by -=/\=- Zanh Liis
81016.0400
Following History’s Lessons
-=The Captain’s Ready Room=-
81016.0400
Following History’s Lessons
-=The Captain’s Ready Room=-
After Salvek departed, Liis slumped down into the chair behind her desk, dropped her head into her hands, and sighed.
She wondered, and worried, if his reaction was at all indicative of how others who had known her for years would feel about her news as well.
She knew how much they loved Jariel.
If they thought that she had broken his heart and immediately taken up with someone else, it would take time before they could begin to understand.
She was concerned, especially, about how Dabin would take the news of her impending marriage to Keiran.
Based on the advice he’d offered her during the Away Mission she could only hope that Reece’s years of life experience would help him wrap his mind around the changes to come.
She didn't have to wonder about Lair Kellyn, knowing that she had never thought that Liis was good enough for Jariel to begin with. She fully expected that Kellyn would immediately begin trying to fix the Vedek up with women she deemed much more suitable.
In the end, Liis could only hope that once their friends saw how much better off Jariel would be, and how getting her personal affairs in order would make her better at her job as well, that they would soon be thanking their lucky stars that Keiran O'Sullivan had returned just as whole-heartedly as she did.
She glanced up at her reflection in the window and realized she had to get going.
She didn't have time, or the desire, to second-guess herself.
She knew what she was doing, and her friends would either accept it or they wouldn’t.
The only thing she could control was her reaction, however they chose to respond to the announcement.
She shook her head in the attempt to clear it and turned her attention to other, more pressing matters. "Computer," she called out softly, "Search the children's literature database for a file called "The King's Procession."
The computer beeped. ^File located. ^
"Transfer specifications to the replicator and print one copy in original book format. Hard cover."
The replicator whirred to life. She approached it and, when it was finished, surveyed the results with approval.
"Perfect."
She discovered she was still clutching Keiran's ring in her hand, and knew she needed a way to keep it safe, and close, until she returned it to him at the appropriate time.
"One silver chain, eighteen inches in length, with a standard clasp." She requested. Again the replicator hummed.
Liis retrieved the chain, looped it through his ring and secured it around her neck.
She tucked the ring beneath the neckline of her dress, picked up the book, and returned to her desk.
She removed his rosary from the envelope, leaving the paperwork he had enclosed inside and tucking it into the top drawer. Satisfied that she now had everything she needed, she headed to the doors.
Before she could walk through them, the chime sounded.
She stepped forward to automatically activate the doors and Dane moved back a step in surprise.
"I'm sorry, Captain, to disturb you."
"What do you need? I’m in a hurry."
"Two things. First, to tell you that...wait. May I come in?"
*So polite,* she thought.*Interesting. *
She stepped back and he waited until the doors closed behind him to continue.
"I want you to know that I told Keiran everything. Everything I did wrong while he was gone."
Liis was surprised but pleased to hear this. "And?"
"Not only am I still alive, but he seems willing to forgive me. If I can prove that I have learned from my stupidity." Dane couldn't believe it, still. "I promise you, I won't ever let him, or you, down again."
"See that you don't." Liis cautioned sternly, speaking the exact same words that Keiran had chosen earlier.
"I won't."
"What was the second thing?"
"I wonder if you could give these to Carrick when you see him next." He held up a PADD, and Zanh's eyes narrowed as she snatched it from him.
"Letters.” He explained. “From his father."
Liis activated the PADD just to be sure he was telling the truth and was astonished when she saw what he'd accomplished in finding them.
"How in the worlds did you-"
"Commander Blane helped," Dane added quickly, wanting no special or exclusive credit for having retrieved and reconstructed the files. "We both hoped, you know, that they might help."
Liis' expression was one of pure gratitude as she deactivated the PADD and looked into his eyes. "I hope so too. Thank you for doing this."
She walked past him and out of the doors, climbing the steps before she thought twice and turned back.
"There's a party tonight. For the Perseids crew and the Away Team."
"I heard, but I'm on duty all night."
"No, you're not.” She decided. “Get someone else up here to take your place, and get cleaned up. I expect to see you there, Captain's orders."
She left him with his mouth hanging open as she took to the lift and quickly departed.
"Zanh to Sickbay," she called after tapping her badge.
[T’Dara here, Captain.] The Vulcan nurse responded.
"Is Carrick O'Sullivan awake?"
[Actually he is up, dressed, and we were about to send him on a walk, Captain. To help build his strength up.]
"Good." Zanh did not want to have this conversation in Sickbay. "Where is he headed?"
[The Arboretum.]
*Damn.* Liis thought. If there was one place she less wanted to have this conversation, that was it. "Thank you. Zanh out."
She departed the lift and quickened her steps, wanting to arrive well before he did.
