217: February Song

by LT (sg) Grace
80314.20
Hours After The Magic Feather

-=0300 Hours=-

The images were grainy, studies in black and white. Halting, strobe lit. Or were they being viewed through the intense flashes of the blinding light from a holocamera?

They tumbled over top of one another, sounds and sights and feelings, images all too intense to ignore.

-=Flash=- Months Ago, aboard the Federation Flagship=-

Their guitars rang out in perfect harmony, and at last he signaled for February to take over vocals as he closed his eyes and focused on the sounds that surrounded him.

He knew that he would remember this moment for the rest of his life.

When it was over, they stared at each other for a long time. Reece leaned over, resting his forehead against hers with his hands on her shoulders. February shook as she took his face into her hands, feeling a completely confusing but totally overwhelming urge to kiss him.

She stopped herself.

There were laws against Reassociation. Any Trill who became involved with someone a past host had been lovers with would be banished from the homeworld, and their symbiont would never be granted another host.

She caressed the spots on his face gently. "Dabin,"

He tried to break the spell he felt he was under. "February," the tone of his voice carried an unspoken warning, and she closed her eyes.

"It would be," she paused, her voice trembling. "so easy,"

Dabin kissed her slowly on the cheek, then grabbed up his things and moved for the door. He stopped, paused in the entryway, and sighed heavily. Not looking back, he thought of the look he'd seen in her eyes seconds before and said only one thing more.

"You're right, February. It would be so easy."

-=Flash=-

Dabin ran through the corridors, his heart racing and his feet pounding against the deck. He pushed his way past several confused crew members, before finally arriving at her quarters. He rang the chime, and called her name.

She released the lock and the doors opened. Dabin stumbled in, sweating and short of breath. She was sitting on the edge of her bed.

"I swear, I heard you, I felt..." Dabin stammered, wondering if he sounded insane. He sat down beside her.

"Did you mean what you said before?" she asked softly, "That it would be easy for you too, to want me? To fall in love with me?"

"February," he gently reached up and touched her face, "I've already fallen in love with you."

Her breath caught, her lips parted, and she leaned her forehead against his, as he had done with her before.

"But what about-?" she asked, unable to speak the name of the woman she felt stood between them.

"It was over a long time ago." He paused, his tone deadly serious, "You know what this would mean, for us both," he was worried about her giving up anything for him that he couldn't give back to her.

"I know, and I don't care. But what about Reece?"

"We've come too far, through too much to let the disapproval of people who don't understand stop us now," he replied. He was speaking the very words she had been thinking. "This is about February and Dabin, not anyone else."

She was fast realizing that her life was about to change, and that one way or another, after this night she would never again be who she'd been before.

She felt her courage falter, and only thought the words she wished she could find strength to say. *Stay with me, or take me with you, just don't let me go.*

"I won't," he said aloud, revealing that he had heard her thoughts loud and clear. "I promise you, I won't ever let you go."

He took hold of her trembling hand. "You're certain. . .this is what you want."

She answered by kissing him, and then his hands were in her hair, over her shoulders, arms encircling her tightly as he kissed her in return.

-=Flash=-Current time: USS Serendipity=-

February sat once again on the edge of the bed, months after the events she had just been thinking about. How things had changed- now the bed was not only hers, it was theirs.

She thought at first that she had simply been having another particularly vivid dream- her dreams and nightmares both had been so intense and detailed since the radiation. But this was not her dream.

It was his.

Finally reaching a deep enough sleep state to dream, her husband's memories, revisited, had crossed over from his mind into hers. Memories so intense and emotionally rooted, that they leapt from his thoughts into hers while her mind had been open to them. Receptive, unguarded in sleep. Their link, it seemed, was trying to reconnect itself.

This at once both thrilled and terrified February.

How could she explain to him that for some reason she couldn't fathom, her mind would only allow him in if one or the both of them were asleep? She couldn't find the words to tell him about the letters, and if she couldn't let him into her thoughts by speaking them while he could not hear them, what chance did they have?

She became overwhelmed, feeling cornered. She had to get out. She'd been cooped up for days. She threw on some clothes, tied on her Converse and quietly escaped their quarters.

It was the middle of the night, and the ship was still, the halls deserted. She made her way to holodeck three, which was by the computer's report the only one that was currently unoccupied. She hurried inside, and addressed the computer.

"Create a large open space. Like a warehouse. No, wait. A stage. In a theater with an empty house- no audience. On the stage put a Steinway piano- concert grand. Black."

