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It was the middle of delta shift, long after he normally went to bed, when Shaxs found himself roaming the ship's corridors.
The Cerritos had been sent as a support ship to assist the USS Constellation with a diplomatic mission in Cardassian space. Shaxs had put a lot of work into getting over the Cardassian occupation, and then later the Dominion war, but even after years of therapy, this assignment had him on edge to the point that he couldn't sleep.
He had discussed his concerns with the captain already. Freeman, of course, was thrilled to be assigned such an important mission and he didn't want to spoil that for her. But he also knew it wasn’t a good idea for him to be the active security chief while they were here.
There was too much baggage there, too much trauma, and he was certain he would have a difficult time keeping his own feelings from interfering with the mission. So instead, he had asked Kayshon to take over as security head and opted to take some time off.
He knew it was the right thing to do, but he regretted having to use his vacation days on a time when he couldn’t relax. If anything, not having work to do only made him feel more jittery and on edge.
Which was why he had decided to go on a walk.
He had been pacing the halls for about 20 minutes when he found her on the observation deck.
There were a couple of gamma shifters hanging around the room too, but she was by far the most noticeable occupant. Arms crossed, and shoulders hunched as she stared ahead at the space station they were orbiting. Awake well after the rest of beta shift had gone to bed.
He wasn't surprised to see Mariner here. It wasn't exactly a secret amongst the senior staff that the captain's daughter had served in the Dominion War. If their recent arrival in Cardassian space was making it hard for him to sleep, he could only imagine it was having a similar effect on her.
Shaxs stood at the edge of the observation deck and watched her for a moment, thinking over his next move.
Normally, he considered it his personal responsibility to keep an eye on the mental health of every Cerritos crew member. But when it came to Mariner, he was hesitant to encroach.
It wasn't that the young woman before him didn't need the support - she did- but he was not the one to give it to her. Their hurts were too similar, too familiar. They had both fought in the war, and he worried that getting too involved with her would trigger his own trauma.
So, they didn't talk about it, they didn't share war stories, and they didn't comment on each other's combat skills. In fact, other than the regular write-ups he was required to submit when she got thrown in the brig, they rarely if ever acknowledged each other’s existence.
A silent agreement had been made between them - he was responsible for the rest of the crew, but not her. Mariner's mental health was her own business and no one else's.
She seemed to like this arrangement just fine.
Tonight though, it felt different. There was no one else on the ship who could relate to her at this moment. Her friends were asleep, and more importantly, they wouldn't really understand. And Freeman, bless her heart, had never been skilled at reading her daughter’s needs and emotions.
So slowly, tentatively, he moved to stand beside her.
"Lieutenant," he said, alerting her to his presence.
At his voice, her body went rigid, but her eyes never left the station outside.
"Commander," she acknowledged.
They stood there in silence for a good half hour, Shaxs not sure what to say, and Mariner focused on her own thoughts.
They were both still for the most part, but from the corner of his eye, he could see it. The slight trembling of her hands and the empty look in her eyes. They were both ticks that Shaxs had seen before on many a Dominion war veteran.
It was an unfortunate reality, but he knew from experience that the only thing truly unique about Beckett Mariner was that she was still a Starfleet Officer.
Six years after the end of the war, her recklessness and perpetual insubordination almost seemed like some sort of novelty. Nothing like the ideal Starfleet officer that new recruits were trained up to be.
But in the two years immediately following the war officers like her had been a dime a dozen.
Fresh-faced young ensigns and lieutenants who had gone straight from the Academy to the front lines. Spinning out with a sudden, unchecked, velocity that could only be experienced by a soldier in peacetime.
Not all of them had taken to being criminally insubordinate the way Mariner had. Many of the young veterans had simply dropped out. Showing up to work drunk, high, or in some cases skipping shifts entirely. Others had spiraled in a more anxious manner, having panic attacks on away missions, or setting off their phasers at the wrong time in a fit of jitters.
Shaxs had been a mid-level security officer on the USS Curry at the time. He had watched as the brig filled up every week with his fellow veterans. Those who simply couldn't cope.
