2. Wrenlee

2

WRENLEE

" W hat was that," Saylor asks in a low hissing voice. Her grip on my arm is tight enough that it will leave bruises. Even so, I'm barely aware of her grip or, her for that matter. My thoughts are spinning. "Did you take something?"

"What?"

She pulls me through the heavy leather drape that serves as a door to our shared room. The fire in the middle has burned down, leaving only a few flickering flames and a pile of glowing ashes. The smell of burning and smoke is an assault on my senses that leaves my eyes watering, but I'm not sure if that's the real excuse for the tears or not.

I want to cry. I want to let all this out. The futility of… everything. We're fakes. All of us. Acting like we have it all together. As if our fashion sense matters in a world gone mad. It's been years since the ship crashed and any faint hope of rescue any of us entertained has been thoroughly disabused. No one is coming for us, which makes all this either more or less important, and right now, for the first time in my life, I'm wondering if it is pointless.

Saylor grabs me by my shoulders and turns until I'm facing her. Her face is blurry from my unshed tears. I blink trying to clear my vision.

"Are. You. On. Something?"

She emphasizes each word in turn and gives me a shake to reinforce them as well. I frown then arch an eyebrow. I am the Queen here, not her. Who does she think she is to talk to me like this?

Pulling myself together, I jerk free of her grip and give her a withering, arched eyebrow glare. She recognizes it and instantly steps back, her shoulders slumping and her head lowering.

"I am not," I say, head held high.

"I'm… sorry," she says, abashed. "But Wren… you can't seriously… we all agreed that… you were on a limb. I was trying to help."

Any other time her apology would never have been enough. The person who I was, the "Ice Queen" persona that I was known and famous for, would have frozen her out, socially, for at least a week.

Why? Why do that to her? She's lost and scared the same as me. We all are.

I'm starting to think that I don't like who I am. Who I've been.

Sek'su wouldn't like that. The Zmaj are all honorable, in their way. Their social structure is different. He'd never understand or accept this. And why do I care?

I don't. That's the answer. I don't and I'm going to cling to that with all that I have left. But looking at Saylor, who is down and has a beaten look, I can't. I scoff, close my eyes, shake my head, then place a hand on her shoulder.

"It's fine," I say, squeezing and then letting go.

I move past her to the chest where we keep the stuff for the fire. I'm not sure what this stuff is, and I do not want to know. It's flat, crumbly, and dried something or other, but it burns well. I pick one of them up and place it on the hot coals.

"You're sure?" she asks.

She's standing behind me, where I left her, not having moved, but I don't have the energy to turn my head to look at her. I stare at the thing on the fire and watch as tiny flames curl around its edges, slowly igniting the material.

"Yeah, Say, it's fine," I say sighing heavily.

Oh, Ziva. I miss you so much. Still. Even after all this time.

Ziva would understand. She's the only one I could confide these thoughts to. She, underneath her social veneer, had a kind and knowing heart.

"I was only trying to help," Saylor continues.

I don't know if it's exhaustion or anger but one way or the other, she just hit my last nerve. I rise, turning as I do, and glare at her.

"I said it's fine," I snap with withering emphasis on said.

She looks as hurt as if I slapped her face. And the old me, on the ship, might have done just that. Now though, seeing that look on her face, my stomach roils and a pang strikes my chest which hurts, bad. It takes me a moment to figure out what that pang is because I don't think I've ever felt it before. No matter, I recognize it for what it is, eventually.

Regret.

I frown, struggling to figure out what I'm supposed to do with that. It's not an emotion I'm experienced with. Emotions in general are not my thing. You don't get to be the "Ice Queen" if you're running around feeling crap all the time.

Saylor raises her hands, head bowed with her hair hanging in her eyes, she darts a look up and then drops them again.

Damn it. I've done it again. What would Sek'su do?

What the hell am I thinking? Why does it matter what he would do in this situation? In any situation? How am I even supposed to know that? I barely know the guy. We met once. Briefly. Why can't I get him out of my thoughts? Why do I care what he thinks?

"Wren…" Saylor says but trails off without saying more.

"I'm sorry," I say.

The word sounds strange coming out of my mouth. I don't think I've ever said it before. How strange is that? An entire life lived and not once have I been sorry? No, that's not it, not once have I admitted it. When I said it out loud, I didn't mean it. There were times though, when inside was a whole different story.

