The Station of Deep Space Nine was not at all what T'mel had expected. She had assumed that it being a Federation outpost it would be more human. When she arrived, she found that it was instead filled with many species and races. She walked silently in the promenade and took note that there was a Ferengi running the bar, a changeling in charge of security, a Bajoran officer, a Cardassian shopkeeper, a klingon officer... non humans were everywhere. Perhaps this assignment wouldn't be so bad after all. They were all busy with their work and hardly noticed her arrival. T'mel followed the other three Starfleet officers who were all reporting for duty with Captain Sisko like herself.
It was their first assignment. She could hear their worried thoughts and feel their anxiety over meeting Captain Sisko. She took a deep breath. She would not allow their fears to transfer as her own. This was not her first assignment. She was a trained and competent Starfleet officer and had nothing to fear. She forced her mind to focus on feelings of confidence and capability, even transferring some of those feelings to her the younger officers around her. T'mel was the last of the group to meet with Sisko. She entered his office after her name was called.
"Good afternoon Chief T'mel. Have a seat." Captain Sisko said with a smile.
T'mel took the seat he offered. She knew he was both curious and wary of her. Everyone always was.
"It says here," Sisko said looking at the tablet in his hand, "That you are an engineer who just spent six years on the USS Venture. Starfleet believes you would be of more use here on our little space station." He was waiting for her opinion on her usefulness and on the size of the station.
"I will do my best not the let them down Sir." She said.
"Good. I'm sure you won't. Tell me T'mel, where are you from?" He asked. She knew that her history was already there in the file in front of him. At this point he was making polite conversation in an attempt to learn things that the file did not say. He wanted to know the same thing that all humans wanted to know once they were aware of what she was, how powerful was her mind? He was wary of her. They always were.
"I was born on Betazed, raised on Vulcan." She answered evenly as was her habit.
"Forgive my curiosity, but how did that happen? I didn't think that the two species ever really had much contact with one another." Sisko asked. She might have been offended at all the personal questions except that she could feel his curiosity and knew that he meant no harm.
"My mother is a Betazoid, my father a Vulcan." She explained. "They were both Starfleet officers assigned to the same small ship many years ago. They were on their way to Vulcan where my father was to be married as it was nearly time for pon farr, when their ship experienced a mechanical failure. They were unable to reach Vulcan in time and my mother, being an empath could not tolerate letting him suffer… mother went home to Betazed for maternity leave and father went through with his wedding. But as I grew older it became obvious that the Vulcan way of life would be more suitable and my mother had me sent to my father on Vulcan at age four."
"How do you mean?" He was horrified that a mother would send away her four year old child never to be seen again. He tried to hide it in his tone of voice but T'mel felt his revulsion and heard his thoughts anyhow.
"Vulcans experience strong emotions, violent emotions. That is a lot of the reason that Vulcan children are taught to control their emotions, to hamper the violence. Betazoid children are allowed to feel, are encouraged to feel. The temper tantrums of an angry violent Vulcan child who was physically stronger than she was, was not something my mother was prepared to deal with." T'mel told him, allowing the sadness to seep into her tone. "She didn't want to send me away but she felt that given the nature of my strong emotions and my physical strength and my mental abilities, it would be better to be raised as a Vulcan."
"I see." And Sisko did understand though he thought it was sadly unfortunate. "Well I hope that you are able to make yourself at home here on the station."
T'mel was dismissed shortly thereafter with directions to her new quarters and with a shift schedule. She had a few hours of free time left that day so after dropping off her things in her room, she headed to the bar where the Ferengi worked.
Ordinarily, T'mel didn't really enjoy crowded rooms. It was always difficult to shut out all the the thoughts and feelings of the people around her though she could do it if she were already focused before entering the room. Today she wasn't focused. Most of the people were in a good mood and were having fun in general so that helped. It was always bad if there had been some sort of recent tragedy and she was forced to bear the emotional pain of everyone around her. Sharing their happiness wasn't so bad though. Then she felt it, someone in the room was very worried.