She walked on through the very familiar surroundings, finding that it was just as difficult for her to be here now as she had imagined for days that it would be.
This was, after all, Jariel’s home aboard ship far more than their quarters ever had been.
She wandered past the rows of flowers, noting that the crew had been doing a lovely job caring for everything in his absence.
It was a testament to how much they loved the man; a silent statement of support along with a wish that he would return to them soon and be pleased to find everything was just as he left it.
*Almost everything. *
"Computer," she called, "Begin playback, Zanh music list eighteen alpha."
A song began to play as Liis walked past the small, lonely looking little Solace Tree which still bore a tiny, hidden pair of initials: JC and ZL.
The lyrics reverberated in her head as she sank to her knees in the grass. She reached out, touching the grooves in the bark and closing her eyes.
-=Flashback: Ten years ago, Current timeline: Bajor=-
"But what about...."
"Us?" Liis grasped for his hand, which was cold and unresponsive to her touch. "Come with me, leave this place," she implored him.
"This is too much."
"It will be different, I promise." She spoke of her next intended assignment. "All you need to do is say yes..."
Camen looked deep into her eyes, he was torn.
He needed Liis, and he needed Bajor, but he could not have both. Or could he?
"Liis, I can't, I need to stay. If I go with you, I will only make things worse."
Zanh Liis gripped his arm as her eyes glazed over with tears. "Why are you doing this?"
"Destiny has brought us together across time and death itself, you know why I can't go with you now. You of all people should know. I need to return to Bajor."
"After all this, you expect me to just go back to living without you?"
"What comes around goes around. I envy you. For you, the wait will be minutes. For me it will take years. But I will wait forever if I have to. I love you Liis."
Jariel kissed her cheek, and she released him.
-=End Flashback=-
She tried to focus on the music in an attempt to stop the memories from overwhelming her, to no avail.
-=Flashback: Current Timeline: Three Years Ago: Deep Space 23=-
"I want to go with you to Bajor," she insisted, and he replied in the only way that he could, with the use of a series of hand signs, as his power of speech had not returned to him.
His hands moved gracefully as he tried to explain to her why he had to go alone.
[[You have to take care of yourself for once, Liis. The court-martial, your career. You have spent lifetimes watching over me. I will return to you, stronger, healthier. But right now, you need to do this. For yourself. Promise me you will.]]
"How can I possibly leave you and sleep at night? You need-"
[[I need you to take care of yourself for me. We'll be together again, when the time is right.]]
"It's always about timing with us isn't it?" Liis looked down, and he lifted her chin with his hand gently so she'd have to face him.
[[The indomitable Zanh Liis.]] He spelled out every letter of the longest word individually, to be sure she wouldn't miss his meaning. [[Afraid now of a little time apart after all we've been through?]]
-=End Flashback=-
Her mind rapidly cycled through at least a dozen other ways, times and places in which he had chosen a life elsewhere, anywhere, but by her side…
...and at least as many in which she had done the very same thing to him.
-=Flashback: Current Timeline, Three Years Ago: USS Polaris=-
She couldn't stop her hands from shaking as she pressed the access code into the PADD to unlock the messages, and selected the oldest one first and started reading. Words blinked into existence on the screen. Details of his daily existence, small and large echoed in her mind in the sound of his voice as if he were standing just behind her, speaking each word into her ear.
She reached the last letter, and it was different from the others. It started out not with pleasantly distant greetings, or memories of Peldor festivals past. It began with a plea:
No matter how many candles I light, the nights are still too dark and empty without you, Zanh Liis. Won't you please, please, come home?
She looked at the timestamp on the message; it was less than a month old.
Liis felt the scream of frustration originate at the soles of her feet and rise up through her legs, wrenching her suddenly nauseated stomach, and catching in her throat momentarily before finally expelling itself from her open mouth with shocking volume. She threw the PADD with all her strength and it shattered the mirror across from her.
The noise brought her newest Jump partner, Ashton Ledbetter, running into the room thinking that their tiny ship was coming apart at the seams.
He had heard stories of the way she behaved whenever this Vedek fellow crossed her path, but he hadn't imagined that they could be true. They had to be exaggerated, at least that was what he believed. Until now.
"Get out," Liis snarled at him, as she began picking up the shards of glass.
"Is there-" he began to ask if he could help, but she insisted.
"Get. Out."
Ashton vanished without another word, and Liis sank to her knees.
-=End Flashback=-
She thought back now to the fiercest fight they had ever had, a little more than a year ago when she'd been thrust overnight into the Command position on the flagship, struggling not only with her own inner darkness but the ravings of a brilliant madman who told her if she didn't heed his warnings, she would lose something very precious to her.
-=/\=- Zanh Liis
Commanding Officer
USS Serendipity NCC-2012
Commanding Officer
USS Serendipity NCC-2012