609: Her Worst Nightmare: Two

by -=/\=- Zanh Liis
81022.00
-=Soundtrack: Love is the End by Keane=-

-=/\=-

...continued from part one...


-=/\=-In her dream=--


"How did he die?" Brody pressed her, needing to see if she could make it through this once, finally. "What happened exactly?"

Her mouth was arid, her voice hoarse as she forced her lips to form the words she hated so.

"The bubble, when it collapsed, was going so fast. Salvek locked onto the lifesigns he could find, and saved sixteen members of the Perseids crew." She clutched her hands together over her stomach beneath the blanket.

"Keiran had already...perished...on the bridge. Before the beam out. They said he just collapsed and there was nothing they could do for him. I would assume that the Sylph started with him, before the others. They must've turned their attention to the rest of the crew once they had," Liis voice faded. "Once they had taken their revenge on him."

"So you believe that the Sylph killed Captain O'Sullivan intentionally."

"Of that," she narrowed her vision, locking onto him with eyes dead calm, "I have no doubt."

"You're doing well so far, Zanh Liis. Very well. I'm proud of you."

She gave no response.

"Can you tell me next, what is the variant outcome that you believed you were living in right before you ended up here with us?"

"That variant…" Liis tried to keep ahead of her rising emotions, pushing through the pain by trying to give as formal a report as possible. "The entire Perseids crew survived. Keiran and I both retained our memories and we were," she stared at the floor.

"You were,"

"We were going to get married."

"I see." Though he felt terrible about all she'd suffered, he never allowed his expression to alter to display his sympathy. "What happened, in reality?"

"I remember," she faded away, becoming a shadow of herself right before his eyes. She drew her knees to her chest and wrapped her arms around them.

"I just remember that I heard someone screaming, and screaming." She glanced up to the bright lights overhead, tears forming a film over her eyes, but never falling.

"At some point I realized it was me."

-=Flashback: USS Serendipity=-


"KEIRAN!"

"Captain?" Salvek attempted to grab Zanh by the arm, but she turned on him, eyes wild. Shocked, he took a step back.

Salvek called next to Blane, who though disoriented from his first ever Sylph encounter managed to stay on his feet.

Instantly, Blane responded, clasping Zanh's hands together behind her back so she couldn't injure herself or anyone else.

"Get her phaser, Commander, quickly. And look out, I think she's still got that knife in her boot." Blane warned.

Liis kicked, screamed, and bucked like a wild horse. "NO! Let me go! Please, I have to find him!"

"We're still accounting for those from the other ship, Captain, just wait and," Salvek tapped his badge. "McKay to transporter room one. Medical emergency."

[Commander, we've accounted for all of the Perseids crew,] Zander’s voice broke in over Salvek’s communicator, [...all except for her Captain.]

"KEIRAN!" Liis screamed as she fought to get free of Blane, but she was unable. "NO!"

The next thing she felt was the cold sting of a hypo being applied to her throat, and then everything went black.

-=End Flashback=-


"What happened after that?" Brody asked. "Do you remember how you got here?"

"Honestly? No. I believe they had me sedated the entire trip."

"Well, they had little choice," He unclasped his hands and shifted in his chair, crossing his legs in the opposite direction. "Do you know why that is?"

Her jaw clenched, and she stared a hole in the wall beside her, avoiding his eyes.

"Captain, we have to get through all of this if you ever want to be returned to duty."

Still, Liis refused to answer.

"Both times they brought you around, you talked your way out of your restraints. Very convincingly, I might add. Then as soon as the medical staff turned their backs for a second,” Brody frowned deeply.

“You tried to commit suicide, Zanh Liis." He informed her, though she was already well aware. "Twice."

She remained still as a statue.

"Can you tell me why?

She couldn't believe he actually made a living at asking such stupid questions.

"After what I saw...after all of the alternate outcomes that I had to live through." She stopped, sitting up straight on the edge of the bed and glaring at him, "You tell me what sane person wouldn't have considered death an attractive option at that point."

He let her words hang in the air, unanswered.

"I think we've accomplished enough for one day. I'll see you tomorrow." He rose from his chair slowly. He folded it up, and also the one beside it, leaving her with nothing in the room but the bed.

