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Chapter Text

“So, whatever happened to our Romulan friend?”

Raffi startled, shaken out of the tranquil path her thoughts had taken while watching Cris tinker with the navigational system, plotting possible routes away from Coppelius for whenever they were departing.

“Elnor?” she asked, confused as to what exactly he was getting at. “I think I saw him with Seven a couple hours ago.”

“No, not Elnor. The snake head,” the man clarified, “Narek. I lost sight of the kid after he was taken away by those two synths.”

Scoffing, Raffi turned away to her own console, starting another redundant systems diagnostic for lack of anything better to do. Two days after the Romulans' mythical Ganmadan had been averted, the La Sirena was back in shipshape, as patched up as she was going to get outside of a dry dock, the only damage remaining little more than cosmetic. By this point, they were just spinning their wheels while the ban on synthetic lifeforms was still in place, waiting for the politicians to catch up to recent developments. In an endeavor to test the engines, they had taken the opportunity to relocate the Sirena to a spot closer to Synthville, the distance easily traveled now in a five minute walk.

“Still in their custody, as far as I heard. Why would you even care? After what he did to Soji, he had this coming for him.”

Truth be told, hadn't she known about Soji, she might have actually come to like the young Romulan. In the little time they had spent with him, preparing for their ill fated mission to destroy the beacon, he had seemed unlike any Tal Shiar operative she had ever encountered. Less arrogant, less set in his ways. But, well; she had known about Soji.

“Hm.”

Cris only hummed in reply. But there was something in his tone that had her facing him again.

“You don't agree?” Taking in his carefully neutral expression made her curious as to what was going on in that scrambled head of his.

The man took a moment to formulate a reply, fingers pausing in midair before taking up their work again, manipulating the holographic controls with the ease of long practice.

“I agree that Soji has every right to be furious with him. He did betray her trust and screwed her over.”

She saw the 'but' coming from a mile away, but Raffi couldn't help herself and prompted, “But?”

“But others should try to see his actions in light of the big picture and not from the perspective of a betrayed lover.”

Watching her friend, the torn expression flitting over his features, realization came over her, followed immediately by incredulity. “You actually sympathize with him? He tried to kill her, Cris! Whatever he was trying to accomplish, he was a manipulative, abusive piece of shit.”

“Yeah, I know,” Cris sighed, but she could tell he wasn't ready to let this go. “But what he was trying to accomplish was save his people, no, save the universe! And the Zhat Vash may be bigoted fanatics, but they weren't entirely wrong, were they?”

“What are you saying, Cris?”

“I'm saying that, from a purely strategic standpoint, I get where he was coming from. We all like to look down on Romulus for their warmongery and subterfuge, think us better than them, when the truth is, Starfleet has a history of employing similar tactics. The only difference is that we are more hypocritical about them afterward. I mean...”

He heaved a sigh, scratched his head. “I don't know. I don't know where I'm going with this.” Pinching the bridge of his nose, rubbing his eyes, the man tried to order his thoughts, and Raffi didn't interrupt, let him take his time. She was curious exactly where he was going with this.

“It's just that...,” Cris started again after a few moments, “Narek may be Tal Shiar, but that doesn't mean he was the one calling the shots. And I know what it is, following orders you hate.”

She might have guessed. Somehow, this was all coming back to his old captain, Vandemeer. The one who followed his black flag orders for the safety of his crew and then committed suicide because he couldn't live with himself after the fact.

“You think he disagreed with his orders?” she questioned carefully, her eyebrows rising up her forehead unconsciously.

“You heard him plead with her. I think he fell in love with Soji despite of himself. I think he may have chosen to follow his orders because there was more than one life at stake. I know he came to us for help to try and destroy the beacon when he's smart enough to have come up with a plan to destroy the whole damn compound instead – he had the firepower for it. Or he could just have waited for his fleet to rain down fire on all of us. And you and me both know what the Tal Shiar would make of his actions. Their Ganmadan may have been averted, but he still essentially defected when he chose to spare Synthville instead of helping them destroy it. Not to mention working with us to make that happen. He can't go home. And Starfleet will make an example of him when they get their hands on him. It just seems wrong to make him take the fall for the wrongdoings of an entire organization when what he did, he did in order to save the whole damn universe.”

“I think you make him sound more selfless than he was. Narek isn't a hero. He was just trying to save his own people.”

Perhaps she sounded more harsh than she meant to, but even now, all their history with the Romulan people, their Intelligence agency in particular, made it hard to stay impartial. Cris just looked at her, eyes tinged with a deep sadness.

“And when has that become a crime? Didn't we have the same motivation when we chose to team up with him?”

She didn't know how to respond to that, so she didn't say anything.

oOo

Slowly stepping down the stairs that would have taken him up to the bridge of the freighter, Jean-Luc adjusted his course for the galley, hoping for a cup of coffee while contemplating the conversation he had just witnessed. Technically, this new synthetic body he found himself in didn't need food or drink anymore, although it ostensibly wouldn't cause any damage if he did indulge; nevertheless the smell of it was still soothing, still helped him think. He had no idea how that worked.

Stranded as they were right now, with the ban on synthetic lifeforms still in place albeit under review, and neither Soji nor, now, Jean-Luc himself were free to leave the planet, he had tried to enjoy this little paradise Dr. Soong and his children had created here for the past couple of days.

In light of the truths uncovered about the attack on Mars fourteen years ago and considering Starfleet had, in the end, chosen to send a fleet in defense of the colony of synthetics against the Romulan force, he wasn't all that concerned about the outcome of the debate, although he had left the political and philosophical discussions in younger and – arguably – more capable hands. Now it was just a waiting game.

Peripherally, he had been aware of the Romulan prisoner, of course, had even agreed to transport him to Federation space once they finally had permission to travel, after the Tal Shiar agent had apparently fallen through the cracks in the aftermath, and Will had departed without ever even knowing of his existence. But he had not concerned himself with the man beyond that. Knowing he was Tal Shiar, knowing what Soji had told them about him had left a bad taste in his mouth. And, he was ashamed to admit, his own prejudices against the Romulan Intelligence agency – founded as they were in experience – had prevented him from learning the Romulan's side of the story.

Now, while Jean-Luc did not make a habit of eavesdropping, sound carried in the open spaces of this vessel, and some revelations were only had listening. Maybe it was time to get over himself, give this Narek the opportunity to speak on his own behalf, because Rios wasn't wrong. Starfleet would make an example of the only Romulan prisoner they could feasibly accuse of this entire mess – tempers would be running high because of the Mars attack alone that the Zhat Vash had orchestrated.

oOo

Only a short time later found the retired admiral in viewing distance of the small cell the Romulan spy was being held in. Mind made up, there had been no reason to wait.

Shortly before he had left the ship, however, Elnor and Seven had returned from their trip to the 'artifact', the old, defunct Borg cube that had crashed on this planet alongside La Sirena and the Snakehead scout their prisoner had traveled in.

They had brought news of another Romulan agent, one that Seven had apparently bested in a fight over the cube's weapons system. Confirming her death had had to wait in the wake of all that has happened since, but Seven was right to want confirmation, lest they had another spy on their hands who would try to wreak havoc in the settlement. Unfortunately, Seven and Elnor hadn't yet found a way to get close enough to recover the body, but knowing the woman had not walked away from her wounds was enough for the time being.

So now, with news of her death, Jean-Luc even had a legitimate reason for this visit, other than insatiable curiosity and a vague sort of moral obligation.

The android guarding the cell hadn't yet noticed him, facing the prisoner as she was, but the young man beyond the force field was looking right at him, a wary scowl on his face. It was the first time Jean-Luc had the opportunity to observe Narek up close and in person, and he took his time to do so.

The Tal Shiar wasn't at all what Jean-Luc had pictured. Huddled on the floor against the wall, arms resting atop his bent knees, with a head of tousled dark hair, he looked young and fragile. Little more than a child, only a few years older than Elnor, even relative to a human lifespan, he thought in the privacy of his mind, his own years weighing down on him even still in this new body he had been gifted. Age, of course, had little to do with anything; neither had appearance.

“Arkana,” he called out as he approached. The female android turned to face him, expression guileless in a way no human her apparent age could ever be, as he requested, “Would you let us talk in private for a little while? Dr. Soong knows I'm here.”

