Saavik interrupted her explanation and looked sharply up at her aide. "You aren't paying attention," she mildly scolded her.
Ba'el flushed slightly at being caught. "Sorry," she muttered, "it's just there is something I yet don't understand."
Saavik arched her eyebrow, "I cannot see the difficulty-"
"Why do you hate admiral Ajeya?" Ba'el bluntly asked. Saavik had told her a lot about her difficult past, but still, she always let out the details and Ajeya was a name she had not mentioned before.
Saavik, however, was thrown back. That was a question she did not want to answer and she would never do, not even to Ba'el, whom she considered family and was actually a member of her House. Not even to Ba'el, a fellow half Romulan to whom she could relate.
"That is irrelevant," she tried to evade her, and her voice went hoarse.
"You don't want to share," the young woman looked down, disappointed.
Saavik was sincere, "I can't." She reached out for Ba'el's eyes. "This is a delicate matter, Ba'el; I am trusting you and I need you to trust me." She looked warmly at her.
Ba'el smiled, somewhat ashamed, "You always have my trust, and my support, no matter what. I—I don't need to know."
And that was true too, but Ba'el still wanted to know, because she felt Saavik was hiding to her something important, something that was really relevant, something she feared could hurt Saavik, and that was the last thing Ba'el wanted her to happen. She knew she was under stress, even if she tried to hide it, as she always did; and she wished she could know all what was going on, and not just what Saavik wanted to admit to her. After all, Saavik had never withdrawn any information to her before.
Or maybe actually she had. For her Romulan friend, the one she had befriended in the Klingon prison camp, already knew something she had always ignored:
Saavik hated Raghnil's mother, Ajeya. Saavik obviously had met Ajeya before.
And no matter how much both women have shared about their common heritage, about the differences and the similarities of their upbringing, no matter how many times Saavik had used her past experiences and her vast knowledge to guide the young troubled woman, Ajeya was a person from her past she has never mentioned. And she was an important one.