"If I let you keep the sheet and blankets…"

"Tucker," she groaned, "I'll be fine. See you later."

"All right, Liis. I'd just hate to have to turn the monitoring devices back on. You know if I had to, they'd extend your stay and I'd have no say in the matter. It'd be mandatory."

"I know." She lay back against the small pillow, pulled the too-thin blanket over her again and continued to shiver.

"Believe me I am not going to do anything that keeps me here a second longer than I have to be. Do me a favor, will you? Tell them to turn the damned heat up, it's freezing in here."

"I'll see what I can do. 'Night."

Brody closed the door behind him and secured it.

Waiting for him, just up the hallway, was a small woman with gray hair and Admiral's bars on her collar.

"So?" Lassiter folded her arms and tapped her toe impatiently. "Is she ready to go back?"

"She wants to," Brody knew this was what she wanted to hear, but still, he was uncertain.

"I'm not sure, though, Admiral. She has only just begun to be able to articulate what has really happened to her. It's going to take a long time for her to be able to process it all and truly begin to heal."

"She will do her best healing on the job, I know that." Lassiter insisted. "I know her. She will do much better as soon as she is back where she feels she has some control. That is working, aboard her ship, surrounded by her faithful crew."

Lassiter held something out to him, and she watched as he tilted his head in dismay, wondering what it was.

"This," she explained, displaying the large ring that she held, "Will be her litmus test."

-=The Following Morning=-


She'd finally been given decent looking street clothes today to put on after her shower. That was an encouraging sign.

Usually they gave her something that was not quite a pair of pajamas and not quite a jogging suit, either.

Like most things that were a combination of two other things, the outfit succeeded at one thing only: being neither.

There was a knock on the door, and Zanh didn't bother saying 'come in'. She had found out as soon as the sedatives had worn off that they didn't give a damn whether you wanted them to come in or not. Once they knocked you had a split second and then they were coming in, end of story.

"Good morning, Captain Zanh."

"Morning, Lila," Liis nodded to her favorite nurse's aid on the ward. "Time for that thing they dare to call breakfast?"

Lila was amazed to hear Zanh make any sort of a joke, barely recognizing her as the catatonic woman who had ended up here weeks ago. "Actually, you have a visitor."

Zanh pursed her lips. "That's interesting. They haven't let me see anyone since I got here." Immediately she smelled a set-up, and prepared herself. She twisted her hair into a neatly wound knot at the nape of her neck and headed to the door.

"Well, then. Let's not keep my visitor waiting."

She caught sight of the man before he looked up and saw her, and her heart seemed to go into reverse for just a moment before righting itself.

She marched to the table, hand extended. To his surprise, she called him by name.

"William Torquil Lindsay." Liis inclined her head toward him as he rose and accepted her hand.

"Zanh Liis."

"You know who I am," Liis raised an eyebrow. "Yet far as I know, in this time you and I have never met."

"You seem to know me well enough on sight. Have we met... elsewhere?" He asked the leading question he'd been told to. His eyes shifted nervously.

He hated this.

The only reason he had ever agreed to it at all was because they told him that if she passed this test, she would get her command back.

Since he couldn't give her the thing that he knew she really wanted, and he knew how important she'd been to Keiran, Lindsay figured this was the very least he could do for her now.

"From my perspective, we've met once." She sat down slowly and waited for him to do the same. She leaned in closer across the small metal table between them. "You were wearing a kilt at the time."

Lindsay's eyes took on a depth of sadness as he remembered the one and only thing that could get him to wear a kilt, in this time, or any other. A gentleman's agreement; one which he would have upheld in this turn of the timeline as well, only there had been no public funeral.

With nothing to bring home to them, Starfleet had been able to offer little comfort to the grieving O'Sullivans, and they had opted for very small, private services: immediate family only.

"How are you feeling?" He asked softly, sincerely wanting to know.

"How do you think I feel, Will?" Her steel blue eyes locked on his. "How do you feel?"

He averted his eyes.

"I have something for you. I don't know how it played out in the paradox you experienced, but in this time, before Keiran left with the Perseids, he left an envelope behind. To be held in trust for you. I'm here to deliver the contents."

