By Jamie Halliday and Lair Kellyn
100107.22
-=Flashback continued from Part One=-
100107.22
-=Flashback continued from Part One=-
She looked at him a moment, and knowing she could trust his judgment she straightened her bent leg and turned the assist bands back on. "What the hell. I've been climbing the walls anyway. Let's go."
"Thata girl," Dabin said, and he offered her a hand to pull up with. He observed that her right side was stronger, and he handed her the crutch to hold in it. "Let your stronger side bear some of the weight of your weakness. You will learn to stride with this, and it will give you a sense of security that you will be happy to have. Try it."
Kellyn took a few tentative steps with the crutch, and was glad to feel as if she had some way to get her bearings without leaning on the wall or whoever happened to be within reach. "Hmm. Can you adjust the height a little? Make it longer?"
"Sure," Dabin replied, and he knelt down and began adjusting the pins to give the tool more height. By this point, Salvek had poked his head around the corner at last, curiosity getting the better of him as he heard all sound cease next door. The Vulcan's eyes grew wide as he saw that Reece had actually talked her into accepting help, and that she was standing straighter now. Reece gestured to the door with his eyes, then tilted his head telling Salvek to go away. He was getting somewhere; he didn't want her to get distracted now. "Better?"
Kellyn studied the crutch again. "Much, thank you." She looked it over, and the engineer in her began speaking without her even realizing it. "I bet I could improve on the design of this thing. Make it lighter, and stronger at the same time. Tinker with the construction and materials."
"I bet you can. I look forward to seeing what you do with it. Now, would you like to go for a walk, my friend?"
"Yes, Mr. Reece, I believe I would," she said, the responsive half of her face turning up into something of a smile. "Lead on."
Instead of merely stepping ahead of her, he also offered her his arm, and she made her way slowly, using Reece and the crutch to balance with.
One frustratingly slow step at a time, they finally got to a quiet place where they could talk.
-=/\=-
"Lair Kellyn?" Jamie reached out and put a hand on her arm. Kellyn jumped; she hadn't realized until he touched her that she'd stopped moving. "We should keep going. We're due to meet up with team one soon and share what we have."
"I'm not looking forward to telling Zanh Liis that we've seen nothing but snow." Kellyn sighed. "I can't believe this. We have no communicators. We have no scanning equipment. We have none of the things that we should have in order to conduct a proper search!" She found her frustration reaching a boiling point.
"If I could just get aboard the Alchemy I could have the entire planet scanned and find them in a matter of moments. But can we, the illustrious engineers of Starfleet ever have a chance to do things the easy way? No! We can't ever do anything the easy way. Everything we do has to build character! Well I've had enough character building to last me several lifetimes! Just once, can't things just go according to plan? ONCE?"
“Actually in my experience things often do go to plan.” Jamie offered in what was the opposite of helpfully.
Had she still been walking this would have stopped Kellyn in both her physical and mental tracks.
“Really?” Kellyn asked in disbelief that even Jamie could feel like that after the last year they’d all had. “Well then why is it that it never feels like it?”
“It does feel like it to me.” Jamie replied irritatingly, shrugging his shoulders as if that was just how it was. “I guess though maybe some people just remember the times when things go wrong the most.”
Kellyn looked and felt entirely ready to snap at him at least verbally if not physically but instead she stopped herself and just slightly scowled, knowing he was probably right.
“The hardest times are often the hardest to forget.” Kellyn admitted, knowing that for all the good things that had happened for Liis and Keiran, for Fleur and Jariel and many others all she could think of now was those friends who’d most suffered. “That’s why it’s so important to make sure you remember the good times as well…especially when things feel most hopeless.”
Now it was Jamie whose thoughts were abruptly stopped.
“What do you mean by hopeless?” Jamie asked, knowing the word but finding the very idea of a situation without hope almost beyond his comprehension and especially the way Kellyn has spoken it as if it were entirely truthful.
“I mean like this.” Kellyn answered with frustration building again, gesturing violently with her hands as if to indicate this entire godforsaken planet. “I mean like having a handful of people who will best case scenario be able to cover a fraction of the surface area of this world by foot and are searching for people who could be halfway to Qo’noS by now.”