It took but a moment to find him. He sat at table across the room. The ship's doctor, Doctor Bashir was worried about the welfare of one of his patients. She sucked in a breath through her nose trying to focus her mind. She didn't want to meld with him entirely. As a teen, she had accidently mind melded with a few people while trying to screen out the thoughts of a crowded room and listen to only one person. No one at Starfleet knew the full extent of her abilities, or of how difficult it was for her to control her abilities sometimes. The Vulcans had taught her a lot about how to control her mind but they could not help her to have full control of her powers. No one could that she knew of. That was why she was content with a career of assistant engineer. It meant that she didn't have to be in a crowded room while she worked and it meant that she didn't have to solve any difficult problems and lose the focus on keeping her powers under control. If she wasn't careful she could accidently mind meld with someone, project strong emotions onto people, even give people thoughts that were not their own without them realizing she had done it. She also had to be careful of allowing herself to feel the emotions of the people around her. Sometimes she felt them so deeply that she couldn't even function. All she could do is sit and cry like some insane person.
Doctor Bashir was on his second drink. He felt like a failure and his depression was getting her feeling down too. Unable to block him out, and worried about what would happen if she failed, she got up and crossed the room to his table.
"Is this seat taken?" She asked.
"No it's…" He didn't bother to look up at her or to finish the sentence either.
"You are not a failure, Doctor Bashir." She stated simply.
"What?" He looked up at her. "Do I know you?"
"No. I just arrived here today. My name is T'mel. I couldn't help hearing that you thought yourself a failure because your patient, the Bajoran, isn't recovering."
"You heard my thoughts? Wait, you're…" He gazed at her eyes, seeing the dark irises for the first time. "You're a Betazoid."
T'mel nodded and moved her brown curly hair aside so that he could see her pointy ears.
"And a Vulcan?" He asked amazed. From a medical perspective, this combination of species fascinated him.
"Yes, Betazoid and Vulcan."
"Isn't it considered rude to listen to other people's thoughts, even for your people?" He asked but it wasn't an unfriendly question.
She hesitated, some part of her wanted to tell him about her lack of control but she didn't know him well enough to know if he could be trusted. She could find out easily enough by just melding with him right here, but she wouldn't do that. "Sorry. It's a new place and I was just trying to get to know people. Sometimes it's easier telepathically."
"I can imagine it would be. So tell me, where were you stationed before coming here?"
She told him about her assignment on the Venture and about growing up on Vulcan, and he talked about his work and about his childhood on earth. She learned far more about him than he did about her. She knew he was attracted to her and to be honest, she liked him as well, but she was too afraid of what a relationship might mean. She doubted that anyone would do anything but run away screaming if they knew the full extent of her abilities. So they had a friendly conversation for a couple of hours and then they both went their separate ways back to their rooms.
The first few days in engineering, everything went smoothly. She liked her job and was good enough at it that most people assumed she was a Vulcan and didn't even try to include her on their jokes and friendly conversations. She was okay with that. Keeping people emotionally distant helped her to stay out of their heads.
T'mel took to having breakfasts with Doctor Bashir. He quickly became one of the best friends she had ever had. Friendships had never come easily to her. She had never fit in on Vulcan in spite of having learned to act like a Vulcan. They always said she was too emotional. Here however, she looked and acted enough like a Vulcan that humans didn't try to be friends with her as Vulcans didn't exactly have a reputation for being warm and bubbly and friendly. Julian didn't assume anything at all about her. He was very open minded and didn't make judgements the way most humans had done. Rather than making assumptions and judgements, his mind was always asking why. Why were people the way they were? Why does T'mel act the way she does? What makes Captain Sisko so serious most of the time? Why does my patient respond to one treatment and not another? His inquisitiveness was refreshing after hearing so much criticism from humans in recent years.
The pair of them, Julian and T'mel, were eating breakfast one morning when Quark left his place at the bar and marched straight over to their table. "You're T'mel right?"
"That is correct." She said. Her lifelong habit of speaking like a Vulcan was not an easy one to break.
"Someone told me yesterday that you are half Vulcan half Betazoid. If that's the case then I have a business proposal for you." The Ferengi began.
