Not Quite The Welcome

Posted on Sat Dec 3rd, 2022 @ 8:57am by Ensign Nandi Chakma & Lieutenant Commander Leonora Wolf MD & Lieutenant Teejay

2,882 words; about a 14 minute read

Mission: Season 1 Interlude II (E5.5)
Location: Shuttle One | Tartarus orbit
Timeline: Either ID 1

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As the other group left, Leah remained back. Her professional side was aching to dig straight into research and get to the bottom of this event that had just hit them. The Leah below the Wolf knew that she was needed elsewhere at the moment. Or at least needed to make an offer of support to Teejay.

"I know you said you need to be alone to perform the rites, but I can help you get him there and pilot the shuttle if you want to focus on the process?" She offered quietly, not quite sure how far was okay to go in this delicate situation.

Accessing a PADD, Nandi entered a few commands. "I've reserved the shuttle for a local survey and risk assessment of stellar gas pockets. Just make sure you take some readings while you..." She trailed off as she realized how insensitive that sounded. "Or I could do that for you while... during... you know."

Cracks were already starting to show in Teejay's cool exterior, the effort of holding back all those emotions clearly taking its toll. A stray tear conflicted with an angry frown that drove lines into his brow, but his voice was under control as he looked to Leah and started to work his mental and verbal way through her offer of assistance.

"I'd like that," he admitted first up, words clear and genuine while his expression confused the hell out of the mess of feelings below the surface. "Thanks." The weight of his brother across his shoulder in a fireman lift was inconsequential in comparison to the boiling mass of emotional baggage wrapped up in this recent bombshell. "I... I'm not gonna be great company," Teejay admitted openly. His dark eyes gleamed with heartfelt grief, tears unbidden but slowly escaping and he made no apology for his current mood.

As Nandi spoke, the half-Vulcan couldn't bring himself to look directly at the young woman. He didn't have the energy to split his attention between the two women, so simply focused on Leah and pushed on forwards as best he could. "I... er... I need to get moving," Teejay said, shifting what remained of his brother to be as comfortable a burden as possible and extending his free hand to Leah. A strong force of support beside him couldn't hurt, right?

"You don't owe anything to anybody," Nandi blurted. Normally she would not be so forward with even a junior grade lieutenant, but... well, what with their anti-conspiracy, Teejay had become more than that now.

Leah smiled at both as she steepled her fingers through Teejay's and squeezed his hand, "indeed you don't." She said, "Nandi, can you plot us a route that will take us away from prying eyes?"

Teejay squeezed back, but he couldn't meet Leah's eyes as he did so, not right now. That wasn't on Wolf.

Someone needed to keep their head in the game, and it would have to be either her or Nandi. Chakma, however, only had so much experience, so Leah took that burden onto herself.

"Yes, Commander," said Nandi as she assumed the pilot's seat in the shuttle. She wasn't the greatest helmswoman who ever lived, but this was a pretty clear cut case of A to B and back again. "Honestly, it feels good to be doing something. I've just felt so helpless and useless ever since I arrived here."

"You're doing well, Nandi." Leah said as she and Teejay stopped at the back of the shuttle. "Do you want me to stay with you here? I have no problem being with Nandi up front and erecting a privacy field so noone sees you." She said to Teejay, squeezing his hand a little harder.

It was as if they were speaking through water for all the sense they made to Teejay, their words lost to the space around him rather than soaking into his brain. He placed Miton's body down across two seats, wrapped as it was in protective sheeting, the ubiquitous bodybag set-up. It felt... unreal and yet extra heavy... not the corpse itself, but the moment. The time he was wading through like emotional mud, pulling him down, dragging him relentlessly forward. He stopped, stared at that baggage and allowed himself to cry.

Through those tears interspersed with sharp inhales, Teejay managed to speak. "Stay," he answered Leah, brokenly. "Stay until... until we get there." Then, then he needed to be alone. Private. Just him and his brother and the ritual needed, the words, the actions, the details he would have to repeat to their mother once this was over. She would be angry to be excluded, but what choice did he have. "Thanks..." Teejay managed to add, his voice a strained whisper.

"I'll join you later Nandi." Leah said to the young woman at the helm. "Computer, erect a privacy field, sound and visual to full." As the effect came into play, Leah stepped over to Teejay again, placed a hand on his shoulder and gently nudged him to turn towards her. "I'm here, Tee." She said softly, arms reaching around to embrace him.

Silence surrounded their conversation and Teejay barely even noticed. He felt Leah's fingers rest upon his shoulder though, and the subtle shift of her strength asking him to share his emotions. Emotions he wanted to lock down. Emotions he needed to express. Which was worse? He didn't know anymore, but she knew everything he did about this clusterfuck of a situation, so there was really nothing to lose but his pride. And pride wasn't dear enough to him not to sacrifice.

