Picking up the pieces

Posted on Sun Oct 11th, 2020 @ 4:20pm by Lieutenant Commander Carolyn Corrigan MD

457 words; about a 2 minute read

Mission: Episode 107 – Recovery
Location: Personal Quarters, Dr Richard Harris
Timeline: MD3

Broken glass shattered underfoot as Doctor Corrigan carefully made her way deeper into the darkened room. Emergency lighting offered the only illumination as she set down a storage box on top of the dining table. For a moment she simply stood in the dark, a small smile playing at her lips.

The last time - the only time - she had been here before was the night she had discovered a very drunk Richard Harris in a corner booth of O'Shea's. Drowning his sorrows to the point he could barely put one foot in front of the other.

That night had changed everything.

"You better not have anything inappropriate in here, Harris," she warned under her breath, activating the flashlight on her wrist as she began to gather his belongings. A few things were broken but she carefully packed them up anyway. Mementos from trip he had taken, places he had been or gifts he had been given. It saddened her that she didn't know the story behind everything she was wrapping up with care.

Hades would perhaps know but then again, he had avoided coming here too. It was too painful for both of them.

But with the station in the condition it was in, any quarters without structural damage were in need. And she couldn't put this off forever. With so much work being done it also meant she could probably spend some time here without anyone knowing and trying to 'help'.

"Risa huh?" she said quietly as she picked up a horga'hn statue, trying and failing to picture him on the sun drenched beaches of Risa. "I'm not explaining this one to your daughter..."

Shelves cleared she headed into the bathroom to ensure there was nothing there to be kept before she went to the bedroom. A smile played at her lips as the flashlight skimmed over the meticulously folded bedsheets and she recalled her horror at waking up that following morning...

"Focus," she told herself as she opened up his closet, for a moment caught completely off guard. It was full of clothes and, as she stood there, the smell of him seemed to completely surround her. Before she even knew she was doing it she had bundled some of his shirts together in her arms, cradling them as she sat at the foot of the bed and letting herself crumble in the solitude and the dark.

It was the most unhelpful thing she could do on a station full of of work needing to be done but for the moment she just needed to give in to the grief that had been a constant companion. And she did, right up until she fell asleep right there on his bedroom floor.

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