...Lalita does not like the look on these kids' faces.

Lalita sighs.

"Lots," he murmurs back. "Good ones, on the other hand... not so much."

"I don't like how they're talking about us," Lalita murmurs. "I really, really don't."

"Probably not. But we might like what happens if we run better than what they'll do to us if we don't."

"Torture," says Lalita.

"Surrender, then," says Lalita.

Lalita sighs again.

Lalita gives his admirer a look carefully calculated to suggest just the right amount of trouble.

"Lalita," says Lalita, his eyes darting between the two speakers as though trying to derive the content of their conversation from body language.

"My friend here likes you," drawls Janor. "And our other friend likes your squeeze. But it doesn't look to us like she returns that interest, so he," he aims a thumb at Kelvok, "thinks it'd be much friendlier all around if you agreed to go play with him and our other friend waited for someone else to come along and left your girl alone. What do you think?"

"I guess," says Lalita.

Oh good. Kelvok smirks and offers Lalita his hand.

Lalita takes it.

He nods hesitantly.

Lalita is extremely cooperative.

He sits quietly for a little while, calculating the odds that he's being monitored right now and examining the room for likely avenues of surveillance.

Apparently the room-shuffling required to put him adjacent to Isabella - presuming he really is - put him in a room without an interior camera, although there are microphones - perhaps originally intended to allow voice commands to the computer, but easily repurposed if they so chose.

Kelvok's back a few hours later, apparently having had a nap.

Lalita decides to be welcoming.

Kelvok feels so welcomed! He is very pleased with this idea he had. He talks occasionally, in Cardassian, not expecting Lalita to understand him - it's mostly compliments.

Well, that's sweet of him. Lalita is slightly charmed. He hopes he won't end up having to kill this guy.

Kelvok is quite ignorant of that even being on the table. Unless Lalita has been demonstrating unusual-for-humans strength?

Kelvok makes no remarks about Isabella at all.

Yep. Kelvok is not even slightly trying to communicate on that subject.

Can't blame him, really.

Lalita is very distracting.

It is one of many skills on which he prides himself!

Lalita hesitates, then draws back, shaking his head. Clearly this is not a sufficient reassurance.

"Lalita," says Kelvok. "Lalita." He doesn't say anything else, he wouldn't expect Lalita to understand him.

He shakes his head. He points at the door.

Lalita shrugs him off and opens this door, too.

When he starts picking the lock, Kelvok grabs both his shoulders and hauls on him.

Brol backs away a few steps. "...No."

Brol turns and runs.

Lalita is faster.

"Good," he says, and smiles his nasty smile again. "I want something to tie you up with. I suggest you help me find it."

"...There are spare electrical cables," mutters Kelvok, closing his eyes. "In the cargo bay."

"Show me the cargo bay, then."

Kelvok warily leads the way to the cargo hold.

Lalita does a very quick, very thorough job of making sure Kelvok will not be going much of anywhere or doing much of anything in the near future, and then he takes both disruptors and leaves. Back to the room where they were keeping Isabella, with a short detour through sickbay.

"I can speak," she says with the kind of excess care that suggests that she runs the risk of worsening an injury in so doing. "Possibly I could roll onto my back. I cannot walk."

"You're not going to get much help from a Cardassian sickbay," he says, "and you know what the Prometheus is like on that score. But as usual, I've got a trick up my - lack of a sleeve." (He's still naked.) "My blood has restorative properties, and I happen to know it works on both your parent species, not that I have any idea how. If I give you some, it should help. Okay?"

"Yes."

"Yes."

Isabella is cooperative and quiet and still.

Now all they have to do is wait.

Isabella looks like she could wait forever, unmoving, unfeeling.

"Do you want me to bring you some water?"

"Yes."

He goes and fetches some water.

Isabella drinks it, sip by careful sip.

Lalita watches.

Eventually she is done.

"Do you need anything else?"

"Rest, merely."

"All right."

"I'm going to go take care of a few things," he says. "I'll be back soon."

"Very well."

Kelvok is tied up in spare electrical cables right where Lalita left him and looks very unhappy.

"Not as much fun when you're the prisoner, is it?" says Lalita.

Kelvok does not make eye contact, or respond to this question except to grind his teeth.

Isabella is right where he left her, observing the ceiling.

"I killed two of them and took the third one prisoner," he says. "The one who liked me. He's tied up in the cargo bay. I don't think he likes me anymore."

"Ah."

"Feeling better?"

"My injuries are noticeably improved."

"Good."

After what really is a ludicrously short amount of time, considering, Isabella is able to cautiously sit up.

Even better.

"Do you want to go back to Prometheus?"

"Yes."

"I can help you get to the transporter," he offers.

He holds her up without any trouble.

Here is the transporter pad.

"Yes."

Lalita discovers that he can monitor the cargo bay from the bridge. He does so.

His prisoner is staying put. He doesn't have much choice.

The prisoner looks at him. And at these items. And doesn't say anything.

"If you want to eat or get dressed or both, I will untie you and let you do that," he says.

Kelvok nods.

Lalita unties him.

