354: Hymn to Love

by Fleur Le Marc
80620.1730
During and after Breaking Point
Soundtrack: Hymne a l'Amour (Josh Groban rendition)

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-=Deck 11 Aft, USS Serendipity=-

"I hear he got worked over pretty good."

"Well, he's a big man. Can you imagine wrestling that? I'm sure that bringing him down was no easy task. I give Commander Blane a lot of credit, he's got guts."

"Yeah, but I wouldn't want to be him if O'Sullivan holds a grudge."

"It's Vedek Jariel I wouldn't want to be once O'Sullivan comes around."

The conversation between the two off-duty crewman taking place at a table in the darkened Afterthought Cafe' barely caught Fleur's attention, until they mentioned Jariel's name.

Anytime anyone mentioned Jariel's name, it captured her attention.

"Eh, yes, excuse me if you please," Fleur wiped the table around their half-filled cups and plates empty of all but a few remaining crumbs of pastry. "Did you say something happened aboard the ship? A fight?"

"Where have you been?" Crewman Patterson responded, shaking his head. "Everyone is talking about it. Vedek Jariel and Keiran O'Sullivan started a brawl in the lounge."

Fleur dropped her dish towel.

"Is he all right?"

"Which one?" Patterson wondered. "Last I heard O'Sullivan took the worst of it. Jariel had a lot more help. Including that Lair woman."

"Yeah, she put Cristiane into Sickbay with her beer bottle. Remind me never to turn my back on her. She's a few candles short of a birthday cake." Crewman Stillwell replied.

Fleur hurried to offer a quick 'merci' to the pair and then excused herself. She pulled off her apron, told her assistants she was leaving, and took off running through the halls of the ship.

"Computer, locate Vedek Jariel."

^Vedek Jariel is in turbo lift four beta.^

"Destination?"

^Sickbay.^

Fleur hopped into the nearest lift fearing the worst, that Jariel's injuries from the fight were worse than anyone had thought at first and he was in need of help and treatment. Her heart thumped to the point she felt it couldn't stay in her chest. She just had to know if he was all right. She suddenly had another thought.

"Computer, where is Captain Zanh?"

^Captain Zanh Liis is in her quarters.^

*Pffffffft.* Fleur thought with disgust. *That figures, she is not with him when he needs her most. What else is new?*

The doors to her lift opened just as Jariel was about to walk through the doors to Sickbay. She hurried up to him, out of breath. "Vedek Jariel, wait, please!" She called as she finally stopped beside him. "Are you all right?"

Jariel had neither the time nor the temperament to answer that question at the moment, especially not in a manner vague enough to be proper considering who was asking it.

[[Fleur, I'm sorry I don't have time to talk now. I am needed here.]]

[[But they said you were injured, that someone attacked you,]] Fleur always spoke to Jariel in sign when able, and he shook his head in reply.

He was too disappointed in himself to tell her that he'd been the one who had first resorted to violence, even though O'Sullivan was begging for it.

[[They said that O'Sullivan assaulted you-]]

[[It didn't quite go that way,]] Jariel said, his feet already propelling him through the doors. [[I'm sorry, I really have to go.]]

Without another sign he vanished, the doors to Sickbay swished softly shut behind him.

Fleur felt a mixture of relief and panic. He seemed to have escaped serious injury, but something else was wrong. *Few know him the way that I do,* Fleur thought back to the day he'd collapsed in her patisserie on DS23, and how she'd cradled him in her arms, terrified that he'd never again open his eyes as they waited for medical help to arrive. *And no one loves him as I do.*

Fleur felt too worried and anxious to return to the cafe', and so she wandered back to her quarters. Nothing soothed her here, not even the prayer books that Jariel had given her to borrow for study. The notations he'd made in the margins with his own handwriting, using an antiquated pen with ink tugged at her heart, each one.

For months now she'd been begging the Prophets to tell her what to do. How to follow the directive that they had given her in visions as far as how she should wedge her way in between Jariel and Zanh Liis. She'd been doing her damndest, but so far nothing had worked.

*He is too loyal, too faithful to be tempted by such things as tempt most men,* she thought, as she flopped onto her bed suddenly exhausted. She wept softly, silently, as her eyes became too heavy to keep open and she drifted to sleep atop a pillow soaked with her tears.

