The Quiet When the Chaos Stops

Posted on Sun Jul 20th, 2025 @ 3:36pm by Lieutenant JG Elen Rell & Lieutenant JG Constance 'Connie' Montoya
Edited on on Sun Jul 20th, 2025 @ 3:40pm

2,816 words; about a 14 minute read

Mission: Prologue
Location: USS Guinevere
Timeline: 2388

Connie had made the tea. Assam, brewed to the second...strong enough to hold its own, but not so long it turned bitter. A small splash of milk had already been added, not as an afterthought but as a quiet act of precision. She’d learned, over the years, that some individuals, and yes Elen Rell was amongst them...responded better when hospitality was a given rather than an option. There was no ceremonial pause for permission, no hovering offer. The tea was there, simply because of course it was.

It bypassed the awkwardness of having to say yes or no. And something in Elen’s Martian upbringing suggested she’d understand that. A cup, already poured, placed in invitation rather than negotiation.

They had only spoken once before...her annual check-in, the previous year. Quick, light on formal substance but not lacking in character. Elen had arrived like a solar flare: radiant, kinetic, and slightly disorganised in the way people are when their minds move faster than their mouths. Connie had needed a moment, then. Not to keep up, she could keep up with most but to shift gears.

She remembered the moment Elen had caught herself mid-sentence, eyes going wide, fingers immediately seeking the edges of her fingerless knitted gloves, thumbs rubbing at the stitching in tiny, circular loops. A quiet, unconscious attempt at grounding. Or perhaps at fitting into the room, shrinking her spark into something more palatable.

Connie had put a stop to that quickly. Not unkindly. But firmly.

She wasn’t there for Elen to compress herself into something more manageable. This space wasn’t about comfort, at least not Connie’s, at any rate. It was about honesty. Unfiltered and full-sized.

And if that meant the room had to make space for the storm, so be it.

The door chimed precisely on time.

Elen entered like she’d been flung from orbit by a rather aggressive trampoline; a blur of motion and charm, kinetic and smiling before the door had fully hissed shut behind her. Her uniform was regulation, more or less...a hand-knit cuff peeked from one sleeve like a signature, and a tiny charm caught the light from her belt loop as she moved. Her boots squeaked faintly, either from recent polish or sheer mileage. Possibly both.

“Afternoon, Counsellor,” she said, as if the room had warmed by her very presence. “This is the only appointment I’ve had this week that came with proper tea. Do you hand out biscuits too, or is that reserved for full psychological collapse?”

Connie didn’t blink. Just gestured toward the chair with easy grace. “If you declare a total breakdown, I might be persuaded to open the biscuit tin.”

Elen laughed; quick, bright, and entirely unfiltered. She dropped into the seat like she belonged in it, crossing her legs with languid ease, already tugging absently at a stray thread on her cuff. Always the hands, and Connie clocked it immediately. Movement, grounding. A rhythm she’d come to recognise in their brief acquaintance.

“I mean, sure,” Elen said, smile still hovering like a light above the conversation. “Not quite ‘warp core on fire’ yet, and the new Chief Engineer… she’s lovely. Bajoran. Feels like--”

Her hand stilled briefly, and she looked toward the middle distance, searching for the metaphor before it came tumbling out. “Like a quiet storm in a jug,” she said at last. “Not enough to shatter the glass, but you can feel it hum through the handle.”

The smile faltered, flickered. Her gaze dropped, as it often did when her instinct brushed too close to someone’s internal weather. The ‘vibe’ as she called it, came and went with all the reliability of faulty EPS flow. A legacy of Betazoid blood, flickering like static behind her eyes. Instinctive, untrained, and occasionally unwelcome.

Last year, Connie had called it what it was: a facet, not a flaw. Something to acknowledge, not apologise for.

And Elen had nodded, sheepish. Said it came and went. “Like coolant. You hear it more when the room is too quiet.”

Connie remembered that line. She’d written it down after the session. Not because it was diagnostic. Because it was poetry.

“And I’ve made friends,” Elen announced brightly, her eyes warm with the kind of light that usually preceded a story. In one fluid movement, she curled a leg beneath her, hugging it to her chest as though anchoring herself in place. Her fingers began tapping a syncopated rhythm against her ankle. Not distracted, but regulating.

“I mean, there’s still Cressida. She’s like...awesome, as you know. Red Dust, I wish I could be like her when I grow up.” Her smile was wide, crooked with fondness, and her head gave a little shake as if to physically scatter the thought before it took root too deeply.

Connie sipped her tea, the motion as smooth and unhurried as ever. She remembered last year’s session...how Elen had described it then as a girl-crush, said it with a quick shrug and a mock-scandalous grin. “Like a sister, but I mean, I would if she offered...” followed by a nervous laugh meant to defuse its own sharpness. A test. A probe. Trying to find Connie’s boundaries, or humour...or possibly both.

