Lemonade Parade

Posted on Thu Jan 15th, 2026 @ 1:28am by Petty Officer, 3rd Micki Callahan

2,916 words; about a 15 minute read

Mission: Long Night
Location: Miami, Florida
Timeline: Mission Day 1 at 0000

The steam from the shower had done some of the heavy lifting to scrub away the grit of the garage, but as Micki stepped out of her room, the humidity of the Florida afternoon was already waiting to claim her. Her hair was a wild, wet array of chestnut and blonde, the heavy curls dripping onto the delicate lace of her white jacket. She felt light in her "home" skin—high-waisted denim shorts and a pink midriff tank that showed off the warm, sun-dusted tone of her stomach. It was a far cry from the utilitarian lines of a Starfleet uniform, and for a few more hours, she intended to enjoy the breeze.

She paused in the hallway, her hand resting on the doorframe of her bedroom. Looking back, the room was a perfect, preserved capsule of the girl she had been before she traded wrenches for warp-theory and enlisted in Starfleet. Her father had kept it exactly as she’d left it: the same old posters of vintage racers on the walls, the same cluttered desk, the colorful streams of round-bulbed Christmas lights lining the top of each wall. He’d never said he missed her—that wasn’t Jackson’s way—but the fact that not a single pillow had been moved told the sappy truth he couldn't put into words.

The house was a spacious four-bedroom, a sturdy family home that felt too large for the ghosts that lived there. It was comfortably middle-class, clean and well-kept, yet it lacked the living warmth of a woman’s touch. As Micki walked toward the stairs, she passed the relics of her mother’s influence: decorations that were now nearly fifteen years old. The floral runner in the hall was frayed at the edges, and the framed landscapes on the walls had begun to yellow under the glass.

Her father had maintained the house like it was a machine—functional, greased, and running—but he hadn't updated a single detail since 2142. It was as if changing a curtain or buying a new rug would be an admission that the woman who picked them out was truly gone.

Micki’s bare feet made a soft, rhythmic padding against the floorboards as she headed for the stairs. The house was quiet, filled only with the distant, low-frequency hum of the refrigerator and the ticking of a clock in the living room. It was the kind of stillness that made her want to start talking just to fill the space. She reached the landing, the damp weight of her hair cool against her back, and looked toward the kitchen. There, at the table, three men sat in silence.

She drew closer to them, watching as they engaged in their own personal diversions; anything to keep from forcing conversation. She was their glue, as much as she hated it. She was the only one who could get dad to talk or get Leo’s nose out of his books. Even in Jax’s case, their arguments were the stuff of legend, and in their own way, they had always brought life to the home; made it feel lived in and real.

“Shower pressure’s still shit, Daddy,” Micki said, opening the refrigerator and starting to pull out the makings of sandwiches. She knew they hadn’t bothered to eat without even asking, she knew it wasn’t her job any more, yet somehow she still found herself falling back into the same role she had fulfilled since she was eight years old. She’d been cooking her whole shoreleave, and all three men were letting her without a thought or care, it seemed.

“Does the job Mick. Does the job,” the middle-aged man said, his eyes barely departing from the Dolphins game on the television. He was handsome in a tired, sad, silent-type, sort of way. Micki could see what her mother loved about him, but she still somehow had a hard time picturing him with the vivid, vibrant, talkative, kind woman she thought she remembered.

“Not for me it doesn’t,” Micki responded, twisting open the mayonnaise and setting out several slices of bread on four plates. Her movements were quick and fluid from practice, even after years being someone else on the other side of the sector.

“Well, you’re used to the Starfleet princess treatment now, clearly.” Jax said, grinning over his cellphone. “Back here on Earth, we don’t always get the newest and the best.”

“I’m used to fixing things when they’re broken,” she responded, deciding to take the high road just this once. Instead of suggesting she could fix his nose after breaking it, she spread generous layers of mayonnaise on each slice of bread and then pressed down thick slices of ham on top. After adding cheese and lettuce to each one, quickly slicing tomato into the mix, and adding a spray of mustard and sriracha for flavor, she closed them and brought the plates to the table. “Think I learned that from you, Daddy. Fixing things.”

“Well you learned how to complain from someone else,” Jackson said, giving his only daughter a cheeky expression. “Bring those chips over, girl.”

Micki did just that, grabbing a big bag of chips and setting it down in the middle of the table. She pulled the seal apart with a single certain gesture, grabbed her father’s plate from in front of him, loaded a pile of chips into his sandwich, and slid it back to him. She then sat down between her brothers, pulling her own plate toward herself. She glanced at Leo, the oldest of her two brothers, and looked at the rather large book in his hands. She couldn’t make out the title on the cover and part of her wanted to follow her first impulse to ask him what it was. But, in the end, she knew she didn’t really care and neither did anyone else in the room. She decided not to put him through the disappointment.

