1046: Projection

By Will Lindsay and Zanh Liis
100221.20
Following Corrosion

-=/\=-

"I've never seen such projecting! It's in Cinemascope with Dolby surround!"

~Bernard Black, Black Books

-=/\=-

-=USS Serendipity=-

Though it wasn’t exactly the first time William Lindsay had been on board the Sera, this time it was like a new man had stepped off the transporter pad.

This man was far from the Lindsay that had come on board in times past; the one who had been so playful and easygoing, just coming along for the adventure and to flirt with the occasional member of the crew. This William Lindsay was focused, angry, and though he’d never admit it, deeply wounded in more places than just his pride.

This man was normally so relaxed in his surroundings and given to duty when it was most fun or a matter of honour. Now however he was deadly serious and there was power to this sincerity that propelled him at a rapid pace through the ship.

Without even acknowledging perhaps not even noticing the familiar form of Andrew Parrish at the transporter controls, he strode out of the room and in the direction of the nearest turbolift with such speed that even with his large steps Keiran struggled to keep up.

It wasn’t long before Keiran was ready to protest but Liis' indignation overrode Keiran's politeness and she beat him to the punch. “Where the hell are you going?” she demanded of Will, quickening her steps to be beside him. She growled under her breath as he continued on without so much as turning to face her. Her frown turned to a true scowl now; she was not a woman whose temperament would allow her to tolerate it for long when she knew she was being ignored.

“Main bridge,” he finally addressed both Liis and the turbolift at the same time as he stepped in through the door which then closed the second the two others were on board.

“Main brig,” Keiran added with a pointed tone of voice, and the look on Will’s face said that he was in no mood for the disruption. The look on Keiran’s face reminded Will that such looks would have no effect on him. He was eager to check in on their prisoners and as reluctant as he was to leave Will alone when he was in a state like this, a state of single-mindedness he’d known could be dangerous for more than just the man himself, his experience told him that two TI agents especially when their guards didn’t know what they were dealing with could be even worse than Will.

Luckily for Lindsay the bridge was the nearest location and so the turbolift arrived there first. He nodded a sort of hurried acknowledgement to Keiran as he stepped off whereas it was Liis who gave the worried Irishman a proper look that said she’d take care of Will, and not let him go too far. Keiran's eyes conveyed his gratitude before the doors slid shut between them.

Liis' concern for Will was only finite though and was soon to be if not eroded then diluted by her irritation for his new behaviour. Something Jamieson said surely had gotten to him and while Liis was more than happy to assist Will in bringing whoever it was leading the renegades within TI down she was a woman rarely happy to follow and never happy to operate in the dark about the larger ramifications of her actions. Right now it was the local and immediate ramifications that worried her more than anything else.

Still, Will seemed completely unaware of her concerns, as he continued onto the bridge where he quickly began to act more like he thought he was the Captain here than she was.

“I need a full diagnostic run on the transporters, the containment in the brig checked and rechecked and access to somewhere that I can set up a secured link with a computer core as well as to back up a PADD in a safe location.” He ordered in rapid-fire succession.

It was not as if he was giving Liis a list of requests. He was issuing commands to people as he passed them and all eyes quickly turned to Liis seeming to question if he was serious or if it was worse and there had been some change of command here.

Lindsay’s eyes however were concerned only with obtaining and implementing the things he needed to accomplish his task and he quickly located TC Blane, the man whose job it would be to procure and provide them.

Blane was staring at him with the unflinching intensity of an attack dog; standing in case the Captain should wish to take her command chair. Will began to move toward that chair, and Blane stepped forward once as if to indicate that he should think carefully before attempting to take it from its rightful Bajoran occupant.

The two men had had their conflicts but frankly Lindsay really didn’t care about anything of the sort right now. If there was one thing Lindsay knew about the man it was that loyalty carried a lot of weight with him and at a time like this that more than anything else had meaning. Besides, this was a black and white world and the grey of a begrudging alliance had no place here.

“Spec Ops. I take it you’ve still got no love for the agency which employs me,” Will began though TC’s eyes were quite clearly on Liis, whose dwindling patience was rapidly disintegrating. “Well here’s yer chance to help tear it apart. I’m gonna need you ta command the ship while…”

Before he could even finish Liis cut him off.

“William!” Liis spat, fuming as how he was acting as she threw her arm in the direction of her Ready Room. “A word.”

Knowing it was better not to answer Lindsay since his Captain had already intervened, TC said nothing. He just slowly lowered himself back into the command chair when he saw Liis was obviously not interested in retaking it now. She clearly had other things on her mind, and Blane wasn't the only one who knew it. In fact the entire bridge had to know this by now.

