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Darem didn't see the message until late that night when he got back to his dorm. Ever since the disaster of All-World's Day and his failed sealing, he had taken to staying out late. Most nights he found solace at the gym, exhausting his body and mind until he was too drained to even think. He did not want to think. If Darem let himself think, then his thoughts would inevitably turn to Kaira and his abdication.
It had only been a handful of days since he returned to Starfleet, and he still was not entirely sure he had made the right decision. Granted, Kaira had to force him into it. At the time, he knew it was the right choice. Kaira was right, she deserved better than someone forcing himself to be with her. Hell, he deserved better than to live in misery for the rest of his life. Somewhere, deep down inside, Darem still knew that. It was hard not to second-guess the decision, though, when his parents had spent his entire life conditioning him to one day rule Khionia. He had spent so long ignoring his own desires; so long training himself not to care about anything that actually mattered to him — until Starfleet. Even back on Khionia, Darem knew that Starfleet was his only chance to escape. His only chance to be free. At least, that's what he told himself when he tried to ignore how much stepping foot on the Athena for the first time had felt like running away.
Now, Darem spent his days trying to remember that this was where he belonged. He felt freer than ever, but that freedom was nerve-racking. Before, it never truly mattered what he did at Starfleet. He was always going to end up back on Khionia. Now, however, everything he did mattered. All of it, every test score, every assignment, would weigh on his future. It was a whole new type of pressure he almost didn't know how to deal with. And, on top of everything else, he had yet to talk to Kaira since his return to Starfleet. Maybe it was stupid, but he missed his best friend. She had always understood him better than anyone, despite how much of himself he always hid from her. Now, he had no one.
Of course, that thought wasn't entirely true. His mind turned to his new friends as he entered his dorm room. Darem would never admit it, but they were a large part of why he didn't want to leave Starfleet. He always suppressed himself growing up, always kept his guard so far up that no one — not even Kaira — could see past it. To finally let loose and be accepted meant everything to him. And even if everyone now knew that his excessive bravado was simply another mask he wore, they still accepted him anyway. Though no one had mentioned it yet, he assumed Jay-Den had told them all everything. Personally, Darem was doing his best to pretend nothing had ever happened. He was mostly grateful everyone else seemed to be doing the same. He had a feeling it was only a matter of time, though. As he checked his padd before climbing into his bed, Darem had all the proof he needed that his time was running out. He practically heard the universe laughing at him once he saw the unopened message from his parents blinking on his padd screen. Every cell in his body froze and he suddenly found it very hard to breathe.
Months ago, he would've been ecstatic to receive a message from them. Weeks ago, suspicious. Now, he only felt dread and the dizzying realization that his world was finally crashing down around him. After everything, he could think of only one reason his parents would bother to contact him now. He knew this was a long time coming, yet he still felt as though the blood froze in his veins as he stared at the screen in front of him. He sat there, frozen — half in fear and half pure anguish — before finally clicking on the damned message. He tried to convince himself that he'd grown too much in his time away for them to hurt him anymore. The lie was less than useless for all that it helped calm him.
His hands were shaking too much for him to read the blurred words in front of him. Distantly, he noticed they hadn't even bothered to send him a verbal message. All he had were their words, as cold and cutting as he'd always known them to be. As the message came into focus, Darem stared incomprehensibly at the three short sentences. In the span of only a few minutes, he read and reread the words, his mind desperately trying to make sense of them. The message read:
From this moment onward, you no longer have a home here. Do not contact us again. You are no longer our son.
So that was it then. Darem didn't know what to feel. At first, he felt numb with blank disbelief. That feeling was quickly crushed by a hot, burning shame that flared up inside him. Gods, he was so stupid. He had only been a child when he realized that nothing he did would ever make his parents truly proud. And if he were being honest with himself, Darem knew from the second Kaira told him to abdicate that he would likely never see his home again. He had always known that his parents did not like him that much. The confirmation that they loved him even less crushed what was left inside him of the little boy he used to be, the one who forever yearned for their approval.
