806: One More Day To Stay

by William Lindsay and Zanh Liis
90306.16
The Morning after Never Say Never

-=/\=-

-=The O'Sullivan Residence; County Cork, Ireland=-

Early morning mist rose in the distance, stretching out as far as the eye could see.

It hovered, full and thick; a downy blanket thrown over the sleeping land.

Liis watched the first light of day beginning to break over the horizon line, and felt the reassuring smarting of the skin on the back of her right shoulder, where her new souvenir of Ireland had been placed, just two days before.

The pain was actually a comfort to her. It reminded her that she was, in fact, alive.

The night after their perfect visit to Mizen Head had been a long and difficult one for her. She had tried her very best to chase sleep, but found herself completely unable to catch it.

Keiran, lost for once in peaceful dreaming beside her after all they'd said and done that day, didn't so much as stir as she finally gave up trying and took to the window seat on the far bedroom wall. She threw a spare quilt over her arms, pulling it up around her shoulders tightly as she shivered, even though the room was actually quite warm.

She raised the shade on the windows and sat there staring out, bathed in moonlight, with the ghostly echoes of the singers at O'Halloran's and their haunted melody ringing in her ears.

Every time she closed her eyes, images of diametrically conflicting times and places collided in her head. Memories of agony battled with those of bliss as each fought to overtake the other; and she wondered how she'd ever find one clear path through the emotions that held her in a suffocating vice grip, closing ever more tightly around her throat.

At some point she must've given in to exhaustion, because she woke to find another blanket over her and a note nearby in which Keiran explained that he had gone out but that he'd expected to return before their company for the day arrived.

So she'd dressed and decided to wait upon the front porch swing she loved so well. She continued rocking in it, her vision dreamily fixed on some unseen point beyond the rising hills.

Alone she waged internal war, until at last she heard a gentle laugh from a familiar voice and startled.

"Good mornin', Mrs. O'Sullivan."

His boots had made no sound as he approached. The grass was still obscured by fog and heavily coated with morning dew, in addition to the existing moisture from last night's rainfall.

The dampening effect helped to conceal his footfalls as he'd traveled up the hill to the house, wandering more than walking as he put one foot down in front of the other in rambling, unmeasured paces.

The fact that her mind was otherwise engaged and she'd been staring blankly into the distance had allowed him to move within a meter of her without being noticed at all.

"You were awfully far away, just then."

"Yeah." She shrugged as the man took up a nearby chair and spun it around, sitting in it just in front of her.

Whether accidentally or on purpose, the position into which he had placed himself directly before her precluded her from continuing to swing, and the soles of her boots squealed against the wooden planks of the porch as she came to a sudden stop.

She thought about asking him to move, but then realized that it didn't matter.

She didn't really care to keep swinging, anyway.

She saluted him cavalierly, holding her coffee cup aloft. "Morning, Will. You're early."

"Actually, I'd hoped that," Will Lindsay began slowly, watching as Liis took another cup from the tray on the table beside her and filled it from the press pot. She reached for the cream but he held his hand up, ready to accept the beverage just as it was. "Thank you." He held the cup, but did not drink at first. "Tell me now. Where's that husband'a yours?"

"Out. Left a note saying he's gone to see Carrick, and he'll be back in a bit."

"Just as well," Will only now took a taste of his coffee. He set it down quickly, though, seemingly too preoccupied himself to truly enjoy it.

"Oh? Why is that?"

"We were havin' a conversation up on that roof a few days since, Zanh Liis. It was...interrupted. Unfinished."

"Was it?" She couldn't imagine at this point what more he had to say about anything they'd discussed at TI, before the sudden blast had taken her literally over the edge.

"I think so." Will focused intently on her face, watching as she ran a hand back through her hair, and then began to twist the chain of her newly-repaired earring.

"Well, what have you to say to me then, William?" She asked softly. "I've already said everything I wanted to say to you."

“Alright,” Will slowly sounded out the word. He looked down and back up again in hope that Liis would give him some indicator of the struggles she was facing inside. Finding nothing, he chose to continue.

“When we were standin' there on the roof I wouldn’t have thought there was anythin’ more ta be said and I’d have gladly left it a' that…” He met her eyes, there was clearly a lot going on in there and he briefly questioned whether this was worth saying. “But since then I’ve been thinkin’.”