“You don’t sound like you think we’ll find Reece.” Jamie said with concern for Kellyn more than for Reece or Grace.
“Oh, we’ll find him.” Kellyn retorted, suddenly getting angry with herself for even thinking of any other possibility. “I don’t give a damn how hopeless it looks I know we’ll find him.”
“How do you know that?” Jamie asked, again as confused by Kellyn’s behaviour as she at times was by his.
"I know that because if I have to I will scour every inch of this damned rock with a magnifying glass, tweezers, and a flashlight until I find him. He has never given up on me, and I won't accept that he's gone. Not until." She shivered. She didn't even want to think now of the sight she'd have to see in order to accept that Dabin Reece was gone for good.
There was a moment of silence as Jamie waited for a sentence to be finished that Kellyn simply couldn’t. He certainly wouldn’t force her.
“You said that he’d never given up on you.” He soon chimed gently in again. “I really admire that about him. You know I’ve always believed giving up is the only step we ever take towards failure. So I’ll bet a man like Reece could do a lot of very impressive things, even those that might seem impossible or hopeless to anyone else.”
Jamie had intended for it to be simply a reminder to Kellyn about how skilled Reece was, however it did more than just remind her of that. Soon Kellyn’s thoughts turned again to those times when there really were things Reece did that wouldn’t just have seemed but were impossible for anyone else.
-=Flashback continued=-
Reece led her to what had been the arboretum, a lovely garden retreat for people who wanted a little time away from the cold technological environment that DS23 consisted of. Somewhere besides a holosuite, where you could breathe the fresh air that the plants expelled and also take in the scent of blooms from around the quadrant.
Now since the time rifts and the so-called 'reversion', it was what it had originally been once again; an overcrowded storeroom. A place to put obsolete parts and leftover components you weren't sure that you would use again.
Kellyn recognized the space, and when Reece pulled up two containers side by side so they could sit, she sighed.
"This place used to have such a good purpose. Now look at it, it's a mess. A waste."
Dabin sat across from her so he could see her face. He had to wonder from the weight of her voice if she were really talking about the arboretum or about herself.
"It will again. It's merely been sidetracked. It will bloom, and live, and give joy to many people in the years to come." Whichever she meant by her words, he felt his reply was appropriate.
"Or it will wither. Die slowly, one bit at a time. Never again to see the vibrant life it had before."
"Kellyn, did I ever tell you about Leacynth Reece?"
"I don't think so," she replied as she nervously swayed her crutch to and fro. "Previous host?"
"Yes, one, two... gadzooks... three hosts ago?" Dabin counted aloud, eyes raised to the ceiling. "Yes, that's right. Well, she lived to be a hundred twenty two years old, very old for a Trill host. She and Reece were joined one hundred years."
"Wow, talk about a long marriage," Kellyn observed, and Dabin chuckled.
"Yes, at times, much like that. Well, Leacynth was very independent. She lived on her own until the last twenty years of her life, and after that she had to have assistance. Her bones became porous; her muscles lost their strength. I can remember..." His voice dropped in pitch as he spoke, and his expression was that of someone very far away. The memory seemed to shake him to the core, and be as real as if it were happening right now. "One by one she lost the abilities that she prided herself on.
“She had to learn to accept help from others, which she had never done before. She had never married, nor had children. She was a teacher, a scientist, a researcher and mathematician. Her life was her work, and she continued her work in some way or other right up until she was, oh, about a hundred and seven I'd say."
"What happened then?"
"Her eyes failed, and doctors couldn't help. She couldn't see her experiments anymore. She felt helpless; she didn't know what to do with her time. When she was awake, she was in pain, and she was sorry that she had never made having a family a priority."
"Great story, Dabin. I suppose you're going to tell me that she died sad and alone on a rainy day?" Kellyn said, her voice rising angrily as she felt worse with every word he said.
"No, no." He took her hands gently, and held them fast. "No, Kellyn. She was invited to live in a dormitory at a school where she had taught for decades. Her previous students were now the teachers there, and they cared for her for the rest of her days. She had family she never imagined existed."
"But what did she do? What in the hell did she do to make the time go by, Dabin?" Kellyn asked, tears spilling over her cheeks in a steady stream now. "I will likely be blind long before I'm a hundred and ten."
