Chapter 12. Tini’s collapse
At night, Celia and Daisy sat in a conference room with data disks in front of a screen. These are John's personal journals. As she investigates John's death, Celia finds them in his dormitory. She wanted to see its contents but felt a little uneasy in his quarters. So she chose the conference room as a neutral place. On her way here, she meets Daisy, and despite her long day and hard work on the planet, Celia suddenly decides to accompany her. After all, John is one of Daisy's employees.
At this moment, they have checked all the logs and are sitting silently in front of the screen. What they saw shocked them deeply. It is not easy to analyze all this calmly and objectively. These are a person's most private and intimate thoughts. His dreams and hopes, his fears and lows. These are the deepest desires that no one should ever know. This is the diary of a now deceased Starfleet member.
They didn't know what to say. They all saw the same thing and didn't have much to say. This has revealed everything. They stared ahead wordlessly, having to process what they saw first. So when the door opened softly behind them and Noah walked in, they didn't react. He walked in, but immediately stopped and looked at the two people sitting there. He paused at the door for a moment, just observing quietly. Then he went to the stool and sat down. He looked at them quizzically, but said nothing. He knew that if they were ready, they would tell him what they found. He didn't want to rush them.
"He's really desperate," Celia finally said after a moment of silence. "He was deeply dissatisfied with his life, but he saw no chance of change. He was mired in self-pity. All of his records reveal the same despair. He was consumed by self-doubt and felt that he was everywhere. Both were an annoying distraction. He had absolutely no self-respect. He lived a sad and lonely life."
"I don't know how to proceed. Maybe a talk with a counselor would help," Daisy added bitterly. She wondered if there were some signs of something bad to come. Should she have seen these omens. After all, John had worked in her department. Of course, he was a weirdo, extremely taciturn and closed off. But are these enough signs?
"Perhaps you should look at one of the records," Celia suggested. "They are all very similar. But to really understand how he felt at that time, you can only have an approximate idea by looking at all the records. But in fact, we can't fully understand it."
"Okay," Noah nodded. "You pick a section. You've seen them all."
Celia deliberately selected one from the memory and plugged it into the appropriate port. "This is from four weeks ago," she said.
John's image appeared on the screen. He lowered his head and sat on the sofa in his dormitory. "Personal log, sidereal date 38620.1," he dictated to a computer before his death, "I feel so isolated and isolated. But that alone is not enough. I feel...empty. Nothingness. Burning inside. I I am nothing more than an empty shell. And an empty shell cannot survive. Neither can I. I think if a counselor described me, they would say this: loneliness, self-pity, and powerlessness have burned my soul. I I couldn't take it anymore. I didn't want to. What was the point? I never had any friends to talk to. I never had a chance to have fun or celebrate. I was always alone. And, I've never had a girl reciprocate my love. Oh, sure, I've been in love many times, but it was unrequited love. Nothing ever really developed. The love was never reciprocated. Every time I have unrequited love, something dies or is scarred in my soul, and the love I receive in return heals that part of my soul. But by that reckoning, my soul is already dead. And to a certain extent, it is. John smiled briefly, but it didn't feel like a genuine smile. But a sad smile. "There are so many things I've never experienced: wild parties, tenderness, or even the feeling of being wanted by someone else. And I probably will never experience it. Every day, I expect a miracle. I expect someone to love me. Me and show me real life. A man who redeems me. An angel who helps me. But such a man does not exist. No one can help me. So for me, there is no reason to continue living." He paused again, but instead of ending the record, he continued muttering desperately to himself. "Anyway, I'm just in other people's way, a burden and a nuisance. Everyone would be better off without me. Because I'm essentially a nonentity, a nobody. A loser. .If I disappeared, would anyone notice? Would anyone care? Would anyone miss me? No, no one. It's that simple. No one. No one," he repeated softly.
As the recording ended, Noah sat in his chair and stared at the monitor. "Oh my God," he said suddenly, "how can one lose all hope? How can one hate life so much? How can one hate oneself so much?" Fear and incomprehension showed on his face. To him, this was unimaginable. John in particular analyzes his situation so coldly and distantly. He was completely disengaged, as if he was talking about a complete stranger rather than himself. Noah says, "How did this happen and no one noticed?" It's not an accusation against Daisy, but more of a general question and a question for himself.
"Most records are like that, or more self-pitying," Dr. Celia explains. "He must have experienced some profound event in his youth that robbed him of all self-confidence. But we may never know what it was."
The captain looked at her. On the one hand, he was relieved that the incident had nothing to do with the crew. This way, there are no recurring emergencies. On the other hand, he wished there was a better explanation. That's not a real explanation, and the question remains. It left him feeling completely helpless and like there was nothing he could do to stop this no matter what.
"What was his last record?" he asked the pair. While he didn't expect anything different, he felt he should at least hear John's last words.
"He repeated the same thing over and over for many days," Dr. Celia said hoarsely. "He sees no point in living because he can't enjoy life. Pretty much the same as what you just saw. There's no indication that he's going to act on it now. The only difference is that he thinks he's met an angel , but even this angel cannot save him, because even the angel will not notice him. Even though he loves this angel deeply. He refers to Tiny."
