572: Then and Now: Three

by Fleur Le Marc
81010.18
...continued from part two

-=The Takesian Plains, Bajor=-

She sat silently, hands folded in her lap, simply listening.

“I found that everything I believed in, all that I’d built my life upon, was not what I thought it was anymore. My faith. My hopes. My dreams.” He ran his hand through his hair, and when it brushed against his earring it made a jingling noise, getting her attention.

His hair had grown so much while he’d been here that she only realized now that his earring was not the one she was so used to seeing him wear; this one was new and entirely different.

“I do not believe you.” Fleur didn’t mean to sound as harsh as the words she spoke. She just didn’t dare entertain any hope that things were really different in his life now. It was far, far too dangerous.

She had only begun to find her footing and she was happy here. If she allowed him to place new doubts into her head, then her heart would surely follow.

“You just need to give it time, Vedek Jariel. You always find your way back to each other in the end.”

“Not this time.”

The way he spoke the words surprised her, his voice seeming to imply that it was more of a relief to him than a cause of sorrow.

“Why not?”

Jariel looked at her again, and he realized that if she was ever going to see him in any other way than the way that she had seen him the last time they spoke on the Alchemy, that he was going to have to tell her everything.

“Do you remember,” he asked cautiously, “When those telepathic aliens interfered with the Serendipity? When they effected the Captain, and O’Sullivan, and a handful of other people?”

Fleur nodded solemnly.

“I was one of them.”

“No,” Fleur was horrified at the thought. “No.”

She reached out, unable to stop herself and put her hand on his, grasping it tightly. “They did not harm you,” she realized what she’d done and withdrew her hand as quickly as if she had touched a burner on the hot stove. “Did they?”

“Harm me? I’m not certain. I know that they are the reason that I can talk now…wait,” he paused, thinking suddenly that perhaps this would be easier for him if he spoke to her the other way. The way that he’d become so used to for so long.

[[I need,]] he hesitated, watching tears fill her eyes at the sight of him signing. [[I need you to understand, Fleur. I have to tell you the truth, about everything. But what I am about to tell you must never be repeated to anyone else. Will you give me your word?]]

She gulped hard, and her hands started to shake as she attempted to respond in kind. [[All right.]]

That was not enough for him. [[Promise me.]]

Fleur’s hands shook even more fiercely. [[I promise, Jariel.]]

Satisfied, he took a deep breath and began again.

[[The Sylph, they thought that they could help members of the crew in different ways,]] his eyes reflected sadness as he thought back over events the way that they had unfolded.

[[For some, it was a true healing without consequences. But for others, the Sylph ended up altering the lives of those they wanted to help in ways they never imagined.]]

He looked straight into her soft green eyes. [[You do know that Zanh Liis,]] he actually had to think about it as he spelled out her name letter by letter. He realized upon doing so that for the first time in his life as he knew it, he had gone days without thinking about her, even for a moment, until now.

[[She used to work for the Starfleet entity called Temporal Investigations.]]

[[Yes, I had heard something of the sort,]] Fleur confirmed. It was hard not to hear such things when you dealt with the crew every day, in such a relaxed setting.

[[Well, she wasn’t the only one. Keiran O’Sullivan used to work for them too.]]

She was so struck by the mention of O’Sullivan that she could only wait for him to continue even as the silence dragged on for minutes.

[[The Sylph discovered that Keiran O’Sullivan had known Zanh Liis previously, but that his memories of her had been altered. He had apparently had some procedure that was supposed to suppress them for the rest of his life, but it failed,]] Camen explained.

[[He was suffering because of them. The Sylph sped up the process of his memory recovery, and then they discovered that the memories which were causing him pain were directly related to one person. Zanh Liis.]]

*My God! How many good men can one woman take out? * Fleur asked herself, beginning to fume.

[[Why does this not surprise me?]] She sighed furiously, but Jariel reached out and stopped her mid-motion.

[[Wait, let me finish. It wasn’t her fault.]]

*And still, he defends her…* Her shoulders sank, and she gestured for him to go on.

[[Zanh Liis’ memories had been altered by Temporal Investigations, too. And overnight, the Sylph restored years of lost memories to her, of other timelines she had lived and worked in. Times in which she had,]]

He paused, wondering if she could possibly believe him. [[…been involved with Keiran.]]

