by Jariel Camen
81128.0200
After Spilling the Beans
-=USS Alchemy=-
81128.0200
After Spilling the Beans
-=USS Alchemy=-
Dane and Camen stuck their heads through the door to Sickbay, and called for everyone to get their things together. Adams and Hartcort stuffed whatever remaining items they needed for the surface into their duffels in final preparation.
Fleur gathered up Tress, who was so sound asleep she did not even budge.
“Can I trouble you?” Adams asked, as she extended two additional duffels packed with medical equipment towards Camen.
“Of course Doctor.” He slung one bag over each shoulder. Each must have weighed twenty-five kilos. He wondered if there was anything left in Sickbay or if Doctor Adams has stored it all in these two bags.
Azalea then loaded down Dane with the same cargo.
“You can never have too many strong young men around. Thank you gentlemen.”
Despite all that was going on around him, Camen could not help but smile at Adams attempt to lighten the mood in the room. You had to have a good sense of humor and a benevolent aura about you to get through times like this, and Azalea Adams was providing everyone with just that.
Harcourt gathered up his own duffels, as did Adams. Dane took the lead, escorting the group to the ramp that lead to the surface.
Camen shook his head and laughed, as his first foot fell on the soil of Bajor once again.
“What is so funny, Camen?” Fleur asked, wondering what could elicit such a reaction at a time like this.
“Nothing, Fleur. It’s just,” Camen looked at her, and the trees behind her, and could not believe that of all places for the Alchemy to land and extend its ramp to the ground, that it would do so in this exact spot. “It’s just, you stepped off the ship in the exact same spot where you were standing when I first met you, before. Everything is exactly the same right down to the trees behind you.”
Fleur felt as if he described seeing a ghost. Still, the gleam in his eye warmed her soul. She never thought she would see an expression quite like that when he thought of her.
“How can you grin in such a way? I am exhausted, filthy, carrying a sick child. I do not know how I looked that day but I could not possibly look worse then I do now,” Fleur said shyly.
“You never look anything but beautiful.”
“Pfffft.” Fleur didn’t know how he could believe such a thing. Maybe she didn’t care. The idea that anyone could ever look upon her as beautiful, outside or inside, was something she had given up on long ago.
Camen ignored her insightful critique of his personal beliefs. Someday she would understand, he hoped, that no one had ever brought him fulfillment like she could. No one ever made him feel like he was all that mattered, like Fleur did when she held him close.
He wished more than anything he could be writing her love notes and discreetly listening outside her kitchen window while she sang love songs in her native tongue. Instead he was here, facing a crisis that threatened to break his heart.
But no matter how difficult the coming days were going to be, he at least had her strength by his side, and that made it all easier.
As he looked from Fleur, to the orphanage, the first thing he noticed was how quiet it was. Too quiet. It was late afternoon; this is when the children should have been out playing on the grounds.
There was no laughter today.
Camen noted as well that the weeds were already encroaching on the flowerbeds due to lack of care. He made a mental note to take time to remedy that at some point, no matter how busy he was.
“This is where you grew up then eh?” Fleur asked.
“Like so many children of Bajor.” Camen looked over his shoulder, at Dane Cristiane, who looked quite like he had seen a ghost himself.
Possibly he expected some ornate temple as the site of Jariel Camen’s upbringing. Possibly he expected some sort of military boarding school as the site of Zanh Liis’. When one saw the simple wooden doors, glass windows and quiet grounds of the Altaan Orphanage, it probably was never what one expected.
Camen pulled the front door open, and the sound of pained moaning and crying assaulted his hearing. Immediately any idea he had of waxing poetic about Altaan with Fleur melted away, and was replaced by waves of nausea.
The dining room had been converted into a makeshift triage center, where the sick children could be watched over by whatever adults were lucky enough to have stayed healthy.
“Excuse us,” Adams and Hartcort pushed past Camen, and immediately began making there was from cot to cot, examining the children to see which were the worst off.
“Let’s get a bed for Tress,” Camen offered.