The girl looked back and forth for a moment before acquiescing. “I'll be around the corner if you need me.”

He waited until he was sure the android was out of earshot. Then he introduced himself, “My name is Jean-Luc Picard, -”

“Admiral, retired,” the young man interrupted him, not moving from his position on the floor. Blue eyes looked up at him through dark lashes, pale and piercing. “I know who you are. You are one of the men who offered us salvation, and then left us to die.”

It was a low blow, and, for a moment, Jean-Luc forgot how to breath. And then remembered that he didn't have to in any case. The failure to fulfill his promise to the Romulan people was always going to be one of the greatest regrets of his life. He didn't even try to defend himself, because what could he possibly say to this young man that could ever be enough? How old had Narek been when his home world had burned?

And yet...

“You realize that it was your cabal, the Zhat Vash, who sabotaged our rescue efforts by orchestrating the android attack on Mars. Accepting so many of your own people as collateral damage, that takes a special kind of... ruthlessness.”

For a moment, grief washed over Narek's handsome features. Jaw clenching, he broke eye contact and admitted, “I didn't know about that. Not until Narissa told me a few weeks ago. And it's not my cabal. I didn't make the cut.”

Such bitterness and shame as Jean-Luc detected in those words had no place in someone so young. There was sincerity there, too, more than he had ever witnessed or expected in any Tal Shiar operative; it made him understand, all of a sudden, what Soji might have seen in him besides a pretty face. Then again, maybe he was just that good an actor.

“Narissa?” he prompted, thinking of the dead female agent that was supposed to have been his conversation opener. Narek looked back up at him shrewdly, obviously deliberating whether or not to answer. But answering Jean-Luc's questions wouldn't reveal anything of import – that was not what he was after. His time juggling politics had come and gone, and the retired admiral didn't miss that aspect of his past at all. Let others try and crack Narek's secrets; the Tal Shiar or Zhat Vash held no immediate interest for him. He wanted to get a feel for the man Narek was, wanted to build his opinion on his own observation, not second or third hand accounts.

“My handler,” the Romulan answered at long last, “my... sister.”

Sister. Picard sighed heavily, steepling his hands in front of his mouth in thought. As his handler it stood to reason that she might have stayed close, would provide back up in case he needed it. What were the odds of the deceased agent not being Narek's sister? He had known from the beginning that he would have to deliver an unpleasant message, but a sister...

Apparently sensing a change in mood, Narek pushed to his feet and walked closer.

“What?”

Heaving another great breath, Jean-Luc straightened his posture into parade rest and bit the proverbial bullet.

“I have come here to let you know that we found the body of a female Tal Shiar officer in the remains of the artifact.”

A myriad of emotions ghosted across Narek's face, grief chief among them. That was to be expected, as was, perhaps, the anger. The young man swallowed hard a couple of times, visibly trying to get himself under control, and Jean-Luc thought he saw some more unexpected emotions in those pale eyes; guilt and... relief?

“Okay,” Narek acknowledged, voice rough but almost steady. Abruptly, the young Romulan turned on his heels and walked back to his former perch. Once there, he leaned his forehead against the cold wall, hands pushing against the unrelenting mass of the concrete on either sides of his head. The sudden noise of a slap almost made Jean-Luc jump, but Narek did nothing more than hit the wall with open palms a couple of times before relenting. Then he just stayed there for a minute or two, forehead grinding into the unforgivable surface, breath coming in harsh pants. Trying to override emotional pain with physical sensation, Jean-Luc guessed.

Narek's next words actually came as a surprise although they shouldn't have.

“Who killed her?” A pale blue eye peered over a narrow shoulder, capturing the old man's gaze. His voice gave nothing away, and Jean-Luc didn't see enough of his face to even guess at what Narek was thinking.

“Why?” he challenged without answering the question. “Are you going to plan your revenge?”

That pale eye held his gaze for another timeless moment. Then, Narek collapsed back against the wall.

“What would even be the point?”

It was said so low, Jean-Luc doubted it had been meant for his ears, audible for him only because of his new and improved hearing – but he heard it.

Abruptly deciding that he had learned enough for today, to leave the young man to his grief for now, Jean-Luc turned to head back for the ship, hesitating only a few seconds to say, “I am sorry for your loss.” Condolences might not mean much in the scheme of things, but still, it didn't seem right to leave without acknowledging Narek's obvious heartache.

His words had Narek flying around with a fury that, honestly, Jean-Luc had expected long before now.

“Spare me!” the young man hissed, defiant and venomous all at once.

Discretion being the better part of valor, the old man merely bowed his head in acceptance and goodbye and took his leave. He had been given more than enough material to ponder.

oOo

Upon his return to the Sirena, Jean-Luc spotted Elnor coming down the steps of the hatch. His young protege carried some kind of jar in his left hand and, upon closer inspection, had a brush stuck behind his ear. Eyebrows rising on his forehead in bafflement, the old man called out to him.

“Elnor.”

The boy smiled at him, raising his free hand in greeting. “I heard about your visit to Narek. Have you told him about his sister yet?”

“You knew that woman was his sister?” Jean-Luc couldn't help the annoyance creeping into his tone. A little warning might have been nice.

“Yes,” Elnor replied with his usual candor. “I thought everyone did.”

“Everyone but me, it seems.” Shaking off the disgruntlement, Jean-Luc nodded towards the dark jar, curiosity gaining the upper hand. “What is it?”

“Ink,” the young man answered succinctly, then made to elaborate without any prodding. “I was hoping I would be allowed access to the prisoner, so I may assist Narek in applying the kirituhi.”

“Kirituhi?”

“A kind of temporary tattoo. We paint our grief on our skin to honor our dead. I still don't like him. But I am the only Rihannsu available for this task, and it is a sacred duty.”

Come to think of it, Jean-Luc had seen a few of what he had assumed to be facial tattoos in his time on Vashti. Still, Elnor being in direct contact with the Romulan spy for the duration of this task didn't seem wise.

“Elnor, I know you can look after yourself, but don't you think it ill-advised to give him such an opportunity?”

The look the lad leveled him with reminded Picard of an exasperated primary school teacher trying to teach a class of recalcitrant children; it was, quite frankly, a bit insulting.

“It is sacred!” the young Romulan stressed again. “He won't try anything, not with this.”

It had been a long time since Jean-Luc himself had had this kind of conviction in someone else's honor. Like it or not, he had never unlearned to see the good in people, always tried to believe the best of others and convince them to do the same. But he had been wrong before and had to learn to live with the disappointment. Holding his young friend's gaze, noting the steadiness of his belief, Jean-Luc sighed, but nodded.

“All right. I'll call Soong and let him know.”

After all, it was the sort of lesson you had to learn the hard way; Picard wouldn't be able to protect him from learning it, nor did he honestly want to. Whether to prove Elnor right or wrong, only Narek could decide, and who was he to take that chance away from either of them?

Chapter Text

The next time Jean-Luc talked with Narek, there were delicate black designs arching from the end of his eyebrows to the jut of his cheekbones, rolling across his forehead and down his nose. Those bright blue eyes were scrutinizing him again from the moment he stepped into the young man's sight, almost shockingly pale underneath that mop of dark hair.

Jean-Luc nodded his thanks to Arkana as the android stepped away to let them have some privacy without him having to ask.

“I see you let Elnor help you with your – kirituhi, was it?”

Cocking his head quizzically, Narek asked, “Why wouldn't I? The ritual is sacred.”

Jean-Luc nodded contemplatively. “So I heard.”

Taking a moment to just observe gave him some time to order his thoughts, decide how to open this conversation. Narek was sitting in what Jean-Luc was fast coming to think of as his usual way, making himself as small as possible with crossed arms sitting on bent knees. His fingers were fidgeting with the sleeves of his black jacket, and that, too, was behavior he hadn't come across in a Tal Shiar yet.

“Why are you here?” Narek was the one who broke first, fingers stilling as he gave Jean-Luc his full attention. “I don't see you as the one doing the interrogations anymore, and there is no one else's death you could possibly tell me about, so why are you here?”

