Grief in a Bottle - In Honor of Marie Batel

Posted on Tue Mar 24th, 2026 @ 12:45am by Lieutenant Commander Bonnie "Bon-Bon" Durnell & Lieutenant Leo Da'Cinci

1,809 words; about a 9 minute read

Mission: Beholder
Location: USS Sunfire - Aft Lounge
Timeline: Current

The announcement found Bonnie in that quiet, fragile space where thought and instinct drifted together without friction. Numbers had been moving beneath her fingers, steady and obedient, the kind of work that gave her something to hold onto after too many hours awake.

When the shipwide channel opened, the voice carried through Engineering with a clarity that left no room for interpretation. "End of shift. Captain Marie Batel." The words settled, slow and deliberate, like ash drifting down after a fire had already burned itself out somewhere far away.

Bonnie’s hands stilled on the console. The data remained in place, perfectly arranged, every curve and value exactly where it should be. The Möbius loop continued its elegant circulation across her display, a closed system behaving with quiet precision.

She watched it for a few seconds longer than she needed to, as if the pattern might offer a correction, a revision, some hidden clause in the math that allowed for reversal. The loop flowed forward. It folded. It returned. It held. The universe, for once, behaved exactly as designed.

The walk to the aft lounge felt longer than it was, the corridors stretching in that peculiar way they did when the body ran on exhaustion and the mind carried too much at once. Crew passed her in ones and twos, voices softened by the same message that had reached them all. Some faces held quiet understanding.

Others held that distant look of people filing grief away into compartments that could be opened later, when duty loosened its grip. Bonnie moved through them with a kind of gentle detachment, her thoughts circling without landing.

She had not known Batel the way others had. There were no shared stories, no laughter tucked into memory, no personal thread that tied them together in the way grief often demanded. And yet something about the loss sat heavy in her chest.

They had solved it. The problem had been real, dangerous, complex, and they had met it with everything they had. They had unraveled the Beholder, disentangled a life from something vast and ancient, given her back the shape of herself. The solution had held. The math had been right. And still...

The lounge greeted her with dim light and the quiet hum of a space designed for unwinding rather than thinking. Stars drifted beyond the wide viewport in a slow, patient procession, each one indifferent to the small dramas unfolding inside the hull.

Bonnie slipped onto a stool at the bar and rested her forearms against the polished surface, her shoulders finally beginning to feel the weight of the long day. Her reflection stared back at her faintly from the glass, hair caught somewhere between tied and forgotten, eyes ringed with fatigue that no amount of caffeine could quite disguise.

“Whiskey,” she said, her voice soft enough that it barely disturbed the stillness.

The glass found its way into her hand with practiced efficiency. She wrapped her fingers around it, feeling the cool weight settle into her palm, and lifted it without ceremony. The first sip burned in a way that felt grounding. It demanded attention, cut through the fog, reminded her that sensation still existed outside of thought. She let the warmth spread, slow and deliberate, and set the glass back down.

Silence filled the space around her. It was not empty. It carried the low murmur of distant systems, the faint movement of air through vents, the almost imperceptible shift of the ship as it continued its journey. Bonnie sat within it, letting her thoughts move at their own pace.

“We did it right,” she said after a time, her voice low, directed more toward the bar than to anyone who might hear. The words felt like something that needed to be spoken aloud to exist fully. “We solved it. We folded the energy, stabilized the loop, got her out of it.”

Her fingers tightened slightly around the glass. “She had her life back!”

The sentence lingered there, complete and true, and yet it did not resolve the way she expected. Something in her chest resisted the neatness of it. The equation balanced. The outcome stood. But the feeling refused to align.

Her hand moved before she had time to consider the motion. The empty glass struck the edge of the bar and shattered against the deck with a sharp, ringing crack that seemed to echo through the quiet room. For a moment the sound hung in the air, bright and undeniable. Bonnie flinched at it, her breath catching, then released a short, uneven laugh that carried more exhaustion than humor.

“Yeah,” she murmured, looking down at the scattered shards. “That feels about right.”

Bootsteps approached, measured and unhurried, each one placed with the certainty of someone who understood the difference between intrusion and presence. Leo Da’Cinci settled onto the stool beside her with the quiet gravity of a man who had already decided to stay as long as needed.

He set a bottle on the bar between them, the glass catching the low light in a warm amber glow. His gaze moved once to the broken pieces on the floor, then to Bonnie, and he gave a small nod that held acknowledgment without question.

