Montgomery Scott is a miracle worker (warp_speed) wrote in valarlogs, @ 2012-05-23 15:35:00 |
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Entry tags: | !complete, gaila, montgomery scott |
"I was thinking of joining a convent."
Who: Gaila, Scotty
What: More sussing, this time about what Gaila was hiding and why she do the things she do! Dun dun dun.
When: Recently, right after Kirk left and when text messages happened.
Where: It's over the phone! Their respective current places, ker~yeah! Bounced between California and New Mexico via cellphone towers.
Rating: PG-ish, if anything there's just some language, and that's it.
Status: Complete!
Scotty's phone buzzed.
Oh crap. He paused to read what was sent, staring at it for a few tense seconds, trying to think of a suitable response. He tried to see if Kirk was still around in a classic 'WHAT DO I DO?!' flail, and maybe he even said that out loud before he went running out and waved his phone around.
Kirk? Was already gone! Muhahahaha
GRAWRR! Scotty was still trying to think of some way to respond, but everything he came up with was sorely lacking in sounding apologetic from his end, or involved four letter words of the profoundly colorful variety. He was, however, pretty blunt. And that was why he settled on something honest, as a response.
After all, she hadn't given him a chance to understand it, before laying into him.
"...."
And the texts continued.
That last bit about the mention of Starfleet was...interesting? He mulled her response over and had simply assumed she'd broken away or stowed away when she was young, and wanted to go into Starfleet. The more he thought on it, though, the more he didn't like what answers his brain was spitting out at him.
Answers via conclusions? Were not good.
With the last message, Scotty's phone rang!
A deep breath and he answered the call, but sounded as though he'd ran a marathon and hadn't slept for a week, "...'ullo."
"..hi..." Gaila sounded exhausted. And a lot hungover.
Yeah she did. He drew in a deep breath and sighed, before sitting his butt down like he was not going to budge for the next century. He simply didn't have the impulse power to do much. "Well, ye got me here. What is it, precisely, that yer tryin' tae say."
Gaila sighed. Everything hurt. Her eyes. Her head. Her heart, "My people are manipulative. And like any people, including your own, they employ spies."
Impulse power threatened to kick into autopilot there for a second. He even sat up a little straighter and was terribly quiet for a very long moment.
"Is that so," he finally said, a bit tense sounding, because that set him on edge. "So...what yer gettin' at, is that you...?"
He was just going to let her fill in the blanks before he acted or reacted, accordingly.
"I was..I volunteered...when I was 12..I was planted on a ship...the pirates weren't planned, but it worked out better than whatever they'd originally wanted to do. I was picked up by Starfleet. It didn't take much for them to treat me like a refugee."
Scotty was silent before he let out a very long exhale, which could no doubt be heard over the phone with the greatest of ease. He really wasn't sure of himself, as far as what to say, or if he should just let her dump, and he should listen. Because now, it was starting to make sense a little bit more.
"All right. Go on, then. What did ye do, precisely?"
"Sent information back, when I had access to it." There was the sound of a squeaking bed, like she was shifting around, "Joined Starfleet. Made sure I was assigned to the newest, bestest ship."
"...Gaila...this is nae good at all," he said, in a hushed voice, really unsure of what to do. It wasn't like there was an actual Starfleet or a Federation to hold a trial. No one could exactly haul her in. Even so, he had to know. "What sort of information did ye send back?"
At least he could get a better idea of the sort of leak, in case they did make it back.And maybe think of a loophole.
"I was in computer sciences and engineering, Scotty." She curled up with her phone, "I had access to almost anything of a technical nature. Including scans of that enemy ship. I don't even KNOW all that I sent back."
This was so not good, that his brain felt like it was going to split in two. At least by that point, Scotty looked wide-eyed and alert, even if he was running on fumes.
"This is...really bloody serious, then. That ye willingly did this."
"I can't tell you if there was anything that they were holding over me. I want to. You have to believe me I want to. I didn't remember any of this until..until just before Vegas...and then I didn't want to believe it."
