Disconnected

"I mean, I lost my temper, yeah, and I was pushy and a bit of a jerk to her, I'll admit it, but... a danger? Come on. It was a kiss!" He felt a blush rising from his chest, embarrassment that his unfortunate encounters with Cassie were being put on display in such a twisted manner.

The intensity of their gazes on him sharpened, despite their faces being as bland as ever. They were collecting information still; not making a judgement, yet. "She asserts that you flew into what looked like a jealous rage after she interacted with an unnamed Missioner. You suggested that her sexual preferences were... excessive, and you didn't want anything to do with her. And then you later returned to her house, where you presumed to take advantage of her in solitude."

Seth came to his feet, outraged. "She said what?!"

A hard edge came into Don Penn's voice for the first time. "Sit, Missioner." Seth sat, but clearly aghast, and fuming. Penn continued, speaking slowly and clearly. "Mentor Sparkes asserts that you accosted her at her doorstep at dusk with the intention of raping her, and only her possession and brandishment of a shock stick stopped your assault."

Stunned, Seth sat rigid. "That's what she thought?!" His head was spinning. He envisioned the sobbing grimace on her face again, heard that awful broken sound she'd made. What was it she'd said, which hadn't made sense to him at the time? 'After what you said to me, Becks thought something like this might happen. But I never imagined it would be you.' He sunk his face between his palms, finally understanding the intensity of her response. "Gods, that's what she thought!" he affirmed out loud.

After his outburst in her kitchen, where he'd told her so roughly how their peers were gossiping about what type of twisted intimacy she might enjoy, she'd been concerned that someone would get the wrong idea and come looking to take advantage of her. She'd been scared enough of the possibility to carry a shock stick around with her. That was sad enough, and he should have been the one reassuring her. Instead, he then showed up, all bumbling and self-righteous, and pushed a kiss on her so aggressively.

And because of how he'd been treating her the whole week, because of what he'd told her he thought of her, her unavoidable conclusion was this fucking mess. She'd thought that he'd lost all view of her as a person to respect, and therefore he'd be willing to... What, use her as if she meant nothing to him? She thought he'd rape her if he didn't care about her?! What the hell? He'd never do that, to anyone, for any reason. Didn't she know him at all?! After all their years... But then he remembered her words, "I see nothing left of the boy I helped raise. You could be a changeling for all I know." So then, she had been taken by surprise by the idea, too, butsomething had persuaded her it was real. So she'd felt obligated to write to his leadership to warn them of the sick monster free in their midst.

Staring into thin air as his mind whirled with this new horrifying perspective, he held his breath, feeling a sharp pain spreading between his belly and collarbones. He realized that his leaders had continued speaking, without him hearing a thing. "It was just—it was all—so many misunderstandings." Seth's voice was a hoarse whisper muffled by hands hiding his face.

"It often is. But any level of this type of behavior is unacceptable. You know that, right?"

"Yes sir." Seth swallowed down tears. "Of course, sir."

"So we will be doing a thorough review of these allegations, and from now until otherwise mandated, you will be serving in a different Task."

Secretary Washil put in, "I believe emotional management classes will also be a good idea," and the Don nodded agreement.

"I gotta get home. I have to explain to her; she can't keep thinking that's what I meant!"

"You will not be given leave to return to the colonies until you've been cleared. It should be irrelevant that she was not writing from Maltic colony."

"What? What do you mean?!"

"You are dismissed. Report to Salvage for your Task transfer."

"Wait, how do I contact her?"

"You will not contact her."

"Please! Sirs! This is untenable!"

"Perhaps in the course of your EM classes, your Mentor will determine when you're ready to have letters passed along to Cassie Sparkes."

***

He woke drenched in sweat, heart pounding a sickening beat of dirty arousal. The dream was already slipping away, but he remembered Cassie's despairing sobs that wracked her as he kissed and stroked her hair, so sweet and soft. He had been cooing into her ear, over and over, "Don't you see? Don't you see?" Though he now couldn't remember what else he had been telling her.