Her mouth fell open.

[[Her mind and body couldn’t handle the strain of what the Sylph were doing to her, and in the end, both she and O’Sullivan nearly died, right in front of me.]] Camen closed his eyes, hating to think about that dark day. [[In a way, Fleur, she did.]]

“What?” Fleur gasped, and again, reached out for his hand. This time, she held on and did not let go.

Not wanting to let go either, Camen returned to speaking aloud. “She retained her memories afterward, and she realized that she had lived a different life than she’d ever imagined. One in which,” he looked up at her, his brown eyes larger than she had ever seen them. “She was married to him.”

“No,”

”Yes.”

“According to the rules of that timeline, however they explain it honestly all this Temporal Investigations business leaves me dizzy,” he whispered, “They weren’t meant to be together, and so both timelines in which they tried to be, she died.”

“God,” Fleur couldn’t begin to process what she was hearing. “Jariel,”

“Convinced that he had no choice, O’Sullivan left the ship after it escaped from the Sylph. He went back to Temporal Investigations, and left Liis behind,” he released her hand and brought both of his together, raising them up and wringing them before him. “Regardless, she was not able to leave him behind.”

*Ah, * Fleur thought, *So now I understand… *

He began to sign again as emotion stole his voice away.

[[We talked and talked, on Betazed, after you left. It became clear in the end that neither one of us had any idea who we really were anymore, and that we needed, for the first time, to try to find out independently of each other.]]

[[So you separated temporarily and came to Bajor to find yourself.]]

[[No. We separated permanently and I came here to remember who I was before I knew her. As a child, before duty and obligation began to dictate who I would become.]]

[[Permanently,]] Fleur scoffed. [I don’t believe you. She will change her mind, and,]]

[[Even if she did,]] Camen insisted slowly, [[I would not.]]

[[Why? Because you can’t love her thinking that she’s ever loved another man?]]

[[No!]] Camen grew frustrated and stood, pushing away from the table and pacing.

He spun on his heel back toward her, his expression like she had never seen it before.

[[Because the Sylph also showed me what my life was like, in the other time, and I found out that in that life, I actually married before she did.]]

Fleur felt like someone had just stopped the planet from turning and then violently spun it in the opposite direction.

[[You were…married…to someone…other than Zanh Liis.]] She thought herself ridiculous for being surprised by the idea. Surely, any woman would gladly accept him should he ask for their hand.

[[Not any someone, Fleur,]] Jariel dropped to his knees before her, placing his hand beneath her chin and forcing her to look up at him. “I was married to you.”

Now Fleur felt like the world had thrown her from its surface, and she was in free fall.

She groaned, her head aching. She dropped it into her hands, but Jariel gently pulled her hands away from her face.

“Please, there’s more. You have to know the truth.”

She shivered, too weak to run from the room no matter how badly she wished to.

“In that life we met here, on Bajor, when we were much younger than we are now. You were barely twenty, and I,” he could hardly believe his own words, “Was about to become Kai.”

Fleur listened, staring blankly into the distance.

“You were on a trip, and the ship you were traveling on was attacked. You were part of a rescue party that ended up at Altaan, and you decided to stay there awhile.

“In this time, Zanh Liis and I had not been in contact for years, not since she left to join Starfleet. I didn’t know where she was, or if she’d ever come back, and you were,” his voice shuddered. “You were so sweet, and so lovely.”

Fleur turned her head away.

“And you fell in love with me, I still don’t know why. But you did. I cared for you too, very much. Eventually, I knew that you wanted to marry me, and I knew that Liis was never coming home, so I did it. I promised you my heart, and then,” tears filled his eyes, spilling over. “I broke yours.”

[[But how?]] Now she was the one unable to speak out loud.

“Because I held part of myself back from you. I still hoped that someday, Zanh Liis would come back, and I allowed that boyhood fantasy to…steal from you what was rightfully yours.” Jariel was ashamed at the thought.

“Ever since the Sylph showed me that life, I have wondered if I could ever truly care about anyone except Zanh Liis. I was asking myself that question the very night on the Alchemy when you told me,” he paused, again halfway through the unconscious action of reaching out to touch her face when her expression begged him not to.

