by Ensign Gira Lassiter
81018.23
Immediately following Best Days
-=Illusions Lounge=-
"I...um," Gira stared blankly at the young man she barely remembered and who had, apparently, big plans for his future.
...and hers.
"I'm really sorry, but I have to go. Goodnight Dane."
*Oh my god. She said my name.*
It took him a second before he realized what she'd actually said. She had started crying again as she said it, and hurried from the lounge.
"Hey, wait! Gira!" He called after her, running to catch up. She was in a big hurry to get to something. Or away from something.
"Are you all right?"
She pounded the button to summon the lift. "I don't expect you'd understand." she said, her voice a mix of irritation and despair. "Those people are family to me, and tomorrow none of them will remember who I am. What's more," she shivered visibly, obviously struggling with the idea of memory resequencing.
"I won't even remember to miss them. Captain O'Sullivan, he," she was unable to go on. Her shoulders shook as she entered the lift, hung her head and cried.
"What about him?" Dane asked gently, "I think the world of the guy, he's..." Dane sought the words.
"Like a father to me."
"Like a father to me."
They spoke in unison, and Gira sniffled again as she stared at Dane in surprise. A moment passed in silence before she realized she hadn't given the lift a destination and it prompted her for one. "Computer, where is Admiral Lassiter?"
^Admiral Lassiter on Deck Eleven, aft.^
"Sounds like the Afterthought." Dane remarked.
"The what?"
"Coffee bar. I can take you there, it's no trouble at all." He volunteered, rarely having ever wanted to help anyone find anything so badly. "She's your mother, right?"
Gira frowned. "News travels fast on this ship I guess."
"No, not that, I, remember from the other..." he stopped, watching her shift as talking about the other timeline apparently made her extremely uncomfortable. "I'm glad to see that...you know...you're okay here."
He remembered how the first time he had met her at O'Halloran's that her arms and hands had been bandaged.
She had suffered severe burns in that timeline, her crewmates had told him, in the same electrical overload and resulting explosion on the bridge that had taken Keiran's life.
O'Sullivan had been standing in front of her as she sat at the helm, looking out at the viewscreen.
Gira had asked herself a thousand times in that alternate reality if he'd been standing behind her as he usually did, if she would have died in his place.
She wished, sometimes, that she had.
Especially as she'd been lifting shovel after shovel of dirt and pouring them into his grave, ignoring her physical pain because the heartbreak was so much worse.
To see him here. Now. Like this.
The woman he loved was at his side and a new life ahead of him after all he'd suffered for the Great Cause of The Department of Temporal Investigations. Seeing it changed her life, every bit as much as seeing him buried had.
She had known the moment he announced tonight that he and Zanh Liis were getting married that she didn't want the life they'd lived in the past. She would learn from it, and she would get the hell out of it, somehow.
She had even had the strength to tell O'Sullivan, at the very last minute before he and Zanh had left the party. She replayed the conversation in her mind as she closed her eyes and leaned her head back against the turbolift wall.
"Deck eleven," Dane instructed the computer, as he watched the beautiful girl with the broken eyes disappear, somewhere, deep inside of herself and out of his reach.
-=Flashback: A short time ago=-
"Captain! Wait!" Gira shouted, running up and throwing her arms around Keiran's neck. She burst into tears. She buried her face into his massive shoulder and sobbed, her knees going weak. "You've been the father I never had, Captain, I," she shook as she hugged him as tightly as she could. "I'm going to miss you so much."
"And I you, Gira," he whispered as he kissed her forehead. "Any man would be lucky to call you his daughter."
"Are you happy, Sir?"
"I am, Gira."
"Promise me?"
There had been so many times, in the stillness of the quiet bridge when his eyes became distant as he sat in his chair, swiveling slowly from side to side.
His right hand always gravitated toward his left as if seeking something, and she had always wondered what that something was. One day, he finally told her how he'd been married to a woman he couldn't forget, and how he still missed wearing his ring.
"Aye, I promise ya. You have to promise me the same, that you'll be happy, yeah? You have your whole life ahead of you, and it can be whatever you want it to be." In his own gentle way, Keiran was offering her a lifeline and praying she'd grab on.
He had often thought how, if he'd been Gem Lassiter or Jonas Vox, he'd have done anything to keep Starfleet from sweeping such a pure and innocent soul as Gira into a business so dark and convoluted as Temporal Investigations.
She just didn't belong there.
"I don't want this life!" She moaned as he hugged her. "I don't want to forget."
Liis' head snapped upward, and she and Keiran exchanged a horrified stare and an instantaneous, silent understanding.
"You don't have to accept it!" Keiran insisted. "If you want out, I'll do all I can to help you. I've told you as much, no?"
During other quiet talks in the past, he had reminded her often that she was not doomed to that fate should she refuse it, and that once they got home, she would have him on her side if she wanted something else.
Gira stared at her shoes.