He didn't realize he had started crying until he saw the droplets appear on the screen. Taking as deep a breath as he could manage, Darem forced himself to put his padd down and tried to focus on literally anything else in the room. That last task quickly proved impossible as his breathing only got more labored and the edges of his vision blurred with panic. He tried so hard to keep his breakdown quiet. The very last thing he needed right now was for Caleb to wake up and see him. For once, he was even glad Ocam was gone. At least now he was left to fall apart in peace. No one needed to bear witness to his humiliation, least of all someone who would feel it all secondhand.
It was becoming clearer by the second that he needed to leave. Much like before, he felt his panic start to overtake him with no way to control it. And Jay-Den wasn't around to help him breathe this time. This, at least, he was familiar with. The feeling of overwhelming panic warring against the loneliness inside him almost made him nostalgic for his childhood. He knew from experience that the longer he lingered here, the worse it was going to get. He needed to leave now. He just barely remembered to turn off his padd before escaping.
It was lunch the next day before anyone brought up the missing Khionian. Everyone had noticed his absence in their morning classes, but no one knew what to do about it. They weren't the only ones, Genesis knew she didn't imagine the worried looks Commander Reno kept giving Darem's empty chair throughout Temporal Mechanics. As she sat down, Genesis asked, "Has anyone seen Darem all day?"
"Nope,” answered Caleb. “He wasn't in our dorm when I went to sleep and he wasn't there when I woke up.” His roommate's absence was becoming less and less unusual these days. Maybe he was going crazy, but Caleb almost missed the days of Darem's overzealous early-morning pre-workout regime. These days, instead of staying up to finish his schoolwork, Darem stayed out until long past Caleb went to sleep and disappeared even earlier than before. Caleb would have thought he stopped sleeping in their dorm altogether if he didn't momentarily wake up whenever Darem eventually got home. One perk of being on the run his entire life: Caleb was a very light sleeper. Almost nothing had disturbed his sleep last night, except for the faint thud of something hitting the floor. Caleb was pretty sure it hadn't even woken him fully; he barely even remembered it.
He would have thought nothing of the noise if it weren't for what he found this morning. Everything on Darem's side of the room was exactly as he had left it yesterday morning, except for the padd strewn on the floor. Darem always made sure to keep his side of the room neat and tidy; he never left his things out of place. Caleb didn't understand his roommate's odd behavior, but he picked up Darem's padd, intending to give it to him in class.
"We should be worried, shouldn't we?" asked Sam as she joined their table.
"Can't we just enjoy our asshole-free meals while they last?" whined Caleb.
Despite the annoyance in his tone, Genesis could clearly see the worry that had settled into Caleb's eyes. Before she could say anything else, Jay-Den finally joined them. She didn't miss the way his eyes flicked over to the empty chair Darem usually occupied either, or the frown that settled on his face soon after.
Jay-Den turned to Caleb and asked, "Is Darem not feeling well?"
"I don't know," he admitted.
"How can you not know? You live with him."
"I haven't seen him outside of class in days! I'm basically living in a single at this point."
Genesis couldn't help but interject, "I would've thought that you'd be thrilled."
Caleb sent her a dark look. "Let's just find him before he does something even more stupid. I think they might actually kill him if he misses another day of classes."
"Afraid he's coming for your brand?" Genesis couldn't help it; he was just too easy to tease.
Instead of responding, Caleb pulled out his padd and slid it across the table to Sam. Ignoring Genesis's laughter, Caleb asked, "Can you get the computer to track him down?"
"I thought Starfleet's systems wouldn't let cadets track each other?" asked Sam, already excited at the prospect of a challenge.
"It does if you hack into it and grant yourself access."
They shared a mischievous smile before Sam got to work. It only took her a few seconds to merge her systems with Caleb's padd, and then a few more to find what she was looking for — or the lack thereof. Genesis saw the worried frown come over her face and asked, "Sam? What's wrong?"
Sam continued looking through the computer's systems as she said, "Darem's lifesign isn't anywhere on campus."
They all exclaimed, "What?"
"How do we find him?" asked Jay-Den, his voice suddenly much more urgent than before.
Caleb countered, "How do we even know we wants to be found?" He couldn't stop himself from reeling back in his chair as Jay-Den turned to glare at him. "Hey," he explained, "I'm just saying. Ever since All-World's Day, he's been more of a dick than usual. We've all noticed it. Maybe he just he just needs some space."
