Thawn was slightly surprised her aunt hadn’t secured somewhere to stay on the surface of Alfheim, but her guest quarters on Gateway were inevitably some of the station’s more opulent. An egalitarian Federation only went so far when a matriarch of the Twelfth House leaned on some poor deck officer.

But it guaranteed them privacy. The suite of rooms kept her aunt’s two young attendants elsewhere when she was received and sat down with a cup of tea.

‘I’m glad you have time for this,’ said Anatras in that airy manner, which meant she was judging Rosara for not waiting on her hand and foot since her arrival. ‘I know you’re very busy with your ship in dock.’

‘I’m Chief Engineer, Auntie,’ Thawn said awkwardly. ‘It’s my responsibility to make sure Endeavour can be launched again as quickly as possible.’ For a moment, she considered pointing out that if Anatras had given her more warning, she might have cleared her schedule – and swept that thought away before it could take root, banishing any feeling or consideration that might come from it.

‘I understand. It’s very important.’ Anatras sipped her tea. ‘But we have this time, and that’s what matters. You might be happy to know I’ve spoken again with Adamant, and with his parents, and we’ve come to an agreement. They will put out a statement in the Gazette or such announcing their choice to dissolve the genetic bonding.’

‘Oh.’ For a long moment, Thawn couldn’t find anything else to say. This commitment had loomed over her life for the better part of two decades, and here her aunt was, sweeping it away in a matter of sentences. ‘I’m… thank you, Auntie.’

It should have come with a sense of relief. Of freedom. This had been the true obstacle; not her feelings, not her choices. Not understanding them, or deciding what she wanted. But the tension between that and what she would be allowed to do. What price there would be. It was now done, and yet, the weight had not lifted.

‘I’m very fond of Nate,’ Anatras was saying airily, stirring more sugar into her tea, a clear sign she wasn’t that impressed with the replicated fare. ‘Please tell him it’s no bother at all that he was so… agitated at dinner. I understand he’s not Betazoid, that there’s a lot he’ll have to adjust to.’

Thawn swallowed. That was why relief hadn’t come yet. The price hadn’t been set. ‘He’s been very busy lately. His work doesn’t stop just because we’re docked, either.’

‘No, and it’s important. I understand that.’ Anatras glanced up, eyes glinting. ‘You’ve shown good judgement with him.’

‘I didn’t… his family had nothing to do with my decision.’

‘No. Of course not.’ Her aunt waved a gentle, dismissive hand. ‘But people are always naturally more comfortable among their own. He may be human, but he is still one of us, isn’t he. Enough.’

Influential, you mean. Of the right social standing. The next swallow was heavy. ‘I suppose.’

‘And it is always so sad to see such families struggle. He’s lucky to have you.’

Thawn blinked. ‘He is?’

‘I’m sure that whatever discontent there is between him and his father… well.’ Anatras reached across the coffee table to put a hand on hers gently. ‘It is easier to deal with these matters when one is happy. I’m sure you’ll be a source of great support.’

It could not have been more transparent, this permission to leave Rhade, permission to be with Beckett, with the expectation she bridge these rifts within that family and forge new bonds between theirs. Perhaps her aunt knew she couldn’t force the matter with the genetic bonding, but she was most certainly going to leap on this new opportunity.

‘I’m not about to tell Nate,’ Thawn said carefully, ‘that he has to get on with his father. I’ll support him in what he needs. But what he needs might be to have nothing to do with Admiral Beckett.’

‘These things take time.’ Anatras’s smile didn’t quite reach her eyes, and Thawn didn’t have to extend her senses to know that her aunt would be patient about this – but not forever. In a year, five years, ten years, there would be fresh expectations. ‘For now, you should just try to be happy together.’

There was no world where her aunt would tell her to live her life, however she wanted, with no expectation. This was as good as it could get – an acceptance of her choice, with an expectation that could be navigated and managed over time. She did not need to force Nate to forgive his father. Anatras could be deflected, or, so long as the galaxy thought the Twelfth House and the family of a Starfleet admiral were close, the truth was irrelevant. There were still Nate’s feelings to consider, his resistance, but she had to navigate that regardless of what Anatras said today.

She was free. She’d won.

But Thawn sat with her hands wrapped around her teacup and didn’t say anything for a while. ‘Auntie…’

‘Yes, child?’ Anatras sipped her tea with all the self-satisfaction of a woman who had rigged the game so she won, no matter the outcome.

‘When I was little – I mean, when you arranged the genetic bonding with Adamant… it was so long ago.’ Thawn frowned at nothing. The memories felt like they lay behind a fog she couldn’t sweep aside. ‘Did I agree?’

‘Agree?’ Anatras blinked. ‘My. You were so young. Nobody expected you to understand the magnitude of the matter.’

‘Yes, but I…’ Thawn faltered. A thickness rose in her throat as the fog rolled back. ‘I didn’t want it. Did I.’

