need to stop thinking you have some scarlet letter.”

Millie knocked back the remaining vodka in her glass, quietly glancing to the closed door to their bedroom. “She knows that I slept with the woman down in Sickbay. The look of pain that she gave me just cut right through me. I–I thought I’d sleep out here tonight. Give her some space. Until she’s ready.”

"She also knows you didn't do anything on purpose. You were duped like the rest of us. If she needs some time to digest that, it doesn't mean she won't come to accept it."

Millie sat quietly for a moment. "If she had not come back through one of those mirrors…I'm not sure I would have liked the person I would have become to get her back. I am just so angry, Trish."

“Here’s some irony. Maybe you need some anger management sessions. Which is bad coming from me, I know.”

She gave a nod. "I've already put in a request to work with the same counselor I spoke with before. I…put in a request for Evelyn to have her own counselor–someone other than me."

"That makes sense on multiple levels. Just remember, the only person who did wrong in this mess is the bitch sitting in the brig."

 

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