by Jane Seaton

Disclaimer

Paramount owns the props and characters. The uses I put them to are my responsibility.

Wish you were here.

Cliché, huh? I mean it. There are a couple ensigns here who are being given a real hard time by the instructors. You'd love it.

I'd love it.

I can half close my eyes and see you set your shoulders and buckle down to do what the lame brains tell you, with that 'what commissar sold you those stripes?' expression of yours.

One of the ensigns, English kid, just couldn't get the hang of some maneuvre. In the end, the instructor who was taking the session (tall, redheaded woman, towered over me) lost patience with him staring at the deck and saying 'Yes, ma'am, no ma'am' to his boots. She reached out with this incredibly long, scarlet taloned finger, and just tipped his chin up so he had to look at her. Then she smiled, and shook her head, and I could see he felt like something smeared on the deck plates, and he'd do anything to just have her accept him into the ranks of the half-way sentient. He'd have licked her boots. He'd have offered to scrub the deck in her cabin. He'd have hand washed her underwear.

And when she decided she'd humiliated him enough for one day, and turned her back on him, he heaved this big sigh of relief and didn't meet anyone's eyes the rest of the shift.

I don't think I could live with myself if I made someone feel that low and didn't offer them some kind of a step back up afterwards.

The way the captain does, half a smile, or finding an excuse to notice something you've done better than okay, and you just glow for him.

I would like to...

You'd like this course, although the lady with the fingernails might freeze your blood. You'd get more out of it than I am. I've been promoted to unofficial demonstrator. Good for the ego, seeing their eyes widen when I perform the seemingly impossible, before we let them in on the trade secrets, and then they're all doing it, full of themselves, cutting corners too close and shaving the safety margins down to zero. Then they get hauled up short and chewed out. Do you remember that time you were bringing the Tycho back in and we had to put the shields up because the locals had launched a barrage of thermo-nuclear missiles at us? I told you to take the shuttle into the asteroid belt, you said you could make it back to the E before they got close. "Let me concentrate!" you said, and cut the commlink dead. I was terrified you weren't going to make it in time. And when you did, I think you were expecting to get called up to the bridge to face the music. I think that was the first time I realised the captain was wise to you. He sent me down to the shuttle deck.

That uncertainty in your eyes, the not knowing how deep the shit was. I wanted to stand there all day and watch you sweat. Then you smiled and tried to turn it into a joke.

I don't know where the words came from, but I could feel my tongue laying you open like a lash.

You were almost in tears when I finished, but you were still looking me in the eye.

That rush of power, that feeling of domination, I wanted so much to tip you over the edge, to force you to look away, to look down. And I couldn't. I looked away. "And you scared me," I said. "Have you any fucking idea how much you scared all of us?"

Then you looked ashamed, and I wanted to hug you, hold you, wrap you up and...

We've been doing some formation flying. It's been intense, finding out if we trust each other enough to risk the difficult stuff. Partly it's trust, partly it's just knowing the other pilots, knowing their limitations, how they'll react if something goes wrong. The ones who'll bail out and the ones who'll stick it out as long as you will, waiting to see who'll crack first.

That can get to be a dangerous game. I couldn't help wondering how far you trust me. If you'd follow my lead. If you'd bail the moment I suggested the game at all, or if you'd look me in the eye and dare me to see how far we can go.

I know you trust me with your life, Pavel. Most days.

Would you trust me with your heart?

How about your soul?