And then he had watched, as slowly but surely, each of them was pushed out of Starfleet, and the brig stopped being so full.
Not every officer got kicked out for breaking rules either. Many of them never even got sent to the brig. Some had talked to counselors, tried to work through their trauma, and lost their commission anyway due to being mentally unfit.
It wasn’t intentionally callous, but the reality of the situation was that Starfleet didn’t have the infrastructure in place to deal with the Dominion war's aftermath. They didn’t consider themselves to be a military, so none of their mental health facilities were designed to deal with soldiers suffering from PTSD, let alone so many of them.
Mental health facilities like the DOVE were meant to accommodate stressed out work crews, not entire cohorts of recent academy graduates with severe war trauma. Ships councilor had been a hard position to fill even before the war, and as it continued the ones that populated the ranks of Starfleet became increasingly green, with more experienced councilors shifting their focus to supporting civilians on DS9 and Bajor.
There was no big order from command. No decision from on high that said officers struggling with war trauma should be kicked out. Every honorable or dishonorable discharge was an individual decision, made by commanding officers and therapists who thought they were doing what was best.
But it all added up in the end, and within just a couple of years, most of the combatants with PTSD symptoms were gone.
There were better mental health resources and social services planet side. Officers who couldn’t keep themselves together were dangerous to have on a ship. It was a stressful job, if people needed time to heal, they probably shouldn’t be working in Starfleet anyway – Every explanation was perfectly reasonable and imminently justifiable, easily overshadowing any criticism of Starfleet's mental health practices.
There were, of course, some like Shaxs himself. Officers more experienced in dealing with their own mental health, who managed to stick it out.
After the war he had leaned back into the therapeutic practices he learned after the Cardassian occupation. Compared to what he experienced as a member of the Bajoran Resistance, the Dominion war had seemed almost easy to process and compartmentalize. But he never forgot how poorly Starfleet handled everything. It was one of the reasons he took crew mental health on as part of his job once he became head of security.
Mariner, on the other hand, was remarkable not in her ability to care for herself in the face of war trauma, but rather in who her parents were.
She and Freeman might not always see eye to eye, but it was obvious to Shaxs that had her father not been an admiral and her mother a captain - had both of her parents not been incredibly dedicated to keeping her in Starfleet- the woman standing beside him would not be wearing a uniform right now.
She was just like every other traumatized front-liner he had met. The difference was that she was still here.
This realization broke Shaxs out of his thoughts with a start as he suddenly realized his fault in excluding Mariner's mental well-being from his responsibilities.
Hadn't it been officers like her that inspired him to make mental health part of his job in the first place? She deserved that kind of support just as much, if not more, than any other member of the crew.
With this in mind, he mulled over what he already knew about the lieutenant.
Her trauma tended to express itself in dramatic acts of self-destruction and sacrifice. Shaxs might not be close with Mariner, but she had been Ransom's pet project for a while now, and on more than one occasion he had been a sympathetic ear for the first officer’s concerns about her dangerous behavior.
Shaxs, unfortunately, understood that destructive streak all too well. He had developed one himself after the occupation, and it still reared its ugly head sometimes.
The survivors' guilt. The feeling of uselessness that consumed every moment not spent fighting if you let it. The frenetic anxiety in your chest that told you to jump into the line of fire to protect others even when there was nothing to protect them from. He had experienced all of it.
The only thing that seemed to help him was pottery. He knew it sounded silly, but the act of creating something with his hands grounded him. It reminded him that he was more than just a resistance fighter. Each new pot or bowl was physical proof that he had the capacity to put something beautiful into the world, and it was often that proof that kept his own brain from spiraling into anxiety, depression, and paranoia.
Mariner didn't really seem like the type for pottery but then… Shaxs didn't think he had ever actually seen her craft something with her hands. The Cerritos had clubs for all sorts of things: sewing, cooking, woodworking, painting. All hobbies that could have a similar impact. But the lieutenant always stuck to less tangible tasks like martial arts, and she tended to do them alone.
Maybe making something would be good for her. It was worth a try at least, and if nothing else it might give them a chance to talk.
