#⤷ verse / enterprise | to unpath’d waters‚ undream’d shores.

[owedfavors]

⤷ ✧ @prcspcr / continued.

irony runs undercurrent to this entire conversation, nearly eking forth a smile. a smile she quickly transforms instead to the quirk of a brow, a silent challenge for him to consider for it for himself. she finds humor in it, that he should apologize for abruptness to her, that she should speak to him of worry. she does not doubt that humor is not the word he would apply.

❛ no, you are correct. worry is flawed. ❜ she has a reputation for that same demeanor he suggests she exhibit: ruthless unconcern for hurt feelings. it is but one more irony that he classifies it as ideal while others dismiss it as, at best, an unfortunate quirk of hers, if not a failing of her command style. no, perhaps not irony, but something else: the reason she does care, that she worried to bring the news to him herself.

her gaze evaluates, seeking answers ( how he is: the question she will not ask even as she would not want it asked of her ), but she remarks only, with subtle humor, ❛ unfortunately, even I am not immune to such flaws. not wholly, at least. as always, I appreciate the fresh perspective. ❜ she buys herself time, diverts them away from the crunchier aspects of reality and into theory and philosophy. ❛ though I do wonder, what emotions do you consider unflawed, lieutenant? ❜

[owedfavors]

⤷ ✧ @prcspcr / continued.

she follows half a step behind from the turbo lift, far enough to think that the shake of her head and glimmer of a wry smile will go undetected. ❛ I believe my orders, roughly paraphrased, were to solve the problem. solving does not stop at finding a solution. ❜ their science officer is not wrong: she teaches him what most would label a bad habit, albeit one of the guiding stars of her own modus operandi, by encouraging him to circumvent the usual chain of command.

his admission, however, offers her all the justification she could have needed for the careful phrasing of her earlier instructions. trusting himself is something to embrace. ❛ and what would you do, say, were the captain and I both unavailable, if you do not trust yourself? ❜

[owedfavors]

⤷ ✧ @cptnpike said, ❝ I know you’re ignoring me, but I’m going to keep talking anyways. ❞

tricorder scans have yet to offer her anything remotely resembling the answers she seeks. still, she pours over them as she keeps one doubtful eye on the fire that crackles, threatening at any moment to leap from its makeshift cage and consume the jungle-like forest that surrounds them. it is not a problem una is eager to add to her current list.

❛ if by ignoring ❜ — she speaks absentmindedly, her attention upon her present work for all she remains aware of his words — ❛ you mean that I am choosing not to engage with this conversation, then, yes, I suppose I am. I fail to see what relevancy the equus genus has in our present circumstances, as not only are we far from earth, but also on a planet that previous surveys indicate is lacking in mammalian life entirely. ❜

and, therefore, lacking anything even remotely resembling a horse. it is a fact for which she will consider herself thoroughly grateful.

❛ however, as it is keeping you occupied, ❜ — and therefore not wandering off — ❛ please, continue. ❜ she might ignore him, might file the words to the back of her mind, letting her readings take precedence, but she does listen.

[owedfavors]

⤷ ✧ @prcspcr said, ❝ oh, you know me - ever the optimist. i’m trying to focus on the positives. ❞

the optimist. the word would not have made the top ten descriptors she might have applied to him. with an eyebrow lifted in silent challenge, una remarks, ❛ yes, of course. I ought to have known. ❜ adding how silly of me to the end feels unduly dramatic, but for a heartbeat, she's nearly tempted. instead, her expression levels and the glimmer of humor fades from her voice. ❛ spock, this is me, not the captain. forget the positives: I want the problems. ❜ positives she might assemble later as tools in their arsenal for addressing said problems, but she has always preferred a frank evaluation.

she had thought to let it go, intended to refocus and move forward, but questions cling to the back of her mind. with a gesture, she stays any potential response, shakes her head. ❛ no, I'm sorry. problems second. first, why the positives? ❜

[owedfavors]

⤷ ✧ @lvebug said, ❝ no weapon ever brings peace. ❞

there's a tightness to hear features as she watches the bickering parties at the negotiating table. voices, temporarily quelled into more moderate tones, have escalated once again, and una is grateful to be here, standing on the periphery of the room where she might observe, take in details they might later use to their advantage.

❛ and yet, in nearly every civilization, that is a lesson that takes millennia to learn. ❜ if it is ever learned. una tries not to consider the armaments on enterprise, the resources even starfleet pours into the development of new and more powerful armaments for their vessels — even if defensive in intent. ❛ it also seems to be a lesson that must be learned the hard way. ❜

not that they won't try to avert that outcome.

