By Lt. February Grace and TC Blane
80310.12
Immediately following Good Enough
Soundtrack: Cry Little Sister by Gerard McMann
-=USS Serendipity=-
80310.12
Immediately following Good Enough
Soundtrack: Cry Little Sister by Gerard McMann
-=USS Serendipity=-
TC walked out of his quarters dressed in a clean uniform with the yellow collar prominently displayed. He felt better, a whole lot better, to be exact. It was amazing how a simple piece of cloth could change a person’s demeanor. Not that anyone would be able to tell, his face still carried the stoic visage of indifference.
Today, he would be resuming his duties as the Sera’s Chief of Operations and Captain Zanh’s Second Officer. But first there was something he needed to do, something that he wanted to do but had been unable to because of the last mission.
He arrived outside of Dabin and Bru’s quarters and with out missing a beat rang the door chime.
He heard an audible sigh emanate from the other side of the door, followed by a wispy, almost childlike version of the voice he was expecting. "Who's there?"
"Your dashing older brother."
"Just a sec," He heard shuffling, the sound of her bumping into something, hushed mumbling, and then the 'twang' of muted guitar strings as she moved away from whatever she'd bumped into first and then knocked her guitar from the stand.
When she finally answered the door, he observed that she was wearing a huge, oversized sweater over her other clothing, with sleeves that long passed her wrists. She tugged on the sleeves nervously with her hands as she looked up at him.
"Glad to see you're home safe." She looked him over for a moment, knowing something was different but she couldn't put her finger on what it was "You look. . ." Her eyes brightened as she realized what had changed was his uniform. "Very well dressed this morning, Commander. Dashing, indeed."
He smiled, his blue eyes flashing just a hint of his satisfaction. “Yes, well I figured I looked better in yellow.”
"I concur. Please, won't you come in?"
He found the temperature in the room to be warmer than usual by far, but she was acting like no matter how warm the room, she was still freezing.
Without asking if he even wanted one, February moved to the replicator and ordered a cup of coffee for him. She carried it toward the coffee table, curled up in her favorite chair, and gestured toward the opposite chair.
"So, tell me all about your exciting mission. Dabin told me that everyone was raving about the way you handled the Gauntlet, and the Alchemy before that. I'm proud of you."
He though for a moment about the compliment and found it odd. He did not think that he had done anything out of the ordinary, just his job.
“Well, I managed to get both back in relatively one piece.” He paused as he thought about the injuries to both Lair and Grace. “As well as most of the crew under my charge. Speaking of that, how are you feeling?”
Although he had not had the opportunity to personally check in on February he had kept tabs on her progress so he was well aware of her situation, both the physical and telepathically.
"I'm fine." She said lightly, pasting on her bravest smile. Again, she was tugging on the sleeves of her sweater.
TC took a sip of the coffee she'd supplied, blue eyes glancing up over the rim of the cup as he did so. "You seem to have developed the unhealthy habit of telling me you're fine when you're not."
Bru's smile eroded, and she shifted in her chair. "Well, I gave it a shot." She left her chair, returning to the replicator just to escape his piercing gaze.
"I want to apologize to you for that. For keeping the truth from you, on the Alchemy. I put the ship in danger because I lied to you about my condition. I knew I was sick. Deep down, I thought you knew too, and that you knew I wanted to do my job for as long as I could. You trusted me to know if I was still fit to sit in that chair and navigate,"
She set her cup of cinnamon tea down onto the table and suddenly, sought approval from the very pair of eyes she had been so set on avoiding a moment earlier.
"I don't remember exactly when I blacked out. Tell me that I didn't let you down, too."
TC frowned as he took another sip. “Let me down? Kid, you saved us all.” He stated bluntly. “I wouldn’t have expected or accepted anything else from you.” He took another sip from his mug. “It is one of my jobs to keep you jumping.”
He put the mug down and leaned forward, his elbow resting on his knees, a clear indication that she had his full attention. “Seriously, I want to apologize for not getting to see you sooner.”
