A Loss of a Friend

Posted on 26 Aug 2016 @ 6:36am by Lieutenant JG Catherine Cooper

500 words; about a 3 minute read

Mission: Click Three Times
Location: Quarters
Timeline: MD 6 || 1700 Hours

Cooper nodded and smiled at people as she passed them, completely on autopilot. She was trying to get to her quarters and looked neither right nor left, she simply walked briskly. She'd been on her way there anyway to pick up some items before crashing at the security offices for a few hours as ordered after setting up the search teams but now she thought she'd just need to be alone for a bit. Finally she arrived and entered, locking the door. Then she simply sat there in the dark at her desk, she looked at the many pictures there of smiling friends and family. Her eyes landing on one of her and Jarveth Adan pretending to have a sword fight with a couple of butter knives in the lounge. She couldn’t believe he was gone, killed by debris when the ship lost power.

They’d gotten along like a wildfire when they first met, instantly bonding over music and British mysteries. When she was down she could always count on him to bring her up, and she would do the same for him. He was easy to get along with and a good friend. She couldn’t believe he would smile no more, her eyes closed briefly and she'd tried to breathe slow as she'd been taught but the pain was too fresh. So many had died and Adan's was the 2 by 4 that was just too much. That coupled with lack of sleep put Cooper in a dark emotional place as her mind spiraled. She’d lost other friends over the years and it never got easier, she would have to survive but one could not rush the process. She sat there staring at the image of his laughing face as the image of Cooper tried to look threatening banishing her butter knife in the picture and the real Cooper rested her chin on her hands.

Cooper was a social person and with close friends did share serious sides of herself but when the pain went deep enough she preferred to lick her wounds in private. So that is what she did now. She was the kind of person who felt intensely and there was a harsher side to that. Besides no one needed to see her like this. She was going to miss him.

He didn't care she was weird, that her mind was a bit chaotic or that she had too much energy sometimes. He just smiled and made a joke or kept pace. Cooper would never know what the future would have held. He had been her best friend on the ship, her first friend here and now he was gone.

Soon enough duties would call her back and she would be all what was expected of her but for now her normally chaotic mind was still for the most part, looping memories of her lost friends and shipmates as tears silently ran down her cheeks. She closed her eyes, mourning alone in the dark.

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