by *Keiran O’Sullivan
90125.2300
After Postcards From Far Away
-=Outside Conference Room One: USS Serendipity=-
90125.2300
After Postcards From Far Away
-=Outside Conference Room One: USS Serendipity=-
Keiran straightened his cuffs one more time as he stood outside the conference room. He grinned just a bit, thinking back to the moments just before the wedding when he was trying to affix the cufflinks Liis had given him.
He had carried them along as a sort of a good luck charm during the Away Mission. At the moment, they were kept safely stored in a drawer in their temporary quarters. He always knew right where they were.
Stepping though the doors into the conference room, he made eye contact with Admiral Lassiter. She nodded to acknowledge him, but held up one finger, putting him off while she finalized whatever it was she was doing on her portable computer terminal. Once satisfied, she closed the lid and turned her attention to him.
“What is on your mind Captain?” Lassiter addressed him by his former rank, his Temporal Investigations rank. He existed here, by choice, as a Commander but in the world that Lassiter knew he was still a Jump ship captain, with all the rights and respect associated with the rank.
“Can I have a seat, Gem?” Keiran asked. His expression was warm and uncharacteristically loose. Lassiter tilted her head towards the table and leered at him up and over the bridge of her nose. She had known O’Sullivan long enough to sense when he had something to ask, on someone else’s behalf. She also knew him well enough to know when she was not going to like the request he was about to make.
“By all means.” Lassiter twirled her teacup in circles in the grooves of its saucer for a few moments while Keiran settled himself into the chair. “What’s on your mind, O’Sullivan?”
“Your daughter.”
The topic caught Lassiter completely off guard. She fumbled with the teacup, nearly spilling it, before setting her hands into her lap below the table.
“What about her?”
“She wrote to me, Gem. Life at University isn’t sittin’ with her well. I think she wants to come back to Starfleet.”
“Absolutely not. You’re dismissed.”
Lassiter’s reaction was short and cross, even for her. Keiran remained firmly planted in his seat, knowing Gem was hardly about to have him dragged off by security. He said nothing, knowing that the ball was still in her court, so to speak.
“You know as well as I that she cannot return to Starfleet. The experiences she had combined with the failed resequencing…”
“She’s had some time to process those memories but only on her own. No one on Betazed knows what she’s been through, or how to help her.”
“So she’s quitting.”
“You’re trying to change the subject Gem, I’m not gonna let ya do it.” Keiran was not about to enter a debate on Gira’s ability to commit or stay focused on a task, though it was a fight he could win. He wanted Lassiter’s attention solely on the fact her daughter was suffering and needed help from someone she could trust.
There were only two men in the galaxy that could take such a tone with Gemini Lassiter and get away with it. One, because she respected him like no other, and the second because her heart skipped a beat each time he walked into a room.
Fortunately for Keiran, he happened to be one of those two.
“She’s not cut from the same cloth as you and I, Keiran. She belongs in civilian life, in the arts.”
“Maybe so, maybe not, but she never really got to choose for herself, did she? This isn’t about her Starfleet career and you know it. When you ended her career you cut her off from the only support she had, Gem.”
“I had no choice, I did it for her own good. Do you think I enjoyed watching my daughter’s career go up in smoke? Don’t think that behind this patrician façade there isn’t a broken heart, O’Sullivan. No one suffered more than I did, knowing what carrying those memories was going to do to her.”
“One person did.”
Keiran had suffered himself as well when Gira’s resequencing had failed. If making Gira Lassiter forget he had ever existed was the price to be paid to spare the her the agony of remembering his funeral in the alternate timeline, he would have gladly paid it.
Her pain did not have to consume her, however. He had no doubt that here amongst friends she could flourish and return to being the vibrant young woman she was before her soul was crushed like so many who walk through the doors of Temporal Investigations.
Like his had been.
He could very much imagine what she was going through right now, and the thought of it snuffing out her gentle spirit simply broke his heart.