T'mel reached out with her mind to find out the motives and thoughts of this stranger and got nothing in response. She had been told that she would be unable to read a Ferengi if she ever met one but had not expected the experience to be so disconcerting. He could be planning anything and how would she know it if she couldn't read his thoughts. What started as a nagging worry grew into outright terror within seconds and she could not make the feeling stop. Her mind reached out to Julian, anything that could pull her out of this fear. Is Qaurk safe? She called out to him. He answered her. Quark is greedy but harmless. You need to calm yourself! You're frightening everyone in the room. He was right. She glanced around the room to see that everyone was sharing her terror. People were running out of the bar. Others were checking for a threat. They were scared and they had no idea why. T'mel closed her eyes, breathing deeply, in her nose, out her mouth, she refused to think about the Ferengi and his blank mind. There was only sunset on Vulcan and the smell of sand. When she opened her eyes again the room was calm, Quark was gone, but Julian was very worried.
"What just happened?" He asked.
She shook her head. "Please don't make me talk about it..." She failed to keep the emotion from her voice this time as she had been taught.
"Then let me guess. You couldn't read Quark's thoughts. It's normal enough for a Betazoid, but that frightened you and you projected your fear onto everyone in this room?"
She nodded again and found she was actually crying. She brushed away the tears with her hand, angry with herself for allowing such emotion.
"But why would you do that?" Julian asked.
"I can't control it." She admitted feebly.
"What exactly can't you control?" He was growing more worried.
"If I tell you… if you tell anyone… they'll never let me say in Starfleet...I'll never belong anywhere…"
"If you don't tell me, I'm going to have to place you under medical observation and I'll probably find out anyway." He said sadly but he didn't want to do that and she knew it.
T'mel sighed. "I know I have not been here very long but I think of you as a friend, and as a friend I'm asking you not to share this with anyone, please. I'll leave this station, I'll leave Starfleet if I have no other choice, but I don't want to be tested and experimented on for the rest of my life… I can't…" She stopped speaking, trying to hold back her fear.
"You're doing it again." Julian observed. "I can feel your fear. So can everyone else. Let's get out of here. We'll go to medical." He stood.
"No. Not to medical. Please!"
"Fine. My quarters then." He offered.
She agreed and followed him there. Once inside, he got them both a cup of tea and settled down at his table.
"So let me get this straight, you're not always able to control your empath abilities?" He began.
"It's true. Sometimes I project my feelings onto other people. Sometimes when a group of people is experiencing the same emotion together, such as in times of tragedy when everyone feels a loss, the combined emotion become incapacitating." She admitted.
"Well that's definitely not good but not something I think you'd be kicked out of Starfleet for. Especially not if you're being cautious about it." Julian said encouragingly.
"There's more. I can't always block out the thoughts of people around me. I can't always keep my own thoughts to myself either. In times of stress my thoughts get projected onto other people…. And I hear everything all the time. If I can block it out, then it takes a great deal of focus. And a few times, when I've tried to listen to just one mind in a crowded room, I focused too much and mind melded with that individual instead… no one wants an accidental mind meld…"
"Does the mind meld help? I read somewhere that a mind meld sometimes helps to stabilize Vulcan emotions…" Julian asked, ever curious.
"It does help. It helps keep me stable for at least a few months." She knew that he was thinking of offering to meld with her not just to stabilize her, but to know her better as well.
"Then let's do it."
"Are you sure? I've never done it on purpose before. I'm not really even sure of what I'm doing. My emotions aren't very controlled. It could be dangerous."
"I've had genetic enhancements to my brain. I think I should be able to handle it.." He stood. "Come, sit on the sofa."
She joined him. She didn't need to put her fingers on his face to accomplish the meld but she did so anyway out of tradition. In but a moment, she saw and felt everything that was Julian Bashir and he saw and knew everything of her. Overcome with emotion she was soon weeping and he was pulling her onto his lap and into his arms. Then he was kissing her like she had wanted him to all week.
"You've never done this before." He said, sensing her fear.
"I was afraid of what I might transfer by touch. I won't be thinking clearly. I have no way of knowing what might happen."
"I don't care what might happen." Julian said, kissing her again. And she let him.
They awoke some time later in his bed, unclothed. "I think I know just about everything there is to know about you." Julian said, reaching for her. She rolled a little closer and settled in his arms.
