Holding A Mirror: Part 2/2

Posted on Sun Apr 26th, 2026 @ 7:54pm by Lieutenant Colonel Jesse Moriarty & Lieutenant JG Constance 'Connie' Montoya

2,197 words; about a 11 minute read

Mission: Prologue
Location: Counsellor's Office

Continued from part 1

Connie nodded, accepting the words even if she did not think it was the best thing for him to do. "Jesse...are you able to recognise that it isn't your fault?"

"Fault and responsibility are awfully close to each other..." Jesse replied quietly, glancing up to her, but not quite meeting her eyes.

She frowned as she looked at him, taking a slow breath. "Don't carry the weight of the dead," she said quietly. "You get sent to places where logic is thrown out of the window, where you have split seconds to react, to issue orders. All you can do is to follow your gut, your training. When it goes wrong, it is never one thing. It is a chain of events, many out of your hands. It's what the after action report is for, to be able to see what happened with logic. But..." she let out a soft breath, her eyes softening. "It doesn't remove the emotions, does it?"

Jesse gave a short, sharp shake of the head, clearing his throat. When the forces felt like his family, it only made the weight of responsibility feel heavier. "I'd rather care than not though. I've seen what officers are like when they grow cold and callous."

"No...caring matters," Connie said softly as she looked at him. "Grief matters. And you are allowed to grieve. But the guilt of those that have died, it doesn't need to sit on you. It shouldn't sit on you."

"I'd be the first one to say that to one of my people," he gave a half shrug, unable to deny it. "Doesn't make it go away for me."

"It's always harder to take your own advice," she agreed before she looked at the tea. "It makes you a decent person, Jesse. Unfortunately...it also makes it hurt more."

"It's part of the deal," Jesse shook his head with a slight frown. People accepted it when they signed up. For him, he sort of just fell into it. "But I try and make sure it's always worth the cost."

She nodded, watching him for a long moment before she gave him a small smile. "It doesn't make it easier," she said, her voice quiet. "And you are allowed to find it hard."

"No, I'm not, not as the CO," Jesse added a weak chuckle to the words though, to soften the edge.

"You are, even as the CO. Maybe not to the face of your people, but here with me? Or with your friends? Of course you are allowed to find it hard...and be honest about it," she said as she let out a soft breath, not joining him in the chuckle but softening the space for them with a gentle look.

Jesse shook his head, the frown settling back on his features as he looked into his cup, his mouth dry. "I'm not good with that kind of thing," he replied honestly.

"Okay," she said, accepting it before she looked into her own tea. "I do however think you've been very honest with me here. About finding it hard."

"Well...I'm never actively dishonest," Moriarty replied quietly, shaking his head with a frown just at the thought of it. "I've never seen the point in it. But I've been around the block enough to know there's times you don't offer up everything."

"That's survival instinct...and most likely experience," she said as she looked at him, studying him. "I hope you will in time realise that...I am on your side. Not waiting to trap you."

"Of course you're trying to trap me," Jesse softened the words with a slight chuckle. "But...I know it's only with good intentions," he added lightly.

Connie chuckled softly, nodding as she watched him. "It's more holding a mirror...and hopefully giving you the tools you need."

"My tool is usually a rifle," he replied with a weak, half smile. Because he suspected that she would think that was half the problem.

Connie raised an eyebrow at that before she nodded. "And it's served you well. But you can't shoot your emotions."

Jesse narrowed his eyes, and in a moment of playfulness, his expression clearly said 'can't I though?'

The eyebrow stayed raised as Connie watched him, a soft sigh escaping. "Burying something like that will eventually come back and bite you."

"Yeah, I know," he sighed, relenting on the matter as he rubbed his hand over his face. He'd learnt that the hard way. His colony. The Maquis. The war. It all had a way of catching up with him when he least expected it. "I guess...I just don't see how there's any fixing it."

"It's not...fixing it, as much as letting it heal," she said as she looked at him, shifting a little in her seat. She leant closer, hands folded in front of her. "Processing the emotions of it and learning how it sits inside of you, so it isn't chafing anymore. Think of...it as gear. The strap can rub...or it can hold. It's giving you the tools to recognise when you need to take a step back...and when you can put it to the side until later."

"You make it sound easy," he chuckled though, glancing to her with a small, knowing smile. She wasn't the enemy. She was doing it to try and make it better.

"It's not," she said and gave a small nod. "And I don't mean to make it sound as if it is. It'll be a lot of work. Looking at things you're less than comfortable with. But...I hope that you'll see progress."

"I've always preferred to keep the past in the past," he admitted with an awkward shrug. "Especially now. Not everyone reacts kindly to an ex-Maquis member. The war doesn't seem that long ago to many people."

She looked at him for a moment before she nodded. "I have worked with a lot of veterans," she said, her voice soft. "And yes, you're right about the not everyone reacting kindly. But many will not care. Because when it came down to it, you were in the trenches with them. I...get keeping the past in the past around others. I am not asking you to bare your soul to a group of strangers."

"Just you," he almost whispered, lifting his dark gaze to meet hers, a weak smile on his lips.

