81016.0800
Following Sailed On
-=Soundtrack=- Love is the End, by Keane
-=Arboretum, USS Serendipity=-
“I hadn’t figured you for a vandal, Zanh Liis.”
The voice behind her was unmistakable; a younger version of his father’s.
He indicated the knife in her hand, still poised with the tip of its blade pressed up against the small, defenseless tree.
“I was going to repair a flaw in the bark, but I decided to wait. Leave it to the expert to decide what to do with the tree.” She said, offering a very clinical explanation for her very personal decision.
She flipped the blade closed and restored it to its proper place in the shed. She then retrieved the items she’d originally brought with her and returned to him.
“I heard you were lookin’ for me.”
“Walk with me, Carrick?” Zanh invited, though her tone clearly indicated that he didn’t really have a choice in the matter. She took the lead, anxious to put a little distance between her and her current location. “I hear you need the exercise.”
They went on a few minutes in silence before wondering what she really wanted began to drive him mad. He sighed and finally said something.
“If you were wantin’ to give me a lecture, you ought to know that Cristiane beat you to it.” He announced, getting winded quickly as weak as he still was. “I think he likes little better than the sound of his own voice, yeah?”
“Oh?” Zanh gestured to the nearest bench, and they sat down. “Lecture about?”
“My father, and how I’m being completely unfair for holding him accountable for the fact that he walked away from me when I was four years old.”
“He didn’t walk away voluntarily, Carrick. He was pushed.”
“And here it comes.”
“No.” Liis shook her head swiftly making her earring jingle. “I am not going to try to tell you how to live your life. You are not a child, and I am not your mother.”
“Damn right.”
He caught a glimpse of something glimmering around her neck, and without thinking he reached out. He pulled the ring from hiding, tugging on the chain that held it.
He turned a whiter shade of pale.
The last time he remembered seeing her wear this item around her neck on a chain was at the funeral. An event they told him had never happened here.
“Where did you get that?”
She saw no point in stalling off the inevitable.
“I am not your mother, nor will I ever try to be.” She declared earnestly. “I am, however, the woman who is going to marry your father, as soon as we reach Earth. I'm holding on to this to give back to him at our wedding.”
“What?”
Liis extricated the chain from his tightening grip and tucked it back into hiding.
Her tone was flat, her eyes conveying a quiet determination.
“You heard me.”
“So, would seem that some of the things you told me in that so-called paradox reality do carry over here.”
“As far as I can remember our conversations there, everything I told you about my feelings for your father carry over, yes.”
Their eyes locked, and she was certain that he was remembering too the answers she’d given to his questions as they stood at Keiran’s gravesite.
“I love him, and apparently he still loves me, because he proposed to me this morning. We know that time is one thing that no one can afford to waste, and so we’re going to get married in Ireland as soon as we can.”
He laughed incredulously. “Ireland! On that same hilltop where we buried him, I suppose?”
Liis’ temper flared. “Did you never wonder why I chose that location to bury him, Carrick?” Her feelings began to bleed through the carefully controlled tone of her voice. “I chose it because it meant something to us. We had memories there.”
“Yes, we all have grand, glorious memories of Ireland, Zanh Liis. Mine have recently expanded to include the knowledge that during the years I was growing up without a father, he was off gallivantin' all over the fekking countryside with the likes of you.”
“O...kay.” She drew a deep breath to try to keep from losing it completely. “I can see that you have absolutely no intention of making this easy for me, so I guess the gloves come off.”
She turned to him, lowered her voice, and tried to calmly and clearly explain.
“Paradoxes and the way that TI Jumps work have now been explained to you. I know this for a fact. It happened when they took your statement about the Sylph and what you experienced so don’t even try to play dumb with me. What I am about to tell you is never to be repeated, do you understand me clearly?”
He offered no response; still her heart compelled her to continue.
“Your father and I worked together for a long time, and we were romantically involved in other timelines that ended as badly for me as the one in the paradox did for him. In one of those lines, we were married for an entire year before I was the one who wound up dead.”
He squinted his eyes and folded his arms, sighing with theatrical disinterest even though in truth he was hanging on her every word.
“We loved each other, but we couldn’t be together then, due to circumstances neither one of us had any control over. Long story short, things have changed, and we are finally going to get our chance to rebuild the life that was cut short.”
She softened her tone again, reaching into her pocket and pulling out Keiran’s rosary. She held it up, watching the light bounce off of the white gold cross attached to the beads as she considered her next words carefully. Finally, she put it away again.
“I love him, Carrick, and he loves you. Therefore, whether you like it or not, I have a stake in what happens to the both of you. More than that, I care about you for two main reasons. One, because I’ve seen what your heart is made of beneath all of that anger and two, because you are a part of him. The part that matters more to him than any other in the Universe, myself included.”