“Thank you, Micki,” he said, smiling as a hand traveled from the side of his book to her arm. His eyes, however, remained on the line he was reading.

“You’re welcome, Leo. So sweet…so polite,” Micki gave a sweeping expression to her father and then to Jax, her youngest brother, full of expectation. Her father was looking at the TV, moving the sandwich with rough hands to sink his teeth into it as his favorite team scored a touchdown. “Yes! Hell yes! Man, that Schofield can run, damn! GO, SCHOFIELD, GO!”

Micki smiled as her father exclaimed with a mouth full of bread, ham, and chips. She followed the Dolphins just as she had since she was a little girl sitting beside her father, longing for time in his presence when he wasn’t at work. Her own eyes drifted to the screen as she watched the coverage of the game with sudden interest, her recent desire for gratefulness from her family instantly forgotten. Her hands came together in three distinct claps and a melody of raspy hoots shot out of her mouth as if from a trumpet. But, as soon as the moment had come, it had gone, and silence fell over the table again like a blanket. It was killing her, really, and she had to break it. Instead of forcing conversation about the game, she decided she should pivot to giving her big news.

“Got some news today, guys. A transfer order.” Micki said, her golden eyes traveling to her father as she took a bite of her sandwich. It was a perfect blend of sweet with the savory, and the lettuce added a wonderful crunch. She fished a single chip out of the bag and chased her bite with it.

“Transfer back here? Planetside?”Jackson asked, a glimmer in his eyes seeming to indicate hopefulness, though it was quiet and reserved.

“No, not here. But it’s an NX Class; those big Warp Five engines they’re always talking about on the news,” she reported, enthusiasm in her voice which she willingly displayed on her face, but tinged with a mask of sadness.

“NX Class, Mick? That’s a big deal,” Leo said, looking up from his book this time and smiling at his big sister. “Now that we’re at war, that means you might actually be seeing some action out there, right?”

“If Starfleet doesn’t keep their big shiny ships on exploration duty,” Jax said with a critical tone. “You might be perfectly safe out there if they keep playing it safe like they love to do.”

“Safe or not, it’s a major upgrade from my current assignment,” Micki said, her energy pressing boldly through her brother’s typical condescending attitude. She wasn’t sure when things went wrong with him, but she imagined it was exactly when things went wrong with her. “I’ll be the Damage Control Specialist. That means I’ll be coordinating repairs on all systems aboard a ship of the line.”

“That’s great, Mick. It really is,” Jackson said, looking at her with a frown. “Just wish you could be here like the old days is all. It’s safer, at least. When do you leave?”

Micki felt the weight of all the words her father hadn’t said. He missed his partner in crime. She knew he wouldn’t say it. She knew he couldn’t.

“Of course, it would be nice to be here too but…that’s not what happens to people working at my level when we’re doing a good job,” Micki tried to explain, her tone dropping from the enthusiasm of earlier to a more somber, hesitant one. “I’m good at what I do. That means my place is on the frontier, pushing my skills to the limit..learning as much as possible. I need to report for duty tomorrow morning.”

“Right, the best of the best,” Jax said with a grin. It was a mean expression delivered with direct eye-contact to Micki. Was he trying to get a rise out of her? Was he trying to hurt her feelings or make her feel small? Maybe he just couldn’t take the quiet any more than she could, and this was his way of stirring things up.

“And you are..that’s a good thing.” Jackson said gruffly, nodding at her. His tone ignored his son, but his words didn’t. “It’s good you got that assignment, Mick. I know how much you wanted to work on those fancier ships. I’m sure you’ll…look after yourself out there.”

“I did…but…yeah..” she said, looking down at her plate, suddenly silent. She wasn’t sure what her father wanted to hear, and it made her feel terrible not to be able to be with him here and fulfilling her promise to him out there. In the end, she felt stuck between two M. Callahans: Micki, the fly by the seat of her pants Starfleet engineer, and Mick, the handy daughter and older sister who made lunch. The only thing in the world she was sure of is that she wasn’t Mikayla – Mikayla had died fourteen years ago with her mother in a symphony of shattered glass and crunching metal. She had no idea what to say now, which was certainly rare for her, but fortunately, Jackson Callahan Sr. didn’t seem terribly interested in forcing the conversation.

Just then, Jax coughed. It was a heavy, forced sound that he paired with some choreographed beating of his chest. He seemed totally oblivious to her internal conflict. He was on the prowl for a fight.

