ST:END202 | "Swings and Roundabouts Part 2"

Amy sat in one of the viewing lounges on the Endeavour, her eyes transfixed on the empty husk of the Shackleton in drydock. She was no stranger to broken ships. During the Iconian War, she spent her time divided between the construction of the Endeavour and repairing damaged ships from the war. She was even part of teams that had to decommission those ships that couldn't be fixed. Working as a drydock manager, she'd done the exact same. Broken ships were her bread and butter.

But her brief time on the Endeavour had told her something that she didn't realise before. These ships had lives outside of them. Part of what made the ship so alive was the crew, the blood cells of the ship. She knew that each ship had a soul, had a heart, had a brain. But it wasn't until she was the First Officer did she realise that the ship was nothing without her crew. And the ship sitting in the dock was nothing. No crew. No Captain. It was empty. It was dead.

Amy felt rather detached from the whole situation. A ship in drydock was a sad sight, like a beached whale. Normally, she was the one pushing it back into the water, but now, Amy was a spectator, and it wasn't a nice feeling. Her heart yearned to go back to the shipyards, to pick up a hammer and spanner and get to work. But her brain knew she had to stay where she was. On the Endeavour. On her ship.

Adjusting to the position had not been easy. Not at all. Amy still felt like an outsider to the crew that had been together since the ship's launch. It wasn't the fault of anyone in particular. But there was a camaraderie amongst the bridge crew that she could never tap into. It was only the calming and steady presence of the Captain that helped her settle in, but as he relied on her more and more to take charge of the ship, Amy was starting to feel out of her depth again. He taught her to tread water, but now he wanted her to swim in the deep blue sea. And for a while, she was able to do more than stay afloat, even able to swim. But then reality came to smack her in the face.

It didn't help that the Captain was visibly burdened with the various issues that had seemed to strike the ship all at once. Vayyolet, Ashley, Gabriella, and now, Josie. Amy felt guilty. She was meant to aid the Captain in these matters but Amy felt lost in the subtleties. Her attempts to befriend Vayyolet fell flat. Ashley's injuries came out of the blue. Gabriella was distant. And Josie was down a road she couldn't follow. What was worse was the fact that Gabriella and Josie were her friends. She felt like she should have foreseen and managed these situations before they had spiralled out of control, but she was as blindsided by them as everyone else. And now they were the Captain's problem, and all Amy could do was sit and watch them unfold without her, just as she was watching the Shackleton out in dock.

The nagging feeling that she was a terrible First Officer had come back with a vengeance, and it caused Amy's stomach to tighten. She had let the Captain down, she had let the Endeavour down. She was trying her best, but her best wasn't enough. And for a brief, fleeting moment, she wished that the Endeavour and the Shackleton could exchange places. At least, if the Endeavour was in dock, she'd know how to fix it. She wouldn't be a bystander.