by -=/\=- Zanh Liis
81005.21
Hours after Dinner for Two
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-=USS Serendipity; Sickbay, 0300 hours=-
By this point, she had been tossing and turning for hours.
Every time the LMH happened by to check on her vital signs, she closed her eyes and did her best to pretend that she was sleeping, but she doubted that her actions were fooling him or anyone else. Finally, she gave up, climbed out of the biobed, and retrieved her clothes from the bedside table.
She dressed in darkness and silence, not wanting to disturb those sleeping around her.
She had almost made it out the door when she felt a hand on her arm and startled.
"Do ya'll think I came down with the last drop of rain?" Dalton McKay whispered loudly, frowning. His nearly hairless head shone in the dim light, and Liis' shoulders sank.
"I can't do it, Dalton. I can't sleep here." She groaned. "You said I had to stay until morning. It's morning. Let me go."
"Talk about the letter of the law," he complained. He looked her up and down and folded his arms. "Promise me you're gonna try to get some shut eye before you start the day?"
"I give you my word."
"All right. But no work before seven in the AM or I will hunt you down like a dog."
"Understood." She gestured with a jerk of her head toward a curtain behind her. "Carrick?"
"About as well as can be expected, Cap'n. All of 'em," he indicated several other beds with sleeping members of the Perseids crew in them. "Gonna take some time."
"Thank you, for everything."
She made her way to her quarters, even though she felt as uncomfortable in those rooms now as she did in Sickbay.
She didn't know what she was going to do about it, either. But since it was apparent that she would not be sharing them with Jariel again in the future, she wasn't planning to stay in them.
When the moment was right she would talk to Blane, see what he could do for her in the way of arranging different quarters. Something smaller, more out of the way...
She stumbled into the sonic shower, shivering as she began to soak up the heat. She was chilled through to the bone, and no matter how high she turned up the temperature, it seemed she could not get warm.
She dressed in her uniform, figuring if she did fall asleep at all, she wanted to get as much as she could before she was due to arrive for that breakfast meeting.
She didn't see, though, how she ever would get to sleep knowing he was here. Somewhere.
"Computer, locate Keiran O'Sullivan." She whispered, as if asking was somehow forbidden.
^Keiran O'Sullivan is on deck three, officer's quarters.^
"Oh god," Liis mumbled. "He must've talked to Talbot."
Feeling she couldn't stay where she was a second longer, Liis headed to the door. She was halfway out of it when she remembered something and reversed course.
She hurried into the bedroom and sighed with relief when she saw it sitting there, on top of the bed.
With true Vulcan loyalty and efficiency, Salvek had brought her suitcase home, just as she'd requested.
She opened it and found that everything appeared to be in order.
She picked up a small velvet pouch and held it in her hands for a long time. She closed her eyes and whispered a few words in Bajoran, and then opened it.
She withdrew Anian Naloy's earring and clipped it to her ear.
She looked up at her reflection in the mirror on the opposite wall and nodded, watching as muted light streaming in from the other room reflected off of the cuff and chain.
*This feels right. *
Before closing her suitcase, she reached in again and sought out one other item, an empty envelope bearing a crimson colored wax seal.
Holding it tightly in her hands, she closed her eyes once again. Bringing it to her lips, she placed a soft kiss upon the O'Sullivan family crest embossed into the wax, before sighing and putting it back into the case.
What was she thinking?
They hadn't spoken a word to each other since he had miraculously appeared beside her in the transporter room.
She had no idea how much time had elapsed for him since they had said goodbye on Earth. No clue if he had experienced anything significant during his second encounter with the Sylph. An event that, for all she knew, may very well have changed his feelings about her and everything else in his life.
As much as her memories of their past had changed her, she couldn't discount the possibility that he'd found another life somewhere out there- one that suited him far better than his brief one with her ever did.
She closed the suitcase, spun around, and strode into the corridor, not wanting to think about the possibility that his mind and body may have returned home, but his heart may still be lost to her just the same.
Arriving quickly at Holodeck Two she wasted no time in telling the computer to initiate the program she wanted. The second the doors parted, she rushed in through them.
She marched across the tall, soft grass until she reached her usual spot.
She breathed in rapid shallow bursts as a breeze blew past; eyes focused downward upon ground that she would have bet her life had been violated in reality...opened to swallow up his mortal remains so that he could sleep at last under the stars of home.
"This is only a hologram," she kept repeating, trying to convince herself. "This is not real, and neither was his funeral."
The Sera raced on silently through space at this hour, traveling at high Warp. The Admiral had given the order, she'd been told, to get them back to Earth as quickly as possible.
Liis promised herself that the moment they reached orbit that she would beam down, she would stand in the middle of that field in Cork and she would stare at the earth until she was entirely certain once again that Keiran was not buried under it.
Every time she thought about the possibility that in any reality he had been, she felt inexorable pain.
She sank slowly to the ground, pressed her back against the trunk of the tree and lifted her gaze up, toward the artificial sky. As the Perseids flew past overhead, tears filled her eyes until they spilled over and rained down over her skin.
The peace of her solitude was broken a short time later, the instant she became aware of the sound of the arch opening in the distance.
*Damn. I forgot to lock the door.*
She expected it to be Salvek, or maybe even the LMH come to drag her back to Sickbay or worse, her quarters. Insisting that she get some sleep as she'd promised.
She jumped up from beneath the tree, but did not turn. She hung her head, not wanting to have to offer anyone an explanation as to why this was the only place aboard ship she wanted to be right now.
Behind her and in total awe of his surroundings, stood the one man who would need no such explanation.
Keiran had, himself, long since given up on sleeping this night.
When he'd asked the computer for the tenth time where she was, he finally heard a different answer. She had managed to escape from Sickbay.
In no time at all he was fully dressed, his feet leading him here at the insistence of his heart.
Once through the arch he wasted no time in closing the distance between them.
Now that he had seen that this program did exist in this time as well...now that he knew she truly had felt enough for him after their last parting to create such a detailed replica of home and their Perseids- he needed to know nothing else.
He wanted so much to tell her everything, but as he saw her standing there with starlight shining down upon her, he found he could say only one thing.
"Liis."
She began to tremble.
He stood directly over her shoulder, tilting his head and taking in the scent of her hair. She shivered at the sound of his inhalation, and the shuddering sigh with which he very slowly exhaled.
A bolt of electricity rushed through her as his hands gently grasped her arms. He slid his fingers down to her wrists, then back up, all the way to her shoulders.
They lingered there until he finally moved them down again, tightly securing his arms around her waist. Her surroundings seemed to spin, and all she could do was lean back against his steady shoulder as her knees went weak beneath her.
He pressed his lips down on the top of her head, reaching up and parting her hair to expose the collar of her uniform.
Deliberately, he breathed out slowly against her skin and felt her body sway at his touch. Overcome by the sensation he lowered his head, burying his face in the nape of her neck.
At last he rotated her around and for a moment, he hesitated. His mind began listing a thousand reasons why this could be wrong. What it could do to her, to him, to the timeline.
His every thought and reason melted away the instant she tilted her face up toward his and clasped her arms around his neck.
There was no music playing, but within seconds they were dancing.
-=/\=- Zanh Liis
Very Happy Woman
Aboard the USS Serendipity