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Elnor followed Picard and the woman whose name was a number until two large doors slid apart at their approach. Picard raised a hand on the threshold to halt him. The room beyond looked nothing like the rest of the ship in the glimpse Elnor got of it. There was some familiarity there: a flickering fire, furniture, walls made from natural stone. Though, like much of what he’d seen of La Sirena so far, the rest was unknown.
It was Raffi who showed him to his room, as distracted as the others about their unexpected guest. Only Rios remained at his post, sitting in the same seat where he’d steered them away from Vashti and danger without even needing to stand up.
Raffi touched a panel on the wall and smiled at him. “Replicator, in case you get hungry. And the bathroom’s through there,” she said, pointing to another hingeless door.
*
Just as Elnor was about to give up on trying to prise open what Raffi said contained food, Picard asked if he could enter. Elnor said yes and, to his slight surprise, the door slid open with a soft shushing sound. Surprises were probably something he should get used to on this ship.
“How’re you adjusting?” Picard asked, stepping into the room. He glanced at Elnor’s luggage on the bed—far too large and luxurious for one person—that he’d yet to unpack.
“I’m confused,” Elnor told him honestly.
“What about?”
Turning to the paneled recess, Elnor tipped his head. “Where you prepare your food.” If there were ingredients concealed within the wall, they must’ve been tightly packed.
The door closed itself behind Picard, making the room seem smaller. “Hungry?”
“No. But I’m curious about what you eat on this ship.”
With a mere glance towards the wall, Picard said, “Earl Grey, decaf.” Elnor recognized only one of those words, though the drink that appeared within the alcove was not grey, so perhaps he was wrong. “State what you’d like, and the replicator will make it for you.”
With his drink in hand, Picard lowered himself to the edge of the bed. The simple movement took effort, and Elnor finally believed what he’d said earlier about his aging knees.
“What can I have?”
“Anything you’d like. The possibilities are virtually endless.”
Squinting, Elnor said, “I highly doubt that.”
“Try it.” Picard sipped his drink. “You may be surprised.” Another surprise. Well, Elnor could handle it.
There was something Picard brought with him the last time he’d visited Vashti, something Zani had told him she didn’t want to share but shared regardless.
“Sweet hanifak,” Elnor said clearly, ready to prove Picard wrong.
A wooden tray of hanifak appeared where Picard’s drink had been before he took it, shimmering like rain before it solidified. Just like that. Elnor stared at it in disbelief. To think of the months Zani had made that box last, even with all the sisters and their charge taking their share, when Picard could make it appear as if by magic, without even trying.
“This angers me,” Elnor said, staring at the confection’s sticky coating glistening under the lights. A precious once-in-a-lifetime luxury on Vashti was effortless to anyone with one of these machines. He wanted to throw the tray to the floor.
“If it’s too much, nothing is wasted. The replicator can—”
“Too much?” Elnor ground his jaw. “Do you have any idea how much one of these would help Vashti?” He gestured to the marvel of technology that the rest of the galaxy took for granted.
Picard looked like he was about to make an excuse. He opened his mouth, then closed it again, nodding in acceptance as he put down his drink. “I have some idea.”
“Do you remember bringing a box of hanifak for Zani? Your promise fulfilled?”
“I remember.”
“Once a week, she would slice a piece into tiny slithers and pass them around. We savored it, yet we knew those outside the chapter had to make do with what little they had, so we felt guilty. There were no special treats delivered by a Starfleet admiral for them.” Elnor paced before the replicator, avoiding looking at the food he hadn’t seen in more years than his fingers could count.
“She used to tell me you’d come back for me,” Elnor continued, “and that you’d find a place with other boys my age on a planet somewhere like home, or somewhere I could make my home.”
“I always meant to,” Picard said softly.
“Meaning to isn’t the same as doing. And it wasn’t just me. Everyone believed you would come back.” He slumped onto the bed and pressed his face in his hands.
“I am so sorry, Elnor.”
Something compelled Elnor to slide closer, the movement encouraging Picard’s arm around his shoulder. The last time he’d seen him, the top of his head fitted under this arm. That memory, if he ignored the bitterness, was a warm one. Whenever he opened that heavy copy of The Three Musketeers, it was Picard’s deep yet gentle voice reading its words in his mind in a foreign tongue the book kept alive. He’d brought it with him in his luggage, hopeful that one day they’d finish it together.
With a squeeze of Elnor’s shoulder, Picard continued. “A day hasn’t gone by when I haven’t felt deeply guilty about what happened.”
“Then why do nothing? Why abandon us?” Elnor dropped his temple against Picard’s shoulder. He was still angry with him, with everything, especially with the hanifak’s sickly-sweet scent he could smell from here, but being close to the man the sisters always said would rescue him, again, made the anger subside.
Picard drew a breath. Lifting his hands, he pressed them together before parting them in the Qowat Milat’s gesture of openness and honesty. The Way of Absolute Candor was something Picard accepted immediately, while others, even fellow Romulans, could never completely comprehend its significance.
“After the attack on Mars, I was afraid,” Picard began. “Devastated. I lost faith in everything I knew, including myself, and it left me feeling hopeless, like I couldn’t make a difference even if I tried. I could’ve done more. I should have, but didn’t, and I am truly sorry. I will make it right, I promise.”
Elnor sat silently, Picard’s words still resonating. That he had promised wasn't a surprise at all. Picard kept his promises, even if he took longer than expected. They weren't prisons to him, but opportunities. All the time Elnor had spent with bitterness, feeling unwanted and out of place, seemed wasted. Even though they were bound as qalankhkai, Picard had come back for him like he said he would.
“You didn’t ask for forgiveness,” Elnor said into Picard’s shoulder, “but I grant it. I’d like to sit here with you for a while, if you don’t mind.”
Voice breaking, Picard told him he didn’t mind at all.