What she wanted and what she could have were two very different things.
She hated herself for the fact that, despite her Captain’s offer to be at her side and help her through, she was still too timid to reclaim her own life.
She hated even more that she was less afraid of standing up to the whole of Starfleet Command and Temporal Investigations than she was of standing up to her own mother.
She finally released O'Sullivan and turned to Zanh, offering her hand respectfully. "Take care of him for me, please Captain? There's no one else quite like him."
Zanh pulled her into a hug. It was a completely uncharacteristic display for her, but after seeing the tears threatening in Keiran's eyes, and hearing the desperation in the girl's voice, she felt there was nothing else she could do.
"I will, Gira. And I promise you," Zanh spoke with determination and conviction, "if you decide that you do want out, Keiran and I will do whatever it takes to get you out."
"Do you want me to talk to her, then?" Keiran asked, ready to do it this minute if that was what the girl wanted.
“Thank you, Captain…no.”
-=End flashback=-
"Hey, we're here," Dane gently shook her by the shoulder. "It's at the very end of this hallway. Do you want me to walk you there?"
"Thank you, Dane, but," she shook her head.
"Okay." he sounded as defeated as he felt.
"Thank you, for everything." She whispered, and then she was gone.
The lift doors closed, and Dane leaned back against the wall, letting his head thud against it several times as he swore softly.
Then he realized, just because she didn't want him to walk her didn't mean he couldn't go that way anyway.
He activated the doors, waited to be certain she had already turned into the Afterthought, and then followed a safe distance behind her. He had to duck into a nearby supply closet as he saw Landry Steele appear. Apparently she had been in the café;, and Dane wondered who if anyone else had been there with the Admiral.
Once Steele was gone, Dane took up position just outside the cafe doors, and listened.
"Good morning, Mother." Gira began, her voice filled with terror. You could hear in every word that she was shaking.
"Ah, Gira. Have fun at the party?" Lassiter asked breezily, finishing the last of her tea. She'd been talking with Landry Steele for awhile, and lost track of the time.
"Fun?" Gira scoffed. "Fun?"
"Yes," Lassiter replied, sounding annoyed. "Fun. That is what parties are supposed to be. I went to a lot of trouble to see to it that you would all have fun."
"Mother, we're all going back tomorrow! They're going to put us out and when we wake up, we won't be the same people anymore! Doesn't that matter to you? I won't be me anymore!"
"You'll be you. Just you with altered accessible memory." Lassiter waved her hand dismissively. "You're just nervous because this is your first time getting it done. After that, you won't think twice about it."
Gira's breath deserted her. She tried to think of a single person on the Perseids crew who didn't think twice about it, and couldn't come up with a solitary one. Even though by this point most had been through it at least half a dozen times, it never seemed to get any easier for them. "Are you serious?"
"I'm perfectly serious! How much did you have to drink tonight? I swear, if you're drunk on that champagne that Zanh Liis insisted on serving..."
"They served it because Captain O'Sullivan announced that he's getting married to her, Mom. We were all celebrating. But I didn't even drink it, I just toasted and then set it aside. You know I hate that stuff."
"Good." Lassiter continued tapping on a PADD of personal mail she'd received in the past day or so, ignoring the girl standing right in front of her.
"I don't want to go tomorrow." Gira declared, summoning all of her courage as she replayed O'Sullivan's promises in her head.
Very slowly, Lassiter lowered the PADD. Her eyes narrowed, turning to pure ice. "What did you just say to me?"
Dane nearly fell in through the open doorway. He strained to listen as their voices grew softer.
"I said, I don't want to be resequenced. Ever."
"Don't be ridiculous. Every TI agent has to be resequenced."
"I'm not even an agent, Mother! I had never been on a Jump before I left to pilot the Perseids. You pulled every string imaginable to get me that job, it's your big dream for your children to follow in your footsteps. What would be more of an honor for you to have your daughter as the youngest member of Starfleet's first ever Temporal Jump Crew?"
"An honor for you, you mean. If Vox hadn't caused the Cascade, the Perseids would have come home to glory. You would have been famous, Gira. Just like Chuck Yeager, or Neil Armstrong! Like Zefram Cochrane or..."
"I don't want to be famous! I just want to be happy!" Gira cried. "Perseids was never supposed to go out like that. Not so soon. We all knew it. Vox pushed his agenda because he wanted to be famous. The ship wasn't proven, the prototype needed more work. The timeline was corrupted by his greed and his misuse of power! We all knew it! Only once we were out there it was too late. We had a job to do and we did it for Captain O'Sullivan. We stuck together and we got home."
"We knew it wasn't going to be easy for you all, but making history never is."
Suddenly, Gira realized that the missing piece of the puzzle was right in front of her.
"My God." She blurted. "You KNEW we were going to get stuck out there for two years, you KNEW! We all could have DIED! You don't love me, you only love TI and you want to live through me because you're too old to be on the cutting edge anymore!"
