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[When she wakes....no. That is incorrect. She was never asleep. It all rushes in with consciousness, one fell swoop of being aware and remembering and the sudden surge makes her want to scream. Her outer eyelids peel back, and a moment later so do her inner ones. She clenches her jaw shut tight, and for a moment she wishes she were on Enterprise. At least waking up in this kind of agony would make sense in his sickbay.

But she knows everything. Captain Rogers' body. His shield. Its weight on her arm and his friend's knife finding her heart. How did he know? Her thoughts immediately head in that direction, he must have known, it was perfectly aimed to put down a Vulcan. She was wrong to think the Terran Empire had no sway here, it doesn't matter if they come from worlds with slavery or without, because in the end they're all Human and that is little better than monster.

She doesn't scream. She learned long ago not to give anyone the satisfaction of her pain. But she does start to push herself up to get a dizzying view of the infirmary, ignoring the way it spins and twists in her vision. She'll stumble out of here if she has to.]

[Spam for Dean, forward dated]

[By all rights, she should still be in the infirmary. She should, at the very least, continue resting in her quarters. But the idea of sitting in there for hours, staring at the steel of her ceiling, laying in her blue sheeted bed, surrounded by the largely undecorated, plain, Human Starfleet issue room makes her want to scream more than the pain ever did. So she reports for duty on the dinner shift more than a couple days early. Her skin prickles, her anger hovers in the air around her. It makes her feel less brittle. It makes her feel strong.

All thoughts of suppressing her emotion are slipping away. Around any corner may be another Sergeant Barnes. Around any corner may be whoever killed Captain Rogers. May be another Human. But why give way to fear or paranoia when she can slip into rage like a second skin?

(Fear is always the root. Surak said, Dakh pthak. Nam-tor ri ret na'fan-kitok fa tu dakh pthak. Cast out fear. There is no room for anything else until you cast out fear. But fear so easily turns to other things, and she follows those threads without a single thought for Surak's teachings. All they ever did was teach Vulcans to lay down and die.)

She cuts onions without her eyes reddening or tearing, inner eyelids safely shut. She slams the knife down too hard, clenches her fingers around it tight enough that green blood pools to her finger tips, leaves her knuckles white. It's so different from her usual state of being, and only so much of it can be attributed to the death toll's lingering effects.]

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[Dean doesn't really want to be here, but there's nowhere else to go; he can't do anything that he hasn't already done, can't do anything more until another body turns up, until someone comes back to him with more information. He can work. And he can try to hold up as much of the work as possible to give T'Pol a chance to get back on her feet, give Clementine space to breathe without anyone bitching about the food.

He isn't surprised when T'Pol comes back earlier than he expected. He is still, however, plenty angry himself - and oddly, her presence makes the glaring absence of their third member even more grating. There is once more an absence at his back where he had only just found someone to stand there, and he failed to stop it, and he apparently never learns. He also never learns that there's nothing he can do to change it.

He's working on it anyway, because he never learns. He didn't want to try to talk to her in the infirmary, didn't get around to finding her cabin before she showed back up here, but now she's here cutting onions with too much aggression, and Dean is peeling potatoes with single-minded frustration, and they're stuck with each other for a while longer anyway.

He doesn't look up.]

Why'd you attack Barnes?

Edited 2015-03-22 14:48 (UTC)

[She does look up. She doesn't stop cutting for a few more strokes, and already her brow is knitting together.]

I did not attack him.

[She should have, and she is furious that she didn't. She's furious that she didn't have his mind the second she touched him. It should have been that easy. It was always that easy with Tucker.

All she did was leave herself open to attack - to pre-meditated murder, as far as she's concerned, because he knew exactly where her heart was. Which meant that either Rogers had read her file after all and told him, or he'd heard it from Cambridge and shared the knowledge. She held them all accountable.]

He came after me.

[Careful, he thinks but doesn't say, watching the movement out of the corner of his eye, the way the knife moves unguided by her eyes and so close to her fingers. He won't say it. It barely qualifies as a warning, when one has death to consider all around.

Dean believes her, insofar as he can; he wonders if Barnes really attacked or if she just thought he did, reacted as though he did, and he wonders this without judgment. He recognizes in her the kinds of markers that would make separating the two... difficult.

He doesn't care right now. He needs more information.]

Question stands: why?

You should be asking him that.

