Because...Reasons

Posted on Sat Mar 2nd, 2024 @ 3:28pm by Captain Akiva ben-Avram & Commander Arianna Frost

3,381 words; about a 17 minute read

Mission: S1E6: Where Skies End
Location: Secret Lab | Overwatch Station
Timeline: MD 3 - a little after the team arrives to the Gamma Quadrant

It felt like a lifetime ago since Akiva had first brought Biynah to life. She had originated as a simple virtual assistant that had become a full artificial intelligence thanks to the recursive bootstrapping algorithms within her prime code. It had only seemed right for him to create a body for her. And since her original creation had preceded the Federation ban on building synthetics, Akiva had simply grandfathered her project into that exception. It had been a group effort amongst his old crew. Many people played a part, making Biynah one a kind, a true individual despite her nonbiological state.

In fact, her body had been designed to produce silicon-based flesh through molecular motors in a way not totally dissimilar to cellular reproduction within humans, albeit on a much smaller scale. Akiva was not HaShem. When she gave up her life to save Bynaus and the rest of the Federation computer network dependent on it, Akiva felt part of himself die as well. And then Laena had told him it was over between them because he had her transferred without warning. Akiva had nearly taken his life that day, interrupted only by Biynah's voice talking to him through a subspace transmission.

That had never happened again since. Akiva often wandered into the lab where he kept her mobile frame hidden. The silicon wasn't decaying, not in the manner of flesh. But she still looked lifeless, more mannequin than alive. According to some definitions, she never truly was. Akiva would have argued with him, but now there was little he knew for sure. Laena had lost the baby, making Akiva feel like he had lost two children that the rest of the galaxy would not recognize. It was a burden of grief that he could never explain to others or even fully rationalize to himself.

When he had found out about the rogue DTI agent, a Bynar no less, who had tried to brute-force his way into this room... Akiva was incensed. The event had broken open old wounds and resumed his contemplation of old questions. Life. Death. Family. Honor. Love. What was the meaning of it all?

The team had made it to Gamma Quadrant. This would be the last contact they had with the team until they either succeeded in their mission...or didn't. Leah and Teejay had their special assignment, getting the Black Nagus codes, in the last ditch effort to open the encrypted database she had received from Vokau now months ago. They had authorization to let Sayuri Onaga, the former Black Nagus agent, go, in return for the codes. Hopefully, both assignments would be able to get done without anyone dying in the process.

Laena, Nandi, Storr, and Jaya had reached Earth by now and the former two were on their way to embedding themselves into their assignments. Hopefully, noone would die in the process with this group.

Arianna, Akiva and Cal were up for a waiting game. And management of Overwatch. And luring Taskmaster over to Overwatch under pretense of giving him files and suspicion of the MIA Operative Khaiel D'hikatsi being turned by the Black Nagus. Hopefully, there would be no deaths there either.

Arianna tracked Akiva down to the secret lab and watched him quietly for a moment as he stood there, contemplating...

"Hiding, or thinking?" She broke the silence finally.

"Hm?" Akiva was startled by the question, not least of all by Ari's unexpected presence, but he had been so engrossed that at least he had not shown it. "Oh. Perhaps both." He didn't look at her. His thoughts were still elsewhere. "Can I help you with something?"

She noticed the sudden clip in his tone, but didn't let it show. Classic cover for thoughts one wanted to cover up. Deep thoughts, vulnerable thoughts. And that was okay. She extended her arm to him, PADD held in her hand.

"Operation 'Picnic' is a go." She said, referring to the Field Team's arrival in the Gamma Quadrant. "Overall, the board is set and the pieces are moving." The rest referred to the Taskmaster plan.

"That's great to hear." Akiva's tone was monotone and unconvincing. He finally looked at Ari, though, and his stoic demeanor faltered. "I couldn't have done this without you," he said, a hitch rising to his voice as he added, "none of it."

