<USS Banshee> A New Light - Chapter One
- From: "Sarah Stewart" <cyanah@xxxxxxx>
- To: <ussbanshee@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Thu, 5 Sep 2002 22:24:01 -0700
?A New Light? ? Chapter One
by Lieutenant Sara Crusher
and Lieutenant JG Cyanah Kaelyre
The heat in the small wooden room made Cyanah's eyelids droop with sweet
relaxation as droplets of sweat continued to form on her forehead. After
wiping them away yet again, she let her hand fall to her side, too
sedate to do much more. She rolled her head to the left and smiled at
Sara, who was sitting next to her, clad identically in a white towel.
"I'm glad I came here with you. This feels divine... and that
massage..." Cyanah let her mind wander to the deep tissue massage that
the burly Russian woman had given her a little while ago. Because of
that woman's strong hands, her back muscles were so relaxed that
movement was out of the question.
Sara rested her head on the back of the bench that she and Cyanah were
sitting on. Her eyes closed and for the first time in months she wasn't
sore, stiff or on empathic overdrive. The outside world seemed to melt
away with the heat. She smiled and turned her head at the sound of Cy's
voice but she didn't open her eyes. "I know... I told you it was nice."
She smiled a bit and took a deep breath as she sat up straight. "I'm
glad you?re enjoying yourself."
Cyanah exhaled slowly, the hot air opening her sinuses. "Lay back down,
Sara... how do you have the energy to sit up like that?"
"This is the most energy I've had in ages, Cy." She stopped before going
into detail. She didn't want to spoil the mood, neither her own nor
Cy's. She did however allow herself to make sure Cy was in a good mood.
She then settled back down on the bench and was quiet for a while before
letting out a sigh that was more then just one of relaxation.
"I'm sure that I'll be energized once I get out of this room, but I'd
have to get up to leave, and that takes too much energy." Cyanah
languidly played with the top of her towel as it crossed her breasts and
idly wondered what Sara was thinking. "I envy that empathy of yours,
Sara. It must be nice not to need to guess what someone is feeling."
Sara sat up again and gave Cy a funny look. "It's not always a good
thing." She paused long enough to find her water bottle. "It used to be
alright but lately it's been more then I can handle." She paused again
to take a long drink from her water. Things had only gotten more
complicated in the past few days. It was almost as if her own emotions
were kicking her into overdrive. She sighed again. "But you don't want
to be bored with this. What d?ya say we get out of here and get a drink
or something?"
Cyanah shrugged, figuring that Josh had made an ass out of himself again
and that Sara might not want to talk about it. She would say something
if she needed to, Cyanah thought as she nodded and gathered the energy
to stand. A cold drink, preferably something frozen and fruity with an
umbrella in it, would certainly hit the spot. "Do you know a good place
for drinks on DS9, Sara?"
Sara slowly stood, grabbing her towel before it had a chance to sneak
loose. "There's only one place I know of? Quark's." She stepped off the
bench and towards the doors. "It was nice while it lasted," she said
softy.
Delosian hearing was slightly above the human standard, so Cyanah was
able to overhear what Sara obviously meant for her not to. She stood,
wondering what Sara meant, and her imagination ran wild with
possibilities. Cyanah dismissed every last one of them, chastising
herself for jumping to conclusions about her friend.
The two women went into the locker room, which seemed amazingly cold to
Cyanah after the sauna. She unabashedly removed her towel and looked
around for something warm, finally spotting the showers. "Real water
showers! You didn't tell me that they have real showers! I haven't had a
water shower since graduating from the Academy!"
Sara stepped carefully onto the tile floor of the locker room to avoid
slipping but to almost no avail. She slipped a bit was quick enough to
find her balance before making a total fool of herself. She walked
softly behind Cy towards the showers. Sara looked around the room and at
the showers and then back at Cy who had tossed her towel to the ground.
She could feel herself turn crimson again and quickly turned her head,
but the sound of Cy's voice as well was something else.
Something she was unsure of made Sara look in Cy?s direction again.
"Ooo, a hot shower sounds nice," she agreed as she allowed herself to
really look at Cyanah. Sara had noticed how pretty she was the first
time she had seen her, but had no idea she... She stopped herself and
quickly ducked into a shower stall. "What are you doing?" she asked
herself as she placed her towel on the hook in the shower. She turned
the hot water on and once again everything melted away.
Cyanah entered her own stall and luxuriated in the stream of hot water
for several long minutes. Invigorated, she emerged from the shower,
feeling totally relaxed and refreshed from her experience at the spa.
After finding her discarded towel on the floor, she began to dry
herself, but paused to smile at Sara as she finished her own shower. "I
feel so energized! Thanks for bringing me here, Sara."
