When Silence screams
Posted on Sun Feb 15th, 2026 @ 1:19am by Lieutenant Commander Sabastian Walker
Edited on on Sun Feb 15th, 2026 @ 1:20am
1,136 words; about a 6 minute read
Mission:
Forgotten Wounds
Location: XO's Quarters
ON:
This was never the easy part. Walking into their...no his quarters alone felt like a vice that was squeezing his heart bidding it to stop beating. There is a dreadful silence when someone dies. Whether you got on with the person or not the silence is the most oppressive thing about death. One moment there was a voice, whether it spread joy or not it was there, heard, loud and then ... nothing.
For Sabastian he'd lived without Zai for so long and then the fates had been kind, smiled on him, given him the one man he'd loved all his life, the one man that had brought him out of his miserable internal prison and then he'd been taken away, snatched. Sabastian had read the letter that Adrianna had left him on his desk and damned if hadn't shattered him even more. So many questions that he'll never get answers to; so man things unsaid; so many gestures undone.
In that moment Sabastian felt utterly hopeless and alone. His family had called to check on him, those whom he called friends, former collogues from Starbase 2 and he'd pretty much ignored them all. There was a peace in his solitude which, of course, lead to feelings of regret and guilt for feeling the peace. It was a cycle he couldn't break, it was one that usually was kept at bay by work both in Engineering and as the XO and now one of those was taken away from him. It had been cruel. Everyone grieved in their own way and working gave him moment's of peace that he couldn't otherwise find. Zai had been proud of him being the XO and now the counselor and the captain had seen fit to take away the one thing that made him feel closer to Zai.
In a moment of rage he picked up a vase, a wedding gift, and threw it across the room where it hit the wall and shattered into a thousand shards. Andorian Glass. He held back the roar of pain that would have had the ship ringing.
It seemed in that instant all his energy left and shattered with the vase. His body, tired, nay exhausted and spent slipped to the ground his head and shoulders drooping, too heavy to bare. He sat there, just like that, breathing heavily letting the air that was coming in but not filling his lungs circulate. After a long time, minutes? Hours? He didn't know he moved. It was as if his body was separate from his mind as if it moved on its own; an instinct to get off the hard floor. He crawled, like an infant, to the sofa that still faced the full window he'd had installed for Zai and with his last bit of strength he crawled onto the sofa and passed out. Blissful darkness or perhaps a dream where none of this had happened.
It was the chirping that brought him back to consciousness. An incessant chirping that he identified, through his haze, as the communications screen on his desk. He groaned and stood, again automatically hobbling to the desk. His body, trained by Starfleet, told him to never let a coms go, at least not one that rang with the standard Starfleet Command sound.
He swiped a hand down his face and shuddered as he got a whiff of his breath. Somewhere during his oblivious state he'd woken up from a nightmare of reliving Zai's death and had downed a bottle of Grappa. He winced. Perhaps the headache was from that and from lack of food and sleep and he was glad the other person wouldn't smell him.
Sabastian touched the screen and winced when the face came into view. "T'Prel."
She raised a delicately sculpted eyebrow. "You, as humans say, look like shit."
"Thank you Captain for your observation."
T'Prel shook her head. "Captain is my rank but I prefer Doctor if we are being honest." She paused. "Surprise I am your mental health expert. It comes with good news and bad news."
Sabastian did groan this time. "Figures. What's the bad news."
"You were stupid enough to ask for an outside counselor knowing that in the Fleet I specialize in Grief and Trauma."
"What's the good news?"
"You pulled the Counselor with some knowledge of your scattered part Vulcan brain."
Sabastian snorted. "Did you just make a funny?"
"Vulcan's are not funny. I shall attribute that to your jumbled mind and so obviously .... drunk state."
He shook his head. "I'm not drunk."
"Your hair looks as though you have been electrocuted or at least have had a ride in the refuse tube, you have sever and dark under eyes that make you look like a demon and your are pale, giving you a Vampiric complexion. Your eyes are bloodshot and your tongue is loose."
"Don't hold back counselor."
T'Prel shrugged. "I do not intend to. At all. This is counseling where you will face the harsh truth."
Sabastian muttered something under his breath.
"I heard that and may I remind you I am Vulcan...I speak it perfectly."
He repeated himself again this time speaking clearly.
Her lip twitched. "Excellent. Keeping such vile language in is not good for your soul."
Sabastian started at her. "You are evil."
"That is why I am the perfect counselor for you."
He sighed. "Is this an introduction call or a session?"
"Which would you like it to be?"
Sabastian studied her. "Introductory call so I can return to sleep."
"Ah, well then it's a session."
"Evil."
T'Prel's lip twitched. "Indeed. I heard you were temporarily relieved of your XO duties."
Sabastian's face scrunched up as if he'd smelled something disgusting.
"I'd ask how that makes you feel but your expression speaks volumes. I take it you don't agree with the decision?"
"Wow, all that education and that's the best you can do?"
T'Prel raised her eyebrow again.
Sabastian sighed. "Fine. No I don't agree with it and frankly they took the one accomplishment that made my husband proud. He was so happy when I was named XO and now..."
She pursed her lips. "Now you feel as if you have let him down, that you lost that pride with the loss of your duties."
"Yeah," his shoulders slumped.
T'Prel was quiet for a long moment and then reached over to press a button on her desk. "Lieutenant Anderson, clear my schedule for the rest of the afternoon. I have a rather thick skulled officer to deal with."
Sabastian sat back and crossed his arms. "HOW are you a shrink."
"I ask myself that all the time. I swear, a few more Sabastian like clients and I shall be driven to Romulan ale."
Sabastian snorted. "Try Grappa. Ten times stronger."
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