"I can't," Deanna said. "I'm an empath; it's not under my control."
A flash of anger from the other woman was followed by a slow feeling of relaxation accompanied by an unexpected feeling of amusement.
"So you're feeling what I'm feeling?" the other woman asked. "How does that feel, exactly?"
Deanna shuddered slightly. "It's painful," she admitted.
In truth, if she hadn't taken medications before entering the room she likely would have been incapacitated. She'd felt Buffy's pain from the other side of the ship and she'd known she was needed.
Buffy stood in the shadows by the window and said, "How can you be objective if you are feeling what I'm feeling?"
Deanna was quiet for a moment. "Most people don't feel things as intensely as you do, not these days."
In the Federation, permanent cures had been devised for most mental illnesses; depression as a result of genetic proclivity was a thing of the past. People were provided in all their needs and were taught from childhood in how to get along with each other.
Jails emphasized rehabilitation inside of punishment.
"Bull," Buffy said. "People are people and they feel what they feel."
"In your time…before the wars," Deanna said, "Approximately 20 percent of the United States population was afflicted by mental disorders in any given year. Approximately one in eighteen men was behind bars or being monitored. Between twenty five and sixty two percent of the population had suffered some sort of sexual abuse."
"So?" Buffy said. "Things weren't great, but we made it."
"People were damaged, and they took that trauma with them into their relationships with other people."
"Everybody is damaged in one way or another," Buffy said. "It's part of who we are."
"We've cured most of the mental disorders, provided a good life for everyone and taught people how to get along," Deanna said. "People's lives are good. There's no need for your level of pain except in the aftermath of a war or natural disaster."
"But isn't that exactly the sort of thing you deal with?" Buffy asked. "This is a military vessel. That means you go to places where people fight and people die, and the ones left behind have to deal with that kind of pain."
She wasn't just speaking about the crew. She was speaking from personal experience. Deanna suspected that she'd been holding her own sense of loss in reserve for a long time.
Deanna was beginning to feel a little more optimistic. Despite her anger, Buffy was listening.
"Our primary mission is exploration," Deanna said. "Which involves risk. We do sometimes have confrontations that lead to a loss of life."
"So what do you really do here?" Buffy asked. "If everybody is so perfect that people hardly ever need counseling?"
"I help the Captain evaluate encounters with new species."
"So someone yells at you on the radio and you turn and tell him, 'I think he's angry'" Buffy said dryly.
"Sometimes," Deanna admitted. "I can also help him tell if someone is lying."
A small flash of guilt, presumably about lying about her identity. This was encouraging for Deanna, because it meant that she was basically an honest person. It suggested that if she gave her word she just might keep it.
"And we're back to Buffy," Buffy said. "What do you want to know?"
"Are you a danger to the crew?"
Buffy was silent for a moment. "It depends."
"On what?"
"On what the crew intends to do with me."
Deanna's mind raced. She wasn't sure to what extent Buffy was psychic, or even the nature of her abilities. It was possible that if she lied, the other woman would sense it.
She preferred to be truthful in any event.
"There will be an Inquest," she said. "A chance for you to tell your side of the story and deal with any accusations about what happened during the wars."
She could feel the sudden agitation in the woman in front of her, even before she stalked forward, stopping just out of arm's reach.
"A kangaroo court," Buffy said. "I've seen those before. Khan had them, and so did the other Orphans."
"It's not like that," Deana said, forcing her voice to be calm. It shocked her, how close to the surface the violence was. Even Klingons didn't have this woman's potential for violence.
She remained seated, her body relaxed despite her inner apprehension. "These days, courts are more interested in finding the truth than winning cases at all costs. It's not an adversarial system in the same way the courts in your day were."
Buffy squatted suddenly in front of Deanna. Deanna was surprised as how limber and graceful she seemed, her movements fluid in an almost inhuman manner. The black coat spread out around her like the wings of a great bird.
"Why should I trust you?"
"Because we're all you have." Deanna moistened her lips. "Are you a danger to the crew?"
"As long as I'm treated fairly, I'll treat everyone else fairly."
She was telling the truth. The violence retreated as quickly as it had come. It startled Deanna; this realization that Buffy Summers was in almost total control of the violence within her.
Of course, the condition of the room was proof that the control wasn't total.
Buffy smiled up at her. It was a small smile, but the first one that Deanna had seen from her. She reached out to pat Deanna on the knee.
It was only then that Deanna realized the truth; Buffy Summers had been shielding her emotions behind a primitive, imperfect shield.
She cried out in pain and her body spasmed as she saw the blue light of the transporter shimmering around her.
"It wasn't her fault," Deanna insisted. "I just wasn't prepared for how intensely she feels everything."
Deanna had managed to stop the Vulcan security guards from rushing into the room and she'd returned to complete the interview later.
Buffy had been intelligent enough to guess the function of the transporter; according to her it looked similar to what happened when items were replicated.
Deanna didn't see it, but she suspected that Buffy had better senses than she did.
Data supposed that he was feeling what humans call distraction. He'd left the Buffy android in his room with his cat, Spot. She'd been given strict instructions that Spot was not a demon, no matter how he behaved and that he was under no circumstances to be slain.
However, he knew that Spot tended to misbehave toward strangers, and knowing how strong the android was, he worried for his pet's safety.
