Cold Whyte Sand

Posted on Sat Jan 13th, 2024 @ 11:41pm by Captain Akiva ben-Avram & Commander Arianna Frost & Lieutenant Commander Leonora Wolf MD

Mission: S1E6: Where Skies End
Location: Ari's Quarters
Timeline: MD 1

---

"Shit, Lazarus did really go overboard," Leah sighed as she red the data packet that Alex had brought them.

The two were sat around the small coffee table, an assortment of nibbles (nuts, cheeses and olives) to one side, a beer each to the other as the two poured over the data.

"Look at this, this ribosomal pattern," Leah pointed out to a string of data.

Ari took a sip of her beer and looked down at the readout, seeing numbers and letters in a pattern she didn't understand. She stared at it for a moment longer, hoping that Leah would put her out of her misery.

Leah waited for another minute longer, then seeing the utter confusion on Ari's face, she chuckled, "sorry, I forget that you are a medical pleb sometimes."

"Fuck you!" Ari chuckled. "What am I looking at?"

Leah stuck her tongue out at her, "right. So what this tells me is they have been experimenting with adjusting how DNA data is transmitted, to re-fire reproduction."

"Uh huh..." Ari took another sip.

"After death. They seem to have had quite a few near successes, then there is a blank entry, then following that there seem to be consistent failures." Leah said as she pulled up another readout. "While fascinating, it's dangerous."

"Dangerous?" Ari leaned back on the couch.

Leah nodded, taking a sip of her own. "All projections and theories so far that I know of, for bringing any living creature back from the dead, in particularly a human, that if you do manage to bring someone back, they will not be the same. There is no guarantee in all data gathered so far on record, that a full re-fire of synapses is possible. Something always stays dead."

"You sound awfully informed for someone who said no to this research, mate." Ari pointed out, unable to shake thoughts going back to Taskmaster. If they proved that Omri ben-Avram was indeed Taskmaster...could he be the data stream that's missing? The one successful specimen?

Leah was right in the other thing too. Taskmaster never seemed right. Empty somehow. Could this be why? Something didn't re-fire?

She snapped out of her thoughts to find her longtime friend giving her an amused, yet inquisitive look. "You going to tell me what you avoided sharing in that breakfast or what? I saw how shocked you were when I confirmed Shaw and when I told you what Lazarus was."

She could tell Leah, Ari knew. The scrambler was on, she could tell her suspicions but her gut was telling her to keep it under wraps, for now at least. Until she managed to ID him. It was too risky, especially if he grew paranoid and started employing psionics in his future encounters. One stray thought could spell doom.

Cal was a psionic himself, so he could shield his thoughts, but the rest of them couldn't. With Jaya and Storr far enough away, their knowledge was safe in the distance.

"No." Ari shook her head, "it's not that I don't trust you, Leah. I will, I promise, soon as I can confirm a lead. I can't risk anyone knowing..."

"Ari, you know I can keep a secret." Leah said, her expression serious.

Ari nodded, "I know. Can your mind at every hour of every day?"

Leah paused, leaning back, "no, it can't. Alright, I won't push ya." Leah raised her hands in surrender. "I'll get this data to Nandi via our safe drop. See if she can look into this missing data stream, or find anyone from Lazarus to talk to."

Ari nodded, taking another sip, "thanks, Leah. Hey,"

"Hmm?"

"Do you have any trustworthy assets that you're sure haven't been tapped or compromised?" Ari asked suddenly.

Leah leaned her head sideways, "a few, but I feel you're asking for something specific."

Ari sighed, "Leana's prep didn't go well...in fact it was a clusterfuck in the making." Frost continued to tell her of the event earlier that day.

"Oh yeah, we have a problem, definitely." Wolf sighed at the end. "Think she'll be able to do it?"

Ari sigh-shrugged, lifting a hand then setting it back on her knee. "I don't know. I hope so, but I can't bank on her any more. I need a backup plan."

Leah sighed, pausing for a moment, took another sip and then nodded. "I know someone...I'll reach out and see if they're still listening. No promises but if I hear back, I'll let you know ASAP."

Ari nodded, "thanks mate. I owe you one."

The doors parted via a command override and Akiva walked in. "Hello, ladies," he said amiably, then noted the scrambler. "Down to business, I see. Good enough. I could use an update."

