After Hours
Posted on Wed Aug 19th, 2026 @ 10:15pm by Vice Admiral Sidra MacLaren
1,963 words; about a 10 minute read
Mission:
The Heir of a Buried World
Location: MacLaren MacCaffery Quarters
Timeline: MD01: Late evening
Sidra came through the door later than she had intended.
The quarters had already settled into evening. Most of the overhead lighting was down, leaving the kitchen softly illuminated and the living room beyond it washed in the warmer amber glow of a lamp beside the sofa. Stephen sat beneath it with a padd angled in one hand and a synthetic pipe resting between his lips, the faintly sweet scent of its vapor lingering in the room.
Will was at the kitchen island, still wearing his baseball uniform. The trousers were streaked with dirt around one knee and across one hip, his jersey untucked enough to suggest whatever postgame standards his coach maintained had ceased to matter the moment he reached home. A half-finished drink sat beside one elbow while he worked his way through something on a padd.
He looked up when the entrance opened. “You missed it.”
Sidra stopped just inside long enough for the doors to close behind her. There was accusation in the words, but not much; they had done this before. “I know.”
She crossed to him, bent, and pressed a kiss against his temple, her hand settling briefly against the back of his head before she straightened. Will tolerated both with the dignity of a fifteen-year-old who had long ago accepted that resistance only encouraged her.
“We won.”
“That much I gathered.”
“How?”
“You’re still speaking to me.”
His eyes narrowed, and Sidra finally smiled. “What did I miss?”
That was apparently all the invitation he needed. Will turned on the stool to face her more fully. “Third inning, Parker booted one at short, so Coach moved me over.”
“You played short?”
“For four innings.”
That got her attention. Will usually played second or third, depending on the lineup, and she knew better than to treat every patch of dirt between the bases as interchangeable. “How’d you do?”
“I turned two.”
Sidra’s eyebrows rose. “Did you?”
“And I drove in two in the fifth.”
“Well.” Sidra kept him waiting just long enough to be annoying. “Apparently my absence inspired you.”
“Mum.”
There was the familiar warning. She reached over and brushed a smear of dirt from the side of his face with her thumb. “I am sorry I missed it.”
His expression softened, though only slightly. “You’re getting demoted.”
“Again?”
“Third string.”
Sidra considered that gravely. “Outfield?”
“Obviously.”
“Bit harsh.”
“You missed three games.”
“Two.”
“Three.”
“One of those was an exhibition.”
“That still counts.”
“Not in any respectable statistical system.”
Will stared at her until she conceded with a small tilt of her head. “Fine. Third-string outfielder.”
“You might get called up if your attendance improves.”
“How generous.” Sidra laughed quietly and squeezed his shoulder. She really was sorry; that part did not need a joke around it. “I’ll try.”
Will nodded, accepting the promise for what it was. Starfleet had been part of his life since before he could understand the word; he knew better than most children that I’ll try sometimes meant exactly that. He started telling her about the double play anyway, and Sidra stayed where she was and listened.
The details came quickly once he got going: the runner breaking too early, Parker yelling something unhelpful from third, their first baseman nearly pulling his foot off the bag, and Will’s strong disagreement with the umpire’s strike zone. By the time Sidra finally moved away from the island, the day she had carried home had receded enough that she could breathe around it.
Stephen had lowered his padd, his eyes tracking her as she crossed the living room. He did not ask anything yet. Sidra passed behind the sofa and let her hand slide across his shoulder in an affectionate squeeze. Stephen turned his head slightly beneath her touch, his free hand coming up to cover hers for the briefest moment, the sweeter trace of the pipe giving way to the familiar sandalwood of his soap.
Nothing needed saying. She continued toward the bedroom.
At the dresser, she unfastened her flag-rank bars and set them into the small tray. Stephen’s rear admiral bars were already resting against the dark lining, cool beneath her fingertips when she brushed them. Hers still held a trace of warmth from the long day. She placed them beside his, let her hand linger for a moment, and moved to the closet.
The jacket came off next, hung with practiced precision, before she reached automatically to the small of her back. The compact cricket phaser she carried went into the safe with a soft mechanical click.
She changed into soft knit pants and a fitted T-shirt, then dragged both hands through her short red hair, working her fingers against her scalp in a slow release of tension. The woman looking back from the mirror was still tired and still carrying the same questions, but at least she no longer looked prepared to chair a fleet briefing.
When Sidra returned to the living room, Will had disappeared down the corridor; a moment later the faint hum of the sonic shower started from his room. Stephen remained where she had left him, padd resting loosely against his thigh. He was no longer reading.
Sidra noticed and kept walking toward the kitchen. She filled the kettle and set it onto the heating plate, reaching into the cabinet for two cups out of habit before remembering Stephen had not asked for one.
Behind her, the synthetic pipe clicked softly against his teeth. “The Protectorate contacted the station again.”
Sidra stopped with one hand still around the kettle. There was no accusation in his voice, which only made the statement harder to dismiss. She looked over her shoulder. Stephen had not moved from the sofa, watching her through the warm edge of the lamplight.