Ironically, the frankness reminded Jean-Luc of the other young Romulan in his life, and he had to suppress a reluctant smile; it wouldn't be appreciated by either party.

“I have heard a lot about you by a lot of people, Narek. I wanted to get to know you for myself.”

Slanted eyebrows disappeared beneath dark hair, as they rose in what seemed incredulity.

“For what purpose?”

For what purpose, indeed. Not having an immediate answer to that, Jean-Luc bought himself some time and imitated his companion, sitting down on the bare floor Indian style. The feat would have been nigh on impossible only a few days ago with the frailty his years had brought, and he marveled at the lack of creaking knees and tired bones. He wasn't sure whether the look Narek shot him was because of his show of unlikely dexterity or the unrepentant stalling.

“Why don't we blame my insatiable curiosity for now?”

Something flickered in those piercing eyes before Narek's expression settled on skepticism, and Picard sighed.

“Really, what have you got to lose? It has to be incredibly dull just sitting here, day in, day out. Why not humor an old man and engage me in conversation?”

There were at least some perks age had brought, Jean-Luc thought as he watched a Romulan's habitual paranoia battle against the kind of boredom that only captivity induced. People who didn't know him tended to see him as some kind of benign doter, and young men especially – no matter the species – tended to overestimate themselves and underestimate the value of age and the experience that came with it. This old man was not afraid to trade on either to get what he wanted.

Eventually, Narek rolled his eyes and waved his hand in a half-aborted go-ahead. It was jarring, all of a sudden, to see someone who looked so much like a Vulcan be so disheveled and casual, when he kept expecting the poise and restraint he associated with their Federation allies.

There were several questions on his tongue, wanting to get out. How could you do that to Soji? Why did you do that to Soji? What he ultimately decided on was more basic than that, but was, in a lot of ways, the even more loaded question. “Do you love Soji?”

Narek's eyes widened in surprise, but all he said was a dry, “You don't pull your punches, do you?”

Jean-Luc stayed quiet, letting the silence do his work for him. So many people didn't understand the weight silence could carry, if only you were patient enough and indeed, the young Romulan caved eventually, breaking eye contact, long fingers resuming their restless work. “Yes,” he confirmed. “I do love Soij.”

“Then why-?”

“Why do what I did?” Piercing blue eyes captured his gaze again, and where Narek's voice had been soft before, unhappy in a way no confession of love should ever be, now it carried the harsh steel of conviction. “Because as much as I wished otherwise, love has nothing to do with anything!”

“It has to do with everything!” Picard disagreed with quiet vehemence. Narek just watched him for a long moment, his expression unreadable.

“Does it? Our world, all our worlds are on the brink of destruction, and you would have had me risk the lives of my people by letting the one go who was going to bring it about, whether she knew what she was or not. You ask us to trust the very beings who have the power to destroy the whole universe.”

“But they didn't.”

“No, Soji didn't. If it had been up to Sutra we wouldn't be here right now.”

“All the same, your Ganmadan has been averted.”

It seemed important to point that out. Soji had chosen not to be the destroyer, not to fill the role Narek's people had cast for her. There was a lesson to be learned there, if only Jean-Luc could get it through to the young man. But of course, it wasn't so easy.

“For now,” Narek allowed, doubt still clearly tinging his voice. “But you are already working on redacting the ban on the creation of artificial lifeforms, are you not?”

Where it had been an interesting moral and philosophical debate before now, not really affecting any aspect of his life anymore prior to his encounters with Dahj and Soji, these days this issue had become somewhat personal.

“Why do you despise artificial life so much?”

Narek shrugged his narrow shoulders and replied very matter-of-factly, “I don't. I find it fascinating, and I admire the ingenuity and craft that went into its conception. But people like Dr. Soong, they... try to reach for the stars, continuously asking themselves what else might be possible, how they can achieve ever more sophisticated AIs without ever asking themselves whether or not they should!”

The argument wasn't a new one, and it did hold weight. But it was a so very pessimistic view of the world, lacking any faith that anyone would choose peaceful co-existence over complete annihilation.

“You were operating under a worst case scenario that you had no proof would ever come to pass.”

“With the life of my people on the line, how could I not?” the young man countered heatedly. “This isn't a hypothetical discussion about the moral and physical impact of cybernetic engineering. The Ch'khalagu are real. And it was never a worst case scenario, it's a natural progression. You play god, breath life into pieces of metal and synthesized skin and act surprised when they go on to throw off the yokes of their makers.

“Synthetic lifeforms are built in our image, because how could they not be. They have our talents. They learn from us, the good and the bad. Everything they are, they received from us – strength, intelligence, and yes, even emotions. But you don't just make them a mirror image, you make them more. Everything is exaggerated. Their positronic matrix works at speeds no organic brain could hope to match, and it doesn't allow for mistakes. Their physical strength is unchallenged.

“You hope their sentience brings about enough emotional capacity to relate to us, empathize with us. You expect them to choose a human approach over a clinical one the way their inherently logical thinking dictates in situations where you would do the same. Only, you can program a baseline personality to suit your wishes, but how that personality grows, how it learns is out of your hands. There will be no stopping them if that gamble is lost.”

It was always the crux in trying to argue with someone so convicted of the justness of his cause, trying to get him to see a different perspective. The problem here was that Narek's arguments were valid, were not just mired in prejudice and unfounded fear. And they had precedence now, confirmation.

What must it be like, to have the end of times hanging so vividly over your head for so long, a clear and present danger? The way Jean-Luc understood it, generations had been made to live with that fear, the Admonition and its effects giving it credence and a very real sense of urgency.

But Jean-Luc was able to take away something else from the young man's passionate speech as well.

“You do believe in the ghost in the shell, don't you?” he asked, head cocked inquisitively as he stared at their prisoner. “You know that these androids here, they are more than the sum of their parts, they have a life, a consciousness of their own.”

“Of course I do. I would have to be blind not to see that.”

“So what would happen if you got out of this cell? Would you still try to kill them on principle alone?”

For the first time in while, Narek refused to meet his gaze, eyes locked on some point next to Jean-Luc's left knee. His throat was working, jaw clenching in some unspoken emotion, before quietly declaring, “I had the chance to prove myself to my sister, prove that I'm not just the family disgrace, and instead I chose to spare these machines by trying to destroy the beacon that was calling the Ch'khalagu in their stead. Why would I try to kill them now?” He laughed a low, bitter laugh. “There is no going back.”

Jean-Luc nodded slowly, deep in thought. Finally, he clambered up to his feet, not nearly as graceful as in times long past, but not nearly as in pain as in more recent years. He stared at the young man for few minutes more before deciding to just speak his mind.

“I have to admit I was wrong about you, Narek. When I first heard you were Tal Shiar, I immediately thought you to be bigoted, narrow-minded and prejudiced, because that's all I have ever been witness to in your order. But what you lack is not perspective. You need to learn hope. And faith.”

And with that he took his leave again. They both had been left with things to contemplate.

oOo

When the old man turned the corner that would lead him to the place he kept thinking of as the agora of Synthville, Soji was leaning against the building, not even attempting to conceal the fact that she had been listening in on Picard and Narek. Wordlessly, she pushed off the wall and they walked side by side until the young woman was apparently satisfied the Romulan was out of earshot.

“Why are you talking to him?”

It was truly a marvel how her voice copied organic life so flawlessly, combining anger, hurt, betrayal, confusion the same way any other person would.

“How else are we going to reconcile our differences if not by talking?” Jean-Luc posited, patiently weathering the storm of her emotions.

“He manipulated me! He tried to kill me!” Soji raged, and Picard's only possible answer to that was

“Yes,” because it was true, and there was no taking it back.

“I'm not going to forgive him for that!” she stubbornly proclaimed, and the old man smiled.

“I don't expect you to.”

Soji threw him a mistrustful look, but Jean-Luc kept smiling benignly, letting her work through her agitation in her own time. They kept a leisurely pace while she ruminated, and eventually she resumed her line of questioning a lot calmer, with less suspicion and more genuine interest.

“How can you trust a word he says?”

It was a question he didn't have a ready answer for except relying on his years of experience. Something about her made him think she believed in Narek's sincerity however much she didn't want to. Instead of trying to formulate an answer she would be able to accept he stayed silent, let her draw her own conclusions, and at length she confessed, “I think the reason I wasn't more suspicious of him from the beginning was the fact that he told me very little outright lies. Most of his lies were lies of omission.”

