Chapter 17: S'Vrall needs to retreat from the world, go to her safe space in meditation, collect herself, then get ready for the next thing to come at her. The world, however, may have other plans.
I stood at the entrance to my quarters. It was quiet.
Too quiet.
I took a deep, calming breath, and entered, expecting anything.
I didn't expect to see this.
T'Sil was at the table, writing on paper, of all things, with a stylus.
"Are you writing your apology?" I asked, curious.
"Working on it," T'Sil said, fully focused on her work.
She slid one piece of paper on the desk toward me.
"This one's for you," she stated.
I looked down at the paper. It was written in Federation Standard, of course.
The side facing me said this:
FUCKYOU FUCKYOU FUCKYOU FUCKYOU FUCKYOU FUCCKYOU FUCKYOU
FUCKYOU FUCKYOU FUCKYOU FUCKYOU FUCKYOU FUCKYOU FUCK FYOU
Line after line of just pure hate, pouring off the entire page at me.
I saw the other side had lines. I flipped it over and read:
IHATE YOU I HATE YOU IHATE YOU I HATEYOU IHATEYOU IHATE YOU
I HATE YOU I HATE YOU I FUCKING HATE YOU I HATE YOU I HATE YOU
Again, line, after line, after line. Was the writing neat? Was it clean? Clear?
No.
Like the words, the lines were a mess of words running into and over each other, the lines started neatly, with a purpose, but then they got progressively messier, uneven, ... chaotic.
I flipped the paper back, facing a plethora of 'FUCKYOU!'s.
I nodded.
T'Sil was watching me closely. "That's it?"
I shrugged. "What were you expecting of me?"
"Well, ..." she said.
"Were you expecting me to scream at you? Where you expecting me to lash out and hurt you?"
T'Sil blinked. "Um, ... no." She said quietly.
I looked at the paper. "Were you expecting me to cry? Is that it? Ah. I see. You didn't want me to hurt you. You wanted to hurt me."
"No," she said quickly. "I just ..."
"Just like you hurt Nurse Daisy," I said flatly.
A single tear welled up in the corner of T'Sil's eye and fell onto her current project on the table. The ink ran over the paper, smearing the words she had written.
I raised my own eyes heavenward and blew out a long, tired sigh.
"The fact of the matter, T'Sil," I said, "is that I am hurting. I leave this place, my quarters, with you screaming at me ..."
"You locked me in!" she screamed.
I held up my hand.
"Like that," I pointed out. "And I go to sickbay, and I knew it wasn't going to be easy, but did that help?" I asked rhetorically.
I waited. "No," I finally answered, "it did not. So, instead of enlisting someone who could help, I made an enemy."
"What?" T'Sil asked. "What happened?"
I shook my head. "Then I go to the bridge, and guess who's leading security whilst I convalesce?"
T'Sil raised her eyebrow, waiting.
"Guess." I ordered.
"I wouldn't think the Captain, ..." she ventured.
"No," I said. "It's Commander Saru."
She blinked.
"The Kelpien," I added.
She blinked again, waiting.
"The pacifist," I explained.
"I know," she said finally.
"How in Hellguard is a Kelpien going to lead security! ARGH!" I felt my fists clench.
I relaxed them. I relaxed my shoulders, which felt very tight. I relaxed my very being.
Being.
And Nothingness.
"Then," I finished, "I come back to this. When am I going to catch a break, T'Sil? Is there no quarter for me where I can retreat to and regroup? What're you trying to prove with this? That you're angry with me because I'm a piece of shit? Well, get in line: you're in a lot of good company on this ship, ... and on my last ship, ... and on ... o, fuck!"
I walked to the bulkhead and put my head against it.
The plating was cool to the touch and thrummed with the power of the Discovery's engines, bleeding through the inertial dampers.
"... and on everywhere, every place, and every time in my life!" I said quietly. "Which leads to one logical conclusion. The Universe isn't out to get me. It isn't the problem. I am."
And I do know so well how to eliminate problems, I thought grimly.