She crossed her arms on her chest and leaned against the wall, smirking a little at him. "I'm awesome, I know. But also...yeah you could have. You've got what it takes, you just need to trust yourself."

She'd felt a bit apprehensive all morning, initially unsure as to why. Then when she passed by Mayhew earlier as she was heading to the secret lab, she understood. Her nose still ached a bit, even though the Doctor had fixed it the other night. Part of her wondered if she should tell him, or just sweep it under the rug and forget it ever happened.

This wasn't Akiva's best friend, after all, nor were she and him in any kind of formal liaison, so no transgressions had been done. That's what she'd been telling herself. Yet still the guilt lingered.

"You're very kind, Ari..." Akiva took a deep breath and released it in a sigh. "But I know myself. We're all here for a reason. Whatever the cause for the powers-that-be to put you here, I'm glad they did."

Ari decided to just take the veiled compliment as it was and nodded, still leaning against the wall. "I'm glad to be here...for all the shit that's happened." She really shouldn't have been surprised at the silent after thought, "with you." It all lead back to that. To him. It shouldn't have, but it did. Persistently so.

Her eyes fell on the prone form of his android daughter. Another child he'd lost. Part of her was glad she never got to experience the understandably unbearable pain, the other part felt for him.

Pain she may yet inflict on him if her gut instinct proved right. If their nemesis did end up being his not-so-dead brother. Omri. She hated herself for that even before the fact.

"You're in a sombre mood. I'm happy to listen...you know that." She offered, yet still kept her place. He'd have to give the cue.

When he looked at her again, Akiva's eyes were awash with glistening tears he refused to shed. "I've lost everything," he said through gritted teeth. "I have nothing left." And then he hung his head into his chest, too ashamed to look at her while he gave into his sobbing.

Ari's first instinct was to step over and embrace him. Second instinct too. Lately, though her instinct to help had led her into nothing but trouble and since the unwanted interaction with Mayhew, she'd been increasingly aware of that. How could she stand there and do nothing though?

"Fuckin' fuck fuck!" Ari groused to herself silently as she stepped over to him and placed a hand on his shoulder. "What's happened since the other day to put you in this mood? Or is it still lingering from then?" She asked gently.

"She's right there!" Akiva pointed but couldn't even look. "I've tried and I've tried but I can't do it. I can't bring her back. All I can do is protect her against...against grave robbers like that DTI agent!"

"Akiva, reality is hard," Ari said gently, rubbing circles along his upper back. "Sometimes 'all-we-can-do' has to be enough." She looked up at him from looking down at Biynah. "Even I have to tell myself that sometimes." A pause, then she continued. "This isn't just about her, though, is it?" Another soft question.

"I broke protocol," he confessed. "I contacted my mother. It's been almost twenty years, Ari. And she loved me just like she did then." His face contorted in pain. "Why did I ever leave home?"

Ari sighed inwardly. He was a good, kind man with a lot of love still in his heart but he made things so difficult for himself. She inserted herself between the console and him, placing her palms on his cheeks and nudged his head up gently. "Take a breath, please." She said, realizing then she'd placed herself into the perfect spot she shouldn't be in right now.

"Fuck it! I've committed." She told herself.

"It's not a breach of protocol if you've coded the comms right...." Then she realized he wasn't talking about the job. He was talking about his religious protocol. She paused for a moment again, "where would you be now, if you'd stayed...hm?"

Akiva shrugged. He'd been disowned and for all intents and purposes declared dead. He could still exist there but his legal standing would be diminished. He might even have become homeless. The Academy really has been his only option.

"Nowhere good," he said at length. "But...they still loved me. Maybe all of them did."

"They still might. Maybe you should try contacting them too. Screw the rules..." She suggested as her palms moved from his cheeks to his shoulders. "This could be your way of rebuilding around the...shiva, was it? And look at it this way, if you hadn't joined Starfleet...we wouldn't be here today." In this compromising position. "You wouldn't have met Storr, or Jaya, or Laena or Kaz..." A pause as she took the gamble, "or me. So, for my selfish part, I am glad you joined up."

