by Keiran O'Sullivan and Commander Salvek
90110.17
Soundtrack: My Heart Was Home Again by Josh Groban
-=/\=-
-=A memory, continued=-
90110.17
Soundtrack: My Heart Was Home Again by Josh Groban
-=/\=-
-=A memory, continued=-
Liis kept on looking up, surveying the clear blue expanse beyond the foliage. The tree's leaves reached majestically into that sky, upon branches that stretched their arms out wide from a trunk towering some nine meters high.
The sky this day was, Keiran thought, almost as bright as the look in her eyes as they lay upon the blanket on the grass after their picnic lunch, simply holding each other.
He leaned his back up against the trunk of their tree. His hands wound lazily through her hair as she rested her head against his shoulder.
They'd only been married a few months, and autumn was here. The tree would shed its newly gilded leaves soon, and then come spring it would flower first in seeded catkins before the quaking leaves would return in their place.
"Is true, most do. This one is...singular.”
Liis laughed, shifting position until she stretched long legs out across the blanket and reclined, resting her head in his lap. "A singular tree, for a singular man, I suppose. You are, after all, one of a kind."
"I was thinkin' it reminded me more of you, to tell ya the truth of it," Keiran replied dryly, innocently rolling his eyes toward the heavens. "Singular. Tall. Mysterious." Intentionally he widened his eyes. "Noisy.”
She poked him, threatening to tickle him but knowing how much he hated the sensation, she stopped short with just the warning.
He loved little more than getting a rise out of her, though, and so he pressed on.
“’Tis a rebel, you could say. And ‘tis the female of the species."
She roared and poked him again. "You're making that up."
"Am not.” He declared with mock indignation, wrestling her fingers free of his ribs and kissing her hand before releasing it again. “There are male and female crann creathach and in Spring, the flowers’ll tell you which is which."
"In the Spring, a young man's fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love." Liis intoned softly, running her fingertips lightly over Keiran's chest as he leaned down. Closer, closer, his lips tingling in anticipation of her kiss.
Every time they sat beneath this tree, he thought of the night he'd told her he loved her here, beneath the rustling leaves and the starry sky filled with Perseids.
He could never help but remember, too, the first time she had ever kissed him, in any time and place; in the time that had gone so wrong. He involuntarily winced at the memory.
Only once, in that time had he been allowed to hold her as he'd dreamed of, so long. One perfect afternoon in her arms beneath this Trembling Poplar and then, it'd all gone straight to Hell...
"What?” Liis interrupted his reverie, teasing gently. “No Yates or Emerson in rebuttal to my Tennyson? That is standard operating procedure, O’Sullivan.”
Still he offered her nothing, and so she turned her attention back to the physical features of the tree. She noted that the bark was marked with horizontal black streaks marring its white flesh, but she thought that these ‘flaws’ only gave the tree more character.
She could only hope her own scars did the same for her.
“In conclusion, I like the shaking tree.” She announced, “I really do.”
Keiran sighed. "There are legends about this tree, you know. One of ‘em is…well. They say, 'tis cursed."
"Keiran! This is our tree!" She laughed with utter disbelief. "You're sayin’ our favorite tree is cursed? Way to score big in the romance department!" Liis sat up, leaning back and away instead of giving in to her own desire to kiss him.
"You can't ever let a beautiful day be what it is, can you?" She shook her head. "'Being Irish, he had an abiding sense of tragedy, which sustained him through temporary periods of joy.' See? I got your Yeats, right 'ere. I would swear that he wrote that especially about my husband, one Keiran Riley O'Sullivan of County Cork."
"They say that the cross upon which they crucified Jesus Christ was made of the bark of this tree," he murmured, still clearly lost in thoughts a million miles away from the meadow in which they were located. "That's why, 'tis said the tree is cursed."
"Wow, this one, specifically?" Liis gave a low whistle as she patted the trunk with one hand. "This is one old-ass tree, O'Sunshine. And apparently, it also travels extensively. It made it all the way here from Cavalry."
He flashed her his patented hybrid between a frown and a scowl, and she stood up and took a step away, running her hands up and down her arms.
"Well what do you want me to say, Keiran? Here we are, it's a perfect day in early autumn, unseasonably warm, even, and we're together under the tree where we first..." she stopped, unable to truly get angry with him as she thought about those firsts.