He leaned over into her peripheral, waving his hands to try and get her attention.
She jumped back from the viewing window with a start and turned to stare at him, waiting for him to make the first move.
Shaxs coughed, clearing his throat, "Ahem. Lieutenant, would you please assist me with a small project?"
"I'm off duty," she deadpanned, fixing him with a glare that was unnervingly similar to the one the captain gave him when she was annoyed.
"I know," he said, "I am too. It would be a, ah, personal favor. I need to prep for my next pottery class. It would go a lot faster with a second set of hands. Could you help me? It seems like everyone else around here is busy."
It was a lie and they both knew it. The members of gamma shift that populated the rest of the observation deck were mostly chatting amongst themselves and eating their dinners. He could’ve interrupted any one of them if he truly needed help. But he hoped that Mariner would trust him enough to look past his poorly thought-out excuse and go along with him anyway.
The young woman eyed him suspiciously for a moment but eventually relented, "Sure dude, whatever. It's not like I'm doing anything else right now."
"Thank you, Lieutenant. I appreciate it."
They made their way to the ship’s pottery studio in an awkward silence. Mariner followed him with a look of disinterest as he tried to think up something to say to her.
He wasn't exactly sure why she agreed to go with him, but he was grateful. While it was obviously his goal to help her in some way, he also wasn't too brave to admit that having her company as a distraction calmed his own nerves.
The studio was blessedly empty when they got there. Shaxs could feel his shoulders loosen and his jaw unclench as they entered. The subtle, but ever-present smell of dry clay wasn't everyone's cup of tea, but it made him feel relaxed and reminded his body that he wasn't in any real danger.
He went straight to the supply cupboard and pulled out a bag of wet clay, opening it and pulling out two good-sized chunks.
"We're making pinch pots during our next class. I need help creating some examples for people to look at," he said, handing her one of the chunks of clay.
Of course, their next class wasn't really pinch pots, it was vase making, but Mariner was new to the art form. They could start slow.
"Uh," she interjected, "I don't think I've done anything like this since I was a kid dude. Are you sure you don't want someone else to help you?"
He smiled as he brought his own clay over to the worktable and set it down, "No, I think you'll do just fine. Don't worry, I'll walk you through it. It would be good for my students to see what a beginner’s pot looks like anyway."
His students would not actually be seeing Mariner's pinch pot. There was no reason for them to.
"The first thing we need to do is wedge the clay to take out any air bubbles. You want to pull on it a little and then push it back with the palm of your hand like this." He demonstrated the technique and Mariner followed along in a way that was clumsy, but adequate.
"Good. Now just keep doing that for a while."
They worked in silence for several minutes, Shaxs going through the motions with ease while Mariner stood beside him, beating at her clay jerkily. He considered again what he should say to her. Trying to think if there was any good way to ease into a conversation about the war.
There wasn't of course. He settled instead for trying to make the conversation topical.
"You know I first started doing pottery after the occupation. Helped put my mind at ease… It helped after the Dominion war too."
At his mention of the war, Mariner's hands slammed into the clay hard, flattening it against the table before her arms stilled entirely, and she turned to look at him.
"What does that have to do with anything?" She snarled.
"Nothing," he said, raising his hands in a sign of surrender, "just making conversation."
"Yeah, well, no offense, but I'm not really in the mood to talk about the war right now Commander."
She picked her clay back up and thunked it down on the table, starting the wedging process anew.
Shaxs only nodded in acknowledgment, "I understand how you're feeling. Being in Cardassian space has me on edge too."
She shot him a glare, "Who says I'm on edge?"
He didn't bother trying to answer, instead moving on to the next step in the pinch pot-making process. "When you're done you can roll your clay into a ball and stick your thumb into it part way to create an opening."
She fumed at his dismissal but scrambled to catch up with him anyway. Muttering profanities under her breath as she hastily rolled her clay between her hands.
Shaxs waited for her to finish before giving his next set of instructions. "Now you're going to pinch at the opening until you've got it into the shape you want. Nice and easy."
