Kathryn found Justin in his quarters, sitting on his couch staring blankly at his coffee table. His head snapped up at the sight and sound of her in the doorway and he rose, taking her in his arms. After a long kiss they parted. He held her at arms' length, drinking her in.

"Something wrong?" she asked. A long sigh escaped his lips and he returned to the couch and they sat. A small black box and a PADD were the only items on the table. He picked up the PADD slowly, thoughtfully, and handed it to her.

"What's this?" she asked, thinking she knew the answer already.

"My new career. If I want it." She scrolled through the PADD and read a provisional appointment: Senior Advisor on the Cardassian Crisis to the Federation Council. Location: San Francisco, California. Duration: Indefinite.

Kathryn was stunned. It was an incredibly prestigious position, where he his voice would be valued among the best, brightest, and highest ranking of Starfleet. "Justin, this is—" and then out of the corner of her eye she recognized the black box. Her voice dropped half an octave when she spoke. "Is that…?"

With one hand he reached out slowly and picked up the box, opening gingerly it as though afraid of the contents. The inside revealed a shiny black pip, edged in gold.

"You got promoted!? This is wonderful! Oh, congratulations!" She threw her arms around his neck.

He accepted her embrace stiffly, reaching his hands up not to return the gesture but to instead disentangle himself from her sudden outburst of affection. "Don't get too excited, it's effective only once I begin the posting. I think they gave it to me now to tempt me. All of the other advisors are Admirals or Captains. I guess they wanted to make me look a little less green."

"Or you earned it, plain and simple," she said. "Give yourself a little credit." She looked at him as he stared blankly at the PADD in her hands. His distant gaze made him look lost, adrift and rudderless, and she knew instantly that something was wrong. "And yet you don't sound the least bit thrilled," she noted.

He turned his head to look at her, his navy eyes looking haunted from behind dark lashes. "When I was younger I would've done unspeakable things to get this posting. But people skills aren't exactly my forte, Kathryn. The only thing I hate more than cold weather is politics." She expected him to laugh but he didn't. Kathryn considered him, noted his slumped posture, his vacuous gaze at the PADD.

This isn't about politics, she realized. Starfleet just asked him to spend every day reliving his torture and called it a promotion. Oh, and took him out of the Rangers and denied him ship duty.

No wonder he looked miserable.

He looked back up at her. "How was your meeting with Admiral Paris?" he asked.

Leave it to Justin to change the conversation right at a pivotal moment.

"Thought-provoking," she offered, as oblique as the Admiral—Owen—himself had been.

"About command?" he asked, his eyes brightening with interest. "Did you say yes?"

"Not yet." She paused, suddenly understanding much of what Owen had been trying to tell her.

Command school was notoriously isolating. The fast-track postings were usually in deep space.

And now he's stuck on Earth, she thought. And I might be stuck on the other side of the galaxy. How can we manage that when we barely know each other?

Hesitantly she offered, "There are some…new factors in my decision right now."

He shook his head back and forth. "Oh no. Don't you dare. Go, Kathryn. You need to go and do this."

"That's funny," she mused sardonically. "I recall you being a stickler for me staying put."

"You are not saying no to command because I'm flying a desk, Ensign Janeway."

"I don't believe I'm in your chain of command anymore, Lieutenant Commander Tighe."

"Not yet," he retorted. "On both accounts."

"So they told you I'm being reassigned," she said, sitting back on the couch, settling in to continue bickering with him.

"Admiral Paris informed me of that this morning too."

She shook her head. "That's not what he called me in to talk about. It was a personal conversation. He wasn't even in uniform. Had me call him 'Owen.'" She frowned, not sure what to make of this, or how much to tell Justin, but generalizations seemed best to keep him from diving into what she still felt were her personal decisions. "He suggested that I could take the command track, but approach it somewhat less aggressively than I might be inclined to."

Justin looked just as confused as she had initially felt. "Why would you ever want to do that?" he asked.

She thought about it. It took a long moment before it suddenly made sense.

"Because he wants us to succeed," she spat out.