"I'm glad you do. Someone has to keep my secrets."
They learned in the following days that they could communicate with one another telepathically across great distances. Julian was sent by shuttle to Bajor to help with a medical emergency but they could still speak to each other's minds, even from that distance. The mind meld, and perhaps even the relationship with Julian had helped T'mel to gain enough focus to keep her powers under control for the time being.
Two weeks later there was a federation conference being held on Bajor. The details of this meeting were classified so Julian was surprised when Captain Sisko asked him to accompany him to the conference. He didn't have a security clearance high enough to even attend but the Captain assured him he would take care of it.
Captain Sisko left the station in a runabout, just the two of them. "Now that we're here, and you're a captive audience so to speak," Sisko began, "I want to know what it is that has had you acting so strangely these past couple of weeks?"
"Strangely?" Julian almost squeaked the question.
"Yes, strangely. There were two emotional outbursts in medical that I'm aware of and Quark told me you were crying over a plate Larish Pie just last night. What is going on with you?" Sisko asked him.
"Oh that." Juilian knew that he was slightly unstable as a result of the mind meld but he felt he had it under control. He wasn't going insane, he was just a little emotional.
"Yes, that. I am waiting for your explanation."
"Well...I'm embarrassed to admit it, but I'm finding that I have gray hairs now… perhaps I'm just experiencing a bit a of a mid-life crisis." Julian said. He didn't want to lie to the Captain. He also didn't want to reveal what he knew about T'mel or that he had done something as dangerous as a mind meld with no medical supervision. Besides, he truly had been finding gray hairs recently.
"You seriously had a meltdown in medical and threw a tricorder at the wall because you're getting old?" Benjamin Sisko wasn't buying his explanation. Not at all.
"Well ageing affects all of us differently." Julian said defensively.
"I agree it does. But if you can not handle these changes in your life without breaking Starfleet equipment and frightening our personnel, then I'm going to have order you to see a Doctor on Bejor." The Captain said in a tone that indicated he was not to be questioned.
Julian didn't attend the conference with Captain Sisko. He spent the entire time in a hospital getting medical scans and answering questions. He knew it was just a matter of time before they figured out that he had recently undergone a mind meld. That discovery would eventually lead back to T'mel and he didn't want to get her into trouble.
From back on DS9 she was aware of what was going on with him. She told him to relax and stop worrying about her but he felt her anxiousness in spite of it. She didn't want to be seen as dangerous by starfleet. One of her worst fears was being discharged and having no place to go. She couldn't go back to Vulcan. They disliked her there for being too emotional. She couldn't go to Betazed because she had never learned to be as open with her thoughts and emotions like they were. Humans assumed she was Vulcan, Bejorans assumed she was Betazoid… she was welcomed and understood, nowhere, except with Julian. He knew that she was depending on him to keep her secret and he was determined to try anything he could think of to do just that.
For the first few hours, Julian stuck to his mid-life crisis story. He knew how to answer the questions for that diagnosis. But the brain scans soon disagreed with his story.
"Have you recently undergone a mind meld?" One of the doctors finally asked him.
"What would that mean if I had?" Julian asked. He knew he couldn't lie to them but perhaps he could evade the question a while longer.
"It would mean, Doctor Bashir, that your ability to practice medicine is compromised, at least temporarily." Said the doctor who was examining him.
"So I'd be put on temporary leave?"
"Yes, you would."
"I can accept that. Yes, I did recently experience a mind meld." He admitted, feeling relieved to be out with it.
"How old was the Vulcan who joined with you?" His doctor was asking.
"Twenty eight. Why does it matter?"
"The age of the Vulcan is proportional to the amount of memories and emotions that are transferred to you. A very old Vulcan would be a much more difficult melding for a young mind to handle… or so the theory goes…"
"I see… so what will happen to me now?" Julian asked.
"That remains to be seen. First we must make sure that every neural pathway is still functioning normally."
It looked like he was going to be in for a long day. Several hours passed before Captain Sisko arrived at the hospital ready to shuttle them both back to the station.
"Is he going to be alright?" Julian heard Benjamin ask the doctors.
"Yes, though he should be removed from duty for a week or two to recover."
