& true seekers

❛ well, for starters, to avoid any other misconceptions, i would ask what you see as value in that question? ❜ he says, lacing his hands over his stomach. he has learned from her, that much is certain, that much was a necessity: learned how to misdirect a conversation until it bears little resemblance to what was originally being discussed. otherwise, he would never have discovered how to dance her back around to any serious discussion.

she does not pause to allow an answer — the question does not require it. ❛ if monetary value is the answer, however, then I am afraid I will remain bewildered. while many such secrets do include money... ❜ she parrots his own phrasing back to him, deliberate. ❛ they often seem to include rather financial concerns than financial benefits, and thus the value is not monetary at all, but rather that of avoiding a quarrel. but if one did not put oneself in a position to need to avoid a quarrel in the first place, then there would be no need to keep a secret to do so. ❜

aunt billie is lovely, and edwina is certain she would explain it much better than her old ledger. looking down at her hands, she imagines the older woman would drag her into a field for a hands-on experience. and as she cares nothing for mulch, she can see herself hating every second of it.

she couldn't waste billie's time because she didn't know how to talk to her husband.

❛ i do love reading, ❜ she agrees, gentle as ever.

at the sound of his throat clearing, edwina startles. she was ready to leave, it was a dismissal, if she ever heard one. it takes a moment for her gaze to focus on what he is pointing, but when she does, a smile unfurls on her lips, brightening under his attention.

julian crossed his arms over his chest and looked down at her. really looked, with great intention, fixing his gaze on the activity of looking down at her in order to remind himself of several important facts: he was right, she was wrong, and everyone on the station would shortly be apologizing to him, in case that pity threatened to make a comeback.

what sort of insane scientist was behind this experiment??

lottie realizes, a moment too late, just whom she was speaking to. she grimaces. ❛ no, don't answer that. ❜ in the same breath, as if to keep him from answering it, she plows ahead. ❛ but hear me out! they wouldn't need captain sisko's approval. if such an experiment was being run, the fewer people who knew about it the better... and especially people's commanding officers. if they all knew, then it wouldn't stay secret for long. but if only those directly involved — and their superiors, of course — knew... if permission was coming from much higher up the chain of command... that would be the only way to go undetected for all this time! ❜

which leads him to a situation he considered but did not exactly prepare himself for. if they kept going down this line -- and he intended to keep denying it, for now, having secured her attention and being in no hurry to relinquish it -- he was going to need to produce a secret worthy of the entire predicament. something convincing. something worth the trouble.

an unexpected drawback of being honest to a fault with one's wife.

❛ what of value is possibly accomplished by the keeping of secrets from one's wife? ❜ ultimately, it's the insignificant question of the two, but if she must go step by step to counterbalance his stubbornness, to give him less leeway within which he might twist away from the point, then so be it.

anthony's offer saves her the awkward conversation, and helps her with the original reason why she started searching for the book: she wants to understand the work that steals her husband for hours at a time. ❛⠀ i think if you help me with the first page, i can figure out the rest on my own, but i can't make anything out of it,⠀ ❜ she says, pressing the book into his outstretched hand.

as it is, however, that focus is bent rather towards the scrawl upon the page and his own recollections — he has read letters penned by her before, and there remain plenty of notes and records from the estate in her hand. uncomfortably, he clears his throat ❛ well. this ❜ — he points at a shape, turning the text to face her, the process made awkward by the desk between them — ❛ is her idea of a 'y' — her mistaken idea, I might add — and there's no distinguishing, except by context, many of her vowels. ❜

when he comes back to himself, his fingers are no longer on the bridge of his nose but splayed on his face, his nose smushed under his palm. dropping his hand to his side, he starts pacing back and forth and talking. talking always makes him feel better. ❛ you are making assumptions based on no data. i was explaining to you that the federation does not need to crash its own citizens to observe people, you are the one who made this into a hellish experiment, which, well, psychologists. ❜

❛ why, to see how a subject handles being stranded a second time. for example, I might hypothesize that one would handle the experience better having been through the ordeal. however, perhaps one is more susceptible... ❜ it clicks then, the disparate pages they are on. ❛ oh, I see! you meant that they do not need to strand people for the observation of the locals, because they have perfected unobtrusive observation techniques. but I meant that we are the experiment. what about using their concealed observation stations to monitor the individuals of shuttle crashes? that's the interesting experiment here. ❜