-=Aboard the Sylph Vessel=-

*Luminary, we have another...challenge.* the healer communicated.

The Luminary was growing truly impatient. Never had there been a previous intervention which had so many 'challenges'.

*What is it now?*

*Our subject, the one called O'Sullivan is faltering under the physical strain of his emotions. We must stop what we are doing.*

*He is nearly to the point of emergence. A breakthrough is soon to come.* The Luminary insisted, dismissing the healer's concerns.

*He is breaking down, not through,* the healer frowned, *His life may be lost if we do not stop, and there is more. The female animal is faring very badly and so is her suitor,*

*We wanted them to fight, they fought. The outcome was that both survived, which was surprising. We did not count on the other pack animals interfering the way that they did. They are a strange and curious lifeforms, these Terrans and Bajorans.* The Luminary focused her emotions on the healer to get a desired response, and the feedback was instantaneous.

*No, I'm not questioning your wisdom, Brilliance,* the healer gasped, heartsick that her leader would think she was being disloyal. *I am only concerned that they are more fragile than we had thought and will not withstand the storm of feelings and memories.*

*We must bring the other woman into the process,* The Luminary decided. *We must use her to bring closure to this matter.*

Now, the healer was truly growing distraught. *The Terran woman's pain concerning the one called Jariel is great. We had intended to heal her of it by giving her the knowledge in a dream that she will never win her fight to claim him as she desires.*

*Intensify the memories,* the Luminary commanded, *We will see what happens then.*

*We cannot continue to,*

*Intensify the memories!* the Luminary hissed. For a moment, pain both physical and emotional sent the healer reeling. *Or I will. If I have to do it, the outcome for you will not be a pleasant one.*

-=Alternate Timeline: Just after the events in Curiosity=-

-=Chambers of the Kai of Bajor=-

The visit from the enigma called Jonas Vox had left Jariel shaken. Sad, lonely, and worst of all doubting every decision he had ever made in his life; including but not limited to the choice to become Kai, get married, and take on a life that was so far from the one he'd dreamed of as a teenage boy that he didn't even know who he was anymore.

Jariel had called his most trusted assistant in and asked him to procure some information covertly for him, as quickly as could be done discreetly. An hour had passed since that time, and Jariel continued staring out the windows at the sky as he grew ever more impatient for the answers to his questions.

"I am sorry, Eminence," Prylar Roak entered the room, his voice echoing up to the high ceiling and off of the walls. "It was not an easy task to obtain this information without questions being asked, but it is done." He held a PADD up toward Jariel, who fairly snatched it from his hand.

"You've done well, Roak. You have my thanks."

"I serve the Prophets and their Kai with all my heart." Roak replied, as he bowed slightly. "If you require anything else, Eminence,"

"No, thank you. Leave me now."

The Prylar bowed once again and left Jariel alone with his questions, and the answers.

Now that they were in his hand, however, Jariel didn't know if he had the heart to look at them.

Could he really bear to learn the name of the man who Liis had married?

He was about to find out.

He tapped the PADD on, but upon seeing her name on the screen and before he even read a word of the report, he found that his vision was obscured by frustratingly persistent tears.

He choked them back, drawing a deep breath and asking the Prophets for strength to finally learn the truth of what had become of Zanh Liis.

Before he did so, though, there was something else he needed to see first.

Jariel opened the top drawer of his desk. Inside was a small box and within that box, an earring.

He removed it and regarded it now. It was fragile, and tarnished. He had worn that earring every single day for years, since the day that Liis left for the Academy and they had exchanged the earrings they'd had since childhood so that they would always feel connected.

He had never taken it off, not until the day that he became Kai and was given a much more "appropriate", read, large and gaudy one that he was told better befit his office.

This was another upsetting disconnect in his eyes- elaborate robes and jewelry for the man who was supposed to be the most humble of all spiritual teachers of his people? *How could he set an example of humility and grace to the poor of Bajor when he lived every moment of his life surrounded by luxury that was so extreme in its affluence that it was utterly immoral?*

He had never gotten used to the new earring. Every time he caught sight of it in the mirror he felt sick to his stomach.

Reaching up, he unclasped the noisy thing from his ear and with only a moment's hesitation, clipped Liis' earring on in its place.

