The Shape of Belonging - III - Found Family

Posted on Mon Sep 7th, 2026 @ 4:06pm by Commander Rosa Coy

2,082 words; about a 10 minute read

Mission: Character Development
Location: USS Veyra

I used to think celebrations were something that happened after important things. A promotion. A successful mission. A birthday that mattered enough for someone to remember. A safe return from somewhere that had made everyone nervous. I have learned that crews celebrate for considerably less important reasons.

Sometimes they celebrate because someone found a bottle of Kanar that had been hidden behind a maintenance panel for eleven years. Sometimes they celebrate because Chief Rell finally admitted that the mess replicator was not, in fact, haunted. Sometimes they celebrate because Ensign Thenn received her first commendation and Kade decided that meant she was obligated to buy everyone dinner.

Tonight, we are celebrating all three. The fact that Lieutenant Kade has somehow convinced everyone these things are connected is something I have chosen not to question.

The mess is louder than usual when I walk in. Someone has moved the tables together. Someone else has decorated the bulkhead with strips of colored fabric that I suspect were stolen from the recreation stores. Chief Rell is standing over a pot with the expression of a man who has been personally offended by having to do the cooking.

"You are stirring that too much," Dr. Virel tells him.

"I'm preventing it from burning."

"You are preventing it from becoming edible."

Rell looks at her. "I've been cooking longer than you've been alive."

Dr. Virel smiles pleasantly. "I highly doubt that."

I stop just inside the doorway. Thenn sees me first. "Leftie!" She waves me over so enthusiastically that I nearly step backward. "You came."

"You invited me?"

"Posh, that's never stopped anyone from refusing."

Kade appears behind her, carrying two plates. "She means you were expected."

As I look around the room, I notice there are more people here than I expected. Some are from flight control. Some are engineering. Someone from security is sitting at the end of the table explaining to a science officer why he has been banned from choosing the music. I know most of them, but not all. That used to bother me, but tonight it doesn't.

Thenn reaches for my arm and pulls me toward the table. "I saved you a seat."

I look at the chair. It's beside hers. "You did?"

She shrugs, suddenly looking almost embarrassed. "Well, technically you always sit there."

I smile. "I suppose I do."

She smiles back. There's something different about her lately. When I first met Lira Thenn, she watched me the way I used to watch Commander Coy. She listened carefully. She measured everything I said. When I corrected her, she would nod and make the adjustment before I'd finished explaining why. Now she argues with me. I consider that progress, of sorts.

"Do you want to see what I made?" she asks.

"Should I be worried?"

"It's just dessert."

"That didn't answer the question."

She laughs. Then she leads me toward the counter where a tray of small, slightly misshapen pastries sits beneath a heat lamp. "They're supposed to be symmetrical," Thenn says with complete seriousness.

I look at them. "They are?"

"Yeah, but they're not." She turns the plate slightly. "That's because you're looking at them from the wrong angle."

Kade chose that moment to walk past. "They look like damaged shuttlecraft."

Thenn's smile disappears. "Keep walking, fly boy."

He does. I take one and taste it. It's surprisingly good. "You made these?"

She nods. "Yes."

"Well... they're good."

Her expression changes. Only slightly. She looks down at the tray. "Thanks."

I understand that reaction. Praise can be more difficult to accept than criticism when you are still learning what you are capable of. I take another, which makes her smile. The evening grows around us. Rell's food turns out to be excellent despite his protests that nobody appreciates the difference between cooking and engineering. Dr. Virel brings something from the medical replicator that she refuses to identify until everyone has eaten it. Kade attempts to convince the security officer that he has never cheated at poker, which would have been more convincing if the security officer had not been holding three cards Kade had somehow already tried to take.

Then the music begins. With it, I discover two things. First, Chief Rell can sing. Second, he absolutely shouldn't. He has the confidence of someone performing before an audience that has no ears. Kade joins him, which makes it worse.

Thenn covers her face with both hands. "I can't believe this."

"You are welcome to leave," Rell tells her.

"I'm considering it."

"You'll miss the chorus."

"There's a chorus?"

Rell begins again. The entire table groans. I laugh. It surprises me how easily the sound of my own laughter arrives. I used to be careful about laughter. I used to think it revealed too much. Here, nobody seems concerned about what laughter reveals. Kade sings badly because it amuses him. Rell sings badly because he refuses to accept that he sings badly. Thenn sings quietly because she knows she can actually carry the tune. Dr. Virel does not sing at all. She watches everyone else with the expression of a physician observing a group of patients making questionable decisions.

Eventually someone hands her a glass of Kanar, and she drinks it. Then she accepts another. An hour later, she's sitting beside Rell explaining, with absolute certainty, mind you, why his singing is improving. "It is."

Rell looks pleased.

"It's not," Thenn tells him.

Virel points at her. "You're young."

"That's not a medical explanation."

"It is tonight."

The poker game begins shortly afterward. I should have known better than to sit down. Kade deals. I study my cards. He studies me. I study him.

"You're cheating."

"I haven't done anything."

"You're smiling."

"I smile all the time."

"Not like that, you don't."

Thenn looks between us. "How can you tell?"

"I have spent enough time flying with him."

Kade places a card down. "I feel personally attacked."

