by -=/\=- Zanh Liis
80722.00
...continued from part one...
-=Alternate timeline, 2376=-
80722.00
...continued from part one...
-=Alternate timeline, 2376=-
******
Hours later, Zanh Liis awoke with a start and sat straight up.
Intense morning light streamed in through an unfamiliar window and burned her eyes.
Where the hell was she?
She looked around the room and began to recognize an object here, a painting there.
She had been here before.
*Oh. No.*
She looked down and saw that she was still fully clothed, and that gave her hope that at least maybe, after she'd blacked out she hadn't done anything she'd regret too horribly.
She poked her head around the corner and saw O'Sullivan in the kitchen. He was pouring steaming, black liquid from a small glass pitcher of some sort into mugs. The odor of it was pungent. Then she recognized the aroma; it was the Terran beverage, that thing they called 'coffee'.
She'd never been tempted to try it, no matter how many people had recommended it to her. But if it was true what they said, that it could wake you up, then this morning she might have to finally cave and drink some.
"Top of the mornin' to ya, Zanh Liis."
He heard her footsteps before he saw her, but didn't look up from the eggs he was cracking over a skillet as he stood in the small efficiency kitchen.
"Shower is down the hall to your left, I've put a new uniform out for ya. I guessed at the size, hope it fits."
"Thank you," was all she had the strength to say, as she shuffled off into the sonic shower to try to find herself somewhere in it.
When she moved back into the kitchen a short time later, she was more awake if not truly alert.
"You look like hell. Here, use these." O'Sullivan handed her a small bottle of eye drops. She grumbled, but she used them.
She would have made a smart remark in response but she'd already seen herself in the mirror and knew he was right.
She did look like hell.
"How did I get here?"
He answered her with a question as he placed the eggs he'd been cooking onto two plates in equal portions and then set them down on the small table nearby.
"Do you think it's my habit to let any partner of mine go off alone in the state you were in when you tried to ditch me last night?" He sat down, took a sip of his coffee and began to eat his breakfast.
His progress quickly slowed and he set his fork aside. For some reason the longer she sat across from him at the table and the longer he looked at her, the less hungry he felt.
Before she could answer, he poured her a cup of coffee from the press pot beside him and nodded toward it. "Drink up, no? Does wonders."
With that gentle suggestion, Zanh Liis wrapped still shaky hands around the cup and tasted her first sip of coffee.
Before she knew it she was on her second mug full, and still wanted more. As something akin to clarity returned to her, she broached the topic she was dreading.
"Last night, I didn't say...or...do..." She didn't know quite how to ask what she needed to ask. She glanced over toward the couch, and, seeing his boots beside it and his pillow and blanket upon it, felt the need for an answer diminish.
O'Sullivan was nothing if not a gentleman, she had no doubt that she'd slept off her over- indulgence alone.
"Nothing too unbecoming an officer, Zanh Liis. Well, aside from a little off key Coldplay, but I think if they were still with us, the boys in the band would forgive ya. I certainly do, because believe me, the performance was not without entertainment value."
He rumbled softly with laughter as he referred by name to one of the musical groups that they often liked to listen to while they were working on gathering information, or writing reports, or any other form of the tedious work that accompanied the more frenzied part of their jobs.
It had been quite something for O'Sullivan to find that Zanh, though she may be Bajoran and tone deaf to boot, God bless her, shared a love for music of his home world. Especially that of centuries past- her passion for it as strong as his.
"Dear gods. I didn't slaughter anything from X and Y did I? I would hate to have that on my conscience."
"Not at all. Put it this way, Roman cavalry choirs weren't the only ones singin' last night."
Zanh blanched. "Sorry."
She picked up her fork and poked at the eggs he'd served her, but knew better than to try to eat them. She set the utensil aside again in favor of another gulp of coffee.
"Try the cream in it, yeah? Might like it better." Keiran indicated the small container of white liquid beside her, and she decided to take his suggestion. She poured it into the swirling black of the coffee and watched, hypnotized, as the two merged.
"How do you do it?" She inquired softly.
"Make coffee? I can show you-"
"No, not that. How do you do this. This insanity. How do you do it, Commander?"
He knew she wasn't finished, so he simply let her talk.
"The Jump. We were supposed to fix everything. Make it all right again. We did the homework, we executed every detail according to plan,"
"Aye, sometimes things just don't go accordin' to plan, Zanh Liis. And you have to know somethin' right now or you won't make it in this line of work."
"What's that?"
"We can't fix everything."
He allowed her to process the words, observing the sadness in her eyes at the mere thought of repeated failures.
"We can do our best, keep going and keep working, but if there is ever a time where absolutely everything is right according to how we wish it to be..." he paused, "I've yet to see it."
"You will see it," Liis replied, as she pushed away from the table and began searching the apartment for her boots. "Because I can't settle for anything less."
"You'll drive yourself mad, Lieutenant." O'Sullivan warned sadly, as she hopped into her boots while heading for the door in a rush. "I've seen it before. Demanding perfection of yourself, or of Time...is more than the quickest road to insanity. It is nothing short of suicide."
"Thank you for looking after me last night, I'll," she paused in the doorway as she threw her jacket over her shoulders. "See you at work."
-=End Flashback=-
If only she had known then how right he truly was.
As the unrelenting memories continued, she lay back on her bunk and closed her eyes once more.
-=/\=-Zanh Liis
Commanding Officer
USS Serendipity/Alchemy
Commanding Officer
USS Serendipity/Alchemy