“Oui,” Fleur felt helpless to comfort him, as she saw Camen’s heart breaking before her very eyes.
“The children were doing so well the last time I was here. Running, working, begging me to play with them.” He saw Milea in the room, sound asleep on a cot. She was not easy to miss since was quite a bit taller than the other children around her.
He sighed, thinking of how much he had looked forward to helping her on their project to replant the flora in the Plains. Not to mention how much she had looked forward to it, which pleased Camen more than anything.
He dropped the duffels in the corner for the doctors, and pointed out an empty cot for Tress. “We have some cribs around. Tress can rest here till I can fetch one.”
Fleur laid her on the bed, and one of the Prylars immediately brought a cool cloth.
“Where is Vedek Timal?” Camen asked.
“In his room, Vedek,” The Prylar answered.
“I will go with you,” Fleur stepped up to his side, determined that Camen would not see his long time friend so ill by himself.
Camen led the way back through the kitchen and into the rear of the orphanage. A few bright faces greeted him. It appeared only a handful of children had dodged the fever.
“When will Bema be better Vedek? I want to play with him.”
“I don’t know, child. A few days more though, at least. I know the adults are very busy, are you hungry? Are you getting food?”
“Yes Vedek, they are feeding us, but we’re bored. There is no time for anyone to play.”
Camen felt nearly as bad for the healthy children that got forgotten at times like this, as he did for those that were ill.
“What if I make a deal with you?”
The child grinned. Camen was infamous for his deals.
“If you can be patient, and read your texts for a few more hours, I’ll bring you aboard the Starfleet ship that brought me here, and you and the other healthy children can play all the games you want on the computer. How does that sound?”
The child nodded, indicating that the deal was acceptable, and ran off before Camen could change his mind.
“So, mighty Alchemy, the pride of Salvek, Lair Kellyn, and Starfleet Research and Development, is going to serve as an arcade for the children of Bajor?” Fleur asked.
“Timal would kill me. Salvek, would understand.”
Camen pushed open the door to Timal’s room, and saw his friend, drenched in sweat and tossing and turning in the throes of the fever. He approached the bedside, and placed the back of his hand on Timal’s forehead.
“Jariel? Water.” Timal managed to say through the haze. Camen was glad to see he was at least willing to drink. Fleur filled a glass from the pitcher in the room, and handed it to the man.
“Are you hungry at all?” Camen asked.
Timal shook his head, and drank a few sips of the water. “Just worry about the children, I’m fine.”
He set the glass down on the nightstand, and closed his eyes. There was a lamp there, Timal’s reading glasses, and a notepad. Jariel looked at the pad, and saw plans for a large playroom for the children. Along with the plans was a note that read; Need more latinum.
Even in his sickened state Timal was still trying to find a way to improve life here for the children. Camen knew it had taken years of saving and pleading with the government just to get funding for the schoolhouse they had built together.
“What iz it?” Fleur asked, as she watched Camen study the drawing.
“Naloy? Is that you?” Timal asked, upon hearing the female voice.
“No, Timal, it’s Camen. I brought the woman I told you about, Fleur.”
Timal mumbled, and Camen was unable to make it out.
“What did you say?”
“Marry me, Naloy.” Timal said a bit louder. “Marry me.”
“We should let him rest,” Jariel sighed.
“Who is Naloy?” Fleur just had to ask on the way out of Timal’s room.
“Jardin Naloy. He was in love with her, but never managed to ask her to marry him. She married another, a man called Anian Stev.” he paused.
"Naloy was the woman who would become…Zanh Liis’ grandmother." Camen added at the end in a matter-of-fact fashion. “I suppose the fever gave him the courage to say what he never could before.”
Fleur thought of the letter Jariel had written when he was taken with the fever, as well as the name Liis that he had spoken in his ramblings. She could not help but wonder which of those two things represented Camen’s courage to say what he always wanted to.
Either way, as long as he needed her at his side, she would be there for him.
Either way, she loved him with all her heart.
*******************
Jariel Camen
On Bajor
Jariel Camen
On Bajor