‘He was bluffing,’ Harkon grumbled as Beckett swept the pile of chips from the middle of the table. ‘You should have called.’

‘And lose more?’ Whitaker clicked his tongue and shook his head. ‘I’d like to keep my dignity remotely intact.’

‘He was bluffing!’

‘And yet,’ mused Beckett, toying with a chip between his fingers, ‘you’ll never know for sure.’

‘Alright, nobody needs to be neither this sour nor this smug,’ said Riggs, rolling his eyes as he gathered the cards scattered across their table nestled near the back of Keystone. ‘Thought this were all for fun?’

‘This is fun.’ Beckett gave a toothy, smug grin. With a large portion of Endeavour’s crew on leave, he’d had to reach out to his friends on the station, people who’d once served on the ship like Whittaker, or whom he’d served with on Pathfinder like Riggs.

‘Shouldn’t you be on a beach about now?’ Harkon complained as Riggs dealt the next hand. ‘You can beam back to an emergency meeting in an instant.’

‘You could do that,’ he pointed out. ‘You live here now. You could own a beach house and beam up to take a duty shift.’

‘That’s not how it works, and I’m not the one on light duties with a hot girlfriend.’ Harkon tilted up her two cards to check them and swore. The problem was, she always did that. ‘So why’re you hanging out with us losers?’

‘Excuse me,’ said Whitaker haughtily. ‘Don’t drag me into your weird manipulations of Nate.’ He paused, then looked sidelong at Beckett. ‘She has a point, though.’

‘Maybe the beach comes later. Are we here to play cards, or what?’

It was not a good few hands of poker, but it got them through the next half hour before Harkon, always a sore loser, groaned for a break.

‘I’ll get the next round in,’ Beckett said as he stood. He liked Harkon but could find her trying when she was in a mood, and he had too little resilience to deflect and joke her back to a brighter path.

There was a solid queue at the bar, Keystone roiling with customers at this time of the evening, which only suited him more. But despite the establishment primarily catering to Starfleet, he hadn’t expected many familiar faces, and he certainly hadn’t expected Jack Logan to sidle up to him at the bar.

‘Commander! Didn’t expect to see you here.’

Logan gave him a lopsided glance full of the silent accusation Beckett bashfully realised he’d earned. ‘Some old friends are aboard and ship off tomorrow. We’re getting one last drink.’

‘Cool,’ said Beckett, scrambling to not offend after inadvertently suggesting the security chief would not be sociable aboard Gateway. He knew Logan was affable and well-liked aboard Endeavour, but that was very different to an ex-Borg having friends wherever he went. ‘It’s just poker night with some of the guys from Pathfinder.’

Logan nodded. Around them, bar staff saw to the orders of the other officers waiting, masters of the dark arts of reading the invisible queue. ‘How’s Lieutenant Thawn?’ he said at last. ‘Maintenance load seems pretty big.’

‘She’s fine,’ Beckett said reflexively. He caught Logan’s eyes narrow a micron and shrugged. ‘Busy. Family in town. But fine.’

‘Fine?’

‘Fine.’

Logan looked up as the bartender reached them. ‘Just a beer for me and my bud here,’ he said casually, then threw an arm over Beckett’s shoulder as the bartender nodded and fetched glasses. ‘We’re having one drink.’

‘I… if you insist.’

‘You’re flapping, kid, and all I did was ask how your girlfriend is.’

Embarrassment about the dinner with Anatras meant Beckett was not, regardless of any other feelings, going to openly discuss what had happened. He knew it would come with a telling-off, knew that his own behaviour would end up overshadowing any point he had, and that the best thing to do was prevaricate and escape.

He sank against the bar with his head in his hands and said, ‘Ugh, I fucked it, Commander.’

‘Reckon when it’s like this,’ mused Logan, ‘you should call me Jack. What happened?’

Beckett swallowed bitterness, and was deeply relieved to find the beers set in front of them. He drank deeply. ‘Long story short? Betazoid matriarch’s in town, she’s pissed her perfect arranged match of Rosara and Commander Rhade’s messed up, and Rosara tried to appease her by selling me off as an admiral’s son.’

