by -=/\=- Zanh Liis
81022.0100
Hours After Old Friends
Soundtrack: Farewell to Yesterday
from Lifescapes Celtic Dreams
-=/\=-
"Be Impeccable With Your Word"
(The first of The Four Agreements)
-=/\=-
-=County Cork, Ireland Earth=-
81022.0100
Hours After Old Friends
Soundtrack: Farewell to Yesterday
from Lifescapes Celtic Dreams
-=/\=-
"Be Impeccable With Your Word"
(The first of The Four Agreements)
-=/\=-
-=County Cork, Ireland Earth=-
She made her way alone, through the quiet streets of town.
She only hoped the her latest series directions were correct.
She was grateful she had as much memory of the local dialect as she did, otherwise she would not have had a chance at decoding them.
The maps in the database had been way off, and she couldn't ask him for directions. Not this time, not to where she was intending to go today.
Under the guise of picking up his gift in town, which was partially true, Liis had set off early this morning.
Leaving Keiran to his fussing over his attire for tomorrow and fielding a dozen or more questions a minute about details for the wedding. She was, truthfully, relieved that he was so willing to use every bit of his experience as a leader to put the whole event together on such short notice.
He had rallied his troops, given out assignments, and kept everyone to task with good humor, and the occasional sideways stare along with a quick "Pull yer socks up, then!" Which meant they had better get moving- or else.
He really had taken care of everything, all she had to do was see to her clothes and be dressed and ready to go on time.
She was especially grateful because she needed time to come here; to do this just once before she walked down that aisle with Keiran waiting at the end.
*Yes," Liis thought, as she finally saw the fence surrounding the small span of land she was seeking. *Before I become the next Mrs. O'Sullivan, I need to have a little talk with the first one.*
Moving through the creaky cemetery gate, Liis began searching the stones. Old fashioned and some quite ornate, she walked the aisles until found the first of the two graves she was looking for.
She found she had no words to say as she stood over Keiran's mother's grave. She merely closed her eyes, stood a moment in respectful silence, and then gently lay the fresh flowers she'd brought with her upon it.
Moving on, she searched row after crowded row until she finally found the McCarthy family plot.
Liis marveled that Keiran's first wife been so bitter that she insisted in advance the entire family know she refused to be 'buried with his people'. She had also refused to keep his name; even though her son was an O'Sullivan, she had no desire to ever be called by that name again.
Liis found the correct stone at last, and she stared at the laser etched image of a woman who, while undoubtedly beautiful, had a look in her eyes as cold as the very stone upon which her image was engraved.
Liis pictured those eyes glaring at Carrick when he dared to ask about his father. She pictured those eyes staring Keiran down, emotionless as she rent his heart in two by taking his son away.
She had no ability to understand how anyone could be so vindictive...or so cruel.
She placed her hand atop the stone a moment and sighed. She looked around to verify that no one else was nearby, and then she opened her mouth to speak.
"I can't understand it, you know. The way that you treated them. Either of them."
She shrugged and zipped up her leather jacket, suddenly feeling cold. "I don't know how you could take a man's love that way, use him up and toss him aside just because he was hurt. Broken by things over which he had no control."
She turned and paced along in a straight line back and forth upon the grass.
-=/\=-
Across the cemetery, Keiran knelt down at his mother's grave, touching the petals of the fresh red roses that had been left there.
They could not have been here long, and he wondered who else had thought to come here this morning.
He heard a very familiar voice speaking suddenly, and he stood up. Knowing that she didn't realize he was there, Keiran ducked behind the nearest tree and tried to see what in the world Liis could be doing here.
Then he realized that she had come not only to see his mother's grave, but that of someone entirely different.
Unable to stop himself, he silently moved through the aisles. Standing still a good distance behind her where he couldn't be seen, he listened as she spoke her mind.
-=/\=-
"You...turned your back on your son's needs in your desire to see your own met. But it sounds to me, that in the end you never did find anything or anyone who could meet your standard, did you Margaret Mary McCarthy?" She spun on the heel of her boot and pointed at the headstone in a accusatory manner.
"You had the best thing, the best person, right by your side. He loved you, he built a life for you. A man devoted to duty but so much more than that."
She considered Keiran's personality, even as she'd known him when they were first assigned to be partners. His anger ran deep back then. His wounds were raw, but still, he had the bravest, most selfless heart she had ever known.
