Chapter Text
The O'Brien quarters at evening cycle. The environmental system had warmed the lighting toward amber. Yoshi was asleep down the corridor. Molly was nominally doing homework and actually reading something she'd hidden twice already. The remains of dinner sat on the counter: a salad Keiko had assembled, two plates, one mostly-finished glass of wine.
Miles stood at the small table near the window. He held the pips in his open palm like they might bite him.
Three of them. Two solid, one hollow. Black backing, gold faces. Standard issue. Came in a thin gray case with the regulation paperwork folded underneath.
He'd been holding them for maybe four minutes.
MILES: Test to rank, they said.
Keiko was at the counter with her back to him, transferring leftovers into a storage container. She didn't turn around. She didn't need to.
KEIKO: Mm.
MILES: Test to rank. Like it was an option. Like I had a choice in the matter. Over twenty-five years of service, twenty-five years, and suddenly somebody decides: no, no, we can't have a Chief Petty Officer as a First Officer, that's highly irregular...
He paused. Looked at the pips. Looked at Keiko's back.
MILES: Whatever that means.
KEIKO: Mm-hm.
She closed the storage container. Set it aside. Picked up her wine glass without turning, took a small sip.
Miles started pacing. Three steps to the viewport, three steps back. The pips traveled with him in his hand.
MILES: And you know what they said? You know what the actual phrasing was? "Strongly encouraged." That's what the message said. Strongly encouraged to test to rank at the earliest opportunity. Do you know what "strongly encouraged" means in Starfleet, Keiko?
KEIKO: I have an idea.
MILES: It means you do it. It means you do it now. It means there's no encouragement involved at all, it's an order wearing a suit.
He stopped at the viewport. Stared out at the pylons. Rolled the pips between his thumb and forefinger.
MILES: And then... and then... I sit down for the exam. I sit down. I haven't looked at command theory in... I don't know how long. Years. I'm thinking, fine, I'll fail it, they'll let me alone, I'll go back to...
He didn't finish that sentence. Keiko pressed her lips together before he turned around.
MILES: And I aced it. I aced it, Keiko. Top three percent. I got a personal note from the testing board. A personal note. Some Vulcan I've never met wants to congratulate me on my exemplary grasp of crisis command structure.
He held up the pips between two fingers like evidence at a trial.
MILES: I blame Julian.
Keiko set down her wine glass. She turned around. The smile was barely there.
KEIKO: Miles.
MILES: I do. I blame him entirely. Every bit of this. Every...
KEIKO: Miles.
MILES: ...single...
KEIKO: You told Julian yes.
The pips went still in his hand.
He looked at her. She looked at him. The lighting had shifted another half-degree warmer without either of them registering it. Down the corridor, Yoshi's sleep-noise machine cycled through its second-favorite setting.
MILES: That's not the point.
KEIKO: Isn't it?
MILES: No.
KEIKO: Mm.
She picked her wine glass back up. Took another sip. Watched him over the rim of it. She was already smiling.
MILES: It's a separate issue. The saying-yes was... that was a different thing. That was a project. That was a... a research and development opportunity that... look, I said yes to Curiosity. I didn't say yes to pips. Nobody mentioned pips. Pips were not in the original conversation.
KEIKO: Were they not.
MILES: They were not.
KEIKO: And when Julian asked you to be his XO...
MILES: That's a role. That's a job function. That's not the same as...
He gestured at his hand. At the small gold-and-black objects.
KEIKO: Miles.
MILES: Don't.
KEIKO: I'm just going to...
MILES: Don't say it.
KEIKO: ...point out...
MILES: Keiko.
KEIKO: ...that you knew. When he asked you. You knew where this was going to end.
He looked at the pips.
He turned them over. Looked at the backs of them. Looked at the fronts.
MILES: I still blame him.
KEIKO: Of course you do.
MILES: It's important to me that I blame him.
KEIKO: I know.
MILES: It's structurally important.
KEIKO: I understand.
She crossed the room. Put a hand on his arm, light, brief. Then she went past him toward the corridor, paused at the threshold.
KEIKO: I'm going to check on Molly's "homework."
MILES: She's reading that thing again.
KEIKO: I know she is.
She left.
Miles stood at the viewport with the pips in his hand. The station turned slowly around them. The pylons cast long shadows across the lower habitat ring.
He looked down at his palm.
Three pips. Two solid, one hollow. Black backing, gold faces.
Highly irregular. Whatever that meant.
He closed his fist around them.
MILES: (to no one) Six months ago.
The lighting shifts.