^There are twenty-seven readily available programs which fit these structural parameters. Select a theater.^

"Options?"

^Carnegie Hall, of Earth. The Tenaran Summit of Trill.Telandra Amphitheatre of-^

"Create a hybrid." She interrupted. "Best possible acoustics."

The computer did as requested, and a moment later, she stood before the gorgeous, gleaming piano. Pulling out the bench, she sat down and lifted the lid to the key case.


Softly, she played and sang the first verse of an old song she loved, called Let It Be.

She stopped.

The song choice just wasn't right.

She shifted keys, and began to pound the piano with furious strength and all the frustration bottled up inside of her.

She began to play February Song, and sang the first verse.

She shouted above the music as she played into the bridge. "Computer, add orchestra!"

From below her position on the stage, rich strings, horns, and percussion emanated from the orchestra pit. February closed her eyes, continuing to play, soaking in the resonance of every single note of every individual instrument of the symphony which now accompanied her song.

The instruments wound down, leaving only her and the piano once more as she sang the last line.


Standing in the arch of the holodeck, Keiran O'Sullivan stopped in his tracks. He'd hoped for some time here, at last, and hadn't even been sure where he was going to go once he got here. Seeing and hearing the sight before him, he froze in the arch, paralyzed. He stared in at Grace as she sat now in silence at the piano. It took a long moment before he could shake himself free from his daze, but once he did he backed up, turned around, and slowly walked away.

"Computer, remove everything from this program but the piano." The yellow and black hologrid surrounded her, and she stared at the keys.

After a long while sitting in the silence she began to play again and she kept on playing, until the computer told her that it was six hundred hours and she knew she had to hurry back before Dabin knew she had ever been gone.

-=The next afternoon: Hours before the Mardi Gras Party=-

February moved around quarters in silence, watching as Dabin quietly set the table for three. Their guest had requested afternoon tea, he informed her, leaving February ever more puzzled as to who their mystery visitor could be.

When the doors to their quarters opened, she could not have been any more surprised.

"Hello, Bru." Rigin smiled at her, a brave smile, but sad. He'd been worried about seeing her, thinking that he didn't know if his heart could honestly take seeing her in the condition in which she had been described to him.

"Wow." February threw her arms around the tiny man. "Wow." She drew back and managed a smile. She didn't have to ask why he'd come, she only had to wonder if he could help her.

"I'm sorry I didn't get by earlier in the day, Dabin," Rigin apologized, "I had preparations to make."

"Preparations?" February tugged on her long sleeves nervously.

"Yes. Important preparations. And so do you. Oh, look! Scones!" Rigin observed the spread that Reece had laid out, and his eyes asked if he could indulge. Reece gestured to the table.

"By all means, eat. That's what it's there for."

"I'm sorry, it's just that we worked frough munch," Rigin said, talking over the half scone he had now crammed between his lips. "Mmm. Wommerful." He washed it down with the cup of tea that Bru had poured for him, and after quickly consuming several cucumber and watercress finger sandwiches, he stood up. "We have to go. You have to do something for me, each of you."

Rigin moved toward the bag he'd carried in with him, and he handed it to Reece. "Put this on."

"What?"

"The clothes inside. Go and put them on. Then I want you to meet us in holodeck three in twenty minutes." Rigin looked at February, and he sighed. "Wait, better make it half an hour. We've got work to do."

"But I don't," February raised a finger in question.

"Now now, no questions. No time for that!" He sighed and took her by the arms. "Do you still trust your old friend Rigin, February Grace?"

"With my life."

"Then come along. Reece, half an hour. Holodeck three. See you there. Oh, and wear your communicator."

"I'll be ready." Dabin promised, wondering what he was, in fact, supposed to be ready for. February cast him a glance backward over her shoulder as Rigin led her out into the corridor.

Without being able to read her thoughts, Dabin honestly had no idea how she was going to handle whatever was about to happen next. He just hoped that he had done the right thing, in bringing Rigin here.

He reached into the bag, and instead of pulling out some sort of drab robe or other plain attire that he expected he would be given to wear by Rigin for whatever it was that they were about to experience, he found a handsome, brand new suit- all in black, with a freshly pressed, high collared white shirt along with it.

"What are you up to, Rigin?" Reece asked himself aloud. He shook his head, and then headed to the bathroom to shave.

LT (sg) February Grace
Senior Flight Controller
USS Serendipity/Alchemy