ataraxion | NINE: video

[The room Taylor's sat in is dark, unidentifiable from the wall behind her, but soft, blue-tinged light from another source washes over her face intermittently. It highlights how drawn she looks, pale, tired. She's a mess, really. Even by Tranquility standards.]

It's January, right? Been counting on the jumps since I got here. [She isn't slurring as she speaks, but the lack of focus in her expression and sluggishness to her movements makes it clear she's inebriated to anyone who knows what to look for.] Guess it doesn't matter though. Just start calling them by numbers. I was meant to turn twenty in December. Be an instructor back at the Academy. [She frowns for a moment, taking a drink out of an unlabelled bottle.] Or maybe they'd have terminated me.

[Another pause, and she shifts off to the side for a moment, putting the bottle down. When she comes back into view she’s holding something else – a mask. Her mask, an mongrel canine face, beaten, bruised and bloody. She holds it up, hanging off the fingers of one hand.]

Turns out these show you ghosts. Hallucinations. Whatever. If that isn't fucked up enough to get you thinking don't touch them, you're a fucking idiot. [Very evidently angry, suddenly, half a snarl on her mouth. She looks at the mask again, then drops it to one side.] Didn't want to see my old man the little he was around, sure as fuck didn't want to see him here. Thing I've been thinking, though - what do you see, you wear someone else's?

[She doesn't hold the second mask up for the camera, but it's there in her hands, looks like a modern military gas mask. She's quiet for a long while, like she maybe forgot she even had the comms running, all of the anger and energy drained out of her again.]

Tommy's gone. Gone last jump. Told him he would, cause everyone goes. [A thin smile, strained, sad, and then gone again.] Guess I didn't wanna be right.

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Perhaps not.
But you are still permitted to grieve his loss.

[She'd got caught up on the word condolences, really - it had made her snap, because she had to believe Tommy had gone home, that he was alive even if he wasn't here. But now they're onto grieve and... Spock's the first person that's said that. That it's okay for her to be like this. Everyone else is telling her to get rid of the masks, to get off the network, trying to distract her, but nothing like that.

She's quiet for a long moment, tripped up from her anger, surprised. Her voice when she speaks again is a lot quieter. Tired, through and through.]

And then what?

That, is something only you will know.

[ for all that tyke may be- by nature and nurture, by design and by choice, he wonders if perhaps she becomes as lost in each particle as he himself does. if in serving as a constant, she also forgets that which makes her whole.

he will not trivialize her loss by attempting to sympathize. spock knows this, understands what she wonders, what she must choose to believe because it had been the same when nyota had vanished. but even empathy, one night, will be found empty.

grief will run it's course. they can do nothing but carry on. ]

If you desire it, I would not be averse to sharing your company.

[She doesn't think she will know. Can't see the way out of this. Had tried the usual routes, and they'd only made it worse. But she doesn't argue with him, just quiet again, actually considering before she responds.]

I'm better on my own.

[She isn't in the right kind of state to be company with anyone, let alone Spock. He was clean lines and efficiency, and right now she was a mess (even if he'd said it was okay, even if he's seen that and made the offer anyway). Another breath, though, and she adds,]

Thanks.

[ this is the place, he notes vaguely, where he is sure that he should argue. that any other would. to insist that no one is meant to be alone, and one is not made 'better' by it. but then- he must also accept that this is not always true. that there are times he has known when the universe itself is so vast, so large, that it's weight only crushes. that retreat and nothing else can salvage what remains.

his hand moves to the feed, ready to cut it at her expression of gratitude. but his hand stills, and spock's gaze lowers. he does not know if it is better, or worse, to lose someone aboard the tranquility. if it is weak to accept the unknown for what it is. he does not know if nyota has survived. he does not know if tommy has.

they have only what they choose to believe-
and one another.

spock's voice is quiet, a murmur between them. ]

Nothing is infinite.
Not even loss.

I know.

[Everything ends. She knows that too well, in some cases. But loss hovers on her, always has done. She can't forget people. They leave, but she never really stops holding on, thinking she could've been better, could've fought harder.]

Just don't know where the end is.

[It wasn't in the masks, wasn't at the bottom of a bottle. Time, probably, but she wasn't always the most patient.]

[ tyke, as he has known her, has always had frighteningly acute aim. her words say everything that could possibly be said. in the isolation of his quarters, spock's gaze flickers across his desk. he does not turn, to his closet- where the few reminders of his former life, of his family remain. and he is not sure what that means. ]

Perhaps we will find it together.

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