Connie had answered with the same patient smile she gave now. Not dismissive. Simply anchored. Unmoving in the face of Elen’s scattering sparks.

“And there’s...you know, other people,” Elen said, tone shifting...more thoughtful now, a softness underneath. “Drevas, he’s brilliant. He’s all Zen and...I wish I had some of that calm philosophy. I try and adjust when I’m with him, you know?” She glanced up quickly, meeting Connie’s gaze with sudden urgency, as if needing the truth of it to land. “Try to find that wavelength inside myself. Still a work in progress.”

“Most of us are,” Connie said gently. And meant it.

Elen nodded at Connie’s reply, accepting it with an ease that suggested she trusted it more than she let on. Her eyes flicked sideways, gaze softening as her thoughts wandered ahead of her mouth. “Met the First Officer. We’re...sort of on a first name basis now. Niun.” There was a pause, a slight widening of her eyes as if surprised by her own comfort with that.

“He’s…” She stopped, visibly editing herself, then gave a small laugh and a shake of her head. Her hands shifted again, smoothing the leg of her trousers where it didn’t need smoothing. “I mean, I sort of went off on him about the ship’s name, but we found a balance. It’s what I love about Starfleet and the Federation, really...you can talk about things. Debate without it turning into anything bruising. I like him. I think he might need a hand getting used to the ship, but once he realises she’s...on our side, it’ll be better.”

Connie nodded, watching the shifts in tone and tempo like a conductor noting movements. Elen’s capacity for connection, not just to people but to place, to machinery, to the spirit of a ship, was something rare. Admirable. The way she wrapped others in welcome wasn’t just habit. It was compensation. A quiet rebellion against the times she’d felt like too much, so she’d made herself a balm for anyone else who might ever feel the same.

“Anyway,” Elen said with sudden brightness, as though physically tugging herself out of the deeper currents of thought, “I’ve started knitting him a scarf.” She beamed, proud and unapologetic. “You know. Knitwear for lost warriors.”

Connie gave a small, dry smile. “As long as you don’t try it on the Captain.”

“Too late,” Elen replied cheerfully, not missing a beat. “Gave him a blanket last year. Alpaca, deep purple. Big enough for a Caitian to cocoon in. He didn’t say that much, but I think he liked it.” Her brow furrowed for a moment, the only crack in her confidence, before she added, “He did keep it and I got to have dinner with him and his hubby and adorable son. That counts, right?”

“It does,” Connie said gently, lifting her cup again. “More than just a thank you. It seems the right amount of acknowledgment. Especially for something that wasn’t replicated.”

Elen’s eyes warmed, and her fingers stilled...not entirely, but just long enough for Connie to feel the shift. “Yeah...I know that,” she said quietly, and this time, when she met Connie’s gaze, she held it. Whatever came next had weight behind it. Connie saw the storm behind those eyes...fifty different drafts of how to say it, all edited in real-time.

And then it just fell out of her, like someone had cracked an airlock and let the cargo tumble. “Sort of decided this one...trooper needed a friend. Didn’t give him a choice.” A huff of breath, almost a laugh, but not quite. “Didn’t like how the silence sat around him, like it was going to build into bulkheads and swallow him whole.” She looked down, fingers curling into the edge of her sleeve again. “He’s not left yet, so… I think he doesn’t mind.”

Connie didn’t interrupt. Silence could be a laser scalpel too.

“I feel a bit guilty about that for a moment,” Elen admitted, the words softer now. “But I know if he hated it, he’d...walk away.” She lifted her head again, her eyes darker now, steadier. “He says I don’t make noise.”

There it was. A truth wrapped in someone else’s words.

Connie took a slow breath, setting her teacup down with deliberate care. “That’s quite a thing for someone like him to say.”

She didn’t need to ask who. Elen had told her everything already, just not his name. No, she already knew about this, from someone else. About how Elen had wandered onto the holodeck and in her own little way changed something in the air.

“Yeah,” Elen said and gave a slow nod, frowning as she thought about it. “He’s sort of...like encountering marble when you expected water. Not wrong. Just unexpected. Wears his… past on his skin, in his eyes, but not in his mouth.”

She paused again, thoughtful. “Weirdly, he’s easy to be about. Doesn’t expect anything.”

Connie took her in, weighing the words and their rhythm. That was it. The crux of it. She didn’t push. Just set her teacup aside, folded her hands, and let her voice come quiet, but clear. “Tell me,” she said. “How are you, Elen?”

The blink was almost audible. The smile that followed was practiced...but softer now, less blinding. Still real, but a touch behind it did not quite reach the usual levels. “I’m good. Better than good, most days. Systems are running smoother than they have in weeks, we’ve got a refit coming up, and I’ve finally convinced Alpha shift to label their tool kits properly. It’s practically a holiday.”