"It hurts," he said, and turned to Leah, head lowered to lightly rest against her upper chest. "I don't know how to..." his voice broke and the tears followed in a soft, jagged shudder.

"I know," she whispered back, knowing he would hear her as she kept hold of him resting her head against the back of his. "Whatever feels right, I'm here regardless. You're not alone."

"Cuddle?" Teejay asked, his voice hopeful and his gaze unseen as they stood against each other so. "I think a cuddle would feel right," he added, and somewhere in the internal emotional maelstrom his tenacity - that need to survive no matter what - wrapped about his inner child.

Not quite what she'd expected, but she'd promised she'd be there and do what he wanted. "Sure..." she replied quietly, rubbing the back of his shoulders a little. "Show me," Leah added, not quite sure what the half-Vulcan considered a cuddle.

Her experience, or rather knowledge of cuddling was limited to human and cardassian. Cardassian cuddling was hot, humid and very rocky - so very appropriate for the lizardly behavior and mentality of the former enemy of the Alpha Quadrant.

While she was doing her best to focus on her scans and nothing else, Nandi couldn't help but cast curious glances toward the privacy screen. What were they doing in there?

Unconvential as Teejay's mix of human and Vulcan DNA went, he considered cuddling to be exactly what he needed in those rare moments of feeling close to someone and needing emotional support. Repressed emotion was common with his mother's people, dangerous levels reached far too easily when Vulcans relinquished a carefully policed inner control. As for his father's genetic recipe, Teejay had no idea, but he liked to think the man had at least given him something worthwhile in the great lottery of life before he'd vanished from his son's life.

Show me. She'd said. So he did. He wrapped his arms about Leah in a close, full-on bear hug that pushed their bodies as near as clothed individuals could get. As the taller of their duo, Teejay cradled Leah's head against his neck with a warm hand and pressed his own face right in against hers. His right leg snuck in to hook around her left and he pulled them in against each other, gifting the air a gentle sigh as their proximity slightly restricted his ability to fully exhale. "Okay?" he whispered close to Leah's ear. "Sometimes I'm told I'm too rough," he added. And such as it was, his strength was not Vulcan level, but beyond normal humans. "I don't want to hurt you...." That thought spiralled him back to the way he'd hurt Frost and Teejay immediately stepped away again, isolating himself swiftly.

It was a strange experience, such a bone-crushing, yet intimate embrace. Yes, there was a bit of pain involved there but it was overshadowed by the feeling of connection and the closeness of the moment. It awoke things in her she'd not felt since...since Arija. Leah didn't have a chance to reply to his question before she was back on the ground again and wondering what happened.

"Tee..." Leah reached out slowly, "it's okay. You didn't hurt me."

Goosebumps danced over her skin at the memory of the embrace in a pleasant wave.

"Hey..."

Teejay raised one eyebrow and regarded Leah from his shortly 'safe' distance away. He softly sighed, then pulled on the warm honesty that had served him well so far. "Yeah, I did," he countered, lightly but firmly. "Sometimes my brain forgets what my body is capable of." Vulcan vs human DNA maybe, mind over matter and all that. His next words were spoken with quiet respect rather than criticism or complaint. "I can't trust you if you don't tell me the truth."

"I am telling you the truth, Teejay." Leah gave him a shrug, "there's pain that hurts, and there's a form of pain that does other things." She said with a cheeky raise of a brow. "If you went too far, I would have let you know. I'm not afraid to stand up for myself. Okay? I promise, if I'm hurt, you will know and in as nice a way as I can put it, because I know you don't mean to do it. I'm more than happy to keep you tethered, if you want me to."

Then she stepped over to him, "now at the risk of sounding overly forward and inappropriate and...aw fuck it. I like a bit of pain." She said as she looked up at him. "And I'm also a Doctor who's very good at anatomy, so we need to trust eachother, okay?"

He remained uncertain on that aspect of truth in Leah's response, right up until the 'aw fuck it' section of the woman's little speech. Up until then, Teejay had been concerned, the emotions spiralling with that ongoing hurt and pain of loss and the proximity of his deceased, murdered brother. But her voice, those words, and that brutal honesty? They sparked a primal reply. Deep base drum beats of his heart spiked adrenaline despite everything else happening around him. Had it not been for the need to complete a funeral, had it not been for Nandi - isolated unfairly up front, had it not been for the events of the last few days...

Hell, even in spite of them, he considered it. Hardwired need fought emotional overload.

"Tethered?" Teejay asked, dark eyes wide under raised brows. "To be continued," he added, the flash of impish smile definitely inappropriate in their current environ. "I must see to my brother's rites," the half-Vulcan stated, voice mostly level now. "But then..." He pushed past the sorrow and desired happiness to some kind of level ground. "I'm absolutely good to get invested in testing your knowledge of anatomy."

