back on board

Posted on Wed Jul 12th, 2023 @ 2:11am by Commander Antonia 'Tony" Stoffels

Mission: Shoreleave
Location: Tony's quarters

Tony was glad to be back on the ship. The past couple of months had been a roller coaster. At first she had been totally focussed on helping those who had come back from the mission traumatized. Kay had asked for her help as she was not an expert on trauma and Tony had gladly given it. Although Ren was the only one she had not been able to help. Being her partner it would not have been professional for her to counsel him. She had to watch him withdraw from her more and more.

When he had been cleared for duty Tony just knew it was the wrong thing to do. He had fooled his therapists into thinking he was fine and they had not been prepared to listen to her saying she was too close. Now he was off on another mission with Diane. Nothing she said had stopped him and she could only hope that when they came back he would be willing to listen to her.

Treatment of the Carey family had gone a lot better. Sky had been willing to listen to her and do the hard work. She had been severely traumatized when she came back from the mission but hard work and rest brought her back to where Tony had signed off on her going back to work. And she had worked with Xavier and Talsi on how to support a traumatized partner. Next to that she had finally been able to do a few catchup sessions with Xavier that she had promised to do when she first came on board. She was his first officer now but Tony would never forget that years ago she had been his therapist. Now they could start with a clean slate.

On the homefront things were better as well. Uncle Wain was recovering well from his heart attack and had taken on a job on the starbase. As they were still not sure who was behind the attacks on the London and her own family they had decided to bring all the non-combatants to the starbase so they could all be guarded in a safe place. Her grandfather had survived the attack on his life and he was safely on the starbase as well now. And making life hell for his family. Her uncle Pete had survived as well but he had decided to stay on earth as he was a serving starfleet doctor and he had kept his husband and family with him.

Dad had decided to make the starbase his temporary headquarters and Tony was stil not sure what she thought about it. It was great to have her parents and her brother close but her whole career had been about making it without her family's support and having them this close would be a challenge. At least her dad understood it much better than her mother did and would honour her wishes.

She had spent a few weeks with her family unwinding and now after shoreleave was ready to continue to learn how to be a command officer.