[ The right thing to do. If this were an actual battle, she could go on intuition, trusting the instincts that have helped her survive all these years. But this isn't a battle, not in a literal sense, and she has no idea what the right thing to do is. The agent from Temporal Investigations hadn't exactly been helpful in telling her why she should keep this secret, and while she can understand the mentality of expecting a soldier to simply follow orders without questions asked, if her sharing this information would threaten the future, then she deserves to know. Period. Not telling her may very well constitute as much of a security threat as her telling the captain about her experience.
She's about to voice these concerns in some vague, possibly convoluted way when Chris drops his own metaphorical bomb. His words form a crack in her defensive wall that only grows as he continues speaking until finally that wall is nothing but crumbled rubble. Try as she might, she can't hold back the horror in her expression, emotion tightening her throat until she can barely speak. To carry that sort of knowledge every day, to be strong enough to continue moving forward despite what lies ahead...
He understands. The realization crashes into her and she can barely breathe. She wants to offer him sympathy, and express how sorry she is that he carries this burden, but she is ever the tactician. Sympathies won't be anywhere near as effective as sharing her own burden and gifting him the knowledge that she understands too. ]
That day I suddenly came onto the bridge out of uniform, I'd just returned from 200 years in the past. There was an attack that changed our timeline and I was tasked with going back to stop it. I had to watch a friend die, and I had to allow my ancestor to live so he— [ Her voice breaks and she swallows thickly, tears stinging her eyes as her hands tighten around the forgotten mug of coffee. ] His atrocities are what got us here. Without him, there was no Federation. The galaxy was at war and Earth was a desolate wasteland. I... I condemned all those people to die to save the future.
no subject
She's about to voice these concerns in some vague, possibly convoluted way when Chris drops his own metaphorical bomb. His words form a crack in her defensive wall that only grows as he continues speaking until finally that wall is nothing but crumbled rubble. Try as she might, she can't hold back the horror in her expression, emotion tightening her throat until she can barely speak. To carry that sort of knowledge every day, to be strong enough to continue moving forward despite what lies ahead...
He understands. The realization crashes into her and she can barely breathe. She wants to offer him sympathy, and express how sorry she is that he carries this burden, but she is ever the tactician. Sympathies won't be anywhere near as effective as sharing her own burden and gifting him the knowledge that she understands too. ]
That day I suddenly came onto the bridge out of uniform, I'd just returned from 200 years in the past. There was an attack that changed our timeline and I was tasked with going back to stop it. I had to watch a friend die, and I had to allow my ancestor to live so he— [ Her voice breaks and she swallows thickly, tears stinging her eyes as her hands tighten around the forgotten mug of coffee. ] His atrocities are what got us here. Without him, there was no Federation. The galaxy was at war and Earth was a desolate wasteland. I... I condemned all those people to die to save the future.