Mostly he remembered, in a solid tactile memory as dreams remain sometimes, the feel of her enticing body as she cried... each of her shuddering curves molding perfectly into his... as he kept her pinned, proprietarily, belly-down to the ground. That fragment of remembered dream filled him with both self-loathing and burning lust, and stayed with him far longer than he wanted it to.

***

Cassie had transferred to Piotric colony as soon as Maltic colony's Jubilee week had been cleaned up and she'd been able to reorganize her students into other classes. Needing a change from her old patterns, and wanting to try her hand at learning and doing new work, she'd joined up under the animal care department. The veterinary medical classes had been fascinating, but unnerving. She much preferred the taming and training of the animals, probably due to the similarities of teaching children, and she found it intriguing to observe her supervisors in action.

They'd just finished weaning a litter of pups from creatures captured in the wild, and were transferring them out of the main cages to their new homes for further training. The rest of the vet team were going with the transports to assist in settling the nervous animals, assigning Cassie the home duties.

Cassie heard her supervisor calling out goodnight as they all left, and she popped her head out of the back room to return the farewell. "I just have the cleanup and close-out to do here; it should only take another hour, and then I'll lock it up for the weekend."

She tucked away the well-worn letter, which had distracted her again, back into her inner pocket and got back to work. She almost had the words all memorized by now. It had been nearly eight months since she'd seen Seth, and she finally had received a letter from him mere weeks ago. The length of it had nearly made up for the lack of other letters before this one, and the quality certainly redeemed the low quantity.

...I pushed you away step by step, not intentionally but without understanding why at the time, to make space in our platonic relationship for us to have a more intimate one. I was mad at you for wanting to nurture a connection with me as a mother, a teacher, a sister, and even as a friend, because I wanted something different between us. But I didn't know what that was, or how to get it. Jubilee week is when it started clicking in my slow brain, but then I messed it up so badly when I yelled at you. Because I was jealous of Taz—it boiled my blood to think of you getting intimate with anyone else—and I didn't yet understand why. I was desperate to be in charge of our connection, to dictate what role we played in each other's lives. But I didn't do anything valuable with that control. Ironically, I still just let life happen. I think I was also afraid of relationships changing, of people leaving me or making me leave. I thought if I was in control of cutting ties and shaping our relationship, then I could make sure it was safe.

I started to figure out that my jealousy was what boiled me over, but I didn't get through to you. I tried to express myself; it just seemed as if we were functioning on different wavelengths, both reaching out on the grid, but somehow slipping right past each other even in the attempt...

...You were right, I have been unstable, because I didn't understand my feelings, nor did I know how to control them. I ranted at you when I should have pulled you closer. But I swear, I never stopped respecting you, I was just bad at showing it. I never wanted to hurt you. I would never have violated you the way you feared, and it kills me that the way I communicated to you even suggested that was possible. It would never be possible. But I did hurt you. I messed up, I know I really fucked this up. I'm sorry...

...I think you love me too; otherwise you wouldn't have been so wounded by my behavior. And I think you were as confused as I was, about falling for me; otherwise I know you would have been clear and honest about your feelings.

You said something about being my security blanket for too long, and it was time for me to grow up. You may have been my baby blanket, but I don't want to throw you away. I need you for a lifetime, not just a childhood. I want to make you into a thick quilt to wrap around me. I want to lay you out on my bed. I want to make love to you.

I love you, Cassiopeia. You have been my night light, my guardian in the sky, my guiding star...

He hadn't written,'Please, please don't let my stupidity remove your light from my skies forever.' He hadn't written,'I want what's best for you. If that means you staying away and finding another man, so be it, as long as you're happy.'

So. What did that leave room for? Quite a lot, actually, depending on a number of variables. What was within her control, within those variables? Well, what outcome did she want?