“I’m thirsty,” he said, his eyes drifting to her as if the simple statement of his personal feeling had been a rather obvious order. He wanted her to get up and deal with it for him. Her look back at him was less than appreciative.

“Drink your spit, you jackass. I’m not your chef,” she retorted, taking a bite of her own sandwich. She allowed the annoyance from her brother to draw her mind away from the moment of discomfort and uncertainty. There was nothing like conflict with Jax, other than tinkering or singing, to make the world feel like it was working right again.

“Well, you brought dad the chips when he asked without giving him attitude. You even put them in his sandwich for him. Why do you have to be difficult when I ask?”

“I like Daddy. I don’t like you,” she said, glancing at her father who actually looked away from the screen long enough to give her an affectionate expression. It wasn’t a smile – far from it. But it had been enough. He reached into the chip bag and pulled out a handful of flat potato chips, popping them into his mouth all at once and chewing broadly like a man in hurry. His eyes lingered on his daughter, creasing in the corners.

“Get your lazy-ass brother something to drink, Mick. He’s lost without you. Can’t talk about anything but you when you’re gone.”

Micki paused in her bite. This behavior had seemed normal when she was a kid, but now that she was an adult who had been out of the house and working in the professional world, she understood that it wasn’t. She didn’t know what was wrong with her family anymore than she knew what was wrong with her, but she found it strange. Strange, and oddly comforting. Still, she wanted to ask her father why he would insist that she serve an ungrateful brother who could simply get off his butt and grab a drink for himself. Didn’t he see Jax was just trying to get under her skin? For some reason, she stood and walked to the kitchen instead of protesting. Jackson’s gaze turned to his junior.

“Jax, thank your sister for mothering you. Don’t be an asshole.”

“Please and thank you!” Jax said over his shoulder in the most sarcastic voice he could muster as he picked up his phone and started scrolling again. A small grin appeared on his face, satisfied and calm.

Seemingly unbothered, Micki opened the refrigerator again and pulled out a huge pitcher of lemonade. Setting it on the counter, she gathered three glasses, and with practiced motion, moved around the counter and back to the table. Standing just behind Jackson, she placed the glasses on the counter again and started filling them up one at a time.

“One for Daddy,” she said, taking the glass around the table and placing it in front of her father before returning. “One for Leo…”

She repeated the action for her soft-spoken brother, then poured one for herself. “One for me….and one…”

This time, instead of picking up a glass, Micki grinned like the devil himself and turned the pitcher over Jax’s head in a generous and reckless waterfall. “One for Jax!!”

“AHHH!” Jax screamed at the top of his lungs, his hands going out in both directions, fingers splayed and hands shaking violently. “YOU BITCH!!”

“Hey! Micki, cut that shit out!” Her dad bellowed, scowling deeply. He was always able to express himself when he was angry or when the game was on. “Ridiculous! You two ain’t children anymore!”

Despite his protest, Micki poured the rest of the ice cold beverage over her brother‘s head and then spiked the plastic pitcher against the back of his scalp, the impact stinging him mercilessly. Then she stepped back, a throaty laugh escaping her lips as a soaking wet Jax stood and surged toward her like a mad-dog on a rampage.

“Drink up, Dipshit!” She screamed, cackling as she retreated from him backward, glancing over at the table to clock the guilty grin on Leo’s face.

“I’m gonna kill you, Mick! I swear I-”

“HEY!” Jackson’s voice rose above the din of the conflict, rising to his feet so fast his chair clashed to the ground behind him. Jax stopped in his tracks at the sound of his father’s angry voice, looking back with his own brand of frustration. “Jackson Callahan Jr., if you lay one finger on that girl, I’ll rip out every damn strand of hair you got on your head! You’ll be going back to college being confused for Lex Luthor!”

“Damnit, Dad, you’re always defending her! Look what she did to me,” Jax responded hotly.

“You’ve both been acting like children all damn month. Fighting and screaming at each other like you’re ten damn years old. I’m sick and tired of it. Now get your ass upstairs and clean up before I come across this table.”

Jax stood dripping on the floor, huffing and puffing furiously, at a place of decision about how he should respond. Should he defy his father or go along with his angry order. Then, with a massive groan, he turned and mumbled his way up the stairs, shooting daggers at his older sister with his eyes. Micki, for her part, looked quite satisfied with her actions, and seemed to commence cleaning the floor and chair with silent joy.

“When you get done with that, Mick,” Jackson said, resuming his seat with balled fists. “Get your shoes on. I got one more job for you.”

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