[Her hand clenches around the knife again, and for a moment she looks like the only thing she wants in the world is to sink it between Bucky's shoulder blades.

Then her demeanor shifts. The anger doesn't go away, only quiets under something just as dangerous. She glances at Dean from the corner of her eye, whispers trailing through her thoughts. He asks why, as if he needs an explanation. As if he wants every secret she has left. Maybe Barnes hasn't disseminated everything. Maybe he is only after finding out how to kill a Vulcan.

She shifts, instinctively protecting the heart in her side. She still aches from it, worse than the head and body aches phaser fire can leave. T'Pol grits her teeth.]

Why do you wish to know?

Well, I would if he were standing here, but he's not. You are.

[He doesn't have the patience not to make that sound almost as cagey as he knows she's been lately, and he doesn't really bother to be sorry about it once he hears himself. He's forgotten, a little, how to do this: he hasn't needed to research with traumatized victims and mourning family members for a while now. Everyone is traumatized at Chitaqua. Everyone is mourning. He can order them to tell him what he wants to know and they'll either tell him or move on, and there's nothing he can do about it either way.

But T'Pol doesn't need anything from him; he would side with her without hesitation against Bucky if Bucky were, indeed, here. But he's not. Dean blows out a breath, drops the potato he's working on, picks up another.]

Because you died for it. I figure one or the other is probably important.

This is not death.

[And that - angers her. Death would at least be a release, even if it meant her katra would drift and ultimately vanish. What has an eternal existence ever meant to her? She learned a long time ago that the only way to freedom is through the destruction of the Terran Empire, and given that near impossibility, the only alternative is death.

But this is not death. Her jaw clenches, and her hand flexes around the knife.]

Whatever information you're looking for, you won't have it from me.

[There is a snarl in her voice and she doesn't even notice it. She is done with kowtowing to everyone with Human DNA. She is done with being a victim. And she will take down every Human that dares get in her way. Last time, she fled until she couldn't; now, she takes a step toward Dean, considering driving the knife up under his jaw.]

This is the closest I've ever gotten to death.

[Dean returns this bitterly and absolutely sincerely; now is neither the time nor the place for it but he has had cause to wonder if anyone ever truly stops when they die. If it's just him stuck in the return slot like the a pinball on a table, or if it's everyone. He doesn't think it is. He doesn't think it makes him special.

It makes him angry, too, but he can put that aside. He does, until he feels the very slight but very distinct shift from generally uncooperative to actively opposing. It has to do with the way she draws in a breath around her clenched teeth, the way her fingers tighten on her knife, the growl under her tone; Dean recognizes it all and his own hands still, the focus of his eyes softening so he can see the movement from her at the corner of his field of vision.

She steps forward ready to attack him. He lifts his head, looks right at her, and in a voice both low and harsh with gravity, warns her:] Don't.

[She thinks let me bring you closer in some abstractly coherent part of her brain. Death isn't beautiful to her; there is no philosophical waxing on about death in her mind, there never was and there never will be. But there is a knife in her hand and that is what everything boils down to.

He says don't, and she thinks she could make him stop talking altogether, forever, wire his jaws together with this knife in her hand. It doesn't matter how, not really: what matters is that she will not die for anything ever again.

(She sees him as an enemy, something monstrous and dangerous, something that needs to be put down. In her mind, she sees monstrous canines, worse than Porthos ever was, jaws snapping and digging into her flesh. She sees her blood as red and it makes her sick.)

Her hand tightens on the knife again, and her nails dig into her palm. She lunges, holding the knife low to dig into her side. It's thoughtless: she reverts, expecting to fight someone whose heart is in his side instead of the cavity of his chest.]

[She cannot bear him any closer to death than he has already been; he has already wrapped it around himself like an anchor, already choked on it, already toiled beneath the weight of it and struggled back to the surface of it. He would let it - and her, and her knife - take him now if he thought for a moment it would keep him. It won't. It never does.

Long enough ago that it feels like a different life altogether, Dean remembers going through drills with knives; he remembers learning to read his opponent, mostly to brawl, but enough to recognize intent with a weapon, too. He remembers in other ways, too, in the way he reacts instead of thinks, throws himself sideways when she throws herself forward, lets her momentum take her at the counter instead. He keeps his knife in his hand but doesn't strike at her with it, not yet: it's the potato in his other hand that he brings to bear instead, pitching it at her face more as a distraction than anything. Using it to give himself time to get to the lids for the pots on their shelf a counter away.]

