‘Where the hell is Fox?’ Beckett demanded of thin air as he stood from the co-pilot’s seat on the runabout Starfall. Their allocated departure time was mere minutes away, and there was no sign of the young officer who was supposed to keep him company for the next month – months – of this venture among the Khalagu. They would have limited contact with the outside world, limited capacity to reach out to Starfleet, and probably not see much of anyone who wasn’t each other or the Khalagu for those weeks. This was not a good start to what promised to be this level of cabin fever.

But it was not a disaster if she was late, he reasoned with himself. That wasn’t why he was angry. He was angry because if he looked at his message inbox on his PADD, it was empty.

Decisions had been made.

Nostrils flaring, Beckett stormed to the aft of the Orion-class runabout and headed for the ramp. Traffic control would have to give him a new departure time if Fox was any later. Activity in this cavernous shuttlebay of Gateway Station had shifted away to other craft in anticipation of their launch, so his footsteps rang out on the ramp as he clattered down to the deck.

There was no sign of Fox. Beckett sighed, then turned on his heel back to the runabout and tapped his combadge. ‘Beckett to F-’ The shuttlebay doors slid open, and he stopped short. ‘There you are,’ he groaned as he rounded again. ‘What took -’ But it was not Fox.

Rosara Thawn looked like she’d been running. Her hair was wild, her cheeks were flushed, and she clattered across the shuttlebay like hell’s demons were behind her. ‘Nate!’

Something surged in his chest, but he swallowed it down hard. Hope was a fickle creature and one he wasn’t about to indulge. ‘Oh, no,’ he groaned, and waggled a finger at her. ‘Departure time is… whenever Fox gets here. We’re not going to do another round of this dance, Rosara. I’m out of here.’

He turned back for the runabout, but she rushed after him, stopping at the foot of the ramp. ‘Listen – we need to talk -’

‘We’re done talking!’ Beckett stopped at the opening hatchway. ‘We talked loads! I talked to you days ago, and then I got nothing. Now, what, at the last minute, you want to keep me on the hook so we can spin through this stupid little dance another few steps? No. No, I’m done. Are you here to ask me to stay?’

‘No -’

‘Then you had your shot, you missed the window, I’m out of here.’

Again, he turned, sure that nothing could stop him. But his feet planted to the deck as if he was wearing mag-boots set to the highest power when she spoke. Her voice was quiet, but her words could have found him across light-years. ‘Adamant and I are getting divorced.’

It was what he’d asked for, really. But the words ripped through him like a punch to the gut that didn’t stop, and he froze with his back to her. ‘What?’

‘We… Adamant had a chance to use one of Narien’s artifacts. Something with a lot of psychic energy – it doesn’t matter. We had a vision of our future, of what we could imagine it to be.’ The magnetic pull shifted from the deck to her, and he turned back, jaw slack, as she pressed on. ‘It was perfect. A perfect life on Betazed with partnership, family, work, purpose, prestige, everything I’ve been told and told myself forever that I wanted.’ She was pale now, her wild red hair limp against cheeks turned ivory. When she drew another breath, her lips quavered. ‘I couldn’t stand it.’

A crooked smile threatened his lips. But not only would that not do as she spoke of rejecting her whole life, it was premature. ‘You say that today,’ Beckett said guardedly. ‘Have you told your family?’

‘I… I’ve sent messages…’

‘What did they say? You did this before – you almost left Adamant, you told me that a year ago, and then your aunt clicked her fingers, and you just turned right back!’ Frustration boiled in him anew, the hurt and pain of knowing she was a creature of her family’s needs. ‘You said you weren’t marrying him, then you came crying to me about doing it anyway!’

He expected excuses. He expected her to cringe away like she always did when confronted with her hypocrisies and weaknesses. She did wince, but it looked like pain, not evasion. ‘No,’ Thawn said simply. ‘No, I’m not. Because I’m done lying to myself, Nate. I want to face the truth.’

‘What truth?’ he snapped, hands on his hips. ‘Because this looks a lot like you’re trying to stop me from leaving for Synnef so you can keep me on the hook, not have to make any decisions that really inconvenience you – keep me around, then go slithering back to Adamant and your family once they turn the screws.’

At last, there was a flash in her eyes as his pushing ignited a fire of frustration. He didn’t know if that made him relieved or fearful, but she took a sharp step forward onto the ramp of the Starfall. ‘Do you know why I wasn’t angry with you after Frontier Day? Why I didn’t blame you? Why it didn’t even occur to me to be afraid of you?’