Leah's eyebrows went up, but she contained the thoughts that rushed into her mind before nodding to Akiva, "sir. Wherever you got this goldmine on Lazarus...thank the asset who got it." She tapped on the PADD. "It looks like they got close, or succeeded at bringing someone back, or near enough but the file in question is missing."

Ari stood up and motioned over to the free seat. "I've got snacks and I've got tea as well as beer." She motioned over to a small cooler. "Leah says that after the missing file all subsequent attempts to re-fire synapses have an increasing degree of failure."

"If they succeeded, then why was the project shut down?" Akiva asked. "One would think that if someone created some kind of superblood that could reverse death and provide clinical immortality, that technology would become commonplace and not put on the shelf."

Leah shook her head, "one would think." She downed the rest of her beer before setting it down and continuing. "The problem is, everything we know to date about bringing the dead back to life suggests it's never a full process. That, and as with any scientific project, you can't base the success of it on one sample. You need confirmation before any scientific body will deem it credible."

"To err on the side of paranoia...who's to say the project was shut down by the scientists?" Ari came back with a chilled bottle of lemon tea and handed it to Akiva, then sat back down. "Who's to say it's not the experiment who shut it down?"

Leah looked over at her silently, unable to formulate the simultaneous belief and disbelief she felt.

Given the location where they were standing and the mandate it held to contain cosmic and/or technological horrors, that was not an unreasonable question. "Fair enough," Akiva conceded. "So this zombie person is on the loose and committing crimes against the Federation?"

"Let's let Nandi find that out for us, eh?" Leah suggested as she stood up. "I'll go set this data up for a secure drop off for her. I'll let you know if my asset sings back for backup."

She felt disturbed at the direction of this conversation and needed time to process, as much as they all did. If Ari's theory is true, how was Taskmaster connected to it all?

Ari nodded, "alright. Thanks, Leah, make sure you erase it afterward. We have a copy that we'll store in the data safe."

Wolf nodded. "Good night, Captain."

"Good night," Akiva said, returning the nod. As Leah left, Akiva realized he was alone with Ari in her quarters. It was still business. But it was off the books business. That didn't help much. "So are you going to tell me whatever it was Leah wasn't supposed to hear?"

Ari sighed and sat down on the couch, barefoot legs crossed, bottle of beer in her hand. "Surgery went well..." She said before uncapping the small bottle, and taking a sip. "T'Bela found a tissue deposit behind my right eye but assures me it's nothing to worry about."

Then she took another sip and sighed.

"Sebastian said it's become noticable that Taskmaster's acting weird. He's sidelining members of Castermer One, not pulling them on ops anymore, he's off kilter, not the focused hardass he used to be. He's even suggested that he may be picking us off from the sidelines..." Ari swallowed hard at the thought. "Taskmaster has also blacklisted Joriel...after he apparently killed Zora on the Odyssey."

Akiva nodded in regards to the ocular mass. Those were particularly common on Hebron Colony where surgery was kept to a minimum, so he knew not to worry. When Ari started dropping codewords, though, he put his hand up. "Wait, now. Joriel, Zora, Odyssey? I'm going to need you to explain those to me, Ari."

Ari shuffled a little to face Akiva full on. She was wearing casual, maroon, lose pants and a short sleeved, black t-shirt. "You remember about the agent I told you we sent as backup to Kaz? Cassandra Thorn, aka Zora, she was part of Castermer One with us. Just after I first got here, we embedded her on the USS Odyssey under Tavis Inahri. I cleared Kaz of suspicion in my investigation. But with him out in the cold, we needed a way to communicate. When he went GQ, and the Odyssey went after him, we figured that was the best way to back him up." Frost sighed and took another gulp of the beer. "And then I find out that he killed her. That the report on it was presented to everyone but me while I was planning the Donnager op."

"So... you knew Kaz from before?" Akiva asked, shaking his head. "That's news to me, I think. No, wait, I recall it now. Back when Teejay recognized his brother. All right, moving on." He rubbed his forehead and tried to get it straight. "A ship was sent into the GQ to chase down Kaz after he went AWOL—" Despite their differences, Akiva still refused to call him a deserter. "—and he wound up killing the Castermer observer on the Odyssey. I might need to reach out to the Captain and find out the full story... if he's willing to give it."

Ari grinned. There was that genious brain of his. She loved it! She cleared her throat in an attempt to will the thoughts away. "Exactly what I was thinking. Although, I did a quick check, his XO, Commander Hawkins is in range, Captain Inahri is on the other side of the Quadrant at the moment. I was going to ask if you could give them a call, rather than me...thanks."