"She did this." He reached into his duffel bag and pulled out a ball of string, and a small metallic hook.
"Reinvented the fishing hook?" Kellyn asked, trying again to make him laugh.
"Noooo. Weaving. She took up hook weaving. Don't they have anything like this on Bajor?" Without a moment's hesitation, he wrapped the string around the fingers of his right hand, took the hook into his left, and before a moment had passed, Kellyn couldn't believe her eyes. He was making fabric from the twine at a good pace.
"Yes, my..." Kellyn stopped, and cleared her throat. "By the Prophets. My grandmother Yala used to do something very much like this. She used to make me clothing." She wrung her hands. "I had forgotten."
"You can make anything, clothing, toys for Arie, blankets. That's what Leacynth did. She made blankets and the students took them to children who had a need for them. It kept her hands, and mind busy even when she had to give up her work. Not that you have to give up your work, mind you, you can still be a great help to Salvek."
"I wonder about that, I think I may hinder him more than help."
"Kellyn, he loves you. You could never be a hindrance."
"But how did Leacynth do this if she was blind?"
"She counted the stitches, one at a time. She made a life for herself out of what she had to work with. A day, or even a moment at a time. That is what you must do, Kellyn. Yes, your life is changed now. Yes, it will be harder. But you have a family. Arie needs you. Salvek needs you, whether or not you believe it. I see the panic in his eyes, beneath all that studied logic, when he sees you stumble or struggle. You can either let this take you over and the disease will be much more aggressive and destructive. Or, you can fight it, the way you've fought every other unfair hand life has ever dealt you. Make something of it. Assemble a plan, and work it to be successful. I've never known you to fail at anything you put your mind to."
"You give me too much credit, Dabin. Both you and that slug of yours."
"I don't think so. Isn't this the woman who once defused a bomb using this?" He tapped the chain on her earring, and she scoffed.
"I'm not that woman anymore."
"Well, hell, I'm not Aramos Reece anymore, or Leacynth, or Rilan or any of the other hosts.” He paused, seemingly seized by darker thoughts. “We can all heartily thank any deity of your choosing that I’m not Ladron.” He mumbled, as he seemed to shudder speaking the last sentence. “I'm Dabin, but I became Reece when I was joined, and Reece's entire existence is based on changing and redefining who he is.
“Everyone changes, most people don't have to face these issues until they get old, you, you're just an overachiever and have to face them in your thirties. So young, just a baby."
"You've only got a year or two on me there, bright boy, so don't get all senior on me."
"Yes, darling, but Reece has hundreds of years on both of us. I'm trying to learn from him. Maybe he can teach you something, too."
"I, I want to try. I really do," Kellyn whispered now, fear overcoming her features as she struggled to keep from giving into it. "But I'm scared, Reece. I'm terrified."
"It's okay to be terrified. We all are sometimes. That's what makes us humanoid. Fear, uncertainty, apprehension. We can't escape it, and sometimes we just have to learn to live with it. But the Lair Kellyn I know is stronger than she knows, and if she just keeps her eyes forward and lets the people who care about her love her, she is going to get used to this. To get through this, and to live a long life."
"No one knows that for sure."
"No one knows otherwise. But if you believe you're going to falter, you will, if for no other reason than when people make up their minds that they're going to die, they usually find a way to make it happen. So just promise me that you'll try, Kellyn. Not just for Salvek, for Arie, for your friends but for yourself most of all. Just try, and then take each hour, each moment as it comes. You won't be alone, I promise you."
Their eyes locked, and his held such understanding of her fear that she burst into unrestrained sobs. He comforted her as best he could, and he pulled a handkerchief from the duffel bag and dabbed her tears away with it, then he wiped his own eyes on his sleeve. "I thought that you might need one," he said with a slight laugh. "Thought I could do without one myself. Next time I'll bring two."
"Dabin, I..."
"It's okay, it's okay. You would do the same for me, I know that. It's what friends do."
-=End Flashback=-
As Kellyn’s mind returned to the moment it seemed some of the tears from her mental journey through time had followed her back to her present day eyes and even as she reminded herself of how the images that had inspired them had now clearly been washed away by this flood of white that surrounded them she couldn’t fully force the tears back where they belonged.