Sara smiled as she wrapped her towel around herself again. "You?re
welcome? And thank you for coming with me." She paused as she walked
over to the lockers and started wondering where in the world they had
put their uniforms. "It was nice to spend a day free from everything and
everyone," she said as she began to open lockers. It really was nice not
to be under a lot of pressure and stress. She never felt that way while
she was Cy. No wonder she had taken to her so fast.
"Here they are, Sara," Cyanah said as she opened a locker and discovered
their uniforms. Half an hour later, the two women were dressed and
enjoying piña coladas at Quark's. Cyanah sipped at her drink and played
with the umbrella that was stuck into a slice of banana on the drink's
white surface. "Ahhhh... that's just right after the heat of the sauna,"
she said, smiling across the table.
Sara took a sip of her drink and smiled back across the table. "Cy, can
I ask you another question?" Sara asked as watched her friend played
with her umbrella, and Cy nodded. "How do you know when you?re really in
love with someone?"
Sara surprised herself. She wasn't normally one to talk about such
things; she liked keeping tight lids on things. But for some reason she
felt like talking. "I mean... Josh told me he was in love with and I'm
in love with him... I think. But if I were wouldn't I want to be with
him?" Sara stopped sipping at her drink thinking that the alcohol had
gone to her head and then tried really hard to back out of the remarks
she had made. Maybe, she hoped, Cy wouldn't pick up on what she meant.
Cyanah considered carefully the implications of what Sara had said. She
had never been happy about Sara's relationship with Josh, but it wasn't
her place to judge, only to be there to support Sara when she was
needed. Now, though, it seemed that Sara was reaching out, and she
intended to lend all the support she could. Cyanah also noticed that her
friend was projecting something else, but she resolved to ignore that
until what it was became clearer.
"Yes," she began hesitantly, "I would think that you would want to be
with someone you claimed to love."
Sara ran her fingers though her hair and sighed. She hated feeling like
this. "But how do you know?" She asked again. "If you?re in love with
someone like that or if it's something else." She felt a sudden urge to
want to be five years old again running around on her mother's ship
avoiding the security officers. Life was so much easier at that age. She
sighed again and then smiled. "I am so sorry, Cy... We were having a
great time then I have to torpedo the whole mood."
"I wouldn't be your best friend if I wasn't willing to listen when you
need someone to listen, Sara. And the mood is different now, but not
unpleasant. Conversations like this make us better friends, you know?"
Sara smiled and nodded. "I wish I felt like this around everyone else.
I'm never tense or scared or pressured around you." She smiled again as
she pushed her empty glass to the side. "Which reminds me? How'd you get
over your nervousness around Morrigan? The last few times I've been
around you two together it's been different? She still scares me."
A waiter came by with a pitcher of the frozen drink and filled their
glasses as Cyanah chuckled to herself. She didn't think that Rhiannon
wanted the crew to know of their relations, so Cyanah had to take a
moment to formulate her answer. "I was simply honest with her, Sara.
Afterwards, I found that there was never a cause to be nervous."
Sara looked over the rim of her glass and nearly choked as she laughed.
"That's ?cause you've never been in trouble with her." She said as she
put the glass down. "I guess now that I'm CMO and I'll be working with
her I really need to get over this stupid fear I have of her. Then again
I wouldn't have to be scared of her if I'd stop doing stupid stuff."
Sara couldn't help but to laugh at herself.
"There's no reason to fear her, really. At least that's what I've
discovered. And you wouldn't be CMO now if you had done anything
extremely stupid, so what's to worry about? Just be honest with yourself
and her."
Again Sara nodded and smiled. "Yeah, and avoid Josh while on duty and
stay clear of the conference room," she teased. She hadn't felt this
open and this good about things in a long time. Sara smiled again, only
this time she locked eyes with Cy. A moment passed before Sara went on
with her thoughts. "Thanks, Cy," she said softly.
Cyanah kept her eyes focused on Sara's. "Anytime, Sara."
Sara couldn't take her eyes from Cyanah's. There was something there,
something she had never noticed before, or maybe was afraid to see.
Suddenly the confusion seemed to clear and her feelings about Josh and
Tony seemed unreal compared to what ever this was. Mere minutes passed
but for Sara it seemed like forever; she finally broke their gaze and
the confusion and fog of her life came rolling back in, along with the
effects of two drinks on her small body.
Cyanah looked at Sara for a long moment after the gaze was broken, also
feeling the pleasant warmth of the alcohol spreading through her slight
frame, but fairly sure that she now knew what Sara was trying to say.
Even so, she decided to let Sara come to terms with her feelings at her
own pace. Cyanah raised her glass, noting that it had been filled again,
and clinked it with Sara's.
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