1065: San Francisco Nights

By Wren Elton
100319.00
After Fixing the Song

-=San Francisco, Earth=-

This was a frighteningly loud city for anyone, but a telepath especially. One so easily could have gotten lost to the thoughts of others; to be dictated to by their passions and controlled by their needs as they became your own. It was easily overpowering, but then so was the sense of sadness she felt now in this empty place she’d once called her home. Her steps then had been eager, but San Francisco was then a very different city from the point of view at least of a very different woman. She was so reckless and wild in an equally rebellious land that suited her no more.

That sense of entitlement to a night of fun and a life of worthy risks still pulsed with an intangible and undeniable energy in the hearts of those around her. It was however only a single ingredient that could be always tasted but never isolated, as the larger the crowds the less distinct the arguing shouts of their minds became. It was to some a cacophony and to others a symphony as the fight of a thousand wants for supremacy raged on around her. This was the truest of collective consciousnesses; a living entity in its own right, confused about its path but moving in only one direction at a time.

This had once been a favourite time of hers; a time of carelessness and joy. Though now she could only think as she observed the people moving so excitedly and almost without direction that she was glad her son was safe on the ship and not here. This was that certain type of late where the city knew not what it wanted to do. Parts of it screamed that it was time to sleep, or to lock the world out for a more intimate existence, while others just as eagerly demanded they be allowed to come alive before the world’s eyes.

Wren now found herself moving small steps through such a part and it truly did demand the attention of those around no less than any great performer or wild man. Lights ignited the street with cold flames unaffected by the mild chill in the air somehow entirely distinct from the overwhelming heat of warm bodies swarming around her.

Light however could so easily be blocked by the tight enough closing of the eyes which for just a few moments since she’d been here she’d realised she was doing to keep from being overwhelmed. The music could not be so easily dismissed from her thoughts. It was loud and it was fast, and somehow always audible over the screaming wave of voices and laughter of those moving to or already at their party for the night around her.

There was obvious excitement and happiness in this city; to the experienced eye there was also love. Sometimes it was subtle and drowned out by lust but one couple she could see could have no other label. Their eyes met long before their lips and they were tonight each other’s world in a way mere pleasurable meetings held no hope of ever achieving. Seeing them with her eyes lingering for a moment, Wren found herself struck by a sinking realisation that she was so very alone right now with no one to look at her like that, and no idea how to find him.

Quickly though she forced herself onward because she must. In all these people an individual easily became a trivial commodity, but Wren sensed she did not move through unnoticed. Eyes found her; watching her, judging her, enjoying her in ways to which they had no right. A far larger share than could ever be attributed to random chance of those were men. Once she would have loved these moments as their attention moved hopefully to her and she got to decide whether their hope would pay off in the end.

However she enjoyed such meaningless experiences no longer, their bringing her only unhappiness, and when they took a second to look up to her eyes they found that out and quickly moved on to easier challenges. Those eyes of hers were slightly sad but more than anything else were just lost here now. There was only one man, who she could only hope was still in this city, that she listened for and even though she believed it was her Betazoid sense that would find him she still searched frantically with her eyes. As ridiculous as it seemed, including to her, it was like every second for the last hours she expected would be the one in which she would find him and then each time she didn’t she was enveloped by a lot of confusion and a little more depression. Yet the beating of the music, which just seemed to be getting faster, spurred her hopes on.

This was the only way. His communicator was gone and his lifesigns were far too hard to distinguish in a city such as this in which even an Angosian wouldn’t be the only one of his species; even one who was the only one of his kind. Every instinct told her it was much better to look for him on foot led by the heart and the mind that knew him rather than those foolishly blind sensors that couldn’t distinguish a gem among the rocks.

There were so many minds here; minds of impure and inelegant thought that attempted to pull at her attention, but Wren would not let herself be distracted like that. There were those on her homeworld who’d call her a fool for thinking she could find him by her senses like this. They’d speak of how he’d cloak his mind from her grasp and so there’d be nothing for her to find familiar. Indeed the way a whisper of a nearby new husband into his beloved’s ear seemed to be muted through the music seemed to suggest that they were right. However there were very different kinds of nothing to be found. There was the nothing like a meaningless life on the street and the floor of a bar and there was the nothing like the vast and beautifully unchanging vacuum of space in all its majesty. His mind was always the latter and was therefore unmissable to those who’d ever stop to look to the stars.