Saylor's head jerks up so fast I'd be surprised if she didn't give herself whiplash. Her eyes are wide and her mouth is open. Tears glisten, and then one slowly trails down her cheek. Her lips tremble and I have no clue what I'm supposed to do now. What do normal people do in this situation? Only one thing seems to make sense, so I do it. Closing the distance between us, I pull her into a hug. I don't know if it's the right thing to do or not, but it feels right.

"Oh Wren," she sobs as her tears soak my shoulder.

I rub her back and hold her, letting her have this moment of breaking down. It's been a long time since any of our group has lost it like this. After the crash, each of us did at one time or another. Though I never let them see me do it. I grieved in private, unwilling to lose my "Ice Queen" reputation. I was so cold that not even the loss of so many lives, including my best friend, could affect me. Not in public, not where the masses could see it and use it as fodder to take me down.

There have been plenty of times since that I've wondered if Ziva was better off. Living on this planet has been one challenge after another. One crisis or danger leads right to the next. All of which is bad enough, but as people settled into routines, their desperate need for normality led to a need for celebrities. They needed those they could both admire and despise at the same time. And the girls and I were there for them, ready-made to step back into our former roles.

"It's okay," I murmur patting her back.

Part of me wants to let her have this out, but part of me wants her to pull it together and get over it. I'm torn, which leaves me standing here letting her soak my shoulder with her tears. When her sobs ease at last, she straightens and wipes her eyes with the palms of her hands.

"I'm sorry," she says, shaking her head. "I'm supposed to be helping you."

"I'm fine," I lie.

She snorts, her signature honking laugh that we've all made fun of more than once.

"You're not fine," she says with the cut of sharp observation. "What is going on? You almost said…" She doesn't finish the sentence but instead looks at the door as if worrying that someone might be outside listening. "Did you hear something?"

"No," I say, looking at the door now myself.

The hairs on the back of my neck rise and a cold chill passes over my skin. Saylor glances over and I shrug, giving a slight shake of my head. We're safe here. Or so we're led to believe, but long experience has taught both of us that safety isn't guaranteed.

Especially if it involves a secret. Our lives have been too public for even the most private of things to not end up leaked to the public, where the secret and ourselves would be dissected by people who had nothing to do with it and no business knowing.

She holds out her hand and I take it. Together we walk to the door, moving slowly and silently. My heart is beating fast and a cold sweat trickles down my spine as my breathing speeds up. I blink to moisten my eyes. We reach the heavy leather flap, exchange another look, and then I grab it and jerk it aside.

The ramp outside our door is empty. A torch mounted on the floor close to the edge flickers, casting its red-orange glow. I look to either side but see no one.

"Wren," Saylor says, pulling my attention back to her.

She's looking down, not up and around like I was. I follow her gaze and then I see it. Lying flat on the ground is a canvas. I am staring at myself, well an incredible likeness of me.

"Uh—"

"It's you," she says in a tense whisper.

"Yeah," I say.

Not sure what else to do I kneel and gather the painting up. The canvas is some kind of leather material that is stretched over a frame of thin stone bars. I back into the room and Saylor lets the door fall back into place. I move closer to the light of the fire and examine the picture.

The likeness is… well it's not a likeness, it's a duplicate. The painting is exquisite. As I tilt the canvas, the eyes on the painting shimmer and glisten. Looking closer, I see that they aren't paint but pieces of some kind of reflective shell.

"That's beautiful," Saylor says. "You have one hell of an admirer."

"But…" I trail off because before I ask who would do it, I know the answer.

There's no one among the human survivors that has this kind of talent. If they did they would have put something on display before now. No, it has to have been him. My mouth is dry. Too dry to talk. I blink, trying to come up with a single coherent thought, but the storming emotions and confusion have taken away that ability.

"Who do you think sent it?" Saylor asks. "They've got a real talent. I want them to do one of me." She takes it from my numb fingers and inspects it closer. "Oh! We could have them do one of all of us. Like a family portrait, sort of anyway. Wouldn't that be great?"

Sek'su. But I can't. We'd all decided to condemn the interspecies mating and if I was to do it… that's not a scandal, it's social suicide.

All of that is well and good, but why is my heart racing and what is with this ache in my belly that feels as if someone punched me?

Saylor continues babbling on, but I barely hear her. I can't get my mind off of him and all the reasons that this can never be.

No. Never. No fucking way.

Yet…