"But nothing was ever enough for you was it? And in the end you spent your days lashing out. Directing your anger at everyone around you. Tell me, did hurting other people make you feel fulfilled? Did it bring you joy to see others in pain?" Her voice was low growl. "I don't understand how making someone else feel inferior helps another feel superior, but then I never have."
She continued pacing. She reached up and clasped her fingers closed around Keiran's ring, secure on the chain around her neck.
"This man, the one that you threw away," her voice shuddered with emotion, "is the very best thing that has ever happened to me. His love, his heart, saved me. When I had long since given up believing that anything could." She brought his ring to her lips and kissed it.
Keiran closed his eyes, unable to believe what she was saying.
"His is the biggest, most giving heart I've ever seen. Not just to me, and not just in the time that is now. In the times that have been, and even those that might have been. He has bettered the lives of so many people, just by being in their presence, I couldn't begin to name them all. So you tell me this."
Liis shivered as the sun vanished behind a layer of gray clouds. "Did you ever get what you needed? Because I think that you kept seeking it but never realized that you can only get the best things in life if you give them to others first."
She tucked the chain back beneath her collar, and then began to fidget with her earring.
"I know you were a religious woman. Or I should say, 'God fearin', as Keiran would put it." She shook her head. "Faith should bring more to who you are. It should make you whole and allow you to present your best self to the world. To your mate, to your children. And I'm sorry, Margaret, but I am just not seeing that in the legacy you've left behind you.
"I see pain, and I see a long road ahead for the son that you tried so hard to protect from a man who posed no danger, except in your own mind. You were afraid that, if he knew his father, he'd love him more than he loved you. Weren't you?
"Now I may not be religious. I certainly never was in the Bajoran sense, not at the heart of me. And I'll never be in the Catholic sense, forgive me Keiran..." she sighed.
*No forgiveness needed, my darlin'," Keiran thought, *I wouldn't change you for anything.*
"But I do believe in the concept that our actions in this existence ripple out, for good or ill. That in the end, you will 'reap what you sow'." She relied upon a Bible metaphor now, just as she would if she had been speaking to the living, breathing woman face to face. Believing that the only language Maggie ever accepted as valid came in the form of quotations from that one particular book.
"You might have called me faithless. But it's not entirely true. I believe very much in an idea that many civilizations embrace, though they call it by various names, the end result is the same. The people of this world call it Karma." Liis shook her head. "I've seen it. Even if that isn't the right name for the retribution that comes to all of us based on our actions, I know that it's real."
"It's not my place to judge anyone, I have no right. I've never claimed to be perfect, if anything I've never known a person more flawed than I am. I know that I don't have all the answers. But I know what I know, and I know who I love," Liis' eyes stung, but contained no tears.
"Maggie, I love that man; the one that you threw away. And while I could never thank you for hurting him, I can thank you from the bottom of my heart for walking away. In doing so, you unintentionally ended up giving me the greatest gift I have ever received.
"Because if you'd stuck around he would have stayed with you, and I would not be standing here today, or standing at that altar holding his hand tomorrow.
"Your son will be up there too, beside us. I won't try to be his mother, I know I never could. But I will love him, not only because he is a good man in his own right but because he is his father's son. He is Keiran's flesh and blood and that will forever win out in my mind over the fact that he is also yours. I would give my life for either one of them, and I will live my life with the goal of seeing to it that they always know, every day, just how much they mean to me."
Keiran realized she was about through, and positioned himself where she wouldn't be likely to see him when she walked up the path to the gate.
"I will take Keiran's hand, his name, and call myself lucky that he wants to live a life joined with mine. His trust and faith in love, the thing you valued least will be the thing that I treasure most." Liis sighed again, pulled her collar tighter around her throat, and knew she had to go.
If she was going to get back and accomplish all she still needed to do before the planned dinner at Eilish's house, she had to get moving.
"I hope that you've found peace among the Divine in that Heaven that you sought all your life, Maggie. You certainly never found it down here with us mortals."
For just a moment as she exited the cemetery, Liis' had the eerie sensation that she wasn't alone.
She shook it off and quickly moved on, up the street and back into town.
As Keiran watched her disappear into the distance, he felt more certain of his decision to marry her than any other he had ever made.
----------------
-=/\=- Zanh Liis
Counting Her Blessings
On Earth
-=/\=- Zanh Liis
Counting Her Blessings
On Earth