They worked in a tense silence after that. Shaxs didn’t want to push Mariner any more than he already had. But it turned out he didn’t have to when after several minutes, she spoke up on her own.
"It's just… everyone is so excited to be here on such an important mission. Things were finally starting to feel normal again and now suddenly everyone I care about can’t wait to go running back into the lion's den..."
He nodded in understanding, "I know, I don't like it either. The younger officers, and even the older ones who weren't on the front lines, sometimes I think they don't take the Cardassians seriously."
Mariner glanced up at him with sympathy brimming in her eyes, "It's got to be even harder for you. I mean you lived under their occupation for so many years…"
"Don't worry about me Lieutenant, I've got all this pottery to help me keep my mind off of it," he said, giving her a wry smile and gesturing to the rest of the room.
She frowned back at him, "Does this stuff actually help?"
"Most of the time," he conceded, "I still have my rough moments, like tonight, but for the most part it keeps me grounded."
She dug her fingers into the clay hard, like she was trying to prove something to herself, before easing up and glaring down at the table in front of them, "Well I still think this mission is a lot of bullshit."
"You and me both, but we don't get to choose where Starfleet sends us do we?" he snorted. When she didn’t respond right away, he stopped to look over at her. He took in her tense shoulders and the heavy bags under her eyes before gently adding, "You know I'm sure the captain would let you take this mission off if it would be easier for you. That's what I'm doing."
She startled at the admission, her pinch pot almost tumbling out of her hand as she straightened up and looked him in the eye, "You are? Aren't you worried that something will go wrong with the Cardies?"
"Of course I am. But Mariner, this is a diplomatic mission. It's not the right place for soldiers like us."
"I'm not a soldier," she hissed back automatically, not seeming to have heard the rest of his statement.
He gave her a dubious look, one that said he didn't really think she believed that either, and continued, "Look, it's been six years, and this peacetime - it's been good. I know it can feel uncomfortable sometimes but it's good. And as much as I hate to say it, we've only had it because the Federation was willing to sign peace accords and treaties and a million other little easy to break agreements.
"I'll still be onboard if the away team needs me. I'll beam over there in a heartbeat if things go wrong. But in the meantime, I can't let my own biases get in the way of real progress. It's better for me to stay on the ship… it might be better for you too."
She glowered at him, "I don’t think fighting in a war should keep me from going on diplomatic missions sir. That's one of the things I joined Starfleet to do."
He shrugged, "and I hope it doesn't. Those lizards aren't the only species in the galaxy that require diplomacy. But fighting in the Dominion war does mean you might want to sit out this particular mission."
"Did my mom put you up to this or something?" She growled, now fully on the defensive, "You know I'm as qualified as any other officer, I don't need to be coddled. If she really doesn’t think I can handle it, she can talk to me herself!"
Shaxs only shook his head and laughed derisively, "Believe me, the captain didn't ask me to do pottery with you at 02:00 hours. If she had I would have sent her to Migleemo to get checked out."
"Then why do you care?"
"Because lieutenant, you’re part of my crew. It’s my job to make sure you’re safe, both physically and mentally. Sometimes taking care of yourself means knowing when to step back and take a break, even when that feels hard - especially when that feels hard. I'm not saying you have to, it's not an order. You know yourself better than I do. I'm just saying to consider it."
She was quiet for a moment, running her fingers over her nearly complete bowl in an attempt to smooth it out, before finally conceding, "Alright, I guess I'll think about it."
"Good," he said in acknowledgment before pivoting back to the task at hand, "your pot looks about done if you're ready to put it down. It'll need to dry overnight before we can glaze and fire it."
She frowned at the bowl in her hand, "Mine's a lot lumpier than yours."
"Well, you're just learning," he said with a smile, "I think it looks nice."
"Thanks," she said, before hesitantly adding, "and you're right it does- I do feel a little better."
He gave her a knowing grin, "Well the pottery studio is always here if you need it. And you know Mariner, if you ever want to talk with someone who understands, I'll be around."
She gave a small nod and, for the first time that night, a hint of a smile graced her lips.
"Yeah, like I said, I'll think about it."