State of Grace
By Laura Schiller
Based on Star Trek: Voyager
Copyright: Paramount
"These are the hands of fate;
you're my Achilles heel.
This is the golden age
of something good and right and real."
- Taylor Swift, "State of Grace"
(Author's Note: Tal Celes' backstory is borrowed from Memory Beta; however, I stuck to my own headcanon in regards to "Celes" being her given name. Because it just sounds better, and it makes more sense considering Billy calls her that in the original episode.)
"You know these things can rot your teeth, right?" said William Telfer, eyeing the jumja stick in Tal Celes' hand.
"You say that every year." She laughed and licked at the sticky sweet. "Just relax, Billy, and be grateful for Federation dentistry."
She looked around at the mess hall, which had been decked out with as many trimmings as the Bajoran crewmembers and their close friends could afford to replicate, and grinned. Purple and gold streamers hung from the ceiling, the symbol of two upraised hands and a glowing wormhole decorated one wall, and the spicy scent of bateret leaves was in the air. Neelix bustled from one end of the room wearing a bright orange suit, wishing everybody "Peldor joi!" with an atrocious accent. Ensign Tabor was in charge of the Fire of Renewal, guarding it to make sure it didn't escape its tall cauldron, while Crewman Gerron was quietly handing out the pencils and scrolls of paper that would be thrown into it. Celes took one, with a smile for her shy compatriot, and gestured to Billy to do the same.
Writing down her troubles and watching them turn to ashes had always been her least favorite part of the holiday, as she had little faith in it, but she could no more skip the ritual than Billy could refrain from giving her Christmas presents. It was simply part of who she was. Her earliest memories were of her adoptive parents' restaurant sparkling with purple and gold. Privately, she thought that since she had been lucky enough to escape most of the suffering caused by the Occupation, festivals like this were the only way she had to connect with her Bajoran identity.
"I think this is the first year I don't have to put my job on top of the list," she said, as they settled into opposite chairs. "Seven of Nine has been almost endurable lately."
"Maybe it's the children." She followed Billy's gaze to the little knot of former Borg drones in the opposite corner of the room, listening to the Doctor's lively attempt to explain the origin of the festival. "Or maybe you're just becoming more confident."
Celes shrugged. It was true that her formidable supervisor didn't frighten her the way she used to, and could actually be quite patient when explaining the complex algorithms they had to work with. Still, to call herself 'confident' would be quite a stretch. The contrary evidence sat right in front of her, watching her with gentle brown eyes. If she were confident, she would have told him the truth long ago … and, no doubt, ruined our friendship in the bargain, she added bitterly.
"How are you doing?" she asked, mostly to deflect the conversation from herself, but also because Billy's eyes were red-rimmed and he looked pale.
"I've been better, actually," he said, smiling wryly. "For a moment there, I thought that centipede thing cured me. But now, it keeps showing up in my nightmares along with everything else. All those diseases and parasites I read up about, and what happens to me is the one thing I'd never have predicted. It's like, what else is out there? What else could kill us that we don't even know about?"
He rubbed his forehead, disarranging his hair. Celes' heart was in her throat; she clenched her fists in her lap to stop herself from reaching over to smooth the soft brown strands.
"You – you could have commed me," she said instead.
"No." He looked up, a determined set to his jaw. "No, I'm not doing that to you anymore. You need your sleep. I'm going to see Commander Chakotay. He helped Neelix come back from the dead, right? This should be easy for him."
"But for you?" Celes couldn't help but ask. "Doesn't he make you nervous?"
The big, silent former Maquis, who could get into one's head with his vision quests in a way only telepaths should be able to, had an uneasy fascination for both of them. Their six years of duty so far had included considerable efforts to avoid his notice, which made Celes all the more impressed now.
Billy sighed. "Celes, if I refused to do things that make me nervous, I'd never leave my cabin. I've got to pull myself together. There's this amazing girl I know, you see … " He leaned forward, his eyes glistening like melting chocolate. "And if she's brave enough to face her fears, I need to do the same thing."
The sweet-sour taste of jumja turned to acid in her mouth. She twirled the purple crystals on their stick over and over in her hands as she struggled to get her face under control.
"Who is she?" she finally managed to ask.
Billy let out a startled laugh. "Don't you know?"
Prophets, give me strength. She wasn't attractive enough to be his lover, and now apparently, not smart enough to be his friend. Was his crush so obvious she should have noticed?
"Never mind," said Billy, patting her hand in an awkward manner that made her burn with humiliation. He avoided her eyes as he scribbled something on his renewal scroll. "C'mon, they're lining up."
"A-are they? Oh, right," she stuttered.
The shadowy blurs moving around at the edge of her vision were people, she realized, lining up to drop their renewal scrolls into the fire. There was, as always, a wide range of emotions around the cauldron. Chell recoiled and puffed air at his blue fingertips, pretending the flames had burned him. Captain Janeway looked stern as she dropped her scroll. Gerron muttered an anxious prayer over his. Megan Delaney cast a playful glare at Ensign Kim over her shoulder, leaving no doubts as to what sort of problems she was hoping to burn.
