Personal Log - Dani Atarah - Breaking Free (And Nearly Dying For It) - Earth, Pt IV

Posted on Tue Aug 26th, 2014 @ 8:11pm by Danielle Atarah

2,194 words; about a 11 minute read

Mission: In the Dark

She sat, her forehead in her palms, running her fingers through her hair. The sofa wasn't just an incredible design prop -- it was also comfortable, and Dani allowed herself to let it absorb her weight, both physically and metaphorically.

"Here. A cup of hot chocolate, spiked with cinnamon and ginger," Zett smiled knowingly and sat, cross legged, at the other end of the couch, holding a steaming cup herself. "Don't tell me you've changed your favorite drink."

Dani picked her head up and sniffed, smiling. Once again, transformed into the distant past, a past that came back and bloomed in her mind. She picked the cup up and took a long sip, her eyes closing in enjoyment, and swallowed. "You mixed the cream in," she licked her lips.

"I remember," the woman gave her a crooked smile and drank from her own cup without taking her eyes off Dani. "I always remembered."

Dani swallowed, and took a deep breath, finally looking back at the woman who was now the Captain of the Bristol. "I didn't forget you. I have to explain..."

"No," the woman looked at her with the smallest traces of a wicked smile, "no, you don't."

"Yes, I do. I know how it looked," Dani insisted. "I had no choice, they didn't give me too many options."

"Options like not stabbing me in the back, you mean?"

"I never!" Dani protested. "I never never did, Kal. I swear."

The Trill woman inspected her intently, her finger lightly tapping on the rim of the steaming cup.

"You know, after you left, after I was told you were out to join Starfleet, and Ieft me behind in that jail cell," Dani flinched, but the woman in front of her didn't bother to stop, her voice steady, her eyes relentlessly staring at the smaller engineer. There was no malice in them, though, just a mix of sadness, disappointment, and curiosity.

"I asked Cardello for your head."

Dani startled, almost spilling hot chocolate all over herself, but she wouldn't have noticed even if the scorching hot liquid did touch her skin; her face turned to look at the woman with alarm. If that was true, she knew, she'd have been dead in a matter of days, if not hours.

"I was so angry at you," the woman continued, her eyes still on Dani's, her expression that of such disappointment and longing, Dani was almost expecting an assassin to come in and finish the job right then and there.

But no. She was too valuable right now; not even Zett would risk screwing up the deals Dani had to make to be here.

"He tried to talk me out of it," she continued, and took a sip. Dani's eyes narrowed.

"He did?"

The woman nodded. "He did. He told me you still had value, even though you joined them. I didn't understand why he wasn't as angry as I was," she shrugged, as if it was the most casual conversation in the world. "Whatever it was, I didn't care. I told him I'd do it myself if I had to. I went as far as Starfleet Academy housing, and then spent an hour preparing a shot outside your window." Dani's face fell, but she tried to keep her horrified expression at bay. If that was true, then she came close -- very close. If she was in the woman's sights, then something very special had to happen for her to still be alive.

"I watched you come into your room with your new friends, already wearing that ridiculous jumpsuit they make you put on," she smiled slightly with cold deadly eyes and took another sip. Dani tried to break her shock with a sip of her own, but her cup was shaking.

"You were having a sort of party, I remember." The chilling speech continued, "your friends were having a drink, laughing about something. I remember thinking how stupid you all looked in your grey pajamas, pressed and tight, like fucking zoo animals, all the same for the visitors."

Dani's breath stuck in her lungs as she stared, captivated and horrified.

"And then you walked to the window. You opened it, and leaned out to take a breath and look outside, as if you felt me there. Your friends were laughing in the background, pouring some drink from one cup to the other, but you were at the window, you let your hair down, brushed your fingers through it, let it fall on your eyes."

Dani held her cup with both hands, trying to stabilize it. She remembered that night; it was their first exam, and she aced it, but she didn't feel like joining her roommates for the celebration. The level of details in the story she just heard horrified and fascinated her, leaving her completely enthralled in the narrative.

"And I remember," the woman continued softly, her fingers holding the steaming cup tightly, "I remember thinking how lonely you looked. Caged. You leaned outside the window and for a moment I thought you were going to jump."

Dani would never have, but that wasn't the point. She stared, remembering that night, waiting to hear the rest.

"And you covered your beautiful eyes with your hands, and started crying. You stood there for almost half an hour with your head in your hands. I don't think your friends even noticed."

Dani cleared her throat and lifted her legs to her stomach, blinking uncomfortably through wet eyes. "Yes, that... that first year was pretty tough."

"I went back to Cardello that night, and I told him he was right. I told him we had to do something. We had to rescue you, to take you away."

Dani snorted without humor and she took an awkward sip. "I bet he liked that idea."

Zett's gaze remained fixed, thoughtfully, the cup in her hand forgotten. "He said you made your own bed, and now you must lay in it until you're ready to come back. He was sure you will. He told me to be patient."

Dani smiled slightly, again without humor, and shook her head sarcastically. "He just wanted a contact inside the fleet, most likely. He never really cared about any of us, you know that, right?"

Zett ignored that comment, her eyes, still fixed on Dani's face, softened. "You didn't tell them, did you? That's why they had to let me go. That's why you had to stay. They had nothing on anyone else but you."

Dani took another sip.