( he overlooks motivations far less flattering, far less logical, of course. does not see that he dared not lean upon anyone, dared not do anything but prove himself capable — or capitulate entirely. )

how he could forget a book his aunt created with so much love bewildered her.

she might have fooled everyone else on the station with her big eyes and bigger ideas, but he sees right through her. from the moment sisko said there was someone new coming onto the station and encroaching on his space, he knew there was something seriously wrong with her. the iguana is just the very tip of this iceberg.

well... not anymore.

she was unmasked. naked. no, that was weird. exposed! exposed before everyone, her trickery laid bare for anyone with eyes to see. and this was his moment of victory. his. he had earned it.

and instead of gloating, he was looking down at her with what felt like, but couldn't possibly be, heartfelt pity.

she sat up then, scowling, gaze suddenly accusatory. ❛ and really, considering all the messes the rest of you have gotten into, why am I the one in trouble for it? I haven't caused a truly catastrophic incident — even on a station level, much less a quadrant level! which is more than I can say for some of you. by the weekend something else'll have happen and everyone will forget all about it! ❜

first, he considered -- and then, because there was nothing else for him to do, calculated -- the odds that she would be the one with him when the shuttle crashed. once he had assured himself the probability was infinitesimal, he moved on to his most pressing concern: whether or not this was her fault. it was, so he moved on from that quickly. third, he thought of how long it would take for anyone to notice he was gone.

finally, as her nonsense slipped into the cracks of his thoughts, he found himself nodding along to the babbling before he had quite decided to.

repeat victim, she had nearly said.

❛ I am merely here by association! by sheer proximity! I might have had a smooth journey! ❜ of course, there is the matter of the fact that she had all but invited herself along rather than making her own way... but, really, someone ought to have warned her what she was getting into!

which, also technically made it not his fault, but rather that of the wholly fictional psychologists performing this particular experiment. she doesn't much care to provide him such grace.

smile flickers through her expression, as if not quite sure whether to stay or go, much like the girl wearing it. she wasn't sure she made the right decision joining him in his study tonight. it was his space. the house he called theirs, always proud when he said it had been waiting its new viscountess, but the study was wholly separate; the one room in the house that was his and his alone, and he certainly spent enough time in it for her to question whether he had a door hidden in there somewhere.

she only entered it for good reason. but she had lingered for no particular reason at all, finding, now there, not so strange he liked the room.

such things he does not wish to speak of. even to her. ( or is it especially to her? )

❛ yes, it is. ❜ the affirmation feels redundant when she knows so much as to definitively identify it, but it buys him time to catch up to a conversation for which he's unprepared. ❛ I suppose she asked you to remind me of its existence, did she? ❜ though far more wry than accusatory, the words are only half a joke.

if she were someone else, someone less earnest than she is, he might suspect even that it was for just such purpose that she lingered. that is, however, an instinct born of life amongst the bridgertons, one out of place with edwina. but though he cannot suspect her, he can suspect his aunt.

no, he had known fully what he was getting himself into.

❛ you, however, ❜ she adds, dropping her voice pointedly and leaning down once more, ❛ are nothing of the sort. ❜ perhaps the statement is too absolute, perhaps she ought to substitute it with far less so than you wish to be. still, by way of explanation, she points out, ❛ it is appallingly clear that you are avoiding the question. ❜

only she would look at the idea of her husband keeping a secret as inefficient. he is never quite sure how she is gonna react to any given thing or event. he has a better idea now than when he first started courting her under the excuse he needed her assistance to help his friend (had they even helped him, by the end? he genuinenely could not recall, the whole scheme was so transparent he kept forgetting about it as it was happening), but she was not the kind of person you ever fully figured out. he might map her, discover more in one person he ever imagined possible, but there was always something more.

as if this had not been her point when she accused him of poorly considering the implications of his choices. as if there were any more poorly suited to such a thing. had there been — and there had not — even the slightest question of whether he meant a single word he had said, of whether she had any cause for concern over supposed secrets, this would banish it definitively.

was it the promise of something unknown? or was it the promise that he was keeping something from her? he now knew better than to get lost in this distinction -- at least outwardly. inviting her into a discussion of semantics was akin to stepping into a maze and setting fire to the map.

as he watched her move across the room, he kept silent, a half-smile settling on his lips. it didn't matter, in the end. he had her attention, and he was not about to look a gift horse in the mouth.