I felt T'Sil get up from her chair and approach me. She stood behind me for a moment, then, carefully, wrapped her arms around me.
We stood there for a moment in time.
We stood there, me, wrapped in her arms, her, holding me, for an eternity.
"Maybe that's a good thing?" T'Sil asked into my shoulder blade.
I wanted to beg her not to talk, and spoil this moment.
But how do you say that? ... and not hurt the person trying to comfort you? Wasn't that T'Sil's modus operandi that I was so critical of?
So, I engaged. "A good thing: that I'm the problem?" I asked the bulkhead.
"Yes," she said simply.
We stood there another eternity, then she spoke again. "When I was at the Academy, ... and not slacking, ... I would get into these situations ... one of them really bad ... really, really bad, ... and it wasn't my fault, honest! But that only made things worse. If it was my problem, see? I could fix it."
She breathed on my shoulder, her hot, Vulcan-breath a comfort to me in this cool, alien place.
"... cuz I could fix anything, I could manage any situation I got into, easy! ... when I had control. And I did have control of most every situation, but ..."
"Control is an illusion," I countered. "You think you have control, and then the Universe ... it shows you otherwise."
T'Sil held me. "Damn, girl, you are in a funk!"
We stood there.
My body had been craving this for so long! I didn't know I needed this until I had this: the touch of another being not actively trying to kill me or to use me.
It hurt how much this emptiness inside needed to be filled with warmth, and love, and understanding, and acceptance.
And T'Sil wasn't all that, or maybe even any of that. But T'Sil was here and she was holding me, and it hurt, inside, this feeling of complete aloneness in the cold, uncaring Universe.
"May I say something?" T'Sil asked quietly.
"Besides that?" I asked.
"Yes," she said simply.
And she held me.
I took a deep breath and braced myself against the bulkhead. "Yes," I said finally, "you may."
"Thank you," she said. "So, ... before you arrived, Commander Landry was a ... good? security officer. She was hard, didn't take shit from anybody, and could care less if you did your job and she did hers. So, that's where we were in security, as long as we did our jobs and didn't get noticed, we basically didn't exist to her, or to anybody, we were just there. Then you came on board."
T'Sil was quiet for a moment. "You didn't hold anything back, did you? You landed with a big splash, doing that sim with the Captain, sacrificing yourself, standing in front of a wall of phaser-fire, ..."
It was disruptor-fire, but I didn't correct T'Sil.
"And we knew it was a sim, but, how do I say? ... you didn't? You were going through this training exercise with the safeties off. Something nobody has ever done, and you programmed it off a real battle, not some made-up scenario, but then ..."
She paused. "Okay, so, that was awesome, and you rock, no doubt, but then you come out of that, really badly hurt – we all could see it – and you were like: 'This is security! We are security! and you have the most important job on this ship, so you better step up!' and you meant it and then you followed up on that and enforced it, even inspecting the troops? When's the last time a command officer paid any attention to us, at all, ever?"
"So, know that," she said quietly. "You've got issues, serious issues, ..."
"Says whom?" I pointed out.
"So, okay, takes one to know one," she countered. "I didn't say I didn't. I'm just saying that the whole Universe isn't against you, and that you do matter, and that you are making a difference, and if you don't see that ... well, you're a big dummy and that's why you have me, to point out the obvious."
"So there!" she concluded.
I reflected upon her words. "Good speech," I said.
"Don't trivialize this," she growled into my shoulder.
"I'm not," I said, "... and it's a good speech."
"Oh, shut up and take it in, will ya?" she growled.
I shut up and took it in.
"So, ..." she said after a while. "Did you hear what I said?"
"Yes," I said.
"Then tell me what you heard," she said.
I closed my eyes. Damn, girl! I believe was the expression she had used. She surely could be bossy!
"That I matter," I said, "that the members of the security team have found meaning and purpose ..."
"...because of you," she emphasized.
"...because of me," I conceded. "That the Universe is there, and I am here, but I do not need to be alone in this fight. And that you like giving me hugs."
