Through the Looking Glass

Janeway leaned back and regarded her hostess. Merris had taken a sip of her own beverage,
coffee presumably, and seemed to be giving her answer careful consideration. Eventually she
said, "Girls like me don't get proposals of marriage." Dark eyes still glittered, but this time with a
kind of cynical merriment.
"Girls like you?" Janeway frowned. Someone so exotically beautiful should have had droves of
suitors, should have had to beat them away with a stout club.
Merris tilted her head to one side. "My, you are polite," she observed. "Whores, Captain."
Angry indignation filled Janeway. She scowled at Merris. "I don't much like that word." Her tone
spontaneously took on the edge of command.
"Truly?" Merris offered up a sugarcoated half-smile. "I don't like the word 'turd', myself, but shit
is shit and comes in pieces, so what is one to do?"
The comment made Janeway snort her next swallow of coffee. She had difficulty banishing the
smile from her face. "You know what I mean," she admonished, scowling at Merris. "I don't
think of you that way, and I would prefer that you didn't either."
Her new crewman didn't back down a jot. Endless black eyes grew hard as onyx before Merris
answered, "I prefer whore to murderer or traitor."
Janeway lowered her gaze. She got you with that one, didn't she? "I had many suspicions about
you. That was before you risked your life to save my ship." Somehow or other, she kept losing
control of the conversation. It was disconcerting.
"I wasn't casting judgment, Captain," the gentleness in Merris' voice startled Janeway a little.
"You must protect your vessel. I was merely pointing out that epithets directed toward my sex
life don't really bother me." Rayna cleared away the dish and silverware.
For the first time, Janeway noticed the woman was barefoot. Merris moved differently here,
flowing across the carpet like a gently blown leaf. She stepped from toe to heel as she walked, a
stark contrast to the heel-thumping march that Starfleet instilled. Despite the uniform trousers
and rumpled t-shirt, Rayna Merris was arresting in her graceful movements. Janeway found
herself staring.
This is absurd. Her mind ground out a warning. You obviously slept too long, and your head
won't clear.
"Thank you again, for your hospitality." Janeway rose.
Merris faced her squarely. "A friend of Tuvok's is always welcome in my home." There was
something almost reverent in her tone.
Once more at a loss for words, Janeway took her leave, pleasantly surprised that the hatch had