Genesis gave him a look of total disbelief. "And maybe you're projecting," she said, with a note of finality in her voice. She obviously wasn't going to entertain another argument with Caleb. She watched him shrug in response and retrieve his padd back from Sam. Satisfied he wouldn't say anything else, Genesis turned away from him and asked, "No one knows whats going on with him?"
Sam shook her head in confusion. Jay-Den refused to look her in the eye. Genesis narrowed her eyes at him, happy to finally have a target. She more demanded than asked, "What do you know?"
Jay-Den sighed. "Something did happen to him over break, but it is not my story to tell."
Now Caleb was getting suspicious. Almost sounding offended, he asked, "Why do you know and not any of us?"
"… Because I was there," said Jay-Den, reluctantly.
Genesis jumped at this new information. To clarify, she asked, "You were there, with Darem, over break?" Jay-Den nodded in confirmation, looking uneasy at the turn in conversation. "Weren't you supposed to be with Kyle in Ibiza?"
Jay-Den snapped, "Like I said, it is not my story to tell!" He took a deep breath to ground himself. He didn't know why he was so agitated, but it chalked it up to their missing friend. He added, "If you want to know so badly, we have to find him."
Genesis asked the other two, "Can't you get the computer to locate him off campus? Like scan for him on the planet? He can't have left Earth."
Caleb stared at her and scoffed. "You want me to scan the entire planet? I would have to hack into the Athena's sensors to do that."
Genesis pointed out the obvious and asked, "Since when has that ever stopped you?"
"I'm not saying I couldn't do it, but last time I hacked into the Athena, no one else was here. It would take way too long to make sure no one would notice."
Sam asked, "Can't we just track his combadge or something?"
"I mean, yes, but that will still take a while," answered Caleb.
"Well, it's not like we can do anything until tonight anyway," said Genesis. "I think they'd notice if we all skipped the rest of our classes for today."
Everyone went back to their meals in silence, stumped on what to do. Only a few minutes went by before Caleb had another idea. He grabbed a padd out of his bag and said, "You know, I was going to give this back to Darem today in class, but since he's not here…" he trailed off, letting the others fill in the blank for him.
Jay-Den was the first to speak up. Skeptically, he asked, "You want to look through his padd?"
"You said it, not me." said Caleb, "C'mon, he's always so anal about keeping his things put away and locked up. You're not even a little curious as to what made him forget this and disappear in the middle of the night?"
Jay-Den shook his head. "We shouldn't look through his things."
Caleb replied, "You could always tell us what happened over break and then we wouldn't need to search his padd for clues." Jay-Den said nothing. Satisfied, Caleb went back to the padd. It only took him a minute or two to get it to open. Everyone immediately crowded around him. Including, Caleb noticed, Jay-Den. He spent a few minutes clicking through different programs with no luck. At Genesis's suggestion, he went to the messages and finally found what they were looking for. The latest were a few unopened messages from someone he'd never heard of.
"Who's Kaira?" Genesis asked.
"She is a friend of Darem's,” said Jay-Den. “Or, she was. They grew up together."
Genesis, of course, caught on to the verb tense. "Was?" she asked.
Before Jay-Den could think of an answer, Caleb scrolled and found an opened message from Darem's parents the night before. They all noticed that it was the only incoming message from his parents. "Check this out," he said. "This has to be what Darem saw last night."
He opened up the message and said, "Oh, damn." Everyone sat in shock for a few seconds to process what they read.
"We shouldn't be reading this," remarked Jay-Den. This time, no one argued.
Instead, Genesis said, "I know he said his family wasn't great, but that is seriously fucked up." She turned once again towards Caleb. "Caleb?" she said, "Definitely track his combadge."
"Yeah."
Sam asked, "What do we do when we find him?"
"I will go after him," said Jay-Den.
Caleb couldn't hold himself back. "Seriously, what the hell happened over break?" he asked.
Jay-Den merely rolled his eyes at Caleb's persistence. He and everyone else spent the rest of their lunch period in relative silence, too full of worry over their missing friend to think about anything else.
