The Real Thing

Posted on Tue Mar 12th, 2013 @ 9:09am by Captain Li Hawke & Commander Sakkath

Mission: The Struggle Within
Location: Sakkath/Hawke Quarters
Timeline: Before 'Catching Up On Missed Time'

=^= 900, this is Vice Admiral Wegener. Break out the bubbly and get Sakkath out of my chair. We're coming home. =^=

The cheers had gone up in Command and Control at those words from everyone present, save the Vulcan commander. Sakkath's most prominent reaction had been to lift his brow at the Admiral's seeming desire to return immediately to command duties.

Truthfully, Sakkath would be more than happy to oblige him. Things on 900 had been decidedly too interesting during his weeks in command. And so he had waited in C&C while many others crowded the corridors to welcome back their missing officers and made the formal transfer of power back to the Vice Admiral.

"I stand relieved," Sakkath had concluded their exchange, and he was. Very relieved. So much so that he departed the central command of the base with an unusual amount of alacrity. No one doubted why.

"Deck 10," he ordered, heading straight for his... their quarters.

Li had been one of the last to depart the Hammond. She’d fallen asleep as Norval suggested and it wasn’t until he returned and gently shook her awake with the news that they were home that she came back to the here and now. Home? It took a few for that to process in her tired brain but the thought was almost instantly replaced with one more. She searched her mind and felt the almost audible click as the link to Sakkath was restored. It was overwhelming and tears that were hastily wiped away slipped down her cheeks.

Sakkath...

She reached out to him with only one word. Then without hesitation, ordered a direct transport to her quarters. As Sakkath stepped through the doors, the blue swirl that would become Li was just beginning.

Imzadi, was his only mental reply as she materialized before him. He stood there, just in front of the sealed doorway, his hands draped behind his back and allowed himself a moment to very simply drink in her appearance.

Li was still dressed in the sweat pants and t-shirt, her hair somewhat tousled as she’d come straight from sleep. She didn’t care. All she could see was Sakkath, the real one, the one who loved her, was linked to her, had gone through hell and come back to her. All the fear, uncertainty, grief over Nahi, the dealings with Suresh, the momentary temptation, the friction with the other Sakkath...all of it whirled in her thoughts, unable to be put down. She couldn’t stop it but neither did it stop her. She threw herself at Sakkath, wrapping her arms tight around him, the tears flowing once more. Only this time they were tears of joy and relief.

With his arms pinned to his sides in the embrace, Sakkath could only lift a brow in response. He could feel the torrent of emotion from within her and needed a moment to steel himself against it, though joy and relief were among the emotions swelling within him as well.

“I am also pleased to see you returned,” he said, his usual monotone a cover for what she could sense. “Are you well?” he wondered.

“Yes I...no...I don’t know. So much happened and it was terrible. All I wanted was just to get back to you.” She let him free his arms, then settled back against his chest. “I have so much to tell you and I have to tell you I’m sorry too.” She looked up to meet his eyes. “So much.”

With his arms released, he wrapped her in his embrace and met her onyx eyes, his brow still raised. “I hardly believe you need to apologize for being abducted by a madman and falling prey to an astrological phenomena that claimed even those who were aware of its existence.” Even after all this time, it still irked Sakkath that a senior member of the Security staff had managed to be lost in the Admiral’s office, further compounding the seemingly endless string of issues he had been left to deal with. He beat down that moment of irritation, though. There were more important things to focus on now.

“It’s a long story, where should I start?” She reached up, gently touching his face and letting the feel of him wash over her. She had been terrified that she’d never see this Sakkath again, would be left in another dimension with a man who looked liked him but wasn’t and wanted nothing to do with her. It would have been cruel beyond belief. “I missed you so much, Sakkath. I was afraid I’d never get back to you.”

"As I was concerned over our ability to retrieve you," he confessed, though their link made it very clear that it went deeper than that. There had been a reticence to pursue retrieval, a thought that was lessened by the obvious success of Patrick's plan but was nonetheless present. The all-too-familiar conflict of logic and emotion.