TC shot a look to Dane, who had been showing Mellice Cem some of the specialized features of the Sera’s tactical station and whose eyebrows now seemed to elevate above his face and hang as if suspended in mid-air above him when he saw Lindsay about face suddenly and follow Zanh begrudgingly into her office.

"Never you mind, Cristiane." Blane warned. "Eyes front." He spun toward the communications console and glared at the woman seated there. "That goes double for you, Steele."

"What?" Landry asked, snapping her gum loudly after asking the question. Blane sighed. He pointed toward her mouth.

"You’ve been warned. That's an hour scrubbing deuterium exhaust ports."

Landry sighed, knowing it best not to offer further comment before tugging the earpiece from her ear and setting it down so she could dispose of her gum in the recycling unit.

-=/\=-

The doors swished shut behind them.

He stood still moment in the lingering darkness, watching as Liis walked on toward the window. She was staring out at what lay beyond it, though he knew the look well enough to know she was really thinking of a time gone past instead of any sight her eyes could focus upon out in space.

Finally he called for the lights at half full. Liis blinked as the fixtures switched on, the only outward indication that she was aware of anything going on outside of her own head in this moment where there was so much more she was thinking about than just her fury at Will.

Will knew that time was getting away from them and didn't allow her long to engage in what he considered to be a wasteful exercise in useless brooding. He asserted himself as the topic of the most immediate emotion, waking her from her considerations.

“What?” he demanded, thinking the question should be sufficient in its detail for Liis to tell him off if she felt she had to and be done with it.

Liis spun around to address him, her manner offering no indication she’d even been thinking of anything else before, even though those same thoughts still drenched her mind.

“Don’t...you...dare,” Liis vehemently warned, her chest rising and falling with breaths too short to fuel an actual sentence. She moved towards him in a way that could have made most men back into the wall and scratch against it furiously to try to claw their way clear of her reach but that barely even shook him right now. “You do not come onto my ship, my bridge, and start giving orders to my crew without even as much as acknowledging my presence!”

The first look on Will’s face said he was asking himself if he’d done anything wrong but the second confirmed that he felt he hadn’t. The third look said he was offended by the suggestion.

“Well, I’m sorry if I had ta skip out on some of the social niceties but time is bloody important here. I have a plan. That plan requires this ship,” he argued, trying to make it seem like it was just calm reasoning but with the new hunger and desperation to bring this corruption to an end hard to keep out of his words. “You said you’d help me so you can’t deny me access to that help now.”

“Help?” Liis scoffed in disbelief as she turned away and gestured to the room as if to reinforce this point. “Doesn’t seem like you need or want help from anyone. You just want to make a decision, take whatever risks you feel are justified and the only thing left for anyone else to do is to blindly follow your commands and accept the consequences.”

Will looked entirely prepared to return Liis’ argumentative tone in kind when something dawned upon him. It was something that said he now felt he understood the true meaning behind the argument and when the man was trying to argue for the sake of being right more than the truth that made him feel Liis had just tipped her hand here.

“Is that really what’s botherin' you, Zanh Liis?” he asked her quickly, with something between smugness and indignation. “You think I’m recklessly makin’ decisions without caring about what happens to an’a’one else, is that it?”

Though his tone said he barely even cared for an answer Liis took the opportunity to give one anyway.

“Yes, that's exactly it. It’s the look in your eyes. It's the tone of your orders. It's every goddamned…" she argued until frustration finally just overcame her and the next words spilled out without ever seeming to have begun in her brain. “Keiran could've been killed back there!”

The way she’d said the words suddenly changed or perhaps more correctly resurrected something inside of Will. Anger had a way of blinding him sometimes, but he could still be made to see and now he felt as he did there were no more words coming to his mouth. In fact seconds passed without either saying a word as Liis found she finally had to turn away.

"Zanh Liis," Will approached her gingerly now. He raised a hand to put on her shoulder but quickly thought better of touching her and withdrew it without making contact. "It wasn't supposed to happen like this. I wasn't supposed to hav'ta ask ya for so much help. To get the Sera directly involved."

"Well, we're in it up to our necks now," the emotion still evident in her voice declared that her anger was not to be as easily dismissed as his had. "Our friends down in the brig guarantee that no matter what else we do."

"Don'cha see, Liis?" Will did take hold of her by the shoulders now and turned her around until she faced him. "I know who it is now. I know where it all leads back and I know what yer thinkin', that I should've seen it before. Before I risked you or Keiran.” Will acknowledged, a different sort of anger in his tone now as it was one he liked to think was directed at the leader of the corruption but was really aimed straight at himself. “And yer right on all counts. But there's nothin' I can do about that now. Now all I can do is promise you that things are gonna be set right. At least as right as I can make them. You just have'ta trust me."

"Trust you." Again, she directed searing, fiery eyes at him. "Trust you? You know, even after that little stunt you pulled with the compasses before, I still thought I could. I really thought," she shook her head, and he sighed, rolling his eyes a little too dramatically for her liking up toward the ceiling.

