by Rada Dengar and Lair Kellyn
80918.13
After Just Fine
-=Arboretum, USS Serendipity=-
80918.13
After Just Fine
-=Arboretum, USS Serendipity=-
Having finished the weeding that she had volunteered to do during the Vedek's absence from the Sera, Lair Kellyn now meandered toward the gazebo in the center of the rose garden and plunked down onto the seat of the swing.
She saw a familiar figure approaching. He was moving slowly, clearly still in pain from the injuries he had suffered, somehow, on Betazoid. The homeworld of that woman, Wren.
Kellyn wasn't sure she liked Wren.
She seemed concerned enough about Rada's injuries, that was certain. But the Bajoran had a lot of questions in her mind that were yet to be answered- not the least of which was why the woman had apparently told her child that Rada was his father when the child was, without a doubt, of Vulcan descent.
She smiled as she watched Rada analyze several rose bushes. In one hand he had a pair of clippers, and with the other he reached out toward a particularly large, full blossom.
"Careful," Kellyn warned. Rada jumped backward, looking like a child caught with his hand halfway into the cookie jar.
He had thought it might be nice to take Wren a fresh flower from the arboretum and knew that the bushes were in need of a good pruning anyway. He knew this because several members of the crew had approached him and asked if he would take a turn at pruning them while the Vedek was away.
Rada hadn't had the heart to tell him that he'd nearly murdered one of Jariel's beloved kalact bushes long ago back on their first assigned ship and he certainly didn't want to take any chances with the man's prized roses.
Since they were, though, in need of pruning, he thought he could prune one of them and take it to Wren...a small gesture, but one he thought she would be pleased by.
He just hadn't expected to get caught in the act of the...pruning.
"Thorns." Kellyn added, standing up and walking to meet him. "You'll hurt your hand if you aren't careful. See?" She indicated the barbs protruding from just beneath the flower, right at the spot where Rada had been about to grasp hold of it. "May I?"
Rada handed her the pruning shears, and she smiled as she clipped the flower free.
"There you go."
“Thank you.” Rada took the flower from her and examined it in his hand. Though he may never have understood the appeal of flowers he was confident that this was a good one.
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen you anywhere near the gardens before,” she commented. “Doctor’s orders? Or worse, psychiatrist's orders?”
Rada smiled and said “No, I just had a few minutes spare and came here to clear my head. Normally I try to do that in Engineering but at the moment I can’t even bend down to pick up a hydrospanner without someone intervening and offering to do it for me.”
Kellyn could sympathize with the experience of being fussed over during recovery, she was certain that some of her ship mates must have set new speed records running across the room to pull her chair out for her.
“I remember when I was injured how as soon as I got into our quarters Salvek wouldn't let me lift a finger. He charged Arie with the duty of making sure I didn't attempt to do so much as make a bed while he was on duty. Believe me, that kid does not take such instruction lightly. She hounded me like a bulldog.”
She sat back down on the swing and pushed her feet flat against the ground, launching into motion. She would have invited Rada to sit too, but he looked to her at the moment like a man who preferred to keep the option of bolting for the door open to him.
“Are Wren and Tam that bad?”
She could see a change in Rada when she mentioned their names; she wasn’t quite sure how to define it.
Rada considered making a joke about how a Betazoid woman wouldn’t even allow you to think about lifting a finger but decided against it.
He knew that a lot of people were probably looking for answers about who exactly Wren and Tam were and how they fitted into what had happened on Betazed. These were questions he still hadn’t really been able to answer to himself.
“Things with Wren and Tam at the moment are…awkward,” he said as he flipped the flower around in his hand he then turned to look over at Kellyn. “I know that you must be wondering who Tam is.”
"You could say that I've been curious," Kellyn admitted, omitting the fact that very question had been the only thing on her mind all day. "I wasn't going to pry, honestly, but then there was that one thing the boy said that really got my attention."
"What one thing was that?"
"That he was your son.”
*That would do it,* Rada thought, knowing well the way that Lair's mind worked. He drew in a slow breath and ran his free hand back through his hair, if for no other reason than to reassure himself that his brain was still securely fastened inside of his head.
“It would be more accurate to say that I’m his father, at least from his point of view,” replied Rada, realizing that he must have been making things more confusing, not less. “His real father was, as you may have guessed part Vulcan. He left Wren to raise him alone and she decided that he needed a father figure.”
