Fateful Meeting Again

Posted on Thu Feb 12th, 2026 @ 11:47am by Commander Anastasia Aventnova & Lieutenant Commander Selene Varrin
Edited on on Thu Feb 12th, 2026 @ 11:47am

2,364 words; about a 12 minute read

Mission: The Hand That Rocks The Babe
Location: Dreadnought Promenade

Selene chose the Promenade deliberately.

After duty shift, it thrums with controlled chaos—officers shedding formality, junior crew laughing too loudly, civilians weaving between uniformed precision. Music spills from the Bolian café near the viewport. Starlight filters through the wide window arc, washing everything in a soft, forgiving glow.

It’s the perfect place to look harmless.

Selene spotted her before Ana saw her. Yet couldn't help but think upon seeing her, Commander Anastasia Aventnova walks with the same purposeful stride she had at the Academy—chin lifted, shoulders squared, every movement telegraphing command authority. Even off duty, she radiates composure.

First Officer of the U.S.S. Dreadnought.

She always did move toward gravity wells.

Selene let her get closer before she speak.

“Anastasia.”

Her name settles between them like a shared secret.

Everything around her was in it's place and that made Anastasia want to smile, but the expression on her face had remained neutral as she made her patrol of one of the civilian areas of the ship as she did every few days. Her mind wasn't fully on the job and faceless people slipped past her as her mind settled on the most recent exchange with Cassian. When her name was spoken, she almost missed it with the combination of volume ad distraction, making her hesitate for half a step before she recognized the name spoken as hers in a voice that sounded...

Her eyes flickered into focus and towards the person who had said her name and then opened wider as she recognized the person, a slight smile finally arriving on her face, "Selene? Is that actually you?"

Selene lets the smile reach her eyes this time — soft, almost shy, as if she hadn’t rehearsed this moment a hundred different ways.

“Disappointed?” she asks lightly.

The question is playful on the surface, but she watches Anastasia with clinical precision. The widened eyes. The delayed smile. Genuine surprise. Not staged.

Good.

“I was beginning to think the Dreadnought’s First Officer had become too important to notice old ghosts on her Promenade patrols.”

Her tone is warm — teasing, not accusatory. She takes a single step closer, closing the polite distance without quite invading it. Close enough to register perfume, posture, breath.

“You look well, Anastasia.” A beat. Softer. “Better than well.”

And she means it. That’s the inconvenient part. The years have refined her. Confidence sits easily on her shoulders now, no longer the brittle, overcompensating ambition of a cadet clawing for distinction. This is command presence — earned, undeniable.

Selene folds her hands loosely behind her back, mirroring the old Academy stance without appearing to.

“Yes,” she continues gently, “it’s actually me.”

It was a complete surprise as Ana had almost let her jaw drop, but caught it long before it had moved, the additional hesitation very not typical as her hands fell to her sides. "I..." she trailed off with the word all but unspoken as she grappled with the presence of the woman in front of her, "It's been a while, that's for sure." Her smile grew more genuine as she brought her arms up in welcome, "It's great to see you again!"

For half a heartbeat, Selene almost forgets herself.

The hesitation. The unguarded “I…” The way Anastasia’s hands drop from their disciplined posture before she can correct it. That isn’t the First Officer of a flagship.

That’s the girl who used to lose arguments because she felt too much.

And then Anastasia’s arms open in invitation.

Selene’s pulse stutters, once, sharp and traitorous. She steps forward without allowing even a flicker of uncertainty to show.

The embrace is warm. Real. Solid. Anastasia always hugged like she meant it, firm, anchoring, as though claiming ground. Selene lets herself fit there for precisely the right amount of time. Long enough to feel remembered. Not long enough to seem needy.

Her hands slide around Anastasia’s back, fingertips pressing lightly between her shoulder blades, mapping muscle, tension, the subtle rigidity that still hasn’t fully left.

“You always did run warm,” Selene murmurs softly near her ear, almost lost beneath the promenade’s hum.

Then she withdraws first. Not abruptly. Not coldly.

Strategically.