First kiss, first time he said he loved her, and on another day so long after, the first time she admitted she loved him, too. All events that had happened under this specific tree. They’d been married, next to this tree.
*A tree which,* she thought, *is apparently cursed, according to him. What the hell am I supposed to take that to mean? *
“Why would you ever believe such a silly thing?”
Keiran parted his lips to answer but stopped himself cold- realizing he couldn't say what he had been prepared to say.
She had no memory of that 'other' first, the one that had resulted in him telling Vox they were involved, and precipitated the new partnership which had ended her life in the previous timeline that Keiran had fought so hard to erase.
"To quote your littlest sister, 'for the love of all that's good and holy, let it go.'" She pleaded at last, imitating Mary Clare's trilling cadence,
Keiran shook his head, trying to physically clear from his mind the troubling thoughts that had settled in, pushing all happier ones aside.
He continued to brood, and finally Liis decided that she was simply going to refuse to allow it.
There was one thing she could do that, no matter how he tried to resist, he could not.
"Come on. Why don't you try to give me another dance lesson? Your toes should've healed up nicely by now after the last attempt." She tugged him upward by the hands but he remained where he was. Fixed, unmoving, refusing to leave his spot on the ground.
"Hey, listen to me," she gazed upon him, affectionately and with all seriousness now, dropping to one knee and lifting his face to meet hers. "I'm here. We're here. What more is there that matters than this?"
She leaned in and kissed him soundly, and Keiran felt that familiar twist in his stomach, a sensation consisting of half excitement and half stark terror he'd lose her again. It was a feeling that only her touch could inspire.
He loved her so, he just didn't know how he would ever manage to live without her, should Time and History interfere with them again.
"What matters is holdin' on to this," he told her, before pulling her near, and clasping her so close to him that she could barely breathe.
"Holdin' on to you."
-=/\=-
Recalling vividly how that timeline had ended, with her dead beneath the house so near this damned tree the day after their first wedding anniversary, had made it hard enough to abide the thing remaining where it was as long as he had.
Now, knowing how he'd found her in this time only to lose her again after she’d followed him here from Temporal Investigations Headquarters and confessed that she remembered everything of their past…all of it…made him hate the sight of the tree more than any other piece of scenery he had ever seen in all his days.
*She remembered me, and for what? Only to end up dead on a cold floor in a god-forsaken research facility on Klaestron? It just isn’t fair.*
He was driven past the point of all reason. All hopes he’d had for his future- their future- fallen sleep in death along with her.
Rage re-ignited in him and Keiran cried out again, this time in a long, wordless shout of frustration and despair as he swung the axe again and again into the trunk; until it was hanging on by mere threads, and a voice behind him called loudly for his attention.
"O'Sullivan! Stand down!"
He turned to see Gemini Lassiter, arms folded, her expression unforgiving.
"What the hell are you doing, Keiran? Trying to induce cardiac arrest?"
*Maybe I am,* he thought. "This damned thing," he said, glaring at the tree with disgust and pure hatred, "has to go."
"You have to go with me." Lassiter insisted. "You're going to have to take command of her ship, Keiran. Salvek won't, and the crew needs your guidance if they're going to recover from this. The Project could be lost if you don't. Would Zanh Liis want that?"
He had already turned down command of the Serendipity once, in front of a dozen Admirals and Temporal Investigations agents, alike.
All had their reasons why they wanted him to take her command over for her. For every one, Keiran had ten why he didn't believe he could do it.
"How, Gem? How do I go in there, and stand on her bridge. How do I...work in her Ready Room, how do I..." he faltered, and he motioned for her to back up. "Why do I..."
She did so knowing that once he set his mind to accomplishing something, whether knocking down a tree, Jumping a timeline or anything else, all discussion was over. If she didn't want the tree to land on her, she had better move out of his way.
"Why? Because she would want no one else to do it and you know that."
Keiran finished off the tree, watching with dark satisfaction as it crashed to earth.
After it came to rest, he swung the axe down once more, burying it deeply into the trunk as it lay on the ground. Sweat beaded his brow and matted his hair as he looked up at Lassiter, gasping and out of breath.
"Her crew needs you, Keiran. But you know what? I think you need them more."
He considered the fact that she very well may be right about the last part. "Aye." He nodded slowly. "For her, I'll do it. Not for your bloody committee, not for Temporal Investigations, or The Alchemy Project. For her."