T'Pol, stop!

[She slams into the counter hard, the tip of her knife scraping across its surface. The sound doesn't shudder through her spine: she barely hears it over the sound of her heart beating in her ears, a terrified beating that over powers everything else. He will turn on her, she can hear it in her blood. He is biding his time, he is waiting for her to slip, to let him at her heart and no, no, no--

She jerks back as the potato comes at her, not quickly enough to avoid it glancing off her cheek. The logic isn't there, she can't record that he attacked with a small, blunt object unable to do damage instead of the sharp weapon in his hand - all she knows is he attacked, and she was right, he's proven it. She makes a noise - a growl that rises into a wordless cry, guttural and enraged - and she lunges again, this time slicing with the knife, aiming at his throat.]

[Dean has dealt with people gone rabid enough that he recognizes it when he sees it. The problem is he's seen it happen for multiple reasons: someone gone mad with paranoia or grief is just as dangerous as the Croats back where he's from. They can take just as many, or more, people with them if they're not dealt with quickly, if they're not discovered soon.

T'Pol outed herself, of course, and Dean has been weeding them out for over a year now; he spends the time she's caught against the counter snatching up one of the pot lids, holds it up like a shield when she comes at him again, hisses as he feels a cut open up along where he deflects it into his shoulder.]

God damn it! [He snarls this right back at her, and bashes the metal lid forward into her gut to give himself some space. He's strong, but he can already tell that she's at least as strong, and she has rage on her side. This could turn for him very quickly, but there's a knife in his hand still, too, which means one way or another he's not going to let it.]

[Steve's... well, up and about might be a stretch, but he's up, and moving, even if he shouldn't be. He feels like shit, but that's never stopped him from getting out of bed before.

So when he sees T'Pol tense, then wake and start to push herself up, he does the same - and he's had a little longer to recover, so he can do it faster. He's not necessarily happy about the way he practically stumbles out of bed and over to her bedside, but he doubts she'll say anything about it.

He's... angry. Disappointed. Confused. Frustrated. Most of those feelings are directed at himself, to be sure. But some small portion are not completely missing the mark on his inmate. He's heard Bucky's side of the story. Honestly, that's all he needs, that's all he's ever needed, but part of him, small though it is, needs to hear hers, too.

He's still already come to conclusions, and he doesn't think what she says will sway them. He's not a perfect man.]

Stay put, [he says - his voice is strained, raw, as he slides down stiffly into the chair next to her bed, putting out a hand - and without exerting any force to push her down, he is exerting enough force to keep her from moving up by even a fraction of an inch.] You probably feel awful, and it's not gonna get better for a while.

Do you know why you're here?

[She can barely see him, struggling instead to rise without losing consciousness. It burns through her, and if she was given to fancy, she'd think her heart was pumping acid into her veins. His voice comes to her distantly, as if through layers of cloth, and she wonders for a moment if her ears are damaged or covered. Hidden away. She has always hated hiding.

When he touches her, everything comes into sharp clarity, and she lashes out, slapping his arm away. It takes whatever effort she had, though, and she drops back into the bed, jaw clenching around the scream building in her chest. When she turns to see him, she almost lets it out. Suspicion claws through her brain, hooking into every crevice.

Killing her once wasn't enough, now he's come to repeat what Bucky has done, and she twists away, rolling instinctively to press her right side into the bed, to protect her heart. The agony makes her tremble, but she doesn't stop glaring at him.]

Get away from me.

[He lets her slap his arm away - maybe it's a little easier than it could have been, but he's not in top form right now either. He's still not about to let her get up and hurt herself, but she doesn't really seem to want to try again, so that's just as well.

Honestly, Steve doesn't know where her heart is, any more than Bucky does. But it makes sense for her to try to protect what she might still perceive to be a wound, so it doesn't strike him as worth noting.

He does make a slightly derisive, if raw, sound at her words.]

Yeah, you don't get to tell me what to do right now. [All the same, he at least pulls his hand back, shows he's not going to try to touch her again - unless she tries to get up.]

I know what happened. What I don't know is why.

[And he wants to know. He's not going to be quite so hands-off about getting the answer as he tends to be with her, either.]

What do you know, [she scoffs, snarls, and she wishes she had the strength in her arms to reach out and tear his super-Human eyes from his face. Her entire frame still trembles, though; it's all she can do to stay facing him. Every ounce of energy left goes into sneering at him.]

