TWENTY-SIX: Indisposed

Shral's antennae were as straight and still rods, giving no quarter, and his face remained expressionless – save for the faintest, faintest look in his verdant eyes. It was a soft look, but not a kind one, and Dagmar had seen it too many times in the eyes of her own species to miss what it was.

Pity.

He pitied her.

As he spoke, slowly and carefully like someone saying something regrettable but trying to choose their words carefully, Dagmar understood why.

"If you were Andorian," He began slowly, reluctantly. "You would not have to ask…"

Dagmar squeezed her eyes shut and tried to remember to breathe. She did not see the slow wilting of the aide's antennae, or the faintest frown tugging at the corners of his thin lips. She closed her eyes and saw nothing but pity staring back at her from behind her eyelids. It would have been kinder if he had shouted at her, she thought, or berated her for breaking social protocol, or lectured her. It would have been a thousand times kinder.

He spoke softly, but what he said was like a slap across the face.

If you were Andorian.

Right.

If she were Andorian, she wouldn't have these problems. She wouldn't misunderstand things, or blunder about. She wouldn't stick out like a sore thumb in a crowd, or tremble in the cold when everyone else commented on the mild weather. She wouldn't have to invent gestures to make up for her lack of antennae, either. She could just walk outside her door and blend in as easily as she breathed.

If she were Andorian.

But she wasn't Andorian, and she never would be.

Something behind her sternum ached - such a cliché. Such a painful, horrible cliché.

On that transport ship, Dagmar had said something to Shral, once: "I don't think it'll matter where I go –I'm still never really going to fit in anywhere."

How true that was proving to be.

Her eyes and sinuses stung with that tell-tale sign as deep-seated frustration and something not too far from despair rose up, like some ghostly thing that swelled in her chest and pushed out against her ribs and in against her lungs. And it ached. Not again, she thought. Not again with the crying.

"I do not wish to imply-"

"I-I, uh," Dagmar began inelegantly; raising her hand to stave off whatever it was that Shral was going to say. "I just need to go. For a minute. I just… one minute."

And then, lest he get the idea she was abandoning her post, "I'll come back."

And if, turning on the balls of her feet and fleeing from the office, she nearly bowled the Ambassador over as he was entering his own office, then she didn't notice. Quite how she found herself in that quiet little niche, with the flat, comfortable stone surrounded by prickly vithi, Dagmar didn't know. It didn't seem to matter much, in the face of everything else. She was trying so hard to fit in, to find a place or a people who didn't make her feel like a fossil or a strange and barbaric piece of prehistory. Why was that so hard for her? Wasn't she trying hard enough? Wasn't she doing her best? It wasn't as though she was just sitting on her thumbs and hoping things worked out by themselves. Hadn't she done enough?

So why wasn't it working? Why didn't it ever work?

It wasn't fair, the redhead thought dully, her head in her hands. None of it was. It hadn't been fair that day, when she'd woken up in a medical lab, staring up at a man with ridges on his face and alien blue eyes. It wasn't fair now.

Somewhere along the line, Dagmar had started crying. Goddamn it. She was so tired of crying, but for some ungodly reason it just seemed to be her default venting mechanism. It didn't matter if she was sad, or angry, or frustrated – she always cried. The redhead really didn't know how to do anything else, when she thought about it. She didn't know how to be angry or sad in a "constructive" way.

Her brother used to call her a big cry baby.

A choked sob, and then someone was next to her – she could feel the body heat, minimal as it was, and felt the shadow fall over her. Thelen, she thought with her eyes still closed, uselessly squeezed shut against the burn of tears. It had to be. No one else followed her when she was upset.

Most Andorians tried to pretend that the resident pink-skin wasn't falling to bits in front of them, or half a second from screaming, and pretended everything was fine. Because that was helpful.

A hand settled on her shoulder, and that was all it took. Dagmar leaned into her friend, her face in her hands and her knees drawn up to her chests, and she openly sobbed, because she didn't know how else to deal with the rush of anger and frustration and utter despair. She didn't start fights to vent anymore. She didn't want to. All she had was crying, and wasn't that just the saddest thing ever?

It was a long while before Dagmar realized she was talking –between sobs, voice thick with a closing throat and the sort of pain people try not to let out too often, because it comes out in floods and tries its damnedest to drown you. She didn't know what she'd said as the wet tracks of tears began to freeze on her face –her mask abandoned inside the building- only that the worst of it came just as she became aware.

"I don't belong here," – a choke, a wracking sob- "I don't belong anywhere!"

"No," Her friend agreed. "No, you do not." The hand on her shoulder squeezed lightly as the security officer continued, "But you're getting there."

"No, I'm not." Was the sullen reply, muffled by leather and hiccupping sobs.

"Just the other day, the fellow you were convinced hated your… innards, was it?" Thelen began to counter, shifting his arm to wrap it about her shoulders as he had seen some Humans do. It appeared to be a gesture of close friendship and comfort, so far as he or any other Andorian could tell. "Just the other day, he told me that if all Humans were only half as sensible as you, he'd grow to tolerate them."

Oh, bull. Talev loathed her. He wouldn't say a kind word about her to save his life, never mind praise her.

"…Alright, yes, he did also mention something about the smell – but the Andorian sense of smell can be rather delicate, and sometimes your species produce very unpleasant pheromones."

