To Trill and Back - The Guilt Homegrown

Posted on Fri Dec 26th, 2025 @ 4:05pm by Commander Rosa Coy

1,699 words; about a 8 minute read

Mission: Character Development
Location: Trillius Prime - Trill Homeworld

The runabout’s soft shudder as it entered Trill’s upper atmosphere did nothing to quiet the tension coiled in the cockpit. Rosa kept her eyes on the controls, fingers steady, posture impeccable, every motion a deliberate push against the memory clinging to her skin. The smell of Jexas scent still filled her olfactory senses, the taste lingering on her tongue.

Jexa sat beside her, silent as a locked drawer. Olaris sat behind Jexa, watching Rosa with that measured, almost clinical calm of someone who notices more than she comments on. Toval was absorbed in readings he didn’t actually need to take.

Everyone held a different kind of truth, and none of them wanted to drop theirs first.

Rosa guided the runabout down toward the Symbiosis Commission’s landing pad, the vessel settling with the gentle precision of a held breath. The moment the clamps locked, she was already on her feet, already reaching for distance like it was oxygen.

“We’ve arrived,” she said, short, crisp. She didn’t look at Jexa.

Olaris rose gracefully, smoothing her uniform. “Commander Coy, thank you. Your assistance has been exemplary.”

Rosa nodded once, a gesture, not a conversation. She opened the hatch, letting sterile Trill air flood in.

Jexa stepped out quickly, as though escape might undo what had happened. Rosa felt the girl’s presence slip away without a word, without a glance, and guilt crept up Rosa’s spine like cold fingers. She kept her expression stone-hard.

Rosa’s footsteps on Trill’s soil should have felt grounding, roots on her homeworld, gravity familiar and honest. Instead every step seemed to echo the earlier corridor, the earlier breath pressed too close to Jexa’s lips. The moment she tried to bury kept resurfacing, warm and unwelcome.

The escort from the landing pad to the Symbiosis Commission unfolded with ceremonial precision, but Rosa moved through it like someone underwater, hearing voices as muted shapes, feeling time stretch and flex. They walked toward the receiving platform where Commission officials waited. Olaris paused at Rosa’s side once the greetings were complete.

“Commander,” Olaris said quietly, “the reintegration of the mirror symbiont will begin shortly. You were involved in its recovery and transport.” She smiled in a way that felt both warm and unyielding. “You should witness the return to the pool.”

Rosa’s breath caught. “I’m not required.”

“It would be... respectful.” The emphasis was subtle but carried weight.

Rosa swallowed. A different kind of ache surfaced, something older, something she never let breathe for long. “Very well,” she said, though her voice sounded farther away than she wanted.

Toval led the way into the facility.

Jexa walked ahead of her, but not far. Close enough Rosa could trace the line of tension in her shoulders. Far enough that Rosa knew she’d placed that distance there deliberately.

Olaris watched both of them, from the rear, with a quiet scholar’s suspicion, her gaze sharp enough to cut cloth. She said nothing. That was worse.

As Rosa walked, every polished surface felt like a mirror she couldn’t avoid. Every glimpse of Jexa in the periphery, her quick step, her rigid shoulders, her careful avoidance, stabbed like a misplaced truth. Rosa had always lived by personal rules, lines drawn to keep the chaos inside her from touching anyone who didn’t deserve it.

She’d crossed one.

Handzon stretched inside her like a pleased animal, the smugness of his influence still radiating from the hollow space where her restraint should have been. He whispered, You protected us. You did what was necessary.

Rosa clenched her jaw. Necessary rarely left teeth marks like this.

The Commission building loomed, smooth stone curves, soft lights, the calm pulse of a place built for connection and memory. Rosa once loved that about Trill. Today it felt like stepping into a confessional she hadn’t asked for.

Inside the antechamber, they paused for intake. Rosa stood almost at attention, hands clasped behind her back, shoulders locked in place. She needed stillness to keep the inner noise from breaking through her composure.

In her mind, Handzon sprawled lazily, self-satisfied as a cat stretching in a sunbeam. You did fine back there, sweet body. She was prying. We protected ourselves. And she liked it.

Rosa kept her expression neutral. The only sign of strain was the subtle tightening along her jaw.

Olaris’ voice broke the silence. “Commander Coy,” she said gently, “your posture is rigid in a way that suggests strain. Are you...”

“I’m fine,” Rosa replied too quickly.

Olaris blinked once, as though filing the reaction away.

Jexa flinched.

Even that tiny movement twisted Rosa’s stomach.

