A/N: I know it's been nearly a year since I last updated this fic, which I am truly sorry for! But the good news is I finally sat down and finished the last several chapters, starting with this one.

"Obsession"

2392

Raffi flicked through the data streams rolling up and down the holographic screen at the operations console, eyes roving for any small morsel that might be related to the attack on Mars. It was half compulsion, half idle hands and idle minds while La Sirena was at warp between jobs. Quiet moments like these were always a good time to go looking. She was always looking.

The blip of an encoded transmission in Romulan piqued her interest, and she immediately straightened at attention to swipe it to the forefront. Decrypting it wasn't difficult, not for her after all those years working in Starfleet Intelligence and with the Romulans. It was a summons for a secret meeting.

Raffi perked up at that and dug a little deeper into the transmission, trying to see how many recipients it'd been sent to. She found six. That plus the sender was seven. Maybe the eighth had been contacted another way, if this was indeed the Conclave of Eight she'd found mention of before. If she could find proof they existed, that they were involved in the synth attack on Mars and she brought that evidence to Starfleet…

She cut off that train of thought and rocked back in her seat with a huff. She could what? Get her old job back? A little too late for that. Besides, she didn't give a damn about Starfleet anymore. What she cared about was the truth.

And being vindicated.

Leaning closer to the screen again, she deciphered where this secret meeting was to take place, then looked it up in the star charts. It was on a border planet in an unregulated part of space, rife with warlords and conflict. Raffi nipped at her bottom lip as she considered her options. She reached over and hit the comms key.

"Hey, Rios, you might want to get up here. I found us a job."

It took a few minutes for him to appear, slightly sweaty from his workout with Emmet. "What kind of job?"

"Cargo transport," she replied casually. "The usual. Client's on this planet." She pointed to the star chart on the display. "Don't worry, I know him."

Rios considered it for a beat before shrugging and taking a seat in the pilot's chair and changing course.

Raffi carefully kept her gaze forward. She felt bad about lying to him, but Cris had told her to let this go in the past, and he definitely wouldn't approve of her doing the opposite.

But she had to.

Rios didn't ask for more details about this job until they were in orbit above the planet. Raffi gave him the name of the bar where they were to meet the client, then begged off saying she had a quick errand she wanted to run first, but she would meet them there.

Rios had a small pinch between his brows as he looked at her, and Raffi tried not to fidget. She flashed him a normal smile and turned to saunter off. A glance over her shoulder at the other end of the street showed Rios turning toward the bar. She let out a breath of tension, then with hardened resolve, set off toward that secret rendezvous point.

It was in a rundown part of the city with unsavory looking characters on every corner. Raffi pulled her hood up over her head and kept up a quickened pace. She found the coordinates, an old warehouse. No one seemed to be around. Her scanner picked up a dampening field, which was blocking her readings of inside the building. It'd prevent anyone from directly beaming inside as well, so she waited for a bit, crouched behind some old machinery.

Movement finally broke the monotony as she spotted two Romulans striding down the block. Raffi tensed and watched them enter the warehouse. She needed to get in there.

Turning her tricorder to scan the area outside the building, she confirmed there were no other guests immediately en route. So she crept from her cover and snuck along the edge of the warehouse toward the door the Romulans had used. It wasn't guarded. They probably figured their dampening field was all the protection they needed.

Raffi cracked the door open slowly, stopping when it began to creak, and slipped through the narrow gap. She quickly darted behind some dusty cargo boxes and circled around toward where she could see a group of Romulans gathered. There were only five of them. The others were likely still on their way. Raffi tapped a few keys on her tricorder and started a visual and audio recording. If these guys said anything about Mars, she'd have it.

But so far they were grumbling about waiting for the others. One of them said something about not standing for Targ's insolence and wanting to destroy his entire village. Another argued that half those villagers worked the mine in his territory and who would compensate him for the loss of labor?

They continued to argue, and Raffi began to have the inkling that these marauders couldn't possibly have worked together long enough to execute a massive conspiracy and attack on Mars. But she had to know for sure, so she waited and kept recording, ears strained for anything that could be confirmation of her theories.

Then the barrel of a phaser rifle pressed against the back of her head.

Raffi went rigid.

"Stand up," a rough voice ordered.

She slowly raised her hands and stood up, then turned around. Apparently one of the other Romulans had arrived. She mentally cursed herself for missing that. She'd been so absorbed in the others' conversation.

The arguing abruptly stopped and the other Romulans stormed over.

"What is the meaning of this?" one of them demanded.

"A spy," the newcomer said and snatched the tricorder out of Raffi's hand. His sharp eyebrows rose a fraction when he saw it was recording. Eyes flashing, he threw it on the ground and stomped on it, cracking the screen and shutting it down.

The other Romulans grabbed Raffi by the arms and dragged her into the middle of the warehouse.

"Who are you and who do you work for?"

"No one," she said, keeping her gaze averted. So she didn't see the punch that landed on her cheek with enough force to fling her to the floor.

"Who are you working for?" they demanded again. "Seran? Or another faction trying to encroach on our territory?"

Raffi threw a hand up. "No, p-please. I- I was just looking for a fix. I don't know what you're talking about."

A boot struck her back and she cried out, pitching forward onto her stomach. Another kick landed on her ribs, and she curled up with her arms over her head, trying to shield herself as they rained down more blows. Then the assault stopped, though Raffi didn't dare unfurl, her entire body singing with pain.

Rough hands started patting her down, and then she did try to twist away with a whimper.

"A communicator."

Raffi blinked as her comm pin was removed from her pocket.

"Do you recognize its make?"

"No."