“The most brilliant deception of all,” Jean-Luc agreed. “Your internal sensors would have been able to pick up on any lie he told. He knew that, even if you didn't.”

Soji nodded, unhappy and introspective.

“So have you learned anything interesting?” he prodded eventually.

The girl was slow to answer, carefully sounding her words out. “I learned that all the things I... loved him for, they are all still there. He never concealed himself from me, and somehow it makes me feel even worse. And I realized that I never asked for his reasons.”

“He tried to kill you, Soji. His reasons don't have to be of interest to you.”

She gifted him with a surprisingly wry expression at that. “They are of interest to you, are they not? They are interesting, period, if I manage to take away the emotional component for me. What must it be like to live with such fear that you are willing to sacrifice your own happiness for the good of the many?”

Jean-Luc merely hummed, a faint smile gracing his lips, and Soji threw him another shrewd look.

“You think I should forgive him, don't you?”

He swayed his head from side to side, debating how to answer, because the concise answer to that was 'yes.' “Not for his sake,” he clarified eventually. “For yours.”

Chapter Text

As the Federation talks wore on, so did his conversations with Narek.

The black lines on the young man's face were never touched up and thus washed out over time, only at a much slower rate than Jean-Luc had expected. Two weeks later they had faded from a stark inky black to the charcoal of an aged tattoo.

“Tell me about your sister.”

“Let's not.” Narek fired back immediately, voice flat and eyes hard.

It was the first time the Romulan so outright refused a topic of conversation, and there was no point in destroying the rapport they had built by insisting just to sate his own curiosity.

“Okay” Jean-Luc readily agreed, mind already rifling through a variety of different subjects.

Despite himself, he had come to look forward to these talks.

In all his years, he had never had an opportunity like this; to take the time to get to know these generation old rivals and long time enemies of Starfleet and the Federation; to try and understand their way of thinking just for the sake of it, not as part of delicate diplomatic encounters, worried that his actions or words would impact a lot more than the immediate conversation.

The only Romulans he had had this kind of kinship with up to date were people like the Qowat Milat or Laris and Zhaban back at his vineyard on earth; dissidents of the Romulan Empire, united under a common goal and already close enough to his line of thinking that there was no intrinsic dissonance in their interactions and expectations, and in the case of his Romulan housekeepers tight-lipped about their pasts more often than not.

Narek was a dissident because of circumstance not conviction. The young man was staunch in his beliefs, but he wasn't so blinded by them that he didn't allow for the possibility they might be flawed. There was doubt there, and frustration over rigid superiors who didn't know how to bend, unwilling to try methods that required patience instead of violence. But he still believed that their actions were necessary evils, done for the good of their people.

Through the cracks of fallible ideology that could not keep it contained shone an intelligent, inquisitive mind that Jean-Luc had never expected to see here but that he found himself looking forward to engage.

“What would you like to talk about then?”

Narek looked over at him in surprise, bright blue eyes fixating him with their piercing stare. The young man had relaxed more as time went on, and while he was still habitually sitting with his knees up when he wasn't pacing the confines of his cell, the posture was more open now, legs more outstretched and muscles less tense. Abruptly, Jean-Luc realized that he had never before let Narek pick a topic of conversation. An oversight, perhaps, that he would have to remedy. He really hadn't come here in order to interrogate, after all.

After a long moment of subjecting Jean-Luc to heavy scrutiny, Narek opened his mouth only to close it again. Brows furrowed, his fingers started fidgeting with each other once more, a restless tell he had never made an obvious effort to conceal. The old man waited patiently, and finally, Narek blurted out, “What is it like?”

“What is what like?” Jean-Luc felt his own forehead furrowing in confusion.

“What is it like to be trapped inside a synthetic body after a lifetime of living, of breathing fresh air, hearing blood rush in your ears, feeling the pulse of your heart? How do you not go mad?”

He had never purposely kept that knowledge from Narek on any grounds other than that it was irrefutably personal, thinking he'd wait for an opportune moment to broach the topic if he chose to broach it at all. But maybe, there had been a bit of trepidation driving that decision, not quite knowing what reaction to expect, and not quite trusting a Tal Shiar agent with this information besides. Those considerations had been for naught, it seemed.

“How did you know?”

The exasperation in the look thrown his way once again reminded the old man of Elnor, even of Soji, to an extent. 'Ah,' he thought but wisely did not voice, 'the arrogance of youth.'

“I'm not blind, Picard. It's boiling outside, but you don't sweat.”

He pointedly raked his eyes across Jean-Luc's posture who was once again sitting on the floor, elbows resting on crossed legs. “You move easier than you should be able to given your age. Even with the wrinkles and creases, your skin looks too perfect.”

Lips twitching in amusement at the once again displayed candor, Jean-Luc countered, “Maybe I've always been a Synth, have you thought about that?”

Narek rolled his eyes. “The Tal Shiar has extensive records of your service during your active years in Starfleet. Their imitation of organic life is good, I'll grant you, but Synths don't age the way we do, the way you did. They don't get old. And I don't think even Dr. Soong has enough hubris – or deceitfulness – to built one of his androids a perfect imitation of a decorated, well known Starfleet Admiral.”

Smiling with something that almost felt like admiration, Jean-Luc nodded, and corrected, “Dr. Soong called this body a golem.”

Narek cocked his head curiously, “A golem.?”

“It's an ancient earth myth. A man of clay summoned in times of need to protect the people.”

It was a very condensed version of the myth, but delving into ancient Terran belief systems and the wars fought over them to properly appreciate the tale would take an afternoon of its own and would entirely detract from the conversation already in progress.

“Fitting, I guess, in some ways,” Narek agreed.

Silence spread between them as the young man leaned his head against the wall, long minutes spent just observing each other. Jean-Luc let it go on for a while, the quiet contemplative yet not uncomfortable, but he could virtually see the thoughts chasing each other behind Narek's carefully composed expression.

Finally, he prompted, “Penny for your thoughts?”

Rocking his head back and forth against the concrete in his back, obviously weighing his options, Narek finally replied with the frankness the old man had come to expect of him. It was a different kind of candor than the Qowat Milat taught, which was at times skirting the edge of rudeness to the unknowing outsider and took some time to adjust. Narek knew how to tell a white lie and would if he deemed it appropriate, he knew how to be diplomatic in his frankness, which was a trait Jean-Luc sometimes sorely missed when dealing with the sisters, however much he appreciated the lack of obfuscation. But Narek had a way of cutting to the chase that Jean-Luc had come to appreciate as well.

“My thoughts?” the young Romulan parroted, knees pulling up in one of Narek's unconscious shows of vulnerability that made the old man doubt he had ever been a very effective operative at all. 'The family disgrace' he had called himself, and maybe this was why.

Narek rubbed the palms of his hands over his eyes, cupping them over his mouth before he took a deep breath and began, “I'm assuming someone, probably Soong transferred Picard's actual neural engrams to a synthetic matrix? So what happened to the real Jean-Luc Picard? Are you a perfect imitation of the true admiral or are you just a cheap copy? Does he send you to deal with situations he neither has the time nor leisure to deal with himself? Do any of these conversations even mean anything, or am I just deluding myself again?”

Part of Jean-Luc wanted to get angry. This was exactly the kind of misconception he had been convinced Narek wouldn't fall for. Another part of him recognized the fact that Narek asked those questions not out of ignorance or malice, but a genuine need for answers. He was trying to understand something far outside of his own experience and doctrine – of course he would have questions, difficult ones, at that.

It felt like having the same discussion again and again, and Jean-Luc still vividly remembered the sheer indignation and powerlessness and injustice he had felt when it had been Data's sentience that had been in question back when they had both still served aboard the Enterprise. It was frustrating to say the least.

Still, having one's view of the world so completely deconstructed couldn't be easy, especially for someone so indoctrinated as a Romulan Zhat Vash disciple. How could Jean-Luc ever hope to propagate a change in mentality if he wasn't willing to face those questions head-on?

