Indira Sehgali looked like a thief in the night as Mellasitox opened the door to her quarters and allowed the light from the deck 2 corridor to flood in. Illuminated like a deer in the headlights, she froze momentarily as the warm light fell onto her tired face, the bags under her eyes accentuated into weighty sacks of sleeplessness.

“I was just grabbing the last of my things,” Sehgali whispered apologetically. “I thought you were still on bridge duty.”

“We’re still waiting for Typhon to take on the last of their supplies. Encore can handle the watch.” Mellasitox felt as if her joints had turned to concrete. She hadn’t seen Sehgali alone for several days, and finding her here was unexpected.

“I’ve been trying to talk to you,” Mellasitox finally added after an uncomfortably long second.

“I’ve been busy,” Sehgali replied as she slowly resumed picking up a small set of statuettes that sat on the dresser, packing them safely into a grey briefcase. The last figurine, with the sharp lines of Vulcan ears, looked on disapprovingly at the pair as he was slipped into the last alcove in the box.

“The EPS relays were really in that bad a state?”

“They were,” Sehgali muttered coolly.

Another uncomfortable silence stretched out into the divide between the two women, the air thick with a caustic miasma of soured feelings and unspoken words.

The approaching footsteps of a crewman echoed through the still-open doorway, their regular rhythm on the soft carpet cutting through the lack of noise.

“You better come in. It wouldn’t do for the crew to see.” Sehgali placed the briefcase on top of a small pile that she had formed on a nearby chair. “I’m almost done.”

Mellasitox willed her feet to move forward, but found the chill radiating from Sehgali an almost palpable repellent. As the beating of footsteps became louder, she struck at the concrete surrounding her heels with the terrible thought of their breakup becoming more fodder for the rumour mill.

With a titanic effort, she broke free and took a sidestep to clear the door’s sensor, allowing them to close with an indifferent whoosh.

“You don’t have to take your stuff out, Indira, please,” Mellasitox whispered in a tone that was on the uncomfortable side of begging.

As Sehgali lifted a glass vase, its dark blue form laced with bands of golden threads, Mellasitox found the strength once more to take a few steps towards her. She had tried begging, perhaps there was a different avenue to break through the cold defence.

“Do you remember when we got that on Tellar Prime? The trader told us it was made from Bajoran Sapphires.”

“I remember that’s what you thought he said.” Sehgali’s eyes turned misty as she examined the vase, its dark surface rippling and rolling in the low light that crawled through the window. For a moment, her face seemed less shadowed, less choked with sleepless angles.

“It is what he said!” Mellasitox threw her hands up defensively.

“You would’ve believed anything he said.”

“Bajoran Sapphires. With that unpronounceable material from Cardassia.” She took a few more slow steps closer to Sehgali, risking the proximity like a farmer herding a flightful sheep.

“Hesparima.”

“That’s it. I remember thinking it was a lovely metaphor for unity. How two things can come together to make something beautiful.” Mellasitox came to a stop a metre or so from Sehgali, suddenly concerned her attempt at the metaphor might have been a foolish choice.

Sehgali’s face turned dark again as the mist faded from her eyes, replaced by a painful red tinge that evidenced she had been crying.

“He said it was as beautiful as Bajoran Sapphires.” Mellasitox’s face became dark and shadowed once more as she placed the vase back down on the table.  “And the supposed Hesparima? It’s just gold paint.”

Another deepening silence, filled with dark blue undercurrents, flooded the room as Sehgali turned away to the row of books on the shelf.

“It’s just a pretty lie,” She muttered as her long finger bounced across the spines of the ink-laden memories. Mellasitox’s confidence fell back a few steps, it seemed Sehgali was armed with metaphors of her own.

“You can have any of them that you want, they’re yours really.” Mellasitox allowed herself to perch on the edge of her small desk, the weight of her wounded heart held aloft by the thin piece of metal.

