—- Captain’s Quarters —-

It was her lot in life that everyone crouched their rejection of Adriana Cruz in terms of protecting her interests. So it was that Captain Nathan Hawthorne broke up with her, arguing that the distance and his physical aliments were too much for their relationship to endure. Cruz felt that if it was her own best interests that were being framed as the cause of this decision, then she should have some say in it, but she was not sure he was wrong. He was going to a Starfleet outpost by Vulcan to teach for a few months as he healed, or at least he would after his lunch transplant at Starbase 72. She had already, physically, moved onto Lieutenant Jara as a substitute, but that relationship was not as whole or fulfilling as hers with the former Captain of the USS Seattle.

He weezed as she watched him sitting up in bed, he looked so frail a change from the man who had stood on the simulated bow of a sailing ship and had tried to declare her a pirate Queen much to her annoyance. 

“I never said it but I love you,” she said.

He nodded, “I know, and I love you. But you’re young, and you don’t want to be tied to me on the other side of the universe for who knows how long.”

”People keep telling me what I want, or need,” Cruz observed.

Hawthorne smiled, “People care about you. I’m not saying I won’t be back one day. We’ll make it work, we’re just taking a pause.”

”So you can sleep around?” Cruz teased.

”No, so you can. You have Jara and who knows who else,” Hawthorne said, ”Beyond ogling my nurses or the EMH I won’t be up to much.”

”Isn’t it a bald middle aged man,” Cruz said.

”An attractive bald middle aged man,” Hawthorne said with a wink.

Cruz smiled, “This conversation isn’t over sir.”

”Yes it is ma’am,” Hawthorne teased, from one Captain to another.

—- Nine Forward, Lounge —-

“So are you two a couple?” asked Tashai. 

There was an inordinate amount of interest, Cruz thought, in the Captain’s dating life. Whether it had been her and Hawthorne or now her and Jara. Tashai was also just naturally curious about everything but as one half of a lesbian couple she seemed to have particular interest in what other same-sex couples formed aboard the ship.

”We’re having fun,” Cruz said trying to be vague, “Enjoying being together.”

She lifted the small soft shell taco and put it in her mouth. Tashai watched her either interested in tacos or more likely her love life. Cruz wanted to tell the Operations Chief and not her First Officer to shut it, but that seemed rude.

”You know I hate being your First Officer,” Tashai said.

”I know,” Cruz said. Tashai’s whole deal was experiencing new things, but she wanted someone else to direct that, not to be in charge of choosing it herself. She had lived so long, and presumably command had either been in her long ago past or something she was waiting until later in life to experience. “Starfleet has someone for us when we get to Starbase 72, just hold on until then.”

The El-Aurian seemed unconvinced but nodded in agreement. Ancient, and as far as Cruz knew born in the 1970s, the woman could have been a tactical advantage to Starfleet. Instead the seemed content to avoid being important, and just wanted to be an Operations Officer and experience new things. Cruz supposed it was what one did when one was older than even a joined Trill. The woman’s race had been decimated by the Borg and now she was not allowing herself to be tied down. Though she was in a relationship with the Chief Flight Control Officer Pr’Nor. How that would work, when Tashai would out live Pr’Nor by thousands of years, even given a Vulcan’s long life, was beyond Cruz.

“Do you love Pr’Nor?” Cruz asked.

Tashai thought about it, ”Do you love your dog?”

”I don’t have a dog, I never have,” Adriana Cruz said.

”I suppose it’s similar, I love her but I know life will likely continue on after she’s gone. She’s important to me, but temporary. Does that make sense,” Tashai asked looking at the newly minted Captain interested. 

Cruz thought it was crazy, though she had not know many people who stayed together their whole lives, she thought that should be the intent. A perfect relationship was two people dying in their sleep on the same night well into their one hundreds, at least in her mind. Sure her mother, or grandmother or anyone who she knew had not been that lucky, but it was at least an ideal to shoot for.

Cruz picked up her glass of wine, or synthaholic wine, and took a sip, “I guess I don’t know much about love or relationships anyway.”

The First Officer, temporary as she was, nodded. She took a sip of her wine and studied the captain. The thing humans rarely realized, was that they were all temporary. Even Starfleet wasn’t forever. She had been around for its rise and she would be around for its fall. 

“May you find what you are looking for,” Tashai toasted.

”I still haven’t found it,” Cruz said, feeling that maybe one day she would get close. Maybe soon a sense of contentment would find her, or she would find it. It was a long way off, that much she felt, even as she had achieved one of her goals. She’d finally become a Starfleet Captain with her own ship.

She raised her glass to return Tashai’s toast, though nothing ever quite worked out the way anyone planned for now it looked as though she was on the right track. The question would be was this anything more than an illusion. Was it real, or was this all a dream that she still had to awaken from and realize that it was all slipping through her fingers once again?

Cruz did not know, but for now she was going to try to feel the pride that had welled up inside of her.

For once she was going to feel good about where she was, and even if she was not quite satisfied with how she had gotten there. 

Outside the stars streaked past, as the USS Seattle headed back towards Federation space and toward their home base of Starbase 72. They still had one stop left, one stop and then they could all get on with their lives and figure out what the next stage was going to look like.

What the next chapter of the USS Seattle was going to be.