‘I know,’ Beckett had said when she’d told him about her aunt. ‘Rhade told me.’

The idea of Beckett and Rhade talking was horrifying in its own right without her family coming into the mix, but all Thawn had been able to say was, in a hushed voice, ‘Why?’

‘I don’t know. Assumed I knew, didn’t he?’

She’d had to go looking for him, stopping off at his quarters when normally he’d been so prone to dropping by Main Engineering towards the end of the shift. Now he was already out of uniform, and as she watched he pulled a bag from his wardrobe and began to pack.

‘What are you doing?’ she said.

‘We’re supposed to be on leave, aren’t we? I thought I might hit the surface for a few days. Find one of the island resorts near the equator. No sector politics fuss, no racist locals fuss, just sun and sea.’

Thawn twisted her fingers together. ‘My aunt is coming to the station to finally reckon with my decision to break off the engagement with Adamant, and you’re running off to a beach holiday?’

Beckett paused with a bundled t-shirt in his hand. She resisted the urge to take it off him and fold it before he could shove it in the bag. ‘I thought it might be best if I lay low for a few days.’

‘Oh.’ Thawn blinked. ‘Oh, is this you trying to be helpful?’

He tossed the t-shirt down on the bed in defeat. ‘I dunno,’ he admitted at last. ‘I just figured… if you hadn’t told me…’

‘You were at work! I was at work! I wanted to tell you properly and… I didn’t know Adamant knew. Or that he’d talk to you.’ She bit her lip. ‘At least meet Anatras. She’ll doubtless want to meet you anyway.’ As he hesitated, she took a step forward. ‘You don’t have to be there when she arrives. But… dinner, or something.’

He rubbed the back of his neck, still looking at his half-packed bag. ‘What’s the plan here?’

‘Plan?’

‘She’s clearly coming here to try to put the arrangement back together again.’ He turned to her, gaze guarded. ‘You had to see this coming, right? So what’s the angle?’

A plan rather suggests I thought ahead. But she’d instead spent months kicking this can down the road, using the political instability of the region that demanded her professional attention to delay the issue. ‘I’ll just – I’ll tell her I’m not marrying Adamant. She can’t force me.’

‘Sure,’ said Beckett. ‘But family have other ways.’

‘What do you want? A five-point plan of how I’ll blackmail her?’ She had to swallow down a hint of hysteria. He was right and she knew it, but she didn’t have another way. She was going to have to dig deep and stand her ground, and that kind of stubborn, emotional resilience did not come easily to her.

‘Okay! Okay.’ He raised his hands in a placating but uncertain way and, clearly trying to change the subject, said, ‘How did it go with Valance?’

She’d crumpled in that meeting, and Thawn knew it. Preparing to have that resilience with Anatras had exhausted any professional resolve. Now she grimaced, shaking her head as she looked away. ‘I think the captain wants to get Perrek back, or a properly experienced engineer.’

‘What? That’s bullshit. That’s -’

‘One life plan exploding at a time, Nate,’ she said, sharper because sharpness helped. ‘If you want to go to the surface, that’s fine. I can handle Anatras, or maybe send you a message if it’s good for you to come back…’

Stay, she wanted to say. Stay and help me, stay and remind me why I want to be free, stay and remind me that I’m strong enough. But he looked like he had one foot out the door, and she couldn’t blame him for not trusting her to stand strong. How could she expect him to believe in her when she didn’t believe in herself?

It would have been easier, she thought distantly, if she reached out to him with her mind. Made contact as they only had in the most dire of cases, shown him what she felt – all the fear and self-doubt, but that raging fire deep within, everything she wanted to be free to feel, and how much of it was tied up with him.

Even though she didn’t reach out, he shook his head. ‘I’ll stick around. What’s another day or two?’

But because she didn’t reach out, he didn’t sound very reassured.

It would have been foolish to have him with her at the arrivals lounge on Gateway when Anatras’s transport arrived. But as it was delayed – ten minutes, twenty minutes, a half-hour, the docking wait at the station disrupted by local traffic patterns spooked by the wider border issues – and she paced a hole in the plain, standard-issue rug, she wished she wasn’t alone, at least.

But who could possibly be there? Who would possibly offer any support without demanding something of her? Demanding how she acted, demanding how she felt, rather than letting her be whatever she wanted to be?

If only Rosara Thawn knew what she wanted.

She hadn’t seen her great-aunt in some two years, the last time she’d been to Betazed, and she’d been kindly but firmly reminded of how important the arranged match with Adamant was. But she had not changed much in that time; deeper lines and perhaps an extra inch of height on her bee-hive of a hairstyle. The attendants were different, two beleaguered-looking young Betazoid men who were probably expected to be seen but not heard, not even in thought, one of whom she couldn’t even see the face of for the luggage he was hauling.

So much had changed since that last visit. When she’d returned to Endeavour, she’d met Nate.

Anatras’s eyes landing on her made all doubt, reminiscence, and especially thought of Nate fly from her head, though. Her aunt was a painfully capable telepath, and with their familial connection, if she so much as breathed in a certain way, she would be seen right through.

She clamped down. Controlled every feeling and thought. And walked over to greet her aunt with a warm embrace. ‘Auntie!’

The response was non-verbal, a thought shining with affection and yet holding an undertone of judgement, of chastisement already. Thawn had to pivot with a telepathic response, an inquiry about her travel, and all of the niceties of greeting each other, of small-talk, passed more or less in silence within a matter of moments as, to all onlookers, a young woman embraced a matriarch at the airlock.

‘Now,’ said Anatras out loud as pulled back, ‘let’s talk.’ Thawn’s hand was still between hers, and what looked like an affectionate grasp was in fact an iron grip.

‘You don’t want to get settled in?’

‘The boys can take care of that.’ A dismissive nod sent the two young attendants packing. ‘I didn’t come all this way to enjoy the pleasures of a Federation border station. You clearly need help. Where can we get a tea?’

The Jestral Tea offered by Bean Me Up was inevitably not good enough. Anatras didn’t say as much, but the way she smacked her lips after the first sip made her judgement clear.

‘I would have thought Adamant might be here to meet me, too,’ she said instead. ‘I did say I was so looking forward to seeing him.’

Rhade hadn’t said a thing to her. Thawn didn’t know if this was her ex-fiancé doing her a favour by keeping out of this initial meeting, or if he’d washed his hands of the whole affair and could not be counted on for any support. She had no doubt he would be dragged in sooner or later.

‘I expect he’s very busy,’ she said instead. ‘You know that he’s not on leave, Auntie? He works on Gateway, he’s on duty.’ She didn’t know if he was on duty at that moment, but that was beside the point.

‘Hm. This does concern you both. You know his parents are very worried, too? No matter, I’m sure he’ll stop by. He’s normally such a good boy.’ She added sugar to her tea, which Thawn knew meant she really hated it and was trying to cover the taste with sweetness. ‘But perhaps it’s for the best you and I speak first. What are you doing, Rosara?’

The desire to be glib had to be pushed down. Perhaps Beckett was a bad influence. ‘I’m a grown adult,’ she said, knowing that was perhaps the most petulant way to start. ‘I have the right to determine the most important things about my life, such as who I spend it with.’

Anatras tutted at once. ‘An adult would have reached out to me. Spoken with her family. Do not act as if this arrangement only affects you, child.’

‘It affects me most of all. There was nothing to debate, Auntie. I’m sorry it’s inconveniencing for you and for the family, but this wasn’t something we could negotiate or compromise on.’ It took a monumental amount of control to not sound or feel sardonic there, either.

Her great-aunt tilted her chin up an inch, and Thawn could feel the indignation beginning to broil. ‘I made it very clear last year that we could not afford to let this arrangement with the Seventh House lapse…’

‘And I gave you that year and a half so you could deal with the fallout of Whixby. Surely that’s long enough?’

Anatras stirred her tea with a jab of the spoon, not making eye contact for a moment. ‘What does Adamant have to say about all of this?’

‘He agreed. It was my idea, but he agreed. We weren’t right together, Auntie. We didn’t talk properly, share our feelings, share anything.’

‘Oh, child, when have you ever shared a single feeling?’

It was as if Anatras had slapped her. Not for the accusation itself, because Thawn knew full well she was not one to open up, but the implication, the resentment that came with it. She had done everything her family had ever asked of her, and it had left her married to a man who treated her like an obligation. The notion that things would be different had Thawn merely expressed herself –

‘Who is he?’ Anatras’s next words cut through her indignation. ‘Don’t be ridiculous; you’re young and you didn’t have to marry Adamant right away or keep yourself for him all that time or anything so foolishly archaic. But I can feel your guilt, child. Your heart wandered. Where?’

Clearly her feelings had not been sufficiently contained. ‘That’s not the point -’

‘You can play as you like. And I’m sure you and Adamant could have come to some arrangement. Are you to tell me you’ve found someone you want to spend your life with?’ Anatras was a blink away from a disapproving lip curl.

‘This isn’t about Nate – it’s not just about Nate -’

‘Nate?’

‘He…’ Thawn began to gesticulate as if she could pull the right words from the air. ‘Lieutenant Nathaniel Beckett. Our Chief Intelligence Officer. Recipient of the Star Cross. He’s – he’s Admiral Alexander Beckett’s eldest son.’

Anatras stopped at once. ‘Oh?’

That was the first point Thawn realised she might have misjudged how to handle her aunt and that she should, perhaps, have gone in with a plan after all.

By the time she’d agreed that they should have dinner with Nate and Adamant, she knew she’d definitely misjudged. And that it was far, far too late.