Akiva visibly stiffened at the mention of possibly never meeting Ari in particular. "That would have been...most regrettable." His eyes widened to moons, still glistening from the emotion of unshed tears. "I suppose good can come from the bad." He resisted the urge to seek comfort in her embrace, instead sufficing to just hug his own middle. "I'm sorry for being...like this. I'll be better. I swear."

"There is nothing to apologize for," she said, resisting the urge to hug him, remembering what happened last two times comfort was given. Whilst there was nothing wrong and it had been enjoyable, things tended to escalate...things that shouldn't. "Everyone deals with themselves differently. So whenever you do, is good enough for me. Okay? I know it's hard right now to see...you do have people who aren't bound by the shiva who care about you." A silent thought followed. "Including me."

Akiva laughed at that. The thought of any of his friends being bound by Hebron law was preposterous. "Yes, you're right. I need to pull it together." At least he was chuckling. "Sorry. I just can't picture any overlap between my old life and my current one. That means shiva doesn't matter anywhere except back home, does it? As far as the rest of the universe is concerned...I'm still me."

Ari shook her head from the side to side a little bit, smirked, shrugged, then nodded. "That sounds about right, yeah." She squeezed his shoulders gently and slipped her hands down his upper arms, down to his forearms before placing her hands in his and giving them a gentle squeeze too. "So...don't forget to turn on that light, when things get dark, hm?"

"I will try." Akiva gave her a timid smile with just enough fire that it poked through his melancholy. "Thank you, Arianna." The way he said her full name was laced with greater meaning than was typical. Gratitude was plain to see in his eyes and across his face.

Ari nodded as gracefully as she could, to echo that she understood the meaning. She couldn't quite find the words to reply and was about to say something when one of the side consoles beeped. She slid from between Akiva and the console and went over to the console that beeped.

Frost tapped a few controls to unlock access and then her expression sank. "Fuck...." Ari said, slamming her palm against the side of the console.

"Eloheinu b'Shamayim," Akiva muttered. "What now?"

"First call-in...they missed it." Laena and Nandi...both in the same window, in different places. Odd, but not unheard of.

"All right..." Akiva nodded, processing the information. "Is there anything we can do?"

Arianna shook her head, "not if we don't want to risk blowing the op." She said with a sigh. "It's not unusual for operatives to miss the first scheduled call in. Not everyday but not unheard of. If they don't make the second one, we may have a problem."

"Well, then..." Akiva rubbed the back of his neck. "One more thing to add to the pile. I just don't know how much more we can take before it all comes crashing."

Arianna looked over at him. "Can I ask you something, and please be fully honest. I won't hold it against you." His reply...she couldn't quite tell whether he was really at peace with what has happening or whether he didn't understand what was happening.

"I promise to always be honest with you," Akiva said solemnly.

Arianna nodded, turning to face him again, leaning back against the console, arms crossed on her chest. "Do you understand the situation we're in? Here's the thing, you only just...broke up with Laena? If that's what we're calling it? Now this person whom you've had feelings for until recently, I'm assuming, has missed a call in a highly dangerous under-cover operation, and you seem...almost blase. To both her and Nandi not calling in on time. The implications could be catastrophic." Up went the hands as she made gestures in the air to emphasize her point.

"I have experience with these ops, I've been on them and I've been on this side of the line many times and yet it seems I'm more upset about this, than you are. Please don't think I'm having a go at you or anything. I'm just trying to gauge where you are with everything and if I need to help you process." She said finally, hoping he understood the point she was trying to make.

"I don't know what to feel about anything anymore," Akiva said. "It's like I'm a passenger in my own body, a passive participant as my life goes by. It's not a new feeling but I can't snap out of it. Years ago, Storr told me I needed to show up to my own life. Jaya told me to never stop building. I thought I knew what they meant, but now I'm not sure." He looked away and just stared vacantly. "Not of anything. I'm just trying to keep one foot ahead of the other."

