life's blood

[warpfairy]

They're not near Cardassian Union space.

But then, they're not near Federation space either. This ship has as much right to be in this system as they do.

It makes Isabella nervous, anyway, and she's just about to suggest leaving and coming back another time, when the Prometheus is hailed.

They're armed. She can't warp inside a solar system.

She answers the hail.

"Hello, Federation vessel," says one of the three visible Cardassians in bad but intelligible English. "What're you doing out here alone?"

Isabella swallows. "This is the deep space survey vessel Prometheus," she begins.

The computer lets her know that they're charging weapons.

"We have no hostile intention," she says.

Comments

[dream_me_up]

He doesn't really have a response to that.

[warpfairy]

"It will likely be transitory, but as you are already under stress perhaps I could postpone this event longer than planned."

[dream_me_up]

"Putting it off won't help me any."

[warpfairy]

"Are you certain?"

[dream_me_up]

"Yeah."

[warpfairy]

She nods once.

"I had planned to stop today. I have disliked the results of more prolonged suppression in the past."

She takes a deep breath.

When she lets it out again, she's herself. She isn't crying, screaming, ranting - but there's light in her eyes again, and her body language isn't so intensely measured.

[dream_me_up]

Lalita relaxes noticeably.

[warpfairy]

"I had no idea what was going on," she says in a low, snappish voice. "I was on the other side of the wall from you, but I didn't know that. You'd worked out a deal with them, but I didn't know that. You could get us out at any time, but I didn't know that. If I had known any of it I could have screamed the first time he touched me. If you'd - if you'd summarized the situation in Vulcan through the wall, perhaps in song to make it sound like you were entertaining yourself - or knocked on the wall in Morse code - or whispered to me the least bit of translation of anything that was said while I was still present - I could have been spared days of torture."

[dream_me_up]

"I didn't know that," he says, with a hint of his earlier sobbing coming back to haunt him. "I've been down this road before, but never with somebody else. I know how to handle it when it's just me. I didn't know how to handle it with you there. I got it wrong. I fucked it up. I'm sorry."

[warpfairy]

"I thought they were hurting you, too. I didn't know. I still don't know; maybe you just had time to heal."

[dream_me_up]

He shakes his head.

"No, he just fucked me," he says tiredly. "That was the deal. I play along, and nothing bad happens to you."

[warpfairy]

Isabella turns away and bites her lip. "And they didn't know you understood their language, so you thought you'd know if they were deceiving you."

[dream_me_up]

"Yeah."

[warpfairy]

"And meanwhile I understood nothing that was happening to me at all, not where you were, not whether he would kill me by accident or deliberately, not what they said, not that I could have shouted at any moment and you would have appeared and we would have been on our way - I dropped into suppression more because I cannot tolerate confusion than because I cannot tolerate pain or fear, but of course it's not a matter of picking and choosing, they are all either on or off, I could not leave the emotions that would have prompted informative shouting intact while I dealt with not knowing and having no way to find out."

[dream_me_up]

[warpfairy]

Now she's crying, a little.

[dream_me_up]

Well, so is he.

[warpfairy]

Nothing is likely to interrupt them in their crying for some time.

[dream_me_up]

Can they snuggle while they cry? That would help at least one of them.

[warpfairy]

Isabella will allow it. Perhaps she will cry on his shoulder.

[dream_me_up]

That... also helps, actually.

[warpfairy]

Isabella would only be able to tell if he told her. Or if she were mid-telepathy with him, which she is not.

[dream_me_up]

But not from the part where he hugs her tightly and pets her hair and cries some more?

[warpfairy]

Suggestive but inconclusive.

The hugging helps, now that anything can help, now that she isn't stuck firmly in a position of imperturbability.

[dream_me_up]

He can tell that the hugging helps. It's good that the hugging helps. It helps him that the hugging helps. He'd say something to that effect, but - talking while crying is hard. So he just hugs her some more.