The Sato Series, Episode 3: a new Frontier

Laren nodded, trying to will the room to stop moving.
Emily held Laren’s face and put the glass to her lips. “Drink it slowly,” she recommended.
Laren swallowed the sweet, cold, soothing drink, and the sugar boosted her blood glucose. She felt an immediate improvement in her nausea. “That’s pretty good. No wonder Kit drinks it all the time. I should trade in my raktajino for that,” she said, smiling at Emily. “Maybe scallops don’t agree with me,” she noted.
Emily cleaned her face with a damp cloth. “Sweetie, you lacerated your lip biting it,” she advised. “Let me get a dermal regenerator. They usually put them in the standard first aid kit,” she muttered, retrieving and digging through the box. “Got it.” She sat down and tended to Laren’s bloody lip.
Laren followed Emily’s every movement with her eyes, taking in the way her brow furrowed when she was intent upon something, the way her eyes warmed when she was gently touching Laren’s face, the way her voice changed when she was worried. The vertigo was gone, and her stomach had calmed. She smiled at Emily then. “You’re going to make the best mom,” she complimented her.
Emily laughed. “Are you better?” she asked, cupping Laren’s face in one slender palm. She kissed Laren’s forehead, as if Laren were a child with a skinned knee and a bruised heart.
Laren’s eyes closed involuntarily at the affectionate gesture, and she held Emily there, looking purposefully at her. “I’m good, now. Thank you.”
Kit and Jenny came in with breakfast just then, and Emily kissed Laren’s hair once more. “Can you get up? You’ll feel better if you eat, I imagine,” she recommended.
Laren allowed Emily to pull her upright, and the fluid motion brought them face to face. Laren swallowed the impulse that asserted itself, settling instead on hugging her lightly.
“You’re welcome,” Emily replied. “If you don’t feel up to diving today, I can stay with you and just hang out on the beach or something. I’m still pretty tired from parasailing,” she said kindly.
“I should be fine,” Laren replied. “Let’s eat.”
____________
Emily Wildman drew upon her powers of persuasion to convince Ro Laren that she didn’t mind missing the morning dive, and clearly, Laren was not up to it, considering that her breakfast had come up as quickly as it went down. It took almost as much effort to convince Kit and Jenny to still go, but Emily told them she and Laren had really connected the night before, opened up to each other, and it was important that they keep that communication going, which was easier one on one. She allowed Kit to bring an anti-nauseal hypospray from the hotel’s concierge, but then she insisted the two women leave. Kit felt bad for leaving Laren, but Laren told her to just go, that it was making her feel worse to argue with her.
Laren lay on the bed, curled up in a ball, wishing she could stop the parade of repugnant images in her mind. Emily put a cold cloth on her forehead, but Laren removed it, saying she was already cold. Emily found her a sweatshirt of Kit’s and put her under the covers, offering to get her warm. Laren’s teeth were chattering, and she agreed. Having Emily wrapped around her backside did provide some relief, and Kit’s sweatshirt had Kit’s scent, which comforted the sick Bajoran.
Laren made Emily talk to her to distract her. She told Laren about her childhood, about the foster families she had lived with. She had never told anyone about the experience except her therapists, but somehow, it was easy to tell Laren. Maybe that was because Laren had been taken to a Bajoran orphanage after her father died, and well knew the type of system Emily had been through as an unwanted child. Laren had been inordinately bright, and excelled in school, which turned out to be her salvation, at least until she decimated her own career on the Wellington. But Emily knew that Laren’s experience in the orphanage was similar to her own, and so she felt comfortable telling her about it.
She detailed the parts she remembered, which were sketchy in the earlier years. She had been taken to child welfare when her father died, and her mother could no longer care for her, she knew that much. She wasn’t sure how long she lived at the county home, but when she was five, she went to live with a family named Smith, which was as close to a real family she ever got, until Lenara Kahn adopted her. The Smiths had three other foster children, and although they weren’t particularly interested in the children, or loving toward them, the home was safe and mostly clean, and Emily’s foster siblings were peers for her. The Smiths kept Emily until she was eight, but when their marriage broke up, all the foster kids went back to the county orphanage. And that was when the real nightmare began.