It was dark outside before Jay-Den had a chance to go after Darem. It didn't take that long for Caleb to track Darem's combadge, but school kept them all busy until well after sunset. Luckily for Jay-Den, the coordinates Caleb had given him weren't that far away. It didn't take him long to come across the beach where Darem was lying near the shore. In hindsight, they should have guessed that Darem would run away to the ocean. It was the only place no one else could follow. Privately, Jay-Den was just glad Darem was no longer in the water.
He noticed Darem immediately, but he didn't want to announce his presence yet. He wanted to observe before he approached. Jay-Den only got close enough to make out the water droplets dotting Darem's skin, still fresh enough to glisten in the moonlight. He couldn't make out Darem's face, but his friend wasn't moving at all. Darem was laid out on the sand, seemingly entranced by the stars.
Of course, Jay-Den's presence couldn't stay hidden for long. Soon enough, Darem asked, "What are you doing here?"
"You disappeared," answered Jay-Den. "Caleb was able to track your combadge, and it led me here."
Darem refused to look away from the sky. In a deceptively calm — almost bored — tone of voice, Darem asked again, "Okay, so what are you doing here?"
"We saw the message from your parents," snapped Jay-Den. He hadn't meant to tell Darem about their snooping, but, as always, Darem's petulance had a way of getting under his skin. Jay-Den took a deep breath and forced himself to calm down. Calm was going to be a necessity in this conversation and they'd barely begun talking. "I am sorry," he added, "We found the message from your mother and father and then Caleb tracked you down."
Jay-Den smiled slightly as he added, "We probably should have guessed that you would come here."
Still, Darem remained silent. Jay-Den found his unresponsive demeanor extremely unnerving. It was like all the fight had drained out of Darem, and Jay-Den didn't like it at all. Cautiously, Jay-Den inched closer, trying to make out anything underneath the indifference etched on Darem's face. As he got closer, he saw that the emotion controlling Darem wasn't indifference — it was complete and total resignation, which Jay-Den liked even less.
Jay-Den sat down next to Darem, letting the ocean breeze cool the worry rising inside him. He was close enough now; he could tell that Darem had actually been in the water recently. Darem's hair was still drenched and curling a little at the ends where it was beginning to dry out. Jay-Den watched, transfixed, as a bead of water fell from one of those ends and carved a path down the corner of Darem's eye before disappearing into the shadows underneath his cheekbones. If he felt Jay-Den's stare at all, he didn't show it. The melancholic effect reminded Jay-Den of a tear track running down Darem's face. Once again, Jay-Den felt a strange spark of protective anger bubble up inside him at Darem's distress. He chose to ignore those feelings for now; he told himself he needed to focus solely on the man in front of him. Softly, not wanting to ruin the stillness of the moment, Jay-Den asked, "What is it like underwater?"
Keeping his voice devoid of any emotion, Darem replied, "Dark." He hated that anyone had come after him, and he especially hated that it was Jay-Den. The Klingon already knew him better than anyone and that terrified him. Darem spent his entire childhood and adolescence distancing himself and keeping his guard up around every single person he ever met. Yet, whenever Jay-Den looked at him, it was like his defenses never existed. He was caught in an endless cycle between wanting to push Jay-Den away and wanting to pull him in closer. The worst part of it all was that he knew Jay-Den couldn't possibly feel the same way. Darem was too brash, too cocky, too much of an ass for Jay-Den to ever care about him. And yet, here Jay-Den sat, mere inches away from him. Caring. He tried not to read too much into it, but he knew himself too well. The night would end, Jay-Den would forget whatever led him here and would distance himself again, and Darem would be left feeling even more pathetic than he already felt.
Oblivious to Darem's inner turmoil, Jay-Den tried a different tactic to get Darem's attention. He said, "Kaira called you."
That, finally, sparked a reaction. Darem sat up quickly and stared at Jay-Den like he didn't quite believe him. "She did?" he asked.
"Yes," confirmed Jay-Den. "She left you a few messages, actually. Do not worry, no one else knows who she is to you."
"Wait, what?" Darem titled his head in confusion. "I thought — I thought you already told everyone."
"Why would I do that?" Jay-Den looked offended at the implication that he wasn't trustworthy.
