by Dane Cristiane
81031.16
Near the End of the Reception
-=County Cork, Ireland, Earth=-
81031.16
Near the End of the Reception
-=County Cork, Ireland, Earth=-
Dane wandered away from the crowd.
The party atmosphere held little appeal for him now and anyway, he had something he was supposed to do inside the house. A mission to accomplish for Keiran before an appointed time which was drawing very near.
As he reached the back door, he heard movement within and startled. He had just placed a key in the lock but found that the door that was supposed to be secured was ajar.
*No one was supposed to be inside the house.*
He reached instinctively for his phaser, tucked beneath the jacket of his suit.
Stealing around the corner from the kitchen into the livingroom, he heard rustling among the gifts scattered around the room. He took a breath, double checked to be sure his phaser was set to stun, and then jumped into view.
"Don't move!"
Gira Lassiter slowly raised her hands into the air in a gesture of surrender. "Wouldn't think of it."
"Oh, god." Dane quickly holstered his weapon. "I didn't know it was you."
"Or you would've shot first and asked questions later?" She joked. "You are a very nervous person, Dane Cristiane. You should take up meditation. Maybe some Yoga. Though..." She laughed softly as she returned to lining up beautifully wrapped boxes up around the perimeter of the room. "As tightly as you're wound, you'd likely snap in half."
"What are you doing in here anyway?" Dane grumbled, "Party is out there." He gestured toward the door with his eyes.
"Well, the table was about to collapse under the weight of all the presents. So I volunteered to bring some into the house and Captain Zanh gave me her key." She held up the old fashioned, silver key as evidence.
"All the packages have to end up here later, anyway. Hey, wait a minute," she wagged an index finger at him. "What are you doing in here? I'm told that the party is out there."
"I have a task to complete. By request of the groom."
"Oh?"
"Top secret."
"I see. Well, you know, I was only his navigator on one of the most secretive missions in the history of Starfleet, but who am I to quibble over security clearance."
She continued busying herself with arranging and rearranging the gifts. She wasn't accustomed to men looking at her the way that Dane looked at her, and it made her anxious. The more anxious she got, the faster she spoke.
"Gira," Dane sighed at last, moving closer, taking a package from her hands before setting it aside. "A few nights you spent hours kicking my ass at that damned game before falling asleep on my couch. Why is it still so hard for me to talk to you?"
"I don't know," She shuffled her feet. "Maybe it has something to do with what you said at Illusions." She regretted blurting the words out as soon as she'd said them.
Dane reddened. Those words had been a statement declaring that he was "the man she was going to marry."
"I wondered if you remembered that."
"I remember everything. That's the problem. That's why I'm such a complete and total failure as a Starfleet officer and 'The Future of Temporal Investigations.' She spoke the words like an advertising announcer, and Dane cringed.
They were her mother's words, not hers. He would have been willing to bet on it.
"You're not a failure. You're..." he paused, "You're too special for that line of work. You don't belong in it."
"Special!" She laughed bitterly. "I'm special! Is that what they're calling it these days? I was unaware." She took it as an insult though he had meant it as anything but.
"That's not what I. Anyway, think of it, you can do anything you want now. Go anywhere you want." He was curious if she had thought yet about just where she would go.
"Yes, and I will." She agreed, with new determination, remembering O'Sullivan's words of encouragement. "That's why I'm going to University of Betazed. I'm going to study theater, like I've always wanted to."
"Theater?" Dane was surprised. He had guessed from the moment he saw her that she was an artist in some form, just from the way she carried herself. A musician, he thought, or maybe a painter. He had not figured her for an actor.
"It's easy to be other people." Gira explained softly, "Take on their traits, their personalities. Show their face to the world." She ran her hands up and down her arms, suddenly cold. "It's much harder just being yourself."
Dane knew too well from his past what it meant to lie about who you were. He had, in his own way, been an actor for years.
Becoming first whatever the market demanded of him; then masking all of what he considered to be his weaker emotions behind an anger so toxic that it had nearly cost him everything.
"You are..." he spoke slowly, choosing his words cautiously. "Very good at being yourself, when you just forget the world for awhile."
Gira realized how close he was standing now and her chest rose and fell rapidly. She stared at him a long moment, tempted, but then turned away.
"You're going to take up the job. Aren't you."
"Yeah. I am."
She flew back at him, her expression desperate. "Why? After all you've seen? Even after the paradox, and Zanh and O'Sullivan...all of it? You still want that life of insanity?"
"I don't want the insanity but I do want to be like him." Dane answered, indicating Keiran. "I want to help. To be a part of something bigger than I am."
"Know the problem with things that are bigger than you are, Cristiane?"
He shrugged.
"They usually eat you alive." Her voice was tremulous as she stormed around the room. "I saw what it did to my family. What it's done to Keiran O'Sullivan and every member of the crew that I loved aboard the Perseids. Look at him, at the toll it's taken on him. Do you really want to be like him?"
Dane could think of no man he wished to be more like than Keiran O'Sullivan. He nodded.
"You're crazy." Gira shook her head as she took a large step backward. "Do I feel like a failure because I can't stay with TI and become the Jumper my mother wanted me to be? Of course I do. But am I just as grateful that I got out of it? You bet I am."
She threw her hands into the air helplessly. "How can you want any life that could turn out as badly as ours did in that paradox? Then one where instead of watching him marry today, I had to help bury him out there, in that yard beneath that tree!" Tears spilled from her eyes as she gestured emphatically to points beyond the window.
Dane rushed up to her, holding her at arms length.
"Don't you see, though? That was the wrong result! Because the work was done to correct it, we did get to see him marry her. He's alive, his son is alive,"
"Somewhere, at some point," She was ghostly pale, her voice chilling in its tone of warning, "Someone had to pay a price for that."
Dane reacted to the sadness in her eyes instinctively, and without thinking. He pulled her closer, held her face in his hands and kissed her.
Gira responded just as instinctively, her arms coming together around his neck as, at first, she returned his kiss.
Just as suddenly she broke from him, again backing away. "I can't," she whispered, "I can't do it, Dane."
"Do what?"
"I can't...care about someone who is going to choose that life." She looked truly sorry to have to say it, but felt she had no other choice. The idea of ever loving, or being loved by, a man who lived the life O'Sullivan had scared her senseless.
Clearly, Dane discovered, he had reached her in a way he hadn't dared to hope. Only problem was even though she was obviously attracted to him too, she wasn't willing to face the future that he was choosing.
"I'm sorry." She repeated. "I just can't." Without looking into his eyes, she bolted for the door.
"Gira, wait." He moved quickly, catching her hand just as she reached for the handle. "When you're...studying theater at the University of Betazed. Would it be okay if I wrote to you?"
She sighed, brushing away her tears as she prepared to return to the public eye.
"You can send letters if you want." She closed her eyes for an instant as she freed her hand from his. Then she turned the handle, pushing the door forcefully outward.
"I just can't promise you I'll have the heart to read them."
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Ensign Dane Cristiane
Communications Officer
and Aspiring TI Jumper
USS Serendipity NCC-2012
Ensign Dane Cristiane
Communications Officer
and Aspiring TI Jumper
USS Serendipity NCC-2012