Yet, she only felt more and more like she was losing direction as she moved through the crowd that seemed to be growing ever larger with each step she took. It’d been a long and draining walk since she’d started hopefully at the building where he’d left his shuttle; expecting him to have stayed there for a little while as with how lost he must feel she was sure he’d stay by a familiar point before he ventured out. That thought alone brought with it at first a warm than an incredibly sad smile as she recalled her arbitrary allocation of a particular chair for him to sit in once in her home which he’d returned automatically to every time he’d been after that. Hints of tears actually came to her now tired eyes as she considered he would not presume to take any other chair than that was offered; it was just one of the many ways he was far too sweet for the world.

She had to consider that was especially true of this world as the crowd began moving faster to the beat and one hapless young man was pushed in her direction, his undoubtedly sticky red drink spilling into her hair and on her dress as she could only powerlessly watch as the liquid ran down her neck and her back. This was one more problem she didn’t need; a shower could easily fix her but she wasn’t sure what it’d take to recover her outfit. She pushed back the tears that had no place here anyway as she tried to not let the hopelessness get to her. It didn’t matter how impossible it all suddenly seemed; she was not that weak.

This dress was perhaps not the most sensible but it fit her well and its elegant black design, showing off enough but not too much of what was beneath, was exactly the type of thing that he’d always very strongly appreciated on her. Unfortunately a large red patch detracted somewhat from the sophisticated illusion she wanted desperately to create of a woman in control. When he saw her again she demanded it be perfect. She wanted him to fall in love with her again right there so that when he remembered there’d be no more surprise than that he somehow had been able to look past her for so long. Had it not been for what had just happened she may have actually believed she had that small but sufficient influence over her own fate that meant that would work.

The young man here was apparently aware of what he’d done and just a little embarrassed based on the half-hearted apology he offered, but the way he then began to yell back at the people who’d pushed him told her he saw no place for the blame on his own head. Only now did she notice that he was dressed in nothing but jeans and a casual t-shirt in spite of her own and the similar formal clothing of others. There were many others dressed much rougher yet mere metres away a group of far more civilised women in gowns meant for queens were cackling about their empty lives.

The people here didn’t match. They didn’t need to because they each saw the party they wanted and that was what made it the party it was. As alcohol was sold and raucous laughter was enjoyed to the pounding of the music, it mattered not who everyone else there was. You were one of them if you didn’t mind the mess they were making of the street and were willing to have their fun. Looking about at all these untamed beings Wren realised that this crowd that would so welcome her even still, was no place for him. So it was no longer any place for her.

In an instant she knew there was no point looking here any longer and so scanned the street for the nearest way out. She saw a small alley in the distance, devoid of people but evidently not a dead end by the light that came through. So she forced her way forward in that direction. The crowd tried to fight her on it. It was like they were demanding she stay; that she fall victim to the temptations of her life so long ago of pleasures without consequence. Yet as tempting as that could be in a world of such heavy fallout it held very little value to a woman who still had some hope.

So she pushed herself forward again and even though the crowd still fought her she didn’t let it win.

“Coming through,” she loudly insisted, stepping around those who would not move for her and past those who would.

Seeing the exit getting closer while the music somehow got louder she suddenly felt an inescapable desire to be free, and started moving faster. There were so many people here; too many minds trying to drag her back, and as she finally reached the alley she was almost running. Though her foot struck a recent puddle from earlier rains, she didn’t care about the mud that splashed upward and just kept on going.

Then gratefully she was free and into air slightly easier to breath as the people had thinned and the music had thinned quicker. Slowly then as it all shifted down to silence her steps began getting smaller too, until by the time she was able to draw in a clean breath she found she was walking again.

Now she was in a new part of the city where the streets were empty and barely lit but the buildings stretching towards the sky on either side of her were full of the sweetest of dreams. It was quiet but never peaceful as long as she refused to block out their thoughts and emotions. Now she hoped this part of the city was his even knowing she could not search here yet. Wherever she was that was where she wanted him to be.

