Chapter Text
The Spoiled Princess—Rana's quarters
Sitting at her desk, Rana concentrated on the medical text displayed on her monitor, ignoring the incessant chiming coming from her door until she heard a voice.
“Rana? It’s Twesata. Either let me in or I’ll override computer access.”
Gritting her teeth, the lonely asari grudgingly gave her new Betazoid crewmate permission to enter.
“What’s up?” The raven-haired Betazoid quipped as she breezed into Rana’s qualrters. Then walking to the computer, she clicked her tongue, “Tsk...Tsk. Medical texts again?”
“I’ve got a lot to learn.” Rana replied morosely. “In many ways, you’re far more advanced than we are.”
“You don’t have to learn it all at once.” Twesata counseled, “You’re more likely to go crazy first.” After a momentary pause, the telepath remarked in a low, gentle tone. “You’re in pain.”
“Get out of my head.” Rana snapped back with a scowl.
“I’m sorry.” Twesata apologized, “But you’re so loud it was hard for me to block it.” Sitting down next to the distraught asari, she pleaded, “Talk to me.”
“What is there to talk about?” Rana moaned. “I’m stuck here all alone trying to find something I can be good at. Your genetics are far more advanced than anything I’ve ever seen! There’s so much you can do that I’ve only just dreamed about!” Letting out a breath of air, she sighed dejectedly, “I’ll never fit in.”
“That’s what this is really all about—isn’t it?” Twesata remarked sympathetically. “You’re all alone.”
“I’m the only one of my kind here.” Rana sobbed, tears flowing down her cheeks. “Ashley’s not completely alone. She has other humans to relate to and there’s plenty of stuff that’s familiar to her. The Earth here isn’t that dissimilar to the Earth she knew, and a lot of Earth art and culture from our universe is present here.”
Nodding her head in understanding, Twesata commented, “She has familiar structures to fall back on. But you…”
“I’ve got nothing.” Rana moaned, “As far as I know, I’m the only asari living in this universe. There’s nothing for me to hold on to here. I’m just drifting—no idea who I am…where I’m going…what I’m going to do.”
“I know what I’m about to tell you might sound trite or cliched…” Twesata implored, “But you should know that there is one secure place for you and that you have at least one friend to turn to.”
“You’re right.” Rana replied with a despondent chuckle, “It does sound trite and cliched.”
“Warned you.” Twesata joked, forcing a smile from her asari friend. “I’m kinda curious…what was Thessia like?”
Shrugging her shoulders, Rana answered back, “Can’t you just read my mind?”
“Yeah.” Twesata nodded, “But that’s not the same as hearing it in your own words or experiencing it with my own senses.” A smile appearing on her face, she glanced towards the door. “Why don’t we go to the holodeck and you can show me.”
“It won’t be the same.” Rana sighed.
“No.” Twesata conceded, “But it’ll be close. C’mon…what do you have to lose but a little time?”
“All right! All right!” Throwing up her hands in resignation, Rana let out a breath of air as she rolled her eyes. “Let’s go. The sooner we get this over with, the sooner I can return to my moping.”
Holodeck
“Run Rana One. University of Serrice” Rana commanded as the pair approached the holodeck door.
“Rana One—University of Serrice ready.”
As the door slid open, Twesata remarked on seeing the asari campus, “This is beautiful.”
Nodding her head, Rana replied in a gloomy tone of voice, “Yeah. I always took my home for granted. I never realized that I might not ever go back.”
“Don’t say that.” Twesata responded encouragingly. “We know that there’s at least one portal between our universes. No reason to think that there aren’t more.”
“Maybe…” Rana sighed as the pair walked together, ignoring the holographic asari as they made their way down a trail. “Or maybe I’m going to have to get used to this being my home."
“Would that be such a bad thing?” Twesata asked, “From what you’ve told us, you were in a bad situation when you jumped in that portal with Ashley. It sounds like things were beginning to go bad in your universe.”
“Yeah.” Rana reluctantly confessed, “And I played my part in bringing it about.”
“Tell me about it.” Twesata implored as she guided her companion to a nearby bench and sat down with her.
“What can I say?” The asari geneticist moaned, “I screwed up. I picked the wrong boss to work for.”
“Go on.” The lovely Betazoid prompted.
“I was on the Citadel and looking for work and not having any success.” Rana recalled, “Things were getting pretty tight—I was even considering applying for a dancer’s spot at Chora’s Den.”
“It was that bad?”
“Yep.” Rana nodded her head, “Degrees in genetics and medicine and couldn’t get a job anywhere.”
“Why not?” Twesata inquired.
“Funny…” Rana replied, cocking her head to the left, “I asked myself the same question at the time. It’s not as if there weren’t any jobs available. Maybe it’s because I’m still in my maiden stage? No…” she shook her head, “…that couldn’t have been the reason. I was coming up on my two hundredth birthday when I applied—still technically a maiden, but by this time a lot of maidens were beginning to settle into one job and were about to enter into their matron stage.”
