she is okay.
she is okay (but maybe-not-quite-completely) and no one sees except t'prell, and she loves her but dammit logic can't make her smile. emotions are burned into her blood, she knew from birth how to love and hate and fear nothing and she still doesn't except maybe her own people.
her own people are the people that fight and relish spilling blood nearly as much as the klingons (assassination mind games then we strike), the people that threw her away when she didn't fit their perfectlittlestandard too small not big enough, toss her in the trash we don't need her anymore—and she loves her family really she does but she can't help wishing her real family loved her too.
she heard all of them on earth (romulan, watch out she'll stab you in the back, it's just in her nature you know) racist and sneaky and paranoid and she didn't bother to prove them wrong. it was just smiles and laughs and lies, and once the word gay got stuck in her mouth she cleared her throat with strangershandslips because she might've felt dirty and wrong but at least she felt wanted.
the-pretty-vulcan she had to share rooms with fixed her because the-pretty-vulcan didn't like strangers and hands and lips, and the-pretty-vulcan made dirty and wrong into clean and right all without a smile but with soft hands and a reassuring voice that made all her syllables soft. it took two-weeks-four-days-and-seven-hours since they met to make her smile and turn her into t'prell, not the-pretty-vulcan but t'prell.
it took most of their academy days to make each other fine and okay and even (sometimes) happy. and then t'prell left for first officer of the u.s.s lavender and pacific (i'm so happy for you lying again) and she told her jol-ao au but t'prell didn't know much romulan and so the vulcan smiled and she didn't. she was put on the u.s.s supernova and the strangers started again (reason for transfer to the u.s.s meadowlark: numerous affairs with inferior officers that also affected work productivity) and sometimes she couldn't breathe, their hair was as soft as t'prell's or the smell the same or the smile close enough to make mistakes, say the wrong name, leave and never look them in the eye again.
space. she hated space, she used to love it for how vast it was, how very infinite and mysterious, but now it held her from the only person who she wasn't racistsneakyparanoid to. she trembled when she saw her and it didn't stop until t'prell spoke (i learned romulan) and she cried, she hated herself for it but she couldn't stop, didn't stop until those soft hands and reassuring voice came to her.
you will be okay.