And Narek was trying. It was only fair to meet him half-way. Honest questions demanded honest answers. However much Jean-Luc was tempted to take offense at some of them, he couldn't afford to fall into that trap.

Maybe these questions needed asking, even if some of them would never have satisfying answers.

Narek didn't wait for answers anyway, and Jean-Luc realized all at once that the young man didn't expect explanations so much as he was trying to lay out to himself and Jean-Luc both the moral and existential dilemma he unwillingly found himself in.

“I've studied cybernetics all my adult life, I can recite the intricate designs of a positronic matrix by rote. I know how the parts work together to form a cohesive whole. In this city, I see self-awareness, consciousness in the eyes of every synth around me. My head tells me you were right to advocate their continued existence, to let them make their own choices; that the threat they pose to our world exists in part because we made them one.

“And still I can't help asking myself if any of it can be real when it's all just... so much scrap metal. When it's all blue prints programmed into an empty shell to simulate organic life. When all it was ever supposed to be was an imitation, an approximation of the original.

“I fell in love with Soji for her personality, for her inquisitiveness and competence, even while a part of me kept insisting that she's nothing more than a machine, programmed to do what she was meant to do, be what her creator wanted her to be. How can something that is built out of metal and plastic, filaments and cogs and digital programming develop a will of its own? A soul?

"We made them. Shouldn't we have the right to undo them too?”

Narek shook his head, a physical indication of the emotional turmoil this subject obviously incited in him, and he looked Jean-Luc dead in the eyes when he demanded, “How can you be real?“

When he finally ran out of steam and averted his eyes, Jean-Luc was quiet for a long time pondering the young man in front of him. Narek didn't try to meet his gaze again.

He didn't reply with the obvious, that those arguments in slightly different form could be applied to organic life as well and would be just as flawed. Narek already knew that. That cognitive dissonance between the ideology of his up-bringing and his studies and experiences later in life had to be impossible to reconcile.

Instead, the old man sighed deeply and eventually decided to start with the least convoluted of Narek's questions.

“I was diagnosed with a terminal illness a few months back. My body succumbed to this illness shortly after your fleet left Coppelius's orbit. Only apparently, neither Dr. Jurati nor Soji wanted to let me die, and Dr. Soong worked with them to transfer my consciousness into this golem he had originally constructed for his own use.”

During his explanation Narek's eyes found his again, curiosity once again gaining the upper hand over his earlier uncertainty.

“Would I have chosen this procedure myself? I do not know. And you're right, it does pose a few uncomfortable questions. Was my organic body just an empty shell when they shut down life support? What happened to my soul in all of this? Did a part of me die with my body without me noticing? What if I am just a digital copy of an analogue system, and the real Jean-Luc Picard went on to wherever it is we go when we die?

"These are the kind of questions best left to poets and philosophers.

"I don't know if I can give you answers that will be of any meaning to you. I can only tell you what answers I've found for myself: this new body isn't so different from what it was. I will age, and die according to a human lifespan, the details to this process you are liable to understand better than I did when Agnes was trying to explain them to me. I wasn't augmented in any way, everything works more or less the way it used to. Dr. Soong assured he knew I wouldn't want to adjust to something new, so I don't have an android's strength, nor are my senses any more accurate than I remember. Well. My hearing is more sensitive than it has been in years, and my bones don't ache the way they used to, but you won't catch me complaining about that.

"Other than that, though, I have the same memories I've always had, draw from the same experiences from which I've always drawn. As far as I'm concerned I still feel like me. The real Jean-Luc Picard, albeit with the addition of a particularly sophisticated prosthetic,” – Narek snorted at that – “I don't feel trapped. I feel alive!”

He smiled at his young companion, and for the first time Narek cracked a smile in response. “I'll answer what questions I can for you, but to some, I do not know the answer; and to others you have to find an answer for yourself.”

Abruptly, he clapped his hands together and pushed to his feet. The heat Narek had referenced earlier was starting to recede a bit as the sun went down. He had been here for most of the afternoon.

“But not today,” he proclaimed with an air of finality. “I feel like we've both been given enough things to process for now.”

“Picard.” Narek called him back before Jean-Luc could step out of sight. The old man turned around, raising a brow in silent inquiry.

“You asked about my sister,” the Romulan started haltingly, and Jean-Luc stayed carefully silent, something in the man's voice making him recognize what this was with startling clarity: a kind of apology; a difficult truth for a difficult truth.

“Narissa was... complicated,” the young man went on, staring across the garden his prison was overlooking, arms crossed over his chest and hugged tightly to himself.

“I loved her. And I miss her. And a part of me is glad she's gone.”

Questions clamored in his mind, and a surprising impulse to comfort. He listened to neither because he also recognized that neither would be welcome right now. So, after a moment of waiting to ensure Narek had said what he wanted to say, he nodded in acknowledgment and wordlessly went on his way.

Chapter Text

Six days later the ban was rescinded and, although it would take another few days for the new laws to come into effect, the thing Jean-Luc had been avoiding couldn't be put off any longer. It was time to make a decision about Narek's fate.

He had gone into their conversations thinking he knew what he'd find, Rios's misgivings – though they had been his impulse – notwithstanding. Now he discovered he shared the other man's doubts. And even after the Federation's favorable ruling regarding synthetic life forms he found he didn't quite trust them to provide the young man an unbiased trial; not after the way their resentment towards Romulus had cost billions of lives, and particularly not after the revelations about the Mars catastrophe.

Narek wasn't innocent by any means, but if he was to be punished, he ought to be punished for crimes committed, not serve as scapegoat to appease an enraged public and a Starfleet that had left his people to die because it had been a convenient way of destabilizing an empire that had been antagonizing them for generations.

Jean-Luc shook his head about himself. So maybe he was still a bitter about that.

But also, the old man was forced to admit... he hadn't expected to grow attached. Even knowing what torment this Romulan spy had put Soji – Data's daughter! – through, the young man had burrowed beneath Jean-Luc's defenses in ways he hadn't anticipated.

Narek's wit and his quick intellect, even – perhaps especially – the earnestness of his convictions had done more to win the old man over than any assertion of innocence or appeal for mercy would have managed. Narek knew how to play the long game, had – for all his inability to keep his hands still for more than a few minutes – displayed a patience that Jean-Luc had seldom been privy to in his temperamental kin. Maybe all of that made him a better spy than Jean-Luc or apparently his sister had given him credit for.

And yet, in all his years as a Starfleet officer he had learned to read people, had learned to trust his instincts more than his fears. Everything in him told him that Narek, while indeed perhaps manipulating the situation in his favor, hadn't been lying, hadn't pretended to be anything other than he was. Merely used the opportunity presented to him to argue his case the same way Picard himself had done countless times.

Looking at Narek Jean-Luc no longer saw a Tal Shiar fanatic ruthlessly following his cause in blind fervor with no regards to the casualties he caused, but a lost, misguided young man who had been caught between a rock and a hard place.

So now, where did that leave them?

A cool breeze wafting across the small deck where he was standing, completely unappreciative of the magnificent lookout over the open sea in the distance in his contemplation, brought him out of his head in time to notice Raffi and Seven ambling up to him, holding hands. In the weeks following the battle, the two women had grown close when he hadn't been watching, preoccupied as he was with their resident Romulan prisoner. He didn't feel bad about his inattention, however. Despite their past differences Raffi was a dear friend, and Seven appeared to have a good head on her shoulders, and while they had all agreed to join Rios's crew for the time being, they all still had a life of their own. They didn't need an old man meddling in their personal affairs.

Raffi took one look at him and called him out, “There's a bee under your bonnet, JL. What is it?”

Remembering her violent reaction the last time Jean-Luc had brought an unexpected passenger on board and thinking better of presenting the crew with a fait accompli especially as it wasn't just Rios and Raffi anymore, he told the two women, “I think I would like to call a crew meeting.”

oOo

“You cannot be serious!”

The incredulous outcry had come from Seven, surprisingly enough, when Jean-Luc would have expected Soji or even Raffi to be the more vocal opposition. Maybe he should have known, though. Seven did have a history with Narek's sister Narissa.