Instantly he felt a sense of calm come over him. Peace and happiness. Somehow, when he wore that earring she still felt near enough to almost touch.

Refocusing his eyes on the PADD, he sat down at his desk. He set the PADD down on the surface and leaned both elbows against the top for support as he rested his chin against his entwined hands.

"Official Starfleet Profile, Lt. Commander Zanh Liis," he read aloud softly. Proudly. She'd done well in her career, just as he always believed she would.

"Retired? She left the fleet?" He read on and was surprised by this. He assumed that Liis would wear a Starfleet uniform until the day that they buried her in it; hopefully when she was a very, very old woman.

"But what about...let us see. Discharge date...last assignment was classified...ah, here it is. Marital status." Jariel gulped back the lump in his throat. "Married to Commander Keiran Riley O'Sullivan, Starfleet Intelligence (retired), County Cork, Ireland, Earth. Stardate..." He stopped reading.

That was all he needed. To see the record, and know it was real.

He hoped that wherever she was living now, whatever she was doing, that the Prophets would allow her the happiness that had eluded her all her life. Even if that happiness was achieved in the arms of another man.

He certainly had no right to feel sorry for himself about the fact she had finally married, Jariel reminded himself. After all. . . he'd done it first.

Today, especially after speaking with the mysterious man with the beard and soft, soothing voice, he couldn't help but wonder if his decision to marry Fleur had at all influenced Liis' decision to marry this...O'Sullivan, whoever he was.

*Whoever he is, he'd better be good to her,* Jariel thought, reaching up and twisting the chain of Liis' earring. Suddenly the doors to his office were thrust open, startling Jariel right out of his seat.

Fleur rushed into the room, seemingly paying no attention to the frantic urgings of Prylar Roak, who had told her that the Kai was busy and did not wish to be disturbed at the current time.

"That never applies to the Kai's wife!" Fleur complained, tsk tsk-ing as she hurried up to Jariel. "I need a moment of your time, please, and then you can return to your very important work, ah?"

Jariel quickly tapped the PADD on the desktop off and nodded. Eyes wide, he conveyed to Roak that it was all right. Fleur was a force of nature when she set her mind to something, and short of wrestling her to the ground nothing would have stopped her from bursting in on him if she felt she had ample reason to interrupt his day.

"Thank you, Roak."

Roak sighed apologetically, and bowed once more before leaving the couple alone.

"Fleur, I didn't expect you here today,"

"I know, I am very bad for taking you away from your work for a moment, but I beg forgiveness, Eminence," She often called Jariel by his title in private. Breathlessly, reverently, as if to convince herself every day that she was really married to the one and only Kai of Bajor.

"Please, Fleur, do not call me that." He had asked her hundreds of times to stop, but she never seemed to hear him. "What is so important that it cannot wait until supper?"

"Well, you know that I have not been feeling well. That I have been tired, and ill for weeks."

*Prophets, please don't let there be anything wrong with her,* Jariel pleaded silently. His heart could take no more shocking news today. He focused on her entirely now, all else forgotten for the moment. "Did you see the doctor as I asked?"

"I did, Camen," Fleur pulled out a small round disk and handed it to the Kai. Her cheeks flushed with color.

He was puzzled, until she flipped the switch to turn it on. It was an audio recording device, and a sound that seemed somehow familiar filled Jariel's ears, but still he could not place it.

Fleur now had tears in her eyes, as she stood on her tip toes and threw her arms around his neck. "That is the sound of the heartbeat of the son of the Kai," she whispered tenderly. "His DNA analysis report says that he will have dark curly hair, just as his father does."

"What?" Jariel pulled back, shock on his face. The smile or perhaps even laughter or tears of joy that Fleur was expecting were completely absent from his features, and the look in his eye wounded her to her core.

"Your son, Camen." She reached out and grasped his hand, placing it against her abdomen. "Our baby."

Jariel stumbled backward and into the built in furniture behind him. An elaborate, unlit candelabra fell from the bookshelf and clattered to the ground.

Camen had wanted to be, waited to become a father all of his adult life. Now that he was going to finally become one, he didn't understand why he felt such unrelenting sadness.

It only took a moment, though, for his wife to figure it out.

