she is a star , he thinks ; she burns bright in the dark , lighting a way for his bones . ' lieutenant forbes didn't make it . not a damn thing i could've done , the state he beamed up in . '
LOSS. DEATH. MOURNING. those are the feelings she knows all too well, ingrained deep into her very bones, where marrow ought to be. she had seen more death in the past few years than she had seen in a lifetime, countless names and faces disappearing into the ether, swallowed by the void. it does not get easier --- she is relatively sure it never will, not how each time it happens she feels her heart break into a million pieces, glass shards shattered and sticking into the walls of her chest painfully.
she cannot begin to imagine how leonard feels like. communication officers do not have direct contact with the people they are supposed to protect and save && she is in no place to watch the life slip away from somebody, the pulse slow down to silence.
“ i’m sorry, len. “ a hand finds its way to his shoulder, the other mirroring the movement && she wastes no time to tug him closer to her. he feels solid beneath her fingertips. real, alive, BREATHING, not the ghosts she watches from the corner of her eye, not the spectres haunting her sleep. yet she raises above them, a glistening orb, she still finds it in herself to comfort and to love. to nurture.
if she rocks herself on the balls of her feet to stand on the tips of her toes, nyota might be able to wrap her arms around his shoulders, but she does not push, instead just allowing the weight of her hands to ground him. because she knows, instinctively, intimately, that every person who dies in front of him is blood on his hands, and this type of blood cannot be washed away. she also knows him, knows he will not admit it to anyone, not even to himself.
“ c’mon, let’s get you to your room. i’ll pretend i’m not snooping around while you take a shower and then we can watch the first season of friends. “