"Please, don't apologize. Talk about saving us all. You sort of had your hands full with a little thing called the Gauntlet," Bru's eyes widened. "Besides. When you know someone really cares about you, you know that they're there for you, even when they're away. When I was in Sickbay, thinking about everything. . .I knew you were there."
"So what else aren't you telling me?" TC asked after a moment's silence. "I know there's something more. Reece treating you okay? Or do I need to have another one of my talks with him like I did right I found out you two were hitched?"
February couldn't help but smile a little, thinking how TC had given Dabin a good-natured working over after finding out about the secret nuptials.
"Go easy on poor Reece. He just found out that his wife's three month, three thousand light-year warranty has expired and it's too late to return her for a refund. He may just have to send me on to waste reclamation with the rest of the refuse and cut his losses."
"Don't say that."
"My parents have disowned me." February announced abruptly. She observed TC's face. He could not have been any more surprised by her sudden admission if she had hauled off and slugged him instead.
She was in all the way now, there was no going back. She didn't give him a chance to respond before continuing.
Somehow, she could tell Blane this, the thing she couldn't tell anyone else yet, not even Reece.
"And the best friend I ever had from my years as an Initiate wrote a lovely little diatribe telling me how I've broken their hearts and they won't ever be happy now.
"How they've packed up their things and left Earth, returning to Trill to undertake the mission of giving educational lectures to Initiates and their families about the evils and ever present danger of Reassociation. " She shook her head in disbelief.
"Furthermore, she said I should crawl on my hands and knees if I have to and beg forgiveness from the Commission- use my medical issues as an excuse, anything, to get reinstated into Trill society. I tried to tell her that it was the illustrious Commission that attempted to kill me in order to hide what had been done to Grace, but she didn't answer. And she won't. I'll never hear anything from her, or my parents again. It's over."
She sighed, angry at herself again for being upset by this.
"I've lost my telepathic link to Reece, it must be some kind of punishment. Now, I know what you're thinking, TC. That I knew all this would happen when I made the decision to Reassociate with him, and your right. I did. I knew that I'd lose everyone I've ever loved outside of this ship and crew. I knew that I couldn't ever go home."
She paused. "Hell, my parents were never happy with me even when I was the best little girl in the world. But despite everything. . . I still feel like a failure because I've let everyone down."
TC listened to her words and he could easily see that the confidence that she had found through her Reassociation was leaving her. He understood the blow she had taken.
He had truly come to care for her as if she was his own blood. In fact, technically, he was a part of her family, at least the symbiont’s, having carried Gentry's memories during her Rite of Closure.
After a long pause he reclined back into the soft chair. “I see. You've let everyone down." He nodded slowly. "So I guess Dabin will be divorcing you then.” He stated bluntly.
Bru looked at him in shock.
“I’m sure the Captain will be reducing your duties as well.” He slowly stood and looked around her quarters. “You might want to think about redecorating also, I mean because apparently what I see, your husband sees, and the Captain sees in you MUST be wrong.
"After all, the opinions of those who you’ve hardly had contact with in years, who have not seen what your become especially since your Reassociation, must be more accurate then ours.”
February's lips parted but she only continued to stare, bound to her silence by the powerful force exerted by shame.
"Because we all know just how important your happiness has always been to your parents, don't we February?" TC continued forcefully.
"We know that when they were smacking you around and drumming into your little head all those years that your only value existed in becoming a vehicle to haul around a symbiont in, they had your best interests at heart. When they denied your natural talents and pushed you to grow up too fast, kept you isolated and made you fearful of everything outside the walls of their house, they were looking out for you. Such loving parents!" His voice conveyed his deep sarcasm.
"Maybe they weren't. Maybe they're not. But they're the only ones I've got." February's head bowed. "That I had."
TC dropped to a knee beside her chair. His tone softened. "Every time they belittled you, every time they told you that you would never measure up, you believed them." He held her firmly by the shoulders. "It's time to stop."
