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Vorik was repairing one of Mr Neelix's stove burners when he heard the sound of the mess hall doors slide open. He looked up, wondering who else was awake this time of night, and saw Megan Delaney heading to the replicator. Something about her appearance registered as unusual to him, but what it was, Vorik wasn't immediately sure.
"Ensign Delaney," Vorik spoke up when he realised she hadn’t seen him. Prior experience told him the longer he allowed his presence to be undetected, the more embarrassed his colleagues became at assuming they were alone when they were not. Harry Kim had once started singing in an "empty" lab, and been most flustered when he noticed Vorik was repairing a monitor nearby.
She startled, and turned to look at him.
"Vorik! Oh, you scared me half to death," she exclaimed.
"My apologies," he offered, with a slight dip of his head.
"I didn't think anyone else would be up," said Megan. She blinked rapidly, but not before Vorik noted the wateriness of her eyes.
"I was similarly surprised when you entered the room," said Vorik. "Are you having trouble sleeping?"
"Something like that," nodded Megan. "I thought maybe a walk and a glass of warm milk might help."
"I would suggest you use the other replicator. That one has been flagged for recalibration," said Vorik.
"Thanks," said Megan, and made her way to the other side of the mess hall.
Vorik heard her order her drink as he turned his attention back to the stove. There was little to do now but seal the panel shut again.
It was a few minutes later, as he packed his toolkit away, that he heard a soft sniffling from the dining area.
Megan was sitting at a table in the far corner, her hands curled around a steaming mug of milk and her head bowed. She was trying hard not to draw attention to it, but she was obviously crying.
For a moment, Vorik hesitated. He had finished his task, he could slip away quietly and leave Megan to express her emotions in privacy. But then again, she was human - for her, there was no shame in her actions. At least, none such as a Vulcan would experience, were they to behave the same way.
She was sad, and alone, and that's when it hit Vorik what was so peculiar about her appearance.
She was alone.
Where is Jenny? Wondered Vorik. He had never seen the two of them apart, not even in the middle of red alerts. He had once noted that he found the sight of them both distressing and comforting at once; they, like he and his brother Taurik, were twins, and though he now found himself alone, he still identified with them on some level.
"Megan?" He spoke softly, not wanting to startle her again. "Can I be of assistance?"
"How do you know?" she asked, looking up at him, a pained smile on her face despite the fact she was clearly upset.
"Please clarify."
"That I'm Megan," she said. "You always know, now I think about it. I'm pretty sure most of the crew just take a guess."
"The differences between you and your sister are quite apparent," replied Vorik.
Megan gestured at the chair opposite her, and Vorik sat down.
"We're identical," said Megan.
"Mostly," agreed Vorik. "Your eyebrows vary slightly - Jenny's have a sharper arch - and there is a variance of .4 millimeters in the width of your nose."
"Wow, you must be really observant," said Megan.
"A common trait among Vulcans," said Vorik. "In addition, your energy is less… frenetic than your sisters."
"My energy?" questioned Megan, sounding slightly skeptical.
"Yes," nodded Vorik. He really didn't know how to explain it further.
"Jenny has always been the wild one," said Megan. She abruptly began to cry again, her chin trembling as she tried to contain herself.
"What has upset you?" asked Vorik, keeping his voice calm even though he found the rapid change in her demeanor somewhat bewildering.
"Jenny's in sickbay," answered Megan, her voice coming out as a squeaky whine that stung Vorik's ears slightly.
"I am sorry to hear it," responded Vorik. "Is it serious?"
"The doctor said she'll be ok, but it's surgery," said Megan, shaking her head slightly. "I keep telling myself she'll be fine, but…"
She started crying again, and Vorik reached across the table and patted her awkwardly on the shoulder twice, as he'd seen humans do.
"The EMH is highly competent. I'm sure Jenny is in the best possible hands," he said, trying to reassure her.
"I don't know what I'd do if anything ever happened to her," sniffed Megan tearfully. "She's my twin, you know? I know that doesn't mean a lot to some siblings, but we've always been...Jenny, she's…"
"Part of you," finished Vorik quietly. He felt a sharp pang in his heart that he did his best to ignore.
Megan nodded.
"It probably sounds stupid, huh?" sniffed Megan.
"Not at all," said Vorik. He didn't mean for the next words to leave his mouth, but they did so anyway. "I am also a twin."
"You are?" said Megan, surprise halting her crying.
"My brother, Taurik, serves on the Enterprise. Or at least, he did when last we spoke," said Vorik.
"I had no idea," said Megan. "Oh my gosh, I'm so sorry."
"For what?" asked Vorik.
"Here I am, crying because my twin is across the ship from me when yours is in an entirely different quadrant," said Megan.
"Absence is absence, regardless of distance," reasoned Vorik. "Both of our siblings currently remain apart from us."
"Do you… miss him?" asked Megan hesitantly. She began to ramble. "Urgh, that seems like such a stupid question, but I don't know how Vulcans feel about family. Or is it think about family? Am I being insensitive? We don't have to talk about it."