"You should."

Rell looks at his hand. "Are we playing for money?"

"No," Thenn says.

"Good."

"Why?"

"I am terrible at poker."

Kade grins. "That has never stopped you before."

Rell looks at him. "I have never lost money at poker."

"You have never played poker."

"Exactly."

The game becomes progressively less competitive as everyone becomes more interested in accusing everyone else of cheating. Eventually, Thenn wins. Nobody is more surprised than she is. She stares at her cards. Then at us. "I won."

Kade looks at his hand. "You cheated."

Her eyes widen. "I did not."

Rell points at Kade. "That is exactly what a winner would say."

Thenn laughs. I watch her for a moment. She is different tonight. More relaxed. The carefulness is still there, but it is beginning to loosen around the edges. She looks at me when she laughs. Not because she needs my approval. Because she wants to share the moment.

Later, when most of the food has disappeared and the poker cards have been abandoned across the table, I find myself sitting beside her. She is quieter now.

"Good evening?" I ask.

She nods. "Very."

She looks around the room. "I didn't think it would be like this."

"What did you think it was like?"

She considers that. "More formal, I guess."

I smile. "Starfleet has never been particularly good at being formal when no one important is watching."

She laughs quietly. Then she looks at me. "You weren't like this when you first came aboard."

"No." The answer arrives too quickly.

She notices. "You were quieter."

"I'm still quiet."

She shakes her head. "You listen differently now."

That catches me off guard, and I look at her, like really look. She seems uncertain about what she has just said.

"I mean..." She looks down at the cards. "When I first came aboard, you listened like you were trying to find out what everyone expected from you." I say nothing, and she continues. "Now you listen like you already know where you fit in."

There are moments when someone says something simple, and it reaches you in a way you were not expecting. I look across the room. Kade is arguing with Rell. Dr. Virel has fallen asleep in a chair. Someone has started cleaning the tables while everyone else insists they'll do it later. I think about the first weeks aboard the Veyra. I remember watching everyone else and wondering what I had to become to belong here.

Now I am watching Lira Thenn do something similar. Except she is doing it with me. I turn toward her. "You know you don't have to become anyone else to belong here."

She looks at me. "I know."

"Do you?"

She smiles. "I am working on it."

I nod. "That's probably enough."

She looks relieved.

Then Kade calls from across the room. "Leftie!"

I close my eyes. "What?"

"Rell says you're cleaning up."

"I didn't say that."

"You were thinking it."

"I was thinking you should."

Kade points toward me. "See? Leadership."

I laugh.

The evening eventually ends. People drift back toward their quarters in small groups, still talking. Rell remains behind to complain about the dishes while washing them. Thenn helps him despite his repeated insistence that she is interfering with the process. I return to my quarters alone.

The door closes behind me. The silence feels different after the mess. I stand there for a moment, listening. The Veyra hums around me. I have come to know that sound too. I remove my uniform jacket and toss it over the chair. Something clicks against the deck. I look down. A small panel has fallen loose from the wall beside my desk. I sigh.

It's been doing that for weeks. I kneel to pick it up. There's a faint metallic smell around the access panel. I touch the edge. The panel comes away easily. Inside, the wiring is neatly arranged. Much more neatly than it was the last time I looked. I stare at it. Someone repaired the loose connection. I run my fingers along the edge of the panel. There is a tiny maintenance mark in the corner.

Rell. I find him the next morning. He's halfway through a diagnostic when I approach. "You fixed my wall?"

He does not look up. "No."

"There's a maintenance mark."

"I'm sure there are lots of maintenance marks."

"This one is yours."

He sighs. "It was making an annoying noise."

"It had been making that noise for three weeks."

"It was annoying me for three weeks."

"You spent three weeks listening to it?"

"I was... busy."

I smile. "You repaired it."

"I adjusted it."

"You repaired it."

He finally looks at me. "It was just a loose connection."

"Thank you."

He shrugs. "Someone had to." Then he returns to his console.

I stand there another moment before walking away. I know what he has given me is just a repaired panel, but it feels like more, like a quiet gesture. Three hours of work I never asked for. Something nobody else would have ever noticed. I think about it again later that day while sitting at the Conn.

Thenn is beside me, reviewing a navigation update. Kade is arguing with someone over the comm. Rell is complaining from engineering. The bridge is busy. Chaotic. Familiar. I look at the people around me and feel something settle inside my chest.

I am still a stranger here. Perhaps I always will be, in some small way. There are pieces of Bajor that belong only to me. There are memories of the Sunfire that nobody aboard this ship could ever understand. There are parts of myself I have never learned how to explain. But I am beginning to understand that being known does not require being completely understood.

Sometimes someone just needs to know that you take your coffee with too much sugar. Sometimes they need to know which chair is yours. Sometimes they repair the annoying thing in your quarters because they heard it before you did. And sometimes, without anyone saying it aloud, a crew makes room for you.

I look at Thenn. She catches me watching her. "What?"

"Nothing."

She narrows her eyes. "You're smiling."

"I'm allowed to smile."

"I did not say you weren't."

I turn back toward the forward display. The Veyra continues through the stars. I realize that I'm no longer waiting for this ship to feel like home. Because it kinda already does.

TBC

 

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