Stunned by her unannounced arrival, Jariel had forgotten to swap out Liis' earring for his official one, and Fleur pulled back from him, jealousy and pain scribed across her face.

"That...thing," she reached up and pulled the earring off of him. "You promised me that you were going to get rid of it. The day we married, Camen, you promised me."

That was only one of two promises made on his wedding day that Jariel had been unable to keep.

The first, the promise he'd made to Fleur to donate the earring for the value of its metal to the orphanage at Altaan. The second, and much more serious vow he had failed to live up to was much more sacred, and much more hurtful.

It was the vow to love her most, above all others.

"You will never be free of her," Fleur sobbed, hiding her face. "I can never be what she was to you. I have given you all of my heart, my love, and now will give you a son but still, she has your soul."

Her shoulders shook and she began softly intoning a prayer in French, one that Jariel had not heard her recite in a very, very long time.

"Fleur, listen to me," Jariel pleaded, stepping up to her and gathering her to his chest. "I am so sorry. I haven't looked at that earring in ages, I swear. I only did today because someone who knew her came to see me. He told me that she's married now, and I," He didn't have to tell her that he was remembering and wondering what if.

Fleur had lived with 'what if' since the day she first set eyes on and fell in love with, Jariel Camen.

"So, she is married eh? Shows how much she truly loved you. If I had been she I would have waited for you forever."

"Perhaps she knew we got married," the instant he spoke the thought aloud, he regretted it.

"Why are we even discussing this? I am your wife. I am carrying your child, Jariel Camen and still you speak of Zanh Liis." She began to sob again, and Jariel felt like a heel.

He smoothed her hair as he tried to soothe her wounded feelings.

"I love you, Fleur. I'm sorry if my reaction wasn't what you were expecting. I'm just so surprised, and I am so...humbled in this moment I do not know what to say."

"Say that you're happy, please," Fleur whispered. "Say that we will be enough for you and that you will finally leave her behind you."

She handed the earring back to him at last, and Camen took it, and then went to the desktop to retrieve the proper earring of the Kai. He forced a smile and nodded to her, as he clipped the earring back on. After mere seconds clamped against his ear, it began to give him a headache.

"You'll get rid of the other one? Promise me."

"I will. I promise." Camen stared at Liis' earring one moment longer. At the same time he handed Fleur the linen handkerchief he kept in his pocket, and as she dabbed at her eyes and at her nose, Camen considered tossing the earring into the recycling unit right now. But he did not. Instead, he slipped it into the breast pocket of his robe.

*First thing tomorrow,* he promised himself. *I'll give it up tomorrow.*

He kissed Fleur on the forehead. "Would you like me to escort you home? You are tired, perhaps you should rest?" He found he was already worried about her delicate 'condition' even though he had barely had a chance to process the information yet.

"No, no. I want to go to the temple and pray. Please, Camen. Pray with me, for our future. For our son."

"Of course, my dear one." Camen wrapped his hand around hers, but even as he led her from his chambers and toward the temple beyond, his heart ached.

As they continued in silence on their way, Fleur felt her heart breaking- as she realized that she never, ever would escape the shadow over their future still cast by his past.

-=/\=-

Standing mute and frozen in the entrance to Sickbay, Jariel Camen reeled with dizziness.

As soon as he'd walked away from Fleur, he'd had another vision. Had it been the Prophets this time? Had it been something else? Why was this happening?

He shook his head to try to clear it and stepped toward the curtain shielding Keiran O'Sullivan from the rest of the bay. It was then that his worst fears were realized. He was about to look into the eyes of the man who had, at some point somewhere, in some time, occupied the position in Liis' life and heart that Camen had set his heart upon since the first time he ever saw her.

Looking on from nearby, the Sylph healer felt a small amount of satisfaction course through her, followed by a burst of searing pain.

*You were to give happy memories to Le Marc!* the Luminary screeched loudly in her thoughts. *Not those memories, and not to him!*

The healer knew she had disobeyed and would suffer the consequences, but there was nothing, nothing that the Luminary could do about it now.

The healer had come to care so much for these simple, wounded creatures; she could not stand to bring them any more suffering, especially not under the pretense of helping them.

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Mlle. Fleur Le Marc
Civilian Crew/Afterthought Cafe'USS Serendipity NCC-2012
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