That said, she unfurled her legs and took a cracker and a slice of cheese and motioned over to the laptop on the coffee table.

The flash of leg had revealed a tattooed ankh on Ari's ankle. Akiva bit his lip and tried not to think about other tattoos and where they might be located. "I, uh,I could do that." He cleared his throat. "Pulling rank might even make it a little easier, possibly."

Ari nodded and took an olive. "Thanks. I don't wanna risk touching the report, just in case he's got wires on it. We need to find out what he can tell us about that situation. I can ask the questions if you like, if you make the call?"

"That would be good." Akiva vigorously nodded a few times and avoided direct eye contact until he regained control of his thoughts. "That would be very helpful."

An eyebrow raised as she noted the slight change in demeanour. He clearly needed a minute, she could tell, but not why. So, she brought the laptop closer so it sat in the middle so they could both view the screen equally and tapped in a set of commands.

"Okay, just needs your codes. Just make sure he secures the line on his end as well before we talk," Ari instructed.

"Oh, we're doing this now?" Akiva chuckled nervously and cleared his throat again. "Perfect. Let's do it. No time like the present." He input his codes manually and let her set up the connection.

Ari chuckled and took another sip of her beer. It took a while before the symbol on the screen changed.

After awhile, the Starfleet chevron changed to the stone faced image of a stern man with recessed Klingon ridges. His nearly black eyes were unblinking.

"Hello, Captain," the other man said, noting Akiva's rank pips on his collar. "The code that came up has a theta in it. I take it we have a mutual interest."

Akiva smirked. "You could say that. I'll need you to secure your end before we discuss it."

"Already done, Captain," said the other man. "Soon as I saw the encryption."

Apparently this Commander Hawkins was no fool.

"Fantastic. In that case, Commander Hawkins, allow me to state that I am Captain Akiva ben-Avram and I have some questions for you."

"I figured," Hawk said tersely. "I'll help how I can on the recommendation of a mutual ally who has vouched for you."

Akiva glanced off screen at Ari, waiting for her cue.

"Commander, I'm Commander Arianna Frost. I used to work with both Kazyah Linn and Cassandra Thorn." Arianna leaned forward.

Mutual ally, he'd said. Suddenly two directions became one, and this was gravely concerning.

"We heard through the grapevine that Linn killed Thorn. Any details you can share about this?" Arianna said, elbows on her knees, fingers steepled together.

"Officially? Linn killed Thorn to effect his escape." Hawk stared at Ari with a measuring look. "Forgive me, Commander, but what grapevine do you mean?"

"Grapevine where the Odyssey report is classified up to your eyeballs, Commander, and Linn is blacklisted after I officially cleared him before he left Memory Theta." Arianna said, her tone serious. "I trained and sent Cassandra to assist him. So for him to have killed her makes zero sense. If anything, her orders were to let him go if he ever got captured. So if you've got the unofficial version handy, I'd love to hear it."

Hawk stared at her intensely before looking back at Akiva. "I'm afraid that is on a need-to-know basis, so why don't you elaborate on your need to know."

"Because we have reason to suspect that her real commanding officer has gone astray," Akiva said. "Because I served with Kazyah Linn for years and despite his dubious personality traits I know he is loyal to the Federation. I don't know the precise details of his...his departure but I know it was for the greater good. If you are able to provide corroborative information for any of that, it may help us save lives."

"Damned Inahri..." Hawk muttered. "When we apprehended Linn, our ship was attacked by interdimensional megafauna that almost destroyed us. Thorn seized that opportunity to remove Linn from the brig and attempt an escape with him. He killed her because he wished to remain in our custody. I didn't believe him... Not until we faced off and nearly killed one another. He got the upper hand and rather than finish me off, he called for a med team to get us patched up. It was after that when he told us his version. A clandestine organization within Starfleet is committing treason against the Federation and wanted him to join. He refused and has killed every agent of said conspiracy that has come after him." Throwing a challenging look at Ari, he said, "If you trained Thorn, then I can only assume you are in a similar position as Linn...or you have compromised the Captain and I've damned us all. Tell me which, Commander Frost."

Ari looked over at Akiva. "Fuck...this is real." Frost sighed and looked back at Hawk. "We've been suspecting something similar on our end. Either the Black Nagus or another group. Did he...tell you anything about the group he was working for? Kaz, I mean?"