“Were you?” Twesata asked.
“No.” Rana replied with a snort. “I wasn’t ready to settle down with anyone just yet—and I definitely wasn’t ready for children. No…the more I think about it, the more I think it was something else.”
“What?”
“I think I was blacklisted—but at the time I had no idea as to why. I asked a friend of mine who worked for Armali if that was going on and who might be pissed at me, but she never got back to me. So…after a couple months, I tried to reach out to her again only to be told by her VI that she was ‘unavailable’ at the time and to leave a contact number and message.”
“Been there…done that.” Twesata nodded in sympathy. “Did you ever find out why you got put on the shitlist?”
“No.” Rana shook her head before exclaiming, her expression a mixture of surprise and disbelief. “No…that couldn’t have been the reason. Could it?”
“What was it?” Twesata asked, “You can tell me.”
“Don’t you already know?” Rana replied suspiciously.
“I’m doing everything I can to block your thoughts.” The Betazoid telepath responded, “Not that it’s easy—you are fucking loud.” Gazing into her asari teammate’s eyes, Twesata declared, “I’m not going to pry it out of you. You have to decide whether you trust me enough to tell me or not. If you can’t trust me—then I’ll comm Nelia, Shels, or Belen and you can talk to one of them. If you can’t even do that—then you are going to be one very lonely woman. So…what’s it going to be?”
“All right.” Rana let out a breath of air. “You have to understand one thing. Here…this paper wouldn’t have even raised an eyebrow. But back home, if it had circulated, it would have caused a firestorm.”
“Okay…” Twes prompted reassuringly, “What was the paper about?”
“I wrote it for a conference on genetics. In the paper, I argued that given proper genetic resequencing it could be possible for asari and non-asari couples to have truly hybrid offspring—they wouldn’t be born as pure asari. At the time, I considered it little more than a thought experiment—something to promote discussion and debate. But shortly after I submitted the paper, I received word that it had been rejected.”
“Did they give a reason why?” Twesata asked.
“They just said that they’d already determined their presentation schedule when they received it.” Rana replied with a snort, “But that was a damned lie because an old classmate of mine submitted her paper the same time I did and they found a spot for her. They just didn’t like what I wrote.”
“And that was enough to get you blacklisted?” Twesata exclaimed in surprise.
“Apparently it pissed off a highly placed matriarch because next thing I knew I was told by my employer at the time that my services were no longer required.”
“You were shitcanned.” Twesata bluntly concluded.
“Right.” Rana nodded, “After that, every asari or asari affiliated firm I applied to turned me down.” Rana sobbed, “I was so desperate for work that when Saren came along and offered me a job, I snapped it up without really inquiring too much into what the job entailed until it was too late and I was already on Virmire. That’s when I found out that my first patient was the man who had the job before me, so the work got decidedly personal.”
“From everything you’ve been telling me, it seems like you were going through hell back at your old home.” Twesata commented. “Maybe jumping into that portal was the best thing that happened to you.”
“Oh…don’t get me wrong.” Rana protested, “I’m happy to be off Virmire and still alive and unindoctrinated. When I think about what could have happened to me…” the asari scientist shivered as her companion placed her hand over hers. “It’s just that…” she said as she picked a holographic flower and sniffed it, “…sometimes I miss home…you know…”
“Yeah.” Twesata smiled, “I understand. Believe it or not, there are times I miss my home on Betazed and it’s in same universe.” Gazing into her friend’s eyes, the lovely Betazoid stated with a rare serious tone in her voice, “I’m not going to say I completely understand what you’re going through. I can’t. All I have to do is go walking about on DS 9 or Earth or Drozana or any of thousands of other places and odds are I'll run into another Betazoid. Maybe I’ve taken that for granted. I guess I’d be pretty miserable if there weren’t at least the possibility of talking to another Betazoid. But one thing I can tell you…” taking a deep breath and exhaling, Twes put emphasis on every word she uttered, “You. Are. Not. Alone. I’m here. Nelia…Shels…Belen…Ashley. They’re here for you too. You see…you already have four friends and you’ve just arrived.”
A smile appearing on her face, Rana replied, “Thank you. And…I am grateful for all of you. It’s just that sometimes I feel a little…”
“Homesick.” Twesata grinned, “Yeah. I understand. Next time you’re feeling homesick, give me or one of the others a comm and we can get together. You can tell us about your home…preferably over drinks. Deal?”
“Deal!” Rana smiled back as she got up from the bench and grasped her friend’s hand. “Come with me. I wanna show you a biotiball game. My team, the Serrice Sun are playing the Lerama Shockers.”
“What are we waiting for, then!” Twesata chuckled, “Let’s go.”