It was a war with herself for whether or not to show what she was feeling in front of civilians. She was this mythical being when in uniform, the three pips on her collar indicating she was Mistress Before God on board the ship, with the CO being God himself in that regard, which on this ship was important. When in civilian clothes, she could pretend to be mortal and just one more person out there, but in uniform?

The warmth of the body leaving her embrace was too soon, the remembered warmth of previous embraces back at the Academy. The perfume that was the same, a mix of sandalwood and rose. It brought back memories that made the threatened smile blossom and she decided that this time would be an exception to her rule. "The better to keep you from freezing." It had been one of the subtle bits of humor between them.

She gestured to the Promenade, "What brings you to Dreadnought? I could give you the grand tour, but touring the whole ship actually takes a couple of days, she's just that big. One of the few downsides to her, but I wouldn't trade her for the world."

The joke lands like a hand against old bruised ribs.

The better to keep you from freezing.

For the first time since stepping aboard the Dreadnought, Selene’s composure almost fractures.

Because that was theirs. Selene lets the memory pass across her face, just enough to be seen. Just enough to feel real. “What brings me here?” Selene echoes lightly, as if the answer hasn’t been rehearsed to perfection.

“Starfleet decided the Dreadnought required a senior counselor with deep-space experience and command-track familiarity.” A small, self-deprecating smile. “Apparently I qualified.”

She lets that sit before adding, quieter: “I arrived three days ago.”

“I wanted to settle in before announcing myself,” she continues smoothly. “I wasn’t sure how… welcome a surprise might be.”

There, vulnerability, carefully measured.

"Why wouldn't you be a welcome surprise?" Anastasia asked, "I didn't see your name on the reassignment list... But a few days ago I was in the middle of some problems of my own." She didn't go into any detail, it wasn't important in any case. She made a very subtle gesture with her ring and pinky fingers, one made when she was under stress about something, belying her previous statement, "If I'd known, or if you'd sent me a message, I would have met you at the airlock or transporter pad to give you a proper welcome. Some would say not being there for a senior officer's arrival is a dereliction of my duty."

Selene notices the ring and pinky fingers immediately.

An old tell.

Anastasia used to do that before exams. Before command simulations. Before saying something she wasn’t entirely ready to say.

Stress.

Selene’s expression softens, not theatrically, but with precise calibration.

“I didn’t want you to feel obligated,” she says gently. “Not because of rank. Not because of history.”

She lets that word settle between them.

History.

Her eyes drift briefly to Anastasia’s hand, then back up. She doesn’t comment on the gesture. Not yet. The power is in noticing without revealing she has.

“You’ve always taken duty seriously,” Selene continues, tone warm. “Sometimes too seriously.”

A faint smile touches her lips, just enough to signal shared memory rather than criticism.

That made Ana's eyes narrow for a fraction of a second, more a wince than anything else as she knew where that had come from. It had been one of the mistakes she'd made long before at the end. "Sometimes, yes." She admitted carefully, glancing away, this time index finger of the opposite hand all but gluing itself to the middle finger without thinking, "I never really got the opportunity to explain what happened back then, did I?"

There it is.

Not defensiveness.

Not denial.

Regret.

Selene watches the second tell, index finger locking to middle, and feels something cold and precise settle into place behind her ribs. Anastasia only did that when she was bracing for impact.

“I never really got the opportunity to explain what happened back then, did I?” Ana's words rolled through her mind once more.

Selene does not answer immediately. The promenade continues around them, laughter and footsteps and distant music. A pair of ensigns pass too close; Selene steps subtly to the side, guiding Anastasia with her body into the curve of the viewport alcove where the traffic thins and the stars stretch wide and indifferent behind them.

She folds her hands loosely in front of her.

“You had the opportunity,” she says gently.

No heat. No accusation.

“You chose not to take it.”

Her eyes remain steady on Anastasia’s face, not sharp, not punishing. Simply present.

“I remember the night,” she continues quietly. “You were already packed.”

A faint, almost rueful smile touches her lips. “You’d color-coded your departure schedule.”

That detail is deliberate. Intimate. Impossible to dismiss.