"Negative." Hawk shook his head. "For a cagey bastard, he told us everything he knew in hopes we would believe him. I still almost didn't. All he said he knew about this shadow network was they answered to someone they called the Director."

"What happened to Kazyah?" asked Akiva. "Where is he now?"

Hawk shook his head again. "We don't know by design. We let him go in a stolen freighter and have been told by Admiral Tau not to return to Federation space without him. We've been attempting to gather evidence for his conspiracy ever since but haven't turned up much. Captain Inahri is off doing a dead drop now with an away team in hopes that Linn has had better luck."

When Hawk mentioned Admiral Tau, Akiva slowly turned his head to face Ari.

"What is it?" Hawk asked very pointedly. "Whatever I said meant something to you. Tell me."

Ari locked eyes with Akiva momentarily before turning to Hawk again. "We suspect that the leader of the team Cass and I and Kaz were a part of has gone off script, as I said, the Nagus or another group we haven't managed to confirm yet. For your own sake the less you know of what happened here, the better, in case we all have eyes on us. I can confirm that there is an official investigation going on." She began to say, wringing her hands together as she spoke. "We also suspect that my boss, the off-script, is just a foreman to someone with very long fingers. Tau is one of our suspects. We know that Tau and by boss have ties to a ship they formerly served on. We're trying to eliminate him as a suspect. Did he tell you why he wants Linn? And are we talking dead or alive?"

Hawk let out a chuckle. The more they talked, the less formal he seemed. "He just bragged about his personal network of assets and contacts being a valuable commodity to the Director but he might as well been talking about his dick. I don't think he trusted us with his real suspicions." The mention of Tau being a suspect didn't make the half-Klingon flinch a bit. Evidently similar suspicions were held there. "Who is your boss?"

"A cleanskin known as Taskmaster," Ari said, noticing the change in him. Perhaps they weren't as alone as it seemed? "It's an Intel designation. We're trying to ID him for charges to stick. It's a process when you're trying not to tip your hand. There has to be a reason Kaz killed Cass. From what you've told us...I'm forced to conclude she'd been flipped. Question is when? On your ship? Or before?" Frost ran her hands through her hair in frustration. "And the fact that he kept the file from me...." Ari looked over at Akiva again.

"I can't help there," Hawk said. "She had all of us fooled until the very end. But Inahri did mention that Tau claimed Thorn was one of his people." He went ahead and said what they were all thinking. "Not shaping up well for Tau...

Arianna shook her head, "neither here nor there. With him being head of OSI it could mean anything. But did he say anything else? Did Cass ever give anything away or act odd?"

"She had the Chief of Security wrapped around her finger," Hawk said, "but you didn't hear that from me. Up until her betrayal, she was the picture of a psychological profiler turned counselor."

Ari sighed, "I'm sorry." The russo-australian sighed again. "You and whomever you have with you, Commander, be careful and be vigilant. This may come to a head with anyone even remotely tied to this. It will definitely come to a head with us. If we need to contact eachother for whatever reason - the codeword is Endabash. If a need to run - Melissarra." Ari said the two words that first came to mind.

"I violated my oath of service in hopes of saving the Federation from traitors who desecrated theirs," Hawk said with a grave tone that promised violence. "There was only ever one way this ends."

"So did we, Commander. If are to take them down, we need to be alive to do it." Arianna leaned back in her seat. "Good luck and hope to see you at the other end when this is done."

"Banzai," said Hawk in flawless Japanese. "Captain, Commander."

The communication disconnected.

"I'm not sure what we expected," Akiva said. "But that wasn't it."

Ari shook her head and reached for her beer again. "No, it was way more." Her voice was hoarse as she spoke the words and washed them away with the bitter, hoppy liquid. "The Taskmaster, the Director..." she trailed off, leaned back as she was, staring off at an invisible spot beyond the coffee table.

This group had been active for a while...which meant they were already late to the game.

"Fuuuuuccckkkkk.........." a silent curse escaped her. "Fuckity fuck fuck!"

Akiva was getting used to her outbursts, particularly her use of her favorite word. "I suppose that could summarize the situation."

She took a long swig of her beer, set the drink aside and run her hands through her hair a few times while taking a deep breath. Then she turned around and sat cross legged again, facing Akiva fully, her hair a bit disheveled as a result.