He laughed again. “I sincerely doubt that.”
“Don’t.” She flipped the book she’d brought and held it up to him. “Remember this?”
He gasped softly, reaching out without thinking and grabbing it. He stared at it intently as she finished her remarks.
“I thought you might want it. That it might help to remind you how much he loved you then.”
She next held up the PADD Dane had given her, rotating it in her hands. “Cristiane did some research, and asked me to give you this. In the hopes that it might help you to understand how much your father still loves you.”
She rose from the bench, dropped the PADD into his lap, and paced forward.
“Do what you want with ‘em. Keep ‘em, set them on fire, it’s up to you. But if you can read his words and then still walk away without giving him another chance, then I suppose there is a hell of a lot more of your mother’s bitterness in you than anyone realized.”
She swiftly moved for the exit, head down and staring at her feet, determined to keep her composure at least until she got out of here.
She was almost to the doors when she startled, taken by surprise as a strong pair of hands reached out to prevent her from charging headlong into the man they belonged to.
“Hey there…” Keiran kissed her quickly in greeting and then looked her over once from head to toe, not yet having seen her all dressed up for the party. “God, you look lovely.”
He remembered what he’d come for, and glanced nervously around the arboretum, seeking his son. “Ev’rything all right?”
She shrugged. “He knows.”
“I see.” Her tone and expression worried him. “You were in a big hurry to go.”
“This isn’t…” she held her hands up hopelessly. “The most comforting place for me to be on the ship at the moment.”
He sighed and gently led her over to another of the many benches scattered around amidst the gardens. He sat down and waited until finally she did too.
“Did you perform the Rite, the pair of you, before he left?”
“Hell no.” Liis shuddered. “Not in the traditional sense, anyway.”
She knew he was referring to the days-long Bajoran Rite of Separation, during which most couples ending a relationship reflected, made peace with each other, and let go while also seeking potential future romantic interests.
“Not our style, either of us. But in our own way, we said goodbye to the past.”
“Have you heard an’athing from him since?”
”No.”
“Does that not…worry you?”
“A little. I don’t know if there will ever be a day that I don’t know where Jariel Camen is and how he’s doing that I don’t worry. It’s kind of…hardwired into my brain from childhood.”
*Not to mention years of Temporal Guardianship, * Keiran thought. *On top of the long-term romantic relationship. *
She glanced over at him, bracing for the remark to elicit some sort of jealous response.
To her surprise, it did not.
“Liis, my darlin’,” he reached out, brushing her hair back tenderly. “I had a lot of time to think while I was away.”
‘Away’ was a codeword, a deceptively simple term that meant so much more to TI agents than to ordinary people.
“About you. About him. About the two of you, and about us.” He held her hand fast within both of his. “You are who you are because of the influence he had on your life. Jariel is a fine man, and I had even come to terms with the fact that if I couldn’t have you but he could, that I was grateful for it.” He drew her hand up and kissed the back of it.
“Now that we’re here together like this and he’s gone his way, I am still grateful to him for keeping watch over you when I couldn’t. I can’t look back and feel badly for the years that he had you to himself. If anything about your past, or his, were different in the least, we very likely would not be sitting here, holding hands even as we are. So.”
She saw nothing but honesty in his eyes as he spoke, and felt a great sense of relief.
“I love you and I know that part of you will always care for him.” Keiran continued softly. “Only question is, do you still want to marry me?”
“More than anything.” Liis answered without hesitation.
“Well to my mind, that’s that, then.”
She leaned over and kissed him slowly.
In the distance, Carrick looked up from his reading and observed them as they embraced.
The child inside of him railed at the sight of his father showing affection to any woman besides his mother; but the man he was rapidly becoming silenced that child, swiftly and surely.
When considered the end result of the alternate outcome that history could have handed them all, he decided two things.
First, that he would never, ever take any job working for Temporal Investigations.
Second, that seeing his father finally find happiness with a woman who so clearly loved him was the best that he could hope for.
As Keiran drew back, he noticed the chain around Liis' neck.
“What’s this then, la?”
She displayed the ring, watching his eyes closely for his reaction. “I plan on keeping this right here, with me, until I put it back onto your hand for good.”
“Well, I,” he stammered, “I think that’s grand. Thank you.”
She tilted her head and kissed his cheek.
He stood up, encouraging her with a sweep of his arm to follow. “There’s a group of hungry people down the hall, waitin’ for us to show up to the party. You up to it?”
She nodded, knowing their time left with his crew was quickly slipping away.
“Let’s not keep them waiting any longer.”
Carrick O’Sullivan
Civilian Passenger
USS Serendipity NCC-2012