When Raj Dhanesh had come aboard Endeavour some months ago, he hadn’t expected the first visitor to his office to be chief of security Jack Logan.

‘Thought I’d give you a warm welcome,’ the former Borg drone had drawled as he’d sauntered in before Dhanesh had finished deciding where to put his potted plants. ‘Considering most of the senior staff are probably busy drawing up plans how to best avoid you. I’m Jack Logan.’

‘You know how to make a fellow feel wanted,’ Dhanesh had mused in reply, giving Logan’s extended hand a firm shake. ‘Is everyone aboard that therapy-averse?’

‘I’d say no more than on any starship. Some of them are real bad at winding down and trying to relax or be happy, though.’ Logan wandered the half-unpacked office, eyes sweeping over the tentative choices in decor. ‘You’re gonna need to hook ‘em in if you want them to talk about their feelings.’

‘But not you.’ Dhanesh had watched this broad-shouldered, swaggering man with a suspicious air. ‘I don’t need to worry about you? In fact, I should worry about everyone else first, because you’re so clearly so well-adjusted?’

‘What? Oh, no.’ Logan waved a dismissive hand as he turned from a picture of a calming ocean that Dhanesh rather hated, but knew to be soothing. ‘Nah, this ain’t some gambit where I pretend to be the model patient, so you pay me less attention. I’m not gonna be your patient at all.’

Dhanesh had been sifting through a box of knick-knacks. It was good to make the office look personal, make him look and feel like a real person to his colleagues when they came to bear their souls to him. But professional boundaries still mattered, so which real version of Raj Dhanesh they all got mattered a great deal, and some of that was in which tiny sculpture he put where. ‘You’ve got my attention,’ he admitted.

‘I’m well-therapised. You probably saw my counsellors’ files; you could present it to the Sheliak as convincing documentation. My commission, especially my service in a senior role on a front-line starship, is dependent on my cooperation with clinical psychologists who’re absolute experts in my specific bag of trauma.’ Logan had leaned against the door-frame, arms folded across his chest, watching the counsellor. ‘So I talk with them regularly, remotely. Do my worksheets. Express my feelings. All that good stuff.’

‘Then why, if you’re such a cooperative patient, don’t you want to benefit from face-to-face sessions with a counsellor who sees you every week?’

‘Don’t get me wrong. If I need some emergency session ‘cos something bad happens – I’ll book in.’ Logan shrugged. ‘But my day-to-day needs? I’m sorted. I’ll go somewhere else, thanks.’

Dhanesh had reached for the console built into his desk to quickly but pointedly summon Logan’s files. ‘I guess I’ll have to have a word with… Commander Bainbridge about that. See if she has any concerns about what could be considered avoidance behaviour.’

‘Oh, it ain’t for my good, per se. This is for yours.’ Logan had given a slow, self-satisfied smirk as Dhanesh’s suspicious eyes fell on him. ‘You’re about to become the emotional guardian of one of the most stand-offish packs of over-achievers you ever met, and they’re not gonna want to let you. You’ll either be in conflict with them or know the truly screwed up shit they’re going through. You’re gonna need better boundaries than the old Neutral Zone. Except for with me. ‘Cos I’ll keep going to Bainbridge.’

‘You’re saying this like I should thank you.’

‘Dunno about that. Point is, you’re gonna have a lot of weird relationships. One thing you’re gonna need is a friend. One you don’t therapise, one you don’t need to keep some professional barriers up for. Someone you can blow off steam with. You play springball?’

‘Badly.’

‘Good, me too. See you tonight at seven on the court? We can grab a beer after.’

Which was how Raj Dhanesh became friends with Jack Logan.

He made sure to keep an eye on Logan’s records, checking that Commander Bainbridge of Starfleet Medical was satisfied with the progress and cooperation of a relatively high-ranked xB. With Endeavour in deep space for long weeks, too far out for instantaneous communication, Dhanesh reached out to Bainbridge himself to see if Logan’s primary carer wanted him to check in. But Logan proved as good as his word. Then again, most officers didn’t risk losing their job if they didn’t follow a counsellor’s instructions to the letter.

Springball became beers became regular games down the gym, or holodeck jaunts, or long evenings in the Safe House. It didn’t take a read of Logan’s file for Dhanesh to see the man’s aching need for constant companionship, to fill the silence the Collective had left within him. Then again, Dhanesh was fresh to a new assignment, finding his feet, himself cut off by Endeavour’s distance from real-time communication with his family. The arrangement worked. The friendship worked.

It meant that when, the day after their arrival at Rencaris, Logan flopped onto the bench in Endeavour’s gym between weights sets, puffing much more than expected at this stage into the workout, and began to complain, Dhanesh knew this was the bellyaching of a friend, not the expressing of feelings to a counsellor.