“They were a gift for you.” Sehgali paused as her finger landed on a particularly worn spine, its dark red body cut with a long white fold mark.

Surprising herself, Mellasitox took the opportunity by the horns.

“A Happy Longing.” She mused with a slight smile. “That’s your favourite.”

“It’s your favourite, that’s why you always wanted me to read it,” Sehgali replied forlornly as her manicured nail paused, lightly grazing against the gnarled spine.

“You said Besarida was the best Selayan poet you’d ever heard.” Mellasitox probed further, “And I didn’t believe you about it being better underwater until we went to Atrixin.”

Please Indira, don’t do this. She begged with what little telepathy she could muster. It had never been her forte, but if there was ever a time for it to come in useful, this was it.

Sehgali’s finger and mind recoiled at the telepathic touch simultaneously, and a sharp intake of breath signalled that Mellasitox had taken a step too far.

“You don’t get to do that any more,” Sehgali announced coldly, before turning sharply away from the bookcase. “Keep them. I don’t know if I have space in my quarters.”

Mellasitox furrowed her brow in confusion. The commander’s quarters were much like her own, one of the few cushy bunks aboard the small ship; she knew for a fact there was plenty of shelf space for a few books.

“I don’t understand.” Mellasitox chirped, her mind filling with fog. “They can go by the window.”

Sehgali stopped in her tracks, her form silhouetted against the dim light of the window. The wounded shape of K-74 hung in the dark sky beyond the transparent portal, one great broken arm floating next to it as the mobile dry-dock that was Taniwha hovered nearby.

“I’m getting different quarters,” Sehgali whispered, a painful flatness to her voice.

“Don’t tell me you’re going below decks.” Mellasitox joked, desperately clawing to escape a truth her subconscious had already realised.

“No Bullwura. I’m going to Typhon.”

The air raced from Mellasitox’s lungs as the words smashed against her ear like a tidal wave. An overwhelming and unabating wave that pulled at her last hopes for salvaging the relationship and summarily carried it off, away from the shore into an endless ocean.

“I didn’t see a transfer request.” She stated indignantly, her wounded heart pouring venom onto her tongue. “Regardless of anything, if you want to go somewhere, you’ll need my approval.”

“Anyanka asked me to help with the Division Operations. It’s a reassignment from above, not a transfer request.” Sehgali still hadn’t moved from the window, her eyes fixed on the nearby grey cuboid of her new home, Typhon.

“And what am I meant to do?” Mellasitox was on her feet, her chest filling up with a distasteful bile at the woman’s decision to leave her.

“That’s your choice, Bullwura. It’s always been your choice.”

“And when are you abandoning us?”

Sehgali twitched at the woman’s choice of words, an unintentional echo of her own misgivings about departing the ship.

“When Typhon has finished loading, I’ll transfer aboard. Captain Harrison confirmed it this morning.”

“Were either of you ever going to say anything to me?”

“I don’t-”

“-So, you just intended to disappear in the night. Not even a note?”

Mellasitox tapped her commbadge with a growing fury.

“Encore, get me Captain Harrison.”

Before the bridge officer had even had a chance to answer, Mellasitox had already tapped the badge again and was charging to the window where Sehgali stood. But the older woman had already begun walking to the door, sweeping the small pile of briefcases into her arms as she went.

“You’re just going to walk away?” Mellasitox spat across the dark room

“It’s done, Bullwura.” Sehgali muttered with a marble finality as the doors swished open as if they hadn’t borne witness to the cruel death of their relationship.

“Encore to Mellasitox, I have Captain Harrison.”

“Goodbye, Captain.”

“Indira…”

For an instant, it seemed Sehgali might turn back, leap across the table and take Mellasitox in her arms, professing her love all the while.

Mellasitox begged the universe with every fibre of her being.

But as the doors slid shut, Bullwura Mellasitox was left alone.

A broken woman, surrounded by the inescapable reminders of her decisions.