Kelvok puts on the clothes. He takes the food and starts eating it, not taking his eyes off Lalita.

Lalita leans casually against a wall and watches him eat.

Kelvok has apparently firmly decided on a policy of silence to avoid annoying his captor.

"You can talk if you want," he mentions. "I'm in a much better mood now that my friend's been looked after."

"And say what?" shrugs Kelvok.

"I think I can get this thing home on my own. It's not designed for a one-man crew but I was doing most of the work to begin with."

"Were you?"

"Yeah. It's my uncle's. Janor was along to translate and Brol was along because it was his idea in the first place."

"What was the idea?"

"...Find somebody off by themselves. Pick them up. Go from there."

Lalita chuckles.

Kelvok shifts uncomfortably and takes another bite of his meal.

"Didn't turn out so well for your friends. I guess it's up to you what you think of the tradeoffs in your case," says Lalita.

Kelvok declines to comment on this subject.

Lalita giggles.

Kelvok still doesn't have anything to say, although he does look more uncomfortable when Lalita laughs.

"I'm sure I can find something vital but not particularly expensive to rip out and take with me," he says cheerfully. "I'm good at that sort of thing."

"Yep."

Kelvok is not, apparently, feeling nervy enough to ask any followup questions.

"I thought my friend was safe," he says. "And I like you."

"She was going to be. I didn't have anything invested in hurting her. Brol badgered me into modifying the deal on the grounds that there aren't many of those flying around anymore," mutters Kelvok, and then he preemptively flinches, like he expects harm to result from admitting this.

"The deal was that if he got her to make a noise the excursion was over, we dumped you both and went home. She didn't."

"I noticed."

Kelvok looks away, shrugs.

Lalita sits quietly.

"So you spoke Cardassian the whole time, huh."

"Yes I did."

Kelvok appears to find this embarrassing.

Lalita appears to find this adorable.

Kelvok appears to find that embarrassing too.

It's a never-ending cycle!

Kelvok interrupts it by clearing his throat and looking at the floor.

Lalita is now grinning irrepressibly.

Kelvok cannot see that! He is looking at the floor.

Floorlooking. Lots of floorlooking.

"...I'll come with you," decides Kelvok, subdued.

Kelvok doesn't suddenly attack him even a little bit.

"Those are expensive," Kelvok winces.

"I know," he says. "Tell you what, if I see you again and I don't have my friend with me, I'll give them back."

Kelvok doesn't say anything, but he makes an eloquently skeptical face.

Skepticalface!

Kelvok finds a place to sit that isn't in view of the other party during hailings.

And Lalita makes contact with the Prometheus.

Isabella is still a mask of calm, sitting in her captain's chair, serenely responding to the hail. "Hello."

"I've disabled this ship's weapons systems," he says in Vulcan. "I'm going to return to the Prometheus and then we can all leave. Okay?"

"Yes."

"Impossible," mutters Kelvok under his breath.

He giggles as he sets up the transporter.

Isabella is still sitting in her chair when he arrives. She has plotted a course to the next system she had lined up for survey.

She sets the Prometheus on its course in silence.

Lalita finds somewhere to put his stolen weapons.

Isabella makes no comment. On the weapons, on Lalita having taken them, on anything.

Flying, flying. The soft music Isabella put on earlier when she was getting dressed comes to an end. She queues up something else in a similar vein, neutrally, and on it comes.

Lalita continues not to say anything.

Isabella allows the music to lapse into silence after the next collection is through, and she reads a little, and then she goes to bed.

Lalita... doesn't go to bed.

Isabella is up ten hours later. She takes another shower. She changes outfits again. She comes out and sits in her chair and puts on music. She reads the news.

Lalita is sleeping in the copilot's chair during all of this.

Isabella keeps the music respectfully soft and inputs her commands to the ship computer nonverbally when possible.

"Yes. Thank you."

She eats it. When she has finished eating, she thanks him again.

"You're welcome," he sighs.

Lalita stays out of her way.

Isabella will also accept lunch and dinner, if he offers them. If he does not, she warms things for herself between planets.

He does in fact provide both lunch and dinner.

Lalita stays up the rest of the night finishing the survey.

In her "morning", she observes that he has finished the job, thanks him, and proceeds towards the next system.

Lalita makes her breakfast and then goes to bed.

Isabella reads. She makes herself lunch.

When he wakes up, he makes her dinner.

"Thank you."

He shrugs.

There is more interstellar space between the last system and the next. They are not there yet when she goes to bed.

"Nothing new," he says hoarsely, sniffling. "You can ignore me if you want. I'm just gonna - " and he gets up and stumbles to the living quarters, where he curls up in bed to cry some more.

He buries his face in a pillow.

"If you would prefer not to speak to me that is also acceptable, but - I do not prefer that you be distressed."

"I've been distressed for days," he says, somewhat muffled by the pillow. "It's just coming out now."

"Can I help you?"

Still muffled: "I have no idea."

Isabella sits on the bed and puts her hand on his shoulder.

Lalita, still sobbing into his pillow, curls up close to her.

Isabella pets his hair, slowly, rhythmically.

Lalita snuggles her and cries.

