[ussbansheec] "Just the Right Push."

"Just the Right Push."
Anna and Moria McEntire

The conversation she'd had with her CO the day before rang through Moria's mind 
as she allowed the hot water of her shower to beat down on her. "I can't do 
this. It's not my area of..." She'd protested, but Lieutenant Commander Dylan 
wasn't listening. "You will do it, wither you think you can handle it or not is 
irrelevant. It's the assignment I've given you." She really, really didn't want 
to go back to that place, to deal with those people, to be in the same space as 
that man. Moria shivered despite the heat of the water, so she got out and 
padded around her bedroom until she was dry and warm in a dark blue dress shirt 
that at one point in time had belonged to her father. After getting a tall 
glass of dark ale from the kitchen she settled onto the chase lounge on her 
small balcony to relax in the sun.

Anna had been in town for work and decided to see her daughter. Ringing the 
chime to her flat, she smiled at the tub of brownies Vix had baked and the 
flowers from her garden.

The sound of her bell startled Moria. Noah was on Dorvan for the season, Hawk 
was off on a ship somewhere, and she didn't have any other friends. Pushing 
herself to her feet she padded over to the door and squeaked happily as she 
peered through the peep hole. Throwing open the door she smiled brightly. 
"Mummy!" 

"Hello, precious," Anna laughed as she hugged her girl. "You look tired, 
sweetie. Let me make some tea. Vix sent food." She waved the box and grinned.

Moria's eyes went as wide and as bright as they use to when she was little and 
someone brought her a present. Taking the box from her mother she squealed and 
plucked a brownie from it's depths, taking a huge bite of it. "'orks g'en st'ss 
'ull." She mumbled through the mouthful of brownie. 

"How so?" Anna asked carefully as she was led into the apartment. Her smile 
still firmly in place, she started making tea. 

This time Moria finished her mouthful before plopping into a chair at her small 
table and answering, "I'm in over my head and my CO's a sodding wanker."

"Both of those are going to need clarifying, precious one," Anna called from 
the kitchen.

Moria blinked for a moment before she realized it wasn't like when she lived at 
home. Her mother didn't know as much about her life as she did when they lived 
under the same roof. "He's assigned me three days a week at NZRC. I went in 
yesterday to speak with the marine in charge of the counseling program. I meet 
some of the inmates and now I know I can't do it. I'm in over my head."

"Why?" Anna asked.

"Because it's a bloody prison." Moria answered out loud and finished inwardly 
with, where Manny is.

"And that's scary?" her mother asked, setting a cup down for Moria and holding 
her own in her hands.

Moria blinked and bit back the childish retort of, well duh! "Yes." She 
answered instead.

"And scary means you can't do it?"

Again she bit back the, well duh!, and the I don't want to do it. "Do I look 
like someone who should be working with male inmates? Mummy, there are men in 
there who've murdered and raped. What good am I going to do them?"

"Talk to them?" Anna offered as she sipped her tea and stole a brownie. "Let 
them talk to you?"

"Have them make vulgar advancements, taunt with offensive remarks, and remind 
me every time I walk through the gates that if James hadn't have stopped...." 
Moria stopped, wide eyed and shoved a brownie in her mouth to shut herself up.

"James?" Anna blinked then set her cup down and knelt in front of Moria. 
"What's he got to do with this?"

Daddy had always said his girls got that 'look' from their mother. The look 
that just pulled at you in just the right way for the moment. Moria liked that 
look just fine when she was the one using it not having it used on her. Sighing 
she started to chew on her lip. "If James hadn't have stopped him Manny would 
have been in that cell for rape a lot sooner."

"Hmph..." Anna's eyes narrowed. "Does your CO know your history with Manny?"

Moria nodded. "He said it didn't matter since the Major took him off my case 
load. He won't reassign me."

"So you won't have access to Manny?" Anna asked. 

"No." Moria answered. "I've got about five cases and a group of seventeen to 
twenty-one year olds." Looking into her mother's eyes she hoped to see 
something that would tell her that mummy would fix it all, but she wasn't sure 
what she was seeing in eyes only slightly darker then her own. 

"Are you ever alone with them?"

Shaking her head Moria reached down and ran a finger over her mother's well 
worn wedding band. "In the office during one on one's and in the classroom with 
the boys, but the guards are near by and I had to take extra training courses 
in Security."

"Why can't you do it, Moria?" Anna pushed.

