Stones Unturned

Posted on Sat Jul 5th, 2025 @ 7:59am by Lieutenant JG Koaruh Avestro & Ensign Sophie Bishop
Edited on on Wed Jul 9th, 2025 @ 9:48am

1,530 words; about a 8 minute read

Mission: Year One: Strange Bedfellows
Location: Counselling Offices
Timeline: MD006 - 1630 hours

The soft hum of the ship’s systems provided a quiet, steady rhythm as the door to Koaruh's office hissed open.

Sophie hovered at the threshold like a breeze that wasn’t sure it should enter. She glanced inside, fiddling with the hem of her sleeve. “Uh… you said I could swing by.”

Koaruh glanced up from the display in his lap. “Indeed I did, Miss Bishop. And you, as ever, arrive on the wind of perfect timing.”

He rose, a gentle smile easing across his refined features. His dark eyes, black as polished obsidian, held their usual calm—an effect Sophie found both unnerving and oddly soothing.

“Come,” he said, gesturing with a long-fingered hand, “my door is always open, and the furniture only bites when ignored.”

That earned the barest smirk from Sophie as she stepped inside and lowered herself slowly onto the nearest chair. Her right leg extended stiffly in front of her, the tightness in her face betraying the hidden pain she still felt despite medical intervention. Her body had healed in record time, or so the doctors said, but no one talked about the tremble in her hands when she saw scaffolding. Or loud bangs that made her chest seize up like a faulty compressor.

Koaruh sank into the chair across from her, exuding ease. His posture was casual, yet somehow never informal—a gift, perhaps, of his Betazoid heritage.

“Would you care for tea?” he asked.

“I’m good,” Sophie replied, her voice soft and dry. “Figured I’d stop in like you asked. No big thing.”

Koaruh inclined his head. “No grand expectations here, Sophie. Just a conversation between friends. Though if you feel like being my patient for twenty-five minutes, I’ll be forced to take notes and start using words like ‘dysregulation’ and ‘cognitive distortions.’”

She chuckled—a brief, short-lived sound. “Ain’t that just the fancy way of sayin’ I’m messed up?”

Koaruh lifted an eyebrow. “Only if we define ‘messed up’ as ‘survived a terrorist bombing, required life-saving field intervention, and returned to duty within a month.’ Personally, I’d call that... exemplary resilience. But we can unpack the semantics if you like.”

Sophie’s eyes flicked away, catching on the edge of his desk, the subtle glint of Betazoid art carved into one wall.

“I still feel it, y’know?” she said quietly, eyes distant. “The pole. In my leg. Even though it’s gone.”

Koaruh’s tone softened. “The body can forget. The mind rarely does. Nor the spirit, if I may be indulgent.”

He leaned forward, elbows on his knees, watching her—not prying, just being present.

Sophie hesitated. “I didn’t even see it comin’. One second I was gonna say something—just a joke, probably—and the next, I’m screamin’ with metal goin’ through my thigh like a hot knife. Couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t move. Felt like dyin’. And then…”

She trailed off.

“Then Steven Greco tore apart a mountain of scaffolding to find you,” Koaruh said gently. “And carried you out.”

Sophie flinched, just slightly, and looked down at her hands.

“I didn’t think he’d find me,” she murmured. “But he did. Just like that.”

She paused again, eyes glistening. “I was cryin’, bleedin’ all over him, and I still told him to go help the others.”

Koaruh offered a reverent nod. “That is one of the more profound acts of courage I’ve ever heard. I wonder, Sophie… have you allowed yourself to be proud of that moment?”

“No,” she admitted, her voice small. “Feels like braggin’. Like maybe I’m tryin’ to make it into some kinda hero story when it wasn’t. I was just doin’ what I was trained to do. Nothin’ special.”

“But it was special. You placed others above your own survival. That instinct, that choice… speaks volumes of your nature.”

Koaruh studied her for a quiet moment.

“I sense,” he said delicately, “that your pain does not end at your leg.”

Sophie gave him a weak smile. “Y’know, you ever get tired of bein’ right?”

“Not once,” he replied dryly, “though I’ve learned to be gracious about it.”

Silence stretched for a beat. Sophie picked at a loose thread on her uniform sleeve.

“I thought…” she began, but then shook her head. “Never mind.”