"Watch your mouth!" Lassiter snarled. She refused to give in to this temper tantrum by rewarding her daughter with attention, and directed her gaze back to reading her mail.
Gira would not be ignored, or dismissed, a moment longer.
"Listen to me!" She grabbed the PADD that Lassiter had returned to viewing and smashing it down against the deck. "You never listen to me! I'm not a little girl anymore! I am telling you that I don't want to do this! This is your dream, not mine!"
"Go to bed, Gira. Get some sleep. In the morning, you'll be fine and I'll take you back for the procedure myself."
"No." Gira backed up two steps. "I won't go. I'll request assylum on the Serendipity if I have to. I'll leave Starfleet and just disappear, I'm warning you. But I will do whatever it takes not to have the life you have tried to damn me to."
"That's it!" Lassiter jumped up, grabbing the girl by the sleeve. "You don't talk to me that way. You might disrespect me as your mother but I am the Admiral in charge of The Alchemy Project and as such, this is MY ship and you won't be getting anyone else involved in our family business!"
"That's the point!" Gira shouted, ripping her arm back and not caring if she woke the entire crew. "Temporal Investigations IS our family business! You only wanted me to go into it because Nick refused!"
She had hoped to leave her brother out of this, but now there was no way.
"Why was it okay for him to say no to you but I can't ever say no to you about ANYTHING!" Gira screamed. "I want my own life! I want to..." She tried not to cry but couldn't stop herself.
"I want to remember, not only all that Captain O'Sullivan has taught me but the fact that we are all lucky that he is still alive. I don't ever want to forget how desperate I felt when we couldn't save him in the alternate, because I learned instantly what life is worth. His life, and mine.
"My life is worth something, Mother, and I am not going to give it up. Not for you, not for Starfleet," she clenched her teeth. "Not for anyone."
"Fine. Resign your commission. You never entered into the full agreement to become a Jumper, you don't have to be resequenced."
Gira knew that even though her mother's voice was calm and her words were what Gira wanted to hear, she was not finished yet.
Admiral Lassiter next said something so cold that it sent chills down Dane's spine.
"If you can live with the knowledge that you've deserted your crewmates and left them to shoulder the burden by walking away, then you go ahead and walk away."
The look on the girl's face told Lassiter that she had achieved her goal, exactly.
"I didn't think so. Goodnight, Gira."
Gira turned and ran from the lounge. In doing so, she plowed right into a very stunned Dane.
She looked up at him, and he clamped his finger over his lip, gesturing to shush her. He led her down the hall and into the lift, and not knowing what else to do, she stared up at him blankly.
"I heard everything," he confessed. "I'm sorry, after what we've been through with Vox I was afraid that she'd just send you off tonight and have you there before anyone else,"
"She doesn't work that way." Gira droned, completely numb now. "She won't force me physically, she will hope instead that the guilt will get to me and I'll show up tomorrow of my own free will. And she'd be right."
"You can't. I mean, that's not what you want...is it?"
"No," Gira replied. "It's not. But it's what has to be."
"Do you want to talk to O'Sullivan? Or the Captain?"
"No, it's late, and besides," she shrugged. She didn't want to disturb them.
"Well, at least I'm going to see you back to your room. You've got guest quarters right?"
"Yeah, but I have to share them with that twit from communications, Britney Jabez." Gira groaned.
"You could always...share a room with another twit from communications..." he blurted. "Me, I mean. I, I can take the couch."
"No, I couldn't-"
"Hey, I've slept a lot worse places than that in my life." Dane said softly, before calling out to the lift to take them back to the location of his quarters.
"Can...I have the couch? I don't think I'll get much sleep tonight anyway."
"We could always do something besides sleep."
Her eyes widened and he threw his hands up in surrender.
"No! No! I didn't mean that. I meant, play cards or something. I know it's not likely the type of thing people do before they get resequenced or anything, I wouldn't know." He shrugged, wondering just how stupid he sounded and afraid he might find out momentarily.
"I wouldn't know either," she answered softly, "I've never been resequenced before."
Hearing that, a knot formed in Dane's stomach, making his dread of tomorrow so much worse.
"Hey, I know," she said, looking up. "Do you play Scrabble?"
"What's a 'scrabble'?"
She laughed and his heart sped up exponentially at the sound.
"It's a word game. I'll teach you." She looked up at the ceiling, then back at him as the lift doors opened.
"I don't know if it's the right thing for someone to do the night before they're resequenced, but that's what I want to do." She nodded with satisfaction. "Yeah. I want to eat replicated pizza and I want to play Scrabble. Can we do that?"
"We can do anything you want." Dane sighed, staring straight ahead at the doors and missing the look of amazement that crossed her face.
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Ensign Gira Lassiter
Flight Control Officer
Formerly of the USS Perseids
Ensign Gira Lassiter
Flight Control Officer
Formerly of the USS Perseids