Chapter 10
The door to Diane’s quarters slides open almost as soon as T’Volis announces herself. Diane is curled on the couch, her bare feet tucked under her and her hair loose. She’s clearly tired, but the warmth in her eyes is all real, and there is a second glass of water on the low table. “Hey. Glad you came by. We uh. We probably should talk.”
“Yes. I believe we should.” She settles down across from Diane. She resists the urge to check temperature, but can’t help looking her over for the smaller autonomic tells of pain and discomfort. There are a few, but nothing like what she’s seen for the last few days. Lingering aches and exhaustion, most likely.
The lights in Diane’s quarters are low, most likely for her comfort and the lingering photophobia of her illness. The arrangement is familiar, though, and T’Volis can feel the temptation to slide into previous habits.
She draws a breath, and puts that firmly aside.
Diane watches her, her hands curled around her own mug, a citrus and honey tea by the smell of it.
“It’s good to have you back,” she says softly. “Even under these circumstances. Even if it’s only for a little while.”
“It was good to be back,” T’Volis says, “even under the circumstances. I did not contribute to your recovery as I might have hoped, but it was gratifying to be of service nevertheless.”
Diane sips her tea, a slight frown creasing a well-worn line between her brows. “Yes. The cure. You know, I feel there is rather more to that than anyone’s telling me.”
“I would suggest you not expend too much energy on the matter,” says T’Volis.
This earns her a more dedicated look of suspicion, but Diane seems to take the advice, sitting back into the corner of the couch with a soft sigh. She turns her head to look out the long bank of windows, starlight washing the color out of her face and turning her eyes a flat black, making them look very wide against pale skin. T’Volis realizes how very little experience she has thinking of Diane as anything but large and powerful, for her species. But over the last week, she’s become accustomed to seeing her as vulnerable, and the two impressions clash in her mind. The inner workings of a human are so delicate, and curled on the couch Diane still retains an air of fragility.
“I’m fine,” says Diane, as if she’s caught the drift of T’Volis’s thoughts. “Really. Tired and achy, but Bohz tells me that’s to be expected, after something like this. He’s hoping it’ll keep me down for a few days without him officially having to bar me from duty.”
“You had best take some time off duty in any case,” says T’Volis, and then is privately shamed at the scolding note she hears in her own voice. It is too familiar. Too much like the end of their relationship.
Diane just looks at her. The situation is at once familiar and utterly strange. Diane’s face looks so much the same, and yet her expression is new. There’s a tired, quiet understanding there.
“This is what you were afraid of,” she says at last. “All that time ago, during the war. We just acted out your nightmare, with you flown in to watch it live. I’m sorry, T’Volis. I had no right to ask–I could have asked you to save my life, but I’m not sure I should have asked you to come so close to failure.”
“There was no way to tell whether I would succeed or fail,” says T’Volis. “To say otherwise would denote either unhealthy pessimism or a profound doubt of my professional capabilities. Either would be concerning.”
Diane gives her a wan smile. “Do you think I couldn’t tell you believed you were failing?”
“Evidently, my ‘bedside manner’ will require improvement.”
“I know you too well,” Diane says, voice gently teasing. “I’d assume most of your patients don’t have that advantage. You were right back then, by the way.”
“When, exactly, was I right?”
“During the war. When we ended things. You were right. About what I was doing to myself. I just…didn’t want to think of what it would do to the people around me. I felt like I couldn’t. So I pushed you away, and I’m sorry for it.”
This is not expected. T’Volis thinks on this for a few moments before responding. “I regret the way in which our romantic relationship ended. I do not, however, regret that it did.”
Diane looks up at her fast, almost like a flinch.
“Our needs were, and are, incompatible,” T’Volis continues. “I was asking you to surrender this life for my sake. That was too much to ask, no matter our relationship.”
Diane draws a long breath, the beginnings of understanding coming into her face. Her hands curl her cup closer to her, like even in a starship’s carefully controlled atmosphere she needs the warmth.
“I did not understand what Starfleet and your ship meant to you,” she says. “I joined you infrequently, and only for short periods. I was prioritizing my comfort, as I do not like space and I do not like high population densities. At the time, I believed you planned to retire to Vulcan with me at some date in the future.”
“I would have, too,” says Diane, a little dryly. It’s the same tone in which she would confess a particularly stupid past action.
“And it would have been a grave error,” says T’Volis. “You would have sacrificed more than you could have borne in doing that, and I had deliberately ignored all the evidence I did not want to see that warned me not to ask it of you. I am only glad that when I did ask, we were in the midst of the war and you felt it your duty to say no.”
“I…” And then Diane stops, and closes her mouth, and just looks at her, a little bewildered.
“Diane,” says T’Volis, “I have never before seen you at ease, not as you are here. Home, on Earth and Vulcan alike, was as much a burden as a refuge. I understand now it was because it was not truely home for you. Not as this starship is.”
Diane stares at her, still bewildered, her hands tight on her mug. Moisture gleams in her eyes, like T’Volis’s observations have startled her to tears. T’Volis politely does not notice.
“These people care about you a great deal, that much is evident, and you care for them. I had not understood exactly how close the bonds are between Captain and crew, not before I spent time working so closely with them on a matter so tightly related to that bond.” And how it must have shattered Diane to lose that bond with the Bedivere’s crew, during the war. T’Volis had not been there for her. She had borne it alone. “I did not understand what I was asking when I asked you to leave the Bedivere.”
“T’Volis,” starts Diane, quietly, and T’Volis raises a hand to forestall her and continues, “I would never have understood it, had I my preferences, had this incident not occurred. I did not wish to, and even now I recognize that there are many aspects of your life here which you find pleasant and I find actively distasteful. But I would have asked you to amputate the parts of yourself which you hold dear. That was wrong.”
She draws a breath. “And I am no more willing to embrace this life than I was then. Therefore, it is good we parted ways when you were in no position to grant me what I asked of you in ignorance. Whatever the outcome had you agreed to that demand, it would not be as favorable as the one we currently enjoy.”
“I hadn’t thought about it that way,” says Diane, sounding a little shocked. “I had always seen it as a failure–that I’d put my career over you, and that I’d richly deserved the loss that entailed.”
“You did. But your career is intrinsic to your sense of self, and the choice between the two was a foolish one to force, as was my failure to realize the relationship would not function if I was not willing to embrace this aspect of your personality as I had the rest of it.”
Diane settles herself more comfortably on the couch, relaxing a little, and takes another sip of her tea. “I wish we’d had this conversation years ago, without the near death experience.”
“I believe the near death experience was a necessary component, unfortunately,” says T’Volis.
She is rewarded with a huff of amusement and a glitter of appreciation in Diane’s eyes. “Needless speculation,” she says, and meets T’Volis’s eyes. There is still something so deeply familiar about that gaze, after all this time, something comforting, that she missed. She realizes now just how much she missed it.
She draws in a breath that might be a bit more ragged with emotion than she cares to admit. “The fact that we are not compatible in a romantic sense should by no means impede our continued friendship.”
Diane keeps watching her with gentle dark eyes, and her voice is everything she remembers, all of the warmth and liveliness intact. “I think we have a great deal to catch up on.”