650: Standing Still: Three


by Captain Will Lindsay
81106.20


...continued from part two

-=/\=-


"It sounds like," Liis said slowly, reviewing the story in her head as Lindsay had told it. "If not for you, I'd still be dead."

"No, wasn't my doing. It was all Keiran. You should've seen him. He stormed into TI the next day and didn't stop shouting until someone heard him. Jonas was..." he shook his head. "Well, the tone of their relationship changed that day, and resequencing or no, it has never been the same since."

"I never would have believed it, but I think you're being modest." Liis insisted. "I think that you had a hell of a lot more to do with the fact that I'm sitting here, alive and married to Keiran than you're letting on."

She put her hand on his shoulder and squeezed. "Thank you, William."

Will shrugged. "Maybe now you understand a little better, Zanh Liis O'Sullivan," he smiled wistfully, "why I asked you what I did earlier. You and I, we know Keiran like no one else ever has and I dare say, love him more than anyone else ever will. That man, he's."

Will actually choked up and had to pause.

"He's the brother I never thought I'd have. But if you tell him I said that I will lie right to his face."

*Too late, he already knows.* She thought, yet she only nodded in reply.

She never would have believed this, either, but she understood William Lindsay better than she could ever have imagined.

"Seems to me that if fair is fair, you owe me a story now." He settled deeper into the tall waves of grass and pointed at a random cloud passing by. "Looks like a targ."

"I swear your attention span is shorter than Dabin Reece's." She laughed. "But you're wrong. I was one up on the story deal already. I told you about the paradox when we talked after the pre-wedding dinner."

"No. You told me there was a paradox and there was a funeral." Will corrected her. "You did not tell me the story."

"Not sure I could tell it." She began tugging a long strand of grass between her fingers.

"Not sure I could hear it." he admitted, "Tell a different one."

"Okay. But first, one more from you. Tell me how your partnership ended."

"Do I have to? I hate that story."

"Look, Will," Liis leaned forward and again put her hand on his arm. "When are you and I ever going to get a chance like this again? Realistically?

"We're out in the middle of nowhere, with no one to overhear what we say. The two people who love Keiran O'Sullivan more than anyone else.

"We need each other, you and I. It's going to be a huge adjustment for him to go from the life he's had to the one he has now, and he's going to rely on both of us. If we can help him by forging a friendship of our own...by using this chance to get to know each other honestly, we shouldn't squander it."

She implored him, deep blue eyes glazing over with emotion. "I, his wife, will make you, his best friend, a deal."

"State your terms."

"Ask me anything you want to know and I'll answer," She held her hand out toward him. "If you're willing to do the same for me."

He sighed, glanced heavenward again, and finally, clamped his hand closed upon hers. "We have an accord."

He drew in a long deep breath before continuing.

"After we managed to correct the line, we went on as partners for a long time. His resequencing never worked to remove you entirely. We were haunted, everywhere we went, by your ghost. There was one Jump, I swear," he shuddered. "I really thought I was going to die. That's a story for another time."
He looked at her directly. "We did get home, but afterward, Keiran refused to take any more Jumps with me while his memories of you were intact. He said he couldn't live with it if anything happened to me because he wasn't able to function.

"He had me reassigned, without telling me, and then prepared to go in for yet another round of resequencing procedures."

-=Flashback: Alternate Timeline, 2379=-

"You son of a bitch." Will flew at Keiran as he entered the room. "You're going to walk away? Just throw me to the wolves after all we've been through together?"

"It's not like that Will, and you know it," Keiran objected, trying to talk sense to him. "You know I can't risk your life again. It's not right, and it's not fair."

"Let me decide what is fair and what isn't when it comes to my own life!" Will demanded. "Keiran, we're partners, you don't just,"

He turned away, falling silent as Jonas Vox poked his head in through the open door.

"Time to go." Vox frowned, shaking his head as two men he knew well stood about a meter apart, each wrestling their emotions. "Come on, Keiran. The clock is ticking."