“You told me it wasn’t personal.” A pause. “That it was about duty and career.”

She tilts her head slightly.

“I understood the words.”

The silence that follows is heavy but controlled. Selene does not let it tip into drama. She keeps her posture relaxed, voice measured.

“What I didn’t understand,” she adds softly, “was why you didn’t trust me enough to let me stand beside you while you pursued it.”

There.

Not why did you leave me.

Why didn’t you trust me?

It reframes everything.

This time the entire right wrist flexed inward, the hand cupping through the gesture, "I had been assigned to the Romulan Neutral Zone, Sheffield was..." She tried to explain weakly this time, "An opportunity I couldn't pass up. They didn't have space- And I couldn't-" Ana swallowed hard, "I didn't know how long I'd be gone."

Her voice lowers further, intimate but steady.

“So you decided for both of us.” There is no venom in it. That makes it worse.

“I would have waited,” Selene says after a beat.

It’s simple. Unadorned. True.

“For a year. Five. Ten.” Her gaze holds Anastasia’s without wavering. “I didn’t need certainty. I just needed honesty.”

The promenade noise seems impossibly distant now. “You didn’t break things off because there wasn’t space on the assignment,” she continues softly. “Starfleet would have found space eventually. Transfers happen. Paths cross.”

A faint breath escapes her. “You broke it because you didn’t want anything that might anchor you.”

The word lingers between them.

Anchor.

Selene studies her face, the guilt, the strain, the old fear resurfacing.

“And maybe you were right,” she adds, almost thoughtfully. “Maybe at twenty-two, we would have tried to compromise for each other and resented it.” She lets Anastasia breathe for a second.

“But you didn’t trust me enough to let me choose that risk.” Her tone never rises. It doesn’t need to.

Then, gently, almost mercifully, she shifts.

“I’m not angry anymore, Anastasia.” That part is mostly true.

And that was when Ana knew that Selene really could read her like a book. She'd always been able to from that day in their Sophomore year when they'd finally actually started dating. The woman who rarely smiled with the even younger-looking one who'd went off in all directions with almost limitless energy. Two years, seven months, fourteen days and eight hours, give or take ten minutes. That was how long they had been together, before that fateful afternoon.

And everything she had said was absolutely correct, even if she hadn't been right about the trust aspect. She hadn't wanted some compromise to stop her career from taking off as her instructors had told her it would, because she'd never have been able to forgive that, even if it was her own idea. And then for the longest time, even that had backfired on her until she'd pulled herself back up and launched her back into relevance. Ana looked down at the ground as the thoughts ran through her mind, an unbidden tear in her eyes as she remembered contemplating what it would have been like with Selene by her side during those hard times, but never having the nerve to comm her in all those years.

Then had come the promotion to Lancelot and the Starbase and finally to Ark Royal. She'd taken Selene's example and kept anyone from getting close to her, always remembering what could have been and aching because of it before just giving up completely. Until Cassian. Even now everything was still awkward, not the ease that had been during the Academy. "I'm still sorry." She said in barely a whisper.

The tear does it.

Selene had prepared for defensiveness. For justification. Even for anger.

She had not prepared for that.

Anastasia looking down. Shoulders no longer squared in command posture. The faint tremor in her breath. The quiet fracture of someone who has carried something alone for far too long.

"I’m still sorry." Those words rolled in her mind again like the others.

The whisper lands between them like something fragile and living.

Selene exhales slowly, steadying herself before she speaks. If she moves too quickly now, this turns into absolution. If she moves too coldly, it becomes cruelty.

She chooses neither.

“I know,” she says softly.

Not I forgive you.

Not yet.

Her hand lifts, slow enough that Anastasia could pull away if she wished, and she brushes her thumb just beneath the corner of Anastasia’s eye, catching the tear before it can fall. The touch is light. Familiar. Intimate without spectacle.

“You don’t do anything halfway,” Selene murmurs. “Not ambition. Not regret.”

A faint, sad smile curves her mouth.

“For a long time, I told myself you didn’t look back.” Her gaze searches Anastasia’s face. “It was easier to believe that.”

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