"Yes...just me," she said, her voice soft to acknowledge the gravity of what she was asked of him. She knew it was more than most would dare. "And not all at once."

"Just as well...I wouldn't know where to start, and it would take a hell of a long time," Jesse quipped to cover the awkwardness.

"Doesn't have to start anywhere specific," Connie said as she gave him a small smile, nodding. "Can even just start with...how you are feeling today, inside. How things around you feel."

Jesse was silent for a long moment, his nail dragging along the seam of his trouser leg as he tried to decide how much to tell. "Someone realised where I was from," he finally said, quietly. "The language specialist, he recognised my accent. Guessed. It...completely threw me off guard."

She nodded as she watched him, eyes on him. Tavrek. She knew him, had spoken to him before. It helped having a mental face and name. "When was the last time someone...knew that part of you?"

"There....is a difference between someone knowing and someone knowing," he tried to explain, shaking his head with a frown at how clunky it sounded. "I mean, plenty of people see the name in the file, but they don't know. But he knew."

"Knew...more than the name. Knew the history?" she asked, curious on how he felt about it. Not how he tried to articulate, but the emotions tied with it.

Jesse nodded as he looked to his hands, studying his knuckles. "Or at least, he seemed to. He...listened to comms during the war. He probably knows more than most."

She nodded, watching him for a moment before she let out a soft breath. "Maybe. But he is not the same man now as he was then...same as you are not the same either."

"When someone else knows, it makes it feel more...real...." Jesse replied slowly, taking time on placing each word, unsure how to say it.

"Makes it less like something that happened to someone else?" she asked, knowing she was...walking a fine line. But she wanted to figure out exactly where he held this.

He nodded lightly, taking his drink, almost to hide behind for a moment. But there was no denying it. "I'm...someone else when it's just me and the rank."

She nodded with understanding. Who hadn't felt that at some point...she sat back in the chair, considering her options. "You are whoever they see. Indestructible in your own way."

"Indestructible," he repeated quietly as he sat back, letting out as shaking breath at the word. "Is that how you see me?"

"No," she said softly, meeting his eyes. "But it is how you want to be seen I think. I don't...see you as that. I see a man who has lived through some of the darkest times of our generation and had to drive himself forward. I see a survivor...it doesn't mean it is easy for you. To bond. To...feel like you belong."

Jesse just processed the words, sipping his tea slowly, but it was approaching that point of tepid. He couldn't deny it. Above all else, he felt isolated. Even in the Forces. Anonymity protected him, but it also put a glass panel between him and the others. And now there was the rank. "I....can't win really. I keep the wall up and I end up isolated...someone sees through it, like Tavrek, and my hackles rise like the start of a fight."

"When was the last time you....bonded with someone, and it didn't feel like you had to hold back part of yourself?" she asked him, watching how he was holding the cup. She touched her own, feeling it, before she pulled her hand back.

Jesse gave a half shrug as he tried to remember, his frown deepening with it. It wasn't something he thought about much...and that was by design. "I...don't think I've ever...not fully. But there was someone, in officer training, Martinez...they were a friend."

"How many years ago was that?" she met his eyes, her own expression gentle. Not patronising, but she was seeing how he was...searching for the answer. "Do you...stay in touch?"

"Not as often as I should," he shook his head at himself, letting out a soft breath. "It's hard...when you're both on different assignments. If we know we're passing, we go for a drink or two or three..."

She nodded with a small smile, her eyes on him. She was glad he at least...held some bonds. "But you make sure, when you know you're passing. And you check up on them?" she asked, leaning a little closer.

He nodded with a slight frown, setting his tea aside, done with it now it wasn't hot anymore "I wouldn't be here without them. I'd have just left training."

"And you care about them?" she asked, with a small smile as she watched him with patience. She was...leading him there, slowly. But sometimes, you had to.

He nodded with a weak, half smile, thinking back on his time with Martinez. "They even took me back to their home, to meet their family. Their mother tried to fatten me up..."

She smiled at that, a soft chuckle escaping. "It sounds to me...that there is someone out there that you trust to know you. Maybe not...all parts, but enough for you to have a close bond. Distance doesn't change it."

"But that's the paradox," Jesse finally looked to her, holding her eyes, his own almost brutially honest. "The more I like someone, the closer I get to them...the less I want them to know about me."

"You want them to think the best of you," she said before she let out a soft breath. "It's not unusual to feel like that. But what you might not have considered it that part of why they like you is because they know about you. Those things. The things that hurt."

"Not sure I trust that," Jesse replied honestly, his frown deepening as he shook his head with it. "Not...yet anyway. Maybe I need to...figure that one out."

"There's no rush. Marinate or meditate on that aspect for a bit, see if it...feels like it hits somewhere," Connie said as she looked at him, giving a nod. "Not all things fit all people, Jesse. And it doesn't mean someone's broken. It just means we all work a little different."

OFF:

Lt. jg Connie Montoya
Counsellor
USS Guinevere

Lt. Colonel Jesse Moriarty
CO, Federation Ground Forces
USS Guinevere

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