Justin's eyebrows knitted together. "We're going to be separated no matter what choice you or I make. One of us is going to have to give up something at some point. You're meant for bigger things, Kathryn. It shouldn't be you."

"Who says you're not meant for bigger things too? And years of separation aren't necessary. I can do plenty of exploration of compact halo objects from just a few thousand light years outside of Sector 001. Unlike you, I don't have to take this."

"You should be in command of a science vessel. That means we won't see each other for two years. Or four. And me…this is no attaché job. That 'Senior' title wasn't put in there to stroke my ego. I won't be stuck at my desk, Kathryn; I'll be impossible to pry from it. Particularly if things go south and a war starts."

A small voice inside her wailed. Not again. Not like Dad. She gathered her wits and responded,"If a war starts, we're all fucked anyway, Justin."

"Don't I know that," he sighed. He leaned back and pulled on his hair in desperate exasperation.

He's really upset. "This bothers you," she led, hoping he'd talk but also trying to give him an out to the conversation.

He leaned forward, staring into the distance. "It's not this that bothers me." He turned and looked at her, blue eyes looking hollow. "It's what they offered me first."

Her eyebrows snapped together in confusion. "They gave you a choice?" What could be worse than what they offered?

This question was met with a slow, serious nod from him. "I'd get to continue in covert operations, but only on one specific assignment. The Cardassians have been working on bioengineering modifications to make themselves appear to be another species," he said.

"They're trying to disguise themselves to look like us?" she asked. "So that even if we scanned them with a tricorder, we couldn't tell that they were really Cardassian?" The prospect made her stomach churn.

He nodded. "And we have to fight fire with fire. Starfleet wants to put me on the project. Deep cover."

Kathryn's eyes opened wide with horror as she realized what he was saying. "Let me make sure I understand this," she said slowly. "After what you've been through, Starfleet wants to send you on another intelligence mission…as a Cardassian."

Anger lit in his eyes and he nodded, just once.

"They want you to become one of them?" she said again, her voice laced with disgust. Bile rose in her throat and she unconsciously brought her hand to her mouth. "I think I'm going to be sick."

He gestured to the bathroom. "Go ahead. I already was."

How could they ask this of him? This wasn't the Starfleet she knew. But he nodded. "I understand why Starfleet might need to resort to underhanded tactics, Justin, but isn't there anyone else qualified? They're asking you to put on the uniform of the people who…"

She didn't want to finish the sentence.

"The people who tortured me?" he finished.

She nodded hesitantly.

He fixed his eyes on her. "Use the word, Kathryn. They tortured you too. Don't minimize what they did to us." His voice was quiet, revealing no hint of anger or hatred.

Her stomach tightened; something inside her didn't want to use that word. She spoke hesitantly. "Starfleet asked you to put on the uniform of the people who tortured you...The people who tortured us. It's vile, Justin."

"My thoughts on the offer were a little less polite than that." He took a deep breath and folded his hands. "What's worse is that Admiral Edaaw supports the assignment."

She looked at him quizzically. "You expected her not to?"

Justin hadn't told her much about the Admiral who had recruited him into the Rangers, but evidently she still had a role in shaping his career.

"Since my capture two years ago she's been…hesitant to give me assignments where I could face the Cardassians again."

Kathryn wanted to ask how then it was he came to find himself on this mission, but she sensed that he wasn't going to tell her no matter how much she poked or prodded him.

"So I suppose you accepted the position as Senior Advisor?" she asked. It surprised her to see him shake his head.

"I need time to think. About whether I have any other options."

Other options? she thought. Was he thinking about resigning his commission? Before she could ask, he leaned over and kissed her. "But right now, I don't want to think. And you make me forget everything. Come to bed with me."

"But we've got all-hands in an hour," she protested.

"That's an hour I don't have to think about Cardassians, Kathryn. Please. Get this out of my head."

She opened her mouth to talk him down, to tell him that she thought this was running away from his problems and that it wouldn't help matters. But his pleading eyes called to her; this was Justin Tighe asking for help. Now seemed a supremely unfair moment to deny him.

This time it was her turn to stand up, offer him her hand and lead him to the bedroom.