351: Sorrow's Crown

by Zanh Liis
80616.22
Following Frailties
Soundtrack: When the Stars Go Blue by the Corrs
Awake by Josh Groban

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"...a sorrow's crown of sorrow

is remembering happier things." ~Tennyson

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-=Sickbay, USS Serendipity=-

Liis stood helplessly watching as Avery and his team set to work. She was only grateful that the engineering team had gotten at least one set of transporters up and running once again.

"He's not breathing," Breaux announced, "defibrillator!" He ripped Keiran's shirt off of him and began to apply small electrodes to his chest to conduct the shock needed to attempt to restart his heart.

Liis turned her head as the nurses began to remove the rest of Keiran's clothing as well. Someone, she could not have said who, offered her a hand and helped her up from the floor.

She moved outside the curtained off area where the trauma equipment was, and she stared blankly at the wall as she heard a blur of voices, equipment, and roaring in her ears; the rushing of her own blood.

A nurse approached Zanh a few moments later as the trauma team continued in the next room. "Captain, would you please keep these safe?"

Liis didn't respond. She felt the woman grasp her hand and gently press something into it. "For Commander O'Sullivan. Until he," the nurse saw the look on Zanh's face and knew that she didn't have to say anything more. She thanked Zanh quickly and returned to O'Sullivan's bedside to offer what assistance she could.

Liis looked down at her hand and saw two things. The first thing must have fallen out of one of Keiran's pockets. Not surprising, it never seemed to be far from where he was.

It was his mother's rosary.

The sight of the second item she'd been entrusted with delivered a crushing blow, and Liis felt her way along the wall to the nearest chair and slid down into it.

She looked down at the signet ring that Keiran always wore- the one with the O'Sullivan family crest on it. The metal was still warm from the heat of his body. As she stared intently at the ring now, Liis could not stop herself from sliding it, as large as it was, onto her hand.

As soon as the ring made contact with her skin, she lost all hold on where she really was. She whispered words aloud that she didn't understand, even though they felt as natural to her as speaking Bajoran.

"An Lámh Fhoisteanach Abú"

-=Early 2381, Alternate timeline:

The night before the events in Undone Part Four=-

"Sorry, sorry," Liis repeated, as she tripped once more over the tips of Keiran's enormous, booted feet. "You're going to have no digits left at all if you don't give up this masochistic exercise in futility."

"Worry not, darlin'." Keiran laughed once. "They're steel-toed, yeah."

He laughed again louder and harder as Liis reached out and swatted him playfully on the rear.

"Don't blame me if you do lose your toes, O'Sullivan. I told you, I'll never learn to dance. Not even the fencing lessons made me graceful enough for this. You've been trying to teach me ever since our wedding day, but it just ain't happening. Two right feet, remember?"

He lived to get a rise out of her. "''Tis two left feet, la."

Liis affectionately swiped at him again and Keiran roared. He grabbed her by the arms and they wrestled a bit, losing what was left of their balance and falling onto the couch in their living room. Arms and legs tangled up, they didn't attempt to move for quite a while as the song he'd put on for their dance continued to play in the background.

"I do like the song, though," Liis smiled softly, leaning her head against his shoulder. "I just won't ever be able to dance to it with you without risking your life and limbs. Sorry, honey. It's not one of my gifts."

*You have others which more than compensate,* Keiran thought.

"You know," he suggested, trying to get a few words out between laughs and attempts to catch his breath. "If you would just let me lead, you'd do fine."

"You've never had a problem with me leading before," Liis whispered wickedly, slipping her fingers beneath his shirt and running her hand up and down his chest. She was no longer speaking of slow dancing and he knew it.

Keiran rumbled softly with laughter and satisfaction as the warmth and nearness of her body began to arouse him. "Damn straight, Zanh Liis. I will follow wherever you lead me. Right off the edge of the map."