T'Sil pondered what I said. "Meh," she said finally, "I'll give you a B+."
"Better than any of the grades I received my first semester at the Academy," I said.
"I thought you only went through OCS at the Academy?" she said, confused.
"Ah," I said, "it was at the Vulcan Science Academy."
"Oh, right," she said, recollecting, "That conversation."
"That conversation," I affirmed.
"Girl," she said, letting me go, which physically hurt, the separation. She straightened up. I turned to face her, this new, empowered T'Sil. "You are a work in progress," she declared, "but I'm never gonna give up on you, okay?"
"For the two month you have left," I said.
She shook her head at that. "No. For however long we have. Besides," she smirked, "I'm the heroine of this story, so that means I'm never gonna die."
I looked at her in disbelief. The cockiness of her! "Everyone is the heroine or hero of their own story, and they never die, ... until they do."
"Then it's somebody else's story," she said flippantly.
"Yes," I said. She was good at stating the obvious, also, I observed.
"That means I don't care anymore," she said, openly smiling now.
I closed my eyes and shook my head. "To be so... innocent!" I exclaimed.
T'Sil tilted her head at that. "Hmmm," she said, pensively. "I don't know if 'innocent' is the term? ... cuz I'm not. I just kinda ..." She thought for a second, "...take things as they come?"
She shrugged.
I held up the paper that she wrote her note to me. "And this is taking things as they come?"
She pondered the piece of paper. "Mm, kinda?" she said. "I mean: why does the caged-bird sing?"
I pursed my lips at that. "Some human metaphor? I do not know the answer to this."
"Me, neither," she said. "But the caged-bird is me. I'm young, and free, and you lock me in here? ... leaving me to stew? ... telling me I have to write this apology letter for this ceremony I know nothing about? Be me and be treated like a child. 'Fuck you'? Hells ya!"
"So," I said, "do you still feel this way?"
"Welllll, ..." she said slowly. "I think ... I think I needed to vent, and I think I needed be heard, too? But I think ... I mean: seeing you vulnerable? You're like this, ... walking god that just knows what to do in every situation, be it killing Klingons or leading the troops, or managing a kid," she pointed to herself, "in the bedroom, locking me up for good measure. But when you were like: 'Why is the whole world against me?' I was like, 'Ah! She's not invulnerable!' and 'Ah! She needs me!' and 'Ah! I actually know how to help here!' I think... if I'm just deadweight in your life, then: what's the point? But if I can help? ... and I do help? I think that made the difference for me."
"You can help, ..." I reflected on her words.
"Well, yeah," she replied.
"And that gives your life meaning and purpose," I said.
"Well," she said, "no. I mean: it's nice, but I'm not defined by it. I can help. And if I do, that's great, and if I don't, ... well: oh, well. At least I tried, you know?"
"So trying is the important thing?" I said.
T'Sil looked at me.
"What?" I demanded.
"You're, like, really deep, you know? Anyone ever tell you to lighten up?"
"No," I said, "but people are always telling me..."
"Lighten up!" T'Sil snapped.
"What?"
T'Sil smiled at my angry retort.
"See?" she said smugly.
"See what?" I demanded, confused.
"Now somebody's told you to lighten up: me! So now you can't say that anymore! See how simple that is?"
"Is everything simple to you?" I countered.
T'Sil sighed. "Oh, yes! I've always had it so easy and my life is so irresponsible and carefree and I've always got what I've wanted and I've never wanted to be anything other that exactly what I am!"
"Isn't that..." I paused and said carefully, "... isn't that an accurate description of your life up to now?"
T'Sil narrowed her eyes at me. "Sure it is," she said coldly. "Sure it is."
She turned away from me, her arms crossed.
"Are we back to 'fuck you'?" I asked.
"Maybe?" she asked. She turned back. "Just because I've had everything given to me, my whole life, with a silver spoon, no less, doesn't mean I missed out on the hard things in life, or that I've got nothing going on in here." She pointed at her head. "Do you know how much trouble I've gotten myself into?"
"Besides now?" I countered.
