‘I don’t understand.’ Thawn tried to not fidget as she looked at Rhade across the breakfast bar in his quarters. ‘You want us to go on… what, a vision quest?’

The perennially patient man, who had put up with all her manoeuvring and evading, sighed, and she heard the edge of frustration. ‘Let us be honest, for once, Rosara. The situation between us is not sustainable.’

Her guilt flickered when she remembered how much he’d lied to her, too, and what he’d lied about. ‘I don’t see why playing with a Romulan artifact will change anything.’

She went to stand, but he reached across the table and grabbed her hand. ‘What do you see our future as?’

It took effort to not jerk free of his grasp. ‘Right now? We commit to our duty here, to Starfleet and to this frontier.’

‘And after?’ At her hesitation, he looked up. ‘In ten years? Twenty years?’

Now, she slipped her hand away, sliding rather than pulling. It felt like a distinction to her but didn’t look like one to him. ‘You’re asking if I’ll give up my career for our marriage.’

Rhade’s eyes widened an iota. ‘I don’t think you want that. I never intended on serving in Starfleet my whole working life, however. You know that. We’ve made oaths to one another -’

‘We’ve signed a legal agreement; that’s not oaths in the eyes of our people -’

‘Then let’s do that,’ Rhade said flatly and stood. She was acutely aware, just for that heartbeat, of how much taller he was, broader and stronger. Even though she knew he had no intention of using his size against her, it was impossible to not be aware of it in any of his flashes of frustration. ‘If you’re in this, Rosara, let us go to Betazed and be married properly. If that’s not what you want, then please, please, tell me. If you’re not sure, then let us try something to show us the way.’

Thawn swallowed, throat leaden. ‘I’ll think about it,’ she said, thinking about how she could delay or distract him. ‘Now, I really have to get to work, and so do you.’

‘Come here this evening,’ Rhade said, firmer than he normally was when she tried that. ‘And we can discuss this more.’

‘I will,’ she said. It wasn’t a lie, exactly. But she certainly only said it so she could slip away from the conversation.

She was halfway to the science lab Airex had commandeered for analysis of their sensor readings on the Synnef Nebula when her combadge chirped. ‘Lindgren to Thawn. We’ve got an emergency up here.’

Elsa would be part of the analysis, taking a navigator’s perspective. Thawn picked up the pace. ‘What’s wrong?’

‘The commander just told me there’s a frozen yoghurt stand on the Arcade, and we don’t have any up here.’

Thawn stopped dead in the corridor. ‘Are you asking me to go on a snack run?’

‘Yep. Commander Airex wants the -’

‘They do tropical fruits, and I’m deeply curious which tropics,’ Airex’s voice cut over, a little more distant.

‘And get me the blackberry and apple.’

Thawn pursed her lips. ‘I am a highly qualified sensor technician -’

‘So you can order whatever you want! See you soon.’

Had Lindgren been a worse friend, Thawn told herself she wouldn’t have been a gofer for snacks. But that was untrue because Commander Airex also wanted a mid-morning snack, and there was no universe where Thawn did anything that might lose her the respect of a superior officer she looked up to. Or any superior officer, really.

With a grumble, she changed course for the Arcade. The mid-morning crowd was always an odd mix, with crewmembers generally too deep into their shifts to make an appearance, so a smattering of civilians on station time went about their business while visitors for whom it could have been approaching their sleep cycle wrapped up their days. The management of the Arcade thoughtfully kept the night-life, which never really stopped, in a different section to the more exclusively breakfast and lunch venues, but to get there Thawn still passed the entrance, pulsing with heavy rock music, to the Paradox nightclub and heard raucous, intoxicated laughter spill out from the Crowbar.

The frozen yoghurt shop was very small, bright pinks and whites in decoration, and with its cutesy name – The Ice Patch – Thawn found it all a bit too overwhelmingly twee to be comfortable with it. So she was already in a poor mood when she stepped in and found, sitting at one of the handful of tables before the main booth, Nate Beckett.

Her back immediately tensed, and this only got worse when he sat up expectantly at the sight of her. ‘What’s this?’ she said archly before she could stop herself. ‘Getting in one last snack before you run away again?’

His response was worse than she expected, as he neither cowered nor bit back. Instead, Beckett clasped his hands in front of him and smiled. ‘Hi, Rosara. I’d love it if you sat down.’

They hadn’t properly spoken since Frontier Day, she realised, and her first words to him were a gibe. Shame-faced, she sat on the pink-upholstered stool opposite. ‘I’m sorry. I heard about the expedition and I…’

‘Reached conclusions,’ he said, far more charitably than she felt she deserved. She felt his eyes flicker to her throat, and while the smile had clearly been a shield, now he softened in sincerity. ‘How’ve you been?’