They had all gathered around the dining table in Dr. Soong's personal quarters, not just the prospective crew of the Sirena but also Dr. Soong, Arkana and Soji, all of whom had a more or less relevant stake in the matter of Narek's future. Arkana, whose sister Narek had killed in his bid for freedom, followed the proceedings with an air of wonder and a distinct lack of understanding just what exactly she was doing there.

When Jean-Luc had explained that he wanted to revisit their decision to hand over their Romulan prisoner into Federation Custody because he felt like the Federation courts were unable to give a Tal Shiar agent a fair trial in the wake of recent developments, Rios had immediately chimed in with, “Couldn't agree with you more.”

Based on the conversation that had been the catalyst to Jean-Luc's change of heart, Rios's support wasn't unexpected. But it had provoked Seven's explosion. And she wasn't finished.

“What he did was attempted murder, Rios! Premeditated and executed in cold blood. Hell, he tried to shoot your ship out of the sky! I thought your society has rules for that sort of thing. Are you two saying they don't apply, just because what? You feel sorry for him?”

“But they don't apply!” Rios fired back almost immediately, more worked up than Jean-Luc thought was entirely warranted. He was also interested in the younger man's reasoning, because for all that the old man wanted to temper justice with mercy, Seven wasn't wrong.

“Or they shouldn't,” Rios went on. “Starfleet may deny time and again that they're a military organization, that their members are soldiers, but really, that distinction is only skin deep most days. Do we punish the ones on the front lines for taking lives in the line of duty? When they have to choose the lesser of two evils? When the choice is taking one life or being responsible for the deaths of millions?”

“He isn't part of Starfleet!” Seven proclaimed loudly. Somewhere down the line they had both jumped to their feet and were now very literally in each others' faces, arms gesticulating wildly with their arguments. “He's not even a Federation citizen!”

“You're missing my point!” Another sweeping gesture with his arm and Rios expounded, “Narek is Romulan military, yes, but the stakes were not just the Romulan people but the extinction of everything! And for all that their information may have been outdated by millennia, the threat itself wasn't imagined! I can't believe you of all people are advocating Federation custody when you yourself should be in prison a hundred times over. Remind me again, how many have you killed in the name of your crusade?”

Seven actually flinched, as well she should. Rios had struck a nerve not only in the woman, but in Jean-Luc as well who suddenly realized that, for all that he knew what she was doing and could guess at her methods, it had never occurred to him to render Seven into custody just because he understood and, to a point, agreed with her reasoning.

“I had my reasons, good reasons!” The obvious shake in her voice apparently served as a wake up call, as both parties took a literal and metaphorical step back. Raffi reached out to take a hold of her partner's hand, obviously knowing more about the cause of Seven's turmoil than Jean-Luc did.

Visibly trying to reign himself, Rios took a deep breath and continued, calmer now but no less intense, “No doubt. But so did Narek! He believes in his cause as much as you do in yours! Who are you to say his is any less valid, especially with everything we know now?”

Taking her seat next to Raffi, Seven quietly, stubbornly insisted, “He should rot in a cell for what he did.”

The words were tinged with grief. Having been devastated by Hugh's loss himself, Jean-Luc thought he understood now. The woman's ire was as much if not more about Narek's sister as Narek himself, but Narissa was already dead, and as satisfying as revenge was in the moment, it left you hollow and not any less angry in the aftermath.

Heaving another sigh, running a hand over tired eyes Rios retook his own seat and wisely refrained from restarting the same argument.

Now that the previously stunned silence had somewhat receded, Jean-Luc took the opportunity to insert himself into the discussion by posing another not quite irrelevant question, “Does the Federation even have a claim to him, when nothing he may or may not have done happened in Federation space?”

It was Raffi this time who vehemently asserted, “To a Federation citizen!”

“To an illegal life form that Starfleet would also have given orders to terminate at the time, however classified those orders would have been.” Rios's voice sounded weary as he quietly reminded them of the unwelcome facts as they had stood only a couple of weeks ago.

“Not Starfleet,” Raffi disagreed. “Commander Oh was Zhat Vash.”

“Which none of us knew at the time,” Jean-Luc reminded everyone in the room. Rios was right, anyway, the roots of the problem lay much deeper than the former head of Starfleet Security. “And Oh was not alone in her line of thinking. She wasn't the one who passed the motion of the ban in the first place.”

Eyebrows raised, Raffi threw a knowing look his way, “So you could just hand the man over to the Romulans where he would be tried under his own laws. But you don't because you know what he has to expect there, and you don't think what he did warrants their kind of justice even if you do believe he deserves some form of punishment.”

Jean-Luc had to smile at how well she knew him. “It's a conundrum, isn't it. You're absolutely right, but it's more than that.”

In an effort to explain his reasoning, he elaborated, “In Federation space he would be tried under our laws, of which he may have cursory knowledge but has no inherent understanding and which he was never obligated to follow.”

Impatience ringing clear in her voice, Raffi pointed out, “Like you said, Narek wasn't unaware of those laws.”

“No,” Rios chimed in again, frustrated, “but we keep ignoring the fact that the Artifact was indeed sovereign Romulan territory, which as a member of their military forces he took an oath to defend.”

“He may regret what he did on an emotional level,” Jean-Luc took over from the other man once more, “of that I'm almost certain, but from his point of view he did nothing inherently wrong. He was following orders. The wrong he did, happened when he chose to ignore them, decided to spare Coppelius Station and teamed up with you against a common enemy. And no matter who does the sentencing, that will be what he will feel punished for, not the breaking of any of our laws which he was at no point obliged to abide by.”

It was Seven who muttered, quietly but vehemently, “Some people wouldn't care what he feels punished for as long as he's punished.”

Jean-Luc took a moment to study her. Blue eyes were staring defiantly back at him.

“Be that as it may.” He sighed, rubbed a hand over his mouth, and explained further, “The point is, what he did, he didn't do out of malice or ill-will but conviction. He's aware that his actions against Soji are reprehensible, but he also believes they were a necessary evil. And being imprisoned for it won't convince him of the error of his ways.”

Rios scoffed at this, a belligerent expression passing over his features that told Jean-Luc the captain of the Sirena disagreed with a part of his assessment.

“Error of ways?” the man asked incredulously . “You say that as if there had been a better option for him to take, but what would that have been, really?”

Eyes flickering around the room to look at all of them, his gaze caught on Soji who had been a silent spectator so far, her closed off face leaving no room to guess at what she might be thinking. Rios exhaled a gust of air and acknowledged something they had all avoided up until now.

“I'm sorry you got caught up in all this mess, Soji, I really am. You didn't deserve what happened to you.

“But you all keep thinking in black and white when there's no such thing.”

Addressing the whole room again, he demanded, “Put yourselves in his shoes for a moment, and tell me what you would have done? Tried to contact Starfleet and inform them of a threat? Even if our relations with the Romulans weren't as strained as they are, they would have laughed him out of the room had he told them about Ganmadan and Seb-Cheneb. Not to mention that his own government would probably have had him killed for treason had he tried.

“Explain things to Soji and get her to help instead? I'm pretty sure the same things would have happened even if he could have convinced himself that it was a chance worth taking with the entire world on the line.

“The only other option given to him was hand Soji over to his sister for interrogation, and you know what that would have meant.

“So would you have defected from home, your family, everything you know on the off-chance that, provided that people even believed you, someone else can come up with a better plan than the one that was already in place?”

“Either way,” Jean-Luc interrupted the rant, not quite as ready as Rios to absolve the young Romulan of his wrong-doings. Still, they wanted the same thing in the end. “Prison, either Federation or Romulan, isn't going to teach him better. We like to see our penalty system as one of rehabilitation but the truth is, all it will do is reinforce a sense of injustice. Shouldn't punishment entail learning what you did wrong in the first place? Instead, prison will be just another thing he will endure in the service of his people.”

“So what's your plan, JL?” his old friend asked, still impatient but also curious now. “If it's not the Federation and it's not the Tal Shiar, what are you planning to do with the kid? Set him loose?”

Jean-Luc looked at each of them in turn before his eyes came to rest on the captain of the Sirena. “Show him our ways.”

Rios appeared surprised to be singled out for no more than a moment before his expression cleared and Jean-Luc's meaning registered.

“You want to make him part of the crew; let him do community work in a manner of speaking.” He thought it over for a moment, then he nodded. “I'm good with that.”