"You have not previously observed me to make use of my ability to suppress my emotions," observes Isabella. "Is it that which is disturbing you?"

He doesn't answer. (Talking while crying is hard.)

Pet. Pet. She can wait.

Pet, pet.

He can just lie here and be petted for a while, if she doesn't have anything better to do.

"Which...? The one about you suppressing your emotions? Yeah," he says. "...It's complicated."

Pet, pet. "I am willing to listen."

"It hurts to see you like this right now because I feel like you're doing it because you have something nasty waiting for you when you stop, and even though you're not feeling the nasty, I'm still imagining it," he says. "It'd still hurt if you were feeling it, just - differently."

"You are correct about what will happen when I stop, unfortunately."

"Please, go on."

"...When you have feelings, you have feelings about me," he says. "I love you. It's hard to be around you when you don't have feelings about me. But - I don't know, I can't honestly say that watching you suffer would feel like an improvement."

"Both my current emotionless state and my subsequent distress will pass."

"Believe me, I know," he sighs. "And so will me crying everywhere."

He doesn't really have a response to that.

"It will likely be transitory, but as you are already under stress perhaps I could postpone this event longer than planned."

"Putting it off won't help me any."

"Are you certain?"

"Yeah."

Lalita relaxes noticeably.

"I had no idea what was going on," she says in a low, snappish voice. "I was on the other side of the wall from you, but I didn't know that. You'd worked out a deal with them, but I didn't know that. You could get us out at any time, but I didn't know that. If I had known any of it I could have screamed the first time he touched me. If you'd - if you'd summarized the situation in Vulcan through the wall, perhaps in song to make it sound like you were entertaining yourself - or knocked on the wall in Morse code - or whispered to me the least bit of translation of anything that was said while I was still present - I could have been spared days of torture."

"I didn't know that," he says, with a hint of his earlier sobbing coming back to haunt him. "I've been down this road before, but never with somebody else. I know how to handle it when it's just me. I didn't know how to handle it with you there. I got it wrong. I fucked it up. I'm sorry."

"I thought they were hurting you, too. I didn't know. I still don't know; maybe you just had time to heal."

Isabella turns away and bites her lip. "And they didn't know you understood their language, so you thought you'd know if they were deceiving you."

"Yeah."

"And meanwhile I understood nothing that was happening to me at all, not where you were, not whether he would kill me by accident or deliberately, not what they said, not that I could have shouted at any moment and you would have appeared and we would have been on our way - I dropped into suppression more because I cannot tolerate confusion than because I cannot tolerate pain or fear, but of course it's not a matter of picking and choosing, they are all either on or off, I could not leave the emotions that would have prompted informative shouting intact while I dealt with not knowing and having no way to find out."

Now she's crying, a little.

Well, so is he.

Nothing is likely to interrupt them in their crying for some time.

Can they snuggle while they cry? That would help at least one of them.

Isabella will allow it. Perhaps she will cry on his shoulder.

That... also helps, actually.

Isabella would only be able to tell if he told her. Or if she were mid-telepathy with him, which she is not.

But not from the part where he hugs her tightly and pets her hair and cries some more?

He can tell that the hugging helps. It's good that the hugging helps. It helps him that the hugging helps. He'd say something to that effect, but - talking while crying is hard. So he just hugs her some more.

Helpful hugs. Necessary crying.

Yes. Both of those.

"You were okay?" she asks softly, after her tears have largely subsided. "I didn't know if you were okay. Was it all right - or - are you only crying over me -"

"...It's complicated," he murmurs.

Squeeze.

He cuddles up and relaxes in her arms.

Snuggles.

"I was so afraid for you," she murmurs.

"Yeah. I was afraid for you too," he says. "I'm not used to that."

She tucks her head in against his damp shoulder again.

He wraps his arms around her and kisses the top of her head.

Snuggle. Sigh.

Sniffle. Snuggle.

Lalita smiles and nuzzles his face into her hand.

He loves her so much. It hurts to, right now, but he accepts that; he would rather it hurt right now than otherwise. It makes more sense this way.

Isabella kisses him, gently, just a little.

That hurts, too. But in a good way.

She doesn't want to hurt him. She wants him to feel better. Pet pet hug.

He could probably guess that she doesn't want to hurt him, if he thought about it. He isn't thinking about it. He isn't thinking about much. Love, and snuggles, and love.

He can have all the snuggles he wants.

Then they will be here for a while, Isabella maintaining direct skin contact so she can peer gently into his mind and occasionally send little bursts of psychic affection.

That's painful/nice, too. He just wants to wrap himself up in it and feel things.

Snuggles, telepathy, feelings!

"I almost never suppress," Isabella says.

"That's a relief," he murmurs.

"I got very good at it very young in spite of spending little of my time among anyone who taught or enforced it. But it disturbed Renée, and Chalek made a point of telling me it was not necessary, and I decided I preferred not to outside of situations where emotional reactions would be particularly unhelpful."

He snuggles her and kisses her cheek.

Kisses.

That's all it is, there and then gone.

Isabella will leave it be.

Fine by him. Snuggle snuggle.

Yes indeed.