Still, having vouched for her as safe with the crew, he could hardly refuse to allow her to spend time with his own pet.
"So she's unstable," Commander Riker said. His tone wasn't as judgmental as it had been in the past.
"She's sane," Deanna said. "Almost uncomfortably so. She feels everything, but her emotions are under her control."
"Tell that to her quarters,' Commander Riker said.
Beverly Crusher cleared her throat. "She has preexisting tendencies toward depression; I would have treated those while she was asleep except that the cellular damage due to the damaged suspended animation pod would have made it unviable. I'd like a chance to treat her."
Deanna shook her head. "She's had bad experiences with psychiatrists in the past; she won't consent to any of the easy cures."
"It sounds like you have your work cut out for you," Commander Riker said.
"We bonded over chocolate," Deanna said, smiling slightly.
"Do you have any advice as to how to treat her?" Captain Picard asked.
"She's an intensely physical being," Deanna said. "She needs to opportunity to move and something to fight and release her aggression on."
"I would be happy to spar with her," Worf said.
Deanna glanced at him and shook her head. "You look too much like what she thinks of as a demon. I'm not sure whether she knows your limits."
Implicit in her comment was the assumption that Worf would be the loser in any sort of conflict.
Worf bristled at the implied slur to his fighting skills.
Data wasn't certain why; he could recall many occasions when Worf had been easily defeated by any variety of aliens and intruders. There were simply too many beings in the galaxy that outclassed Klingon physiology for him to take it personally.
Also, Worf had been raised by humans, who didn't have much experience with melee fighting other than basic Starfleet hand to hand training.
"She's very bright," Deanna continued, "and she is accustomed to being the leader. She doesn't automatically respect those in leadership positions; you have to earn her respect."
"You make her sound like a Klingon," Commander Riker said.
"She has her own code of honor," Deanna said, "And she definitely comes from a warrior culture."
"Twenty first century California?" Riker asked skeptically.
"From what we saw in the android's memories, things were a little more violent than what we read in the history books."
"Will she try to escape?" the Captain asked.
"She knows she's got nowhere to go," Deanna said. "Even if she was able to stow away on a freighter or somehow transport down to a planet, everyone she knows is dead. Her skills are three hundred and fifty years out of date. She's not going to be able to blend easily into modern society without a great deal of help."
"So she won't try to escape?" Captain Picard asked.
"If she thinks she's being railroaded during the Inquest, I can almost guarantee that she'll at least try to escape. In my professional judgment, though, we should be safe until we reach Earth."
"We can start by giving her limited excursions of the ship," Captain Picard said. "Under guard, of course. We should schedule holodeck sessions with her. Introduce her to some of the crew. I would value everyone's input as to how to deal with her."
The ship was confusing.
Somehow, the cat had managed to escape and even worse, had clawed at her new uniform, tearing it. She liked the new uniform; it reminded her of the scrubs worn by nurses at a hospital. It didn't really look like the uniform worn by everyone else, but with its black turtleneck it made her look pretty.
The cat was very quick; she wondered if Data had been mistaken about it being a demon. It had been as angry as a demon, with quick claws and an angry screech.
Now she was lost.
"Computer," she said, having heard the others do the same thing, "Can you tell me where the cat is?"
"There are currently one hundred and twenty seven cats on board," the Computer said.
The computer had a pretty voice. She liked it.
"Data's cat," she clarified.
"Please restate the question."
"Where is Data's cat?"
"The cat belonging to Data is currently in his quarters."
Buffybot blinked. She could have sworn the cat had run out into the hallway. It must have doubled back around.
She added a notation to Spot's file in her memory bank:" Spot is cunning and tricky. Beware."
She felt relieved that Data would not be angry at her.
It took her a moment to realize that she was lost. On Earth she'd relied on a GPS navigation system to find her way around; she'd tried pinging the satellites but had not had a single response. It left her feeling disoriented.
"Computer, where is Buffy's room?"
"Deck nine, section twelve."
"How do I get there?" she asked. She wasn't even sure what deck she was on.
"Follow the lighted panels on the wall," the computer said.
"You are nice!" she said as the panels lit up on the wall to her right.
"Please restate the question."
Relieved, she followed the lights to a small elevator. The computer obligingly activated the elevator, which was fortunate as there seemed to be no buttons at all.
A blue crew member stepped onto the elevator.
She would have been suspicious; he looked like a demon, but Data had assured her that there were no demons on board. Besides, he was wearing the uniform.
He didn't act like a demon, just smiled at her.
She smiled back brightly.
He got off on the next stop, but the Buffybot waited. The lights on the wall weren't lit up
The stop after that was hers however, and she followed the lights.
There were two men standing outside her door with pointed ears. They looked a little like demons too, but they also wore the uniform.
The Buffybot smiled at them and despite their looks of concern they stepped aside. The door opened and she stepped inside, only to realize these weren't her quarters at all.
The other Buffy looked up and blinked.
"You!" she said.
The words she said afterward weren't in the Buffybot's memory banks, although she'd once heard Spike using them on a really bad day.
Disclaimer: I don't own this; Buffy and Star Trek belong to their own respective owners, not me. The information Deanna used about insanity, prison population and child abuse are true, depending on how liberal the definitions of abuse are used and the sources cited.