by Zanh Liis and Salvek
81014.20
…continued from part one...
“When Kellyn came home,” she repeated, her voice dropping to the opposite extreme in volume as her eyes returned his stare.
“Did you say to her, 'Well, we’ve been apart for almost a year, maybe you’re different, maybe I’m different. Maybe the experience of losing you was too painful, and so I don’t think we should be together anymore'?"
Salvek folded his arms in an uncharacteristically defensive gesture.
“WELL DID YOU?” She shouted the question, already knowing the answer.
She had been there that day, she knew what had happened.
Salvek closed his eyes, remembering how the very first thing he had done upon hearing Kellyn's voice over the comm was rush to her location.
He could sense her katra the moment she had returned to her proper place, and a sense of peace knowing that his Universe was right again, because she was alive in it.
He fought to control the swell of emotions that flooded his senses.
He remembered saying goodbye, holding her in Sickbay aboard the Independence as her life force slipped from his grasp.
He remembered her funeral, and the quiet desperation he felt afterward, living that life alone.
He remembered how she was so miraculously returned to him on the day Zanh was referring to, and how as soon as he reached her, he had initiated a meld with her. He recalled with crystal clarity how badly he had ached to join with her mind, after so long in silence without it.
If not for that reunion, if not for her return to this branch of space time…he would not have her and he would not have Arie.
Without them, he would not have what he believed to be his most precious reasons for living.
“No. I remember,” Liis rasped, tears spilling and running rivers down her cheeks. “I was there.” She shook her head from side to side.
“What did you do? You held on to her. You didn’t ever want to let her out of your sight again. And for the past decade, Salvek, with the rare exception of an assignment here or there, you have not left her side. You are grateful to have your wife, and you try very hard not to think back to the time when History took her from you. Because dwelling on it would destroy you.”
She took a single step forward toward him.
Salvek took an equal step back.
“Put yourself, just for a second, in Keiran’s place. It shouldn’t be hard. He lost his wife, you lost yours. Only difference being he had to go through losing me not once, but twice. And he didn’t even get to keep his memories of me afterward. No, those were taken away as well.
"But somehow, something of me remained in him. He fought to get back to me. Waited for me patiently. He hoped against all odds, no matter what they told him that someday he'd come home to me. And he did. He's finally home.”
She narrowed her eyes, angry on Keiran’s behalf. “Did Kellyn’s absence make you love her any less?”
Salvek remained silent, and she grew angrier. “Answer me, damn it!”
“No.”
“No. So should you expect that he would love me any less after all?" She looked at him sideways. "Unless you think I’m not as worthy of such affection as Lair Kellyn is.”
“I would never say, or think,” Salvek objected, “any such thing, Zanh Liis.”
“Maybe not. But I know you.” She shook her head once again. “And I know that this time, you’re wrong.” She sighed deeply.
“Because you did one thing under similar circumstances, yet you expect me to do another. I know that Logic does not reign over all inside that Vulcan heart of yours. Your head dictates caution but your heart wanted what it wanted, and you gave in to it. You needed Kellyn, and you didn’t give a damn what History had to say about it, did you?”
Salvek brought his hand to his chin thoughtfully as she finished her closing arguments.
“Ever since the Sylph gave me the memories back that TI had taken away, I have been living a nightmare. I was torn away from someone, from something, years ago and I didn’t know why I couldn’t be happy. I didn’t know what was missing.”
She held her arms out open in a gesture of hopelessness before letting them fall to her sides.
“What would you have me do? You may say I’m being reckless. That I have others to think about when I make my decisions. This ship. This crew. And you’re right.” She brushed tears away fiercely with the back of her hand.
“I do think of each and every one of you when I have any serious decision to make. But this time, the decision has been made for me because I know that I can’t live without him, Salvek.
"So you tell me, where does that put you and your work, as well as the ship and the rest of the crew if I let fear hold me back and end up falling apart?”
He closed his eyes, inhaled, then exhaled slowly.
“I might die tomorrow, but that could happen whether I deny my feelings for him or not. And I can't deny them anymore." She declared, undaunted.
"Just because those years were erased from what we call our correct timeline doesn’t mean the events I remember didn't take place. It doesn’t mean that my feelings, that his feelings, aren’t real. I know. I know what I’ve seen, in other’s lives again and again, long before it happened to me. I never thought," she whispered in disbelief, "that this would ever happen to me.”
She paced over to the window, leaned against it and put her head down on her arm.
