[ That's right, Sam is the type of person who has friends he can turn to for things like this. La'an... doesn't, not really. She has Una, but Una is family, and the other woman has a great many more people to look after now, she can't just focus on one traumatized little girl anymore. Everyone else La'an has connected with hasn't been in exactly the same way. She's making those connections, yes, but letting her guard down enough to let someone help her through trauma requires more vulnerability than she's comfortable with.
And that's okay. This isn't the first time she's been through this, after all. She survived it before and she can do it again. Alone.
And you need me. No, she doesn't. She'll be fine on her own. Needing him isn't possible, not when they're little more than acquaintances and they can't be anything else... But she can't lie to herself like that. She does need him, desperately, and she wants so badly for it to be okay to feel this way.
Nodding at his suggestion, her tearstained cheek rubs against the shoulder of his uniform before she steps back, putting much-needed and much-hated distance between them even as her hands linger on him until the last second. ] I'm going to shower. I need to get the smell of the planet off me.
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And that's okay. This isn't the first time she's been through this, after all. She survived it before and she can do it again. Alone.
And you need me. No, she doesn't. She'll be fine on her own. Needing him isn't possible, not when they're little more than acquaintances and they can't be anything else... But she can't lie to herself like that. She does need him, desperately, and she wants so badly for it to be okay to feel this way.
Nodding at his suggestion, her tearstained cheek rubs against the shoulder of his uniform before she steps back, putting much-needed and much-hated distance between them even as her hands linger on him until the last second. ] I'm going to shower. I need to get the smell of the planet off me.