Arys opened her eyes, finding even the dim light uncomfortably bright. Solaris’ presence here felt oppressive – yet another interrogation, yet another individual who didn’t permit her to rot away and find some measure of peace. 

She barely registered how much the other woman had changed since they last met. The memories of their past friendship were vague and distorted, and utterly irrelevant. Right now, she was simply something that stood between Arys and the quiet she so desperately craved. 

“We looked for you for months… and I looked longer than that…” Solaris said almost hesitantly. “You were gone without a trace.” 

Arys didn’t respond right away, and the silence seemed to stretch with every passing second. She had asked to be picked up from Miranda VII when the situation there had become volatile. But Starfleet hadn’t come – or rather, not on time. 

For a while she had felt angry about that. Now, she felt nothing. 

“There were… people asking about Nestira and Alasafor. I didn’t tell them.”, Arys said. The words came slowly, her voice steady despite the effort it took to speak. “They… left.  Then they came back. They said they had more questions. They took me with them. They… kept asking. I kept not … telling.” Her lips trembled before pressing into a thin line. “They got frustrated.”

“What did they do then?” Solaris asked.

Arys felt her heart pounding faster, as if her body wasn’t able to differentiate between a painful memory and actual danger. She inhaled, doing what she could to keep her voice from cracking. “They found out anyway. They were wondering what to do with me.” A bitter laugh escaped her.  “They… said it would be a waste to.. dispose of me.”

“What happened then? What did they have you doing?” Solaris asked softly.

“I was brought to a…  a … freighter, I think. People were injured. I was told to help. I didn’t want to, but… they made me stand there… And… I couldn’t not help…” she said carefully, not looking up to see Solaris’ reaction. Her words stumbling like a child learning to walk.

“So you helped them?” Solaris inquired further, and Arys gave a small nod. 

“I knew they wouldn’t go into the galaxy and do good but… they were people…  it didn’t seem so bad at the time.” Her voice grew more quiet with each word she spoke, and then, there was a long pause. “I worked, I was good at it. I got to have my own quarters and pick my food.” She shook her head, banishing the ghost of a bitter smile. “I wanted to get out. But…”

“But?”

“You… get used to it, you know?”, Arys confessed heavily. “After a few months. You stop fighting. You adapt. I stopped hating it there.”

It had kept her sane. But it wasn’t meant to last. 

Solaris nodded quietly.

“That’s how people cope…” she said. “We find something decent to hold on to no matter how small.” she added, and looked down at the PADD before she returned her gaze to Arys. “But that didn’t last… did it?”

“No…”, Arys whispered. “It didn’t..”

“When did things start to change?” Solaris asked. “Did they start bringing ex-Borg? Or take you someplace else?” 

“I was … sold.”, Arys whispered, shifting uncomfortably as they neared the territory that steeped even her days in nightmares. 

“Then what?”

“I came to the other ship and.. I was told what they expect me to do. I refused.”, Arys answered, and pulled her knees closer to her chest. 

“Did they force you to do it?” 

“They tried.”, Arys’ laugh was brittle and without joy. “I didn’t do it. I thought… maybe they will get angry enough to kill me. But they didn’t. They did worse.”

“What did they do?”

“The same thing they did before. They made me watch. Over and over again.”, she said, her hands clenching into fists, fingernails biting into her palm. “They said if I hated it so much, I could make it… better. At least I could sedate them.” 

Solaris couldn’t mask the slight amount of horror on her face.  “So… you started to…” she trailed off.

Arys felt her chest tightening as her own shame mingled with Solaris’ reaction. The disgust she must feel . “Yes.”

“Did you start to like it?” Solaris asked, and very carefully so. 

Despite being prepared for difficult questions, Arys found that this one hit differently. Did Solaris really think that of her? 

“Of course not.”, she said, her voice sharper than she had intended, barely able to believe that Solaris – or anyone for that matter – would imply such a thing. 

“What was different about it?” 

“Before, I was helping people. Even if they weren’t good people. Then, I was… just helping someone make latinum off body parts.”, Arys insisted, and her breath hitched. “But I…”

“You what?”

“I thought… I… I wanted to make it better.”, she murmured. “I thought maybe if I could get good enough, people wouldn’t have to die… it would still be awful but they wouldn’t be dead. We could just… ditch them on some planet…”, she said.

She knew that it had been a stupid hope, but it was something she had clung to. 

“So you held on to that? But something didn’t go according to plan?” Solaris asked.

“They killed him anyway.”

“They killed them even when they didn’t have to?” Solaris asked, and Arys nodded.

There was a long moment of silence.

“By that point you had already been going for so long… What changed? What made you call for help?” Solaris continued eventually.

Abruptly, Arys shook her head. No, she didn’t want to remember that part. 

She didn’t want to remember the young man, and how he had insisted on being alive and aware for as long as possible, even if those last moments of his existence would be painful and miserable. 

She didn’t want to remember what he had told her about being part of the collective, and the small voice inside him that had urged him to reclaim his humanity to … do something. 

And how she had ignored that own voice inside her for far too long.

Solaris waited patiently, but eventually gave a nod and tried another approach.  “How did you get help?”

“I injected one of the prisoners with adrenaline rather than the sedative. Then I sent the broadcast.” Arys paused, and her hand brushed over her side as if soothing an injury that was no longer there. “Then I was shot.”

“Do you know what happened between the point you sent the message and being taken into custody?” 

“Only fragments. One moment I was in the operating suite, and… I was cold. I thought it would be the end. I was glad for it.”

But then she woke up, and the nightmare continued. “I… remember I was in someone’s quarters, and there were.. Bailey and Foster, arguing.”

She called them Bailey and Foster because she didn’t know their real names. And because she had spent so many hours imagining herself back in s sickbay, with the team of colleagues she valued and trusted. 

Sol raised an eyebrow. 

“Two people were arguing? Could you tell me about what?”

Arys shook her head, an almost desperate gesture. “Only fragments.”, she repeated. “A man interrogating me. A doctor asking questions. I just… I just want to be left alone.” She looked up at Solaris, barely registering the hot tears against her cold cheek. 

“Arys, I need to know who-…”

“Please.”, Arys whispered. “It’s too much.” 

Solaris paused for a moment, then nodded quietly, and stopped the recording on the PADD. She picked it up and looked at it for a moment before setting it aside.

Then she sat up on her knees and gently drew Arys into a hug. Not a tight, constricting one, but it still had Arys tense up. 

“I made a mistake a long time ago… one I don’t intend to repeat now…” she whispered. “I have to go… I’m not leaving you alone again if I can help it… I’ll make sure you get the support you need.” she said quietly. “I have the rest of your things too… I’ll bring them when I come back…” 

Arys didn’t respond, and didn’t move. When Solaris finally left, a comfortable silence settled over the room, like a heavy blanket that offered a suffocating kind of safety. 

And for what seemed like hours, Arys stayed frozen. Then, her gaze fell on the plush Mugato sitting on the floor beside her.  A reminder of simpler, happier times – her first posting aboard the USS Juneau, and Tito’s grin as he gifted it to her.  

Slowly, hesitantly, she reached out and drew it onto her arms. It was a small comfort, but for now, it had to be enough.