"Yeah," she said, "besides now. My whole life, I've had to justify my existence as something other than the heir apparent, and my whole life, I've done absolutely nothing to prove my worth. Do you know how strongly I had to fight to get into Starfleet, on my own merits, without my family, behind the scenes, promoting me to Fleet Admiral my first day, or whatever? And that's basically my whole life! Do you know what that does to a person, how it wears you down to nothing, just you with your fake friends and your expensive things that was all given to you?"
"No," I said, "I really can't relate to that."
"You can't," she replied angrily. "Nobody can. So that leaves me, all alone, hated and envied by basically everybody, and expectations up to here, with no way for me to reach them."
"So therefore the Vulcan," I supplied.
"What do you mean?" she demanded guardedly.
"All alone," I said, "nobody understands you. If you were a part of that really cool, intelligent, dispassionate race that cared nothing for status, then you'd be understood, accepted for who you are, and respected, finally, yes?"
"Noooooo, ..." she said, "I mean, ..."
"'You guys are so cool!' That's what you said to me and Michael Burnham as we carried your sorry Vulcan ass to my rack. You didn't want your 18th birthday party with all the swells as you called them, not with those pretentious, rich people, who only respected you because of your proximity to wealth and power, you wanted to hang out with us real, grounded Vulcans who treated you with respect, not knowing any of that, just knowing you were one of us, ... that's what you wanted."
"That's what anybody wants who's lived with fake their whole life," was her quiet answer.
"But don't you see you've only traded one fake for another?"
"No," she said firmly.
I raised my eyebrow at that. "'Rich girl takes gene therapy to present as Vulcan.' How much more fake can you get than that?"
"It's not fake if I am a Vulcan, and the gene therapy helped me to become who I am. I mean, why are you calling me by my Vulcan name? Why are you telling other people I'm a Vulcan, just like Michael Burnham? Why are you treating me like a Vulcan, and not like a human pretending to be one?"
I consider that, because: why was I doing that?
"Perhaps I'm being nice?" I offered.
"'Nice'?" she asked skeptically.
"Well, you've 'become' Vulcan, but at what price that someone else had to pay with their very life? ... and at what cost to yourself? How much longer do you have to live? Why should I make you feel worse with what little time you do have left? ... So, yes: nice."
"Okay," she said, but shook her head. "Yes, from almost anybody else, but from you? Are you being nice?"
I thought about it.
She didn't give me long to ponder the question: "Or are you being as you always are: seeing things as they are and dealing with that. Just like in the simulator, throwing yourself at the Klingons, and just like in the corridor outside sickbay with all of us lined up, looking for direction, awaiting your orders, and you just ... did that."
"Well, ..." I equivocated, "that's because ..."
"You were being you," T'Sil interjected emphatically. "That's why. You: real, direct, ... but not 'nice.'"
"Well, ..." I said again.
I wasn't used to being so easily read, and assessed. Judged? Yes. Dismissed? Yes. But this?
I didn't like this development. I was used to hiding myself, my real self, from everybody. If I couldn't do that from this little girl, who had way more insight into my character than what I was comfortable with, how could I keep up this pretense of me being what I wasn't?
And if I couldn't keep up the pretense, then ... what did that mean for me?
How, then, could I live?
'Fake it 'til you make it' was a human motto that described me to my bones, no: to my marrow.
My very Romulan marrow.
But T'Sil was calling me 'real,' and, moreover, meaning it.
How could I live up to that, when I knew that I was more of a faker than she was?
She was real about being a fake, and more in touch with herself for it.
I was fake about being real, and all the more fake for it.
This was not what I signed up for.
"'Well,' ... what?" T'Sil's patience during my ruminations had run out.
"I..." I frowned. "I have nothing constructive to say."
"You look lost," she observed.
My frown deepened. I wondered if she had remote telepathic abilities. That would be unfortunate.
For her.
"Is there something I can do to help?" she asked.
"Come to think of it, yes," I said. "I'm going to do some combat training with the security team, ..."
"The Suus Manha?" T'Sil interjected excitedly.