"So we’re back ta the compasses again, are we?” Now his irritation was truly evident, he couldn't believe they were back to this again. “I thought we'd put that little misunderstandin' behind us."

"Misunderstanding!" Liis stammered. "Misunderstanding?"

"Y'er repeatin' yerself, Liis.” Will couldn't resist the opportunity to antagonise her though he had been intent on ignoring her words outright and knew it wasn't a wise choice. “Must be old age catchin' up to ya. Look, as fun as this has been we just don't have the time for it. I need to use your computer system to take care of some things back home, may I?"

He turned to move for her desk and Liis officially and completely reached the end of her patience. She struggled to get the words out as she grasped hold of him by the sleeve and held him where he stood.

"God damn you, Will-"

"Thought you were an atheist."

Will's smirk faded as she swiftly executed the same maneuver she had with Jamieson earlier and his face harshly met the opposing wall.

"I'm only going to say this once,” Liis warned with a quiet sort of viciousness that said he’d better listen. “If any harm comes to Keiran because you withheld information from us, especially from me,"

"It won't." Will answered gruffly, not struggling against Liis because while his training may have let him escape if he’d done it right her training also may have snapped him in half if he did it wrong.

"He's at high risk here. He's scared to death."

"No." Will bluntly replied, entirely certain of what he was saying. "You're scared to death."

She shoved him harder up against the wall and continued, ignoring his response. "Keiran is terrified of what Brody could do to me and he'll be distracted. In fact he should probably be out of the rest of this entirely."

"You're terrified of what Brody will do to you given the chance and you are afraid that you'll be the reason Keiran finally gets himself killed in a timeline where you can't fix it."

She inhaled and something between a wail and a growl issued from her lips.

She let him go but not before thumping him one last time against the unforgiving surface. She turned away, folding her arms tightly around her sinking stomach. "He's not ready for this."

"You're the one who's not ready." Will shook his head. "It's called projection, Zanh Liis, I know with all you know of psychology that you're familiar with the concept. Right now you're projecting your fears onto him." He sighed. "Keiran is fine. You are not."

“I…” Liis began to object, but the words ‘I’m fine’ sounded even less convincing when uttered without certainty than it would to say nothing at all. She clearly didn’t like though that Lindsay would be able to tell either way that he had hit a nerve here.

“Ya don’t have ta be, you know.” Will responded, cutting her off before she could be expected to answer. “We’re TI. We’re always TI even when we leave it." He paused a moment, watching her wilt as she reacted physically to his words. Her eyes and arms lowered slowly in something akin to an outward concession of defeat: something that he really hated to see. "The thing about being TI is that we spend half our lives not being fine. We wouldn’ even bloody well sign on ta begin with if we were fine.”

Will had more to say but Liis’ attention seemed to have lapsed before he’d even finished so he saw no point in bothering. Indeed it had as two words he’d said now echoed around in her mind, pausing the conversation while she processed them.

Always TI.” Liis finally said quietly to herself, considering how frighteningly true those words were. They’d thought they were out, but they never were. There was always some disaster around the corner that could drag them back in no matter how hard they clawed at the ground along the way. They could never really be free.

Yet Liis was not one to dwell too long on the things she could not change when there were things that so desperately needed changing before her. So she summoned up all her strength and held down all the fear she may have been feeling, determined to focus instead on the task at hand. After a brief outward sigh she of frustration and so many other emotions she locked her eyes insistently on Lindsay again.

“If you want something on this ship you will ask for it from me,” she said firmly, being sure to emphasise the parts that were absolutely nonnegotiable. “No plan will be undertaken until I have been fully briefed and signed off on it. You don't so much as replicate lunch aboard my ship until I know what you're ordering. Is that understood?”

“Understood,” Will replied impatiently, seeing there was no point in arguing and that it was better to rush through an explanation than to debate that he didn’t have time for one. “You want the plan? We’re locking it down. That’s the plan.”

“What do you mean locking it down?” Liis asked, her face a study in confusion feeling Will had clearly missed part of his explanation.

“The Department of Temporal Investigations,” Will answered. “We’re going ta lock down every building, every piece of equipment and every thing goddamn else for that matter within a light-year radius of Earth. No one gets out except by our own hand and nothing goes back on again until we’ve cleared away every last one of these bastards.”

Liis' eyes widened, but even as the gravity of what he was planning to do crushed in on her, she knew that there really was no other choice.

She reminded herself now of the office that he held, the importance of his work, and the fact that she had given her word to do all she could to help him try to restore the dignity and worth of the once proud organization to which, in their own way, each of them had already sold their soul.


Captain William Lindsay
Interim Director
The Department of Temporal Investigation

and

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