“Even if I allowed her aboard this ship, how could I justify it to Starfleet?”
“On the record, she’ll have to attend sessions with Counselor Tryst. Off the record, she needs her peers, people who understand what she’s been through, to see her through this.”
“What would you even have her do?” Lassiter shrugged, grasping at any straw she could to try and convince herself this was a bad idea.
“Our helmsman has just returned to Ferenginar to care for his sick mother, and Lieutenant Grace is still with child and on bed-rest. Gira flew the Perseids, she could handle the Sera, and the Alchemy as well, without batting an eye. I'm certain of it. We need someone with her skill, but even if we didn’t, even if we just needed a waiter for the lounge, trust me, she’d be willin’ to do it to be here. She doesn’t have to make a whole career out of it. Just whatever time she needs to do, to stay till she’s right again.”
“I suppose there is no point in asking you if Captain Zanh would clear this?”
Keiran actually laughed for the first time since entering the room. Lassiter accepted his response as a “No.”
The laughter faded as quickly as it began and a dark expression fell across his face.
“Don’t turn your back on her, Gem. Children are patient, and stronger than we give them credit for. But they can only take so much before they put up a barrier that can be impossible to break down. Even if we didn’t know…”
Keiran’s voice trailed off and he was suddenly very far from the conversation with Admiral Lassiter. She knew whom he was with in his thoughts right now, and waited patiently for him to return.
Slowly he lifted his eyes to her and pleaded, as much for Gira’s soul as he did Gem’s.
“Don’t let that wall be built. Don’t let what happened to my son and I happen to you and your daughter.”
She saw the hurt in his eyes and that alone was enough to completely disarm her.
“Don’t look at the face of this Irishman, Gem. Just look at what ya see in my eyes right now and ask yerself if ya can ever bear to have those eyes looking back at ya in a mirror?”
Lassiter was silent for a great time. His argument was persuasive, emotional, accurate and heartfelt. *Damn him.* She cursed to herself.
“What is it with the people on this ship? I swear sometimes they could talk me into anything no matter how insane I believe it to be.”
“Zanh Liis did not rise to where she is by surrounding herself with fools and yes-men, Admiral.” Keiran explained.
“There is a condition, Captain O’Sullivan.”
“Name it.”
“She writes to her mother at least once a week.”
Keiran half expected the request to be along the lines of ‘I want you to kill Dane Cristiane if he ever touches my daughter.’ He was more than happy to quickly agree to the simple condition she had laid out instead.
“Can I ask you one thing before you leave, Keiran?”
“Of course.”
“What was your opinion of Commander Salvek’s actions, on the Romulan ship?”
“Admiral, I thought we’d be discuss this durin’ the formal hearin’?”
“We will. At that time you will no doubt deliver a perfectly polished account of exactly what happened before myself, Commander Salvek and the rest of the assembly. I would like to know what you have to say in this more candid setting.”
“I’ll tell you what I told Liis. If you could confront your greatest enemy, and had the chance to ask them why, wouldn’t ya do it?”
“If you were in his place?” She quizzed.
“I would’ave let Taris die and gotten my wife and her crew the hell off of that ship. But ya have to understand, the Commander and I didn’t share the same perspective in that situation. I can justify his actions, even if I would have done different.”
“Thank you, Keiran.”
Keiran nodded, hoping he hadn’t said too much. The last thing he wanted was to supply the rope for Salvek’s hanging. He stood up to take his leave, but paused, wanting to clarify just one more thing before he left.
“So, I can tell Gira to look into meeting up with us once we get to Earth?” Only now did he want to disclose the way that Gira had ended her letter. “She’s…already on the way there, may have arrived already.”
“Thank you, but that won’t be necessary. I’ll let her know myself.”
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Commander *Keiran O'Sullivan
Security Liaison
The Alchemy Project
USS Serendipity NCC-2012
Commander *Keiran O'Sullivan
Security Liaison
The Alchemy Project
USS Serendipity NCC-2012