by -=/\=- Zanh Liis
Soundtrack: Wintersong, by Sarah McLachlan
Following Interdepartmental Cooperation
-=/\=-
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-=Captain's Ready Room: USS Serendipity=-
Soundtrack: Wintersong, by Sarah McLachlan
Following Interdepartmental Cooperation
-=/\=-
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-=Captain's Ready Room: USS Serendipity=-
Will shifted his weight as Zanh Liis returned to her office, walking past him and dropping down onto the couch by the window.
She knew better than to ask what Blane had said to him, or vice versa.
She also knew better, at this point in her life, than to try and remain standing in the face of a development like this. Somehow Will had obtained, or been given, her compass. She couldn't fathom how this could have happened.
She had imagined that it would surely be destroyed, as soon as Vox had confiscated it.
That was procedure. That was the rulebook, line, chapter and verse.
"Why?" She asked softly.
"Just in case," Will slumped down heavily onto the couch beside her. "In case the the forty people in that brain-trust back at TI were wrong."
"How? Did you take it or did they give it to you?"
"TEMA took possession of it, before you left to go after Carrick." Will explained. "Before I came to see you, Gem Lassiter gave it to me with her blessing." He rubbed his chin and regarded the device again. "She's many things, but she is not a fool. If it could possibly help, she wanted you to have it."
He handed it to her and watched as she closed her eyes, seemed to mumble something to herself that he couldn't quite make out, and then finally pried open the lid.
Gazing into it, she shook her head until her earring jingled. "This can't be right."
She stood up, bolted across the room and set it down onto the desk, backing away from it while fighting the urge to smash it. *Again.* "There's no clear path. There are no direct instructions."
"That's just it. Look." Will opened his own compass as well and displayed it for her. It too, had colors lighting it up all over its face but told him nothing that was truly helpful. "No conclusive plan. Which means something has changed. Some factor has come into play that we hadn't counted upon, and the plan-"
"Plan?"
Liis' last nerve snapped upon hearing the word. She instantly traversed the room and stood before him, arms folded and shaking as she looked ready to try to finish what Blane had started earlier. "You had a PLAN? I thought that you were only supposed to bring me back to my ship."
"I was supposed to bring you back to your ship and make sure that you, and the Sera, never got anywhere near the Romulans." Lindsay confessed. "That was what they wanted. They wanted you and the ship away from the conflict."
"And you justified this how?"
"I justified it because it's also what he wanted, and I knew it."
He.
Her husband.
He wanted her to stay safe, because he had plans of his own.
"Because he's already into it up to his neck." Liis felt panic rising in her at the thought. She whispered his name softly several times, again closing her eyes. "Keiran, what have you done?"
When she glanced at the desk again, she caught sight of the gift that TC had given her last Christmas. The sight of it, bathed in the flashing lights from the compass, brought a wall of memories crashing down upon her.
She was powerless to stop it.
-=Flashback: Alternate Timeline: 2378:
North American Continent, Earth=-
North American Continent, Earth=-
Each of his strides produced a heavy, crunching noise as his weight pressed down into the ground below.
The biting winter wind kicked up, stinging his eyes, ears, and any part of his face not covered by his beard as he marched carefully up the steps of the quaint, unfamiliar dwelling.
It looked rather like a gingerbread house. From the rustic brown siding right down to white shutters that matched the 'frosting' Mother Nature had kindly provided for the rooftop.
Even though he didn't much care for the traditional holiday treat that it put him in mind of, the sight was nothing short of enchanting.
Especially after all the dark, ugly things he had seen this year.
Even though the building itself wasn't known to him, every last one of the people waiting inside of it, would be.
"Here we are. Number twenty-seven," he announced. He began to tap the toes of his enormous boots against the side of the top-most porch step in an effort not to track a snowy mess onto the most welcoming 'Welcome' mat he'd ever laid eyes upon.
