HEARTFELT

            Gingerly, Smith entered the control room from below-decks, and barely shuffled toward Robinson and West where they sat in their piloting seats. The two younger men had never seen him behave so timidly.

            "Am I disturbing you?" he asked quietly.

            "No," Robinson told him evenly. "What's on your mind, Smith?"

            "Umm...well...," he hedged as he approached, looking for all the world as if he would turn and run if they made the slightest move. Now nearly abreast of them, he sat down on the floor cross-legged, more or less between them. Their brows rose at this unusual positioning. Smith forced himself to look up into their intense dark-eyed gazes, first Robinson's, and then West's, and then involuntarily ducked his own blue eyes away again in uneasiness. Self-conscious, embarrassed, insecure, and clearly distressed, he stammered, "I imagine you two already know that I'm terribly afraid of you." Not wanting to miss their reactions, he forced himself to glance upward again. As he had dreaded and expected, they were hard-put not to be amused.

            "Yes, Smith." Robinson cleared his throat a bit awkwardly. "I think we've...pretty well figured that out."

            Smith forced himself to go on, reluctantly. "When you two are...mad at me, I panic. I don't know what to do. I don't know whether to run, or to scream for the others, for help, or to drop to my knees and beg you for mercy. I don't know what to do."

            West grinned and chuckled slightly. "Are you asking our advice??"

            "No," he said automatically, and then corrected himself. "Yes. I don't know!"

            "Well, I have some anyway. Don't bother trying to run from us. You can't get away. Not if we're really determined to get you." He eyed Smith intently.

            Smith sat gazing back at him with wide eyes and a slightly quivering lip.

            "And no point in screaming. Even if the others hear you, they couldn't get up here in time to try to stop us. And they couldn't stop us anyway."

            Smith sat up straighter in alarm. West had made it sound as if Smith might be in imminent danger right at this moment.

            "As for the third," West continued, "it might...give us pause. But only temporarily. Depending on how angry we are."

            Smith's voice was shaky. "You...make it sound as if...I'm in danger right now. Are you angry with me now???"

            "Not especially."

            Robinson spoke up, "But I do wonder why you chose to sit in between us, on the floor, in such a glaringly vulnerable position."

            Now Smith could not look up at them, as he said, "Maybe I did it on purpose. In submission."

            "Maybe??" Robinson prompted.

            "Maybe I'm just...surrendering to you two. Utterly. The way a vanquished animal rolls over and bares its throat in a plea for mercy." He hesitated. "'Cause, like you said, I couldn't get away from you anyway. Not if you're truly determined. And maybe you'll go easier on me, if I don't resist." He squirmed in place, and then asked, "How angry were you really? This afternoon."

            West shrugged. "Pretty angry."

            His words slowed, "How close a call...I mean, how close did you come, to...??"

            "To clobbering you?" Robinson replied, "Close enough."

            Smith's eyes met theirs briefly, and then his gaze dropped again. "I...thought so. I'm terrified of what you're capable of!" After a silent moment, he added more quietly, "I...have to always get out of it. I would die, if you...."

            "No, Smith," Robinson responded in tired patience, "We wouldn't kill you."

            Still speaking softly, he continued, "I think I would die of fright."

            "Oh, come on, now," West challenged.

            "It mustn't happen. It just mustn't. Ever."

            "Then you'd better improve your behavior, hadn't you?" Robinson said firmly.

            Smith met both their eyes again, plaintively. "I'm so scared!" He leaned and rested his head against Robinson's side. The latter sighed heavily in strained patience. Smith pulled away from him and sighed in despair. Presently, he glanced up at West, who was shaking his head at him in minor disgust. So Smith shifted and leaned on him similarly, murmuring, "I'm frightened of you two!" Feeling West twitch restlessly in response, Smith pulled away from him as well.

            "Do you know that I have recurring nightmares about you two?"