Finally they shifted position, settling in with Keiran's long legs stretched out across the couch, and Liis laying along side him with her head against his chest. Keiran reached to the back of her head and freed the clasp holding her hair in place. It tumbled down beyond her shoulders and he ran a hand through it, releasing the braid into silky waves that felt cool and smooth against his fingers.

Liis exhaled serenely in approval. She tightened her arms around him as he kissed the top of her head.

Suddenly, he felt the need to ask her the question he had never had the nerve to ask her before tonight. Not even after all their time as partners in their work, and a year spent living every single day together as man and wife.

"Liis,"

"Hmm?"

"Look at me."

The tone in his voice had changed so much, so quickly, Liis didn't know what to think. So she simply did as he asked and looked up, waiting for him to speak again.

"Do I make ye happy?"

Liis couldn't even process the question. "What?"

"Are ye glad yis married me?" he paused, "'cause,"

She knew what the 'cause' meant.

She lifted her hand upward and placed it against his lips.

"Keiran Riley O'Sullivan, do you see this ring on my finger?"

He nodded once.

"From the moment you put it onto my hand, I have never looked back. Only forward," Even as she said the words though, her eyes seemed to take on a depth of shadows that Keiran could hardly bear. "I love you, and I am very lucky to be your wife."

*But you didn't answer the question, did you.* Keiran thought dejectedly. Crestfallen, he tried to paste a look of acceptance onto his face with limited success.

"It's our anniversary," Liis murmured invitingly, moving to rise from the couch. "We've got champagne. Timothy ordered it special for us. It's on ice. In there," she gestured toward the bedroom door with her eyes. "Do I have to drink it alone?"

Keiran sat up on the edge of the couch, still disappointed by the hesitation in her eyes as she had deftly avoided giving him the answer he so badly needed from her.

Liis frowned.

"Keiran," she groaned his name in a way that changed the syllabic emphasis, drawing both halves out slowly. "Don't. Please." She knew that any time anything that even remotely reminded him of the past or of Jariel came up that he could get into a mood- and brood for days.

His jealousy was something she had tried so hard to convince him wasn't needed, and yet with one wrong answer she had thrown fuel onto the fire once again. A fire which had nearly extinguished itself at last, she thought, just before she'd gone and started the destructive cycle all over again.

"I'm sorry," he answered sincerely, finally rising from his seat. "''Tis just that I hoped, after a time,"

"Keiran," Liis moved over to the entertainment console hidden within the antique armoire beside the couch. She changed the song selection and then took each of his massive hands into hers. "Dance with me."

All joking aside, she had been watching instructional vid files about how to really do this late at nights after he'd fallen asleep. She kept at it until she could finally do it well, and a proper dance at last was going to be her anniversary present to him when the moment was right.

She could think of no better moment than this.

As a soft piano introduction filled the room, Liis watched Keiran's lips part in surprise as she gently placed both of his hands on her hips, and clasped both of her arms around his neck.

Keiran's heart raced as he watched his wife gracefully sway back and forth in his arms, in perfect time with the music and his own steps. He didn't know what to say- or how to thank her for this gift.

She was even letting him lead.

"See?" She whispered, looking up at him. Her deep blue eyes were glistening in the dim light. "I can learn from the past. I can be taught."

Keiran only wished he could know for sure if her tears were of joy at being with him, or sorrow over someone she couldn't let go of despite her love for him.

Then he realized this was what he'd worked so hard for. For so many years. To be here with her, just like this. Why was he wasting a moment worrying about anything or anyone outside these walls?

Damn the Kai. Keiran just couldn't care anymore what he'd been to Liis. All of that was in the past, and the present was all that mattered.

She was all that mattered.

He swept all six feet of her up into his arms and carried her across the threshold into their bedroom. As he felt the desire in her kiss he knew that it was time, really time, to let the past be the past and stop tormenting her over things that she couldn't change-- whether she wanted to or not.

