“Why are you still following me?” the captain asked, his tone devoid of any kindness or affection whatsoever. Anything he’d felt for the young woman before, it was gone now. Gone now, and maybe forever. She’d betrayed him. “You feel guilty? You want me to forgive you? You want me to tell you it’s okay? It’s not, and I won’t.” This was personal. She’d committed an affront to his very being, and there was a bite to his words that made it all too clear. “There’s nothing you can say that will make me forget what you did back there. You and Reyes both.”

“I told you on the shuttle back there… You get me as your escort, or you get a squad of security officers,” the Trill flight controller reminded him as they made their way out of the shuttlebay and wound their way through the interior corridors of the USS Serenity. “Admiral Reyes was very clear about that, and I figured you’d prefer my company.” The admiral had also wanted to keep it within the family, and that meant not involving security. She was still hanging onto hope that somehow she could stop this whole situation from spiraling out of control.

“Right now, I wouldn’t be so sure,” Captain Lewis grumbled. A security team hadn’t stopped him from avenging Lieutenant Morgan’s death. Ensign Rel had. Ensign Rel and Admiral Reyes.

“We did it for you,” Ensign Rel offered in barely more than a whisper. His words hurt, but she was sure they’d done the right thing.

“Bullshit!” Captain Lewis spun on her like a bear, an angry glare splayed across his face as he drew his close to hers. “She might have you convinced of that, but she’s got other reasons.” Maybe it was because Drake’s dad was an old friend, or maybe it was because she still felt she owed the Commander something after what he did for them ’99. Or she might have just wanted to avoid the mess of a JAG officer on the deck. “Allison’s no saint, and I assure you her motives weren’t pure altruism.”

His aggressive posture didn’t intimidate her, but his words did make her wonder. There was no doubt he knew Allison Reyes far better than she did. “Well, I did it for you!” Ensign Rel blurted out, desperate for him to at least recognize that. “I couldn’t let you throw your life away for that ivory tower ideologue!”

If anyone had come across the pair standing there in the corridor, it would have made for quite a sight, the bulky captain towering over the willowy ensign as she screamed up at him. 

Realizing how it looked, Captain Lewis stepped back, softened his posture, and began to walk again. “Look, if you don’t get it, you might not be cut out for this line of work,” he said coldly as they came to a stop in front of the door to his quarters. “It’s our code.” It was no different than the Vorta. The monster had killed a member of his team, and he’d irradiated the creature’s skull for it. Drake had done the same, and he deserved the same.

“Eye for an eye, no matter what? If that’s our code, it’s a fool’s code.”

Captain Lewis looked at her incredulously. “Are you for real right now?” She’d struck a nerve with him. Who was she to pass judgment on any of this? He was bleeding for the Federation on the floor of a Dominion prison before she was even an idea in her parents’ heads. “I have half the mind to pull rank and order you the fuck off my ship.” He didn’t have to put up with this shit.

Ensign Rel refrained from pointing out that her orders came from someone that far outranked him. Meeting power with power would only provoke him further, and he was angry enough as it was. Instead, she simply reached out and took his calloused hands within hers. “Lieutenant Morgan is dead. Nothing you do now will bring him back,” she offered gently as she stared into his eyes. There was grief there, yes, but there was something more too… guilt maybe? “What you were about to do back there, it wouldn’t have helped him whatsoever, but it would have put you away forever.”

“It would have been just one more price to pay,” Captain Lewis shrugged as his defensive nonchalance returned. He’d always figured he’d always end up dead on the battlefield, but spending some time in prison was a reasonably likely outcome too.

“But it would have been for nothing,” Ensign Rel insisted as she squeezed his hands. He had to see it. “On Nasera, after the evil heart of our enemy was laid to bear, after we freed the colony from their clutches, you told me that was why we fought, why we suffered, why we died… Well, today, I say to you that reason, that same reason, is why we must also walk away. You… we… we have greater purpose than retribution for the sake of retribution.”

“Perhaps,” Captain Lewis replied flatly as the door to his quarters slid open. He pulled away and stepped through the threshold. He just wanted some peace and quiet to himself. 

Ensign Rel didn’t take the hint though. She just followed him inside.

“You certainly are persistent…”

She just nodded as the door slid shut behind her.

“You’re really that much of Reyes’ puppy dog? I’m pretty sure her orders to escort me back to the Serenity didn’t mean making yourself at home in my quarters… my personal space.”

“You’d be surprised,” Ensign Rel smiled as she walked over to the replicator. The admiral had been pretty blunt with Elyssia about the reason she’d sought her out, and it definitely had something to do with the closeness the two had developed. “What would you like for breakfast?”

The captain stared at her with a confused expression.

“Captain, even you need to eat,” Ensign Rel insisted with a caring, almost motherly tone. “I can’t imagine you’ve made much time for yourself since you called us to battlestations as we tore out of Wolf 359.” Since then, they’d blown apart a transwarp gate within the Roche lobe of the Beta Serpentis binary pair and recaptured Beta Serpentis III from the Borg worshipers, and then he’d discovered the suicide of Lieutenant Morgan and tried to assassinate the squadron JAG.

“No, thank you. I’m good.”

Ensign Rel frowned as she stepped away from the replicator. She’d tried, at least. Slowly, she walked over to the sitting area and plopped herself down on the couch, gesturing for him to join her. The intimation was clear. She wasn’t going anywhere.