Darem could only stare. "Why not?" he asked. "You told Kyle." Try as he might, he couldn't quite stop the edge of distaste in his voice when he said Kyle's name.
Thankfully, Jay-Den only rolled his eyes in response to Darem's one-sided rivalry. He explained, "I was supposed to spend the break with him. I owed him an honest explanation." He took a moment to look Darem in the eye, to make sure Darem caught every single word. "I saw the look on your face when Kyle brought it up. I am sorry I did not warn you. I do not agree with your decision to hide your sealing from our friends, but it is your decision to make. I will not take that away from you."
To Darem's horror, the sight of Jay-Den blurred in front of him. He had to look away. He couldn't handle the overwhelming sincerity coming from his friend at the moment. He whispered, "Thank you," and turned towards the ocean once again.
Jay-Den didn't initially have a plan, but now he thought it might be best to keep Darem's attention on him; to keep Darem talking so he wouldn't distance himself again. Plus, there was something still bothering him, even if he couldn’t figure out why. He said, "I didn’t know you and Kaira were still talking."
"We’re not. I, um, I tried calling her the day we got back," Darem admitted. "She said that she was happy for my new life, but she needed some time before she would be ready to be friends again." Smiling humorlessly, he added, "I don't blame her, I kind of left her a mess to deal with on Khionia."
"Darem—"
Darem interrupted, "You know, she's the only reason my parents let me enroll in Starfleet."
He decided to stop hiding and met Jay-Den's gaze. If anyone could ever understand, he thought, it had to be Jay-Den. At this point, he couldn't stop himself from opening up to the man sitting beside him if he tried. He continued, "My parents spent my entire life grooming me to lead Khionia, obviously they didn't want me to leave, even if it was supposed to be temporary. But, somehow, even then, Kaira could see how important Starfleet was to me."
His voice turned bitter, lost in the memories. "As the Khionian heir, she always had far more influence over my parents than I did. She convinced them to let me go, and to enroll here instead of the war college."
He had to look away again; he couldn't ignore the sudden burning behind his eyes any longer. He took a moment and said, "She told me that getting my acceptance letter was the most excited she's ever seen me." He had to laugh then and look back up to the sky to stop himself from crying.
Jay-Den didn't know what to say. He had a million things he wanted to say: that it was okay for Darem to cry, that he didn't deserve his parents' treatment, that none of this was his fault. He couldn't say any of that, Darem would never believe him; not now. Instead, Jay-Den noticed how Darem kept wringing his hands, a telltale sign that the Khionian was upset. Without thinking, Jay-Den reached forward and grabbed Darem's hands in his. He didn't say a word, but let his touch ground Darem.
Darem was decidedly not thinking about how Jay-Den managed to calm him down in the span of a few minutes when he'd been having a day-long panic attack at the bottom of the ocean. He was also not thinking about how Jay-Den was absentmindedly rubbing soothing circles into his wrists. Darem was so caught up trying not to think about anything that he almost missed when Jay-Den asked, "Are you okay now?"
In response, Darem made a sound that was somewhere between a laugh and a sob. "This is so stupid," he said, his voice breaking. "They're technically not even my parents anymore."
In that moment, Jay-Den would have done anything to take Darem's pain away. Instead, he said, "That is their loss."
He wasn't sure the words helped Darem at all, so, a moment later he asked, "Do you regret leaving?"
Darem didn't trust himself to speak and merely shook his head in response.
He tried again to get Darem talking. "What made you decide?"
"Kaira told me to abdicate, remember?" Jay-Den merely gave him a look in response. Darem rolled his eyes and tried again. "It's the same reason I wanted to leave in the first place, and," he said, with a nod to the ocean, "the same reason I came back to the shore at nightfall. I missed the stars."
"The… stars?" Now Jay-Den was confused.
Darem looked back up at the sky in earnest now. "They've always been my escape plan," he explained. "My entire life, I always felt trapped. So, when I had bad days, which were most days, I would sneak out at night and go to the roof. On my worst days, there was nothing I wanted more than to be among the stars instead of on Khionia."
He hesitated for a moment, trying to find the right words. Finally, he said, "For a long time, it was nothing more than a fantasy; a dream to cope with my parents' control. But, then, Starfleet Academy reopened. And I found a way to make that dream a reality."
