Chapter 24: What We Saw
[USS Enterprise-D — Observation Lounge — 2364, Day 81]
Tasha's hand was on his arm before the ready room door finished closing.
"Walk with me."
Not a request. Cole walked. Tasha led him through the bridge—past the conn, past the tactical station, through the port corridor to the observation lounge. The room was empty, the viewport filled with the slow drift of stars that didn't care about the dramas playing out in the metal shell hurtling past them.
Tasha sealed the door. Turned. Her expression was the one Cole had learned to read over three months of careful observation—not anger, not fear, but the particular intensity of a woman who'd been lied to by omission and was deciding what to do about it.
"You absorbed a phaser." Her voice was level. Controlled. The same tone she'd used in the security office over Saurian brandy, when she'd asked are you dangerous? "You threw energy like a weapon. And you told me you were 'different.'" The control cracked—just slightly, just enough for the frustration underneath to show. "That wasn't different, Cole. That was something else entirely."
"I know."
"I asked you—in my office, over brandy—I asked you what you were. And you said you didn't understand it. That you could perceive energy, that your reflexes were enhanced. You showed Tasha the nice version." She stepped closer. Close enough that he could see the pulse in her throat, the tension in her jaw. "You didn't mention you could eat a phaser and spit it back."
"I couldn't. Not then. That was the first time I'd tried."
"The first—" She stopped. Breathed. The discipline reasserted itself—Turkana IV's gift, the ability to process rage into action instead of letting it consume you. "You tried something you'd never done before. With Wesley's life at stake."
"There was no other option. Lore had him. Nobody could fire without hitting Wesley. The phaser was the only variable I could change." Cole's bandaged hand throbbed. "It wasn't brave, Tasha. It was math. Bad math, done fast."
"Don't deflect." She grabbed the front of his uniform—not violently, but with purpose. Pulling him close, forcing eye contact at a range where no one could hide. "I have trusted you with things I don't trust anyone with. I told you about Turkana. I told you I believed you. And you were still holding back."
"Because I didn't know what I could do. I still don't—not fully. Every week something new manifests. Every crisis pushes the boundaries further. I didn't tell you about the absorption because it didn't exist until four hours ago."
Tasha's grip on his uniform didn't loosen. Her blue eyes searched his face with the systematic thoroughness of a woman who'd spent her childhood learning to read threats in micro-expressions and body language.
"What else haven't you told me?"
The question opened a door that Cole had been keeping locked since his first day aboard. Behind it lay the full truth—the transmigration, the meta-knowledge, the dead man's body and the stolen life and the television show that had given him a roadmap to a future he was frantically trying to change.
He couldn't open that door. Not yet. Maybe not ever. The transmigration secret was the keystone—pull it out, and everything else collapsed. Every decision he'd made, every relationship he'd built, every carefully constructed identity would shatter against the question: who are you really?
"I'm not alien," he said. "I'm human. Something happened to me—something I don't have an explanation for—that changed what I'm capable of. I can perceive energy fields. I can interact with technology through physical contact. My body runs hotter, faster, stronger than baseline human. And now, apparently, I can absorb and redirect directed energy, though it cost me—" he held up the bandaged hand "—this."
"That's what you told Picard."
"That's the truth."
"It's not the whole truth." Not accusatory. Observational. The difference mattered.
"No. It's not." Cole held her gaze. "There are things I can't explain yet. Things that would sound insane if I tried. I'm asking you to trust that when I can tell you, I will. And I'm asking you to believe that everything I've hidden, I've hidden to protect people—not to hurt them."
Tasha's jaw worked. The grip on his uniform tightened, then released. She stepped back—not away, just far enough to breathe without sharing his air.
"On Turkana IV," she said quietly, "I knew people who became monsters because of what was done to them. Gene splicing, chemical enhancement, neural implants—all of it designed to create soldiers. Weapons. Things that looked human but weren't, not where it counted." She met his eyes. "You had every reason to become something dangerous. You have powers that could make you untouchable. And you used them to save a fifteen-year-old kid."
"Wesley's a good kid."
"Stop deflecting." But the anger was fading. Something else was replacing it—not softness, because Tasha Yar didn't do soft. Resolve. The particular strength of a woman who'd decided to trust someone and intended to follow through regardless of what it cost. "I'm not scared of you. I'm frustrated with you. There's a difference."