The Duggans took her when she was nine, and that lasted only four months. Nothing she did seemed to please them, and they punished her physically. A teacher at Emily’s school saw Mrs. Duggan whaling on Emily at the playground of the park one afternoon, and a report went in to child services. Emily went from there to three consecutive homes where she was fighting off male siblings who wanted to molest her, or male foster parents who tried, and she was feisty enough to report the abuse before she became as victimized as Kit had been.
Laren listened with her fists clenched, listened to the details of a fragmented, disjointed life, where there was no semblance of continuity or security, and understood perfectly how Emily Frazier had learned to despise herself, thinking that the dysfunction around her was somehow her own fault, something she brought on herself. As the anti-nauseal medication took effect, Laren started to feel better, and she turned onto her back, taking Emily in her arms while Emily talked. It was a good thing, too, because Laren needed to hide her face in Emily’s soft, fragrant hair as Emily described foster mother number eight, the one who had beaten her until she couldn’t move. By then Emily had learned to endure whatever came, simply to avoid the sexual exploitation that so many foster homes entailed. Beatings were preferable to sexual assaults, and so she took it lying down when Kellie Barry flagellated her with a wire coat hanger, a black strap, her fists, or whatever blunt instrument happened to be in reach. The school didn’t even call when Emily missed several days at a time because she was too bloody or bruised to attend. The Barrys didn’t own a dermal regenerator.
Laren held Emily tighter as she talked, but Emily’s voice sounded far away, as if the trauma were just a story she’d read about, or a newsclip about someone else, not her own life. It was as though Emily could separate herself from the emotion to relate the facts, like some psychological schism in her head and her heart she had invoked to protect her sanity. Laren understood that tendency of the psyche to fracture into manageable pieces, pieces that when taken individually didn’t seem so overwhelming. It was how she had survived the camps and the abuse of the Cardassians who ran the camps. Robin Wildman understood it, because she had described nearly the same thing, where her mind would simply go somewhere else and distance itself from events that were happening.
Emily Wildman did not cry until she got to the part where Robin and Lenara Kahn adopted her, because those emotions, she owned. Those emotions were congruent with her sense of rightness in the world, and she fully felt them, grateful for the kindness extended to her at a time in her life when she and Kit were starting to have trouble, when the only foundation she had known seemed to be slipping again. And Lenara was there, loving her, wanting her, ready and willing to make a home with her. Ro Laren knew in that instant that she loved Lenara Wildman, that she respected and admired her, and not at all for her intellectual prowess or her wormhole expertise. Lenara Kahn Wildman had the purest type of heart. And Laren responded to that internally.
She thought a long time about the Trill, about her values and her beliefs, about Lenara’s marriage. While Laren had been able to suspend judgment about polygamy, it had still seemed so alien to her, so unthinkable. Now there was a dichotomy in her head. There was Lenara Kahn, Emily’s mother, who was kind and nurturing and compassionate. And Lenara Wildman, Kieran’s wife, who lived with three women, slept with all of them, professed to love them each equally well. She knew the women were one and the same, but she wasn’t quite sure how to reconcile the two personalities in her impressions. She tried to put herself in Lenara’s shoes, and simply could not. It was beyond her comprehension to conceive of loving anyone else the way she loved Kit. Kit was just so strong, so impressive, so consuming, and Laren couldn’t imagine having the energy to love two people that much. She wondered if it meant Lenara loved her wives less, because the division of attention and time weakened the bond. She would not be willing to accept less than what she and Kit shared. That would be too much of a sacrifice.
The night before, standing in the shower, her impulse to kiss Emily had been so strong, but she knew it for what it was. The desire to protect, to comfort, to heal her. Not lust, not romantic love. Emily was truly becoming her friend, like B'Elanna or Kieran or Jenny, and while that was a valuable and precious thing in and of itself, it had clear parameters and definitions. But Laren was intrigued about Lenara’s life, and wondered if the Trill did find less intensity in her respective relationships as a result of the necessity of spreading her energy between three women instead of one. She decided she would ask the gentle Trill about it, since Lenara had reached out to her, and wanted to share her culture with Laren. Laren recognized the overture for what it was, a gesture born of love for Kit and Emily, the desire to help Laren fit in so that the Wildman girls could be happy and stable, even with the element of Ro Laren in the mix.