"Alright, we go on with what with have been doing so far. We leave Hawkins and his lot to do their bit. Worst come to worst, we can direct authorities to them if we need to." She said, speaking again with her hands as much as with her words. "But with this scope, we need to start thinking about bringing the rest of Field in and we need to start the official investigation into Khaiel's disappearance. If I can show enough probability, I can flag it as a potential Nagus grab and request him to take the investigation. He has to if I show enough probability. And if he did grab him, I can read it, if not me at least Cal can try and pick something up." Words rushed out of her.

"Slow down, Ari," said Akiva, "you're getting ahead of yourself and me along with you. Are you saying you want to lure your old boss here in order to glad him into giving something away?" His brow furrowed with skepticism. "I'm not sure whether that's a good idea. Would it work on you if the roles reversed?"

Ari spread her hands out a little and nodded her head. "Yeah, I mentioned this last night! If I can lure him to home soil we can try and get a DNA transference or some sort so we can try and ID him. Would it work on me? If he was clever enough about it, possibly!" She took a deep breath, "I can't go to him without a compelling enough reason...I wouldn't even know where to go, the base would have moved by now. And I am not meeting him anywhere else either for this because to be honest I may not come back from it if he susses me out. At least here, I can control the environment. I just have to be cleverer and sell the story better." Green eyes caught brown. "Do you have a better idea?"

He really didn't. Akiva shrugged and admitted as much. "Just... keep some careful in your cleverness." The mention of last night made the haze in his mind clear a little. She had said some very kind things to him. "I don't want to lose you."

His words made her planning brain grind to a halt and her expression softened. "Careful is what helped me survive this long." She said softly.

If she wasn't careful now, it could lead to outcomes neither of them were ready for. His words warmed her heart. She didn't want to lose him either. Ari did remember what happened last night when she told him how she saw him...how she felt about him. For all intents and purposes.

She also knew she was right. Not yet. He hasn't found himself yet. Not yet.

"Saysomethingsaysomethingsaysomething!" Her brain screamed at her, yet she felt stuck there in that moment.

In the end she gave up on words and forced herself to move, so she reached over and took another olive and a piece of cheese and popped it in her mouth before chasing it down with the rest of the beer from the bottle.

"I suppose you've got a point," Akiva said at length. Why was it so hard not to enjoy watching her put food in her mouth and chug a bottle? Could she tell? What was the matter with him? Something nagged at the back of his brain which insisted on being seen and heard, but... something in his gut told him to let it be. Perhaps it was HaShem's wisdom telling him not to disrupt the tentative balance the two of them had struck in their... friendship? Familial relationship? Akiva didn't know which word to call it because the word which felt most natural could not apply. "What do we do now?" While the question was not intended to be laced with dual meanings, it nevertheless was.

Ari set the bottle down and swallowed. It was a perfectly legit question. But...

She leaned her head sideways and studied him for a moment. There were two answers to that question. Which one was he really asking? Her gut knew the answer. The answer her brain refused to acknowledge.

"I don't have all the answers, Akiva. God, I wish I did," she said finally as she leaned back against the couch, head propped against one hand. "I wish I could tell you what the thing to do was. I wish I could tell myself."

Nodding in acknowledgement, Akiva said, "So we'll just stick with the plan, such as it is, and hope for the best." His black eyes swelled like saucers. "I trust you, Ari."

"I literally just said all that, mate." She couldn't help but note, with tired amusement and a nod of acknowledgement. The usual platitudes felt hollow and she couldn't bring herself to say them. Instead, she went for, "I trust you too."

"But I'm not the one risking my life for the chance at a lead," Akiva said, closing one lane of conversation and focusing entirely on the practical one without any romantic subtext. "Thank you all the same."

Relief flooded through her at his words. This was the way it had to go, it had to be. So, resolutely, she nodded. "It's my job. I'll get a start on this in the morning once my head clears and I've had time to formulate it. Do we know when Tau's arriving for his not so secret mission?" Frost straightened out and unfurled her legs over the edge of the couch.

"No, Tau never discloses his travel plans," Akiva said. "I was shocked that he put us on standby a few days in advance. Even that is irregular for him. Whatever he wants must be important."

Frost nodded, "oh well, we best get to prep then. We can't afford to waste time. After he's been and gone, I'll set up the lure."