‘We knew that as you grew older, your sense of responsibility to your family would…’

‘Would what? Make me ignore what I wanted?’ Your family owed you better than telling you your emotions were inconvenient. Rhade’s words thundered through her, thudding in time with her racing heart, and it was like a wave to push back all of those clouded memories, thoughts, feelings.

Anatras stiffened. ‘It would have been irresponsible of me to refuse such an opportunity to rebuild our family’s standing, establish our family’s futures, at the whims of a nine year-old.’

‘So instead you told me to accept it. To shut up, and do what I was told.’

‘I never told you to be silent.’

‘Yes, you did.’ Thawn was on her feet now, blood pounding in her ears. ‘With every time you told me to be patient, to wait, that it might not happen, that I’d understand later, you told me what I was feeling was wrong.’ An iron lump was in her throat, but she kept using her voice because she didn’t trust what might be unleashed if she fell back on her telepathy.

That thought cracked something else, and it took all of her self-control to not let out a choking sob. ‘Great Fire,’ she whispered. ‘It’s not just that I didn’t voice my feelings, or didn’t act on them, or didn’t trust them. I locked myself away, didn’t I?’

‘Rosara!’ Anatras sounded a mixture of indignant and pleading as she stood.

‘Because if I even felt that this, this thing you told me was so important for everyone, wasn’t what I wanted, you sensed it, Mother sensed it, anyone sensed it and you were all just so, so… disappointed in me.’ She clenched her fists, driving her fingernails into her palm. ‘I wasn’t even allowed to think anything you didn’t want without feeling like I was failing everyone I loved!’

‘You were a child.’

‘A child you taught – all of you, my whole family – that she couldn’t speak up, think up, voice what she wanted, feel what she wanted, without feeling ashamed.’ Thawn shook her head, nostrils flaring as she glared at the generic art on the wall. ‘I thought for so long that it was leaving Betazed that changed me. That I didn’t adapt to a non-telepathic society, that this was why I struggled to connect to people. But it happened before that, didn’t it? Because all you taught me was how to push away every thought or feeling I had that was my own.’

Anatras tilted her head, setting her jaw in a way Thawn recognised. It was what she did when she was trying to stand her ground, but didn’t know if she should. ‘You’re being quite dramatic now, child. I am not responsible for your difficulty adapting to life off Betazed.’

‘No.’ Thawn bit her lip. ‘But you’re why I’ve never, ever trusted my feelings about anything; never been able to… connect.’ She took a step back and raised a hand. ‘Here’s what’s going to happen: the arrangement with Adamant is, yes, ending. And I am going to do… whatever the fuck I want.’ Her voice shook with the force of feeling from both sentiment and emphasis.

‘Child!’

‘That might mean being with Nate. It might not be. It certainly doesn’t mean trying to make him get on with his father, or doing photo ops with him, or anything like that!’

Anatras’s gaze went cold. ‘You are being deeply immature. I can indulge it for so long, but do not pretend there won’t be consequences.’

Thawn set her hands on her hips. ‘Like what? I’m not a child anymore.’

‘You’re not. You’re an adult with a duty to your family. Which makes this all the more disappointing.’

There was no world where those words from Anatras, her great-aunt, the matriarch of the Twelfth House, didn’t slice through to Thawn’s very core. She could be as defiant as she wanted, as strong as she wanted, and it was still a body blow, enough to knock all the air out of her, even though she’d known it was coming. It was the sort of sentiment that had haunted her, the fear of it keeping her in line for years, and Thawn knew that would never, ever go away.

She was not a child anymore. That did not mean she was immune to such a chastisement. But it did mean she could hear it and still stand on her own two feet.

‘Duty is reciprocal,’ Thawn said quietly. ‘You have never done your duty to me. I’m done being obligated; do what you will. Cut me off from the family, deny me anything to return to. I don’t think you will. I think you’ll hedge your bets so you can tell everyone I’m involved with an admiral’s son. But do not pretend, Auntie, that this is some accord we’ve reached. I am doing what I want, what I need. You may respond however you wish.’

Anatras had gone quiet, her lips a thin line, her powdered cheeks a little pale. She did not speak again, and when her words rolled across Thawn’s mind, it came with all of the roiling fury of a woman unaccustomed to defiance.

Some day you will need us. Pray that I am merciful when that comes, child. Your fleeting engagement with a youthful distraction, your commitment to an organisation that does not care for you, will all come to an end some day. On that day, you will need family.

Thawn gave a fleeting ghost of a smile. We’ll see. Travel safely home, Auntie.

She held it together as she left. Stayed poised as she walked the corridor of the most luxurious guest rooms of Gateway Station. Stepped into an empty turbolift without hesitation, without giving a single sign to a single onlooker that there was anything amiss.

Two decks down, she halted the turbolift, and fell into a crumpled, sobbing heap on the floor.