"Yes," I said, my voice distracted, "... but I'm nowhere near 100% health, so ..."
"Would you like me to apply neuro-pressure?" she offered.
I tried not to scoff. "You're proficient in Vulcan neuro-pressure techniques?"
"Mm, hm," she replied confidently. "I know both the Surah'tahn and the Khavorta positions."
"I'm sure you do." I tried not to roll my eyes.
"You don't believe me," she stated, disappointed.
"Not at all, it's just that, ... hm, how do I say this gently? There are things one can learn about Vulcan outside of Vulcan, but there are things that only being a Vulcan grants one. There's a difference between book knowledge and experience, pi' veh."
T'Sil went white. "You are such an ass."
I nodded. "Accurate."
T'Sil was having none of that. She was incensed. "I've been studying neuro-pressure for years," she retorted tightly. "I've been a practitioner of Suus Manha since I was four years old! When did you start studying Vulcan martial arts?"
"Formally? ... when I was fifteen."
"So, ... you're twenty-four now?" she confirmed.
I nodded.
"So, technically, and actually, I'm your superior in these forms, ... by years! You shouldn't be judging me. I should be judging you!" she retorted hotly.
"Mm," I replied, my cool to her hot, "as you say."
"You still don't believe me!" she exclaimed, furious.
"Mm," I said coolly.
What I didn't say, or ask, was: at what age did she first murder someone in combat?
Me? I was seven.
And how many people had she killed? I could easily guess that. Her, personally, an Ensign in the goodie-two-shoes Starfleet?
Probably zero.
I had murdered thousands, both in combat and in cold blood.
Thousands.
But she wanted to insist she was my better.
"You..." she began, but broke off suddenly and looked away.
I didn't need to be a mind-reader to know her thoughts: "... 'fucking bitch'?" I offered.
"I didn't say that," she bit off.
"You didn't need to."
She looked back at me. It looked like she was about to say something but then changed her mind at the last second. "Why are you so mean to me?"
I held up my hands. "Pi' veh, ..." I began.
"... so mean, but so nice, too?"
"I thought you said I wasn't nice," I countered.
T'Sil looked thoughtful. "You aren't, ... but you are."
I tsk'd. I was running out of time before combat training. I didn't have time to waste on this 'journey of self-exploration,' or whatever T'Sil was up to with this conversation.
"Pi' veh, ..." I began again.
T'Sil cut me off again. "I mean: it's like you're trying to push everybody away, hiding yourself behind this impenetrable wall, but then, there are, like, these cracks, and you can't hide yourself anymore, and I see you: you're this scared, little kid who wants a hug, no: needs a hug more than anything in the world, and that scares the shit out of you, doesn't it?"
T'Sil narrowed her eyes at me.
My hands went clammy. "I need a hug?" I asked sarcastically.
"Oh, shut up!" T'Sil snarled, then closed the distance between us and wrapped me in her arms.
It took every last iota of my will not to kill her in at least three different ways.
You don't just come up on me like that.
But she did.
And she held me.
Her cheek, resting on my shoulder, her chin, not quite high enough to perch there. Her.
And she held me.
"Fuck," I whispered, lowering my head to rest against hers.
Fuck. I thought in defeat.
...
"Pi' veh," I whispered into her hair.
"Mm?" she hummed into my shoulder.
"I need to meditate," I said.
"Mm, hm," she said, not letting me go. "You can meditate like this, right?"
"Pi' veh," I scolded.
"Mm," she harrumphed back.
"Pi' veh, ..."
"Mm," she hummed, "I could get used to you calling me that, ... oh, forever?"
I sighed, then pressed: "Are you familiar with the healing-trance?"
"Mm, hm," she replied lazily.
"Do you know how to rouse me from the trance?" I quizzed her.
I wasn't too convinced by her easygoing reply.
"Yeah," she said, "bitch-slap you until you're awake."
Huh, I thought. I wouldn't exactly put it that way, but I suppose the phrase was accurate, albeit coarse.
"Let me go, pi' veh," I ordered gently.
