Lieutenant Ras El'Heem - I write songs about you all the time, I bet I don't run through your mind

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((The Rusted Horga'hn, Indulgence of Chocolate-Coated Jama’haron))

 

The beer was beginning to work his magic. Not enough to say too much, but enough to let that nagging feeling to unburden take over. To talk about it. To talk about her.

 

El’Heem: Yea…yea…it’s Amelia.

 

He felt the shift in Connor. Stole a glance to see what the silence was doing for him. The look on his face, said it all. Ras thought he could detect a range of emotions to match whatever swirling thoughts the man had but it was hard to pin down. Connor set his drink down and Ras quickly spoke up before Connor could, hoping to blunt whatever judgement he might pass his way.

 

El’Heem: Don’t make it weird. Please.

 

Ras felt him move and he looked back at him. There was a smile on his face now and his hands were up in surrender. Perhaps he had been too judgmental, himself in how his friend would react.

 

C. Dewitt: Ras… I just watched you panic your way through a story about accidentally seeing one of our friends naked. ::beat:: I promise you I am not the one making this weird.

 

Was that weird? He just told a story that happened to him. Was it weird because it was more than just a funny story? Was it something else? Ras sucked air in through his teeth dramatically. He couldn’t even get this part right. The talking about it with a friend. He was hopeless. He’d never considered these feelings before, and this part of his life was already going to be gone and over with before he even got to experience it. It made his chest ache in an odd way.

 

C. Dewitt: I’m happy for you Ras… Finding someone you care for like that in our profession is not easy.

 

That was unexpected. Ras furrowed his brow. He was a scientist, jumping to conclusions like this didn’t mesh. He just needed to slow down. Figure it out.

 

El’Heem: ::under his breath:: yea but I didn’t. ::louder so Connor could hear:: Yea but…

 

He trailed off, not finishing his sentence. Not ready to tell him how he was rejected. How the feelings weren’t mutual and he’d made a fool of himself. That it was all for nothing. The bartender sent another beer down and he watched it while some of the foam dripped down the outside.

 

C. Dewitt: So how do you feel about it?

 

Ras pondered how to answer that. He felt a lot of things about her, some identifiable, others not so much. But how did he feel about it in general? Bittersweet was the word that instantly came to mind.

 

C. Dewitt: I mean really. Not the scientific assessment. Just straight from the heart.

 

Contradictory advice for what he just told himself. “Try not to jump to conclusions. Be a scientist.” What a difficult conundrum to navigate. Emotions were not chartable or objective like the kind of data he was used to parsing. This type of thing would be more easy to analyze by someone like Ayemet. He stuck to what he already conjured up in his mind, attempting to keep it simple.

 

El’Heem: Bittersweet. Odd. Complicated. Unpredictable. Messy. All not very good things, probably. Something to file away and try not to think about.

 

C. Dewitt: I was just recently told not to complain about the cards the universe dealt us, Ras. I think it’s valuable advice. ::beat:: It’s messy, one way or another. The timing might be awful and the variables don’t line up neatly like a lab experiment.

 

Connor didn’t quite get it yet. He’d have to tell him some way or another.

 

C. Dewitt: But those are the cards you’ve got. Is it really an option to just swallow and pretend there’s nothing there? Pretending you don’t feel something rarely makes it go away…

 

El’Heem: It’s not that easy though.

 

Ras bit his tongue and stopped himself from saying more and then used it as an opportunity to gulp at the untouched beer.

 

C. Dewitt: Take it from someone who’s been trying to make love work in this line of work every day, Ras. It’s never simple. ::small shrug:: But honestly, I think that’s half the reason we’re out here in the first place. Not just the missions, the science and the exploration. It’s the people we share it with. The ones who make all of it matter.

 

He hadn’t set his drink down and when Connor held his up, Ras took another gulp. He felt he’d be needing the courage for the rest of this conversation.

 

C. Dewitt: If you get a chance at that, you don’t half-hold it. You grab it with both hands. It’s worth it. ::beat:: And she’s too.

 

El’Heem: ::quietly:: Oh. Yea. She’s worth it…but…

 

There was a silence, like Connor was waiting for the sentence to finish but it never came. And then he asked the one question he’d been dreading. Well, he’d been dreading it all really. Like if he didn’t have this conversation eventually the syncopated heartbeat would eventually feel less empty and he’d be able to move on.

 

C. Dewitt: Have you told her?

 

Ras looked at Connor as his shoulder sank before his head fell just a fraction and his eyes no longer met the commander’s.

 

El’Heem: That’s…what I’ve been trying to tell you. I did tell her. Right there in the sauna. She was saying all these ::pause:: adorable things. About family, and a future, and us. And I realized I’d fallen for her a long time ago, in that moment. It all just came to me and it spilled out before I could stop it. And she…

 

He didn’t want to relive that moment. Not here or at all. Ras swiveled his stool back to the bar and set his forehead on it’s edge, staring down at the dirty bar floor.

 

C. Dewitt: Response

 

El’Heem: She…::beat:: she closed up. I misread the situation. She didn’t mean a future like that. She meant just being friends. I guess. I don’t know. She shut me down and I ::beat:: I tried to leave and she asked me to come for dinner or something and in my pity I said yes. And then she still turned me away. How could I think she liked me? I’m such a fool.

 

The beer was really doing the talking now. Amplifying the misery he felt. Instead of feeling the warmth of alcohol in his blood, it felt colder. Like he could cry. But he didn’t dare. He’d slid low enough as it was. He chose to let the alcohol bolster him instead. To feign off the commiseration.

 

C. Dewitt: Response

 

It was likely sincere. He’d never known the man to not be anything but. Still, it felt like he was just trying to make Ras feel better instead of addressing the reality of what happened. He wasn’t there, he couldn’t know how empty his hand felt when she pulled it away. How unmoored he was when the rug was pulled out from under him.

 

El’Heem: Connor, I’m just not cut out for this type of thing. I don’t know how to cope. I never had to. I can’t let myself have false hope for her.

 

Ras again downed his beer, and things were feeling a bit fuzzy around the edges. The feelings softened in some ways and deepened in others. His head was telling him to keep chasing away sobriety. He waved the bartender for another and she brought two, promptly.

 

C. Dewitt: Response

 

There was less sorrow in his voice now.

 

El’Heem: So, what the hell am I supposed to do, then?

 

Had she made it clear? Or had he stopped listening the moment his heart sunk into his stomach? Was there more behind what she said? The questioning of his own memory made his head swim.

 

C. Dewitt: Response

 

TAGS/TBC

 

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Lieutenant Ras El’Heem

Science Officer

USS Khitomer (NCC-62400)

K240106RE3