"Very well. There's one more thing.” She paused. “The funeral arrangements...there is some…disagreement as to what to do with her ashes."
Keiran answered quickly. "Perseus." he whispered. "We have to take her to Perseus."
-=End Flashback=-
“You aren’t takin’ her anywhere till she’s had some rest.” Doctor McKay insisted. “But she should be up an about in a day or two.”
Keiran hadn’t realized that he’d spoken the last words aloud, in the present time as he recalled speaking them in the past, until they were answered by a familiar voice.
“What did ya say?” he asked, as his attention returned to the room around him and the time that was now.
“I said she’s holdin’ her own. She lost a lot of blood and the wounds are serious, but she’s gonna pull through. She may have some residual nerve injuries to her arm and hand but we’ll…deal with…” Dalton frowned as O’Sullivan stared blankly into the distance. “Did you not even hear a word I said?”
“She’s goin’ to live?” Keiran’s flashbacks had left him already convinced Zanh Liis was dead.
“Yeah she is. She’s gonna feel like a mosquito in the grille of an eighteen-wheeler for a good long while, but she’s going to live. The nurses will be here, if you’ll excuse me I need to check on my other patients.”
“Thank ya, Doctor.” Keiran said finally, long after McKay had already left. Two nurses stayed with Liis, keeping an eye on her medication and vital signs, as McKay left to tend to Salvek, Blane and Lindsay.
Slowly he approached her bedside, and grasped hold of her uninjured right hand.
“Did ya hear that, Liis? Yer goin’ to live.” Keiran knew she could not hear him yet, but he needed to force the words past his lips if he were going to dare allow himself to believe them. The gentle rise and fall of her chest was a beautiful sight, in contrast to the terrifying lack of motion in the rest of her body.
Keiran chose to focus only on that one thing, her breathing, knowing as long as she was drawing breath, that she was there with him. He felt a tug on his pants leg, which drew him out of his state.
“Commander O’Sullivan?”
Keiran looked down at young Lair Arie, and then back across the room at Salvek and Kellyn, who were taking advantage of their moment alone to share their affection. Seeing them so in love comforted him, and made him that much more eager for Liis to awaken, so he could kiss her in much the same way.
“Yes, young lady?” He replied to Arie, dropping to a knee to address her at her level.
“Is Captain Zanh going to be all right?”
“Aye, I believe so, the Doctors are doin’ their best to help her.”
“Good,” Arie answered. “Because she’s part of my family too. And I need my family.”
Keiran’s heart could not possibly have been any more moved. Tears dropped down his face and onto the deck.
“I could not have said it any better myself, darlin’. The eloquence of Tennyson and Yeats cannot describe love as well as the simple innocence of a child.”
Arie looked upon him with confusion for a moment, but believed she understood what he was trying to say.
“Will you give Captain Zanh a message for me when she wakes up, if I’m gone?”
“Of course I will. What is it, then?”
“Tell her I’m safe, and to sleep well tonight. Because I know she’ll worry. You’ll know she’ll worry.”
“I believe she’ll sleep well tonight.” Keiran answered. “I’ll make sure she knows.”
“Arie!” Lair Kellyn’s voice called out across Sickbay. With a few strides she was at their side. “Sorry, Commander,” she cringed, hoping Arie had not interfered with his moment of quiet solitude at Liis’ beside.
“’Tis all right, the young lady and I were just havin’ a chat about family. Did me a lot of good to tell you the truth of it.”
“I make everyone cry.” Arie said, rolling her eyes.
Keiran thought of every face that had passed through his life, so much joy, so much pain. He’d seen so much, and most of it he wished he never had. Arie was so intelligent, and so wise, but still so young.
“Just promise me one thing, Lair Arie.” Keiran asked, “Don’t ever stop lookin’ at the world with the innocence that ya have right now.”
She nodded as if she understood, but Keiran doubted she did truly understand what he meant.
He hoped she never would.
-=/\=-
Commander Keiran O’Sullivan
Security Liaison
for The Alchemy Project
USS Serendipity NCC 2012
and
Commander Salvek
Executive Officer
USS Serendipity NCC 2012
Commander Keiran O’Sullivan
Security Liaison
for The Alchemy Project
USS Serendipity NCC 2012
and
Commander Salvek
Executive Officer
USS Serendipity NCC 2012