[She barely realizes that she's doing it. She feels sixteen again, caught out at eavesdropping and stranded in front of her father's throne while he thundered. It's the same, and it's the exact opposite: she doesn't hate Charles, and she doesn't love him, and he doesn't roar. It only hurts because he's right.

Responses flit through her mind - she knows he didn't mean her harm, but he still would have found things she didn't want him to see, just by stumbling on them while she ratcheted through her panic; she honestly believed, in her bones, that hers was still the weaker ability, and she doesn't know if that was rational based on the Vulcan ability's touch limitations or simply a deep subconscious assumption; that she's hideously sorry.

She doesn't say any of them. It's too ingrained in her, that no one wants excuses when they're telling her how she's wrong. If it were a fight, she'd spit them out, but it isn't. She could have killed him, and it doesn't even matter that he wouldn't have stayed dead. She was reckless, she assumed wrong, and he would have paid the price. So she takes the quiet lecture as her due, jaw tight, face blank, occasionally swallowing around the lump in her throat, and keeps quiet until he's done.]