Reconciliation Pt 1 -- SD 10311.16

[Anika818 0]

::the scene starts with music playing in the background::

 

At first she didn’t realize where she was or what was going on around her, all she could focus on was a sound in the distance that seemed to get louder and wouldn’t go away. It wasn’t a bad sound, just unrecognizable. Wait...she did recognize: it was her alarm!

 

“Computer, the time. What time is it?”

 

“It is 1053,“ was the machine’s stoic reply.

 

Shoot. How could she have overslept?! Her alarm had been playing for the last 53 minutes. Groggily, and with eyes half opened, she began to lift herself out of bed. Her muscles still ached, but she did feel a little better. Anika was surprised to find that still in her dress! The events of the day before came flooding back to her.

 

Arcadia had performed an emergency beam out. Captain Moose had come to sickbay to check on the progress himself. While there, he informed her that an S.O.S. signal from Merri’s commbadge was received, and that was the beam out. Anika never had the opportunity to leave sickbay; it was too busy. By the time sickbay settled down, Dr. Telano informed her it had been to long to heal her neck wound without a scar forming. After that, she left sickbay and tried to visit Seiben, but he was not home.

 

Seiben! Her mind raced...was he okay? He hadn’t answered his door last night. She had been too tired to pursue why, and instead, told herself that she would check on him first thing this morning. She looked down at what she was wearing...she couldn’t go dressed like this.

 

Realizing her alarm was still on she told the computer to turn it off. (It was her day off, but she always had the computer set her alarm automatically whenever the computer was able to detect Anika in the room—she hated the idea of sleeping a day away) Anika’s shower took longer then she expected, but was worth every minute. She felt clean again and the heat helped loosen some of the tension in her muscles. She was surprised with the size of some of the bruises she had seen. As soon as Anika was dressed, she walked out the door.

 

Anika’s mind was racing a mile a minute: she wanted to talk to Seiben before anymore time passed, and apologize for kicking him as well as make sure he was alright. Engineering would be the best place to start. Once she got there, Anika couldn’t find Seiben anywhere, so she asked an NPC Engineer if he had seen the Lieutenant. Anika was troubled when the young ensign informed her no and that he called in the night before saying he would not be here.

 

Her heart sank. This was not what she wanted to hear. On her way to engineering, Anika heard many people talking about a couple of crewmen were drunk the night before. What if one of those men was Seiben...and now the ensign was telling her he would not be here? Anika knew that it wasn’t right for her to ask why not, but she hoped that the young ensign would accidentally blurt out why if she asked.

 

The engineer just shrugged and informed her that it had something to do with his actions on Arcady Prime. He continued to tell her that Seiben was an emotional and mental wreck. He was really drunk when he called Cdr. Jaruq the night before stating that he wouldn’t be coming in today. All Anika could do was look at the engineer, her eyes wide in utter shock.

 

“Are you serious?”

 

“Yep, that’s what I heard Cdr. Jaruq say,” replied the young engineer.

 

Anika thanked the ensign and left. She hoped she was making a mountain out of a mole hill. Where else could he be? With that thought running through her mind, she hit her forehead. How could she have been so silly?

 

“Computer. Locate Lieutenant Seiben.”

 

“Lieutenant Seiben is located in his quarters.”

 

Anika walked at q quickened pace to Seiben’s quarters. When she got there, there was again no answer at his door. Anika thought about the night before. The computer said he was in his quarters last night too, so why isn’t he there? Once again she asked the computer where he was, and once again Anika got the same response: in his quarters.

 

There was nothing she could so at the moment. She wasn’t sure if she should report it yet, because she still wasn’t sure if she was overreacting. She would go back to her quarters, and if she didn’t see Seiban in the next couple of hours, she would ask the counselor what to do. Anika walked over to the nearest turbolift.

 

Anika was surprised when she saw Seiben standing in the turbolift when the doors opened...