by Zanh Liis O’Sullivan and William Lindsay
100526.2100
Concurrent With To Plan and Not to Plan
-=A running holosuite on the USS Poseidon=-
100526.2100
Concurrent With To Plan and Not to Plan
-=A running holosuite on the USS Poseidon=-
Liis found herself somewhere between the start and the end of a footbridge that stretched out farther than the eye dared to see. Unnaturally long, Liis thought, with no way to get any sense of how far she still had to go before she once again set foot upon the reassuring stability of land. All she knew of stability as the closest thing to ground beneath her feet seemed to sway and tilt unstoppably at the mercy of wild nature around her, was that she desperately needed to find it.
As she moved tentative steps, though as fast as she dared, she heard unseen birds circling ahead, while the rush of the water so far below was more a dull roar than the sound of discernibly separate waves. The ocean was angry today, and the wind seemed to be in no better mood as it whipped through her hair and whistled in her ears; reminding her with the strength of its pull that it could choose to tear this bridge from where it held and to send her plummeting to her death on a whim.
She thought once about looking back. Twice, she considered turning around. Yet she couldn’t do it. The idea seemed unacceptable, even impossible. She had come too far to and what was more with every following step she grasped even more deeply just how little there was to go back for.
Though instincts may have told her just to keep her focus on the road ahead, her eyes moved upward for just an instant. From here the sky and this world seemed infinitely large, yet they were simultaneously entirely empty, with no one and nothing except this path on which she travelled, the violent wind and the chaos of the water below.
Then where there should have been an expanse of limitless blue above her, which she’d once been certain she’d seen, a thousand gathering clouds were joining forces to cast darkness on the land. It would rain soon- certainly sooner than she would reach the other side. It was hopeless to think she could outrun it but that didn’t stop her steps from getting faster as she pulled the heavy coat she wore tighter against her body to fight against the chill of the air.
She knew she was suspended in mid-air, closer to heaven now than earth. Either was a welcome destination depending upon circumstances; the sky, always, if aboard her ship; the ground only if she could ever find a place upon it that she could finally call home.
It was living here in the uncertain in-between that she hated most of all. Especially when it came with the knowledge that in this moment she could never ascend again to the heavens alone or survive the fall to the where the land should be.
Heaven.
The word struck her as very important even though in the moment she couldn't think enough to have said why.
She did not often refer to the sky as 'heaven' the way that so many others did. Perhaps it was because the concept of it escaped her powers of reason; she had seen far too much of Hell in her life to believe that any spiritual alternate truly existed. She knew of this purgatory and of that Hell but right now she had to question if anything else had even been more than illusion.
"Heaven."
She angrily mumbled the word against the wind as she took another step and then another with even more urgency. The boards were creaking beneath the soles of her boots and she dare not look down. If she did then she risked the complete confirmation that the bridge was as rickety as the first plank had appeared before she reluctantly decided to step onto it.
The structure suddenly swayed more violently now, causing her balance to slip and her almost to drop over the side, which caused her to mutter several other words one would never use in polite company.
Still she steadied herself again and kept her eyes fixed straight ahead on that endless stretch of rope and wooden planks and swirling clouds beyond. No matter how long it took she knew in her heart that nothing mattered more than that she reach the other side. One can not live forever on a bridge.
Heaven.
The word echoed in her thoughts once again, but this time it was not spoken in her own voice.
In an instant the chaos had gone as the scene around her changed, her mind flashing forward to a far different location.
The ground beneath her now was solid, yet his voice resonated through every cell in her body with far more impact than the wind that there had been.
She quickly opened her eyes and found his were firmly fixed upon them.
His hand ran through her hair, his eyes finally only leaving her face long enough to follow the course of his fingers as they traced a path down her neck, her shoulder, her arm. He reached her hand and took hold of it, elevating it to his lips, brushing them against her skin with passionate reverence before leaning in to kiss her mouth. Long moments passed by, unnoticed, unimportant, before he spoke to her once again.
"All these years I've been prayin' for heaven."
His voice was low and warm as he moved closer to her.
"All my life I've expected to wait for it but there's nothing left now to wait on."