“Well, I'm not!” Seven exploded again. Turning to Raffi for support, the xB started at the look on her lover's face.

“Raffi?”

The woman in question grimaced. “I know I've been playing Devil's Advocate,” she stated. “And don't get me wrong, what he did to Soji shouldn't go unpunished.”

She swallowed, made another grimace and went on to confess, “But I've actually worked with him, and I think JL is right. That kid didn't enjoy the havoc he'd wreaked, he just tried to do the best he could with the hand he'd been dealt. So if the choice is Starfleet coming down on him and making him the punching bag for the very organization he defied, the Tal Shiar executing him for treason or taking him with us to keep an eye on him, is there even really a choice?”

They let silence reign for a few long moments.

Rios, Seven, Raffi and Jean-Luc himself had been the ones who had carried the conversation so far. The others had been conspicuously silent. Now he took note of each of them, wordlessly encouraging them to speak up.

Arkana met his gaze guilelessly, interested in the proceedings while simultaneously detached from them, still not sure what she was doing here. Dr. Soong appeared equally interested but also contemplative, his expression more neutral than Jean-Luc had expected considering that Narek had killed one of his creations – his children – and attempted to kill another. Elnor's jaw was working, his arms were crossed tightly over his chest and his gaze kept flitting back and forth over all their faces.

It was obvious there were thoughts chasing each other around in his mind, and when he felt Jean-Luc's gaze on him, he returned it and declared, “I can't forget that his sister murdered Hugh.”

To his surprise Rios actually rolled his eyes at the young man as if he had heard that argument before. “If you're going to judge someone, judge them on their own mistakes not those of their crazy relatives.”

Elnor sent a scathing look his way and continued, “And I don't like him. But we worked together well enough I suppose. I reserve the right to kill him, though, if and when he betrays us.”

As well as say a magnificent I-told-you-so, Jean-Luc imagined. He'd be able to work with that.

Soji, Jean-Luc couldn't read at all. She kept her gaze averted, her jaw was clenched and, like Elnor, her arms were crossed underneath her chest. The girl didn't look angry, per se, but Jean-Luc couldn't even guess as to what exactly it was she was thinking.

It was Agnes who spoke up at long last, nervous but determined.

“You,” the woman started and stopped, swallowed. “You haven't discussed yet what will happen to me either. And I'm not in a cell, so I guess I kind of took it for granted that I'm... that I dodged a bullet. I don't want to go to jail.”

She flashed them all a quick, uneasy smile and took a fortifying breath. “But if you're going to hand the Romulan over to the Federation, shouldn't you do the same with me? Why do I get to walk away from killing my former lover, an old acquaintance of yours,” she looked directly at Jean-Luc, “but you can't forgive the... Narek for following the teachings of his order, even though he never succeeded in killing anyone. Even when he chose not to, in the end.”

At that, Soji's head snapped up, and she hissed furiously “He killed Saga!”

“No, he didn't,”Arkana intervened to the surprise of virtually everyone. The synth girl looked around the room with her soft, honest eyes, a faint air of confusion surrounding her as she focused on Soji and informed her, “Father gifted me with my sister's memories. The Romulan hesitated. It was Sutra who killed Saga.”

Out of the corner of his eyes, Jean-Luc saw Dr. Soong nod in confirmation. His brows furrowing in incomprehension, the old man started to wonder, “Then why...?”

Without his question even fully formulated, Rios already countered, “Why waste time denying something when you know you won't be believed?”

Only, Picard couldn't help but feel that that was only part of the reason. Narek's words rang in his mind. 'Prove that I'm not just the family disgrace,' he had said. Jean-Luc didn't have to wonder what Narek's sister would have made of that apparent flaw in her brother's personality.

Which left them the rest of Agnes's statement to deal with. She wasn't wrong. All of them had come to the silent agreement to turn a blind eye on her murder of Bruce Maddox on the grounds that it was done during a PTSD induced mental breakdown. There was also the fact that she had proved to be an invaluable asset, and it felt wrong to repay her saving his life with imprisonment.

But how could they refute her arguments, when everything she said rang true?

“You were brainwashed, Agnes.” Rios reminded her gently, laying his hand over hers in a show of solidarity, an unusually kind glint in his eyes. It seemed as if this was another development Jean-Luc had missed.

There was a haunted look on Agnes's face, but she steadfastly argued, “And Narek was indoctrinated. All his life. Do you think that's any easier to overcome? Why should I be granted a pardon for succumbing to my terror, when he managed to live with that same fear for years without breaking?”

When the slight woman held on to Rios's hand with trembling fingers, the captain actually winced her grip was so tight. “Their methods may not be ours, but he wasn't following a false prophet. He's not a fanatic. Their Ganmadan is real. It happened. It can happen again. We know that. What Commander Oh showed me...”

Agnes had to swallow convulsively before being able to go on, “Countless of their people went mad under the full force of the Admonition. I wouldn't be surprised if she did to him what she did to me. Even its echoes are...”

Not able to finish the sentence, she instead concluded, “It's a very expedient way to convince you of the urgency of their mission.”

“Yeah, but you overcame that,” Raffi reassured her, voice as gentle as Rios's earlier. “You helped us in the end.”

Agnes nodded, shrugged her shoulders. “So did he.”

“We owe you.” The quiet voice belonged to Elnor. It was the first time during this argument that the young Romulan had spoken up without being prodded, and the way his eyes briefly lingered on Jean-Luc let him know exactly what it was Elnor thought they owed Agnes for.

As his eyes wandered back to the scientist, his gaze momentarily came to rest on Seven again. The xB looked drawn and tired, the fire of her wrath all but simmered down in the wake of the other woman's assertions. She still looked defiant, but there was also a reluctant sort of defeat in her posture, the kind that came when you realized the truth in someone else's words however much you didn't want to hear it.

“And does that right the wrong I did?” Agnes asked equally as quiet, an edge of pleading to her voice as if she desperately wanted it to be so. “I did kill someone. Someone I loved. Narek didn't.”

Soji scoffed loudly and reminded her, “Not for lack of trying.”

Instead of being chastised though, the other woman stared at Soji searchingly.

“Are you sure?” she asked, seemingly genuinely curious. “He knew enough about cybernetics not to trigger your self-defense subroutines when he was making you remember your home world. And he chose a form of liquidation that took what? Several minutes? Whether he was aware of it or not, he chose a method that gave you a fighting chance.”

Sudden movement and the loud impact of Soji hitting the table with her palms had all of them jumping in their seats. “Why are you telling me this?” she demanded fiercely, and whatever composure she had clung to until this moment, now she was furious. “I don't want to know! I don't care why he did what he did! He hurt me! He betrayed me! I don't need to understand more than that! And I don't care if you take him with you or if he rots in a cell somewhere, I just don't want to deal with him ever again!” And with that, the girl stormed out of the room without looking back. Jean-Luc couldn't say he blamed her.

The dazed silence left in her wake was eventually broken by Dr. Soong.

“Well. As far as I can tell none of you are Starfleet anymore. And as of yet Coppelius is not actually part of Federation space. Technically none of us are under any obligation to hand the Romulan over. I don't think anyone even knows about his involvement but us and whatever contacts he has in the Tal Shiar. Which means the only one with any kind of authority over him right now is me.”

The old scientist paused for a moment, waiting for signs of protest which didn't come. He nodded once, then addressed Jean-Luc directly. “I won't insist on Federation custody. It appears clear enough that not everything is as it first seemed. And in my opinion that boy deserves a second chance as much as any of us do. But whatever you decide, Admiral – keep him away from my children.”

With those words, Dr. Soong pushed to his feet, motioned Arkana to follow him and left the crew of the Sirena to argue amongst themselves.

Chapter Text

She didn't know what she was doing here.

After leaving behind the argument, blood boiling in her veins (no, not blood, however much it looked like it), Soji had stormed through the pathways of the compound completely unaware of where her feet were taking her until she came to an abrupt halt.

Through the branches of the trees surrounding her she recognized the structure of the building where Narek's cell was located. If she strained her eyes, Soji could make out the shape behind the force-field of the man she had loved. The man who had broken her trust.

Only minutes ago had she shouted that she didn't want to have to deal with him again, but the stark truth was that for some reason, she couldn't stay away.