She opened her mouth to explain but realized her explanation wasn't a why can't 
you answer, it was an I don't wanna, it's to hard answer. "I just can't."

Anna sighed as she wrapped her arms around her daughter. "Why not? Moria, is it 
your training or your knowledge? Or is it that you just don't want to?"

They weren't asking her to do anything that went beyond her training, it was 
just that she didn't want too. She cuddled her mother, hiding her face in her 
mother's hair like she did when she was a child and muttered, "I don't want 
to." 

"They scare you?" Anna asked as she rubbed Moria's back in large circles.

"He does." She admitted. 

"But you don't see him, do you?"

Moria shook her head. "I don't handle his case but he's still there, I've still 
got to pass his cell, I know he's there."

"So?" Anna pushed. For a moment, she wondered how she would handle it if she 
was forced to pass Kieran's cell every day. But she would do it, if Starfleet 
required it of her. One day she might walk in and just turn off his machines 
but she'd do it. 

"What do you mean so?" Moria asked not sure how she felt, confused, angry, or 
stupid.

"You walk past him, and? That doesn't mean he can touch you. Moria, that makes 
you strong. It makes you better than he is. Just swan past him as if he is 
nothing."

Moria snorted. "I'm not all that strong, Mummy. Not like you."

"I'm not strong," Anna whispered as she sat back.

You would have thought by the look on her face that her mother had just 
sprouted hot pink and electric blue wings. "How can you say that, Mummy? Your 
the strongest woman I know! I mean you raised five kids all the same age while 
having a career, while Daddy spent so much time away, and while dealing with 
the fact that three out of five us were rotten to the core. You made it through 
a personal attack, you made it through years of Starfleet service, your still 
doing it."

"I'm old and tired, Moria," she said softly as she climbed to her feet.

Getting to her own feet Moria walked up behind her mother and wrapped her arms 
around her lovingly. "Your not old, Mummy, and hell I'd be tired as hell too if 
I had kids like me, James, and PJ."

"And to think, all you have to deal with is one prick in a cell," Anna said 
softly, hugged her daughter's arms.

"Well when you put it that way." Moria chuckled. "I didn't want to do this, but 
I know for sure I'd never be able to do what you did. I'd have killed me at 
four."

"Seven was the first time I seriously considered murder, actually," Anna 
laughed brightly. "Wipe the lot of you out and start over."

Moria laughed which melted all her previous tension and anxiety. "I still 
believe that if PJ hadn't have been so mean then I'd have never popped her in 
the eye."

"And I hold that I should have a medal for not stringing you all up when you 
repainted my office bright purple," Anna grinned.

That made Moria giggle as she hugged her mother again and kissed her cheek 
before letting go. "The boys wanted to paint it bright orange and blue."

"Uh-huh, well, I guess purple was better," Anna laughed. "So, is my girl eating 
properly?"

A quick glance towards her kitchen made Moria blush. She use to be really 
careful about taking care of herself, but after coming back things just weren't 
the same. "Um, yeah, of course." She answered knowing there was maybe a half a 
empty yogurt pot, some cheese crackers, milk for her tea, and three kinds of 
ale in her fridge. 

Anna sighed softly as she nodded. "About as well as I did at the Academy? Are 
you living on just baked beans yet?" 

Moria scrunched up her nose and shook her head. "Eww, no, gross."

"You'll get to it," Anna laughed brightly. "At least you have a mother who'll 
come and make you real food sometimes." 

"Only if she lets her middle child take her out to dinner." Moria replied with 
a smirk before looking down at her father's shirt. "After she gets dressed of 
course."

"Oh, I don't know, I think my daughters all look beautiful in anything," Anna 
winked.

Moria laughed and kissed her mother's cheek. "Well we have wonderful genes." 
She snatched another brownie and turned to head towards her bedroom but then 
stopped and asked, "How long will you stay, Mummy?"

"How long do you need me?"

"The next eighty plus years." Moria said sheepishly, a little girl's smile 
tugging her lips.

Letting out a bright laugh, Anna shook her head. "How about a couple of weeks? 
By then you'll be royally sick of me."

Moria's eyes lit up. "Really? You can stay that long?"

"Of course." Anna wandered over to her girl and gave her a hug. "I've nowhere 
else to be."

How long had it been since she'd had her mother all to herself? Never for more 
then a day or two she was sure, so she couldn't pass this up. Hugging her 
mother tightly Moria said softly, her voice nearly sounding ten years younger. 
"Thanks, Mummy."

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