Celes' body felt heavy as lead as she got to her feet. If she were Billy, she would have pulled out her medical tricorder to scan for a fever. She felt as far removed from all these people as Voyager itself was from the Alpha Quadrant.
She could not look at him. Neither of them spoke a word as they waited in line. If she was lucky, he'd take her silence for religious devotion. He didn't have to know that gratitude for the blessings of the Prophets was the last thing on her mind.
It wa due to her absence of mind that she stayed next to Billy in the line instead of behind or in front of him, and that they ended up holding out their scrolls at the same time. It was her lack of hand-eye coordination, which so often made her fall behind at her station, that led to their hands bumping into each other, so that instead of falling into the fire, the two small scraps of paper fluttered to the ground.
Billy cursed.
"Oh, I'm sorry!" Celes exclaimed. "Let me just - "
She dropped to a crouch, scooped up the scrolls, and hurriedly handed one to Billy. Scrambling to her feet, she was about to finish the ritual when a quiet intake of breath from Billy made her pause.
"Um, Celes? I think … is this yours?"
He held out the paper to her, blushing hotly from the tips of his ears to the edge of his collar.
It read, in her own thin scratchy handwriting: William Telfer will never love me.
In such a situation, there was only thing a woman of Celes' grace and confidence could do – bolt from the room as if the Pagh Wraiths were after her, which was exactly what she did.
=/\=
Billy stared numbly down at the confession in his hand. All these years, how could he not have known …
"You're holding up the line, Crewman," said Tabor, in a tone just this side of irritable.
"Right. Excuse me." Billy dropped the scroll (if ever any words needed burning, these did) and ran after Celes, not even bothering to listen to Tabor's incantation. He wasn't in very good shape, at least for Starfleet standards, but then neither was she. He caught a glimpse of black hair and an Engineering dress uniform disappearing into a turbolift, and jumped into it just before it closed.
"C-computer – open - doors," she choked.
"Computer, belay that. Celes, listen – "
She glanced up at him with tear-wet black eyes, then down at her shoes. "I know," she said breathlessly, "I know that's not entirely, well, accurate, I know you love me as a friend, and I understand this doesn't have to, to change anything, you know, between us, but you can imagine how embarrassing this is for me, so, so if you'll excuse me, I just, I just need some time alone to - "
"Celes, breathe!"
He put both hands on her slender shoulders, startling her into taking a deep breath.
"Now please, just hear me out," he said. "You didn't see what my scroll said. Just look at it, please. It'll explain everything."
Hesitantly, as if it might explode, she uncurled her fisted left hand and smoothed out the crumbled piece of paper. When she read it, her eyebrows flew up and her pink lips parted as if to eat the words like a jumja stick.
Billy knew what he had written: Tal Celes doesn't think of me as anything but a friend.
It was all so ironic that he had to laugh, and the twitch at the corner of Celes' mouth told him she thought the same. Soon both of them were laughing, and the tears in their eyes were tears of happiness and relief.
"So basically," said Celes, sweeping a loose strand of hair behind her ear, "We've both been blinder than a dark matter centipede."
"That's about it, yeah."
"Am I the amazing girl?"
"Who else?"
"I can't believe this!"
She shook her head in that familiar gesture of bewilderment, her hair falling loose even more. She looked adorable this way, and since it was no longer necessary to resist temptation, he gave in to it and brushed the errant strands away from her face. They were softer than silk.
"How long have you … " she began.
"Since the Academy."
"All this time, really?" Her eyes lit up like black diamonds. "I found out on the Delta Flyer. When I thought I was going to lose you, I just … flipped." She curled her hands into the front of his uniform, as if to hold him back from the darkness that might have dragged him down. "I'm not brave, you know. Not like you think. I'm better than I was, but I'll never be like, say, Seven of Nine or Captain Janeway."
"Then it's a good thing they're not the ones I'm in love with," retorted Billy, smiling and taking her hands in his. "You are brave, Celes, whether you admit it or not. You saved me that day, you kept me from going crazy. You've been saving me since the day I met you."
"And you do the same for me," whispered Celes. "Every day."
She leaned closer, a shy question in her face. His answer was to close his eyes and brush her lips with his.
The kiss tasted of candy, tears and promises. It was clumsy and soft, sweet and slow, then deeper and hotter as they explored each other, going boldly where they had never gone before. Her hands slid up to the back of his neck, pulling him closer, claiming him. He forgot the festival, the turbolift, even the ship itself. He might have forgotten to breathe.
When they came apart, Celes' face was like a rose.
"Remind me to break out my mother's incense sticks tonight," she murmured. "I owe the Prophets something big."
"You know," said Billy, "I just might join you."