O'Sullivan laughed bitterly. "Sometimes, I swear to God, wish it would stop doin' that. Give us a moment, Jonas."

"O'Sullivan,"

"A moment!" Keiran insisted, and finally Vox sighed heavily and left them.

Will had moved off and was staring at a violent looking abstract painting that hung on the wall behind Vox's desk.

"Will." Keiran had hoped that of all people, Lindsay understood why he had to do this. Even though, if it was successful, it meant that Keiran would no longer remember Lindsay was his very best friend.

"I hate this." Lindsay announced. "It's ugly as hell."

Keiran couldn't be entirely certain that Will was indicating the painting, even though he continued to stare at it.

"William, don't do this."

"Don't do what?"

"Refuse to say goodbye. It's not healthy, for either one of us."

"Well since only one of us will remember, and that's me, you don't get to have a say in the decision."

"Goddamn it, Will," Keiran grasped Lindsay by the arm and spun him around. Without thinking Will balled up his fist and, catching Keiran completely unaware, managed to punch him squarely in the mouth.

Keiran blinked in surprise, dabbing at his chin with the back of his hand as blood began to trickle down it.

O'Sullivan's expression was one of sadness, not anger, and Will would have preferred that Keiran beat the living hell out of him in response rather than give him that one split-second, wounded look.

"Been nice knowing you, O'Sullivan." Will growled, bolting from the room.

Keiran blinked back tears and leaned against the wall for support.

"I'll miss you, too, Will," he called after, but Lindsay did not give any indication he'd heard him.

-=End Flashback=-


"You didn't really..."

"Hell yeah, I did. A single punch. Only landed it because he trusted me. He," Will looked away in shame. "He never saw it coming."

He looked to the horizon and shook his head. "Some friend I was to him that day. He was trying to save me from the danger he thought he posed to me, and that's what he got for his trouble. Seems he has a talent, doesn't he? For getting mixed up with people like you and I who are completely emotionally inept."

Liis hated to admit that he was right: she and Lindsey were cut from very simliar cloth. "Yeah." She shifted nervously. "What happened after that?"

"The resequencing seemed to work as far as you were concerned. Still, they put Keiran and I with new partners. Or intended to, anyway.

"Vox decided to try putting you two together again since, quite honestly, there never was before or has been since a team that could do what you two managed to pull off."

Liis scoffed at that idea.

"Seriously. You've no idea. You two would waltz into a situation that no one else could salvage and just...fix it. It was amazing."

She still refused to believe him.

"Well, they put you back with him and sure enough, after long he started to remember you.

"Soon as the resequencing began to break down, he contacted me. We spoke, and I saw the writing on the wall. Past mistakes were about to be repeated, and frankly after all we'd been through to get you back, I couldn't watch it. I told him as much, and."

He sighed with regret.

"Our friendship ended, for a time. I couldn't believe it when you both up and quit."

Now Liis realized that he was talking about the timeline in which she and Keiran had been married a year before she died.

"Is that why, oh, Will." She stared at him in disbelief. "I never met you in that timeline. You didn't come to the wedding."

"I couldn't watch it. I knew that the timing was wrong, and I knew that it would end badly. I just...couldn't stand to see him do it to himself again."

She nodded, understanding.

"When I heard about what happened I went to see him. We spent a long time talking, the day he had the major procedure that could have killed him."

Again, Will cleared his throat, trying to maintain control of his emotions.

"He survived, but I believed that my friend as I knew him was gone forever. He had no memory at all of me. I introduced myself to him and...nothing."

Liis closed her eyes, her chest tightening as she remembered the paradox experience of having looked Keiran in the face and trying to accept that he didn't remember her.

She didn't know how he had managed to keep going as long as he had on the Sera when she didn't remember him.

"I had to go on with my life, there was nothing more I could do for him. So that's what I did. I picked up, and I went on. Lindsay continued.

"I did not hear from him for seven years. Though, you know as I do that when you're mixing linear and non-linear time, it feels so much longer than that.