Dagmar raised her head from the officer's shoulder just long enough to give him a bewildered look. The bloodshot eyes and red nose may have ruined the quizzical expression somewhat, however.

Thelen's antennae were just fractionally bowed together. "Not that you do, precisely – though you do give off particularly, er… strong pheromones when you get weepy on us… But that President of yours was dreadful! I don't know how the Ambassador tolerated it, myself."

The redheaded woman sniffed loudly – and wasn't that an unattractive sound?- and attempted a smile, desperately trying to recover herself at least somewhat. It came out watery and a bit weak. A tear or two had actually frozen onto her face – damned stupid of her to forget her mask like that- and Dagmar winced as the ice stuck to her skin when she tried to brush the tiny icicles aside.

"When females cry, a pheromone is released to indicate that they aren't available for breeding." It was a stupid piece of trivia, but Dagmar didn't really know what else to say, and talking made her feel a bit better. "It's reduces the amount of testosterone – a male-specific hormone relating to sex drive and violence- significantly in most males."

Thelen actually seemed intrigued by the idea, his antennae twitching forwards in curiosity. "Is that what it does? How fascinating! Andorians don't have pheromone responses like that at all! Pity I didn't become a scientist –but I never had the skill needed for that work; it's all test tubes and data pads and not a single weapon anywhere in sight."

Dagmar was unsurprised; Thelen as a scientist just didn't seem right in her mind, anyway. Her face felt puffy and too warm, despite the frozen tears, and she was suddenly very embarrassed to be in such a state. With gloved fingers, the Human woman tried to compose herself once more.

Lamely, she offered, "It's supposed to trigger comforting or supportive responses in other females, too."

"We don't have that, either." Thelen nodded, antennae bowing a little again. "When an Andorian female is available, she is aggressive and assertive… but when she's unavailable, she's just aggressive!"

Dagmar snorted – or tried to, at least. Her nose had gone numb from the cold at some point, and when Dagmar covered her nose and mouth behind the dome of her two hands and exhaled hot air, the heat stung.

She needed to get back inside soon.

Thelen noticed. Thelen always noticed these things.

"Come." He said, soft and sibilant and probably her only real friend in the entire goddamn quadrant. Dagmar glanced up at him, with his yellow-amber eyes, and saw a different sort of softness there, in a face composed of harsh angles and chitin and sharp teeth. But it wasn't like Shral's pity; it wasn't an I-feel-sorry-for-you look.

It was just… soft. Friendly. Kind, maybe. It was hard to put the ideas of kindness and Andorians together, what with the Andorian warrior culture and their no-stun-setting weapons, but there it was. Calloused hands tugged her to her feet, face still wet with rapidly freezing tears and eyes puffy and red.

"I'll take you home." Thelen offered.

But she shook her head, feeling the drag of her ponytail, thick and coarse hair swishing noisily against the fabric of her insulated uniform. She had to return to her post. She had to. To do otherwise would be… inexcusable.

Still shaking her head, the redheaded woman sniffed and wiped at her cheeks with the heel of her gloved hand, "I have to go back."

Thelen nodded and stood aside, because that's what an Andorian did when faced with the call of duty. There was no thought of wheedling or cajoling or assuring her that her employer would surely understand. It simply didn't compute. Duty was duty – something that was, strangely, almost a sacred thing in the Andorian mind.

God knows how she'd excuse her absence. Illness, maybe. Yeah. That would work. She'd suddenly felt ill and had excused herself. It was close enough to the truth. Maybe the Ambassador wouldn't be able to tell that she was lying. Hopefully. With a parting nod to her friend, Dagmar turned and began the slow, tired trudge back to the Ambassador Thoris' office.

"I'm sorry, sir." Dagmar apologized for the hundredth time since her return. "I was unwell – I had not intended to be absent for as long as I was."

Thoris' antennae didn't exactly look promising – but, then, the Ambassador seemed tired and distracted as well. The meeting he had been attending had not gone well, by any account, from what Dagmar had gathered. Off to the side, Shral stood with his hands clasped behind his back, back and antennae held upright. Now and then he glanced over at her, with a flicker-expression of something Dagmar couldn't identify.

"I see. Do you require further time to recover?" The Ambassador inquired stiffly, not terse but not particularly warm, either.

Dagmar shook her head, shoulders stiff with anxiety. "No, sir. I believe it was only a momentary thing. It won't happen again, sir."

It had better not, at least.

"Good." Thoris drawled, and Dagmar didn't like that speculative look in his eyes. "But, given your species' fragility, I expect you to report to a physician after your shift."

"Yes, sir." She responded dutifully, eyes downcast.

"And, to ensure that you do so, Shral will escort you."

No. Just no. Dagmar didn't think she could handle that right now - not ten minutes after the git had made her cry like that. She couldn't do it, not without risking another sobbing fit, or becoming angry 0 either of which could prove disastrous in such a volatile culture.

Maybe she could lie and get out of it?

"Sir, with all due respect-" Dagmar began tentatively, desperately hoping to worm her way out of Shral's escort.

Ambassador Thoris cut her off with a look, and the Human woman fell silent immediately.

Dagmar swore internally, feeling the muscles in her jaw tremble as she clenched her teeth together, all at once dismayed, depressed, and angered. Shral was the last person she wanted to be around at the moment. Hell, she'd rather spend time with the semi-psychotic Vulcan, Kov.

And that was saying something.

At least Kov hadn't made her cry.