"It's that serious? What was wrong with him?" Sisko asked.
"I'm afraid that is Doctor patient privilege." The doctor told him.
"Not when you're removing him from duty it isn't. I need to know what to watch for when we let him resume duty. This is a Starfleet matter not a doctor patient privilege issue." Sisko insisted.
The doctor hesitated, then glanced over at Julian as if to apologize. "Doctor Bashir is suffering the effects of a mind meld. He will be just fine given time but until then he might be prone to emotional outbursts and scattered thinking."
"A mind meld?" Sisko didn't quite believe it. He turned to the doctors. "Thank you for examining him. We'll be heading back to the station now. We'll talk about this on the way there." Sisko said the last sentence to Julian.
They didn't speak until they had boarded the shuttle.
"Why did you lie about the mind meld? You had to have known what the problem was. You're too good of a doctor to not know. So why wouldn't you be truthful about it?" Sisko demanded.
"I can't answer that." Julian said. "I can't answer it without telling more lies, so I had best not answer it at all."
"I can't work with officers who I can't trust Julian, you know that. Unless you can find a way to clear this up, I'll need to have you transferred." Sisko said sadly. "And I don't want to do that. I considered you a friend."
Julian was torn. He had known Benjamin Sisko for far longer than he'd know T'mel, but melding with her meant that he knew her better. She was a part of him now. He didn't want to leave DS9 and all the people he had come to care about either. He felt her speak to him again.
"Don't lie for me Julian. Just tell him the truth. If you don't he'll send you away and if you do, then he'll send me away but no matter what you do we won't see each other again. These people are your friends and I barely know them. I should be the one to leave. Tell him."
"I consider you a friend too." Julian began. "But I have other friends too, one in particular who I've been trying to protect…"
"Now where getting somewhere." Sisko said. "Which friend are you trying to protect?"
He hesitated to answer.
"Is it there person who melded with you?" Sisko asked. "Because I can only think of three Vulcans on the station. There's Sodek and T'Ro in security, and Po'va in medical."
Julian shook his head. "It's not them."
"Wait, there's that new transfer to engineering, T'mel. If I recall correctly, she's half Vulcan half Betazoid."
"Fine. Yes. It's her." Julian said, knowing he could avoid the truth no longer.
"Why are you protecting her Julian?" The captain asked more gently this time.
"Her telepathic and empathic abilities are unstable. The mind meld helps to stabilize her but even with the meld she isn't entirely stable. I can't help her anymore than I already have and I don't want to see her dismissed for Starfleet over this."
"What exactly do you mean by unstable?" Benjamin asked.
"Sometimes she projects thoughts or emotions onto people without meaning to. Other times she recieves unwanted thoughts or emotions and can't filter them out so that it drives her nearly mad. And she has accidently melded with people before when she was just trying to read them…" Julian said sadly.
"Well that is unfortunate." Sisko was clearly thinking over what the best course of action for this problem would be.
They didn't speak much for the rest of the trip. "I'll set up a meeting with T'mel for three hours from now. You're welcome to come as well if she is comfortable with that." Sisko said.
"She is comfortable with that. She says she'll be there." Julian relayed T'mel's thoughts.
Captain Sisko raised a questioning eyebrow.
"She just told me, telepathically." He explained.
"But she has to be down in engineering right now, all the way across the station and several levels down.. that's a long distance…"
"She was speaking to me for most of the day while I were on Bejor. Distance doesn't seem to be much of a factor for her."
"Apparently not. I will be interested to hear what she has to say."
Both Julian and T'mel arrived at Sisko's office a few minutes before the meeting was set to begin. She was shaking, having a difficult time keeping her anxiety under control. Her fear was starting to transfer onto him until he took her hand and held it tightly. It was enough to calm her temporarily.
"Have a seat." The Captain said when they entered.
They took the chairs he offered.
"You already know why I've called this meeting. In fact you probably already know what I'm going to say." Sisko said.
T'mel nodded, tears in her eyes. "Yes sir. I am willing to accept my fate. But please, don't send Julian away. I'm sure he only helped me because I projected my own fears onto him. I made him do it. I told him to lie about the mind meld and say it was a mid-life crisis. He didn't even know that the thought wasn't his own."