“I thought I knew who I was, Salvek. I thought I knew what I was meant to do, meant to be. But it was a house of cards. All that I thought made me successful was really what condemned me to failure. Do you know that I’d…” she shrugged, “I had actually given up on ever being happy? Years ago. I just thought, some people are happy and some aren’t, and I fit into the second category. I didn’t think anything of it after awhile.”
She wiped at her eyes. “I was numb, accepting. Resigned. I thought that this was the life that History gave me and I should be damn grateful I was alive at all.”
She lifted her head and glanced at him.
“I loved Jariel, Salvek. I really did. You know that.” It seemed very important to her that he understand this. Salvek opened his eyes, and directed them to her reflection in the window.
“All my life, I loved him. And I know that he loved me too. But we were children. We were…damaged. We were told who we had to be, and given little choice in the matter. It was only because we cared for each other so much that we kept trying to understand why nothing ever came easily. Everything was always a struggle.
"He had his work, I had mine. He had the Prophets, I was married to Temporal investigations. All those years, something stopped us from clearing the obstacles from our path so we could just be together. I didn’t understand it then, but I do now. "
She paused.
"We were never what each other truly needed. We wanted to be, we tried to be. But once we saw that we had been different people in another life," she turned to face him directly. "How could we go on pretending things hadn't changed?
Salvek looked at the floor.
“I was willing to try. He was willing to try. Then we realized that if you don’t love and accept someone genuinely for who they are, then that’s not love. That’s…a Pygmalion Project.”
She returned to her desk, grasped Keiran’s envelope in her hands and brought it to her chest, clutching it against her.
“I could turn him down and send him away. I could break his heart, and mine because Time and History have taught us to be fearful.” Her eyes begged his understanding. “Don’t you think I’m scared? I’m terrified.”
Salvek could never recall, until only recently, ever hearing Zanh Liis admit to being afraid of anything.
“I am not afraid to die. But the thought that something could happen to him, because of me," her voice grew tremulous. "Scares me to death. He says that he understands the risks, and he still wants me, Salvek. Together, we came to the conclusion that living in fear isn’t living at all. "
She reached into the envelope, withdrew Keiran's ring and brought it to her lips, placing a gentle kiss upon the O'Sullivan family crest.
"I love him, Salvek. And I am asking you, please. Reach inside of you, beyond that brick wall of Logic that you work so hard to maintain and just be happy for me.”
“That brick wall has cracks in it, Captain, you know that. I do not wish to see you hurt.”
“There’s only one thing that could hurt me now.” She let the final ultimatum hang in the air.
Salvek would simply have to trust that her resolve to feel happiness was greater than her own will to live. As was his.
“Then you must be the woman you wish to be. I never intended to see you suffer. I merely wished to prevent it.”
“I know, I know.” She raised her hand to silence him, “Just understand me. I need a friend, not a guardian. I don’t need your trust or your blessing. Only your understanding.” Her gentle eyes looked up at him, “But I want it all.”
“I come to understand a little more about you with every passing moment, Zanh Liis. How could I deny you my blessing, when your thoughts on the matter are not fractured and impetuous as I believed, but rather crystal clear and solid in their resolve?”
Salvek walked behind her desk to stand next to her. “If you ever, ever.”
He didn’t finish the sentence, but she understood.
“I know.”
----------------------------------
-=/\=- Zanh Liis
Commanding Officer
USS Serendipity NCC-2012
and
Commander Salvek
Executive Officer
USS Serendipity NCC-2012
-=/\=-
NRPG: There are links contained in this post that lead to relevent back-story concerning Salvek, Lair Kellyn, Zanh Liis, and what Temporal Investigations expected Zanh to do to fix the timeline, all those years ago.
Written almost a decade ago, the story still holds up.
I hope that ten years from now we'll all feel the same way about the writing we're doing here.
I think we stand a very good chance.
In case I haven't said it lately...I love my crew. ~ZL
-=/\=- Zanh Liis
Commanding Officer
USS Serendipity NCC-2012
and
Commander Salvek
Executive Officer
USS Serendipity NCC-2012
-=/\=-
NRPG: There are links contained in this post that lead to relevent back-story concerning Salvek, Lair Kellyn, Zanh Liis, and what Temporal Investigations expected Zanh to do to fix the timeline, all those years ago.
Written almost a decade ago, the story still holds up.
I hope that ten years from now we'll all feel the same way about the writing we're doing here.
I think we stand a very good chance.
In case I haven't said it lately...I love my crew. ~ZL