Lts. Jr Grade Yinn & Qurgh'Loq: One Heart Beats As Two

[Alora DeVeau]

(ooc: just a one-off solo sim. I wanted to put a capstone on Yinn and Loq's entanglement, but it needed to be a private moment between the two.)

 

Yinn held it together. Bolians didn't let down the group. And Starfleet officers didn't let their feelings get in the way of the mission. So she held it together, fighting cutists, evading the Borg, getting the crew safely back to their own time. She held it together going to sickbay, confirming nearly everyone had made it back. She held it together through debriefing. Promontory placed her on leave and she barely managed to say more than "aye, sir," but she managed. She somehow held it together all that time, through the yawning chasm of loss she felt.

 

She had lost half of herself. Half of her body, half of her mind, half of her soul. What was left? She knew, objectively, medically, scientifically, things were back to normal. But she had never felt less normal in her life. Her thoughts were sluggish. Her body was unbalanced. And she couldn't remember what she couldn't remember. She had flashes of her parents on Hitorah, a vague sense of how it felt to be stabbed during warrior training, just flashes, bits and pieces. Even the last mission wasn't clear. She was at a party, she was in the science lab, she was threatening someone, it was all a blur. 

 

Her head was swimming since the jump through time, and yet she held it together.

 

Until the moment she walked into her quarters and saw Qurgh'Loq waiting for her, and her heart turned to water and her vision went blurry and she fell into his arms, arms that used to be her arms, pressed her face into a chest that used to be her chest, and broke down sobbing like she had never done even as a child. The whole ocean poured from her eyes, her whole body turned to water and evaporated, and yet there she still was, her body clinging to a body that was no longer hers.

 

Qurgh'Loq: I feared you were dead.

 

Yinn gazed into his eyes. Everything she had been holding back all day, he had been too. 

 

Yinn: So did I. That moment that we — that we weren't us. I was terrified the worst had happened.

 

Qurgh'Loq: I suppose us separating safely is not the worst outcome.

 

Yinn knew, logically, that was true. Would she have spent her whole life sharing a mind? Leaving Qurgh'Loq on his own with half his mind and body gone when she died? It was better this way for so many reasons, but it didn't feel that way.

 

Yinn: I know, but it doesn't feel right to not be... you. Us.

 

Qurgh'Loq stared into her eyes for an eternity.

 

Qurgh'Loq: I... I do not know how to feel.

 

It wasn't easy for him to talk about how he felt. But she understood him. She was him. Or at least, she had been.

 

She slipped her hand into his, and pressed her forehead against his.

 

Yinn: Even if we're not together, you will always be part of me.

 

Qurgh'Loq squeezed her hand tightly. Her fingernails dug into her palm enough to draw blood. She knew her acidic blood was stinging his fingertips, and she understood now why pain was satisfying to Klingons. When a moment was important, you wanted to feel it, in the moment and long afterwards.

 

They had pictured this moment many times, when they were still of one mind, and had no doubts that if they had to live separate lives, they would live them together.

 

Qurgh'Loq: JIH dok.

 

My blood.

 

Yinn: Maj dok.

 

Our blood.

 

Qurgh'Loq: Tlinghan jIH.

 

Yinn: Tlinghan jIH.

 

I am Klingon.

 

There were more elaborate vows, but at heart those were the only words that mattered. Our blood. The two of us are one. They would have a formal wedding someday, once they met a few other people, enough for a proper family. She would share her bed with who knows how many others, and would encourage him to put his Klingon stuffiness aside and do the same. But she and Loq shared a bond few others could understand. She would care about other people, love other people, but Loq was part of her in a way no one else could ever be.

 

After sharing one mind, consummating their vows in any physical way seemed insufficient. No matter how close they got, it would never be quite close enough. But for tonight, it would have to be. Loq tugged the chain at the back of her neck, and it was enough to make her dress dissolve into a cascade of shells skittering across the floor of their quarters. She pressed her forehead against his and slid her hands under his uniform, feeling the ridge of his spines, so familiar, and yet so strange to no longer be a part of her. 

 

Tomorrow the work would start again. Counseling. Physical therapy. Regaining her sense of self. Regaining her comfort in her own body. Trying to get Loq to set aside his stoicism and do the same. Destroying that futuristic transporter, much as she hated to let it go. But for tonight, she didn't want to think about any of it. Not the future, not the past, just the two of them, a universe to themselves. Yinn and Qurgh'Loq.

 

Maj dok.

 

-----

Lt. Jr. Grade Yinn

Science Officer

USS Octavia E. Butler

O240011Y12