"There is."
"And I'm not leaving." She said it the way she'd said it over brandy—flat, certain, a statement of fact rather than a declaration of emotion. "Whatever you're becoming. Whatever you're hiding. I watched you throw yourself at an android to save a kid you barely know, and I watched you burn your hand to ash doing it. That's enough for me."
Cole's throat locked. The sickbay warmth—Crusher calling him a friend, Data apologizing, Wesley alive and safe—expanded into something larger. Not romantic, not yet, though the seed of it was there, buried under layers of professional distance and survival instinct. Something more fundamental. The recognition of a person who'd chosen to stand beside him with full knowledge of the risks.
"I don't deserve—"
"Don't." Tasha's hand found his—the burned one, carefully, avoiding the bandaged palm, her fingers wrapping around his wrist where the skin was intact. "Don't do the self-pity thing. It doesn't suit you."
He almost laughed. The sound caught in his chest and came out as something between a breath and a cough. "Yes, ma'am."
"Don't call me ma'am either."
"Yes, Tasha."
She held his wrist. The stars drifted past the viewport—the same indifferent light show that had accompanied every crisis, every revelation, every small moment of human connection aboard a ship that was simultaneously the safest and most dangerous place Cole had ever lived.
"Data says you drink prune juice together," Tasha said. The non sequitur was deliberate—a release valve, a signal that the confrontation was over and the conversation was beginning.
"Worf's recommendation. It's terrible."
"Everything Worf recommends tastes terrible." A beat. "I prefer Saurian brandy."
"I know."
"So next time we're having a conversation about your impossible abilities—" she squeezed his wrist, gentle, deliberate "—bring brandy. Not prune juice."
"Deal."
They stood at the viewport. Tasha's hand on his wrist. The stars moving past. The Enterprise humming its constant, living rhythm around them—twelve hundred souls, each one carrying their own secrets and fears and hopes, bound together by a ship that pointed itself at the unknown and said let's go.
"Whatever you're becoming," Tasha said, "don't become it alone."
Cole turned his hand—carefully, around the bandage—until his fingers found hers. Not holding hands. Something less deliberate and more honest. Two people standing at the edge of something they didn't have a name for, held together by the particular gravity of trust.
"I won't."
The observation lounge was quiet. The stars were bright. And for the first time since his conversation with Picard—since the phaser burn and the reveal and the fragile architecture of half-truths that constituted his survival—Cole allowed himself to believe that the structure might hold. Not because it was perfectly built. Because the people holding it up were stronger than its flaws.
His PADD buzzed. A message from Data: I have acquired prune juice and Saurian brandy for tonight's research session. Lieutenant Yar is welcome to attend. I have also updated my analysis of your energy absorption event and have 14 new questions.
Cole showed Tasha the message. She read it. The corner of her mouth twitched—the closest thing to a smile that Tasha Yar produced in public.
"Fourteen questions," she said. "That's restraint, for Data."
"He's being polite. The real list is probably forty."
"Then we'd better get started." She released his wrist. Straightened her uniform. The Security Chief's mask settled back into place—professional, controlled, impenetrable to anyone who didn't know where the cracks were.
Cole followed her out of the observation lounge. The corridor was empty. Their footsteps fell in sync—the same pace, the same rhythm, the comfortable cadence of two people who'd decided to walk the same direction.
Behind them, the stars burned on. Ahead of them, Data waited with prune juice and fourteen questions and the patient curiosity of a being who understood, better than anyone, what it meant to be something the universe hadn't made before.
Author's Note / Promotion:
Your Reviews and Power Stones are the best way to show support. They help me know what you're enjoying and bring in new readers!
You don't have to. Get instant access to more content by supporting me on Patreon. I have three options so you can pick how far ahead you want to be:
🪙 Silver Tier ($6): Read 10 chapters ahead of the public site.
👑 Gold Tier ($9): Get 15-20 chapters ahead of the public site.
💎 Platinum Tier ($15): The ultimate experience. Get new chapters the second I finish them . No waiting for weekly drops, just pure, instant access.
Your support helps me write more .
👉 Find it all at patreon.com/fanficwriter1