"Ye should have told me then!"
He winced, as that was a little louder than he thought it was going to be, and he murmured an apology immediately after, "Sorry. I shouldnae yell like that. At least yer explainin' it, but I wish ye hadnae waited so long."
Gaila whimpered, his yelling making her head ring, "I never wanted to tell you, because of how you'd react."
"Ye dinnae think, just for one moment, that waiting tae tell me this so we could figure out what tae do...maybe would make it worse? What'd I say tae you? Ye wanted tae let it scab over an' I said that'd just create scars," he chastised, feeling a little frantic, because if he had found this out in their own timeline? It would've been disastrous. He was a hundred percent certain she'd be court martialed and probably locked away. "I'm more upset now that ye didnae tell me before, than I am about what ye told me."
"I wanted to forget it ever happened and never go back, " She replied, sniffling.
This was a mess. Not only because she was crying, which was outright terrible after everything had been said and done by this point, but because he knew he was still duty-bound to say something. Everything was made even more messy and complicated because of how he reacted, but it wasn't exactly like he could read minds. And he hadn't even had any clue that what she wasn't telling him was something like this.
"Gaila?" He supposed putting it in a moral perspective might help matters, even if he was certain there was no way to really circumvent rules and regulations, even in a different time frame. "If we do ever make it back tae our own time, what would ye intend tae do? Would ye continue spying, or admit to it an' turn yerself in?"
"I'm not going back, I don't want that choice."
"I kind of need tae know. Because if I had a choice, then aye. I'd be goin' back."
If he had to pick his reality over a potentially false one? The real one would win. And this? Was the probable false one, where nothing matched up to what he knew in the life he lived before. Better to be trudging around in his own reality, than a prisoner in paradise. A prisoner was still just a prisoner, after all. And this wasn't exactly paradise.
Unless it was Delta Vega and then all bets were off. He'd stab himself in the face before he was forced to go back there, ever again.
"I don't know, Scotty. I can't make a decision like that without remembering more." Because she still prayed there was more to it. And there was still so much that was missing.
"I never thought ye were a bad person, though," he was saying, regretfully. "You didnae seem like one. I just wish you had told me, outright, and things didnae go as far as they had. There's a fat lot of that we cannae take back."
"I don't always think straight," Gaila replied softly. "Like there are..aspects of myself that come out. Maybe a defensive mechanism."
"Ye got one doozy of a defense mechanism."
"No duh?"
Gaila fell silent.
He had almost laughed. Almost. It never quite burst out the way it normally would have, under normal circumstances. But there wasn't much that was normal anymore, was there? So he was just as silent as she was for what felt like an eternity, but was likely only the span of a single minute.
"What do ye want tae do?"
"I pushed you away. You're not in danger any more."
"That dunnae even make sense."
"I told you." She laughed, "I'm a bad girl." There was a moment of silence, then she added, "I love you. Love is...when it's real, it's....with the Orion's...it's..like ..." She sounded frustrated, like she couldn't put the feelings into words, "It's like the most perfect, efficient engine in the universe in all of history. I....can't have you close any more."
Hearing that, Scotty swore it was like someone had cracked open his ribcage and given him a swift kick in the heart. It didn't help matters that eyes felt burny and his vision looked like he was underwater.
"Ye know exactly what tae say tae someone who really loves his engines," he confessed, with his voice wavering a little more than he would've liked. "It's nae like I wanted things like this. But ye threw that ring at me an' then...the way ye were acting....I didnae want tae deal with it."
"That was the point!"
"I know, now, that you were pushin' me away. Just...I was so upset that I gave yer stuff tae Varric. That's how angry I was." And hurt, but he was going to leave it out of the discussion at that juncture. "I love you as well, which was why I lost it as well, meself. Did you still want me pushed away, then?"
"The part of me that doesn't want to hurt you, does."
"What about the rest of ye?"