"Good..." Akiva gave a pensive nod. "Regarding Khaiel, how worried should we be? We are not having a stellar track record with computer specialists. Isaiah. Grace. Now Khaiel. We may need to run some security diagnostics, especially after that bizarre incident with the DTI agent."

Arianna nodded, popping another olive in her mouth, "agreed. I can get on that with Mayhew. May need your help with Khaiel - my forensic tracing is only so good. We'll need to scour logs, comms, the lot..."

"Sure. I'll help however I can." It had been awhile since Akiva had done any deep dives into computer logs but he was happy to contribute however he could. "Fortunately, I think the station's systems are probably safe since Khaiel disappeared from the Phantom, so I'll probably start there."

Ari nodded, "best advice I can give you is, if it looks sus go after it, chase it until you know why. Attempting to put an explanation without evidence is where so many investigations get screwed. If for example," she took another piece of cheese and popped it into her mouth. "If something looks deliberate, follow the trail until you can prove or disprove it. Don't apply probability until you have a lead. That's how we build a case for him to look at. I know you said your JAG experience is limited, but think of it as a case you're looking to build, or inversely, collapse."

"My father is a rabbi. That was how we spent most holidays growing up," Akiva said. "I might have become a legal expert if I did not get along with machines better than people."

Ari leaned her head sideways a bit, a soft smile on her face, "I'd ask you to tell me more, but I know its a sore spot." She added softly. "My folks would like you, and my brother. Sussing shit out is in Frost blood."

"So you're telling me I'd get interrogated at first meeting," Akiva said a little skeptically. "How exciting."

"Nah, they'd lull you into a false sense of security, then start the interrogation." She replied evenly, eyes smiling, waiting for him to get the joke.

"Mhmm." Akiva knew he was being teased but he still couldn't help but imagine the scenario anyway. "I've never known any sense of security, false or otherwise, so maybe that will finally be an advantage for me."

Frost chuckled, "if we ever got to have an opportunity to do that. The job being what it is and all." She said, willing herself not to delve further into the heartbreaking fact that he'd never known any kind of security. That was a terrible way to exist. Maybe sometime in the future they could revisit that conversation. Not now. "Besides, I haven't seen them since the accident in '86. We talked a few times since, but visiting has not been in the cards."

"Still, you have a place to go back," Akiva said glumly. "That is blessing enough, even without a recent visit."

Frost nodded, and grabbed the last piece of cheese and another olive. "It is." She popped the two in her mouth, more as a way to create a barrier, rather than actual desire for another bite. "Tell you what, if an opportunity presents itself, and we're both still alive and here, you can come with. It's an old style aussie country pub, the Fig and Olive, they've got rooms and all."

She reached over and opened up another beer bottle, flicking the top off easily and took a sip. Ari didn't really need or want another beer but last time she offered some sort of comfort things that shouldn't have happened again happened again. As much as she was open to it, he needed time. He would need time if she managed to prove that Taskmaster was his dead brother Omri.

"Never stayed in a pub," Akiva said. "Sounds fun." The condition of still being alive was a bit of rain on the parade though. "I suppose it's something to look forward to amidst all this mess we're in."

Ari nodded, "you've got to have something that brings you joy and hope." She said as she took another sip and looked over at him. "That tea is probably lukewarm by now." She motioned over to the unopened bottle of lemon iced tea on the coffee table.

"Ah." Akiva took the bottle, popped the cap in the crook of his elbow, and chugged the entire thing in several gulps. "Thank you. I was getting thirsty." He set the empty bottle down and gave Ari a questioning look of 'what now'?

Ari nodded and shuffled a little so that she could tuck her legs between them, creating yet another barrier. She didn't quite want this evening to end, yet it was probably a good idea to bring it to a close. The problem was, she enjoyed the company, even without the emotional and physical subtext, she just enjoyed his presence, she enjoyed their talks. It felt right. It felt peaceful.

Yet in her mind she could also picture herself leaning over, pressing her lips against his, nudging him backwards as she did so and climbing on top of him.

"Fuckin' stop, Arianna!" Frost chided herself mentally, feeling warm all of a sudden, all over.

"Did you get to see the bubs before they left, by the way? They named the girl Chelsea, so she's obviously my favorite." She said finally, hoping that little hitch in her voice went unnoticed.

"Really? REALLY really? Bang up job there, genious." The mental chiding continuing.