Her dress had thoroughly stained with what from the smell she knew was now cheap wine and so she’d need to change out of it before she could venture out again. Though she couldn’t claim to have been completely averse to a drink for all her life, or even right now for that matter, she did not want that to be her scent should he come across her. That was especially true when she thought of what it did to her when he’d been bold enough to come up behind her, his hands on her shoulders, as he inhaled the flavour of her hair. With the cold wind suddenly blowing quicker a shiver passed over her as she closed her eyes and almost felt strong hands running down along her arms now as the air caressed her. He felt so close. He felt like he was just out of reach, until she opened her eyes again to reveal a depressingly hollow and unspectacular street.

This was her reality; lost in an apparent eternity of nothingness in every direction. She knew it was time she got back to her hotel which was too close to worry about arranging transport, so instead she just walked quicker finding as she did silence only became quieter and lights turned all the more to dark. As she drew closer in fact she found the streetlights were so dull as to pale before the moonlight which was in another time a thing of beauty but which now was simply a sign of the absence of the sun as the moon reflected off the water of recent rains it couldn’t help to dry. The sun had not shone on her life in so long that as she looked to the dark clouds above after what’d been by all accounts a sunny day she asked if it’d not forgotten her as well. For only a moment she stared, feeling suddenly so numb, before she turned her eyes to the harsh uneven pavement below and reminded herself again that one must live through the night to feel the warmth of day. She had to hold on to the hope that her night must almost be over; that it could last no longer than she could survive.

The hotel had indeed been close and so it only took a few more streets before she was in sight of the grand building that unmistakably and proudly displayed its name. It was known as the Russian Hill Hotel; so named because of the beautiful park it overlooked and it was the type of place so very glamorous she just knew at a different time she’d have found such romance here. In fact she’d once intended to; when as a bit of a surprise to Rada who she would always say worked too hard, she’d decided to book them a ‘weekend away’ right here in the city in this very place. However that plan never came to be, because she’d made one stupid mistake that had given her the love of a beautiful child and cost her years of the love of a wonderful man.

The door as always in these places was well lit though never vulgarly so by being made too bright. It was instead lit in the manner of evening, where only the lightest of shadows followed her into the beautiful foyer adorned with natural and elegant plants in the golden pots that covered the dirt that housed them and offset the royal red in the flawless carpet beneath her feet. The entire space seemed to be decorated in such a way to speak of eternal class by avoiding anything recognisable as clearly any given century. Even the simple but refined fountain that ran the water in a smooth unbroken layer along the dark marble of the wall, only making the smallest more relaxing of sounds as it splashed lightly on the pool below, could just as easily been seen in the twentieth century as the twenty-fourth.

Wren had booked a room from the ship so she’d not needed to come here before now. However as she moved slowly to the desk, her feet muted by the soft carpet below on which she feared was likely tracking water, she found herself becoming more tense for reasons she couldn’t fully understand. This place was somehow familiar, but she didn’t know how or why. She saw nothing that she remembered, but something inside her told her this place had been redecorated since she’d seen it last.

Then as she heard the voice of the hotel clerk behind his counter, a man likely in his late twenties diligently smiling to greet his coming customer, it suddenly caused her heart to race. She’d heard this voice before.

“Welcome to the Russian Hill, madam. How may I assist you today?” He greeted her in cordial tones that just seemed slightly uneven like this wasn’t his first language but it was one he’d mastered well long ago.

For a moment Wren said nothing, drawing a curious but patient look from the young man.

“Yes, you can,” Wren finally said softly, her mind still searching for where she’d seen this face before. “I’ve booked a room under the name Wren Elton.”

“Oh yes, Miss Elton,” the man said, looking through the named on the screen before him, then looking up slightly. “Or is it Mrs Elton?”

“Miss.”

“Of course, Miss Elton,” he said, smiling as he located her name. “We’d thought maybe you weren’t coming.”

Wren said nothing in response, still too busy wondering, leading him to fear he might have offended her somehow and to apologise horrified at the thought.

“It was just a little joke. Of course you are entirely free to arrive when you chose. I didn’t mean…”

“No, it’s alright, I know what you meant,” Wren assured him, finding him reminiscent of someone else she’d known but knowing that wasn’t what she was remembering here. “Look, this might sound strange, but how long have you worked here?”