What Barnes has told you? How he hunted me down? How he knew exactly how to kill me quickly?

[Fury and adrenaline flood her, and she tries to push herself up again, though this time it's only to gain some height so that she can lean toward him without feeling towered over.]

When did you read my file? When did you ask your friend to murder me?

[It's the only thing that makes sense. Her mind is casting out logic, and all that's left is suspicion and rage.]

That's all I can know; you've been too busy being dead to tell me your half of the story, [he bursts out, responding to that anger a little with some of his own. How the hell else is he supposed to know what happened?

His eyes narrow - maybe he's not reading enough into her words, but really, he's got no reason to.] Bucky is a trained and experienced soldier, T'Pol. He knows exactly how to kill a lot of people, and you aren't stupid. You should know that.

[Part of him flinches away from thinking of Bucky that way - it's too much like thinking of him as that assassin HYDRA turned him into. But the point stands - Bucky's seen just as much combat as Steve (had seen more, until Steve woke up, now they're about even) and he's always had the capability of being ruthless. Everyone does.]

I haven't read your file, [He says shortly.] And I sure as hell didn't ask him to kill you. But until you tell me otherwise, what I know is that you took something from a murdered corpse, didn't explain yourself to the one person you knew it would affect the most, and then tried to attack a soldier with something he doesn't understand and something that he had no way to counter, except physically.

What the hell did you expect to happen? For all that you hate humans, you've lived around them long enough to know how they react.

[Like he said before - she's not stupid. She's very smart. When she's acting rationally.

But she's not.] You're acting like one of us, [he says, just a little derisively, the way she might say it.] Congratulations. You're officially contaminated.

[It's partially aimed to make her angry. Part of him is so, so angry, too. This whole mess... It shouldn't have happened. He still blames himself for more than his share of it.]

And whose fault is that?

[She shouts it at him, and the pain leaves her panting. She doesn't regret it, not at all, and if she could just fill her lungs without seeing white spots in her vision, she thinks she might reach out to wrap her hands around his throat. Her hands flex, fingers digging into the sheets and mattress below her. Trained and experienced and convinced of Human supremacy, just like Steve, just like every Human she's ever had the misfortune to come in contact with.

She should have sabotaged Enterprise long before she did. She should have tampered with things in the Delphic Expanse, she should have ensured that the Xindi were able to destroy Earth but no, she helped Starfleet save Humanity by committing genocide on another race. One that could have, should have been an ally. T'Pol grits her teeth, bearing them as her rage builds.]

You are a liar, [she snarls at him, and if she had any grip on logic she'd know that he is a bad liar and none of the thoughts in her hear make sense. But she doesn't need logic. She has anger.

(And fear. Always there is fear.)]

You told me I could defend myself. [She pushes her self up, breath coming in sharp, pained bursts, but she manages to swallow anything that might betray too much vulnerability. It doesn't make a difference; she's still shaking and ashen.]

He cornered me, he drove a knife into my heart, but no, all that matters is that I am biologically capable of something you'll never be, all that matters is I'm an alien and he is not. Do you have any idea how disgusting your entire race is?

[Her voice is rising; adrenaline is the only thing keeping her from collapsing.

But he says officially contaminated and her pupils contract as all her rage settles on him. She throws herself forward, slapping him as hard as she can. She tries to throttle him, too, only she can't hold herself upright and winds up with a hand scrabbling at his collar to keep herself from falling. It doesn't stop the way her lips pull back over her teeth; she's never looked this wild.]

I won't let you kill me again, I'll kill you before I ever let you or your friend arm yourselves against me, my ancestors could melt the skin from your bones with a thought--

[She's furiously babbling. The worst part is that every word has perfect clarity in her mind.]

T'Pol, [he says firmly, right in her face. His hands grab her shoulders - but that's all they do. Just grab, just hold her, because she can't hold herself up if she's scrabbling for the collar of his t-shirt and having her fall over onto him, probably about two seconds away from biting and scratching, is not ideal.

He slowly, carefully, tries to push her back onto the bed - if she tries to struggle, then his grip is going to stay put, arms locked, and she'll find she's not strong enough to move or break the hold. But he's just holding her, despite the anger welling up inside of him, because hurting her isn't even an option for him.]