Laren kissed Emily’s hair tenderly, letting her cry, knowing the tears were more joy than sadness. Emily had found in Lenara the sort of base, the sort of foundation, that Laren had found with Kit. A starting point to rebuild a life torn apart. A healing place. And like Laren had with Kit, Emily held on to Lenara and Robin with both hands. Until Kit and Emily broke up, and Emily’s behavior became so self-destructive that Robin and Lenara could scarcely bear to watch Emily throwing away her future, her potential. They tried to love and guide and support Emily, but Emily threw up walls at every turn, hiding in her anger over Kit, her disappointment. She tried to use alcohol and gratuitous sex to numb her to the pain of losing the love of her life. Oblivion was a fleeting achievement, however.
Laren nodded vigorously, having had the same experience in the Maquis. They channeled their anger into raids and attacks and fighting, and Laren found escape in casual sexual partners and strong liquor. It took considerable effort to subdue her childhood terrors, her gaping, open psychological wounds, and to cover them in scar tissue, emotional as much as physical. It took an edge and a hardness to keep people at bay, and she had stiff-armed every person she ever met. Even her lovers, like Keating Pajor, she had approached arrogantly, sneering, almost taunting them, daring them to take their pleasure with her. And when morning would come, she would kick them out without any sort of acknowledgement of what they had done together, until the next time her need drove her to seek out that release.
Laren and Emily talked for hours, not noticing the time, not even realizing that Laren was no longer teetering on the verge of throwing up, that she was sitting upright, discussing with Emily her past, hands waving to emphasize a point here, to signal a shift in mood there. Emily was fascinated at the gradual transformation she was seeing in Ro Laren. When Laren had first moved in with the Wildmans nine weeks before, she was sullen, abrupt, clipped. Almost Borg-like in her responses, including her limited facial expressions. The only time Emily saw those walls relax was when Laren was with Kit, and then there was a decided playfulness, a gentleness that permeated her demeanor. But when Kit was at work, or absent, Laren reverted to the personality that had no doubt helped her survive brutality and captivity. Somehow in those nine weeks she had been with them, and especially over the last few days, Ro Laren had changed.
It was like Seven, discovering her own humanity, and Emily watched this amazingly resilient woman challenging her assumptions, testing her limits, experimenting on redefining herself. She had begun to respond to beauty, to the feelings of others, to her own impressions. She was allowing people to express affection for her, and learning that it was safe to reciprocate. She had begun to use terms of endearment with Emily and Jenny, to soften her tone with them, to relax around them. That Laren had wanted to hold Emily the night before was a quantum leap, because as far as Emily could tell, Ro never let anyone but Kit touch her, and then it was rarely in front of anyone else. The truth was, Kit’s love had begun to open Laren, and Emily was one beneficiary of that openness. She wanted to cheer for Laren at every emotional victory, at every step she took toward her own vulnerability.
Skipping the dive gave the two women a better appreciation and understanding of one another. It gave them the groundwork for friendship. And Ro Laren was finally willing to accept that she actually needed friends.

Kit and Jenny decided since they were no longer diving with Laren, who was a novice, that they would tackle the Blue Holes of Andros, one of the most challenging dives in the Bahamas. Tidal blue holes, Kit told Jenny excitedly, draw water into them like a vortex, and then belch it back out. Stargate, one of the best known and rarest Blue Holes of Andros, opened into an oceanic cave system filled with underwater stalactites and stalagmites, a fossilized coral reef, and boasted a vast array of sea creatures. The waters were what the natives called ‘gin-clear’, meaning the waters were as crystalline as a glass of gin. Visibility was often as much as one hundred feet, and the diving was considered stellar. And as starfarers, Kit figured, a dive site named Stargate would be the perfect place for them. Their hotel was on the beach at Small Hope Bay, which was the home of the Stargate blue hole. The waters were teaming with snapper and grunt fish, and the grotto that marked the opening at the end of the twelve foot drop to the hole was encrusted with colorful sponges. Shrimp and crabs scuttled about while eels embedded themselves in the exterior, and Kit and Jenny were not disappointed in their choice of dives.

They explored Stargate for a forty-five minute period, which was the recommended limit for venturing into the coral caverns, then headed back to the pink sand beaches of Andros Island. They collapsed on the sugary fine granules, breathing ocean air and letting the sound of the waves soothe them.