"If that's true, why don't you just manipulate my thoughts right now and have me order you to stay? Sisko asked.
She shrugged. "I'm tired of fighting this. I always knew Starfleet was going eventually find out how unstable I am and I'd be penalized for it. I might as well accept that my time had finally come."
"It isn't a penalty." The Captain protested. "I'm not sending you away to punish you. I'm doing it to keep other people safe. I owe that to the rest of the people on this station."
"I can help keep them safe too, sir." She said sadly but she knew it was to no avail.
"I'm afraid I can't allow you to do that." He replied. "If there were an emergency on the station and if you were to panic then your panic could spread to everyone. Every once in a while we do have an officer panic in an emergency, It happens and though it is not the ideal reaction for a trained officer, it is a normal one, However if you panic, or become enraged, or experience any emotion that you can't handle, it could mean that the entire crew suffers with you. I can not allow that to happen. I'm sure you understand that this is not personal."
T'mel nodded. She did understand but that didn't make it hurt any less.
"Julian may stay but on a trial basis only. It has yet to be determined how he has been affected by your blending." Sisko went on. "There will be a shuttle prepared for your departure in two days, T'mel. In the meantime you are confined to quarters."
It was early the next morning that Captain Sisko began to rethink his decision. He woke and hour before his usual time to a feeling of panic. He sat bolt upright and immediately began looking around for the threat but found nothing. Still, the feeling of panic and doom did not subside. He reached for the com button to ask for scans of the room, then stopped.
"Captain Sisko, I am sorry to reach out to you like this." It was T'mel's voice in his head. He realized that the panic he felt was hers. "The Station is in trouble. There is a cloaked Romulan Warbird orbiting the station right now. They are prepared to fire on us in three hours time. I don't know why yet… I will keep trying to find out but I don't want them to become aware that I'm listening to them."
Captain Sisko wasn't sure what to make of this. It could be a ploy of T'mel's to convince him to let her stay, or it could very well be the real thing. He ordered scans of space to look for the Warbird and discovered anomalies that had him convinced she was telling the truth. Her sense of panic and fear being projected onto him wasn't helping him think clearly at all.
Sisko sent for Odo, Worf, and Kira. They arrived in his room minutes later.
"It seems we have a situation." The Captain said. He explained the whole thing to them and they began to help him try to figure out a plan to get out of this. Until they knew more about what the Romulans were really planning, there was little they could do but plan defensively.
"I have more information for you Captain." It was T'mel's voice again. "These Romulans are not aligned with the Empire. They seem to be more pirates than anything else. They aren't planning to destroy the station, just damage it enough to be a distraction while they steal whatever they can from the docked ships and the station itself."
The first shots fired did not cause the distraction that the pirates had hoped for. DS9 was ready for them. T'mel was able to tell her people where the enemy was going to fire before each shot was fired. She'd never had such clarity in her telepathy before, never had so much focus. She had never needed it before. It was as if the danger heightened her focus. When it was over there was only minor damage to the station and nothing of any real value had been stolen.
Captain Sisko went straight to T'mel's quarters the moment the Warbird fled. She opened the doors before he could ask to enter. She was sitting at her table with a cup of tea in front of her, her arms hugging her middle. She was clearly still shaken from the event.
"I might have been wrong about you." He said.
She shook her head. "No. You weren't wrong. I was being selfish. I wanted my career and my place in Starfleet more than I wanted the safety of the people around me. You were exactly right. I need to leave."
"I'm not sure that's true, not after what you did today. You saved lives today and you managed to control your abilities enough to not allow anyone around you to get hurt. It's true, I felt your sense of panic but it was no worse than what my own panic would have been. I had thought that your presence in an emergency like this would inhibit our people but it only enhanced their ability to work together. I may have been hasty in sending you away."
She glanced up and he felt her hope projected to him.
"I'd like you to stay aboard this station a while longer. It will be on a trial basis and Julian will use whatever research and resources he can to help you find ways to better control your abilities, but I want you to stay." He said with a smile.
T'mel smiled back at him and for the first time in her life she thought she might have finally found a place to call home.