"Seemed a lifetime since I'd seen his face or heard his voice. Then one day, out of the blue, earlier this year, there he was."


-=Flashback: Current Timeline, Stardate: 80502=-


The incoming message alert was insistent, and no matter how he tried to ignore it, he couldn't go back to sleep.

"Fine, fine, I'm awake ya bastard, whoever you are. Hang on." Will groaned, rolling over in bed.

He threw on his bathrobe and ambled across the room to the computer console. "It's four hundred hours, the universe had better be coming to an effing end."

He activated the screen expecting Vox or worse, Lassiter to be on the other side of the highly secured channel.

Instead, he saw a ghost from his past, pale and visibly trembling as he opened his mouth to speak.

Reluctant to initiate conversation himself for fear of igniting memories that were meant to stay buried, Will simply stared, his mouth hanging open.

"William," Keiran said softly, "How the hell have you been, man? It's..." he blinked several times. "Been too damned long."

"Keiran?" Will began slowly, still unsure what to do or say.

"Yes, I remember you, Will. God, I." Keiran answered Lindsay's unspoken question as he slumped down into a chair. His voice became muffled as his hands covered his face.

"I remember you, and what's more," his voice broke. "I remember her."

"Her?" Will was determined not to jump to any conclusions until pushed.

"Zanh Liis, she's."Keiran laughed bitterly. "She's captain of the bloody ship they sent me to."

*Damn,* Lindsay's chest ached, knowing that the last chance TI had to save Keiran O'Sullivan from the lives of his past had, apparently, failed him. "I'm sorry, Keiran," he whispered. "Truly sorry."

-=End Flashback=-


"He told me how he'd been posted to the Sera and how memories had been coming back to him. That he was struggling with whether or not he should stay."

"It was that difficult for him." Liis wasn't really asking a question, just astounded by the idea that she could have such an effect on anyone.

"Oh, yes. You have no idea, Zanh Liis, how difficult it was for him." He shook his head. "He asked me what I thought, and I told him that he could only do what his conscience dictated. That if he felt he had to walk away, that he had to listen to that voice.

"But he said that he couldn't. That he was certain he'd been put in that time and place for a reason. It was only weeks later that the Sera disappeared from the radar."

"The Sylph." Liis shivered, thinking how differently things would have turned out if Keiran had left the ship before they arrived.

"He didn't realize that he was on a Jump- he didn't remember that until after it was over. But he knew enough to know he was in over his head as far as you were concerned. He was so afraid of taking you down with him. He's still scared of it, that much was apparent after Vox' little stunt with the clock." Will's jaw set in anger.

"That's why I'm askin' ya to look after him, Liis. Don't let him get too far ahead of himself, or fall too far behind. The past and the future pose equal dangers to him now, and he's got to learn how to live in the present if he's going to be all right."

"I promise," Liis took his hand and squeezed it tightly, "I swear to you, I will do whatever it takes to keep him here."

"I know you will." Will leaned over and hugged her.

"You've no idea, really, how happy it makes me to see the two of you like you are. The fact that I got to perform the ceremony myself, well," he smiled gently. "It's something I know I'll never forget."

"Neither will I." Liis promised, hugging back.

The fact he was willing to even attend the wedding this time, let alone perform the ceremony, spoke volumes to her as to how he felt this timeline was progressing.

"If I asked you to," she plead, her voice hollow and anxious, "would you show it to me, just once?" She knew he still had it on him.

Will considered her request carefully before deciding that he would allow it.

He unclipped the compass from his belt, flipped it open, and displayed it for her.

Liis sighed with relief.

It was dark.

"Thank you." She rose to her feet and glanced back at him over her shoulder.

"Seems it's time for me to keep up my end of our bargain. Do you mind if I drive and talk at the same time?"

"You'd rather?"

"Yeah." She drew her hands up and down her arms slowly. "Stories like the ones I have to tell...I can't tell standing still."

---------------
=^= Captain William Lindsay
Temporal Investigations
Currently on Earth