Li pulled away from him and moved over to the window. Somehow it was easier to talk this way and so she began, telling the story as it had unfolded, including the appearance of Nahi and his betrayal, the Isha they’d found there, the destruction, the loss of lives. She went on to tell him of his counterpart on that 900, the conflict with him, the death of Nahi and the attack on her by Isha, along with Suresh’s part in saving her life. Slowly, she began to wind down, having left out the encounter with Suresh on the Promenade. She intended to tell him that, too, once the rest had been discussed. What she wanted was closeness, and while her mental link with Sakkath made his feelings clear, what she needed now was contact. But that could not come until he knew it all.

"I see," Sakkath had said at the end of it all, once more draping his hands behind his back as he strode to join her at the viewport, observing the stars and the view of Archadia below. "Then we have come full circle," he thought aloud. "I, or rather a possible outcome of me, have become Rhys Balasz. It has threatened here, and it has occurred there." Shifting his head, he regarded her pointedly. "I have taken your brother from you."

To many, the analysis would have seemed cold; detached. But to Sakkath, it was simply an analysis of fact. He could just as easily have been identifying the cause of a power failure.

“No,” Li shook her head. “It wasn’t you, not the real you. And that Nahi was a traitor, not the one I knew and loved. He was responsible for so many people dying. I can’t say that he wouldn’t have killed me too, given half a chance. I do understand why the Sakkath there was as he was. How would you be if we were attacked and I was killed and then another me showed up? It was just hard for me to see him as you but not you.” She paused and the silence was heavy for an instant. “There’s one last thing.”

"Still, conflation under these circumstances would be difficult to avoid entirely," he reasoned. During the pause, he considered just how he would have reacted under the circumstances his alternate self had been fated to face. The stresses of command here had brought him to his very limit, emergency after emergency... But his Li was missing, not dead, and his station was relatively secure, not under siege. He had to assume that it would have been enough to break him. He felt no need, during those considerations, to press her on the remaining item. What Li wished to divulge, she would. What she did not... well, she had been an Intel Chief.

“There was a time when I became so afraid I’d never get back.” Li sighed and looked down at her hands. “Suresh seemed to take on a rather protective stance concerning me and after I was stabbed, it was worse. The Admiral offered to let him stay there instead of coming back, thinking that what was there, and being separated from me could be a prison of its own for him as opposed to a real one here. Suresh begged me to stay with him, though at the time,neither of thought we’d be rescued. He....” she stopped and swallowed the lump in her throat. “He kissed me and for a moment, it would have been too easy to give in. There had been so much stress, so much death, so much mental anguish from being apart from you and physical pain on top of it that I was close to the breaking point. But I couldn’t. I told him as much and ran away but even so I felt guilty, as if it were a small betrayal of you...and a moment of doubt that you’d find a way to bring me home.”

Sakkath nodded along with the account, seeming - outwardly - to take everything in stride. But she could feel the instant of anger at his having kissed her, the potential hurt of betrayal, and the hurt... and guilt... of doubt.

"I did not rest, Imzadi, until we had a plan for your retrieval. I did not endorse it... It was the height of illogic, to risk so many for the recovery of so few, but I did approve it."

He turned to her, resting one hand on her shoulder and using the other to brush a stray lock of raven hair from her face. "Where you are concerned, my logic is uncertain. I wanted... needed you back. More than you can know. But my first duty had to be to this station."

Li nodded slightly. “I understand. But you’re wrong. I do know what lies within you, as much as you know what is within me. It was that which kept my hope alive in the end.” She reached up to rest her hands on his shoulders. “As for the rest? There are times when I need your logic to be uncertain, to give way. For me.”

Sakkath had anticipated that. In the aftermath of the Balasz incident, he had been incredibly reserved. He had needed to know he could be, that he still possessed the mastery of his emotions he had thought himself to possess. He felt that his time in command had served as an adequate test.

And so, in lieu of extending a pair of fingers to her to demonstrate their intimacy, he leaned in and pressed his lips to hers.

Deep within Li, and along the link she shared with him, her emotions flared to blinding life and the room around them seemed to vanish away until there was nothing but the two of them.

I love you...

And I love you, Imzadi," Sakkath replied in her mind, "but there is no more need for words," he added, as he deepened their embrace and they lost one another in the thrills of passion.

_________________
Commander Sakkath
Unbridled

Commander Li Hawke
Whole Again