#I can't believe Tuvok sleeps in all that

[bumblingbabooshka]

What if you met someone who was so similar to you in so many ways but the divergence was too great to bridge the gap? What if you didn't speak to your mother for ten years and then met a man who had her eyes, her sure and steady hands, the same reverence to his tone when he spoke about logic and every so often your brain stumbled and replaced the word with 'honor'?

What if you recognized yourself in other ways? You both dropped out of Starfleet, didn't you? You both laid awake at one point, hearts pounding, wishing with everything that you weren't born the way you were - then everything would be better, then everything would be alright. Then you could be in love, then your father would love you. What if you were both sent away - to a monastery, to a temple, to become upstanding members of your societies. Your mother giving you a firm hug, squeezing you too tightly as you tried to squirm away (with a desperation that spoke to more than simple adolescent embarrassment, a shame that had already hardened into hatred) and his father leaving without a word or parting touch, the banished don't need to be bid farewell. Something took hold in him. Nothing did for you. (failure) It might have, but you ran away. You're always running B'Elanna. Afraid you might learn something? (failure) Afraid you might be wrong? You can't be human - what if you can't even be Klingon? What if the very thing you've hated and rejected all your life doesn't even want you? What if you stop and look back and see that nothing's chasing you - that you're not even worth it? B'Elanna hears that Tuvok's program was messed with, pranked by Tom and Harry. She feels bad (but there's something else isn't there? A vicious satisfaction. You're watching the worm be put into the sandwich with a keen eye, aren't you?) but doesn't say much. Later, she goes into a holodeck to fetch Tuvok for something necessary and notices that he's fixing his temple program. "You don't need to do that, you know." Tuvok doesn't respond, raising his eyebrow. B'Elanna looks away from him, at the half-edited program. She commits the lines of code to memory, her heart pounding. She feels irritated for some reason. She laughs very lightly. "I mean...we're thousands of lightyears away from Vulcan." Whoever you're praying to can't hear you. (B'Elanna crying herself to sleep: When I wake up please give me a smooth forehead, when I wake up please bring daddy back home, when I wake up please make me human - please.) (B'Elanna watching her mother out of the corner of her eye, hating her every movement, every breath, every line of prayer she shouts out - never for a moment doubting. Never for a moment wavering.) How stupid can you be? "Thank you, Lieutenant Torres." Tuvok says and B'Elanna can swear she hears him lean on her rank more than he needs to - can swear she sees his gaze flit up to her cranial ridges. It's a clear dismissal, not an acknowledgement of what she said. She turns. "Do you only perform rituals under pressure, Lieutenant?" B'Elanna attempting to go limp as her mother drags her up the road towards a circle of chanting Klingons. "I don't want to! Why do you always make me go with you?" Her mother's grip, unwavering. Her eyes locked on their target. They never look away like B'Elanna's do, they're never aimed downward. "Because if I didn't you'd never come."

B'Elanna turns, startled by the direct acknowledgement. She grips her PADD tighter. Tuvok stares at her and his eyes are so familiar it makes her heart race a little, blood rushing to her face. He's laughing at her. He's judging her. He's staring and he knows exactly what he sees. The only times her mother looked down were to catch B'Elanna's eye as she laid on the floor - knocked there or collapsed into a heap. You don't understand anything. How stupid can you be? "I don't believe in rituals." B'Elanna tells Tuvok. Tuvok's gaze travels - not out of necessity but to make a point. His brow raises and he purses his lips slightly. 'Hm,' his expression seems to say. 'How strange.' "What?" B'Elanna snaps. Tuvok looks at her again, eyes widening slightly as if confused by her shapened tone. Then the expression is gone and he is perfect again. "In my experience, Klingons tend-" "I guess I'm not like other Klingons." B'Elanna cuts him off. She's half human isn't she? Why doesn't anyone ever call her that? "...You're upset." "No, I'm not." B'Elanna lies, turning again. "That's all I needed from you, bye." Tuvok doesn't say anything, his customary stance, so B'Elanna walks across the room to leave but before she does she sneaks another glance at him. He's gone back to correcting the errors in his program and the look of concentration again reminds her of her mother - but also her. She's seen that face in the mirror as she tried a hundred different styles in an attempt to hide her ridges, felt it from the tension in her brow as she laughed and flippantly said she didn't know a word of Klingon: "It's just a bunch of noise to me, really." - as she tried to erase her connection to that side of herself however she could. There, across from her, Tuvok (with the same desperation) is trying to hold onto it. What is a shackle to one is a lifeline to another. She remembers when Tuvok attempted to teach her to meditate before they both quietly ended the sessions and Chakotay stopped asking about them. She remembers how Tuvok's room was so full of Vulcan things: Candles, tapestries, jewelry boxes full of little trinkets and wall ornaments etched with Vulcan script. He must have replicated it all. How long did it take him to fill his entire quarters like that? B'Elanna's room is utterly devoid of anything Klingon. The one time Tom suggested it she suggested they put up an old Hollywood poster instead. She stared at the leading lady's forehead and pointedly didn't touch her own. No, anything Klingon would suffocate her - kill her. A little taste of home was poisonous. How was Tuvok fine? How isn't he suffocating? How is this logical? "Sorry about your temple...thing." B'Elanna says. "It wasn't very...you know." "Why are you apologizing?" Tuvok asks, not pausing his work to look at her. B'Elanna shifts her weight, crossing her arms. "I don't know." "I have no feelings to hurt." Tuvok informs her. She thinks about how she would have turned out if she had stayed still in that monastery. Would she have something to hold onto? Would it be better than the freedom to float? Would she be happier? Would she be able to look straight ahead and not care about people calling her turtlehead or putting worms in her sandwich or forcing her monks to recite ferengi limericks or leaving her, always leaving her? Would she able to stand on her own and say it didn't hurt? "Right." B'Elanna says, one foot out the door. "Of course."