guilt challenge response
Title: To My Truth
Author: Chanter
Fandom: Star Trek TNG
Rating: PG13 for Leah’s assumptions, and because she curses once
Spoiler alert! Major spoilers for Galaxy’s Child, you have been warned.
Pairings: Geordi-Leah
Summary: Leah’s POV. I was so wrong… and then I was so right.
Exactly 500 words yay!
I saw him.
I saw elegance. I saw natural grace and warmth shining from the inside and charm that couldn’t be schooled and I denied it. And I made myself see hands, and thoughts, and ideas and everything counterproductive to “my” designs. So he was the one who’d been messing up my engines. I denied him.
I hated him.
When every instinct I had told me to trust him, when every facet harmonized, when every separate fragment was in total agreement--engineer meets designer meets single-married-separated woman who can’t get her walk right and can’t be bothered with makeup and can’t keep composure unless she hammers it into place… I hated him. Only because I forced myself to hate him.
I didn’t walk in on him.
I walked in on her. And it was me seeing me seeing what he’d seen, and it was twin to me, twin to her, mirror after mirror and it was “Every time you touch these engines, you touch me,” and I made myself believe I wasn’t supposed to be the one walking in on her, on me, on this.
So I laid into him.
I blasted him in no uncertain terms, told him exactly what I thought of him, flayed him with exactly as many words as I assumed he deserved, gave him exactly hell… I told him.
And I was wrong about him.
I assumed, and I extrapolated, and I pieced together a patchwork that couldn’t have been farther from the truth and in reality, there was nothing. There was no twisted fantasy, no sick daydreamed second life, no wrongful use of that pseudo-me, nothing tantamount to rape and his hands were spotlessly clean... innocent. He was innocent. He had not done wrong.
And I was the guilty one.
I regretted what I’d said, what I’d done, what I’d dared think about him when the truth of the matter was I was the filthy one and he should have been looking down on me, judging me, trying me. I was guilty.
So I told him.
And we laughed about it. I’d blown up at him once, he’d blown up at me once, I’d been wrong, he’d been right and we laughed about it. I’d worked with him, he’d worked with me, we’d intertwined theories and practical knowledge and after everything was alright again for them, we had to laugh to make it even halfway to alright with us… so we laughed about it.
And it was.
And I admitted to myself.
I admitted. Why I’d forced myself to hate him, and then allowed myself to dance with him, theory and practical application and become an engineer with him, dance that most particular dance with him and become half of a singular unit, why I’d secretly, inwardly lit up the first time I looked at him… I admitted something to myself. And I admitted something to him.
And so I told him.
That I loved him.
And I felt no guilt, telling him that.
Author: Chanter
Fandom: Star Trek TNG
Rating: PG13 for Leah’s assumptions, and because she curses once
Spoiler alert! Major spoilers for Galaxy’s Child, you have been warned.
Pairings: Geordi-Leah
Summary: Leah’s POV. I was so wrong… and then I was so right.
Exactly 500 words yay!
I saw him.
I saw elegance. I saw natural grace and warmth shining from the inside and charm that couldn’t be schooled and I denied it. And I made myself see hands, and thoughts, and ideas and everything counterproductive to “my” designs. So he was the one who’d been messing up my engines. I denied him.
I hated him.
When every instinct I had told me to trust him, when every facet harmonized, when every separate fragment was in total agreement--engineer meets designer meets single-married-separated woman who can’t get her walk right and can’t be bothered with makeup and can’t keep composure unless she hammers it into place… I hated him. Only because I forced myself to hate him.
I didn’t walk in on him.
I walked in on her. And it was me seeing me seeing what he’d seen, and it was twin to me, twin to her, mirror after mirror and it was “Every time you touch these engines, you touch me,” and I made myself believe I wasn’t supposed to be the one walking in on her, on me, on this.
So I laid into him.
I blasted him in no uncertain terms, told him exactly what I thought of him, flayed him with exactly as many words as I assumed he deserved, gave him exactly hell… I told him.
And I was wrong about him.
I assumed, and I extrapolated, and I pieced together a patchwork that couldn’t have been farther from the truth and in reality, there was nothing. There was no twisted fantasy, no sick daydreamed second life, no wrongful use of that pseudo-me, nothing tantamount to rape and his hands were spotlessly clean... innocent. He was innocent. He had not done wrong.
And I was the guilty one.
I regretted what I’d said, what I’d done, what I’d dared think about him when the truth of the matter was I was the filthy one and he should have been looking down on me, judging me, trying me. I was guilty.
So I told him.
And we laughed about it. I’d blown up at him once, he’d blown up at me once, I’d been wrong, he’d been right and we laughed about it. I’d worked with him, he’d worked with me, we’d intertwined theories and practical knowledge and after everything was alright again for them, we had to laugh to make it even halfway to alright with us… so we laughed about it.
And it was.
And I admitted to myself.
I admitted. Why I’d forced myself to hate him, and then allowed myself to dance with him, theory and practical application and become an engineer with him, dance that most particular dance with him and become half of a singular unit, why I’d secretly, inwardly lit up the first time I looked at him… I admitted something to myself. And I admitted something to him.
And so I told him.
That I loved him.
And I felt no guilt, telling him that.