“That was stunning,” Jenny sighed appreciatively. “Thank you for this trip, Kit,” she added, leaning over to kiss her wife’s cheek.
“My pleasure,” Kit replied, smiling at Jenny, then kissing her tenderly. “I love you, Corey, in case you’d forgotten,” she said softly, holding Jenny’s chin in her fingertips as they kissed.
“I love you, too, Kyle,” Jenny whispered, leaning her forehead against Kit’s. Jenny’s frost colored eyes were tinged with sadness, and Kit was more than conscious of the sudden sullen air.
“What, honey?” Kit asked, slipping her arms around Jenny’s shoulders.
Jenny studied her wet suit, not meeting Kit’s eyes.
“Jen?” Kit pressed, her tone insistent.
Jenny bit her lip. “I want you,” she admitted. “I always do after we’ve been in the water,” she explained.
Kit nodded silently, her spiky hair dripping on her shoulders. “I say we strip down and just go swimming. The tide is coming in, and we can body surf,” she offered, trying to distract Jenny from her bittersweet desires.
“Okay,” Jenny agreed, though she wanted much more than a recreational swim. Kit’s physique was so defined in a wet suit, especially her biceps, and Jenny found her most attractive in her gear, second only to stark naked.
They helped each other peel off their neoprene suits and then waded out into the surf, letting the water cool them. Diving gear could be very warm outside the water itself, and Kit was grateful for the soothing tide. Her swim suit was a simple tank suit, one piece, but Jenny always wore a bikini, and Kit couldn’t help ogling her. Jenny’s body had softened a bit since the Academy, but Kit liked the more curvaceous version of her wife even more than when Jenny had been a shredded-bodied athlete.
Jenny saw Kit looking her over, and quirked an eyebrow. She reached for Kit, treading water, and before Kit could get a grip on herself, she was holding Jenny in the waves and kissing her passionately, mouth hungry and urgent against Jenny’s own, and then against her throat. Jenny arched, tilting her head back to expose her neck, letting Kit nip at her flesh, stifling the groan that threatened her composure.
“I want you, just as much,” Kit growled in Jenny’s ear, pulling her wife’s legs around her waist. “I remember every single time I’ve ever made you come,” she said against Jenny’s cheek.
Jenny kissed her harshly, tongue thrust into Kit’s mouth, her intentions unmistakable. “Then take me, Kyle, right here, right now,” she replied, capturing Kit’s hands and pressing them against her breasts.
Kit was torn. She knew only days before Laren had asked for more time, and Kit didn’t want to violate Laren’s faith, or push a boundary that might break everything the four women had begun to build together. Kit slid her hands from Jenny’s chest to her waist, shaking her head. “I can’t, Corey, and you know why. We’re so close to having the situation we’ve been working for, and I can’t let my weakness—or yours—spoil it now, honey.”
Jenny breathed a frustrated sigh, but saw the apology in Kit’s golden eyes and knew she was right. “Okay,” she said reluctantly. “I suppose you’re in a better position to know what’s at stake than I am,” she admitted, letting go of her wife and swimming back to the shore.
“Jen, wait,” Kit called after her. Damn it, Kit thought, Laren would never even know. But I would. Kit swam after Jenny, following in her wake and then to the beach towel she had laid out on the sand. “Are you mad at me?” Kit asked, dropping down beside her wife.
Jenny folded her arms over her bare legs, hugging them to her chest. “I’m mad at the circumstances, not you,” she said petulantly. “I’m sorry, but that’s honest,” she added, gazing out over the water.
Kit sighed, nodding. “I know this is weird, Jen, but you wanted this relationship with Emily, and I stretched for you both. Now I’m asking you to stretch for Laren and me. I know it’s a lot to ask, and I don’t have any right, but—”
“You have every right,” Jenny disagreed. “And you’re right, I did push you for this—format,” she settled on the word. “I loved Emily, and I wanted us both to be with her, and I knew she loved and needed us both. And I know Laren loves you, and whether she knows it or not, she needs this relationship just as much as we all do. But I’m feeling particularly impatient, right now,” she said morosely. “Do you realize how long it’s been since we were sexual with each other, Kyle?” she demanded.
