She's rattled and bewildered when she wakes from the dream. She can't even begin to discern what any of it can means, and she files it all neatly away under "Things About Me That Are Fucked Up". It's all she has time for.
To calm down, she decides to go down to the cargo bay for a workout. Maybe a run. Sometimes it helps, sometimes it just riles her up more. Nights like this, she misses Jacob. He was always good for a run, a spotter on the weight bench, or just pointless chatter.
Jeryn is angry and and agitated. Feeling helpless is pissing her off more than anything ever has. She wants someone to blame for everything, someone other than herself.
Unfortunately the first person who crosses her path is Lieutenant Vega. She watches him on the pull-up bar for a few moments before clearing her throat to announce her presence. He doesn't even have the decency to give her an Attention on Deck, though she's never demanded it from anyone else. Still, she's so full of irritation that this also pisses her off. He won't even look at her, and she wonders if he feels guilty at all.
It isn't fair, and she knows it, but her rational mind isn't in control.
She's not in control. She's not sure she's fit to be CO right now. Not that she has any choice at the moment.
She picks his brain about inane things for a few minutes, struggling to keep her cool. He's brazenly nonchalant, but when has she ever been a stickler for protocol? Dropping from the bar and wrapping his wrists, he asks her to dance, and that delivers another punch in the gut full of memories she can't deal with right now.
"Oh, I can dance," she nearly sneers. She's going to dance on her terms, and if he thinks she'll go down that easily then he isn't half as clever as she gave him credit for back during House Arrest. She cracks her knuckles and stands ready. Defend yourself at all times. First rule.
Blow for blow, it feels good. She feels vindicated in her simmering rage. In her helpless grief-driven pique. She's letting out the energy, the anger, the barely controlled fury at her own ineptness. At his carelessness. She's listening, looking for something to throw in his face. Instead, she unexpectedly finds something to empathize with.
"It," she grunts, blocking a right hook. "Wasn't your fault." Not that time, anyhow. "You didn't know." She hops neatly back, light on her toes. All the time with the jump rope pays off. Irony in her words, she knows. She also doesn't care.
"What are you, a shrink?" He's provoking her, almost as if he knows. There's a bit of humor in his eyes as he pulls his head out of her reach and dodges her jab.
She isn't sure which of them should be sitting on the couch at this point.
"You're reckless," she growls.
"Maybe," he nearly roars, "I'm just willing to do whatever the fuck it takes to—" blocking a cut, grabbing the arm and using his own weight against him for momentum, she shuts him up.
"If you're half as good as I think you are, we need you alive." She grits her teeth. If you hadn't made the shuttles explode. If you hadn't crash landed and shaken us all. If you hadn't …
He's looking up at her from his back, his expression unreadable.
She draws a few breaths audibly through her nose before she offers him a hand up.
But it isn't his fault, her subconscious grabs ahold of her. Finally. She deflates.
"Don't. Die." She growls it. She's not sure who she's talking to any more.
He lifts one eyebrow at her. He looks slightly amused, and it makes her laugh. "Thanks for the dance, Lola."
She should drop him. She should call him out. She should lock him at attention and bust his ass down.
Instead she feels her eyes roll, because she crossed a line, and he's meeting her at it. That's what shipmates do, and that trumps anything else in this moment. "Lola?"
"Yeah. You look like a Lola."
"All right." Whatever's happened, she needed it. "I'll let you get away with it." She feels better and kicks him in the shin. "Because you're cute."
"All right. Now I'm blushing."
"That's just because I beat your ass."
"I like you, Lola," he chuckles and walks back to his work out nook.
"As you were, Lieutenant."