[owedfavors]

⤷ ✧ @prcspcr said, ❝ good to see you made it back safe . ❞

her eyebrow quirks in challenge, and she smooths the quirk of a smile before she replies, ❛ did you doubt that we would? ❜ her question is less justified than she makes out, considering the complications that had plagued what ought to have been an easy mission. it conceals her fatigue, the tension of the past day. ❛ such confidence, spock. ❜ she does after all, she consider reminding him, have a much better track record when it comes to returning to the ship unscathed than certain members of the crew, their captain included.

[owedfavors]

⤷ ✧ @cptnpike said, ❝ i’m asking you   why   you did that, &   you know it. ❞

she's been here before, a growing tally of instances now so long she could not consciously recall them all even if she wished to. having given up the ghost of asking permission nearly a decade past, una has become far too familiar with every variation of what the hell were you thinking? imaginable.

at least pike's is comparatively civil, though she bristles regardless. aside from a terseness in her voice, una refuses to let that bristling show. ❛ it remedied the situation before it could escalate. ❜ matter of fact, obvious. as though he should not even need to ask. what else would she have done?

despite her tone, una knows better, knows the several regulations she skirted the boundaries of, knows that, even as first officer, this was not a plan she ought to have put into action without a captain's authorization.

[owedfavors]

⤷ ✧ @ltnsingh said, ❝ who were you talking to? ❞

she had ended the call at the approach of footsteps, though some of the sudden tension drains from her shoulders at la'an's voice. not that her answer is any less evasive: ❛ someone who may be able to shift this situation back into our favor. ❜

she would not yet declare their mission gone awry, but they head swiftly in that direction, pieces tumbling that she struggles to rebalance. with enterprise out of reach, completing its own mission before circling back to retrieve them, it seemed time to reach in the direction of favors owed.

she is often close lipped about the many individuals on whom she can call at need, and she offers a smile now to la'an to soften her avoidance. ❛ did you have any luck? ❜

[owedfavors]

⤷ ✧ @cptnpike said, ❝ will you smile if i admit i was wrong? ❞

there have been no shortage of individuals over the past decade to look at her tenure on enterprise and assume that her permanence, the fact that neither she nor chris have tired of their partnership, must reflect a similarity in thinking, a tendency to agree. for those with access, the fact that her reports rarely reflect a dissenting opinion lends credence to the supposition.

they are wrong, of course, their partnership founded rather on frameworks so distinct that somehow they complement each other, that somehow they balance. so distinct that they rarely agree, priorities and strategies both divergent. the past decade reflects rather an acceptance of the fact that they will often disagree. that she will, even before the crew, challenge his plans, counter them with her own. that behind closed doors they may even go so far as to argue over it. that even if they do, even if he disregards each one of her protests and sets them aside to follow his course, they never take the disagreement personally, never hold it against one another.

the latter is so much an unspoken underpinning of their partnership, that she has scarcely realized, until now, that she has been distant, the stern set of her lips ( not quite a frown, but distinctly not not a frown ) unwavering, all day, ever since this morning's definitely-not-to-plan mission efforts. his voice cuts through the computer's faint beeping, the generalized humming of warp core and electronics which had otherwise alone interrupted the silence in the out-of-the-way science lab she had taken over to run the data from earlier.

with the realization, accompanied by the fact that he had seen fit to track her down, for she would not believe any assertions of just passing by, comes the vague understanding that this is not his first attempt to break through to her today, for all the others had gone clear over her head. had her frustration lain with him, she might have thought to look for it. yet, she had been annoyed only with herself, with her own failings ( not her failure to convince him — she's long since learned not to hold that as a reflection on herself ).

the softening at the corner of her lip isn't the smile he wants, but it is an acknowledgment, more than she has granted him all day. ❛ I do not need you to admit the obvious, chris. ❜ contrary to the faux-sternness of the words, she only teases.

[owedfavors]

⤷ ✧ @cptnpike said, ❝ danger and i are old companions. ❞

not for the first time, una wishes she believed in a higher power — something to which she might pray for the patience he ( sometimes ) demands of her. as it is, her lips press tight to suppress the words that leap all too quickly to the tip of her tongue, and she closes her eyes just long enough to frame a response less likely to spark something resembling an argument for which they do not have the time.