Narek didn't know but Soji had accompanied Picard to almost every one of their conversations. The old man had never said anything one way or another, had only acknowledged her presence when she took her spot around the corner and settled in to listen to them talk. And she was grateful because she couldn't even justify this behavior to herself much less to others. She had just needed... something. An explanation, maybe. A guide to the workings of this alien mind that let her understand Narek's reasoning.

Only that was bullshit. Ever since that first conversation she had been privy to, Soji had understood his reasoning. Even if today Captain Rios had given her new insights from a soldier's perspective, and Dr. Jurati had made her confront a question Soji had never wanted to ask in the first place. She didn't want to know any of it, didn't want to understand. She hated that she did.

Creeping closer, the woman carefully kept to the shadows while watching the man in the cell.

Narek was pacing the length of his room, not particularly cowed or anxious, but working off that restless energy Soji had come to associate with him. He hadn't noticed her yet, and Soji took the opportunity to study him after a month of only hearing his voice.

The man had ditched the black flight suit and was wearing clothes obviously replicated by the captain if the dark grayscale and the casual Terran style shirt and pants were anything to go by. The loose fit of the cargo pants and the too long sleeves of the shirt, fraying again due to Narek's endless fidgeting, made his already slim build look smaller than he really was, disheveled and vulnerable; it made him look fragile, and wasn't that just unfair?

She didn't want to feel sorry for him, didn't want to be forced to admit that she wouldn't have wanted to be in his situation either.

Narek looked up then, and the delicate designs running down parts of his face took her aback for a second before she made the connection.

Prior to stepping one foot on board the Artifact, Soji had studied what little was known of Romulan culture; and unlike learning their language those weren't implanted memories. She had in fact studied, during the flight that had taken her to her posting, and more in depth on the cube after she had met Narek, because... well, because.

All of which was to say, she had known about the Kirituhi, though this was the first time she had seen them worn.

Narek himself had never told her about a sister, only the brother he had lost a year ago. Which designs had he worn then, Soji wondered? And immediately chastised herself for caring, however idle the thought, questioning whether there had been a brother at all.

For the first time since this nightmare had started Soji let her mind linger on her own sister. She missed Dahj, but the feeling was curiously muted. The twins hadn't seen much of each other in nearly three years, having lived in different cities even before Soji had accepted a position in the Borg Reclamation Project. They made time for video calls when they could but their busy schedules clashed more often than not and a genuine visit had always been delayed to 'some day'.

For now the young woman's regret and grief were mostly overshadowed by anger and betrayal and fury. Not just at Narek, if she was entirely honest with herself. But the Romulan made a very convenient target to focus all her confusing and jumbled emotions on, her insecurities and denial and fear – not because he had wanted to take her life, although obviously that was a large part of it. But also, it was his actions that had forced her to question everything Soji thought she knew about herself, about her sister, about where she came from...

The Kirituhi were visible signs of Narek's grief for his sister when all Soji had of Dahj were pictures that they had never really taken of memories that they had never truly lived. Just looking at the dark lines stirred up the storm inside of her.

And even as the rage flared up again, some small part of her couldn't help but note that he was still beautiful.

She was disgusted at herself for it.

Soji didn't know how long she had been standing there, but now she became aware of an uncomfortable feeling – like ants were running across her skin, doubling in number by the second. Suddenly not able to stay still anymore, driven to do something, other than stare at her offender as if she was hoping for him to go up in flames, Soji stomped her way to the cell, coming to a standstill mere inches in front of its force-field.

Narek's head had swiveled in her direction as she was halfway across the lawn, and he stared at her, pale eyes wide with surprise. He looked so much like the doe-eyed, unassuming young man she had first met on the Artifact that she wanted to hurt him.

Viciously, she informed him, “Admiral Picard will be leaving in a few days. They're deciding your fate right now.”

Visibly bewildered, it took Narek a few seconds to regain his composure. Although his quiet, “Hello, my love,” only infuriated her further.

“Don't call me that!” she hissed, relishing in the sharp hurt in his eyes with savage thrill. “You've lost that right!”

Narek's mouth opened, but before he was able to get a word out, Soji rounded on him, “No more games, Narek; no more lies, no more justifications! I don't want to hear them!”

Narek didn't say anything for a long few moments, just watched her with an unreadable expression. She had forgotten what it was to have that razor-sharp focus on her. Eventually he asked, “Then what do you want?”

And as if that question was what she had been waiting for, she suddenly knew exactly what she wanted from him.

“I want an apology! I want you to look me in the eyes and acknowledge that what you did to me was wrong! That you had a choice and you chose badly!”

Narek didn't reply right away, just stared at her with sad eyes that made Soji want to smash her fist into his face. He was first to look away, and he didn't say anything for so long that Soji already felt the disappointment clawing up her throat alongside an incongruous feeling of being vindicated. She was frankly surprised when he did start to speak.

“I do regret the pain you went through by my hands,” he allowed, eyes coming up to search her gaze, and this time he held the contact.

“But I will not apologize for what I did, because given the same set of circumstances I would likely do so again, and any apology would be meaningless.”

Bristling with anger and incredulity, Soji bit back a bitter laugh. What had she expected, really? She already knew he loved her, and it hadn't been enough to break through his convictions.

She was done here. Whatever it was she had been looking for, Narek wasn't likely to give it to her.

Just as the young woman turned around to leave, the Romulan spoke up again.

“I had a lot of time to think, though,” he spoke softly. “And hindsight being what it is... We made ourselves part of a self-fulfilling prophecy: we went out to look for Seb-Cheneb and I found you; you had to flee back to your home world because of us; it was our actions that convinced you to agree to Sutra's plan in the first place.

“In trying to prevent Ganmadan from happening at all, we would have made ourselves instrument to our own destruction.

“We... I thought you fulfilling your role as the Destroyer was inevitable. But it was you who saved this world. For now. You chose not to be what the Zhat Vash thought you had to be.”

He broke off and seemed to hesitate, gaze flickering to the trees behind her as he confessed, “The admiral told me I had to learn to have faith, but in my world faith is hard to come by. I realize it's not good enough, but it is the only apology I can give you.”

Having spoken this confession, Narek turned around and retreated the two steps to the wall where he leaned his back against it and let himself slide to the ground again. Soji watched as the young man withdrew from their conversation in a very physical sense as far as his small cell allowed, quietly contemplating his words. It wasn't what she wanted by half, but if all she could have was his honesty, she would take it she supposed. It was a start, anyway.

And she found she wasn't quite done with Narek yet after all.

“I understand why you thought killing me was necessary, you know,” Soji told him. “I do. I can almost forgive you for that. What I can't forgive nor forget is how you made me trust you just to use me!”

The sardonic snort and scathing glance thrown her way honestly caught her off guard.

“What?” she demanded, and Narek admonished with just a hint of derision she didn't care for at all, “Don't do that, Soji. Don't rewrite our history and play the hapless victim.” He appraised her, blue eyes calm and steady, and she bristled once again.

“You're not a fool, you knew that I used you for something. You called me out on it repeatedly. And you continued to come back, because you were trying to use me to uncover what other secrets the Artifact held that the Tal Shiar didn't share with the Reclamation Project. I was just better at holding on to my secrets.”

She should have walked away while she had had the upper hand, Soji realized, if only because the banked fires of her anger flared up once more. Going in the way she had – worked up, emotional, unprepared – she hadn't been braced for the emotional roller-coaster this conversation had turned out to be. Because Narek wasn't as off the mark as she may have liked, and his statements hit a nerve she hadn't even realized existed.

“Even if that were true,” she hissed, defending herself with the one truth she knew set their methods apart, “I wouldn't have tried to kill you once I got what I wanted.”

“Maybe so,” the man agreed easily. “But what would you have done once you got what you wanted?”

That was a question Soji hadn't dared ask herself even before it turned out to be a moot point. Narek was right, she had been suspicious of his motives from the start, but that hadn't stopped her from liking the man she got to know. She could have fallen for him, given enough time. But their respective positions on the artifact would always have made things complicated.

“I guess we'll never know now.”

Resolutely turning her back on him, Soji walked away, and Narek didn't try to call her back.