Attaining a confession

"There's nothing to be sorry for," he said. "Do you want to go somewhere? Maybe to Eel? Or do you want to be alone? We could use a break. I just need to turn this over to Starfleet, and we...we shouldn't be in here, right now." He found himself babbling. It was a blur of pain and emotion. Endless days of violence.
"Just about everything. I'm just a little overwhelmed."

As Rai rambled, T'Pren's heart tightened, guilt creeping in to join everything else. "I'm okay," she promised gently, putting both her hands around his and studying him worriedly. "Let's take care of you. Where do you want to be?" She pressed her lips together as she tried to come up with a way to fix the damage she'd inadvertently caused. "Don't worry about the report; I'll send it off."

As with the night before, taking care of Rai was the quickest way to get her out of her own head.

"I think I need to lay down for a while. I'm going to work from my quarters for the rest of the day, and I might even sleep, I don't know. I need to sleep. I think I need to sleep." He wasn't sure if the words coming out of his mouth made sense anymore.

The guilt T'Pren was wrestling with for doing this to the Captain in the first place intertwined with her ever-increasing worry for him. "Okay," she agreed softly, letting go with one of her hands so she could undo the top of her dress uniform and shove the PADD unceremoniously down her front. "Okay. I'll walk you." She chewed on her bottom lip as she stood on slightly shaky legs and her brows were a tightly-knit mound of contracted muscle as she tried to guide Rai to his feet. She probably couldn't hold his hand all the way through the station, but she could at least do so here for now.

It was all she could do to keep from continuously apologizing. But since she caused this mess in the first place, she at least managed to remember not to make it worse by having him feel that he needed to take care of her.

"Do you think you can make it there on foot? Because we could beam. Do you want to beam?"

"No. I think I should walk alone, to clear my head," he said. "I'll be up in a few hours, I'm sure everyone will still want to meet at the Eel," he murmured. "I'll be fine, I'll be fine,"he repeated, almost as a mantra.

Those Vulcan vaults of emotion have made themselves known again. Something was shaken loose at Rai's need to be alone, rational though Pren found it, and just before a guilt-ridden hurt and loneliness could make itself fully known, she shoved it into the darkness and slammed the doors shut. T'Pren wasn't about to add more to Rai's overfull mind.

"I didn't mean..." she trailed off helplessly.

"I know you didn't. Don't worry," he said. "I'll be alright," he said. He squeezed her hand. "I'll speak to you in a few hours," and when he spoke, he could barely make eye contact with her. The low lights stung his eyes.
The walk back to his quarters was excruciating. Sounds were too loud, lights were too bright, his head throbbed. He nodded at people who greeted him as he passed by, but could hardly process their faces.
He crawled into bed with his uniform on, and pulled the sheets over his head, and finally succumbed to sleep.

But she did worry. T'Pren wasn't quite lucky enough to manage a semi-dignified walk back to her quarters before she fell apart. She didn't even make it out of Security. The moment the doors closed behind Rai, leaving the broken little halfie alone with her own thoughts, her own ghosts and memories, that PADD confession still tucked into the chest of her dress uniform...in that moment, she sank back down against the wall, missing the seat and eventually ending up with her knees against her chest on the floor. It was all she could do not to hurl the PADD against the opposite wall when she took it out to set it aside.

Her whole body was shaking roughly. The neurological damage the Cardassians had done her in their search for biological weapons and super soldiers was beginning to show itself. The doors holding back those hastily concealed emotions bursts open and with it everything T'Pren had been squirreling away the last few days. Her fathers. The torture. This report. The intense, never-ending loneliness that she had managed to satiate for a few hours this morning. The hurt she'd done Rai.

T'Pren started to sob. It was the worst sort of sobbing, that requires loud gulps of air and doesn't allow for quiet, stoic pain. It was the kind with weird pubescent squeaks and open vowel anguish. She knew Mila Tahain could hear her in the other room and it only made it worse.

Not too much later, the sweet, dopey guard who'd been on duty opened the door to stroll back in, spotted the lieutenant...and immediately backed out again. She didn't even look up.