            "Of us beating you?" West's tone bore obvious humor.

            "Is that why you sometimes scream in the night?" demanded Robinson.

            Smith nodded wordlessly, answering both questions at once. He began to cry softly.

            "I sympathize, Smith," Robinson offered. "But you know, you bring it on yourself."

            "I s'pose." He was barely audible. "Protect me," he implored.

            West blinked. "You want us to protect you...from us???"

            "I guess that sounds silly."

            "A bit," confirmed Robinson.

            "Well, you're each somewhat of a Jekyll and Hyde: you're each capable of kindness; but when you become angry enough, that all goes right out the port."

            "Jekyll and Hyde," Robinson mused slightly sarcastically.

            "Out the port. Cute," replied West in mild derision.

            Smith went on as if they hadn't commented. "Your anger makes you seem vicious. Even sadistic. So, I guess I wish the Jekylls in both of you would protect me from the Hydes." He kept his eyes down, so as not to see their less-than-kind amusement. Then he went on, "I guess the thing that makes it so scary is that, when you're angry with me, you move on me so suddenly. Your movements are so abrupt; I have no time to prepare, to brace myself. It all seems so cataclysmic."

            "Oh, so you'd want us to warn you, say 'Here it comes.'" West's sarcasm was brutally apparent.

            Smith was unruffled. "It's not so unusual." He gazed deliberately up at Robinson. "You did it once: warned me."

            "Did I?"

            Smith nodded. "When I tried to get you to enter Mr. Miko's games."

            "Oh yes, that." Robinson's expression was rueful.

            "It's good to warn me, so you don't give me a heart attack. When you two act threateningly toward me, and lunge at me so abruptly, it always feels as if my heart lurches in fright." He looked up, and both men were regarding him dubiously.

            "I don't think you'll have a heart attack, Smith," Robinson remarked.

            "One never knows." Then Smith changed his approach. "What if Will were the one that you two were mad at? Surely you wouldn't threaten him as you do me."

            "Of course not!" said Robinson. "If it were Will, I would simply turn him over my knee."

            Smith frowned, contemplating. "Well, I suppose that would at least be safer...but still horribly scary."

            In disgust, Robinson retorted, "I wasn't offering that as an alternative in your case!"

            "Why not?" Smith countered innocently.

            "You're too old for that!"

            Smith blinked up at him. "Then I'm definitely too old for...something infinitely worse!"

            Robinson and West both stared at him in near disbelief.

            Impulsively, Smith pleaded, "Please don't ever really do that to me!!! Please???"

            Robinson and West both eyed him, with stern, "no-guarantees" expressions.

            Smith shifted uncomfortably, and went on, "Well, anyway...thank you both for not hurting me...today."

            They acknowledged in tense, brief nods.

            "Is it hard to resist hurting me...when you're angry?" he asked shyly.

            Tersely, West answered, "You have no idea."

            Robinson told him, "If you were not so cowardly, and if you were not significantly older than we are, we wouldn't even try to hold back."

            Both men eyed Smith intently, and his timidity rose to a new level, as his head drooped in discomfort under their gaze.

            "I suppose I should be getting to bed." Smith struggled to rise. "Oh dear!"

            "Now what?" demanded West.

            Smith kept shifting and wincing. "My legs have gone to sleep. I can't seem to figure out how to get up." He suffered myriad false starts and shuffling of leg positions, tilting and squirming and pushing ineffectually with his hands on the floor.

            "Oh for the love of...!" West reached and pulled Smith partially upright by the waist, but the latter's balance was off, and he stumbled, and landed sprawled across Robinson's lap.

            Smith turned huge eyes over his shoulder, up to Robinson's face. The latter was merely startled, but the former was clearly panicked.

            "Oh no! Please!! Let me go!!!"

            Realizing what Smith was thinking, and the glaring irony of it all, Robinson and West burst into hearty laughter as the two of them helped him up onto his feet.