He pulled the ring from his pocket and set it onto the top of the table.

He rose and walked to the far end of the small room, allowing her a moment of seeming privacy in which to react.

Liis gasped softly. She stared at it for a long time before she finally regained enough command of her senses to reach out and touch it.

She thought at first it might be a reproduction, but she had memorized exactly where the scratches and tiny imperfections from wear had been when she saw it last. They were all here, in too much detail to be recreated so precisely.

"S H T V." She whispered, as she brought the ring to her lips and placed a kiss upon the crest. "I can't believe they let me have it."

"They?"

"You know. They. The people who are watching every word we say to each other right now from the next room." Zanh said. absolutely correct in her assumption. "I'm only surprised they didn't send the rosary and the deed to the land over too. Or weren't those in the envelope this time?"

"They were."

"Good. Give the rosary to Mary Clare and the land to Carrick." She continued staring at the ring as he turned around. "Carrick is still alive isn't he? I mean he was yesterday when I asked but I have learned that you can't take these things for granted."

"He is."

"See to it then that he has his father's land. Please, Will, I," Liis looked down at the ring, clutching it in her hand tightly, "I have no need of it."

"No need?" He frowned, "He wanted you to have it, Liis.”

She pushed away from the table and stood in the corner, with her back to the wall, facing out.

"What in the world is there for me to go back to?" Her eyes now plead with him to back off, just a little.

"Where do you want to go, Zanh Liis?"

"Home, to the Sera. To my family."

"Well, if I can do anything to help that process along, I will do." He stepped over to her, placing his hand upon her shoulder.

"No one could've done better, in my humble opinion, given the circumstances. You're a hell of a lot stronger than you think. Than they give you credit for." He was looking beyond her; speaking directly to the wall, or, more accurately, the people standing on the other side of it.

"Thanks, Will." She patted his hand before he withdrew it. Finally, he made his way to the door.

"We should talk, sometime.” He offered, ”You know, about the things that we remember about him."

A sad smile crossed her face. "I'd really like that."

"Be well, Zanh Liis." He was in a hurry to escape before his emotions overcame him, and he knocked twice on the door, requesting release.

"Hey, Lindsay, wait." She had one question before he left, knowing she very well may never see him again.

"What was his end of the bargain?"

"How's that?"

"If you had died first, what would he have had to do to fulfill the terms of the bet?"

Surprise was his first reaction. He gave a small, hollow laugh as he considered the answer.

An identically sad smile to the one she'd worn a moment before appeared on his lips.

"Bagpipes." He revealed softly. "He would've had to have taken at least one full-length lesson on the bagpipes."

Liis actually laughed, for the first time since she'd arrived at this awful place.

The sound of her own reaction took her by surprise, and as the heavy door clanged shut behind William Lindsay, she sank into the chair where he had been sitting.

She held out Keiran's ring, examining it until tears blurred her vision.

Her silent tears turned to audible sobs, and she folded her arms on the tabletop and lay her head down.

-=/\=-

On the other side of the divide, Lassiter nodded with satisfaction, and Brody thanked Lindsay for his help.

"What's to become of her, then?" Lindsay asked, his brow creased with worry.

"Now that she's fully accepted the truth that he's gone, and that the here and now is reality," Brody replied sadly, "Now, we can send her home."

-=End dream=-


Liis' tears rained down onto his bare chest as she finished her description of the final horrors she had experienced living the paradox. The very same images which continued to haunt her dreams now, in the current, correct timeline.

"I know now, with complete certainty, Keiran," she declared, as she tugged absently on his ring, hanging from the chain around her neck. "What would have become of me if you hadn't come home."

"I'm sorry," he kissed her forehead as he ran his hand up and down her back. "So sorry you've had to go through all of this because of me."

"Hey," the tone in his voice brought her out of her daze and she sat up, looking at him. She caressed his cheek, which sported a full day's growth of stubble by this time. "No more than you've been through for me. I'd do it all again, I'd suffer anything to be here with you. I just can't believe you're really here."

"An'a'thing I can do to help you?"

"Make me believe it."

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