It wasn’t like she could have been mixing the two conversations up. Reece wasn’t here now, that was the problem, and if that didn’t convince her she wasn’t back there she didn’t know what would.
She mumbled something Jamie couldn’t quite hear as she blinked her eyes repeatedly again, ordering the tears to just go away because they were not welcome here. She hadn’t thought about that conversation for a long time but the feelings it brought with it, that Reece brought with him, felt now as fresh as they had that first instant.
She began walking again with ever quickening steps. He followed just a step behind, thinking that if he crowded her any more that she’d continue on in her own little world without finishing their discussion.
“What did you just say?” Jamie asked, as his ears strained but failed to turn what she’s said into words.
Kellyn paused, only now realising she’d even she’d said it aloud. Still so drenched in the frustration of a galaxy that could never just say enough was enough, she realised she had to try to explain something so utterly beyond explanation now.
She waited until she was sure her eyes would behave before looking up but then chose to look down again. She spoke quietly knowing her words would have meant very little to Jamie relative to what they meant to her anyway but also that without the proper context they’d mean nothing.
“There was a time when my life felt like it was going to…had already gone to hell and it felt…” Kellyn stopped short, too proud to use the phrase ‘impossible to cope’ “difficult at times. Reece made me promise him I’d try to keep on going no matter how difficult it got.” She stopped again, considering all the ways her life was better now and cursing herself for feeling even a fraction of the way she’d felt then again. She was suddenly feeling very aware of all this last year had taken out of her as she turned eyes up again she hoped looked much more certain that everything would work out than she felt. “What I just said was that I’m still trying.”
Jamie suddenly felt an odd, shifting sensation beneath his feet and realized that the ground below was not entirely stable.
Worse than being not entirely stable, he quickly surmised that it was actually completely and utterly unstable.
What appeared to be endless fields covered by snow actually disguised a serious danger that he himself now stopped just short of wandering into; as hurried as her steps were and as cluttered as her thoughts as well Kellyn had charged onward at full speed right into it.
“Kellyn.” His voice took on a tone she had never heard from him before as he immediately tried to sound as though nothing was wrong so as not to risk her making any sudden moves. “Stop, please."
The 'please' was the thing that first set the alarms off in her head. “Why?” Her voice reflected the fact that she understood his meaning all too well.
"Back up." He instructed her simply, keeping his voice even.
“Why? Jamie, what is-“
Before she could finish her sentence, Jamie heard a horrifying cracking noise, and even as he lunged forward to try to grab her by the sleeve of her coat, he was too late.
He nearly went over the edge of the splintering ice and into the veiled water along with her; as it was he went face down into the bitterly cold lake even as he clawed to try to grasp hold of her.
He pulled back just enough to allow himself to take in several painful gasps of air; if it hurt this bad just being partially submerged in the freezing water what she must be going through had to be so much worse.
“Kellyn!” His hands searched the still, silent, slushy water into which she’d fallen; grasping for something, anything to hold onto. For a moment he thought he had a handful of her hair and as much as he hated to do it he was prepared to pull her up by it if he had to, but it was too late. She’d slipped from his grasp.
More of the snow-glazed, hidden ice was breaking away and he was forced to back up. If he went in too, there’d be no hope of getting her out.
She suddenly popped up from beneath the surface.
She made a horrifying, gurgling sound as she tried desperately to force air past the icy liquid she’d already inhaled. She felt paralyzed by the cold and yet at the same time it was as though thousands of fiery needles were being forced into every inch of her skin.
Her lungs refused to cooperate, and as she forced her eyes to open to try to determine which way was really up, she caught sight of a hand reaching out to her. It seemed just a little too far away to reach. She tired quickly; all at once she was just so tired...
As she felt she could fight no longer and slipped again beneath the surface, she wondered if she had just taken that one critical, damning step towards failure.
-=/\=-
Crewman Jamie Halliday
Engineering Officer
USS Serendipity NCC-2012
and
Commander Lair Kellyn
Engineering Research and Development
Doing her best Popsicle Impression
On Sibalt
Crewman Jamie Halliday
Engineering Officer
USS Serendipity NCC-2012
and
Commander Lair Kellyn
Engineering Research and Development
Doing her best Popsicle Impression
On Sibalt