"Yes, I saw them off." Akiva stiffened slightly as he fought off a sullen demeanor. Children. The true blessings of HaShem, like arrows in the quiver. But what happens when an arrow gets broken? The quiver is never the same."Storr and Jaya are very fortunate." He opened his mouth to say something else, thought better of it, and sighed. "And... they will be missed on their extended leave."

Arianna felt bad instantly, the little changes in his expression and tone clear. In an attempt to change tone of the charged atmosphere, she mentioned the one thing she should have known would have made it worse.

Mentally, she kicked herself, "I'm sorry, I should have been more sensitive in mentioning it." She said quietly and sat up straight and looked over at him in sympathy.

"Don't be sorry." Akiva summoned a smile despite the pain in his eyes. "Your concern for others is very endearing. I'm very grateful for our little, growing family, as unorthodox as it may be..."

"Oh to hell with it..." Ari sighed internally and shifted a little closer to him and slid an arm around his shoulders , gently tugging him closer, her other arm looping closer on the other side. "It's okay...." a whisper as she pulled him closer.

Akiva couldn't help but tremble at her touch. "No." He shook his head in defiance of her assurances. "No, it's not. I've lost a child. I've lost a wife. I've lost my household. I see now why my father became the monster I saw him as. He blamed me for Omri. At least that was how it seemed. Then I rebelled and was disowned. Now I'm alone, adrift, without a home or a prayer because I am a stranger in my father's house. How could I ever have the blessings that..." His words were briefly cut off with a sharp wince that made him suck wind. "I had one blessing in the making and it was taken from me like Iyov, and like Iyov I am left to curse the day of birth!"

Or, at least, that was the most likely interpretation of what he said. Most of the words were spoken through a torrent of weeping straight into Ari's shoulder.

Arianna held onto him tight, rubbing his back gently with one hand, her other hand cradling the back of his head. Her heart went out to him. Sure, she herself had not known the pain of this kind and level, but she could imagine and she could understand what it all meant to him. This was not the place to say anything though. Sure, she had words, she almost always had words, but words were of no help now. Just being here, now, offering to share the burden.

So, she held him tighter, head leaned against his as she offered him her strength.

Normally when he was tempted by thoughts of this very position and scenario, Akiva's thoughts turned lurid. He'd banished a few not long ago. But, now, despite held by a woman for whom he felt deep attraction, his heart was so numb by the flushing grief and despair that he couldn't entertain any such thought. This was a moment of pure expression, comfort exchanged between loved ones, and through it Akiva found enough healing to release his contempt for his own life. Part of him wanted to pull away, but he couldn't, so he made himself comfortable. He shifted until Ari was no longer bearing much of his weight and could easily wriggle free, and then he rested his head on her chest while the worst of his trembling subsided. Strong hands gripped her wrists as if afraid she would pull away, even though he wouldn't resist in the slightest if she had. Eyes closed, he tried to blind himself to the nuances of the complicated situation and soak in the moment's peace before duty and propriety snuffed it out.

In truth Ari was rather surprised by the fact that he wasn't running away from her yet. Even more surprised was she that he actually managed to relax a little and shift. Letting go right now was not an option. Not in so much that she felt trapped there, but that he needed this to process. It occurred to her then, as she leaned her chin on top of his head that this was perhaps a part of his journey of finding himself. The process of letting go and making peace. So she adjusted a little so she was leaned against the backrest and continued to offer her support. He would need to be the one to guide his own healing, and if it required her, she would be there, no questions asked no conditions given.

In a way it was a cathartic moment for her aswell, where her own feelings for him settled and knew what was needed rather than wanted.

"Arianna..." It wasn't often that Akiva spoke her full name, but he did it then. "Don't let go... Please."

Ari unfurled her legs and propped them on the coffee table, to better distribute the pressure, and also to alleviate some aches that had started to form. Alas, neither of them were spring chickens any more. Her arms remained in place, the grip a little tighter. She leaned her head a little and leaned it against the top of his head. It was a herculean effort though to settle her heartbeat which jumped just that touch as he spoke the words.

The conundrum again to convey the right meaning.

Just be honest, ya numpty! Ari chided herself.

"I'm here." She murmured into his hair, "for as long as you'll have me."

Always, he thought. But in the end he said nothing. He didn't want to speak untrue because time might make a liar of him yet.

Physical and mental exhaustion began to seep in minutes later and the world felt that tad more peaceful as it faded away from conscious thought.