423: Catalyst: Three

by -=/\=- Zanh Liis
80722.01

...continued from part two...

-=Flashback: Alternate timeline, Spring of 2380:

County Cork, Ireland, Earth=-

Liis paced back and forth beneath the familiar tree, twisting the chain on her earring to the point of nearly snapping it free from the cuff.

She hadn't know where else to go but here, while she waited for word to come.

No where else felt right.

She had objected to this whole thing, from the very beginning.

When Vox insisted that O'Sullivan had to have a different partner for the Jump he was about to make, she knew he was wrong. The whole thing was wrong.

Still, they had followed orders: Keiran had gone, she had stayed behind.

Now, having received a warning from the Admiral that the outcome may be even worse than she had dared imagine in her nightmares, all she could do was wait.

It was hard to believe that it was only last summer that Keiran had brought her here to watch the Perseids.

He had done so with the purpose of telling her how he really felt about her, and she had been stunned into silence by his words and the sincerity of his emotions.

Now all she wanted was just one more chance to tell him that all of his waiting, all of his suffering had not been in vain.

Today as she'd tried to pass the time, she had been all over this place he called home. She'd even gone to his beloved church at Turner's Cross and lit a candle for him.

Despite her belief that any God, of his world or hers, would never show her any sort of favor.

Maybe even if They wouldn't favor her for her lack of faith, perhaps they would favor him for the depth of his.

As she sank to the grass, she leaned back against the tree- their tree. She closed her eyes, thinking of all the things she needed to say, to do. Things she would say and do, if she just had the chance.

Afternoon turned to evening, and as twilight bled into darkness she realized that she might as well...

It was just as she was convincing herself it was time to go that she heard the sound, saw the lights, and where there had been nothing but emptiness before, suddenly, he was there.

He was hurt.

His face bruised, his arm was bandaged and in a sling, but he was here. He was alive and he was in one piece, she could ask for no more.

She cried out his name as she jumped to her feet and threw her arms around him. Keiran groaned involuntarily, the pain in his ribs and chest searing through him as she pulled him into her embrace.

Somehow, that pain was a small price to pay for the sensation of being held by her this way.

It took a moment for him to realize that she was sobbing against his shoulder.

"Shhh, hey, now, 'tis all right. Don't cry. You didn't think that a few Romulan operatives could really be the end of me, did ya now?"

"I thought," she gasped between breaths, "that you were never," She turned her eyes up toward him, and he marveled over the fact that even when she wept, she was beautiful.

"Remember, what you told me? Here. The night of the Perseids."

He nodded.

"Y-you s-said that if I e-ever thought I c-could, that you w-would," she stammered, stuttering for the first time in years. Her eyes fluttered shut as he brushed the tears from her face. She cast her gaze downward, gathering her courage.

"Liis," he whispered, tilting her face back up toward his, "What are you,"

"I love you," she announced, clearly and without hesitation. "I love you, Keiran and you can't," she began to shake, weeping again. "You can't ever scare me that way again, do you hear me? Or I swear, I'll,"

He laughed softly, even as he tried to hide how much pain he was really in every time she hugged him closer.

"I'll do my best on that, yeah? Promise," he began, not having fully absorbed what she'd said before she tried to think up some punishment suitable to threaten him with.

Finally, her words began to sink in. He pulled free from her and took a step back.

He didn't want to misunderstand what was happening here- he had to be certain.

"Zanh Liis. What did you just say to me?"

"I said I love you, Keiran."

"But."

She shook her head, taking his bruised face gently into both of her hands. "There is no 'but'. Not this time." She brought her lips so near his, Keiran thought he might perish from the ache of wanting her if she didn't kiss him soon.

"I love you," she repeated, and then she was kissing him and for one perfect moment, nothing else that had ever happened in her life, or his, seemed to matter anymore.

-=End Flashback=-

Tears fell down Liis' face as she remembered that moment, held prisoner by the realization that it had taken believing she had lost him then for her to understand how much she loved him.

Could it be that history was repeating itself, and no matter what she did she was doomed to live the rest of her life with a hole in her soul that only he could fill?

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-=/\=-Zanh Liis
Commanding Officer
USS Serendipity/Alchemy