I said you could defend yourself, and I meant it. [He doesn't like it, but he won't lie about that.] But you fucking scared him out of his mind, and you've got no right being in there, besides. You didn't deserve death, but he didn't deserve to have his privacy invaded. It was a mistake, and if you want me to punish Bucky for it, then tell me, and I'll take care of it. But if you just want to scratch somebody's eyes out because it'll make you feel better... then fine. If you want to kill me, then fine.

[He releases her, stays up in her space, nose inches from hers, raising his hands up a little; he won't push her away again.] Do it. Punish me for being human, because that's what I am and it's not going to change. But I'm not going to punish you for being Vulcan, because that's not what this is about. You used what you had like a weapon and he reacted like you'd attacked him because that's what you did. I don't care if you'd read his mind or pulled a gun, the result's the same, and the way he reacted would've been the same. And I really, really thought you were smart enough to know that.

[He waits, posture open, because if she wants to hurt him, he won't even try to hold her back, this time. Maybe she really does just need something - someone - to rage against, so fine, let that be him, it's his fault.] I'm sorry. It means nothing to you and it won't solve a thing, but I'm still sorry.

[She can't parse the difference between being held still and an oncoming attack: he holds her up, and she thinks he's immobilizing her. Her heart races in her side, panic crawling up her throat. Sweat covers her brow, because even as shse twists and turns to free herself, the pain is nearly overwhelming.]

Punish him!

[She latches onto those words, though more of them are more out than in: T'Pol stops twisting to stare at him, the material of his collar held in a loose fist because she can't make herself hold it any more tightly.]

Punish him, meaning a slap on the wrist, a finger shaken in his face? I know how Starfleet punishes Terrans for harming aliens! [It doesn't matter that he isn't Starfleet, because he might as well be, because she can't think straight. There is room for nothing but fear.

Her hands spasm, and she wants to claw his eyes out, to rip them from his face. Instead she bares her teeth, because the nausea is turning overwhelming.]

You're just the same, I'm sick of being judged by your kind. You call us weak and punish us for acting more like you. [She blinks, and for a moment she has clarity on the difference between Steve rogers and Jonathan Archer.]

Let go of me Captain. Then stay away from me.

T'Pol. This isn't Starfleet.

[His eyes narrow - he'd wonder if this was some part of the death toll, disorientation, but he didn't feel overly disoriented, when he'd woken up. A little confused, and in a lot of pain - he still is, quite honestly, and he doesn't want to admit, even to himself, how very much it's taking him to stay upright, to hold her as she twists, before he lets go and gives her free rein to do what she wants.

He just takes what she says, expression stoic, because whatever it is, it's something she clearly needs to say. And something he clearly needs to get through to her.

But even he can recognize that now is not the time. He can barely think straight, and he knows she isn't. He hates walking away from something like this, hates it with every fiber of his being, but for once, it seems like the right thing to do.]

We're gonna talk about this later. Because I can do the first, [and he does, although with a pointed glance that says she's going to have to let go of his collar to fully disentangle the two of them.]

But I'm your warden. You're my responsibility, and I'm not going to stay away forever.

[All the same, when she does let go of him, he'll get up out of the chair slowly, stiffly, with none of his usual grace.] I'll leave you alone to recover.

[As much as he can - his bed's not too far from hers, and while he doesn't plan on being here much longer, just making it over to his bed right now feels like almost all he can do.]

[She does let go of him, slowly, unfurling one painfully stiff finger at a time. Her hands are claws, poised to tear and scrape, if only she had the strength for it. She'd give her life to take him down with her in that moment, blinded to the death toll even as she suffers it.

Her emotional control is a bursting dam. She falls quiet, curled in protectively - but when he moves, her eyes follow. He is dangerous, as much a predator as the sehlat she had for a time as a child. She says nothing, offers no rebuke, until he's out of the chair and moving away.]

Find a new responsibility, Captain.

[Her voice is raw, low, a dangerous kind of quiet. Threat is heavy in her voice.]

Or you will wish you had.

[He just waits, patiently, expression flat, as she lets him go, slowly. He doesn't think she actually means to harm him anymore, but he honestly doesn't care if she does. If she wants to hurt him, she can hurt him. He deserves it. This mess is his fault.

But it doesn't mean he's not going to fix it. So when she finally speaks, as he's making his way back to his bed, he pauses, managing to look over his shoulder stiffly as he makes a sound that's halfway between a snort and a cough.] I don't respond well to threats.

And I'm not giving up.

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