Maddeningly, Logan only sipped his beer. Beckett heard the unspoken question, knew the other man was staying silent, and resolved to not rush to fill the gap unprompted.

‘…and I know she has to play politics with her family,’ he snapped a moment later, anyway. ‘But we didn’t even talk about this, and she knows I don’t get on with my father.’

‘Huh,’ said Logan. ‘That’s unfair of her, springing that on you.’

‘Right? I get she has to handle her family, but I didn’t realise that came at the cost of me playing nice with my dad to appease her aunt. Like my opinion about my family doesn’t matter.’

‘And then you have your father and a Betazoid matriarch both thinking they can make decisions about your life,’ said Logan.

‘And I get that the Betazoid matriarch and all that business comes with the territory with Rosara. I get you can’t just pick-and-choose what parts of a person you get to be involved with.’ The righteous indignation flared bright and appealing, and Beckett felt his chest loosen. He hadn’t been so unreasonable after all.

‘But you both have your family issues and dealing with that’s a two-way street?’ offered Logan.

‘Yeah!’

‘Hm.’ Logan sipped his beer. ‘What did she want from you? Hooking them up with connections to each other?’

‘Just for Rosara to be seen with my father at some point,’ Beckett sneered. ‘Make this a political alliance between families or some godawful regency bullshit.’

‘Like, dinner with the three of you at Vandorin’s or something.’

‘Right.’ Beckett swallowed again. It didn’t sound like much when Logan said it out loud. ‘Though I guess my father does usually expect that if I’m ever on SB Bravo. And… eventually I guess that would involve Rosara.’ He could try to check out from the politics of a Betazoid House. He certainly couldn’t check out from the politics of his own family. Not completely.

‘Eventually. But on your terms.’

After a beat, Beckett narrowed his eyes. ‘I know what you’re doing.’

Logan sipped his beer. ‘Y’do?’

‘You’re agreeing with me, so I stop being defensive and realise how I’ve been irrational.’

The bigger man held his gaze steadily. ‘I was just lettin’ you get stuff off your chest without being on the back foot.’

‘Same difference!’

‘Have you been unreasonable?’

Beckett groaned and scrubbed his face with his hand. ‘I guess… Rosara’s going through a lot. That it took a lot for her to walk away from the genetic bonding. That this is a huge cultural deal and the idea it might take small steps to not completely piss off her entire family isn’t… crazy.’ He sighed. ‘And she cares more about pissing off her family than I care about pissing off mine.’

‘I guess there’s two ways to look at things: that your feelings and your situation matter too, and she should be more considerate of that. Or that she’s going through something real rough, and you have to suck it up for a bit and play support even when it hurts.’ Logan had a swig of beer. ‘I can’t tell you which it is.’

Beckett glared at his glass. ‘Shit,’ he said at last. ‘She shouldn’t have to be perfect to get through this. Not with me.’

Logan clapped him on the shoulder. ‘It’s rough. To step up and be the guy you gotta be. To listen to them better angels, even when it’s hard. Go blow off some steam. Play some cards. Figure out where your head’s at. Then go see her when you’re steady on your feet.’

‘Sure.’ Beckett drained his beer. ‘I should get the next round in for the others anyway.’

‘And Eli is gonna think I got lost if I don’t bring theirs.’

Beckett nodded, waiting as Logan ordered his round and had the tray of drinks set down before him, but only then did realisation sink in. ‘Are you doing okay?’

‘Why wouldn’t I be?’ said Logan amiably, picking up the tray.

‘I mean… the opposite, actually. You seem more chill.’

‘I think I am.’ Logan grinned as he stepped back. ‘It’s a new world, kid, but the work ain’t over. Now we gotta do the hard part of living in it.’

He left, and Beckett sighed, taking a moment before he finally ordered the drinks for his fellows. This had all become a lot deeper than he’d really wanted in a night of escapist poker.