“I said you. Not the warp core.” Connie raised an eyebrow. Sipped her drink. Let the silence stretch.

Elen’s eyes sparked with humour. “You always do that. Slip the sharpest tool between the metaphors.”

Connie didn’t smile. Just waited. Still and steady.

Elen leaned back, letting the pause stretch. “Honestly? I’m… managing well. Mostly. Work is good. I feel useful. The crew’s solid. And I’ve got a rhythm. Engineering chaos, poetry in the ducts, and some very unfortunate baking attempts in the evenings.”

“But?”

“But...” A slow sigh. Elen twirled one finger in the air absently, like she was trying to trace something that wouldn’t quite resolve. “It’s the quiet, I suppose. When the chaos stops. That’s when I notice I’ve been...shoring things up. Internally, I mean. Not with gel packs.”

There it was again: her instinct to soften honesty with a joke. But it didn’t deflect. Not really.

“I’m not struggling, Counsellor. I’m just...trying not to feel like I should always be on. You know? The bright one. The warm one. The engineer who knits emotional insulation as well as the thermal kind. And I have been doing the mindfulness thing and it helps. I am just trying to capture that moment where stillness can be more than just my brain getting overwhelmed by impulses.”

Connie let the silence settle. Not heavy...just long enough for the truth to land without needing to be caught. Then, softly: “You don’t owe anyone that version of you. Not even on your good days.”

Elen let out a slow breath, the kind that wasn’t quite a sigh but carried more weight than she meant it to. Her fingers resumed their quiet work...thumb brushing her knuckle, index finger tracing the edge of her sleeve cuff...absent, rhythmic, grounding. Then she gave a lopsided smile, the kind she usually paired with a quip, but this time it came quieter, as if she was letting it through without its usual armour. “Yeah,” she murmured, gaze drifting slightly past Connie’s shoulder. “That’s the bit I keep forgetting. That I don’t have to...always be the knit-sock fairy, or the emergency optimism dispenser.” Her eyes came back to meet Connie’s. They didn’t waver.

“I like being that person. I do. It's not a mask...it’s me. Just the parts I’ve got the most practice being.” She paused. She reached for her tea but didn’t sip it yet, just held the warmth between her palms. “And I think most of the time that’s enough. I am happy. I’ve got my hands full and my mind full and that’s a good place to be. It’s just...”

A flicker of something danced across her features...uncertainty, maybe. Or the dissonance of naming something that hadn’t yet asked to be named. “There’s this moment,” she said slowly, “between when I leave a room and when I get back to mine. When it’s just corridors and hums and nobody else, and that’s when I wonder if I’m quiet enough. Still enough. Not just to rest...but to be known without earning it.”

She gave a small, self-conscious laugh. “Damned Dust, that sounds... melodramatic.”

Connie didn’t correct her. Didn’t have to.

Elen sipped her tea at last, cheeks warming. “And maybe that’s why it’s so weird, with him. The trooper.” She glanced down at her mug, then back up again. “I don’t perform around him as much as...step in time with him. Like his quiet could...be a bit of mine, if I wanted to...” Her voice softened. “He listens. Doesn’t prod, doesn’t vanish, doesn’t wait for the punchline. Doesn’t make me feel like I need one. And I didn’t realise how rare that was until I stopped trying.” She blinked, then met Connie’s gaze over the rim of her cup with a sheepish smile. “That’s... not a problem, is it?”

“No,” Connie said at once, then met her eyes properly. “But I do find it interesting that you feel the need to ask.”

Elen exhaled...sharp, amused. A smile tugged at her lips. “Yeah. I don’t know, maybe there’s still this part of me that’s braced for being too much. That if I stop spinning plates for a minute, I’ll get quietly filed under ‘too noisy’ and end up assigned to Deck 15 with the spare conduit. Or deck 20, to sit under the bones of the ship.”

Connie said nothing, just watched, then calmly leaned forward to top up both their teas. The scent of Assam rose again, warm and grounding. She gave Elen the moment without pressing.

Elen’s voice was quieter when it came. “But since coming here... I think I’m realising that maybe what matters is just...being here. That I am here. Doing what the Federation stands for in my own way. Making the ship, I guess...” she paused, glanced down at her hands, then the steam curling off her mug. “I don’t know what word fits. Not ‘better’. Just...something.”

Connie settled back in her chair. “Maybe you don’t need to put a word to the feeling you’re creating. Maybe the fact that you’re doing it is enough,” she said before she gave the other woman a small nod. Recognition.

After all, they were all trying.

---

Lt. jg Elen Rell
Acting Assistant Chief Engineer
USS Guinevere

&

Lt. jg Connie Montoya
Counsellor
USS Guinevere

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