Grief

Today is a hard day. It hasn't really started yet but it's already hard. Kat gets up, even though it's hard. She goes to work, even though it's hard. Even when Boom smiles at her it's hard to smile back. The whole damn day is hard, is going to be hard, and it will continue to be hard until it's tomorrow. Cruger can make things easier on her but everything' still hard.

"Commander Cruger, sir?" Bridge asks Cruger timidly.

Cruger looks down at the young man with a frightening gaze. "How can I help you, Cadet Carson?"

"Well, uh, sir," Bridge fidget with his black gloved hands, "we were wondering if Kat's, um...okay."

Cruger inhales patiently and braces himself for the upcoming discussion. "Cadets, if you must know, Kat is not okay today. This is the one day she cannot be, therefor, you will not ask anything of her, you will not bother her."

"What's so bad, sir?" Syd asks softly. "Whatever it is, we just want to help her."

Cruger relaxes a bit but his expression becomes sad as he does. "Kat comes from the branched star planet Felis XYKappa, not far from Sirius. Almost fifty years ago, the Troobians' campaign of destruction reached our sector. Her planet, her home, her family...were destroyed."

Z cringes despite not being able to imagine the magnitude of things. "She lost..."

"Everything," Cruger finishes, unconsciously parroting the word Kat uses to describe his own tragic story. "She makes a point of keeping this from people, but when her planet was destroyed she lost her husband...and unborn son."

Soft gasps are heard and Syd covers her mouth in horror. She swallows some tears down and tries, softly, "Kat's..." there's no end to her sentence.

"There is nothing more to the matter. You will not mention this to her, keep it to yourselves, and let her be, understood?"

"Of course, sir," Jack and Sky trade serious nods in an unspoken plan to make sure other cadets know to leave her be as well. Bridge searches for a way to ease the tension but there is none. Syd and Z try to blink the tears from their eyelashes.

"Good, dismissed," Cruger nods to them. When they've gone he walks slowly to the cafeteria. As he predicted, Kat is in line, silent, head bowed slightly. She receives two tuna salad sandwiches and a glass of milk. She takes them silently. She leaves the cafeteria.

In her lab, Kat sits at a round table, set with a table cloth and two places. She sits at one, with one tuna sandwich, and sets the other sandwich across from her. To her right, slightly out of her reach, the glass of milk is set. By the glass of milk sits a birth stone – the earth gem garnet – and by the sandwich opposite Kat, sits a wedding band. Kat herself pulls her own ring out, holding a gem exclusively found on Felis XYKappa.

Katherine leans back in her chair heavily, sighing. She takes a bite of the sandwich, trying not to cry and vomit from the grief crushing her entire being. It never gets easier. "So, how was your day?"

The other sandwich doesn't answer.

"Yeah, mine too," Kat agrees flatly. She forces herself to take a second bite of the sandwich. It's too cold. It is Sunday, though, and they would always have dinner on sundays. He would force her to finish because she was "too thin to be carrying their kit by herself". In a dark moment of humor she thinks about the irony of the wasted breath on the statement. Still, she supposes it's merciful, in a way, that she was only carrying the one when it happened.

Katherine looks at the glass of milk to her right. It sits untouched. The birth stone sits, gleaming in the candlelight. It mocks her in its silence, where her son should be sitting. The son she was going to name Alexander, who could have had her husband's eyes and her face. Her husband would feel the smallest kicks and say that the youngling had his mother's brains. She looks back at the other sandwich. "It's pretty unfair...though I guess I say that every year. You can't deny it, though."

The sandwich still can't answer.

"Of course you can't," she spits bitterly. "I still don't know why it was me. Why I lived, while everyone else perished–while my son missed his chance at life. I still don't know and you still can't tell me, can you, Nathan? This is...ridiculous. You used to make fun of me for how often I used that word. Well, its Felinae equivalent...sorry I don't really speak in our tongue anymore...just gotten used to English so much it seems weird. Besides, you would be the only one besides Doggie to understand me."

Katherine stops. She tries not to mention Doggie on this day – it feels wrong, like she's betraying Nathan in some way – but he always comes up, without fail. "Sorry...I know you'd say for me to move on and live for you. You're...you were that kind of man. You were a good man, but that doesn't make this any easier. In fact, it makes it harder."

Katherine puts her sandwich down, even more disgusted with it than before; "but if you could just give me a sign, or something... " She waits, but no such sign comes. It's depressing. She leans back again, more forcefully this time. "Yeah, that's what I thought you'd say."

The candle she lit goes out, by no discernable source. Kat frowns and perks her ears for the first time today. "Really?" The sandwich still doesn't answer but Kat feels better for some reason. "Thank you, Nathan...I love you. I love you, and miss you with all my heart. I also know that if you were still here you'd be telling me to get back on my feet. You would tell me that after almost fifty years I should give myself a break, stop blaming myself, start moving on a little further. You'd say that I don't have to stop grieving but that if I don't move forward I'll be stuck here forever. I'm sure you'd be furious to know I've been doing this for so long. It is kind of grim, I'll give you that. I don't know what else to do, though. Sorry—I know you never liked having a huge deal made over you. I don't either. We had that in common...sometimes I catch myself thinking of what Alexander would have been like. I think about a lot of things; what if we had all survived? What if you came here, with me, while SPD was being built? Would you like it here? Would you like Doggie? Well, of course you would, you're both outstanding men and leaders, and my best friends."

Katherine wipes the tears from her cheeks. "I guess it isn't all that healthy for me to keep doing this. What should I do instead, though?" She looks at the candle again, for another answer.

"Kat?"

Katherine turns to the door. Doggie Cruger stands just outside the frame, in the hall. "Doggie?"

"I wanted to leave you alone for this, but...I need to know that...you're okay."

Kat truly smiles for the first time today and hugs him silently, tears falling. "Thank you."

Cruger can only rub her back, hoping to ease some of the grief he knows can't leave her. He also lost his mate, but they had no pup—he has no son to mourn. "Katherine...I'm so sorry...I wish I could help."

"You do help. You make this easier...just by being you," Katherine sighs lovingly.