❛ as are we, captain. you are fortunate I am not the jealous sort, or I might begin to fear that you prefer danger's company. ❜ more seriously, she points in the direction of the door. it is not the door, though, that matters, nor even the corridors beyond it, nor the transporter pad at the end. rather, it is the planet below. ❛ you go down there and put yourself in the middle of that mess, and I am not pulling you out this time. I will happily leave you to your dear friend. ❜

it is the emptiest of threats, and they both know it. no matter how exasperated she may be, there is no universe in which she would truly leave him in any real danger. danger that was just dangerous enough for his discomfort while not truly posing any real risk to him? now, that might be tempting.

❛ or, you could sit back down for five minutes, and give me a chance to find you a better solution. ❜

[owedfavors]

⤷ ✧ @nursc said, ❝ I want to complain but I don’t have the energy. ❞

❛ I'll add a vague protest to my report on your behalf. ❜ when this day ends, that is. when the misunderstanding is cleared up and they are set free and are once more on their merry way. voicing christine's displeasure will give her something to say about this particular incident besides her own complaints about sitting for what verged now towards ten hours surrounded by bare grey walls and interrupted only by periodic — but too frequent to allow for any rest — visits by those administrators still trying to clear things up.

all they should have to do is to contact starfleet, who should surely be quick to reassure them that, yes, they are who they say they are and would you please let them go they are needed to help with an emergency. and yet...

under other circumstances, una might well have written the report, to date, in her head while they sit here, waiting, to be stored in the back of her mind until she could properly commit it to writing. as it is, she shares christine's exhaustion, and the words refuse to come to mind. neither of them have slept in over forty-eight hours, and una thinks she herself is running closer to seventy-two. she's lost count, but it feels like seventy-two-hour exhaustion.

❛ for what it is worth, if I have not said it yet, ❜ — and she cannot remember, making seventy-two hours all more likely the number, if not more, pushing the bounds of even her illyrian resilience — ❛ I am sorry. when I said I could get us back, and in time, I did not consider the likelihood of unforeseen emergencies shortening that timeframe. ❜ but, really, perhaps she should have.

certainly, she should really have told chris where they were going, and she should really have had an emergency plan should enterprise need to find them swiftly. that she will take upon herself.

[owedfavors]

⤷ ✧ @cptnpike said, ❝ if it were anyone else, i would never permit it. ❞

it is the most trivial of things to apologize for. no, that’s wrong. in present circumstances, and in present company, it is the most trivial of things. there are far, far greater things for which she owes him apologies than this, the way her lips had phrased a what ought to have been a suggestion or, at most, a request, as if it were an instruction, a command.

to her captain.

chris knows her. a decade of friendship, of partnership, leaves her secure in the knowledge that he will not hold it against her. that he would recognize her urgency for what it was, and not mistake it as insubordination, as breaking the chain of command.

still, while the apology might be unnecessary, while he brushes it off now with a lighthearted tone that to her ears sounds forced ( and she cannot tell if that is her own imagination, her own tension reflected onto him, or if she reads it right ), it is the easiest of all that has happened to address. she matches his effort at their usual levity with a smile, for all it lacks the usual spark, and the teasing words she might usually have offered by way of a return parry elude her grasp, retreating to the shadows in the corners of her mind.

the distance from where he sits behind his desk to where she stands, feels disproportionately immense. though she had met his gaze steadily thus far, hers falters now, eyes fixing instead upon her hands, folded upon the back of a chair prevent herself from gripping so tightly her knuckles turn white. for a moment, her lips purse and her teeth close upon the inside of her lip in a gesture she had schooled herself out of in childhood ( perhaps proximity renews memories, and with them, old habits ), before she manages, forcing herself to look up. ❛ and I am sorry for… ❜ she falters, suddenly unsure how to put it into words. for a decade of deception, for secrets harbored so close to her chest, for the one time, after hetemit ix, when she had truly lied. she has not forgotten.

❛ for the rest... ❜ as far as apologies go, it is paltry at best. then again, the number of people who have heard the words I am sorry from the lips of una evers could be counted upon her fingers. she does not apologize. not in so many words, at least. ❛ chris, I… ❜

for all her broken sentences, all her sudden lack of clarity in what to say ( usual precision robbed from her by the impossibility of this moment ), she has no fear of what this means for her career, only what it means for them. ❛ I couldn’t tell you. not after hetemit ix, not before… I… you couldn’t know. but I am sorry. ❜

no, that was wrong: she has one more fear: what it means for him.