He momentarily paused, searching for the right words, Liis remained still and quiet, allowing him time to focus his thoughts. In the end, it was the silence that shouted to him exactly what he needed to say, more loudly than anything else could have.

“Why’d ya think it was me?” he blurted.

Liis was looking questioningly at him and so he quickly elaborated, speaking his words rapidly because they almost sounded like a complaint and he was not a fan of those. “When Brody showed up yer first thought was that I had somethin’ ta do with it. Why?”

Liis suddenly felt very uneasy, much more so than she had before. She’d not known Will long, but Keiran had. Keiran's trust in the man made it a given that she should trust him as well from the moment they'd met- and she had.

To explain why that trust had proven so fragile wasn’t easy; especially since she couldn't quite understand it herself.

There was a continued distance in her expression, though she was looking him straight in the eye, making it clear to Will that her thoughts were only half here.

“It wasn’t my first thought, William, blaming you,” she said absently, it was true but she knew it wasn’t an answer.

Will of course wasn’t about to accept this.

He arrived quite swiftly at a place located somewhere between confusion and frustration and spoke accordingly. “I could well have understood why you’d have been pissed off about yer compass but ya said ya understood why I did it. Why then was I not even entitled to some benefit of the doubt here? Shouldn't you at least have had the decency to ask me outright before accusin' me of somethin' that we both know I had nothin' to do with?"

What she did next worried him more than anything else he had ever seen her do.

She simply agreed with him.

"You're absolutely right." Her hushed voice became an eerie combination of resignation and regret.

"What did'ye say?"

"I said that you're right. I should have given you the benefit of the doubt. I shouldn't have..." Her countenance remained maddeningly devoid of any one of the number of conflicting emotions that Will knew were there, just below the surface.

Her voice, too, had now lost all hint of the passion he was accustomed to hearing in it, and he couldn't believe she was capable of ever sounding so numb as she whispered, "I was wrong."

Will blinked several times in quick succession.

She droned on, returning his unwavering gaze with a consistently vacant look. "I was wrong. I owe you an apology, Will, and I'm sorry. Jumping to conclusions like that at your expense...it won't ever happen again. I give you my word."

It wasn't that the words were disingenuous, or the sentiment behind them at all insincere. Still he knew her well enough to know that when Zanh Liis felt, she felt strongly, and right now she seemed to be feeling nothing at all.

"What happened to you in that room, Liis?" He pushed out of his chair with marked frustration and paced across the porch. He ran his hand over the stubble on his chin and sighed. "You went inta it one woman and came out as someone else."

"What happened." Liis stood as well, folding her arms over her chest defensively and pacing in the opposite direction. "Was...I heard the door close behind me, and the clicking of the lock, and I was there. I was back in that goddamned hospital room I remember from the paradox. In the time I'd lost everything and Brody was trying to help me regain my command. Only this time..."
She spun on the heel of her boot and raised her eyes again. "I walked into the room having everything I've ever wanted for the first time in my life, and I found out that Tucker Brody wants to take it away. He wants to take it all away."

"But why? He only just met you, from his perspective. What would he have to gain by..." he waited for her to fill in the rest.

"...by taking my command? By removing me from The Alchemy Project?"

Will's eyes widened, and Liis nodded.

"Yes, William. That's what he wants to do. He doesn't believe I'm fit. I saw the determination in his eyes. He's not going to let this go. He believes he's found the chink in my armor. He's going to pursue me, and he's going to exploit it for all it's worth and..."

"There's no chink in your armor."

"You're not serious." Liis rotated the wedding rings on her finger as she spoke. "Keiran is my weakness and Brody knows it. Everyone knows it."

"Zanh Liis,"

She raised her hand, knowing from his tone as he said only her name that he thought she was getting paranoid.

"No. I'm telling you," She stepped closer to him, shaking her head. "I know the look in that man's eyes, even if I can't clearly define the origin of his feelings. It's more than a casual aversion. The man hates me. I don't know why, but I know he does." she paused. "He has it in for me, and he made his intentions crystal clear. I have got to watch my back."

"Keiran may be your weakness but he's also your strength, Liis." Will insisted. "He's not going to just stand by and let anyone..." he stopped. "It's not like you have no one to stand watch with you. You're not alone, you know. Not anymore."

“That’s exactly the problem.” Liis replied, empty frustration in her tone. “I don’t care if Brody comes after me. Let him. Anything that he can throw at me I can throw back, twice as hard. I am perfectly capable of taking care of myself. It’s if he starts coming after Keiran to get to me that I...”