“I’ve been with the company for ten years, madam, ever since I left school.”

Now Wren was getting nervous, in that case she must surely have been here before.

“Do you happen to know if this was always known as the Russian Hill Hotel?”

“As long as I’ve been here, madam”

Wren shook her head, confused but certain this gentleman had no answers to give her.

“Is everything alright, madam?”

“Yes, everything’s fine,” She answered unconvincingly as she took an identification card from her purse and presented it to him.

“Very good, madam,” he acknowledged warmly as he handed her the card to her room, barely looking at her identification as to do so for too long would offend the customer by suggesting he did not trust them.

Wren put it in her purse and smiled as thankfully as she could to him before she moved off again towards the nearest lift, though her thoughts stayed very much with him.

In fact it was only as she got off it on her room on the second floor that her thoughts suddenly changed. The lettering on the doors was distinctive and elegant but never uniform; like they’d taken the time to bring in a calligrapher to paint it on each. She thought it was somehow a mark of what unique love could be in each of these rooms, and she realised she had that same thought before. The walls were a different colour and the carpet had changed, but she’d been here before, and as she moved through to room twenty-four she felt every step was more familiar.

Almost afraid, but equally afraid not to know, she opened the door and revealed her room for the night. It was modestly sized enough to be intimate but it was it was still large enough that one’s eye could be lost as it passed the long distance over the view of the balcony overlooking to the park to the shining bathroom that looked clean enough that you could confidently perform surgery there. With the exception of her bags that had been beamed onto the luxurious king bed everything here cost far more money than was needed. There was so much unnecessary; so much entirely unnatural. She remembered it though she’d had very different thoughts then. She’d been here before; if not this particular room then one of identical design in this very building.

Like a vicious slap in the face she was suddenly overcome by a hundred images at once that caused her to stumble into the room and to sit on the bed.

-=Flashback=-

“Nothing is going to happen,” he’d said, smiling a smile he’d never admit to having given as he’d lead her through the door.

She’d been so uncertain, but felt so alive, as she’d moved in his arms into that room in the hotel of which she’d never caught the name.

“I will be leaving within the next days,” he’d insisted with cool authority but in a voice so full of awakened desire that it sent a chill throughout her entire body that left her feeling weak.

“I’m so not sure this is a good idea,” she’d said slightly drunkenly as he kissed her, but he just offered a look that said he wanted this so much that she couldn’t possibly not want it too.

She did undeniably want it too, but she was afraid, and sensing these emotions he’d whispered in her ear.

“There can be no consequences. No one will know.”

Her heart was pounding so fast, and she honestly didn’t know why she was doing this but as she clumsily moved further into the room she knew that she had no desire to resist.

“My father sent me here to experience my Betazoid side,” he’d reminded her so quietly. “This is my Betazoid side. This is who you are.”

Then as the words had struck her intoxicated ears and his lips moved back to hers, she actually smiled at the thought that it was true.

-=End Flashback=-

Now, however she suddenly wept as she remembered that day, taking her head into her hands and letting the salty liquid slide down her wrists. She’d been to this same hotel with Tam’s father their one night together. They’d transported here at night and then she’d gone back the next day after breakfast; she’d never even walked outside the doors of the foyer to see where she was. She hadn’t known and was too young to care to learn.

She’d hated herself for that night. She’d been such a fool and so very arrogant and that stung her eyes on its own, but more so did the knowledge that arrogant fools only really got older. She asked herself now how Rada ever could have loved her. She was such a mess; sitting here in this wine stained dress. She always had been and she always would be, and she wondered how hard it’d be for him to see it now with a fresh set of eyes. Collapsing sideways onto the bed in disbelief of all the places to end up, the door closing automatically and so cutting off the outside light to leave her in a much darker world, she began to ask herself if he truly could ever feel that way for her again.

Along with the tears a wave of guilt threatened to drown her but an ocean of fear about what he would think of her when the memories return washed it away. He deserved so much better than her. She couldn’t inflict herself on him, at least not until she could figure out just what had been so wrong with her for so long and how he could possibly love her even in spite of it. There was only one place she could possibly do that. She’d have to go back to where it all started.

******************************
Wren Elton
Manager, Afterthought Café
USS Serendipity NCC-2012