The phaser rifle was pointed at her head again. "Tell us who you're working for, or we'll contact them to come pick up your body."

"I'm not working for anyone!" she said desperately. Not that it mattered. These were Romulan warlords; they showed no mercy.

The sound of disruptor fire made her flinch, but the phaser shot didn't hit her. The Romulan holding the rifle cried out as he pitched backward, hitting the floor limply. Raffi immediately smelled the acrid odor of charred fabric and flesh.

The other Romulans drew their weapons to return fire, and Raffi rolled under the prongs of a nearby loading vehicle. Caught in the crossfire of warring Romulan factions, there was only one way this was going to end for her.

But it wasn't another Romulan shooting at the group; it was Rios. He had a phase pistol in each hand and was shooting rapidly from behind his cover. He met her eyes briefly and gave a sharp jerk of his head, indicating she get her ass over there.

Her ribs were screaming as she pushed herself upright, still trying to stay low amidst the weapons fire. She waited for a brief pause between shots, then scrambled over to Rios as he laid down cover fire. The moment she reached him, he stood up, still shooting, and used his body to push her back toward the door. The Romulans started to give chase, and Rios slammed the door shut.

"Two to beam out!" he shouted. He must have had a link to the ship open.

There was a swirl of the transporter lights, and then the two of them were standing on the pad in the back of La Sirena. Raffi braced an arm across her middle, bending to the side as everything hurt too much to stand up straight.

"We have to get out of here," she gasped. "They'll trace- transporter signal."

Rios didn't say anything as he sprinted across the length of the deck to the helm. The engines whirred to life, and Raffi felt the subtle vibrations. They should be out of the system before the Romulans on the ground could track them, and there was enough traffic coming and going in the vicinity that one ship rocketing away wasn't going to draw that much attention.

Raffi turned and limped toward her room, tail between her legs.

Emil intercepted her before she reached the door. "What is the nature of your medical emergency?" he said in that gratingly chipper manner.

Raffi shoved past him into her room and shut the door in his face, then sank onto the bed.

He rematerialized inside her cabin and immediately helped himself to her replicator to call up a med kit.

She didn't have the energy to snap at him, and she really was in a lot of pain so perhaps a hypospray wouldn't be objectionable…

Of course, she had to endure him running a medical tricorder over her and tutting at the readings. But then he pulled out the hypospray and Raffi sighed in relief when he depressed the pain medication into her neck.

The door slid open and Cris entered, his expression carefully blank as he regarded the EMH and Raffi for a moment. "I'll take it from here," he finally said.

"I'm the doctor on this ship," Emil tried to protest.

"Deactivate EMH."

The hologram vanished with a huff.

Raffi warily watched Rios walk over and pick up the medical tricorder for himself, wishing for a moment that she could deactivate him.

But he didn't say anything as he roved a critical eye over the contusions she could feel on her face. He picked up the dermal regenerator and began to methodically run it over the bruises.

His silence was thick and heavy and Raffi could practically hear the unspoken accusation. She shifted in discomfort, and Rios's only response was to grasp her chin to hold her still while he mended her wounds.

"There was no job," she finally confessed, unable to bear the stony silence. He still didn't say anything. "I found a lead on the Conclave of Eight," she went on, desperate to justify her actions. "Or, I thought it was a lead. Turns out it wasn't. But I couldn't just not follow up on it."

Rios's taciturnity continued to grate as he finished with the dermal regenerator. Then he crouched down in front of her, putting himself just below her eye level.

"You used me."

Of all the things he could have said to her, that one actually did make her feel worse.

"I didn't think you'd approve," she replied defensively.

"Confronting a group of Romulan warlords single-handed, why wouldn't I approve?" he rejoined tartly. "You almost got yourself killed."

She knew that, knew she'd been stupid going in there alone, without intel, without backup. She'd just been so used to everyone calling her paranoid and crazy that she automatically felt she had to do it alone.

"Thanks for coming to my rescue," she said sincerely, hoping it was enough of an olive branch. "How'd you know anyway?"

He straightened and started sifting through the med kit. "You had that look in your eye, the one you used to get at the Academy when you latched onto a project and couldn't let go."

Raffi frowned at so many things in that statement, including the idea that a part of that young, idealistic, and naive cadet was still inside her somewhere.

That Raffi was long dead and buried.

"You didn't say anything," she murmured.

"I was hoping you'd change your mind and tell me. When you didn't come to the bar like you said you would, I tracked your communicator to that district before it disappeared. I'm guessing into that dampening field."

He picked up another instrument and moved to treat her bruised ribs.

She tried not to fidget in discomfort, both physical and otherwise. "I am sorry," she said softly.

Rios wordlessly finished patching up the rest of her injuries, then packed up the med kit. "This obsession will kill you if you let it," he said before walking out.

Raffi lay back on the bed and curled up on her side, her mood taking a sour turn. She knew she hadn't driven Cris away permanently, but his exit reminded her of all the people who'd walked out on her because of this "obsession." Maybe she should just let it go. What would discovering the truth do now anyway? There was no one left to rub it in their faces, save Cris, and she didn't care for that.

Was her pursuit worth her life? Maybe. Her life had little worth left.

Was it worth the hurt it'd do to Cris? Probably not.

"Dim lights," Raffi mumbled, letting herself get swallowed in the ensuing darkness.

She lay there in its cocoon, trying to figure out how to excise this twisted, bitter drive that had woven itself into her being like a malignant cancer. Removing it would just eradicate one more piece of who she was, like that wide-eyed cadet too passionate to realize when she was getting too absorbed.

And if she did let it go, if she did give up the obsession, there was only one thing left to fill the gap with.