"I swear, I can almost taste dinner already. I hope yer hungry. My sisters always cook to feed an army."
Zanh Liis paid him little heed as she trailed a few steps behind. Her thoughts seemed to have retreated to the place where they resided most of the time. Locked up tight in some mysterious, exclusive and inaccessible land, far removed from her current actual location.
Reluctantly, she finally climbed the porch steps and took her place beside him.
"Something wrong with the wiring?" She inquired, pointing up at a string of clear, unlit bulbs hanging low over the porch. "Their bulbs aren't on."
"They said they were...waitin'. To light the house." Keiran explained, blushing slightly. "Till I got here."
The corner of her mouth turned up slightly on one side. Sentimental, these O'Sullivans. Every one, to the last.
*Sentimental, and very attached to the man standing in front of me.*
The O'Sullivan family, the whole lot of them, had decided that there were 'great and grand reasons to celebrate' the holiday this year. With Keiran having a break between'assignments' and able to arrange some time off to be with them, they planned to 'do it all up right'.
It was going to be a holiday unlike any other they'd ever known, however, for a much different reason.
This would be the first Christmas that any of the seven O'Sullivan siblings would mark without their 'ole wan' fussing about the kitchen and stealing kisses upon the foreheads of her grandchildren as they ran past, looking to snatch cookies from the sheet before she even got to plate them.
What none of them realized was something that only their father understood well; that it was also the first Christmas in years during which Maire O'Sullivan had not stared out her kitchen window with tears in her eyes and a wish in her heart that her middle child, her "lovely boy", Keiran, might make the journey home this year.
Then, once he was home and relaxed and had recovered from the dinner she'd stuffed him with, perhaps he'd even sing for her.
She did so love the sound of his voice.
Being that it was their first Christmas without their mother, Keiran's siblings decided to take a holiday away from Cork. They wanted, they said, to experience for the first time in their lives 'a white, wintry sort of Christmas'.
So they'd packed up all of the children, mountains of luggage, and the elderly patriarch of the family as well and rented a house in New England for ten days.
Journeying here to sight see, to revel in the wonderland around them, and...to try to distract Keiran from Ireland. From their mother's absence, as well as the fact that this was another Christmas he would not be spending with his son.
"In that case, you shouldn't make them wait any longer," said Liis.
While they were walking, the clouds above had begun to shower fresh snow down upon the land like a sprinkling of Confectioner's sugar.
Perfect, large white flakes fell and landed upon her onyx-colored bangs, clinging to them and to her eyelashes.
Her nose and cheeks reddened from the chill, and she pulled the collar of her long, elegant black coat up tighter around her neck and reached into her pocket, seeking gloves.
As she looked downward, pulling one leather glove on at a time over pale, slender fingers, Keiran had an overwhelming urge to gently brush the snow from her hair.
He knew, however, that if he allowed himself to do so, that his hands would move involuntarily from the long dark strands down to her shoulders.
From there, as if under a power not his own, they would travel lower, over her arms and wrists, before clasping hold of her hands.
Finally, his arms would encircle her waist.
*If that happened, he couldn't possibly be held accountable if he went ahead and simply kissed her...*
He jarred himself back into the moment by sheer force of will. He didn't dare.
"Have a grand time." She widened her eyes and did her best impression of his brogue, causing his heart to skip a beat in reverse.
His deep laughter rumbled softly in reply.
"See you in a few days." She tucked both gloved hands into her coat pockets for additional warmth as she prepared to go.
Keiran sighed. He'd invited her to spend the holiday here more times than he could count.
"Come on, Zanh Liis. Ya know, yer more than welcome." His voice lowered and his blue eyes twinkled as the clouds parted momentarily, allowing the moon to shine through crystal cold, black skies. "Please. Stay."
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-=/\=- Zanh Liis O'Sullivan
Captain of the Serendipity
-=/\=- Zanh Liis O'Sullivan
Captain of the Serendipity