“She chose her moment,” he said, his voice carrying the steady weight of stone shaped by time and tide. “There be a kind of grace in that.”

Bonnie kept her eyes forward, watching the stars drift. “It still hurts,” she replied, the honesty of it slipping through without resistance.

“Aye,” Leo said simply. “It does.”

He reached for a second glass and poured without flourish, the liquid settling into the crystal with a soft, familiar sound. He slid one toward her, his movements deliberate, respectful of the space she occupied.

“We gave her something back,” he continued after a moment. “A choice. That is no small thing. Most of us live our lives reactin' to what comes. She had the chance to decide her end with her own dignity guiding it.”

Bonnie picked up the glass and turned it slowly between her fingers, watching the light catch along its surface. “It feels like we just... bought her time,” she said, the words quiet, uncertain.

Leo let out a low breath that might have been a chuckle in another context. “Time is the only currency we ever truly deal in,” he said. “We build ships to cross it, machines to measure it, systems to bend it. Every moment we give someone is a victory, even when it does not look like one at the end.”

She considered that, the idea settling into place alongside everything else she carried. The sharp edge of her frustration dulled slightly, reshaping into something she could hold without it cutting quite so deeply.

Her gaze drifted once more to the broken glass on the floor, the scattered fragments catching the dim light like a small constellation of their own.

“I think I needed that,” she admitted, a faint smile touching her lips despite herself.

Leo followed her gaze, his expression thoughtful. “There be value in remembering both sides of what we do,” he said. “Creation and destruction share a boundary. Crossing it now and then keeps us honest.”

He rose from his stool with unhurried purpose and lifted the bottle he had brought with him. For a brief moment he weighed it in his hand, feeling its balance, its history, the quiet craftsmanship that had gone into its making. Then, with a decisive motion that carried no hesitation, he brought it down against the deck.

The impact rang out through the lounge, glass shattering in a bright, final note. Amber liquid spread across the floor, its scent rising in a sharp, rich wave that mingled with the still air. The act felt clean in its execution, a release of tension shaped into something tangible.

Bonnie stared at the result, surprise breaking through her fatigue, and then a laugh escaped her, genuine this time, unguarded and bright against the lingering weight of the moment.

“Okay,” she said, shaking her head slightly. “That... helped.”

Leo reached for another bottle, his hand closing around the neck with the same measured confidence. He lifted it, preparing to repeat the gesture, when Bonnie’s hand moved quickly to intercept his wrist. Her grip was firm, her expression suddenly focused in a way that felt far more like her usual self.

“No,” she said, the word carrying both authority and a hint of amused protest. “That one stays intact.”

He paused, glancing at the label, then back at her, curiosity flickering in his eyes.

“It has a story,” she continued, softening slightly. “You can tell just by looking at it. We don't smash stories. We... should appreciate them properly.”

A slow grin spread across Leo’s face, the logic settling in with the kind of ease he reserved for arguments well made. “Fair,” he agreed.

Bonnie released his wrist and took the bottle from him, setting it carefully on the bar as though it deserved the gesture. She reached for two fresh glasses, her movements steadier now, the earlier tension having found an outlet.

“We drink this one,” she said, pouring with quiet precision. “With respect. For her. For the time we gave her. For the choice she made.”

Leo inclined his head in agreement, lifting his glass in a small, solemn acknowledgment before taking a sip. Bonnie followed suit, the warmth of the whiskey settling into her chest in a way that felt less like escape and more like grounding.

They sat in silence for a while, the kind that did not demand filling. The stars continued their slow passage beyond the viewport, unchanged by the events that had shaped the day. Inside the lounge, amidst the broken glass and the lingering scent of spilled whiskey, something in Bonnie eased.

The grief remained, present and real, a quiet companion rather than an overwhelming force. It shifted, finding a place within her that allowed for both loss and understanding to coexist. She had not known Batel deeply, yet she had played a part in giving her something precious at the end. That mattered.

Bonnie rested her elbows lightly on the bar, glass in hand, and let out a slow breath. The universe would continue its strange, unpredictable dance. Things would break. People would choose their moments. Systems would fail in inconvenient ways, and she would find herself picking through the pieces, looking for patterns, building something new from what remained.

She glanced at Leo, a small, grateful smile touching her lips. “Thanks,” she said quietly.

He nodded once, the gesture simple and complete.

Together they sat, two engineers who understood both the beauty and the cost of what they built, sharing a drink in a quiet corner of a ship that carried on through the stars.

 

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