"You fucking idiot," Zett muttered softly.

Dani stared.

"You took it on you. All of it. What the hell did they have that was so bad you had to go join Starfleet for years to make it go away?"

Dani sighed. "Nothing. They bits and pieces, things they suspected, nothing material," he eyes lowered to the table, annoyance flickering in the metallic rims of her fake pupils. "They were going to make things stick regardless, follow on leads they weren't sure about, dig deeper. They were going to make our lives hell, and they would have found us. Everyone." She looked back up, "As far as they were concerned, I was only a thief, Zett, a small-time crook with notable parents who had some influence they can take advantage of. But you... and Benji, Georgia and Toad -- you would've been hunted down. They would've killed you, either outright or slowly, in a sealed cell somewhere no one can reach you or know where you were."

"So you made that choice for everyone, and you decided to go away. You didn't even think about asking us what we wanted. What I wanted."

"I was seventeen," Dani blurted angrily. "They threatened my family; my parents, my sister, my brothers. You."

Zett was quiet for a moment, thoughtful, and Dani could feel her own heart beat in her ears, flooding her body with memories. She joined the fleet out of necessity, without much choice, and the first few years were a nightmare of guilt and frustration. The switch from utter freedom to strict discipline almost broke her spirit completely, almost killed her. But these years passed. She overcame. She grew, and, she had to admit to herself, those years at Starfleet were not all bad. Not all bad at all, in fact.

But that was over now, too.

"I keep forgetting how young you were," The Trill finally spoke, gently.

"We were all young," Dani scoffed. And it wasn't just her decision, not completely. Cordello had incredible influence even back then. Had he wanted to, he could have kept her safer. He could have given her a way out. But it would have cost him, Cordello was a business man. His calculations were cost-effective, and having a mole inside Starfleet, someone he can occasionally contact and use, was valuable.

Not that he'd gotten much over the years.

"We were," Zett agreed, and smiled. "Did you think of us?"

Dani smiled gently, staring into her cup again. "Not everyone."

Zett waited patiently, her eyes boring holes into Dani's mind.

"I.." she sighed softly and put the cup on the table. "It was hard. I had to let things go, let... you go. I didn't want anyone to find you." She also didn't want Cardello to do something stupid, like use the woman as a bargaining chip. Zett was no one's pawn, and her value to the man was much higher than a ticket to Dani, but he was not beyond pulling emotional strings. Dani was under no illusions about his intents, either. She knew he had other people in Starfleet, keeping an eye out for what she does, and what she says.

And what she doesn't.

It was best to let things be, to let them go and forget. But that wasn't always easy.

The woman near her finally dropped her gaze, looking into her own cup for a moment and taking a careful sip. The liquid cooled and congealed, and she wiped her upper lip carefully after savoring the taste.

"I..." Dani continued hesitantly, taking an awkward breath. "I did look for you. From far. Just... asking around to see if you were okay," she let out a small smile. "When Benji died in that accident, I almost came back right there. And then every time I heard news, and every time things got rough in the fleet, where I worked, who I was with... every single time, I thought of coming back."

"Why didn't you?"

"I don't know." Dani nodded honestly. "A while passed by then. I was... I was afraid you hate me," she smiled sadly, "you probably should have hated me. I did for a while."

Zett nodded slowly, looking at Dani again. Her eyes reflected her emotion now, through strands of purple hair, bright and hopeful, silently acknowledging the emotions that passed between them.

"I made this when I graduated," Dani smiled, and lifted the edge of her shirt up slightly, exposing the top of the red rose tattooed on her lower abdomen. Zett's smile lit her face, and she leaned over, inspecting the image, running her finger on its borders gently, making Dani's skin erupt into gooseflesh.

"Our rose."

"Yeah," Dani nodded, chuckling nervously. "Everyone thought I was being cheesy."

"You were." Zett laughed, but her eyes seemed to water, her smile touched with emotion.

"I guess I was," Dani smiled back, relishing the closeness, the past rushing to fill the room, breaking through the barriers of smartassiness, the bravado that kept her sane, kept her in touch of herself through the system she so disliked. The bravado that made her see people beyond their positions, without letting them fully see her, not completely, with very -- very few -- exceptions. She looked up at the Trill, feeling like every breath she took washed away the guilt, the pain. All that remained were the memories; good and bad, from before and after, from inside and out, memories, and acceptance.

She reached and brushed the colorful curls away from Zett's face, her thumb gently wiping the wetness from the woman's eyes. It touched her, deeply, how much the woman felt, how much she, now, allowed herself to show it. The woman's deep blue eyes shifted to look at Dani, and this time they were the ones who shone vulnerably, full of emotions that broke through the coldness.

Zett smiled, a smile that lit her face, making her look 15 years younger, almost as young as when Dani first met her, as young as Dani was herself back then. She leaned forward, and collected the smaller woman into her arms.

"I've missed you, little girl."

They both changed, they both made different choices, led different lives, but the core remained the same, and now it was free again. Free from the confines of guilt and pain that surrounded it for so long...

Dani nodded into the embrace, relieved. "I've missed you too."

... Free to fly out into the open and choose its own path.


* * *

Danielle Atarah
Ex-engineer
Bristol supply ship

Kalina Zett
Captain
Bristol Supply ship
(apb by Mooey)

 

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