[[When you said that you cared for me. I had the immediate knee-jerk reaction, thinking about how I’d hurt you in that other life and how regardless of what happened with Liis and I, I could never, ever risk doing that again.]]

He rose and took to the chair beside her once more, leaning close to her.

[[I know that I have hurt you in this time as well, Fleur, and I’m so sorry. I don’t know why I didn’t see, all those years, that you,]] he sighed again, [[I valued your friendship so highly, I suppose I didn’t want to see. If I had allowed myself to see I wouldn’t have felt right spending time with you, while I was involved with her. But I always wanted to spend time with you.]]

“Jariel,” Fleur found her voice at last, and silenced him gently, “Listen to me. You have no reason to feel guilty about what happened in some other reality that we have no control over. You were different there, and from the sound of it so was I. So those were two other people, living in another world that has nothing at all, in my mind, to do with the one in which we are living now.”

She made it clear that her opinion on this was definite.

“I do not feel sad for her, because whoever that Fleur was, at least she was able to know, at some point, what it felt like to have your affections.”

She looked him in the eyes at last. “That was what I had hoped would happen in this life that we are very much still living now. But I realized that I was deceiving myself and to be truthful, I came here to try to break that promise I made to you. I came here to try to forget you, and I was well on my way. Until,”

[[Until I showed up.]] His shoulders slumped.

“Oui. Until you showed up, acting like you were a different man and causing me to question my own sanity.”

She touched his earring.

“It is plain to see that you are different, though I have to tell you that I still have my doubts as to whether or not you and Zanh Liis are truly through with each other. Either way, there is something that you must know about me.”

He listened.

“As sure as I am that I am not the Fleur that you knew in that other life, I am also certain that I am not the Fleur that you knew the day that I left the Alchemy. I have changed, Jariel. I have changed a lot.”

Her eyes were burning with determination unlike he had ever seen in them before.

“I came here to build a life, and I am doing that. There are people that I care about, and now that you are here, yes you are one of them and I am perfectly willing to be your friend, if that is what you need me to be. But the way you have behaved the last few days has drawn comments from others, and though I doubt there is any truth to what they are saying to me, I had best not take any chances and tell you honestly.”

Camen was spellbound, seeing her as though for the very first time.

“I am no longer willing to be the woman who will pick up the pieces of your broken heart, patch them back together, and call that enough.” She shook her head very slowly.

“No. I realized as soon as I got here that was never what I wanted.” She closed her eyes as she made her last confession. “I wanted to be the woman who stole the whole thing.”

She shrugged her shoulders and returned her gaze to him.

“Since I cannot be that, then I am unwilling to settle for anything less. Does that mean that I no longer love you? Does that mean that you are no longer the last thing I think of every night when I close my eyes before falling asleep? Absolutely not. I have loved you for such a long time that I do not know any other way to live.”

She shivered slightly and wrapped her arms around herself.

“It only means that is the way that I will continue to love you, from a safe distance and in my own way. That love for you is pure, and there is some comfort in that. If I were to accept your attentions now, believing as I do that I would only be a poor substitute for the one that you love best,”

She blinked and tears fell down her face. “it would corrupt my soul. I simply cannot do it. So, I am telling you.”

She reached out for his hand, one last time. “Please, do not feel sad over what you believe once was. If that timeline was doomed as you say it was, for others, then it also was doomed for us. And please do not feel sorry for not caring about me in this time either,”

Fleur truly did not want him to torment himself over it, as she knew he would, because his heart was so tender.

“I love you, Jariel Camen, and that will not change. I will be your friend, but I will not be your,” she smiled an eerie, far away sort of smile, thinking back to the warning that TC Blane had given her before she’d come to Bajor. “I will not be your ‘first loser’.”

She rose from her chair, leaned forward, and gently pressed her lips to his cheek.

They lingered there a long time, as she fought the temptation to really kiss him, thoroughly, just once after all the years of wondering what it would be like.

In the end her determination won out, and she stepped back.

“Will I see you in the morning for un petit-déjeuner santé?”

His only response was a single nod.

“Very well. Goodnight.”

She paused as her hand grasped the knob of the front door.

“I suppose if nothing else,” she whispered, “that I understand now why you suddenly speak such fluent French.”

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Fleur Le Marc
Civilian Crew
USS Serendipity NCC-2012
Currently on Bajor