She wanted him in her life, but they couldn't continue from where they'd been. It was intolerable. Something distinct would need to change, if they ever got another chance. And one couldn't expect to change others; one could only focus on changing oneself, and hope the others took up the idea.

She'd had plenty of time to think things over since Seth had left, to thoroughly and extensively pick through the mess they'd made of things—what she'd done wrong over the years, what she'd let him do wrong. He had many excellent qualities but his immaturity had blocked his ability to communicate effectively, and, like he'd written, he'd insisted on being in control.

And she had also fallen short. She could see, in hindsight, where he had tried to reach out to her, but at the time she hadn't been able to see it, blinded as she had been by worrying about everybody else's perceptions and preferences. She remembered the strange conversation over dinner with both Becks and Seth. Worry and over-analysis keeping her from enjoying life for the sake of the experience, indeed.

And despite her accumulated years of teaching, she'd assumed Seth, or society at large, knew better than she of what he needed, whatthey needed. She'd left it to him to determine where they came from and where they went, and didn't that show a level of immaturity just as bad?

So she needed to be assertive, to trust herself and hold her ground; she also needed to be more flexible and spontaneous, so she could assess a situation and take advantage of opportunities that popped up in front of her instead of worrying through them until they went away.

She returned to the main room when she heard the front door chime, and stopped dead when she saw a tall male form there slowly shutting the door behind himself. "Hi, Cassie." She watched silently as Seth looked directly at her and deliberately slid down into a seated position, his back against the door and wrists resting on his bent knees, hands open and empty. "Don't be afraid. I'm just here to talk."

She eyed him, her heart flipping, and fingered the security device in her front pocket. His attentive expression made her realize that he was simultaneously blocking the door as her exit, and taking as unaggressive a position as possible to do so. "What are you doing here?"

"I had to see you," he said carefully. She could see his tremors of trepidation, his shortness of breath. He was nervous, anxious, but he was displaying calm and self-control. "I've been doing classes; they call them emotional management. I should never have blown up at you like I did; I'm really sorry about that. Though Cassie, I never would have hurt you; I swear I wasn't trying to... take advantage of you."

She nodded at him as she came further into the front room. "I realized that, eventually. I think I was caught up in so much emotional and physical confusion that I overreacted, too. I'm sorry for that. Neither of us was thinking straight," she allowed. She had received a couple of reports from his leadership, following up on her notice, and she had heard about the classes from them. But she had to stay focused. "How did you find me?"

He shifted his eyes to his hands, "I got your address from sending you a letter."

She nodded, "I got your letter, a couple weeks ago."

His hands closed together in a prayer position as he looked up eagerly. "You only received it a couple weeks ago? Did you read it? Did you write back?"

"No, I didn't write back." Cassie considered him, sitting there as demanding as a supplicant. "Did your leadership give you permission to be here? They gave you my address so you could visit me?" She thought of the two Missioners that had shown up at her door recently, asking for Seth. She had been utterly baffled by their presence. They had explained that Seth had left when his Salvage task assignments were completed, but before he could get transferred to a new one. They were looking for him, and had thought he might have reached out to her in his letter, with plans or hints about his plans. They had assured her that he didn't have her address, nor should he even know to which colony she had relocated. Clearly they had been mistaken in this last assertion, or had underestimated his tracking skills.

"Yeah, it was a real pain in the ass, but they finally decided I could be trusted in public again." She could hear a trace of bitterness masked in his voice, as he evaded the truth.

Cassie could feel the familiar pull on her heart, to wipe away that discomfort and lure out his delighted smile, but she couldn't give in to him this time. It served no-one to allow him to get away with this type of behavior, and she needed to start strong if there was to be any hope of a reset for their relationship. She approached Seth with measured steps, and asked in a pitying tone, "Starting with lies already?" She cocked her head at him, face reproving. She watched him drop his forehead to his joined palms with a sigh, and she crouched down by him.

"Shame on you, Seth," she muttered, and pressed the taser to the back of his neck. Cassie watched his spine curve in its electrically-stimulated spasm before he lost consciousness.