Kit nodded slowly. “Yes. Too long. Over a year,” she acknowledged. “Don’t think it’s been easy for me, either, Jen,” she insisted. “Maybe you created a monster,” she said with a scowl, digging her toes into the sand.
“What do you mean?” Jenny asked, not following her train of thought. She smoothed her brown hair back from her forehead, slicking it down with the ocean water still clinging to it.
“I mean,” Kit replied thoughtfully, “before we got involved with Ems, I would never in a million years have been unfaithful to anyone, ever. Maybe the freedom to be with her was like opening Pandora’s box for me. Maybe that’s why I was so rigid with my boundaries, before we decided to try this with the three of us—because you know as well as I do how hard it is for a survivor to practice impulse control. What if the definitions I had always lived by were the only thing keeping me under control, and relaxing those boundaries means I can’t get the lines back in place? I mean, look at me with Laren. That was so unlike me, Jen,” she explained, worried and suddenly alarmed at the thought.
Jenny considered, then shook her head. “No. Because you’re exercising boundaries with me right now. Your sense of propriety is intact, Kit. If it weren’t, you’d be making love to me right now,” she contended, touching Kit’s cheek and seeing the fretful frown playing on her wife’s face.
“That’s just it,” Kit said, sounding ashamed. “I wish I were. I wish I could forget what Laren needs and I could push you down on this towel and make you writhe underneath my fingers,” she admitted. “The only thing stopping me is fear of wrecking all the progress we’ve made with Ro,” she said softly. “Not because I have some keen sense of boundaries or morality.”
“It is confusing,” Jenny agreed. “And I know if Lenara were here, she’d set us straight, and make it all seem okay,” she added. “I mean, what stops a Trill from just sleeping with everyone they feel like sleeping with?” she wondered. “And yet, I get the sense with your mothers that there is a very clearly defined set of parameters, don’t you?”
Kit nodded. “Yeah. It’s like—they just have this unspoken understanding. But when Mom came home from the jungle planet in love with Seven, the Wildwomen weren’t angry at all, or jealous, and they would have let Mom do whatever she needed to do. Just like you and Emily allowed me to bring Laren into our home, Naomi and Nara and Robbie would have let Seven move in if she had wanted that, and it was just—never even a question for them.”
Jenny thought about it before responding. “Maybe it’s about how encompassing you can allow your love to be. How selfless,” she decided. “I mean, the Moms loved Kieran so much, they would have let their boundaries expand for Seven, if that had been necessary. That’s what Emily and I decided to do with you and Laren, because we couldn’t lose you, and your happiness was at stake,” she recalled.
“The question is, can Laren’s love ever be selfless enough to let me be with you and Emily again. Regardless of whether she ever permits herself that indulgence, will she love me well enough to let go of her rigidity?” Kit asked rhetorically.
Jenny shrugged. “I don’t think she’s selfish, but I also know what a hard thing it can be when your ego gets involved. I mean, hell, I watched you struggling with your feelings for Emily when we were together exclusively, and it was very difficult, knowing you loved her still. If it hadn’t been for Naomi talking me through it all, you and I would never have made it, Kyle,” she confessed. “You have no idea how close you came to losing me.”
Kit swallowed hard, the truth of Jenny’s words hitting her like a tidal wave. “You—thought about leaving me?”
“More like stepping aside,” Jenny replied. “Because you so obviously weren’t done with Emily, and when she tried to jump off that building, I knew you were in love with her by your reaction.” She averted her eyes momentarily, afraid of what she would see in Kit’s reaction. “So what happens if Laren never can adjust to this? What if she wants to stay exclusive with you?” she asked.
“God, Jen, how do I know?” Kit threw her arms up. “I hope I never have to deal with that. Because losing her is just so unfathomable. But never being with you and Emily is equally unacceptable,” she grumbled. “But it’s only been a couple of months. We have to cool our nacelles and give Laren time. She’s come so far, already, don’t you think?”
“I do, actually,” Jenny agreed. “And I can’t fault her, because I sure as hell didn’t want to share you when we were together, and I know how she must feel contemplating that with you.” She reached for Kit’s hands. “I’m sorry I came on to you, Kit. As weird as it sounds, apologizing to my wife for wanting to make love with her,” she added, laughing. “I’ll try to be more restrained in the future, until you tell me different,” she concluded.