Ensign Lera Michaels - Nothing is All Anything

[steve...@yahoo.com]

((Deck 14, Room 148, Michaels’ Quarters, USS Khitomer))

T’Dara: Why? I insist on a logical why from a logical being, performing an illogical act.

Michaels: I am certain that my logic will appear inadequate to you just as I am certain that I appear appear ... substandard to you. So I will tell you the truth and remind you that the truth is not always logical.

T'Dara: I live that inconvenient reality.

Michaels: Allow me to posit that there are two factors that make someone a typical Vulcan; physiology and the environment in which they raised and educated. I am as Vulcan as you are physiologically. The only parents I have ever known were human. I was seven years old before I saw another Vulcan. I was twelve before I actually exchanged words with a Vulcan.

T'Dara: And these humans… failed to embrace you?

Lera shrugged and nodded as though to say "Of course they did. Are you missing the point." She stood silently for a moment

Michaels: I was educated in the human manner, loved in the human style, and raised in a human environment and I will answer your question before you ask it. I am aware that we smell different than they do. If you have been exposed to the odor your entire life, you get to where you do not notice it.

T’Dara made a nearly silent sound.

T'Dara: And… what? The smell lingers?

Michaels: With a few exceptions, every Vulcan I have ever known has seen me as unusual. Something deficient to be rejected. Inadequate. And by Vulcan standards I am. I know that I have missed the primary formative years. I have never had a Vulcan instructor to train me. I know that psychologically I am more human than Vulcan. But I aspire to be more Vulcan ... more like you.

T'Dara: Hm.

T’Dara nodded. Lera tried to read the older woman but she saw nothing but a pure Vulcan. In some pain but still one completely in control of herself. Lera took a deep breath. T'Dara was the sort of person Lera would never be and that assessment stung.

Michaels: And then there is you. ::beat:: When I see you, I see everything I aspire to become. At the same time I see my own failures. I see the futility of my efforts. I will never be an adequate Vulcan like you. I will never have a "normal" Vulcan life. I look upon you and I despair. Yes. I know despair is a human emotion that accomplishes little if anything beyond motivation. I appreciate the value of emotional control. And particularly in your presence, I have striven to control my emotions.

Commander T’Dara was silent for what felt like forever. Lera knew she was judging her just like that man who came to her school and concluded that Lera was unfit to be part of Vulcan society. Perhaps useful but a negative in the society of proper Vulcans. Someone contaminated in ways that even Ambassador Spock could equal.

The woman stood as motionless as though she had been caught in a stasis beam. Lera had just poured out nearly everything wrong with her life and this T'Dara woman had not so much as flinched. Lera's anger subsided replaced by something closer to awe. Commander T'Dara displayed such mastery. Such control. Lera felt it was such an example of Vulcan perfection.

A moment later, Lera feelings shifted again. No. It was not mastery. It was not control. T'Dara was in some pain and was spending her intellectual energy to hold that within tolerable limits. T'Dara had not rejected her. T'Dara had started with the assumption that Lera and was a typical vulcan woman and had been surprised by what Lera had turned out to be. It wasn't disdain from T'Dara. It was, perhaps, a bit of confusion. Perhaps even sympathy. T'Dara had not been attempting to make Lera feel bad about herself and her feelings. That had all been Lera projecting on to T'Dara. And everyone other Vulcan she had ever met? No. That was going to far. Some of them had made it perfectly clear that Lera was a disgrace to their race. They had used those exact words. But not T'Dara.

Lera shook her head. These emotions. These human emotions raging over her. The girl who was, in her own way, both Human and Vulcan.

T'Dara: I see.

Michaels: Right now, I need some more emotional restraint. So I am going to make myself some tea. I will pour you some if you would like. If you would more comfortable laying on my bed, you are welcome. If you need assistance sitting, laying down, standing up, whatever, I will give you what you need. Now I need to be quiet for a while.

T'Dara: You are perhaps the only one aboard I trust to serve a correct tea.

She hobbled slowly towards an open chair and descended into it, keeping her muscles sternly taut no matter how they shrieked. She would not take Lera’s efforts for granted.

Lera watched in silence. This was not just an older Vulcan woman. This was a very old Vulcan woman who was suffering from both the ravages of age and the injuries she undoubtedly had suffered the last few days. And the unexpected complications that a project T'Dara had worked on for so long. And the malicious thoughts so many had of T'Dara. Including not a few that Lera had thought. This was a woman who deserved respect and help just like Granny Nancy.

Lera moved to assist T'Dara sit and re-establish her composure. Once she was convinced that T'Dara was a close to being "alright" as she could be, Lera went back to preparing the tea.

Michaels: The tea is called Liu Bao. A friend, a tea connoisseur helped me select it specifically for my Vulcan relatives. They found it satisfactory.

T'Dara drank in silence. There was a moment when Lera was concerned that the tea might not be satisfactory but T'Dara took a second and then a third sip.

T’Dara: Vulcans are themselves contradictions, Ensign. Our restraint leads to arrogance, and pride. Our repression leads to stubbornness, inflexibility. ::she paused, adding just a hint of disgust to the next word:: lust. The Vulcan way is not the right way. Perhaps it was for a time. But we have conquered our need to conquer. Now we stand against the other half of our being.

Michaels: I do not understand. All Vulcans... My mother, my human mother says that "Nothing is all anything."

T’Dara placed the tea and saucer on the nearest stable surface, and leaned forward conspiratorially. Her fingers interlaced, and she stabbed Lera with a gaze of unremitting urgency.

T’Dara: What you feel is inferior about yourself… is what many Vulcans wish they were brave enough to embrace.

Michaels: Emotions? Uncertainty? Sometimes acting with analysing and thinking through all the factors? How can that be? ::She furrowed her forehead. :: That's... :: the word "impossible" died on her lips. :: You are ...:: and "lying to me" went unsaid as well. After an extended silence Lera spoke again nearly silently :: Is that true?

T'Dara: Response

Lera leaned back in her chair and interrupted her silence with only the occasional sip of the cooling tea, Then she decided to do something profoundly stupid. Something her father would refer to as "rolling the dice." Lera leaned forward and set her tea cup down next to T'Dara's. She would ask for advice.

Michaels: There is a young man in Khitomer's crew. A very good young man. A Trill. For a while I worried that what I felt about him might be the early onset of Pon Farr but that is not this seems to have developed. I ... ::she wanted to say "love but of all the words she could have picked that seemed the least Vulcan:: like him a very great deal.

T'Dara: Response

Tag/TBC…

Ensign Lera Michaels
Engineering Officer
USS Khitomer
K240106LM2