"Um, no?" she said, then held me more tightly.
My ribs informed me that I had a new friend, and her name was agony.
I told Ms. Agony to fuck off.
"Ow," I said quietly, letting T'Sil know of my friend.
"Oh!" she exclaimed, surprised, letting me go.
I didn't collapse.
Barely.
T'Sil didn't support me to my rack, no: she just was there, beside me, and I wasn't leaning on her, ... too much.
I made it to my rack. I didn't need to look at my alarm clock. I knew the time, and time was running out.
"Ten minutes," I told T'Sil. "Then rouse me from the healing trance so I can lead combat training."
T'Sil's face told me very clearly what she thought of my plan. "Or!" she offered, "you could rest and reschedule the training for when you're better?"
I gave her a very wry look.
"Just a reasonable, ... logical thought," she replied coolly, not even pretending to be subtle with her hints.
I took a deep breath as I lay in my rack, letting my ribs know who was boss.
I closed my eyes to descend to level: the healing-trance.
I opened my eyes, almost immediately.
"T'Sil?" I said.
She looked down at me, concerned.
"I have something to say to you," I said.
"What is it?" she asked.
"I fucked up."
She waited.
"I was supposed to patch things up with Nurse Daisy, but ... things turned nasty and ... I threatened her, saying she raped you, and that she would never see her daughter again, ... and, well, ..."
"Her daughter?" T'Sil said.
"Yes," I replied. "Nurse Daisy has a daughter. Your age, ... one year older than you, in fact."
"Oh," T'Sil said quietly.
"And ... well, I threatened to seduce and to murder her daughter."
T'Sil looked at me impassively. "Nurse Daisy," she said quietly. "The only one who knows my sitch and can help me, and you ... wow, you fucked that one up but good, didn't you?"
"Yes," I said.
"Why?"
"I have no excuses," I said, looking up into her impassive, wise eyes.
"I need more than that, S'Vrall," she said.
"She threatened you. She said she was going to report you to the chain of command for being a security breach, and, because I knew about this and didn't report it, made me culpable, ... which it does."
"So she threatened you," she said, "not me."
"No," I said.
"Uh, huh. Why didn't you just tell her: 'hey, that's actually Ensign Doran! We good!' instead of, you know, pouring antimatter all over her, ... and her daughter, ... who's older than me? Did you think of that?"
"No, ..." I said.
"Huh," she said.
"But if I had, then I would have to explain the Orion gene therapy, and how you obtained it, and ruined your career, and involve a lot more players in the discussion, like, for example: Vulcan High Command would be very insistent on knowing how the Orions synthesized gene therapy, and we're already involved in one, very active, war at present."
"So, ..." she said slowly. "You did this for the 'Big Picture'? Scare the only person who can help me, half-to-death?"
"I said I had no excuse," I said, contrite.
"Bullshit!" she burst out.
I raised my eyebrow at that.
"Your 'no excuse' sounds like you had to show her your dick was bigger than hers! And, wow! Congratulations! You win! Yay! Happy?"
"No," I said softly.
T'Sil just shook her head.
I thought of one more thing.
"And, ..." I said.
"'And,' ...?" she demanded.
"And I kissed her."
"Nurse Daisy."
"Yes."
"You kissed her."
"Yes."
"Why?"
I looked up at T'Sil. "I ... she looked so ... vulnerable, and lost, and scared, that I ... that I kissed her and ..."
I looked away.
"So, you kissed and made up with her, huh?" T'Sil asked sad, hurt, sarcastic, ... all of that.
"No," I said.
T'Sil blinked rapidly for a second, then looked away. "Why are you telling me all this?"
"Because I must atone for what I've done. I was stupid, and thoughtless, and wrong, and I hurt you and her, and I will never be able to make things right with you, nor with her."
I looked up at her, steadily.
"The Vulcan Atonement Ceremony," T'Sil said.
"Yes."
"How come I don't feel better?" she asked. "How come I feel like shit? You know I liked her, but you kiss her after you terrify her, and you expect me to forgive you, just like that?"