"I want to stop. I want to believe that I'm enough." Her voice was hollow; tired and completely bereft of emotion.
"I don't believe the way that they do, and they can't accept me the way that I am. I don't believe, deep down, that Reassociation is evil and wrong. They do. I just wanted so badly to think that for once in my life, what made me happy would make them happy too." Her eyes ached, devoid of tears but still burning from the salt of those that had come before.
"But the truth is, TC, that they would rather I had died on Trill a noble host than live to be a hundred as one guilty of Reassociation. Maybe it would have been better for everyone if I had."
TC stared at her for a second. “No.” He said bluntly. “That’s not true. You’re here, now. The decision was the right one. You have to believe in that otherwise, you could not have gotten to where you are now. Don't waste your time away thinkin' 'bout yesterday's blues.”
He grabbed her hand and squeezed. “Kid, you were hurt in the line of duty, the loss of your link to Dabin might, and I stress might, be permanent. But it was caused by the radiation, nothing more. Your not being punished by fate, the gods, or your parents and friends. The only person punishing you, is you.”
He let go of her hand and slowly stood. “Of course unless you realize that, nothing I or anyone says will mean anything.” He sat back down across from her. “Is this how you want to exist?”
February seemed very far away as she stared through him. Her mind accepted that what he was saying was the truth on an intellectual level. Emotionally, her heart did not yet know how.
"I wish there was a way that I could make you understand how hard it is to know, to live with knowing," she whispered, "that the people who brought you into this life would have rejoiced at your funeral, thinking you had lived a faithful course and would be somehow rewarded later.
"Knowing that now, instead, their beliefs damn you to non-existence while you are still breathing." She knew that to someone who had not grown up with the belief system that she did, that the concept would seem at best unkind, and at worst, unfathomably alien.
“Bullshit!” TC exclaimed. February saw his eyes flash with a deep, impassioned anger.
He had never met her parents and now, for their sake, he hoped he never would. He could easily see the damage that had been done to this young woman, and the damage that was still being done pained him to the point of rage.
He wished he could give up part of himself to help her though it. The knowledge that he was powerless to help hurt him more then any phaser, knife, or blunt instrument could ever do. He quickly recovered his emotions with a deep breath and his demeanor returned to its steady calm, stone face visage.
"You can't reason with that kind of insanity, February," TC leaned toward her and kissed her forehead at the point where her gently arcing spots stopped, just shy of meeting in the middle.
"No one has a right to declare you dead before the day you die. It simply is not their right. They may decide to pretend you don't exist, but it is their loss then, and it's pitiable."
He shook his head. "But you have a choice to make now that can't wait any longer. Are you going to let them stand there with their shovels, throwing the dirt that will smother you into your grave while you lie in it willingly and take it? You can surrender all that you've fought for, or you can fight them. Get up! Look those demons in the eye, and walk away from them stronger for it."
He paused, thinking of one more thing he should add that might help her to get past her emotional roadblock.
"You know, everything you're facing, Reece is too. He chose to accept it all and rise above it, by your side," He wasn't trying to use guilt to motivate her- she'd had more of that than anyone ever needed in a lifetime in her twenty-five years already. He was just trying to make her realize that everything she needed to be happy was already right in front of her.
"Are you going to bail on him now and make him go through it alone?"
February's vacant eyes finally seemed to regain a glimmer of understanding. "No one should have to go through it alone."
"Then don't let them win. Don't let them get between the two of you. He loves you, February, and you don’t need any telepathic link to know that. Don't fight that, too."
--------------------------
Lt. (sg) February Grace
Senior Flight Controller
USS Serendipity NCC-2012
and
Commander TC Blane
Second Officer/Chief of Operations
USS Serendipity NCC-2012
Lt. (sg) February Grace
Senior Flight Controller
USS Serendipity NCC-2012
and
Commander TC Blane
Second Officer/Chief of Operations
USS Serendipity NCC-2012