His expression was one of desire merged, only strengthened and never tempered, with complete contentment.
"There could be no heaven greater than this."
Liis tilted her face up toward him and kissed him deeply, reveling in the sound of his sigh as she did so. His breathing quickened as did her own, and as they finally broke he pressed his mouth to her ear. "I'm so glad you took that leap of faith, Liis."
Liis reached up and took his face into her hands, gently lifting his chin until their eyes met up again. "If I didn't have faith in you," she said, "there'd be nothing left I could believe in."
"God, Liis, I love you," he murmured, as he gently shifted his massive weight on top of her. "I always will."
Liis would have willingly lived a lifetime in that embrace, but then she found she was cruelly brought back to the moment by the sound of another voice; equally male but much less loving as it impatiently called her name.
"Zanh Liis, wake up."
The voice was unmistakable and Liis startled. Though thanks to the medication in her veins this world seemed far less vivid that the one from where she’d just been, she knew that this one was real. Here she was still shivering, cold, even though she knew it was the appearance of the place now that was more chilling than its actual temperature.
"What," she attempted to force out the words but found her voice had deserted her. She tried to clear her throat and still barely was able to push out more than a whisper. "What have you done with them?"
"With who, Zanh Liis?"
"With Keiran and Will."
Brody sighed sadly and folded his arms. His expression was one of pity- pity that Liis knew she had not rightfully earned and still wouldn't want even if she had.
"Zanh Liis, you know that Keiran isn't here. Neither is, who did you say?"
"William Lindsay. Interim Director of Temporal Investigations." Liis spoke now with conviction. "You know him. He's the guy who figured out too much and so had to be 'handled'"
"The only thing we're trying to handle here is your illness, Liis. You know that."
Though her vision was still not clear, her eyes still focused in upon him as she spoke her stern warning.
"I'm not playing."
She did everything she could to try to put this situation into perspective. She had to decide if now was the time to show him just how certain she was that he'd plotted and planned all this; to let him see that she could see that the surroundings here were but an illusion.
"I'm not playing any games either. You're the one who has been...uncooperative." Now Tucker appeared to be agitated, a state that she could never recall seeing in him before. "You're only hurting yourself by refusing to accept the reality of-"
A familiar sound cut off his words, and his eyes immediately darted to hers. He slapped the communicator in his pocket and damned himself- he'd forgotten to inform the bridge that he was not to be disturbed until he left her again.
Had this been another time then Liis could have called this a moment of joy, as she was now completely vindicated; that sound in addition to the markings on her skin she was certain had only happened in this timeline confirmed each other's validity as evidence. Brody however could never have called this a joyful moment.
"I'll be right back," Brody muttered to her before he quickly stepped outside this room and slammed the door shut behind him. Then, cursing softly, he ripped the combadge from its hiding place and slapped it to his chest. "Brody here. What the hell do you want?"
[It’s Lieutenant Peterson, sir,] replied the voice on the end. [He wants to talk to either you or the Captain.]
“Lieutenant Peterson is on the Serendipity,” Brody answered with harsh and condescending syllables. “That means Lieutenant Peterson has hailed the bridge. That means that the Captain should be dealing with him. Why the hell isn’t she?”
[The Captain isn’t on the bridge, sir.]
Though had he been in a clearer thinking frame of mind Brody would have started questioning why she wasn’t there, as angry as he was right now he just attributed it to the fact that he couldn’t trust anyone here to do their job.
“Right! Fine!” He snapped. “I will be there as soon as I’m done dealing with what I have to here. Until that time you are not to contact me again. Do you understand?”
[Yes sir,] the voice on the other end immediately replied, unsure of just what they’d done wrong but certain they never wanted to do so again.
Then with this irritation out of the way Brody turned around rapidly. He was quite prepared to just storm back into the room, but he knew that would give him away. So first he straightened his jacket and returned the badge to its place.
Then he took just a moment to breathe slowly to calm himself again, before he finally returned to Liis.
“I apologise for the disruption-“ he began, but Liis refused to play along anymore.