That stopped him short, guilt tightening his chest and stealing his words. ‘I didn’t… I had no control -’

‘I know that, but look at the rest of the crew, Nate!’ Thawn waved a hand back towards the station. ‘The captain still can’t look Forrester in the eye. Elsa avoids Zherul. People are healing and talking, for sure, but memory is still powerful, and for so many of us, we look at the people assimilated, and our survival instincts remind us of the time they tried to kill us. But I don’t get that with you.’

Beckett swallowed. ‘Why not?’

‘Because I knew it wasn’t you.’ She advanced to jab a finger in his chest like this revelation was an accusation. ‘Because I know you inside and out. Because I felt you across an entire star system when I thought you were dead, when the echoes of the murdered Brenari were around us all and killing the Devore, and even as I unleashed them, I found you.’ Her cheeks were flushed now, black eyes alive. ‘You’re not a Betazoid, you don’t understand that, but I could find you across this starbase in the dark. I know you.’ Now she softened, hand pulling away as if she’d not realised she’d reached out, guilt at last creeping in for the outburst. ‘And I knew, even as the Borg tried to kill me, that it wasn’t you.’

He’d confronted her, put his heart on the line, laid all of his feelings bare and exposed. And Beckett realised that he’d done that more for himself, more so he could be sure he’d done his utmost, said his utmost, than for any hope. Because not in a thousand years had he thought she would ever turn around and respond like this.

His chest shuddered as he drew a deep breath. ‘So, what are you saying, Rosara? Because… I know I told you to ask me to stay, but you said you weren’t going to do that, and I don’t know if I can cancel this expedition without Valance ripping me a new one after I fought for it for so long, and Fox will be here any second…’

‘Fox isn’t coming.’ Now her guilt looked different – childish, almost, as if she’d been caught in some mischief. ‘I said I didn’t want to ask you to stay. I meant it.’ Thawn straightened, and now she looked more serious and certain than he’d ever seen her. ‘I want to come with you.’

He stared. ‘What?’

‘I cleared it with the captain, and I cleared it with Fox. I know it’s an important duty to build bonds with the Khalagu, but I know it’s an adventure for you, too. And I want to go with you. Away from my commitments, away from my family, away from everything and everyone who’s told me what I’ve got to be for my entire life.’

‘That sounds…’ Beckett’s mouth was dry, and he swallowed hard. ‘That sounds an awful lot like running away.’

‘Maybe.’ She looked up at him. ‘But I want to run away with you.’

There would be more, for certain. However far they ran, some day, everything would need facing. Her marriage, her family. His family, his demons. Perhaps cold, hard reality would prove rocks they’d be dashed against. Perhaps this would only be an escape, a dream. Perhaps it would be time to know what they were, without the rest of the galaxy bearing down on them.

But in truth, Beckett spent no time on those deep, measured considerations. Instead, he stepped forward, reached for her hand, and kissed her.

It was untenable to think he’d only kissed her once before. Only kissed her in a guilty, broken moment in the bowels of Endeavour’s SOC, and then spent six months paying for it in his heart and his soul and his life. Now he could kiss her with none of that shattered loss, none of that shuddering guilt; kiss her like nobody would stop them. Kiss her like he could do so over and over again for as far as the future stretched.

And still he broke away with a quick flash of a desperate thought. ‘Oh, hell,’ Beckett hissed, forehead pressed against hers, and felt her tense at the interruption. ‘Traffic control is going to bloody kill us if we don’t get underway right now.’

She giggled – giggled, the sound was enough to turn him inside out, because Rosara Thawn didn’t giggle – and nodded. ‘Then you better get this expedition started, Lieutenant Beckett.’

He had to fight hard to not laugh, to not kiss her again, and bounded back onto the runabout. He headed for the cockpit as she sealed the hatch, made sure they were ready to get underway, and he’d just finished the pre-flight sequence, sat in the pilot’s chair, when she came up to join him. She slipped into the seat beside him.

Beckett grinned from ear to ear as he reached for the comm controls. ‘SB-23 control, this is the runabout Starfall, requesting permission to depart.’ The confirmation came through on the comms, his flight control panel lit up with his departure route, and, if possible, his grin widened as he looked over at her. ‘Ready to run away?’

Her eyes drifted from him, moved to the cockpit canopy. Before them was the shuttlebay doors, wide open; beyond them stretched the buzzing traffic around Gateway Station. Beyond that, the stars, and somewhere among them, the Synnef Nebula, and all its mysteries that would be theirs to pull apart over weeks, perhaps months.

Rosara Thawn drew a deep breath. She did not look at him, as she smiled, her eyes locked on the horizon, but she did reach for his hand. ‘Let’s get out of here.’