"The topic does not bother me," replied Vorik. "I am well aware that the Vulcan way is incomprehensible to most emotionally demonstrative species. The nuance of a'rie'mnu - the control of emotion - is often lost on non-vulcans. But our families are as important to us as they are to you. And as to whether I miss my brother…"
He paused, and reached out with his mind along a bond stretched so thin it was barely present. The space it had once occupied so fully was a hollow echo of what it was, what it should be, with only the most painful longing available to fill the void, if Vorik's shields should falter and allow it in. Just as it had been since the day Voyager had been flung into the delta quadrant, there was no answer to his telepathic call.
"...very much so," said Vorik.
"Tell me about him?" asked Megan, with a soft smile.
She was no longer crying, noted Vorik. Hopefully that meant his presence was of some comfort.
"What do you wish to know?" He asked.
"Whatever comes to mind first," said Megan.
"Very well," said Vorik. He thought of Taurik, picturing his brother in his mind, even though doing so amplified the ache for home that lived within him. "We are genetically identical, and yet there are enough differences between us that the average human could tell us apart. His hair does not suffer the same unruliness as mine, for example…" Vorik reached up and smoothed down the little patch of hair on the right of his head that was prone to sticking up by itself.
Megan gave a quiet laugh, a smile lighting up her face.
"If that's what Vulcans class as unruly, I'd love to see what you'd make of my bad hair days," she said. "What else?"
"His eyebrows are thinner, although…" Vorik hesitated for a moment. Voyager had approximately sixty years left to go on its journey home, who was she going to tell? "Not entirely naturally so. He styles them that way."
"That's a thing?" said Megan, apparently delighted at this little bit of trivia.
"Can you keep a secret?" asked Vorik, conspiratorially. Megan nodded eagerly. "I believe Lieutenant Tuvok uses a similar thinning treatment on his brows."
Megan erupted with laughter, and Vorik allowed himself the slightest of smiles.
"You're pulling my leg," said Megan.
"Not at all. Look up his Starfleet records when you get the chance. You'll notice his eyebrows were much thicker in the past," said Vorik.
"I have never once stopped to think about whether Vulcans style their eyebrows, and now it's all I'm going to be able to think about when I see Tuvok next," laughed Megan. Her eyes scanned his face briefly. "What about you?"
"My eyebrows remain untouched," he said with mock solemnity, prompting another wide grin from Megan.
"Ok, hair and eyebrows aside… tell me more about Taurik," said Megan. "If you want to, that is."
"I do," said Vorik, slightly surprised to realise it. "He would tell you he is the smarter of the two of us, though truly we are equally matched, he simply performs better academically. He is older than me by 11.4 minutes, which means he has always taken the lead in ceremonial tasks…"
He kept going, speaking about whatever came to mind, and found that the pain of his brother's absence felt slightly lessened as he did so.
*****
Vorik sat quietly at one end of the couches in the corner of the mess hall, reading a human fiction novel on his padd. Megan was curled up asleep on the opposite end.
They had relocated to the comfier seating choice twenty minutes into their conversation, and Megan had drifted off nearly an hour later. Given that she had expressed trouble with falling asleep, Vorik did not think waking her so she could walk back to her quarters and potentially not be able to fall asleep again was the best course of action, and leaving her alone seemed somehow rude to him, so since he had nowhere else to be, he simply stayed where he was.
The first chirp of Megan's commbadge didn't wake her, so Vorik called her name, quietly at first, but then slightly louder until she woke, looking around in tired confusion. Her commbadge continued to beep, and she answered it.
"Yeah?" She sounded still half-asleep.
"Ah, there you are. I hope I am not disturbing you; the computer indicated you were in the mess hall," said the doctor. "Jenny is awake. I thought you would like to know."
"Can I see her?" asked Megan.
"You may, but not for too long. She needs to rest," replied the doctor.
"Thanks. Tell her I'll be right there," said Megan, a smile spreading across her face as she tapped her badge to end the call. She turned her head towards Vorik. "You didn't have to stay, you know."
"I was unsure of the correct etiquette in this situation," admitted Vorik.
"Well, thank you. For staying, and for the conversation. I really appreciate it," said Megan. "It helped take my mind off Jenny’s surgery for a bit."
"It was no trouble. I also appreciated the conversation," said Vorik. "Nobody has asked me about my family in quite some time. Talking about them was…beneficial."
He stood at the same time as Megan did, and picked up his engineering kit in preparation to leave.
"If you ever want to talk again, or just hang out sometime. I'm always around," offered Megan as they walked towards the mess hall doors together. "And so is Jenny."
"I will keep that in mind," said Vorik. "Please give your sister my regards. I wish her a speedy recovery."
"Thanks," said Megan. "And thanks for telling me about Taurik. I really hope I get to meet him one day."
"I would like that," said Vorik. He sincerely meant it. He gave Megan a final nod of farewell before she turned off in the direction of sickbay, and he headed back to his own quarters.
Alone, as always.