14: Words Fail

Words Fail
by Fleur Le Marc
71209.2
After The Clock is Ticking
--=Aboard the Alchemy--=


Fleur was grounded.

She had been told that she was to be confined to crew quarters, with the exception of the small galley kitchen on deck four- where she could make herself useful preparing simple food for the crew, if she was so inclined.

Salvek made it clear that he would deal with her escapade in the proper time and place, of which this was definitely neither. So, she would have to wait for her punishment, and just try to stay out of the way in the meantime.

She heard a loud crash in the room next to the galley. Most of the crew quarters were on this deck as well- the room she was to be confined to was just down the hall- but the noise was not coming from her room.

She finished the sandwich she'd been making, put it into the cold storage unit and washed her hands. She moved in the direction of the noise, which was continuing, and chilled her through.

"Why? WHY!" A male voice was shouting. She heard deep, gasping sobs punctuate the silence between exclamations. The sound of glass shattering filled the air next.

"I have done all that you asked of me. She is the only thing I have ever needed. The only thing I have ever asked you for. WHY can't you just let me HAVE HER?"

Fleur gasped- she knew that voice. She had dreamed that voice in her sleep, every night for the past three years. Even though it had been almost that long since she had heard it speak aloud.

-=Flashback- three years ago, on the space station in the Klingon outback=-

"That is the second bowl of my soup that you have ignored today until it became inedible, Vedek Jariel. I am beginning to think that my cooking does not meet with your approval after all."

Fleur's heart fluttered the way that it always did when the Vedek was nearby. Deep down, she knew that this man with the faraway eyes had a heart that resided at an even more remote location. She hadn't a prayer with him. This became more apparent with each passing day as she'd gotten to know him. Still she couldn't help the way that he affected her.

"I'm sorry, Miss Le Marc. It is delicious, I'm afraid that I am just not feeling like myself today."

"You say that too many days in a row, Monsieur Vedek. I am growing concerned."

"Don't you worry about me. I'm fine."

The words were hollow and they both knew it but she allowed him the dignity of believing them, if only for a moment.

"Where did you go, when you were so far away just now?" She asked, moving nearer and tucking the towel she held in her hands back into the pocket of her apron. She rested her hands against the back of the chair beside him, trying to hide the fact that they were shaking.

"I don't think it was where, actually. It was when."

"I beg your pardon?"

Jariel, without wondering if it was wise to continue or not, watched as Fleur sat down and he expelled a heavy sigh.

"I've asked a monumental thing of the Prophets, and I am finding that it is not without retribution that I am receiving what I asked for."

Fleur shook her head, utterly lost to his line of thought.

"I'm sorry, I do not understand. What did you ask of the Prophets?"

"The universe exists on many planes, Miss Le Marc. The one in which you and I are sitting here now is but one of them. Someone important to me, it is their job to traverse these planes and levels as often and quickly as you and I would travel across the distance of this room. It has taken a great toll on her, and on those who care for her. I asked the Prophets to help me understand her life so that I may help her somehow, and I am finding that the answers they are giving me are overwhelming."

"You consulted an Orb." Fleur spoke with reverence; she had been doing a lot of reading about the inner workings of the Bajoran faith and its customs to try to understand him better. It could be nothing else.

"Yes."

"Prophecy and Change?" she inquired, her hand over her mouth so as to keep the conversation between just the two of them.

"No, not that one. Which one really doesn't... well..." He waved the question away with his hand, not wanting to give away quite that much. "In any event, it's taken months for the Prophets to reveal to me the truth, in stages. Each time I have another vision, they ask me again why I insist on continuing. They question my faith, my resolve to continue as a servant of them and of Bajor."

"Pagh tem'farr?" Fleur knew that only two things could drive a man to follow such a course. Either utter religious devotion, or passion bordering on madness. Seeing how conflicted Jariel seemed, she would place her bets that his motivation was the latter. The Prophets must know this as well.

"Perhaps they are jealous," she remarked, absently polishing the surface of the table with the cloth she held. "They would prefer to have you entirely to themselves, not to share you." She could understand their position entirely, she thought.

"Perhaps." Jariel hated to admit it, but there was no sense in lying to himself any longer. It was true that his loyalties had been divided ever since Zanh Liis came into his life in this timeline. Almost five years now he'd been struggling, trying to live up to expectations of the people, and their Prophets without his heart being in what he was doing. But that was nothing, he believed, compared to the years and years Liis had lived through in despair and desperation because of him outside the linear timeline. He had no right to complain.

"That is the problem with love," Fleur volunteered, reading him easily and clearly. "We cannot turn it on and off even when it would be a blessing to do so, eh?" Fleur folded her dishcloth again, unable to look him in the eyes. "You must truly love this woman."

"I..." Jariel began, and then he stopped, inhaling sharply. He dropped the spoon he'd been fidgeting between his fingers and doubled over.

He enclosed his head in his hands. Fleur managed to keep it from slamming into the deck as he slumped out of his chair, and as a commotion rose in the room over the Vedek's loss of consciousness. People had started to come out of the kitchen, hearing the commotion in the dining room and Fleur shouted to them to get medical help, right away.

"Il sera bien," she whispered to Jariel as she cradled his head. She wrapped her arms tightly around him and began gently rocking him to and fro. "Vous serez bien."

-=End Flashback*=-

Fleur now stood in the doorway of the small room where Jariel knelt, among broken pieces of the planters he'd brought with him aboard ship. She wanted nothing more than to reach out to him, to pull him into her arms and tell him that everything would be all right, that he was not alone.

She realized, now watching in horror as his shoulders shook with sobs and he repeated one thing aloud, that woman's name, over and over, that she could not comfort him. She could not be what he wanted, she could not give him what he needed.

Feeling more helpless than she could ever remember, save that dark day when he collapsed before her eyes in her cafe on that cold, metallic space station, Fleur backed up slowly. She finally retreated, grateful only for the fact that he had not turned around to see the look on her face as she came to the devastating conclusion that the only thing worse than having to watch Vedek Jariel Camen love Zanh Liis, was having to watch him mourn her.


Fleur Le Marc
Civilian Stowaway
Aboard the Alchemy