Ah, so that's where the problem was. As the leader of the whole situation, and the man she cared about despite her better judgement, Arianna knew she needed to help him. Well his friends did too and she counted herself among the group. That in itself was a novel feeling to her.

"Do you feel like you need to know how to feel for each situation?" She decided to ask.

His answer came out carefully. "That is what propriety would dictate, would it not?" Akiva straightened his collar even though it was not askew. "If I don't know how to feel, then how could I possibly know how to respond? I must simply act and do as I must."

Ari nodded, "Oh I agree that making decisions and living with them is the thing to do. No one knows at all times of every day how they should feel though. Sometimes what you feel and what you must do is different from each other, even starkly so." Like the fact that all she wanted to right now is kiss his worries away, yet she knew she could not and should not.

"So what are you asking?" Akiva put forward, wondering what she was getting at. "Am I going to weep for what has happened? Maybe I'm just saving it all up for my inevitable nervous breakdown."

"I'm trying to say that it's okay not to know what to feel at all times. And that feeling and doing are not always in concert. That's all," Ari shrugged. "It seems as though your not knowing what to feel yet feeling that you must know was causing you more anxiety than you need...which does explain why you're so blase."

Akiva looked her dead in the eye. "Maybe I do know what I feel. If there is a feeling of wanting what I know I cannot have, then it might be better to feel nothing at all. At least for a time."

Green eyes held brown. "Or be at peace with it, accept it...I won't lie, I'm struggling to follow my own advice." She said in a hoarse tone. She asked honesty of him, she couldn't deny him the same. It was warped, how in their own admitted self denial, she found a sliver of comfort.

"There is no peace in that," Akiva said, shaking his head. "Acceptance is the final stage of grief." His eyes lingered on hers a moment longer, both puzzling and challenging at the same time. "Are you in grieving, Ari?"

"Oh there is peace, because for a long time I have denied it to myself, even though acceptance is what a dear friend has tried more than a few times to hint at." Ari countered, shrugging a little, "I have accepted how I feel. And I feel at peace with that. It is no longer a struggle." She then nodded slowly at him, "I suppose I am grieving the loss of my heart to a situation I cannot be involved in as I would like to be." She still held his eyes, though her expression had changed from soft to strong, determined. "In saying that, I am trying to accept that too, for my own peace."

Akiva just held her gaze for a minute until he finally heard what she was really saying. At that point, his depression slowly turned to amusement. "I don't believe you," he said, his smile mischievous. "But I will pretend with you, for as long as we can."

Ari sighed and nodded slowly. "Yeah." Her gaze fell on the alert notification of a failed call-in. "Besides, there are bigger things going on..."

So they were in the exact same predicament, and they have just agreed to turn a blind eye and keep going for the sake of...reasons.

When she looked up, Akiva had leaned well into her personal space. He faltered at her eye contact, stopping almost abruptly. "Yes..." he agreed, the strained reluctance as plain in his voice as the hot breath that passed from his lips to hers. His dodgy eyes held hers just long enough to say, "We need to remember the big picture," before he looked away and ultimately stepped past her. "Thank you for the talk." He didn't look back. He dared not.

Frost dared not either. It was time to focus on the big picture or feelings wouldn't matter in the long run if they got killed as a result of their focus being elsewhere. People depended on the two of them keeping their shit together and head in the game.

"They're due for the second call in forty-eight hours," Ari said and moved away from the console, away from temptation. "In the meantime, we need to watch for the worm trigger."

"Keep me updated," Akiva said, pausing at the door, his back still to her. There was a hitch to his voice. "I'll... I'll do the same." If Akiva received any news regarding the Field Team, it was likely to be bad. Very bad. No news would be good news.

"Will do." Came the equally tense reply as Ari swore internally at her sense of duty. She turned to the console and input a series of commands, more out of buying time for him to leave rather than anything else. After she heard the doors close, she waited another thirty seconds before she left too, the system in the room locking and encoding itself, until next time.

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