"You've gotten sloppy, Tucker." Liis said coldly as she shook her head. Her hazy, reddened eyes bored through him and though he was still the one in control- he was certain of that- Tucker did find the expression more than a little unnerving.
This was no other Starfleet Captain he was dealing with here, this was Zanh Liis and his hatred for her was entirely personal.
"What are you talking about?" he asked, though something in her told him his ruse was over.
"The communicator, you see. It going off like that, with you in here." She still slurred her words slightly, the effect of lingering medications in her system, though she was entirely sure of the correctness of what she was actually saying. "That's wrong. You never wore one of those at the hospital. You said you didn't want to risk your patients getting interrupted. Didn’t want some some self-important admiral inviting you to play golf in the middle of a breakthrough." Liis shook her head, finding that as the deception fell away that so did the effects of the medication in her system. "The game is over, Tucker. None of this is real, and I want two things."
The look on his face screamed a novel’s worth of rants about the fact that he wasn’t about to let her win.
"You're in no position to make any-"
"Two. Things." Liis whispered, the fact that she held her position and didn't approach him as he'd expected making her no less menacing. Without realizing he was doing it, he took a step backward anyway.
"I want to know what you've done to Keiran," she said, the words nearly catching in her throat.
Then, all at once she propelled herself up from the floor and lunged; grabbing hold of him by the front of his shirt. "I want to know what you've done to my husband, and..." tears of rage turned her eyes an even deeper shade of scarlet, still they did not fall. "...and I want my wedding rings back, you irredeemable bastard."
She was angry, she was out of control, and suddenly Brody smiled a sickeningly happy grin.
“If you kill me then you’ll get neither,” he answer, defiant against the hold she had upon him. He paused a moment to tut at her before he continued. “My poor dim Zanh Liis, did you really think this would change anything? No one knows where you are. You can not call for the arch. You’ll be trapped here in this replication, no wedding rings, no one to save you; nothing but the memories of the life I took from you.”
Liis would hear nothing of this and she spoke with complete conviction as she slammed Brody viciously into the wall behind him.
“No, you’re wrong,” she insisted, with utter faith somehow still managing to overshine the hatred Brody heard in her tone in this moment. “Keiran will come for me.”
Again Brody gave her one of those smiles that could curl even skin made of iron.
“You really want to know what I’ve done with Keiran O’Sullivan?” He smirked.
“You tell me right now,” Liis said with fury, the strength in her arms as she forced him into the holographic wall enough that by rights she should have been able to break him in two.
“Alright, if you insist.” Brody said sweetly, moving his head forward slightly towards her ear and continuing in a tone and volume best suited to the intimate whisper of a lover. “Zanh Liis, I killed him.”
With his words Liis’ anger took on an entirely new ferocity.
“NO!” she screamed as she practically threw him across the room, hurling him into the base of the holographic bed on the other side.
It hurt like hell but Brody managed to roll over to his side as he saw the Bajoran rapidly stomping towards him. The look in her eyes and the way in which Brody could practically have been burnt under the heat of her rage said that with everything he’d done to her she was ready to kill him if he didn’t tell her Keiran was alive and well.
Even as she swayed unsteadily, still feeling the effects of the medication left within her, he had no doubt she could do it. Yet as she stood over him something in his eyes told her he didn’t think she’d be able.
Then as just for a moment she stopped, her dizzy mind attempting to comprehend what he could be thinking, he drew from behind him in one rapid motion a phaser, and he fired.
His shot was a direct hit and in spite of all the strength of her will to stay awake, Liis crumpled to the ground before him. Then, though had she been able to see him he’d have antagonistically smiled, Brody instead cursed himself that things should have gotten this far, as he slowly dragged himself upright by his injured shoulder.
Then feeling the pain in his joints as he dusted himself off, he considered that he was just lucky nothing was broken.
Captain William Lindsay
Interim Director
Temporal Investigations
and
-=/\=- Zanh Liis O’Sullivan
Commanding Officer
USS Serendipity NCC-2012
Interim Director
Temporal Investigations
and
-=/\=- Zanh Liis O’Sullivan
Commanding Officer
USS Serendipity NCC-2012