In which Shelby deals with terrible hindsight.

[shelbycobra]

Shelby is glad to find her door to the Nexus waiting for her. She needs to get the hell out of Indianapolis right now because she feels like the worst person on the planet. Which is an odd feeling when she's just been named four-time IndyCar champion two days ago, but there it is. Her latest victory doesn't mean a whole lot to her at the moment.

That's because she and her best friend have just had a six-year overdue argument. Shelby never claimed to be the most mature person back then but she also had no idea that she had done so much damage to someone that she cared for. Someone who was, if she was honest, the first person she'd ever really loved.

She feels ashamed, and embarrassed, and frightened all over again because she's dealing with this while having to make a huge decision about her future and worry about a physical that will tell her if she even has a future. Any one of those things would make her nervous; all three and she feels like the world's caving in. Which is, again, not what she wants to feel after working her ass off to capture a fourth championship.

So by the time she goes through the door, she's on the verge of tears, and she's just going to sit down in the nearest available corner to take slow, deep breaths until she can compose herself. She isn't going back through that door until she knows she's not going to fall apart and has a clue about what she's supposed to do to make things right.

Does she make amends for what happened six years ago (can she)? Or does she focus on not screwing things up a second time? And is there some way, somehow, that she can just catch her breath and not be thinking about everything else?

"How do you fix hurting your best friend?" she says, talking to herself but this is the Nexus so she's pretty sure everyone will overhear her.

Comments

[betashiftblues]

"....That's not the sort of thing that's easy to fix." The voice who answers Shelby is quiet, not easily heard over her own deep breaths. In truth the Andorian looks about a second or two from excusing himself already but her question hits a bit closer to home than he would have liked to admit to himself.

"If they're so close to you....it would have taken a lot to hurt them to begin with." Halting speech, hesitant but trying to explain. He's mostly humanoid if not a shocking shade of blue with stark white hair. His antennae droop somewhat with his concern.

[shelbycobra]

"It did. It was the lowest point of my life." Shelby can admit that easily. She's never hidden the year that she was out of her sport or how hard she had it when she was. She's not ashamed of what she had to go through; just ashamed of the fact that she ended up hurting anyone other than herself.

"He's got every right to be upset," she comments. "The problem is, this all happened six years ago. It's not like I can do anything about it other than apologize."

She's not bothered by the fact that she's talking to a blue alien. Not anymore, anyway. She's been here three times now and she's run into a giant sea pirate creature and Iron Man. She understands that the Nexus is a strange place.

[betashiftblues]

That's a long time to carry a hurt like that without exposing it to the light of day. A long time for a wound to fester untreated. Even trying to imagine waiting so long to address the things that made her question stick with him more than most brings a tight feeling to the officer's chest.

"Have you been entirely out of contact for that time? I'm....surprised it's gone this long untouched."

[shelbycobra]

"Kind of, yeah." Shelby nodded. "I was out of state for a whole year, and then for the two years after that, we worked in different places and didn't really see each other. It's only been in the last couple of years, since he came to work for my team, that Peter and I have been able to reconnect."

And it was being quarantined together that had done more for their relationship than anyone. It had taken time for Shelby to let him back in, but when you're stuck living together under the same roof, there's not a lot of places to hide.

"He didn't want to make me feel guilty," she says. "Which he was right. He said it and I feel incredibly guilty."