‘I’ve still gotta pick someone,’ Logan huffed, grabbing his water bottle. ‘For day after tomorrow.’

The emotions were clear. The context was not. Dhanesh set his weights down thoughtfully. ‘To do what?’

‘Escort duty. The opera. ‘Cos they can’t let me near a head of state, lookin’ like this.’ Logan was still catching his breath, and gave his own face, his own cortical implant, an agitated gesture.

‘Ah.’ Dhanesh handed Logan his water bottle. ‘Do you want advice on this professional decision?’ Or do you just want to get this off your chest?

‘It should be Qadir, right? Professional, capable. Not a Borg. Could be Griffin. Or I think a bit more out of the box and send someone like Beckett – it ain’t as if physical security will actually be needed, and the kid’s got good eyes…’

Dhanesh stayed silent. Logan drank deeply. His rest timer went off, and that cut the venting off for the period of another set of lifts. Dhanesh considered his options, and decided that being Logan’s friend didn’t mean he had to turn his professional instincts off.

‘Are you angry that you’re benched as chief of security because you’re a Borg? Or are you angry that you’re benched but Kharth is going?’ he said once Logan had put the weights down again.

He’d slightly misjudged it, and Logan put his dumbbells down with a bit of a clatter, his jaw tightening. ‘Can it be both?’ he said after glaring at the weights for a moment.

‘Sure can. I should rephrase, though. Are you legitimately worried for her safety, the captain’s safety? Struggling with the idea you’re not allowed to do your job? Or the idea there are social spaces they can go – she can go – that you can’t?’

‘Alright. Counsellor.’ Logan stood, lips twisting. ‘So there’s stuff to work on.’

‘Hey. I’m just asking questions,’ said Dhanesh with an amused shrug.

‘And maybe in all of this I should be thinkin’ harder about escorting the captain over to the Suv’chu, huh. Last time I escorted a senior officer to a Klingon meeting, guards pinned me to a wall while he got the hell beaten out of him.’

Dhanesh rolled his eyes. ‘That does make this sound a bit like deflection. Yeah.’

‘Or there’s just a lot goin’ on,’ Logan pointed out.

‘One step at a time. What do you need for the trip to the Suv’chu?’

‘To wrap Captain Valance in padding?’ Logan’s honest brow furrowed as followed the joke with a sincere ponder. Then he sucked his teeth and shook his head. ‘If they start to posture, if they start to throw their weight around, all training says you sometimes gotta be ready to meet Klingons on their own terms. Match strength for strength. If I hold back at the wrong moment, it looks like weakness and that hurts us.’

‘And…’ Dhanesh knew what the alternative was. He just wanted Logan to say it.

‘And if I push back at the wrong moment, they decide to see me as an outta control Borg and this makes things worse.’ Logan grimaced as he reached for his towel at last, wiping the back of his neck down.

He was never more obviously a former drone to Dhanesh than when they exercised. Physical competitions between them had been abandoned quickly, at Logan’s suggestion, because he was so clearly the stronger and faster. Down here in the gym, Dhanesh could only spot that superior strength if he stopped to note how heavy the weights were, how effortless it sometimes was. But in lightweight workout gear, he could see the nodes and implants marring Logan’s skin, marking his muscular arms and body.

To some extent, the trap Logan described would be performative, Klingons picking and choosing when they thought an opponent fighting back was impressive and worthy, and when they thought it meant they deserved death. But there were times Logan moved too fast, or lifted something too heavy, and some small part of Dhanesh’s hind brain screamed that there was a threat nearby.

‘Trust the captain,’ Dhanesh said in the end. ‘She knows the people involved, the culture. Let her set the pace. And tell her this before you go, so she knows when and why to give you orders.’

Logan frowned a moment, then nodded. ‘Yeah. Yeah, she’s not gonna be weird about appearing weak or whatever. She’s sensible.’

‘And then, when this is over,’ Dhanesh continued more carefully, ‘maybe have a conversation with Saeihr about the opera. Because I don’t believe you’re fretting more about a mission you’re not going on than one you are going on. You’re fretting about her. Being seen in public with her, on a Romulan world, in Romulan culture.’

Logan laughed. It was sincere but bitter, self-effacing but also, somehow, relieved. Dhanesh had cut to the heart of things, and though that hurt, it was also liberating. ‘Damn, Raj,’ he said as he gathered himself. ‘Thought I said I weren’t gonna be your patient?’

‘Sorry, Jack.’ Dhanesh clapped him on the shoulder as they headed back for the changing rooms. ‘I’m your friend, not your counsellor, but that doesn’t mean I’m any less annoying.’