[owedfavors]

⤷ ✧ @prcspcr said, ❝ fascinating , but quite impossible. ❞

❛ impossible, spock, or improbable? ❜ she lacks the whimsy ( or at least, she would have others believe she does ) to suggest that, all too often, the universe proves that the impossible is the improbable masquerading. to suggest that that the impossible is merely that which they do not yet have the breadth of perspective to fathom.

arthur c. clarke's theory, any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic, adapted.

still, a faint smile plays about the corners of her lips as she offers him the padd containing her calculations. a farfetched theory upon the surface, perhaps, but the numbers were there. and beyond the bounds of the federation, there are those who would not scoff at it, those for whom it was an extrapolation of a, while yet unproven, generally accepted theory, at least amongst those who considered this their expertise.

una, however, is far from committed to the possibility. she merely invites, ❛ offer me another explanation. ❜

[owedfavors]

⤷ ✧ @nursc said, ❝ we're taking a big gamble. ❞

una quirks an eyebrow as she turns around just long enough to let christine see the expression. when she turns her attention back to the empty, broken street before her, she twists the padd in her hands, and not for the first time, as if displaying a different angle will somehow make the map — a digitized copy of one nearly two millennia old that resides in the capital's main museum — make more sense against the modern topography of what until a few decades ago had been a city.

❛ is that the gamble that there is anything here to be seen, or the gamble that enterprise will leave without us when we fail to return on account of getting lost in an alien ghost town by following a map two thousand years out of date? ❜

of the former, una could make no assurances. yet, though the planet's unique atmospheric make-up renders both transporters and communicators ineffective, she mains unconcerned about their successful return. she may not be quite certain where they are — at least as far as the map is concerned — but she is confident she can return them safely.

❛ that statue doesn't look like this drawing, does it? ❜ she passes the padd to her friend, tapping upon its surface to indicate where the small icon upon the map as she nods ahead of them. the answer is distinctly no; the statue in question is scarcely deserving of that name, so decayed and worn down was the stone. whatever it had once been a depiction of, that knowledge was long lost to the ages.

[owedfavors]

there is no need to ask about his location, no need to search the ship to find him. that it takes her as long as it does to join him is a reflection rather of the work that is yet to be done. for his sake, she wishes she might have come sooner. for her own, she wishes she might have found another excuse, or two, or three, some other emergency on the ship requiring the first officer's attention.

hands clasped behind her back, she steps up silently beside him — just close enough for her shoulder to brush his arm. there's no need to announce her presence, no need to disturb the sanctity of this place, of his vigil, with meaningless words. six caskets lie in a row before them, the toll exacted by their most recent stubborn insistence upon pushing the bounds of known space, and beyond them through the window the endless vastness of space, the stars from which they all come and to which they all return, eventually.

he breaks the silence first. ❝ we are creatures of duty. ❞

the words hang in the space between them, fading away before una remarks, softly, ❛ it is what starfleet demands of us — service to a higher ideal, whatever the cost to ourselves. it is the choice they made. the choice we all made. ❜ clinging to duty might make it easier for her — in it she finds the premise of emotional distance, from many things — but she knows it does not and never will make such moments as this easier for him.

for the first time since joining him, she glances up at him. ❛ however, as we are also human beings ❜ — or close enough — ❛ you should go get some rest. I will stay for a bit, instead. ❜ her being here will not be the same as him, yet they need their captain rested.

⤷ ✧ @cptnpike.

[owedfavors]

she had promised herself to do better, to somehow make up for all she could not change, could not undo. the promise had never actually left her lips, of course, a poor solace when inevitably she fails to live up to it. some things are just too deeply ingrained in her, too familiar in the space between them even now, with everything tilted off balance. she grasps at it automatically, as if doing so might turn back the clock and restore what once was.

it's not by conscious choice that she sidesteps what is, fundamentally, the most innocuous of questions. but secondary and tertiary meanings of his words present themselves, and a light answer to that question, and not the one he had intended, slips from her lips before she can remind herself of her unuttered promise.

the words I'm sorry are not far behind, and a grimace crosses her features. he cuts her off before she can voice the apology, words caught upon the tip of her tongue. ❝ you won't get off my hook this easily, ❞ he says, and she's braced for anger, yet his tone is more reminiscent of what once had been so familiar than of the past the past weeks.

for a moment, caught off guard, she freezes, before assuming an expression of perfect innocence. ❛ I don't know what you mean, captain. ❜ is a lie truly a lie when it carries no intent to deceive? when everything — the tilt of her head, the twitch at the corner of her lips, the lift of her brows, the glimmer in her eyes — all tell the truth more clearly than words? ❛ I gave you your answer. what more do you want from me? ❜

⤷ ✧ @cptnpike.