"Wishes I could take most of that back."
"I think, if ye want tae try tae take most of that back? We'd kind of have tae start over, a couple of steps back. If ye wanted that," he was saying slowly and carefully, as though he was thinking things through very thoroughly as he spoke. "Maybe tae combat some of the awkward. An'...ye know....have tae be open with our mutual friends who are involved in all this, as well. But, I know now. I dinnae know what tae do, but I dinnae think ye could hurt me anymore than what happened already. So there's no chance of it getting worse than this."
"What?! No, you can't tell them! I don't know enough yet!"
"Gaila, even if I keep me mouth shut, ye have tae break it tae them at some point. It's goin' tae be worse the more other people remember. I remember everything, but that's because me brain's pretty much like a engine in its own right." He rubbed one hand over his eyes. "Ye know, I'm still obligated tae say something. But, because we seem tae have some time? And hopefully you can remember something more? Then aye, I'll wait. Maybe you'll have another dream and it'll make sense."
"That's all I ask...."
"Then ye have it. I'm just hopin' ye find out something, that explains why you would do that. Seriously, I dinnae think yer a bad person. Ye have done some bad things!" he pointed out, but felt guilty about the argument, the break up, and about having her stuff hauled off. He was certain he missed her though. "It's really like that with Orions, when they fall in love...is it?"
"Very. It's srsbsns."
"Well? Even if they sent ye aff tae do bad things, they aren't all that wrong in some aspects. I would like the universe's most perfect engine, which runs on serious business."
Gaila laughed a little, then hugged her legs, not responding otherwise.
"I regret everything I did an' said now. Even if yer in a whole fat lot of trouble, lassie."
Gaila swallowed.
"I'm sorry for that. That, an' it's not safe, bein' on yer own." He thought of her pheromones, and while she could probably use it to her advantage? Until she got a handle on them again, should they pop up all of a sudden, it might cause some havoc. Most of all, "I miss you. I've been a miserable, angry bastard, now that yer gone."
"I was thinking of joining a convent."
"I dinnae think they'd take you," he managed to say, before he cracked up laughing, outright. Because, sorry Gaila? That's so wrong.
"It's an idea, isn't it?!"
"It's a rotten idea!"
"I wouldn't hurt anyone there."
He let his laughter trail off and tried to explain, "If it's full of women, ye'd hurt them anyway, if I remember correctly? Without a shot, ye'd give every woman there a ragin' headache."
"I don't have my pheromones! I know you don't believe me!" She sighed, "But it's true."
"Ye could get them at anytime, though. You dinnae know when they could pop up, like ye didnae know you were goin' tae turn green," he wisely pointed out, like a Scottish know-it-all. "When it does happen? Yer goin' tae be in very deep shite, indeed."
Gaila was silent for a very, very long moment, "Fine, no convent."
"Good. Did ye want tae come home, or do ye need more time tae sort things out on yer own?"
"..can I have some time? I'm in New Mexico right now and I really kind of want to see New Orleans before I head back."
"Gaila, yer so brilliant...but why do you have the absolute worst ideas?"
"It's not a bad idea! I'm going on a journey of self-discovery."
"Yer halfway across the bloody country! I miss you now, already." He wouldn't be surprised if she gave the Orions doodled drawings of the WRONG stuff, and went *LULZ!* behind her hands while bouncing up and down. "But if ye need yer time, then fine. Take it. Oh, they did that space launch today, ye know? I have tae finish things, as soon as possible. So the programming's almost done."
"I'm sorry...." Gaila clenched up inside and out.
"It's all right. I'll muddle through in the knick of time, but we still have a test flight. Just..." He paused and wished he could have a do-over for going on holiday too, even if holidays never worked out well when he went on them. "...just dinnae flash yer boobs all over the place, would you?"
"It's NOLA." Gaila replied, "You know I can't promise that."
"Can ye at least try?"
"I promise I'll try to flash people," Gaila replied, and giggling, she hung up.