chanter1944: a Pringles can with the words 'you can't write just one' written across it (drabbles are like pringles)
Chanter ([personal profile] chanter1944) wrote2007-10-26 02:57 pm
Entry tags:

cross-posted reason challenge response

Written for [livejournal.com profile] writers_choice. As I get back into the swing of these, yaaaay! I thought I'd start off slowly, so thoughtful Ayala-fic it is.

Title: Higher Reasoning
Author: chanter
Series: Star Trek Voyager, roughly season 3
characters/pairings: ensign Ayala
Rating: PG
Summary: I needed something concrete. We all did. ayala reflects.
314 words


I wondered, for a while.

Hell, I did more than wonder; being stuck seventy thousand lightyears from home made us all bang our heads against a few metaphorical walls. Maybe even a few physical ones, depending on who you talked to and when. And not that I wasn’t tempted once or twice, but on a ship built for combat performance rather than venting frustration, everything carries. I could deal. But I admit I wondered--hell yes. We all did. Starfleet, Maquis, whatever; I bet even Neelix and Kes had a question or seven in the early days. Some people were just puzzled. Some of us were downright steam out the ears furious. And me... yeah. And then there was me.

I was somewhere in the middle. Sure I was pissed, everybody was to one degree or another. I had a family; no kids, no better half, but parents and brothers still count, and I had a life, off sensors and under radar though it was. And I was just like the rest of both crews in a couple senses of the word: mixed up, shaken around and looking for answers. We had plenty of Starfleet rhetoric, but that only went so far.

I needed something concrete. I needed a reason.

We all did.

And I admit I’m still figuring it out, time elapsed or not. A thing like this, being stuck in a situation like ours - that takes time. That takes years. Part of me’s thankful in a weird way that years are what we’ve got; I won’t lie and say I’m to grips with everything yet. I’d be kidding myself if I tried. But I can look around.

And maybe it’s philosophy, maybe it’s attachment, maybe it’s just another result of our circumstances but damned if a bigger part of me doesn’t see the reason I needed every day when I do.

[identity profile] singeruvsongs.livejournal.com 2007-11-01 03:17 pm (UTC)(link)
I like it. I think it very much covers probably a lot of what the crew in general was thinking.