“I don’t get you, and frankly, I don’t get a lot of this,” Captain Lewis sighed as he took a seat in a lazy boy opposite her, resigned to the fact he wasn’t getting out of this. “I mean how did Reyes rope you into this? I thought you were one of the ones that got it…”

“Because she knew that I wouldn’t let you throw your life away,” Ensign Rel explained. “At least not unless it really matters. When it does, I promise you I’ll be right there alongside you, but this… this wasn’t it Jake.”

“Does she know about us?”

“Yes.”

“I see…” Captain Lewis frowned. That was problematic, but then again, this whole thing was problematic. His growing affection for Elyssia Rel had caused him to hesitate on Sol Station, and that had almost gotten them killed. He should have cut it off then, but he didn’t. And now, even after what she’d just done, he still found himself entertaining the conversation with her. He didn’t even understand why he was doing it, but he was.

For a moment, a silence settled between them, each lost in their own thoughts. 

“Tell me, Jake,” Ensign Rel finally asked. “What is it between you and Commander Drake? From the things you’ve said, and the way he gets under your skin, I sense this isn’t your first rodeo with him.” He’d made some cryptic allusions to it in past conversations, but he’d never really gotten into it.

“No, it most certainly is not,” Captain Lewis explained as his eyes darkened. “We first crossed paths after Hobus. It was a messy time, and we were asked to do messy things. We got caught up in the assassination of a Romulan Senator, and a young, but no less brash, Lieutenant J.G. Robert Drake was there to try and prosecute us for it.” His voice trailed off as he thought back to the events of 2389.

“And?”

“Well, I didn’t end up in jail, if that’s what you’re asking,” Captain Lewis chuckled. “People like me don’t end up there, not when Reyes and people like her still need us to do their dirty work. But what none of us anticipated was that Drake wouldn’t back down, and when the criminal case fell apart, he went straight to the court of public appeals. He drummed up civilian hearings and staged a media campaign that, when all was said and done, forced me out of Starfleet.”

The dots started to connect. “Is that when you set up your private outfit?” She thought back to the three private contractors that had shown up with a Ferengi trawler and assisted them in infiltrating and liberating Nasera.

“Yes, exactly. Sebold Industries was the only way I could continue to do what needed to be done,” Captain Lewis nodded. “And to be honest, with all the bullshit we’ve gone through recently, I sort of miss it. I mean, look how easily T’Aer and Grok went back to what they were doing after Nasera. They don’t have a JAG breathing down their necks.”

“But what we did on Earth, and what we did here on Beta Serpentis,” Ensign Rel pointed out. “We never would have been in a position to do those if you were still on the outside.”

“I suppose.”

“Did you do it though?” Ensign Rel asked. “The Romulan Senator?” There was no judgment in her tone, just curiosity. For as much as he’d almost done something very stupid today, she still believed in his moral compass.

“No.”

“So why did it turn out like it did?”

“Because we couldn’t reveal who did it,” Captain Lewis explained. “We took the hit in hope of preserving whatever equilibrium still existed within the fracturing Romulan government.” Not that it had probably helped all that much, given how things had turned out for the fallen empire.

Ensign Rel tilted her head curiously at the answer.

“If we had revealed the Romulan faction that had actually assassinated the Senator, we would have destabilized the situation further,” Captain Lewis continued. “So instead, we just sat there and took it.” He paused for a moment and then smiled. “And the irony is that Drake’s inquisition did actually help convince the Romulans that the Federation was taking it seriously, and that it really was just the actions of a few bad apples.”

“And what about on Nasera?” Ensign Rel asked. She’d been in the tunnels with Chief Shafir when Captain Lewis, Dr. Hall, Lieutenant J.G. Morgan, and Lieutenant Kora had assaulted the governor’s mansion. Captain Lewis had never shared what they did with the Vorta when they captured it. All Ensign Rel and the others had seen was the outcome when the Jem’Hadar gave up the fight. “Did you guys actually do what Commander Drake is accusing you of now?”

“What happened down there is between me, Dr. Hall and two of our dead colleagues,” Captain Lewis said firmly. He would not share the details with Elyssia Rel or Allison Reyes or anyone else. Doing so would only put them in the line of fire for Commander Drake. “If you’re going to stay here with me, at least promise me you’ll stop asking me questions you don’t want the answer to.”

“I can respect that,” Ensign Rel nodded. “But are you worried?”

“About Drake? Not in the slightest,” Captain Lewis shook his head. “What’s the worst he’ll do? Take my pips? It’ll be a relief if I have to go back to Sebold.” He’d already considered it multiple times, and the only thing that stopped him was the promise he’d made to Admiral Reyes. After what had happened today, he wasn’t sure that even meant a damn anymore.

“Drake’s talking about war crimes, Jake,” Ensign Rel cautioned. When Commander Drake and Petty Officer Morrey had visited her, they’d leveled all sorts of accusations related to torture and murder of an enemy combatant. “They may be going for more than your pips.”

“Capital punishment is off limits, as much as I wish it wasn’t,” Captain Lewis chuckled. “And if you mean jail, don’t forget what I told you earlier. People like me are needed. Even if he manages to convince a tribunal to lock me up, I’ll be out in a week, as soon as the news cycle moves on. Just like after Algorab.”

Ensign Rel looked far from comforted by his words.

“But don’t worry, Elyssia,” Captain Lewis assured her confidently. “He won’t win anyway. His only chance at a conviction just put a phaser to his head and pulled the trigger.”