A Warrior Does Not Let A Friend Face Danger Alone

I do not get to decide what hyperfixations grab me, but I will work very hard to persuade you my shows are Good Actually (against all evidence to the contrary, no one remind me of the existence of Season 9 of the Flash pls). Yes I am AuDHD, no you can't tell me what neurodivergent headcanons I'm (not) allowed to write. When I'm not writing fic I am often regretting academia (disability studies rocks tho). My taste in music is as bad as my taste in TV, but the better end includes Tori Amos, Indigo Girls, Kristin Hersh, Metric and stuff; sorry about all the 90s/2000s pop. Religion is another hyperfixation, fight me. Have been excessively using the em-dash in my fics since before AI meant anything other than Data and the Cylons (how I miss those days). I've been with the long-suffering Spouse for 20-ish years; see #shit my spouse says tag for occasional delightful nonsense from them. Cats like me for some reason (#biscuit). I'm really not as aggressive as the tone of this post suggests but it's 85 degrees F in the house today.

Ake's gaze pins her in place. “Where do you stay? When you visit Caleb.”

“My shuttle.” The Chancellor knows where she sleeps, a fact Anisha is painfully aware of. Ake gave her the damn ship, and she has to deal with the security situation every time Anisha turns up at the Academy. She just wants Anisha to say it. To be grateful. Bringing her low is this woman’s idea of a good time.

She takes a step towards Anisha.

Heedless of the stairs she can’t see behind her, Anisha steps back.

“I’d like to assign you temporary quarters.” Ake is saying. “On the Athena. Whenever you’re here.”

Fuck that, Anisha wants to say. Fuck you.

What comes out instead is, “I get to keep the phaser.”

Ake stops a few steps ahead of her, eyes never leaving Anisha’s. “Of course.” Her lips twitch. “And all four knives, and the laser scalpel.”

Anisha’s hand brushes the edge of knife number five, under her bra. It’s a little thrill that, for all the fancy tech in this place, she still has some secrets from this woman. She holds Ake’s gaze. “Did you disarm Caleb, when he got here?”

A flicker of something strange, hurt, behind Ake’s eyes. Anisha savours the triumph.

“We did.” She raises her eyebrows. “But you’re not Starfleet, Anisha.”

Anisha considers several curses in response to that—

—and Caleb is striding towards her, with that smile on his face, the one that could make Anisha forget all the rage she ever felt. “Mom! You made it!”

She runs down the rest of the stairs to hug him.

When she pulls back to look at him, running her fingers through his hair, she tuts. “Did you grow?”

He rolls his eyes, but there’s a warmth behind it that never leaves him, in her presence. “I’m 22, and it’s been three weeks.”

Anisha chuckles. “I’ll take that as a no. Glad I haven’t missed too much.”

The blink-and-you’ll-miss-it way Caleb meets her eyes, at that, could cut into her heart like a rusty pocket knife, if she let it. She doesn’t.

Then Caleb’s eyes lift to the Chancellor, as he gives her a smile that drives the knife all the way in. “Hey, Nahla.”