“And that was you?” Kellyn asked although she thought she already knew the answer.
“That was me." Rada confirmed. “Only I didn’t know about it. She gave Tam my name and when he’d ask about his father she’d tell him about me.”
Kellyn was shocked by this.
“She brought up Tam to think that you were his father and she didn’t even tell you?” The idea of such a deception bothered her. Then she was quickly reminded by the small internal voice that was her conscience that as someone who continued to purport the idea to her own child that she was adopted when in fact she was not, she was in no position to pick up this particular rock with a mind to throwing it at Wren's house.
"How well did you know this woman before she did this, Rada?"
Rada could see that Kellyn was already reaching conclusions about Wren and had to intervene. “I don’t blame her,” he insisted, his tone rapidly dropping from defensive all the way down to melancholy recollection. “I don’t know if I’ve ever told you this, but I never really knew my father. He left us when I was younger than Tam is now.”
“I never knew that,” Kellyn responded softly, "I'm sorry."
She was quickly coming to the conclusion that as well as she thought she knew Rada, there was still a lot in his life that he had never discussed.
She made a note to be sure this was the first of many talks that would rectify that.
“It must have been hard. Not having him there.” She said this because she felt it was expected; even as she remembered sadly that having her own father around had been both a blessing and a curse.
“He was a good man.” Rada replied quickly, although he understood that having previously heard that the man abandoned his family would make it hard for Kellyn to believe that.
He sighed as he thought of just how best to explain the man he barely knew. “He was a soldier that never really left the war behind. In order to make him a better soldier they genetically altered him to change him from a kind and gentle man who thrived in peace to a killer made for combat. Once the fighting was over my government was faced with the problem of what to do with men like him and eventually decided just to lock them away, they decided that they were too dangerous to be allowed out on the street."
Kellyn nodded to indicate she was hanging on his every word. Rada drew in a slow breath.
"Eventually however they did get out and they tried to reintegrate into society. Some men just couldn’t, they couldn’t cope with the fear that they were met with and they couldn’t cope with the idea that any second something could happen which would set them off again and that people could get hurt. My father was one of these men.” Rada suddenly went quiet.
Kellyn knew that this was one of the hardest decisions open to any parent; if it would be safer for your child, could you leave them?
“For what it’s worth,” she looked up at him, earnestly trying to offer some form of comfort, “I believe you when you say that he was a good man.”
“My mother didn’t.” His words were blunt, and more than a little bitter. “She always thought that he was a coward. She hated him for leaving us and she almost had me hating him too. Being brought up constantly knowing that you’re a reminder to a loved one of someone they hate is one of the worst things that can happen to a child. That’s why I can’t blame Wren for telling Tam that his father was someone that she loved, it’s the kinder option.”
"I believe that any child would be lucky to call you his father, Rada, that is not my issue with the whole situation."
Kellyn worried briefly that she was overstepping the bounds of their friendship and might offend him, but she cared for him enough to risk his anger if her words might serve as some form of warning. Or protection.
"Is a life with them what you want? Are you ready for an instant family, made up of a woman who obviously keeps dangerous company and a child you do not know?"
Before he could answer the question, Kellyn leapt up from the swing. She slowly walked toward him, and she put her hand gently upon his shoulder.
She took the rose from his hands and set it aside, still fearing he would cut himself on one of the thorns. Like a big sister shepherding a younger sibling, she gently led him a few steps forward to the nearest bench.
Rada sat and Kellyn took up position beside him. She allowed a moment to pass in silence as the afternoon irrigation cycle began, raining moisture down on the whole of the arboretum.
She didn't mind the 'rain' or even think to seek shelter from it beneath the roof of the gazebo. It suited her mood, and she was certain Rada's as well.
She rotated to the side and tilted her head in curiosity as she finally asked the question she had wanted to since the moment she'd seen him battered and bloodied in Sickbay.
"Rada, what exactly did happen on Betazed?"
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Lt. SG Rada Dengar
Chief Engineering Officer
USS Serendipity NCC-2012
and
Commander Lair Kellyn
Engineering Research and Development
The Alchemy Project
Lt. SG Rada Dengar
Chief Engineering Officer
USS Serendipity NCC-2012
and
Commander Lair Kellyn
Engineering Research and Development
The Alchemy Project