She'd set the taser to a low setting, but applying it that close to the brain stem was still powerful and immediately effective, and she knew she had a few minutes to figure out how she was going to proceed.

***

Seth woke, feeling like he'd been caught in the back of the head with a bat. "Son of a..." Groaning, he peeled his eyelids open to see Cassie sitting a few feet away from him, now leaning against a brick wall. "What did you do to me?" he grunted, reaching up to probe the back of his neck with careful fingers. She was watching him with an unreadable expression on her face.

He rolled his head to the side and observed he was in a different room than before, much more sparse. Actually, it didn't have much of anything. He had been laid out on the floor on top of a few layers of thick blankets. The walls were all solid and bare brick except for one, which was made of large-ply metal mesh framed in what looked like solid rebar.

Moving to push himself to a sitting position, his other hand came up short and he looked down in confusion. He saw his wrist handcuffed to a short chain bolted into the wall. His mouth went dry for a moment, then comprehension dawned and he looked back to Cassie with deep regret. "Cassiopeia. I'm sorry you don't feel safe with me anymore," he said to her in a low voice. "Please oh, tell me you haven't reported me, at least not yet; we really need to talk."

"So you don't have permission to be here," clarified Cassie, already knowing the answer.

Reluctantly he admitted, "No."

She gave a small sardonic smile. "Nobody even knows you're here, do they?"

"No, but Cassie, don't make me leave. I won't hurt you. I won't do anything at all," he tried to reassure her earnestly.

She gazed at him with narrowed eyes. "You're still trying to do things your way, to charm your way clear so you don't have to do the hard things."

"No, I don't mean to keep trying to control everything. I know that's what got this all fucked up in the first place. This is fine, if this makes you feel better. But I had to tell you in person, Cassie.I love you. And I'm sorry. I couldn't stand being out there in the Mission field, so far away for so long, thinking that you still hate me..."

"I know, I read your letter." Cassie's face gentled. "It was a beautiful letter; you should have written more of them, and earlier. I would have really liked that." She moved to kneel closer to him, reaching out a finger to tease his eyebrows smooth. "You were right, I have been falling in love with you for a long time. Gods, I was so hungry for you during Jubilee week; and very confused by it, not least because of how I was interpreting your reactions." Pondering, she watched him, and he held his breath, watching her in return. "Iwant to try this again. I love you for your courage, and your good intentions. But, Seth, honesty is crucial. I thought you learned that years ago."

He tentatively touched her hand, sliding his fingers under hers when she didn't refuse his gesture. "I'm sorry. I let fear take the lead again. I..."

"Are you ready to stop trying to control everything—us, what we are, me?"

"Yes," he said, almost desperately.

"Good," murmured Cassie. "Then I won't make you leave." She gave him a long kiss on the mouth, claiming a taste of him. She could feel under her lips his start of frozen surprise, then he very nearly lunged at her to push deeper into the kiss, spearing his tongue voraciously into her depths as if to drink her, before freezing up again, obviously alarmed that he might have spooked her away. She ended the kiss with a promising brush of her lips sideways against his, then stood and backed up out of the room, shutting the cage door between them. "I won'tlet you leave. We have way too much to sort out and catch up on."

Seth had melted with the kiss, but stiffened in confusion as she walked away. He pulled a bit on the chain holding him, making it clink against itself. She pursed her lips speculatively at his unvoiced question. "No, I think we'll keep those in place for now. I didn't put them on you to protect myself from danger, but to hold you here with me." Cassie gazed at him like a child who's claimed dessert but has to wait until after dinner. "I'll finish up my work, and then we'll have all the time we need to re-introduce ourselves properly."

*

Author's Note: Thanks for reading! If you liked it and have comments and/or are interested in more, rate it high and let me know in the comments! If you didn't like it and just want to leave vitriol, well then, [woops, pardon our dust: the comment section is currently unavailable for maintenance, sorry!]