“Try again,” Koaruh said warmly. “With less retreat.”

“I thought maybe after everything… maybe he felt the same way.”

Koaruh didn’t ask who. He didn’t need to.

“He held my hand when I came to,” Sophie went on. “He carried me. He sat with me in Sickbay, talkin’ to me like I mattered. I—I guess I thought maybe that meant somethin’.”

“And then?”

Sophie’s voice cracked. “And then he told me it wasn’t gonna happen. That it couldn’t. That he’s got responsibilities and regulations and… and whatever else he tells himself at night.”

Koaruh’s brow furrowed. His voice lowered. “And what did that tell you?”

Sophie shrugged, blinking fast. “That I ain’t good enough. Or I’m too much. Or maybe I just imagined the whole thing.”

Koaruh exhaled gently, hands steepled now in thought. “Sophie, might I offer a perspective, as both your friend and your counsellor?”

She nodded mutely.

“Commander Greco is many things—respected, dutiful, and by all accounts, emotionally elusive. It is entirely plausible that his feelings for you are genuine… but caged. He is a man burdened by chains he does not always see. That does not make his decision right. Nor does it diminish the pain he caused you.”

Sophie sniffled and nodded again. “It just… it hurts.”

Koaruh rose gracefully and stepped toward the replicator. “Still no tea?”

“Alright,” she whispered.

He returned a moment later, offering her a steaming cup. She took it in both hands, fingers trembling slightly.

“I don’t know what I’m doin’,” she said finally. “On this ship. With myself. I wake up and it’s like… I’m waitin’ for somethin’ else to blow up.”

“Trauma does that,” Koaruh said softly. “It alters time. Makes the present feel like prologue.”

She glanced at him. “You ever been in somethin’ like that?”

Koaruh’s eyes turned thoughtful. “Not quite. But my people… we feel what others do. I have stood amid crowds and felt the tide of fear rise like a storm. And once, on Vega Prime, I found myself the sole empath amid a room of dying minds. It stays with you. Just as yours stays with you.”

Sophie looked into her tea. “What do I do with all this?”

“You speak it,” he said gently. “Here. Now. Without shame. Without filter.”

She inhaled shakily. “I’m scared all the time. That I’m not enough. That people see me as this silly, lovestruck girl with a southern twang and a crush. That I got here by accident and one day someone’s gonna notice and boot me out the nearest airlock.”

Koaruh reached forward and rested a hand lightly on hers. His touch was warm, steady.

“Do you know what I see, Sophie Bishop?”

She glanced up at him, eyes wide and wet.

“I see a young woman who faced death, and screamed through it. Who prioritised others over herself. Who rose from trauma and returned to duty with integrity intact. Who made her bridge crewmates laugh, even when she wanted to cry. Who feels, fiercely—and does not run from it.”

He smiled, soft and sincere.

“I see someone brave. Not for what she survived, but for how she dares to live after it.”

Her lip trembled. “Why’s that so hard to believe?”

“Because pain rewrites truth,” he said. “And rejection blurs reflection. But that is why we speak it. To reclaim the shape of who we are.”

Sophie set the tea aside and wiped her eyes with the sleeve of her uniform. “I’m still mad at him,” she admitted. “And I hate that I still think about him.”

“Both perfectly valid,” Koaruh replied. “Feelings are not obligations. They are weather. We let them pass through us.”

She let out a breath. “You’re real good at this, y’know.”

“I have excellent cheekbones and centuries of Betazoid emotional tradition on my side,” he replied with a wink.

That drew a soft laugh from her at last, small and real.

“I should’ve come sooner,” she said.

“There is no perfect moment,” Koaruh said. “Only the one you take. And I’m honoured you took it here.”

Sophie rose slowly, her leg stiff, but she didn’t grimace. Not this time.

Koaruh stood with her, walking her to the door.

“You ever wanna do this again…” she started.

“My door, dear Sophie, is like my heart: open, patient, and furnished with throw pillows.”

She smiled properly now. “Thank you.”

He inclined his head. “You are most welcome.”

As the door slid shut behind her, Koaruh stood quietly for a moment, the faint trace of her sorrow lingering like perfume in the air. He did not push it away. Instead, he honoured it—for it, like her, had survived.

 

RSS Feed