Leah nodded, "of course. I'll join Nandi and you let us know when you're ready to come back, okay?"

There followed a reciprocal nod, and Teejay stood silent for a second, then bowed his head over folded arms and began to quietly whisper words in a language Leah didn't recognise. He didn't move from that position until she'd stepped away, out of reach, then out of sight beyond the privacy field. For how long that intonation continued, Wolf had no real way of knowing, but ninety minutes later the bereaved brother buzzed the forward console from the secondary in back.

"It's done," Teejay said, simply and without overt emotion. Behind and around him now, there was no trace of a body beyond the covering the younger man had placed upon it. That shroud was rolled into a tube and held with reverence in his right hand, a plain silver chain wrapped about the cloth.

"Mainam agne vi daho mābhi śoco māsya tvacaṃ cikṣipo mā śarīram | yadā śṛtaṃ kṛṇavo jātavedo 'them enam pra hiṇutāt pitṛbhyaḥ," Nandi whispered. Her combadge, however, translated her words and repeated them at normal volume. "'Agni, consume him not entirely; afflict him not; scatter not about his skin nor his body; when Jātavedas, you have rendered him mature, then send him to the Ancestral Abodes'.” Blushing furiously, she said, "I'm sorry! It's just a funeral prayer from back home! I didn't mean to impose! Stupid Universal Translator..."

"Don't be," Leah smiled gently at her. "I was praying to the norse gods myself, for a warrior to be accepted into the great hall of Valhalla. Despite the circumstances, he was a warrior." She said, then continued;

“Lo, there do I see my father.
Lo, there do I see my mother,
and my sisters, and my brothers.
Lo, there do I see the line of my people,
Back to the beginning!

Lo, they do call to me.
They bid me take my place among them,
In the halls of Valhalla!
Where the brave may live forever!”

Then she realized Teejay had joined them. "Is there anything we can do?"

"Thanks, m'am," Nandi whispered before turning her attention to Teejay.

Numbed by the words he himself had needed to speak, Teejay barely reacted to the two women's own. Each culture, as he knew only too well, had their own funeral customs and rites, the lingo, the motions and the physical theatre. His were different to his brother's, but he had needed to speak those Vulcan words perfectly, to honour both his fraternal responsibilites and to honour their mother's. That done, he had allowed himself a few private minutes, not entirely for Miton now, but for himself. What he, Teejay, believed in, was complicated. So much death, so many dead, such a vast variety of deceased souls, individuals as complex or as simple as they chose to declare themselves. He suspected that for some time yet, and maybe forever, he would still seek the true words that resonated for him.

Exhausted, he shook his head in response to Leah's question, bowed his head and sighed softly. He had no energy left to make decisions, no requests that seemed to fit either the situation or his mood. All he really wanted now, was not to need to speak of it, and to find some respite in sleep. That last was extreme optimism kicking in somewhere in the vast expanse of his energy desert.

In the place of a verbal answer, Teejay sat himself and the shroud down in a vacant seat, drew his knees up to his chest and leant back against the shuttle's metal wall. How would he tell their mother? And when? When would he be able to visit her?

"Any scientific studies for you to do while we're here, Nandi?" Leah asked as she glanced over at Teejay. "I think we take a few minutes and head back?"

Nandi shook her head. "The surveys were perfunctory. Whoever did all the stellar cartography of the area was exceedingly thorough. There wasn't much to do but check the box."

Leah nodded and then looked over at Teejay. "You ready to go back or would you like to stick around for a bit, Teejay?"

"Let's go back," he said, simply. If they had nothing to do here, then he'd rather not linger in the dust of the moment.

"Aye, sir..." Nandi nodded at the LT and complied just as she would any other superior officer. That was what they were supposed to be doing out here, after all. Just routine surveys, a couple of science and medical officers doing all the mundane things. Not interring a dearly departed victim of a violent criminal conspiracy into the next life. The logs would confirm that if nothing else. Checking the chronometer, Nandi allowed herself a weak, grimacing smile. At least they would be back in time. No need to file redacted logs. So far, that was the only thing to have gone their way.

Should she say something? The silence was deafening. In the holovids, this was the point where somebody had a swell of inspiration that gave them fitting words to cap off such a tragic moment that none of them were allowed to acknowledge outside the shuttle. But this was not a holovid. Real life didn't give you a pat on the back and stretch a moment into eternity until grief was sated. Real life said, Get your ass back to work.

"Preparing to dock," Nandi announced.

And so they did. Each one debarked the shuttle and went about their business as if nothing were out of the ordinary.

 

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