The ceremony attendants arrived, escorting the mirror symbiont in its containment vessel. They greeted Olaris with warm respect, hardly sparing Rosa more than a diplomatic nod. She preferred it that way. She didn’t want to be seen right now. Not as a pilot, not as a joined Trill, not as anything.

She only wanted to get back to her ship. Back to motion. Distance.

But Olaris’s soft voice stopped her as she turned to leave.

“Commander... surely you will join us. It is an extraordinary moment. The return of a symbiont, especially one from outside our universe, is exceedingly rare.”

“I’ve completed my duty,” Rosa said. “The Sunfire is expecting me.”

Olaris stepped closer, lowering her voice to a private register. “Tradition asks that those who bore responsibility in a symbiont’s care witness its return. It isn’t a rule. It is... respect.”

And then, more pointedly: “You are Coy’s current host. There is symbolism here. Meaning.”

The words hit her like a weight on the chest. Rosa hesitated. Breath thinning. “I will attend.”

Olaris inclined her head. “Thank you.”

They walked into the sanctum, a chamber of gentle water and bioluminescent light. The pool glowed with soft blues and greens, alive with movement beneath the surface. Rosa felt the air hum, the familiar harmony of the symbionts, like a distant choir tuned to the frequency of memory.

They reached the observation platform overlooking the shallow, glowing waters of the symbiont pool. The ceremony was quiet, almost ethereal. The container was opened with reverence, the mirror-universe Coy lifted with slow, practiced movements and released into the water. The rippling bioluminescence accepted it with gentle pulses, as though welcoming a lost sibling home.

Rosa stared, spine straight, expression unreadable, and yet inside she unraveled thread by thread. Rosa’s throat tightened.

She watched as it was lowered into the water. A ripple of light spread from the point of entry. The other symbionts moved toward it, circling, welcoming. A silent homecoming. A reminder that every life, every host,was part of something larger, a history carried and carried and carried.

Look how they take him back without hesitation, Handzon murmured. No shame. No judgment. Just welcome. You could learn from that.

Rosa’s fingers curled at her sides. She barely noticed her nails digging crescents into her palms.

Across the chamber, Jexa stood rigid, hands clasped so tightly her knuckles blanched. Her eyes flicked briefly toward Rosa, only once. It was a look that carried apology, confusion, and fear of what she’d created.

And Rosa... Rosa couldn’t look at the girl without feeling the weight of violation, her own. Not of Jexa, but of the boundary she’d broken with herself. A line she never crossed back in the days she thought she understood the world and her place in it. The kind of line you broke once and carried forever.

The ceremony concluded with a soft chorus of ritual words. Rosa didn’t hear them. Her own pulse drowned the world. She felt like she was wrapped in wires, thin, cutting, tightening with every breath. She exhaled slowly, forcing her gaze back to the pool. The Commission members murmured blessings. The water shimmered.

Handzon hummed. Rosa wanted silence. What she got instead was clarity.

When it ended, she stepped back, offering Olaris a crisp, shallow bow. “Thank you for allowing me to observe.”

“Of course.” Olaris studied her carefully. “You seem... unsettled.”

Rosa met her gaze with the hard clarity of someone telling a partial truth. “Just tired.”

Liar, Handzon purred, pleased. You’re afraid. Afraid because you want to rewind that moment with Jexa. Afraid because you don’t know what part of it was you and what part was me.

Rosa turned and left the room before she could break her own mask.

The walk back to the runabout felt endless. Every corridor whispered the same truth she didn’t want to say aloud. Every footstep carried its weight. Every breath tasted like regret.

She didn’t let herself look back at Jexa, even though she felt the girl’s gaze lingering, small and lost.

By the time she walked back to the runabout, excusing herself with rushed politeness, claiming duty, claiming urgency, her decision crystallized.

Back to the ship. Back to routine. Back to anything that didn’t reflect her back at herself. She needed help. Real help. Not inhibitors. Not denial. Not distance.

But she knew the problem wasn’t behind her. It was inside her.

She required someone who wouldn’t flinch when she peeled back the layers. Someone who knew what war and faith and ghosts could do to a soul.

And by the time the Sunfire came back into view, silver, steady, blessed with the simplicity of starship logic, Rosa had already made her decision.

She needed someone who understood trauma wrapped in discipline. Faith tangled with doubt. Duty bent around wounds. She needed someone who had the patience to sit with her through the unraveling.

She needed Counselor Remal.
Not as a commander seeking a counselor.
Not as a host seeking absolution.
But as a woman who finally realized she could not keep outrunning herself.

As the lift doors sealed her in, her reflection trembled faintly in the glass. “Computer,” she said quietly. “Locate Counselor Kajun.” The hum of the lift wrapped around her like the beginnings of confession.

TBC

 

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