A startled scream came from the doorway, causing them all to turn around. Tiny stood there. None of them noticed the young girl walking in and hearing part of their conversation. "Am I the reason he died?" she struggled to say the words.
"No," all three replied simultaneously.
Noah stood up and walked towards her. "Of course you're not wrong," he reassured her. He stopped in front of her and stared at her, but still dared not touch her.
"But he committed suicide because he unfortunately had true feelings for me," she still sounded shocked, suddenly feeling an extra burden on her shoulders that almost crushed her. Tiny was already distraught when she came to talk to her father, and now the feeling of responsibility was added.
"I don't think that was the main reason. From all records, that's not the case," Celia explained gently. She also walked to Tini and put her arm on her shoulders. "His last record was just a minor detail. In reality, he had been suffering from severe depression and that was what led him to behave this way."
Tiny doesn't know who John is. She had never known him or interacted with him. She didn't know what he was thinking. However, she felt responsible for the stranger's death.
"You're not responsible for what happened," Noah reiterated again, sternly. Suddenly, John's death didn't matter. The most important thing now is to free Tiny from her guilt. "He's so mired in self-pity that no one can help him. Not even professional help is guaranteed to save him. And you don't have to take his feelings for you seriously. He doesn't even know you. How can he possibly talk about it? Love? He talks about love whenever he gets any female attention."
"Your father is right, Tiny," Celia insisted. "He couldn't have those feelings in that state of his."
Tiny just nodded. A strange silence filled the room when no one spoke anymore. Through brief eye contact, Noah signaled to the doctor that he wanted to be alone with his daughter. So Celia and Daisy cautiously withdrew.
Noah looked into his daughter's eyes as the door closed behind them. He felt the weight on her shoulders and he was willing to bear everything for her. "Tini," he began slowly, but then he stopped. Because Tiny started crying. This seemed to be the last straw that pressed on Tini, causing her already overwhelmed heart to overflow.
Noah approached her somewhat surprised. He wanted to hold her in his arms, but wasn't sure if it would be appropriate. So he hesitantly put his hand on her shoulder. Tiny turned slowly and looked at him with eyes blurred by tears. She leaned carefully against him. He held her with the same care. They are rarely sure if this is the right thing to do and how to behave in this situation. However, both of them need this feeling of closeness.
Noah said nothing, just held her. He just wanted to be by her side. He felt her shivers and shudders, her tears streaming down his uniform. She seemed to let out all the pain and confusion of the past few days, crying uncontrollably. Noah held her tenderly. He felt a twinge of guilt that he was even glad that John was dead. After all, this finally seems to have made Tiny more open and he hopes to now be able to build a relationship with her. However, the fact that all of this required the death of a person shocked him deeply and made it difficult for him to classify his feelings. Life sometimes takes strange courses that don't always align with the high moral standards of Starfleet officers. He must now figure out his feelings and learn how to face them.
After a while, Tiny sat alone in front of the bed in the guest room where she was staying temporarily. She retreated to her room, wanting to be alone for a while. She had to deal with everything first. Her father initially wanted to accompany her, but she refused. He wanted to help her out of love. But he couldn't help her get through this. She must face it alone.
Now she was staring blankly at the wall, but her thoughts were far away. Very far. A few isolated tears slipped down her cheeks. But she hadn't even noticed she was crying. Everything has become too scary. She came aboard to see her father and punish him. This was supposed to be a simple thing. But now everything has become very complicated. Her father is not who she thought he was. She originally thought he was a selfish, arrogant scumbag, but the opposite seemed to be true. Then there's the crew, who are all friendly and protective of their captain. They opened her eyes to doubts about her aunt's stories. Tiny later had a talk with her aunt. Of course, she denied everything at first. But Tiny was angry, so her aunt Nancy eventually told her the truth. Her mother, Olive, left Noah because she was pregnant and she didn't want to take a role in his career. She felt that his choice between career and family would break his heart. And she didn't want him to get hurt. But she never gave him a chance to make his own choice. Nancy Si also witnessed all this at that time. But Olive rejects all of Noah's attempts to contact her. Therefore, he had no idea that he had become a father. And Tiny misunderstood him too much. She felt like a fool. As she was about to tell him all this, she overheard that the young crew member she didn't even know had committed suicide and that he seemed to be in love with her. She felt guilty about it too. Even though she basically knew she couldn't be responsible for it. But it all came together and she couldn't separate these complicated feelings.
Her entire worldview collapsed. She didn't know what to believe anymore. I don’t know where to go or what to do next. She was stranded alone on the ship, at least for several more months before the Republic returned to Federation airspace. But what to do next? Suddenly, she missed her mother very much. A mother's warmth and caress. She never received advice from her mother. And she had no recourse to her father. She doesn't even know him yet. He was a stranger, stranger than ever because her preconceived notions of him no longer held true.
Tiny's inner defense collapsed. Now, anger and resentment can no longer protect her, and for the first time in her life, she feels truly alone and helpless. She felt lost. She had severed all ties, but new ones seemed to lead nowhere. She has no family and no friends.
She sat on the floor sobbing. There was nothing she could do about it. Years of suppressed feelings came flooding back, breaking her self-control. She cried, releasing her despair and helplessness. Surrounded by despair, she barely noticed the visitor alert coming from the hatch. She whispered "Come in," but didn't stand up.