Will refused to even attempt to believe this; Liis sounded nothing like the woman he knew. Incredulously he cut in.

“What d’ya think Keiran can’t take care of himself and then some? Have ya not noticed that the man has about ninety pounds on you?”

Liis’ eyes flickered and dropped slightly, so he side-stepped to where she was looking. “We both know for a fact that he’s seen things in his lifetime that could break most men several times over. What exactly have ya got through that head of yours that some wee nyaff of a doctor with an axe to grind is goin' ta be able ta do that even compares to what Keiran O'Sullivan has already survived?”

Will’s challenging stare was intentionally as insulting as was physically possible. He was hoping to elicit a reaction from her. To make her angry; bring back some of that fire that was Zanh Liis. His heart sank to see there wasn't even any heat. At first, she didn’t even speak.

She ran a hand across the back of her hair, just stopping short of her earring before taking her hand back down to her side. It was almost as if she’d forgotten he was there.

Then she turned away from him and began speaking again. “I know Keiran can look after himself,” she said quietly, “but you didn’t see Brody in there.”

There was a pause as she turned back to face him, her tone becoming evermore distant and emotionless. “There was pure malice in his eyes. Nothing like he was the other timeline. Like...I had done something personally damaging to him, though I have no memory of meeting him anywhere except that one alternate, and here.

"If he doesn’t get what he wants then he is going to do everything in his power to make our lives Hell and given his access to our records that might include reopening some very old wounds.”

Will was relieved to hear some emotion sneaking back in, even if her words did nothing to put him at ease.

“I refuse to put Keiran through that, it’s not his fault that…”

Hearing this Will scoffed, unwilling to let her finish “What? That he fell in love with you? What are ya saying? D’ya think either of ya would be happier if he didn’t?”

He had no intention of letting her answer the question, his words were getting quicker. “Because if that’s what ya think then maybe Brody has a point; there’s bloody well something wrong with yer mind.”

Liis felt frozen; a natural consequence when the universe felt this cold.

On the inside she was doing everything she could to fight against the riptide of her emotions, even though she felt like drowning was a foregone conclusion. On the outside she was still, giving no indication just how hard she was fighting to find something to anchor her.

Will couldn’t be still, he couldn’t believe that Liis was letting this one doctor get to her like this.

Finally he had to speak, his tone was one of barely tempered frustration. “Look Liis, don’t ya worry about Brody. As far as I’m concerned he doesn’t work for the department anymore. He's done.”

"No, you can't," she insisted. "You have to keep him there. You have to keep an eye on him for me, Will. Because someone has to, and I can't do it very well from out there, wherever the Sera goes next. I'm..." she paused, her attention captured by a far-away sound blowing in on the breeze.

With that both warming and chilling sound, County Cork itself seemed to change. Above them the sun was rising, the fog that surrounded them was lifting, and as she looked into the distance now, she saw Keiran.

He was whistling- definitely the sound she'd heard a moment before she saw him. As soon as their eyes met he paused, his lips parting softly as a smile beautiful enough to break your heart appeared upon his handsome face.

Liis was now truly struggling to hold on to her composure, and the feelings she'd tried so hard to suppress came rushing back into her voice all at once. It was low, and tremulous, as she reached out a hand blindly toward Will, desperately seeking something to grab onto for strength.

This was her last day in Ireland- and she was suddenly entirely unsure how she was ever, ever going to be able to leave it.

"I'm asking for your help, William." She whispered. "Will you give it?"

Will was taken back by how alive her eyes now seemed. Countless emotions danced around her pupils but at the centre was, unmistakably, fear. Seeing her like this Will's eyes matched that fear, and he swore to her his promise. "My word on it."

Liis believed him, but it didn't help.

Her true emotions were soon replaced by a more comfortable mask. Neither spoke, or even moved, as Keiran's resumed whistling was all that could be heard.

The Irishman got closer and his smile dropped as he became fully aware of the look in her eyes. He was suddenly silent and about to question them but it was Will who first started to speak.

He barely even noticed Keiran's approach, his eyes still locked on Liis as he shakily suggested, "Let's go for a drive."

=======================
Captain William Lindsay
Interim Director
Department of Temporal Investigations

and

-=/\=- Zanh Liis
Commanding Officer
USS Serendipity NCC-2012