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“I’ll take that, yeoman.” I extend my hand. The yeoman’s padd is meant for Chris — a report on our findings on Majalis.
Chris already knows. God, he knows. And he’s a visual person, and from what he told me that he saw happen to that child, Chris doesn’t need a yeoman to present him with an in-depth report about this world’s choices.
“Aye, sir.” The yeoman gives me the padd.
Which means I can leave the bridge, skip the ready room, and complete this duty the way I see fit.
The turbolift handle is cool in my palm, though the ride seems faster than usual.
I tap the chime for Chris’ quarters.
“Come in.”
The door slides open.
His lamps and archway light are set to low illumination.
He’s staring out his viewport, Majalan sun in front of him, lit fireplace behind him — Chris, a man who believes he will die in the searing heat of radiation, standing between two sources of flame.
And he’s drinking.
“Brandy?” I motion toward Chris’ glass, the door sliding closed behind me as I step toward him. “Didn’t you tell me once that stuff gives you a headache?”
The glass lowers onto a table.
His gaze doesn’t shift from the viewport, from the sun slowly shrinking as Enterprise leaves the system.
“Willingly accept torture and death to help other people. That’s what that child did.” Chris’ arms cross. “And it’s wrong because he wasn’t old enough to make his own choices, the victim of a system that prioritized consistency and comfort over humanity. But here I am, looking at my future, scared to do the same thing that child did — look sacrifice in the eye and say yes.”
My throat aches. “Chris —”
He turns from the glare of the sun, squints at the padd in my hand. “I’m sorry. You came by on ship’s business.”
I came by to protect him from ship’s business.
“The report on Majalis.” I swallow the ache in my throat, hold out the padd. “Nothing you don’t already know.”
He takes the padd, skims information the way he never would in front of a yeoman, then affixes his signature.
“Thank you, Number One.” He gives me back the padd.
I place it next to the brandy, Chris’ drink of choice when he wants to soothe himself. And while I understand Chris is hurting because of the child’s similarities to Chris’ vision of his own future, there’s another pain here — the pain that happens when the heart Chris wears on his sleeve gets broken. Not by Alora. Chris is a romantic, but he’s not stupid; he knows the difference between hormones and love. No, Chris’ heart gets broken by people who choose, knowingly and carefully, to do the wrong thing.
Which is why telling him that I’m Illyrian had my own heart hammering and stomach twisting until he gave me my badge back, proved his trust in my choices by letting me decide to pin it back on.
And now I trust that he will escape this mental trap he’s built himself between the flames.
But a little company couldn’t hurt.
I pick up his brandy glass, still warm from his hand. “May I?”
The side of his mouth lifts — a slight smile from a man cracked open. “You want a headache, too?”
Brandy won’t give me a headache.
But leaving Chris alone like this certainly would.
“Sure.”
He pours another brandy for himself.
I sit on his sofa.
He stands as the sun recedes … smaller … smaller … smaller … indistinguishable from any other to the naked eye. Then cushions dip as he sits next to me, liquid shifting in both our glasses.
The fire burns lower.
Chris sips his brandy, swallows hard.
His hand finds mine. “Thanks.”
Chris knows I think his future isn’t written.
And I know he’s trying to believe me, trying to figure out how he can avoid entrapment like the child he couldn’t save, yet stay true to his own morals of compassion and protection.
I squeeze his hand, bring it to my lips, let a kiss linger on his skin. “Anytime.”
We both know what that word means to him.
He holds my hand as the fire burns out.