She held his gaze for several seconds before setting the kettle down.
Stephen’s eyes followed the movement. “So much for tea.”
“Apparently.”
She crossed to the bar. Two glasses came down from the shelf, followed by the soft give of the cork as she poured two measures of scotch. When she carried a glass to Stephen, he accepted it without looking away.
That was the thing about being married to someone who knew her this well: silence offered no cover. Stephen rarely pressed when he did not need to; he simply watched, waited, and let her decide which parts of the truth she was ready to bring into the room.
She lowered herself onto the sofa beside him, folding one leg beneath her and stretching the other along the cushions toward him. For a while neither spoke. The quiet should have been comfortable, but tonight it carried weight.
Stephen set the synthetic pipe into the ashless tray beside him. “You didn’t answer them.”
“No. They asked too quickly. Before I knew enough to decide whether answering them would put someone in danger.”
Something shifted in Stephen’s expression. His attention sharpened without the rest of him moving at all. “Someone.”
“Yes.”
He waited. Sidra hated that he was good at this.
“He arrived today. Injured. He’s been running for twenty-three days.”
“And he asked for you.”
“Yes.”
The corner of his mouth moved around something that never quite became a smile. “That generally ends well.”
“Historically, no.”
A little of the tension left his shoulders. “Why you?”
“His father told him to find me.”
Stephen turned his glass slowly between his fingers as he arranged the pieces she had given him. “And you don’t know why.”
“I know part of why.”
“But not enough.”
“No.”
The sonic shower stopped down the corridor. A moment later something thumped softly against a wall, followed by a brief silence that suggested Will had decided not to investigate whether either parent had heard it.
Stephen leaned back into the sofa. “What does the Protectorate want?”
“Confirmation that he is here.”
“That’s all?”
“For now. They don’t know what I know.”
“And what do you know?”
Sidra met his eyes. There were limits even here; not because she distrusted him, but because there had simply always been things neither of them could carry across the threshold merely because they were married. Stephen understood that without being told.
“Enough to make you stop answering questions,” he said quietly.
“Yes.”
He studied her face, taking in the fatigue she had managed to hide from the rest of the station. “You’re worried about him.”
“I’m responsible for him.”
Stephen said nothing, simply holding her gaze with that steady, unchallenging look until she exhaled slowly.
“Yes. I’m worried about him.”
He took a slow sip of his scotch. “He’s young,” she added.
“How young?”
“Not Will.”
The answer came too quickly, prompting Stephen’s eyebrows to rise slightly.
Sidra frowned at him. “Don’t.”
“I didn’t say anything.”
“You were about to.”
“I really wasn’t.”
“You were thinking it loudly.”
That finally brought a small smile from him.
“He’s an adult,” Sidra said, leaning her head back against the cushions. “Younger than I expected, that’s all.”
“Expected from what?”
“The history. Everything I read today described a bloodline. A legal provision. A historical problem. Then I walked into Medical and found a young man trying very hard not to look as tired as he was.”
The softness disappeared from Stephen’s expression. “He gave you something.”
“How did you get there?”
“You put the kettle down.” Stephen lifted his glass toward the kitchen. “You only abandon tea for scotch when something has gone particularly sideways.”
“That is an outrageous oversimplification of my drinking habits.”
“It’s also accurate.”
She wanted to argue, but let it go. “Yes. He gave me something. Important. And I don’t know whether the Protectorate knows he had it.”
Stephen absorbed that without asking what it was. He knew which doors were closed without forcing her to close them in his face. His hand settled lightly around her ankle, his thumb tracing once along the inside of her foot in a slow, familiar touch.
“So,” Stephen said after a while, “you’re holding their request while you decide whether telling them puts him at risk.”
“And while I determine what exactly he brought me.”
“That sounds reasonable.”
Sidra turned her head toward him. “Don’t make it sound simple.”
“I didn’t. I said it sounded reasonable.”
She understood the distinction. Reasonable decisions could still go badly; some of the worst decisions she had ever made had been perfectly reasonable with the information available at the time.
“How long?” he asked.
“Tomorrow. I can hold them tomorrow without it becoming unusual. Maybe another day if I have to. After that, the fact that I’m refusing to answer becomes more interesting than whatever answer I might give.”
“And tomorrow you go back to him.”
“Yes.”
“What are you going to ask?”
Sidra looked at him steadily. “Better questions.”
Stephen gave her a quiet, knowing look.
“I told him I would take care of it,” she said quietly.
Stephen’s hand left her ankle and traveled slowly along her shin before finding her hand, his fingers closing around hers.
“You will.” Not you’ll fix it, not you’ll figure it out. Just that.
Sidra turned her hand beneath his until their fingers fitted together. A moment later came the unmistakable sound of Will rummaging through the kitchen again, apparently raiding the pantry after claiming he was finished for the night.
Neither of them moved. Stephen tapped his glass lightly against hers.
Tomorrow would bring Seren, the Protectorate, and whatever waited inside the archive. Tonight, for a little while longer, she stayed exactly where she was.
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