-=/\=-

Sitting now in Sickbay of the USS Serendipity, Captain Zanh Liis stared in a continual trance at the crest of the ring on her finger- remembering everything else that had happened that night with clarity she had rarely known. She felt the pain that Keiran had endured in having to live with the worry she'd never be his entirely, and she felt guilty somehow, though none of this made sense.

As images of the night they'd spent celebrating together faded into the darkness of remembering sleep, Liis realized that at that point the vision suddenly stopped cold. Like film running out in the middle of one of Reece's beloved motion picture reels- there was no more story to tell.

*What the hell had happened the next morning?*

"Captain?"

Zanh kept staring.

"Captain Zanh? Keiran's alive."

Hearing Avery speak Keiran's name, Liis refocused. She looked up, covering one hand with the other in the hopes that Avery wouldn't see she was wearing the ring.

Liis cleared her throat and tried to resume speaking with her best calm and detached 'commanding officer' voice- a far cry from the way she felt. "Will he be all right?"

"I have to figure out what happened before I can tell you anything more. I just wanted you to know his heart is beating, he's breathing and that's a lot to be grateful for."

Liis nodded. She was trembling, and Avery took note.

"Captain you must get some rest. If anything changes, we'll let you know right away. I give you my word."

"All right," Liis agreed, "I just. A moment. Please."

"Only one." Avery warned. He led Liis back behind the curtain, where Keiran was laying still with leads attached to his chest and a blanket pulled up to his waist. Avery whispered to the nurses and they all stepped just beyond the curtain, allowing Zanh a moment of privacy.

Liis first set his rosary down on the table beside the bed, so it would be there the moment he looked for it.

Then she gently lifted his left hand from the bed and prepared to put the ring back onto his third finger, knowing that was where he always had worn it.

As she slid the ring over his knuckle and down against his hand, she had another overwhelming vision.

This time they were standing before an ivy covered arbor behind a small, beautiful house. Keiran had never looked more amazing than he did in his dark suit with a rose from their own garden pinned to the lapel.

For his part, Keiran didn't even notice what Liis was wearing. All he could see was her lovely face, framed by soft waves of dark hair held back on one side by a sprig of baby's breath. It was then he noticed. . .she wasn't wearing her earring. The one that Jariel had given her when she was seventeen.

Perhaps there was hope after all they were both truly starting a new life today.

Liis held his hands fast in hers.

She heard her name and glanced sideways at the priest who, as a favor to the man he'd known since he'd been a choir boy, had agreed to perform their wedding outside of the church because it was what Keiran's Bajoran bride had asked for.

"Liis, please repeat after me," Father Quinn instructed, "With this ring, I thee wed."

"With this ring," Liis said slowly, smiling up at Keiran as she maneuvered the ring onto his hand, "I thee wed."

"Keiran?" The Father continued.

"With this ring," Keiran replied, putting a more diminutive, white gold version of the family signet ring onto Liis' hand as well, "I thee wed."

"Then in as much as the two of you have taken these vows before the company assembled here today and also exchanged rings as a sign of your commitment, I now pronounce that you, Keiran and Liis, are husband and wife. Keiran,"

Keiran didn't wait to be invited. He kissed Liis joyfully, then hugged her so tightly her feet lifted from the ground.

Zanh Liis shook violently now as the image faded, and she realized that the man lying so silently in the bio-bed before her was someone she had known- and had cared for- so much more than she had ever imagined possible.

She leaned over, unable to stop herself from pressing her lips against his cheek. She felt inexorable sadness, but was in far too great a state of shock to cry.

"I'm so sorry, Keiran. For everything." She didn't know what she was sorry for exactly but she was, even still.

"Captain," Breaux held the curtain back, "I'm sorry, but you have to leave. We've got tests to do. I promise, I'll keep you posted."

Without a word or look of acknowledgment, Liis felt her way along the wall, out of Sickbay and into the corridor.

As she continued to lean against the Sera for support, ghostly echoes of the voice of Keiran O'Sullivan accompanied her home.

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-=/\=-Zanh Liis
Commanding Officer
USS Serendipity NCC-2012