‘I’m fine,’ she said, with emphasis to mean it rather than deflect. She met his gaze. ‘Honestly, Nate – I’m okay. Commander Logan found me quickly, Ed did good work, I’m okay. I know I just snapped, but… look, I hear this expedition could last weeks, months, and I – I heard you might not be coming back.’

‘That’s a bit dramatic,’ Beckett mused. ‘But it’s true that the captain wants to discuss my future once the expedition’s over. And that future might not be on Endeavour.’

‘And I’d hate it,’ Thawn said in a guilty rush, ‘if that was because of me.’ The implication felt too laden, and she stumbled. ‘Because of Frontier Day. Because you feel guilty.’

‘Of course, I feel guilty. But that’s not your problem.’ He’d had an aura of certainty around him at the start. Now he fidgeted with the disposable spoon in his froyurt tub. ‘I might not be coming back. And yes, that’s because of you. That’s because of us. We did this dance before, Rosara, and then I came to Pathfinder and we both came back to Endeavour and… don’t tell me it’s working.’

She bit her lip. ‘I didn’t stay away from you to make you feel bad. I stayed away because… I thought you might want space. I can’t imagine what you went through on Frontier Day, I can’t imagine what it was like…’

‘It was awful,’ he said honestly. ‘It was the worst day of my life. I cannot… when it ended, and I realised what I’d done, I…’ He looked down, gaze going vacant for a moment, and she couldn’t help but feel the swell of horror and guilt in him before he tamped it down. He swallowed and looked up. ‘But it helped me realise something. You were right.’

‘I was?’ She had no idea what she’d possibly said, in all of their swirling interactions, she could possibly have been right about.

‘About what you said last time we were here on the Arcade. And what you said when we were leaving the Delta Quadrant. That you don’t know what I want from you.’ He sat up, taking a deep breath like he was steeling himself.

Fear ran through her veins like ice, and Thawn’s throat tightened. ‘Oh, Great Fire – you arranged this with Elsa, this was all a plan -’

‘I want you,’ Beckett said with deceptive simplicity. ‘I don’t want that to be “wrecking your life,” or however you put it. But I don’t think you’re happy with Rhade, I don’t think you’re happy with the arrangement. I think you’re still chasing your family’s needs and approval, and I think you’re going to do it until it screws you up inside so bad you don’t have even one feeling left, and I know what that’s like.’ He leaned forward, eyes locked on hers. ‘I want you to leave all that behind, and be with me.’

Her mouth went dry, and when she managed to speak, his earnest gaze still on hers, it came out more as a croak. ‘I don’t understand what’s…’

‘…what’s changed?’ His smile was a grimace. ‘Good question; both of us have been dancing about because anything else meant sticking our necks out. You didn’t want to throw everything away on some dumb flirtation, and I didn’t dare put myself out there and ask you to give up your bonds to your family and society for me. Let’s just say that Frontier Day gave me perspective. Life is short, sure, but who we are is stupidly precious and…’ He looked like he was chewing on words, gaze flickering away with a completely different kind of guilt until he managed to say, ‘I got taken apart and put back together, being in the Collective for even a few hours. That included my lies to myself being taken apart, and what I really felt being put back together. And what there was… was you.’

Thawn went to push away from the table, feeling the old instinct to run and hide, deflect, as the rushing weight of feelings and obligations began to form on her horizon like the maelstrom she’d turned away from her whole life. Only guilt kept her locked in place for a moment more. ‘I don’t know what to say.’

‘I don’t expect an answer right away,’ Beckett agreed. ‘But I think I do deserve an answer. And if this isn’t what you want? I’ve got to stay away. We’ve got to stop doing this stupid dance. So if this isn’t what you want, I’ll take that expedition, I’ll talk with Valance once this is done, I’ll get a good job somewhere and I’ll leave you alone to your life.’ He stood instead, and straightened his uniform jacket. ‘Otherwise, what you’ve got to do is really simple.’

She looked up at him, barely daring to assemble the question, like more than a whisper might make this all come crashing down. ‘Which is?’

His smile was sad as he shrugged. ‘Ask me to stay.’

Then he left, his words shuddering through her enough to make her fingertips numb. And even when he was long gone, even when the serving staff behind the counter were giving her pointed looks at the table space she was hogging, she still didn’t have answers.

‘Oh no,’ Thawn gasped to herself eventually. ‘I don’t know if they actually wanted froghurt.’