by Rada Dengar and Lair Kellyn
80704.22
Concurrent with RSVP: Regrets Only
-=Mess Hall, USS Alchemy
(in her bay aboard the Sera)=-
80704.22
Concurrent with RSVP: Regrets Only
-=Mess Hall, USS Alchemy
(in her bay aboard the Sera)=-
The security sweep of the Alchemy was nearly complete, and as both Rada and Kellyn had expected, there was nothing untoward to be found.
Avery Breaux was too wise a man to go for the obvious in this way.
This also reinforced to Kellyn that his decision to leave was a personal one- one that he'd made to be true to his own heart and soul even though she knew from the way he'd behaved toward her just before he'd left that he was conflicted, even still, about leaving some of them behind.
She had lost friends in the past to the Maquis.
She did not like being reminded how it felt.
The years had taken a little of the sting out of the loss of those who left Starfleet's ranks during the war, those who were so certain that they had a righteous fight and a better way to win it. But the war was over. Had been over for more than a decade.
When was it ever going to truly end?
Satisfied that she had finally earned a short break, Kellyn wandered into the deserted Mess, and approached the replicator on the far wall.
"Mocha latte, extra whipped cream."
Lair picked up the mug and headed toward a table without thinking.
It was only once she sat down did she realize it was the very table that she and Avery and Rada had been sitting at the day she was released from Sickbay after nearly dying of electrocution- a fate that Breaux had saved her from himself with his quick thinking- and she had come to give him a gift to commemorate his promotion to her old position.
*I wonder if he bothered to take it with him.*
Sighing, she set her mug down. She didn't feel like drinking it anymore.
"Empty chairs at empty tables," she said softly to the room she believed was empty.
"Kellyn," Rada said, leaning in the doorway.
"Oh, Rada." Kellyn tried to smile, always happy to see him. She remembered how hesitant he had been to call her by her given name in the beginning- and inside she beamed with pride over how he had come into his own and the grace with which he handled himself, and his duties. "Just talking to myself again."
Rada made his way to the chair across from Kellyn and after a moment’s silence asked a question to which he already knew the answer, “Les Misérables, right?”
It would seem that Angosians had more acute hearing than Kellyn had realised.
“You’ve never mentioned an interest in old Earth musicals,” Kellyn commented, moving the conversation away from the meaning of her words which they could both clearly see.
“Actually, I don’t have one,” Rada admitted. He recalled now how when he’d first come on board the Independence the idea of confessing to a difference in preferences to those of a Senior Officer had seemed so terrifying that he’d almost massacred a kalact bush in an attempt to convince the Captain that he actually enjoyed gardening. He in many ways thanked Kellyn for the fact that he could now get past this.
“It’s just that when I first travelled to Earth I noticed what could best be described as a series of social oddities. One of them was an inordinate number of references to the number 24601 subtly dispersed through out Earth’s fictional works. At first, never having heard of Jean Valjean, I suspected a global conspiracy which was threatening to engulf the Federation.
"When I did eventually find out the truth and come to realise that this information was widely available I decided that I would comb carefully through the words of every incarnation of this story, including the musicals, until I could offer some kind of explanation for the various bizarre elements of Terran behaviour I’d encountered. Unfortunately, afterwards I found myself more confused about them than ever.”
This made Kellyn smile for a moment as her mind began to drift towards the unique behaviour she had encountered from Terrans over the years but the smile went away when those thoughts led straight back to Avery.
Rada recognised that look and he also realised the significance of the particular song which had found its way to Kellyn’s mind. It was at the core of life in Starfleet that people would come and go. Some would be promoted, some would retire, some would choose to leave and some would simply die. There was only one commonality every single time, that when you looked around the room there was one face missing.
Each time this happened a melancholy moment occurred. A moment when your mind was filled not by thoughts of the absence of one, a moment when you began to wonder if like Marius the day would come for you when all the faces were gone and you were left to stand alone. All you could do was to hope it never did.
After a pause of two people thinking the same thing but neither saying it, Rada spoke a short confession.
“I keep thinking about the last time I spoke with him. Asking myself why I didn’t notice something then. He was always a bit of an enigma but I still thought I knew him more than most. Now I’m not so sure.”
Kellyn could not yet admit to Rada that looking back on her last conversation with Avery, she knew that he was saying his goodbyes.
"Even if you had known, Rada," she offered softly, "there is absolutely nothing you could have done- that any of us could have done, to change his mind."
---------------------------
LT. (JG) Rada Dengar
Chief Engineering Officer
USS Serendipity/Alchemy
and
Commander Lair Kellyn
Engineering Research and Development
The Alchemy Project
LT. (JG) Rada Dengar
Chief Engineering Officer
USS Serendipity/Alchemy
and
Commander Lair Kellyn
Engineering Research and Development
The Alchemy Project