He looked back at Jay-Den, and Jay-Den was surprised to find actual excitement sparkling in Darem's eyes again. He listened closely as Darem continued, "You understand, don't you? Wanting to live life on your own terms, instead of giving in to everyone's expectations of you?"
It was a feeling Jay-Den knew very well. "Eventually," he said, "It hurts more to pretend than it does to walk away."
Darem grinned. "Exactly!" His smile dimmed slightly as he said, "I know I came on a little strong when we met—"
"A little?" Jay-Den asked, incredulously.
Darem made a noise of faux outrage. "In my defense," he said, "I thought Klingons were supposed to respect aggression! I didn't know I would be meeting you instead."
His grip in Jay-Den's hands tightened as he squeezed them and smiled playfully at Jay-Den. Jay-Den gazed back, eyes full of lighthearted skepticism. "There is a difference between aggression and bullying. You cannot genuinely expect me to believe you were trying to befriend me with that display."
Jay-Den watched Darem stammer for a few seconds before exclaiming, "Listen, it doesn't matter!"
Jay-Den narrowed his eyes at him. Was Darem blushing? Before he could scrutinize Darem any further, Darem spoke again.
"Look, I know I came on a little strong at first—" he said, with a pointed look to Jay-Den, "—But that was literally my first day living as myself. I was trying to figure out who I am really am. Maybe I still am. But, I feel more like myself here than I ever have in my entire life. And that's why I knew I had to leave. Without Starfleet, I would have lived my entire life and died without ever getting to feel like me."
Jay-Den considered his words for a moment. "Well," he started, "I can tell you who you really are: you are an asshole." He paused to laugh along with Darem and heard the fondness seeping into his voice as he continued, "But I did not lie in my speech. You are also somehow one of the most selfless people I have ever met. I genuinely cannot imagine my life here without you. You are wanted here, Darem."
Darem's breath caught as he took in the intense words and the intensity in Jay-Den's eyes. As usual, he couldn't look away. He felt the same magnetic pull he always felt for Jay-Den, drawing him closer and closer. He didn't trust himself to so much as breathe. If he made one wrong move, then Jay-Den would pull away. If Darem moved at all, he was going to something stupid like lean in closer. Darem was a lot of things, but stupid enough to act on his feelings when Jay-Den was already in a perfectly good relationship wasn't one of them. Plus, it ultimately didn't matter. He would hide his feelings forever if it meant Jay-Den's continued presence in his life.
For his part, Jay-Den had long since lost track of time. He found himself unwilling to pull away from Darem; almost mesmerized at how the starry night sky reflected and sparkled in his eyes. This gentleness was a side to Darem he so rarely got to see, and it always captivated him to witness it. Jay-Den didn't know what, exactly, had come over them, but he wanted to exist in this moment forever. The very last thing he wanted was to pull away, which was exactly why he had to.
Jay-Den cleared his throat and said, "We should get going." He freed Darem from his grip and stood up. One look at Darem and he regretted pulling away almost immediately. He didn't realize how much his touch must have been helping Darem. The second he pulled away, Darem looked so unbearably lost and desolate. Jay-Den couldn't stand it. He knew Darem didn't need his help, but he reached down to offer it anyway. Darem and him watched each other for a few seconds, and it was almost intoxicating — the feeling that he could drown in Darem's eyes if he let himself. In that moment, he could have sworn that Darem looked at him like he was the only real thing in the galaxy.
Darem accepted the help and tried not to take it personally when Jay-Den snatched his hand away like he'd been burned. He'd take whatever Jay-Den was willing to give him and ask for nothing more.
The walk back to campus was quiet. Eventually, Jay-Den asked, "What are you going to tell the others?"
Hesitant, Darem asked, "I have to tell them the truth, don't I?"
"It is your choice. But, I do not think they will accept anything less," answered Jay-Den. He could tell Darem was not excited by that answer. "Darem," he said, stopping him with a hand on his shoulder, "You have a family here. You know that, right?"
Darem tried to look anywhere but the man in front of him. "I… am getting there."
Resigned, Darem accepted his fate and shared a small smile with Jay-Den. Together, they made their way back to campus and back to their newfound family.