"No," I said.
"Then what do you expect?" she demanded.
"From you, nothing, ever, from me: atonement. I did you wrong. I can never make this right, and I will spend the rest of my existence in your debt."
"You tell her this?" T'Sil demanded.
"I will. Today."
T'Sil considered. "You gonna tell her you didn't mean those things you said? You gonna tell her you didn't mean to kiss her like that?"
"No," I said. "I'm going to tell her what I did, and what I did was wrong."
T'Sil looked away and drew a long, ragged breath.
"What if she doesn't forgive you?"
"Then she doesn't forgive me," I replied calmly.
"What if she reports you for aggravated assault, ... and battery?"
"Then she reports me."
T'Sil pondered this.
"Your Starfleet career is over if she does."
"Yes," I said.
T'Sil pondered that, too.
"What if I don't forgive you?"
"Then you don't forgive me."
"Then what's the Goddamn point?" she nearly screamed.
I smiled up at her, sadly. "Pi' veh, ..."
"Don't call me that. I'm not your 'little one,'" she retorted angrily.
I smiled. "Pi' veh, when you atone, you will know what's the 'Goddamn point,' ... maybe you know, even now."
"S'Vrall, ..." T'Sil started, then broke off and laughed bitterly. "S'Vrall, you're the kind of person that, wherever you go, chaos and destruction follow, aren't you? And the irony of it all, is that you Goddamn know it, and you Goddamn know what you're doing has consequences, but you do it anyway, but you figure if you run away from the mess, it can't chase you, it can't follow you. But you just can't run away from yourself, you know? So the mess? If you do outrun it, it's just waiting for you when you arrive at the next place to fuck up, isn't it, right? Like, that ship you left? It wasn't to transfer to Starfleet 'cuz you wanted to try something new, am I right? It was because they asked you to leave, didn't they?"
"With a court martial," I informed her.
"Wow," she said. "Just wow. And now you're here, and now this, and you just dump it all on my lap, but, because you atone, we good, or something? You get a free pass?"
"No," I said. "I don't get a 'free' anything. I pay for everything I do, now, and eternally when I return to the Immanence."
"Oh," she said, "that's right. That Vulcan belief: everything in everything. Guess what? I'm Catholic, born and raised, and I'm supposed to just forgive you, just like that, 'cuz Jesus forgave them, even as they nailed him to the Cross. But I don't know, S'Vrall. I don't know if I'm that good, or that strong, or that whatever. But I do know you're gonna talk to Nurse Daisy, and you're gonna atone, ... I do know that. And I do know if you cross her again? You come between her and, well ..."
"You?" I offered.
"Yeah," she said angrily. "Me. You come between her and me like that, again, and I swear to God, I'll fucking kill you, do you understand me?"
"Yes," I said.
"You don't threaten family, S'Vrall. You don't tell a mom you're gonna hurt her kids. I can't believe she didn't try to kill you, right then and there! And then you kiss her? Because ... what? Fuck! Because she's hurting? Guess who hurt her, dumb ass?"
"I did." I said.
"Fucking genius-answer!"
T'Sil stalked to Michael Burnham's rack and sat down, glaring at me. "Jesus fucking Christ! I hate you so Goddamn much right now, S'Vrall."
"I know," I said, "you wrote it out, over and over again. I read it."
"Yeah!" she growled, "but I didn't know I meant it that much!"
"And now you do."
"S'Vrall," T'Sil said sharply, "just ..."
"'Fuck off'?" I said.
T'Sil lay down on Michael Burnham's rack, her body turned from me. She grabbed her pillow and buried her head under it.
She sniffled. "Why?" she whispered, Vulcan-quiet. "Why you gotta hurt me like that? Why?"
"I'm sorry," I said.
"I know," she said. "I know, but it still hurts, S'Vrall. It really, really hurts and ..." She sniffled.
"I'm sorry," I said.
I closed my eyes.
Three.
Two.
One.
I descended to level, and let the Void permeate my being.
I am Nothing, and I became Nothing.