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[maytakecenturies]

[When she turns on the feed, the misgivings aren't clear in her expression, but she most certainly feels them. Out of sight, her hands are clenched into fists, white knuckled as she concentrates on control. She keeps it simple.]

This is Lieutenant Commander T'Pol, formerly of the ISS Enterprise, SA-013-8294-VR.

[She's considering leaving at at that - well that and her really intense stare - but she only pauses for a moment before continuing.]

Who rules the Terran Empire?

[She needs to know if the plan worked. She needs to know if the Defiant was destroyed. Needs it in ways she can't describe, because if she died for nothing - if she is trapped here and Archer has taken command of an entire Empire--

No 'then' follows. She knows the logical end, and cannot stomach it.]

( ooc: fourth wall! yay! everyone is welcome, but I'll sell a kidney to anyone bringing mirror!Trek muses! )

Comments

[maytakecenturies]

[God damn it Dean this is why all Vulcans think about punching you in the face at least once.

Also what the fuck why this smile. Why this in general. She stares at him a moment before deciding to just proceed with caution.]

I'm not familiar with him.

[surfaceshine]

[Yes but until one actually does it he is sure as shit just going to keep on keeping on because LOOK AT THAT FACE, OOJABOO.

He absolutely recognizes this decision and chooses to ignore it completely.]

Sorry, forgot he's a sir now. Sir Elton John. You should check out his biography sometime, he really made a lot of fabulous changes to the way the empire runs.

[maytakecenturies]

What is wrong with you?

[She's just staring now, waiting for the joke to spring. Not the Elton John joke. The kind of joke that ends with a fight.]

[surfaceshine]

[It's a question and a tone that get an eyebrow raise out of Dean, and for a splitsecond he considers just continuing along this line of non-logic for a while longer.

Instead, he opts to have a little mercy, since he knows a thing or two about the score he suspects she's missed.]

It's the smile, isn't it? It throws people off.

I'm Dean. But not... that Dean. Different Dean. Better Dean.

[maytakecenturies]

[It raises her hackles almost immediately, but takes a few seconds longer to sort out why.

Better. Is there a better T'Pol out there, in a universe that runs parallel to her own? One who lived in a better time, made better choices, had better...

She can't even use the word friend, really. She has acquaintances and the occasional ally, though Soval is the only one left she could name. And she doesn't know what became of him.

Maybe this other T'Pol called him friend. Assuming she knew him at all.

Her jaw is tight when she speaks.]

You used to be here, aboard the ship.

[surfaceshine]

[Dean doesn't miss the moment of tension, he just chooses to ignore it completely; he isn't the sort of person that splits hairs about that kind of thing himself with other people, doesn't try to justify why he likes or dislikes someone else, doesn't try to change them when he's thinking.

But he absolutely gets to pass judgment on himself. He knows more about himself than anyone else ever will, and if he wants to hate this version of himself walking around with his face and his name amongst his friends? Well.

Here and now he just nods like he's oblivious.]

Yeah, I did. For a pretty long time, considering. I was a warden.

[maytakecenturies]

And now there is a version of you here as an inmate.

[She wants to blame him for it, though she knows there's no logic in it. It's that realization that keeps her clipped as she quietly forces her emotions down. She can't just give in to emotions.]

Have you spoken with him?

[surfaceshine]

[She'd find perhaps surprisingly little resistance to the idea; Dean, after all, blames himself too. Both of his selves. Even knowing from the inside how very close he'd come to exactly where that other Dean is, to knowing how the people who pulled him back from it came almost very nearly too late, he blames himself whole heartedly.

But he still shakes his head.]

No. I promised I wouldn't, and anyway, I doubt there would be much speaking. Shouting, mostly, and not even that if we weren't a universe apart.

[maytakecenturies]

[She pauses, scanning up on her post, considering what facts she has. They're tainted by emotion. It disgusts her, to some extent.]

You promised Sam?

[surfaceshine]

No, Felix.

Even if I promised my idiotstick brother, it wouldn't count anymore because he totally went behind my back and did exactly that.

[Will never stop being annoyed about that, mostly because of the shitfit he had to deal with after the fact - and the cold, private terror that he has no idea what that other Dean said to his Sam while Dean wasn't looking. Leave it to himself to ruin shit even after it's been fixed.]

[maytakecenturies]

I'm not interested in your fraternal disputes.

[Or his guilt about everything, really. She is straining to keep her curiosity constrained.]

Did you know another T'Pol?

[surfaceshine]

Then stop asking about 'em.

[Flippant, but he moves on as easily as she clearly wants him to. He's an idiot, not stupid.]

Yeah, I know 'er. You two make the same face at me, only she brings me pie sometimes.

[maytakecenturies]

[Well what the flying fuck.]

Pie.

[She actually means why in the hell]

[surfaceshine]

[But Dean waves dismissively.]

It's a human thing, don't blow a circuit trying to figure it out.

[maytakecenturies]

She's not Human.

[surfaceshine]

No, but I am, and sometimes when two people are trying to communicate, there's give and take.

And pie.

[maytakecenturies]

[what in the]

Were you friends?

[surfaceshine]

You know, that's actually a tricky question.

I think we would've been much sooner, if I hadn't had my head so far up my ass.

Then again, you may've noticed I'm kind of annoying. Logically, no one should want anything to do with me. So.

[maytakecenturies]

[So what was she like, if befriending him was so illogical? A frown pulls at the center of her forehead, one she's not concentrating enough to smooth away.]

And yet you're well received. [Why people like him, she doesn't know.]

[surfaceshine]

More or less. I still field my share of punches, but it's not like I'm not expecting that.

[He's eying that frown, and it's about the only thing that could get him to tone it down a little. He is, after all, well liked for a reason; disliked for other reasons too, but he can pay more attention if he feels like it.]

I can't tell you why T'Pol liked me, other than she knew my brother before she knew me. We kinda come as a set, most of the time. In fact, she probably didn't - it was probably because she liked Sam.

[maytakecenturies]

[Her eyes leave his - briefly, to scroll back to Sam's visage. Why, she wonders, why should she care about either of them, what purpose could there have been?

It's with something close to surprise that she remembers one of the last conversations she had with Doctor Phlox: he had failed to read anything useful from the Defiant's databases, limiting himself to historical works of Earth literature. Save Shakesepeare, he had said, they were all soft, emotional things. The same could be said of the people.

The crease between her brow deepens, and this time she does struggle with it.]

Were they in love? [She says it like she's asking about a concept she cannot possibly fathom. Which works, because it's absolutely a concept she cannot fathom.]

[surfaceshine]

[Things that throw Dean off his game a little. His eyebrows nearly hit his hairline.]

Were they i- I don't know, Sam was gone by the time I got there. That Sam. I don't...

You two are definitely a nerdmatch, though. Stay on your toes with that one.

[maytakecenturies]

A what?

[WHY CAN'T YOU SPEAK PLAIN ENGLISH SIR]

[surfaceshine]

[PLAIN ENGLISH IS BORING

But oh hey he found his footing again, that's awesome!]

Your brains are the same kind of swollen.

[maytakecenturies]

Is that a euphemism for something?

[Whyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy]