578: Time and Again: One

by -=/\=- Zanh Liis
81014.00
-=1600 hours, the same day as The Question=-
Soundtrack: Time and Again by a-ha

-=Deck Three, Officer's Quarters: USS Serendipity=-

She'd been lying motionless beside him for some time now, but had never fallen asleep.

She was much too wired, running on adrenaline as well as another, much more powerful and unfamiliar intoxicant.

Happiness.

She propped herself up, completely entranced as she silently watched over him.

*If this is a dream, I can't wake up. I just can't.*

Her mind rewound over hours now gone, playing forward in vivid imagery all that had happened since his proposal.

After she accepted, Keiran held her close for a very long time. He seemed terrified to let go, certain she would disappear the second he released her.

Liis felt the same inescapable pull toward him and was content to stay there, safe in his embrace as long as he wanted.

After awhile, he wordlessly tilted her face up toward his and kissed her...

...and kissed her... and kissed her.

'Computer." She managed to gasp, when he finally gave her a chance to breathe. His eyes were alive with a light she remembered well. She had forgotten just how completely a single look from him could disarm her, and for the first time in a very long time, she was stuttering.

"Save program."

He grasped her hand tightly in his, and without another word she followed willingly where he led.

The moment the doors were closed and locked behind them, need and instinct immediately took over.

There was no question here, there were no doubts.

There was only this.

His hands found her skin and clarity followed, just a half-step behind.

She was struck by how different things seemed when she saw herself and her life through his brilliant, unwavering eyes.

His touch returned something to her; that intangible thing she had been searching for so long, she was lost as to what was actually missing.

Until now.

A peace she had never felt before came with the sense of knowing that if even everything around them was gone tomorrow and there was nothing else left for her to believe in, she could always put faith in him.

She could find solace in his affection; trusting in the unspoken understanding that in his arms, even the darkest contents of her soul made sense.

*I could lay here forever, just watching him sleep...*

She was violently shaken from her reverie by the sound of his voice, crying out her name in despair. The memories still hunted him, allowing no rest even in his dreams.

"Keiran, wake up." She tried to rouse him gently, aware that though his body was present, his mind was existing in an entirely different place and time.

"No!" he shouted, much more frantically. "Liis, No!"

"O'Sullivan!" She raised her voice to match the volume of his. "Open your eyes!" She shook him by the shoulders once, and he finally returned to full consciousness.

His breathing was ragged and shallow. His eyes darted around the room, panicked and searching his surroundings.

Though she felt her heart would break at the sight, still she tried to reassure him. "Keiran, look at me." She softened her tone as he sat up and turned, following the sound of her voice. "I'm right here."

He tried to focus on her face but the dream had been so real that it left him dizzy and disoriented.

"My compass," he plead. "Where is it?"

"You don't have it anymore, remember? Your ship was,"

"The house was gone. Destroyed by the storm and you were, oh God." He grasped hold of her arms, trembling. "I lost you, Liis, and I can't..."

"Keiran, look at me." She repeated purposely, to try to hold his attention in the moment. She took his face into her hands. "That was a long time ago, and it's over. I'm here, and I am all right."

She kissed him tenderly."Everything is going to be all right."

He closed his eyes and dropped his head down onto her shoulder. "I can't...I can't believe you're real."

"I am." She promised. "As real as you are." She leaned him gently back into the pillows, resting her head against his chest.

He sighed, trying to shake off the devastation that the dream revived in him as he enclosed her in his arms.

He kissed the top of her head, sure even as he did so that at any moment he was going to be somewhere else, in another time and far away from her.

She worried, recalling all too clearly how bad his nightmares could get and the state that they would leave him in. Sometimes, for days. "Tell me," she implored him, still shaken. "Tell me how to help you, Keiran."

"Just. Stay with me. Here, like this. I'll be okay." He focused intently on the sound of her breathing, which, after his nightmare was more beautiful than any song he had ever heard or could ever hear.

He loved her before, that much he knew for certain as he thought of that past life. But in many ways he'd been a different man, his love for her weakened by jealousy, insecurity, and a host of other negative emotions that had kept him from giving her the best of who he was.

He knew he would never be perfect. That he would always be, in some ways, a prisoner of the past they had lived.

He could only hope that given time they could find a way to heal each other, and he could finally show her the kind of love that he had wanted to give her all along.

Wishing to distract him from his darker thoughts and fears, she posed a question that she'd wanted to ask for some time.

"When, exactly..." His hand elevated and began smoothing her hair, and she quickly became distracted, abandoning her thought. "Mmm."

"When?" he prompted after her question died out, half spoken.

"Yeah, um, when," she began again, fighting to speak coherently. "...did you start to remember me?"

"You mean when did I last start to remember you? So many times I've remembered you when I wasn't supposed to." He allowed his fingers to become entangled in the silken strands. "I just never could get you out of my head, Zanh Liis. Or my heart."

She lifted her head and moved forward, answering him with a kiss.

"Mmm," he echoed, closing his eyes and exhaling slowly. "How can a man be expected to remember an'athing after a kiss like that?"

"How about after one like this?" She quickly shifted position, holding him down and kissing him much more deliberately.

His eyes stayed shut, as the room seemed to spin in tight, fast circles. "I won't remember who I am after another one of those."

She laughed softly with satisfaction before turning serious again. "Really, though. How long did it take until you remembered that we'd met before?"

"Not long at all, and even before I did there was something about you." He confessed. "That day after I first got here. I saw you standin' in the arboretum with your shoes off, and those denim overalls," his expression grew wistful at the thought. "You smiled at me...which was completely unfair, by the way. I didn't stand a bloody chance."

She studied his face as he spoke, still disbelieving that anyone could see her the way that he did. His passionate stare and the sound of his voice stole the very oxygen from the air around her.

He reached up and began to caress the chain of her earring as it dangled above him. He watched it shine, transfixed as it reflected the passing streaks of starlight coming in through the view port.

"At first, it was just a feeling I had that we'd met, maybe we'd worked together. I chalked it up to the resequencing, right? Thought maybe we'd crossed paths somewhere along the way, that was all." His smile faded, his mood returning from reflection to sorrow.

"Then the nightmares came back."
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-=/\=- Zanh Liis
Captain of the Serendipity