by -=/\=- Zanh Liis
90316.03
Soundtrack: Somewhere Only We Know by Keane
Following All Over the Place
-=A field in County Cork=-
90316.03
Soundtrack: Somewhere Only We Know by Keane
Following All Over the Place
-=A field in County Cork=-
"Stop running from him, Liis. Will said, pausing before adding, "That's all I wanted to say." Then he'd simply turned and walked away.
Liis wanted to call after him; to tell him to wait, but as hard as she searched for it, she could not find her voice.
What she actually wanted was to demand that he give her something more to go on.
Some hint as to what she should say, or do next. An idea of exactly how, after running all of her life to keep from getting close to everyone, she was supposed to simply stand still now and stop running from anyone.
To stop running from Keiran.
She'd spent so much time working so hard at keeping her distance from Keiran, in this time and all others. Trying to deny her feelings; absolutely certain that there was absolutely nothing about her that could possibly be considered worthy of the care and consideration that he offered her.
*Damn that song.* The melody was beautiful and the voice singing it urgent, aching, begging to be heard.
It rang on, playing out in her head even after she moved too far away from the car to hear it clearly, and it would not stop.
It repeated over and over from the beginning and she saw the lyrics in visible script inside her head; somewhere between her closed eyes and her captive mind, incapable of escaping them.
She read into those words, every one; between the lines of the verses and the chorus and saw images so vivid that they immediately vanquished the here and now, and made it seem as though the Earth upon which she currently stood, wet, soggy, and cold, was the illusion.
-=Flashback: Alternate timeline, Spring of 2380=-
"Liis, open the damned door, willya already? I's bucketing out here!"
He stood outside on the walk leading to her apartment, rainwater dripping from his hair and face. "Please. Don't make me take down the door."
Even with the threat of damage to the door -of which she knew he was easily capable- still, she made him wait.
She stood on the opposite side of the barrier with her back pressed up against it; dripping everywhere from having rushed home in the storm. She closed her eyes.
"Liis, please, Think about this. Think of ev'ra'thin' we've been through. Don' let things stand like this between us. Not now. When I may not."
He stopped.
He had spent the better part of the evening trying to talk her down. To convince her that Vox' decision to send him with a different partner on this particular Jump tomorrow morning was the right one. That she needed to stay behind, here, where he knew she'd be safe.
Liis was having none of it, no matter what he said. When she had finally heard enough, she mutely turned and rushed away.
"Zanh Liis, if an'a'thin' I've ever said has any meanin' to ya at all, for the love of God, please. Open the door."
Still, she tried to deny him. To deny that anything he'd ever said to her did have any meaning; especially when it came to his feelings for her.
Feelings which, even if there were no other complicating factors -which there were- they were not to express because of the codes of conduct they were obliged to uphold.
Feelings that O'Sullivan had been unable or unwilling to deny, nonetheless.
He'd done so for a long time, until finally he could hold back no more. She vividly recalled the night last summer when he'd taken her out into the middle of that vast field in Ireland and sat her down beneath the starlit sky and scattering Perseids.
Then he'd kissed her and told her that he loved her and she didn't know what to say. She didn't know what she could say and so, she had said nothing.
He immediately added that he expected nothing from her, but to know it.
She'd known it ever since. What was more, as much as she'd tried to deny it even to herself, she knew that she felt it, too.
Still she had never said so to Keiran and vowed to herself she would not say it, and she had been fine with that decision because he was always there, day by day, no matter what she did or didn't say.
Now everything was going to change.
Now, he was going away without her and no one knew better than she the dangers that he would be facing. The thought of him battling such perilous conditions without her being there to fight alongside him scared her to death.
"Liis," Keiran tried again, though his voice grew hoarse. He was trembling and truly soaked from the freezing, driving rain. "I know ya can hear me in there..."
She moved to a console on the table nearby and hit the button to turn it on. Music began to blare, but not the music that she expected, which was much angrier and abrasive.
She'd left the wrong data chip in the player, and that song, that same one that he had played, every damned day since last summer, shattered the silence.
The song he admitted, only once, when she demanded of him to know exactly why he insisted on playing it every damned day, that it reminded him of a specific place and time: the night of the Perseids.
Somewhere Only We Know played loudly and hearing it, Keiran now let his forehead rest for a moment against the outside of her locked front door.
He raised his head and let it thud down once against the wood and then finally, he came to a decision.
Even if she was so angry or afraid, either one, that she was willing to let him walk away like this, he was not.
He lifted his head up and stood tall.
"All right," he shouted over the din. "Down comes the door!"
Too impatient and mentally exhausted to think about picking the lock at a time like this, he opted in favor of a more direct approach.
He backed up several steps and with a growl charged forward, putting his shoulder into the motion and effectively encouraging the door to open with one forceful blow.
Liis jumped where she stood and looked up at him in shock and amazement as the door clattered free of its moorings.
He'd actually done it. He'd finally broken in to get to her.
He stood before her dripping wet, and she was glad that the water that was still falling steadily from her soaking hair down onto her face obscured her tears of frustration and confusion.
"Liis," his voice was reverent as he spoke his plea one last time. "Don't do this. Don't shut me out."
"I have to." She insisted desperately over the music as it continued on. "You're going away. Just like everyone else always does. You're going away and you're leaving me behind."
"No I am not, I swear." He slowly raised a gentle hand toward her face but she backed up, bumping into a chair behind her and nearly falling backwards over it.
With nowhere left to go she begged him with a glance not to touch her. Keiran reluctantly took one step in reverse as he withdrew his outstretched arm, closing his fingers into a painfully tight fist at his side.
"I'm not leavin' you. I'm goin' on a Jump. I'll be back, and I'll be the same when I come home again. I promise you."
She stepped forward. Torn, tempted, and entirely uncertain for the first time in her life what she should do. "I should be going with you. This is wrong. Wrong."
"The way it has to be, darlin'." He said sadly. "So tell me. All the time that's passed us by. All the times I've caught ya lookin' at me crossways when you thought I didn't see."
Unable to stop himself from reaching out for her a second time, Liis felt his hands quaking as he set them down heavily upon her shoulders.
"Can ya give me somethin' ta hold onto while I'm gone? An'a'thin'...to fight to come back to?" He bowed his head, ashamed, unable to meet her vacant stare as he did the very thing he swore to himself he'd never do and pressed her for some sort of admission that she cared for him.
It was much too late to turn back from that path now. "Give me just a word. Somethin' to take away with me?"
Zanh Liis shook her head fiercely from side to side. Her earring made the soft jingling noise he was so accustomed to, and he wondered how it was that a sound so harmless could feel like a dagger in a man's heart.
"I can't." She answered, each word a struggle to say and spoken in uncharacteristic monotone. "I'm sorry, I just. Can't."
She pulled away and ran from the room, slamming the bedroom door shut between them and leaving him alone in the living room as the song ended and began to play again from the beginning.
Keiran was disappointed, but he was a man far too stubborn to give up on her, even still.
Without a word he turned, sighed, and began to reattach the front door to its hinges.
That task completed, he left the music playing as he paused for only a moment in the doorway, took a last look around the empty room, and then lightly closed the door behind him.
Walking off again into the pouring rain, he promised himself that this was not 'the end of everything'. That he would be back after this Jump; if for no other reason than he still had work to do in this life. Because Zanh Liis still thought that she was alone in it and if it took the rest of his days, he'd prove to her that she was wrong.
-=End Flashback=-
Liis now thought about how pushing him away that night had almost cost her the chance of ever telling him that she loved him in that time. The same time in which, after she did finally tell him, they'd gotten married the first time.
She thought of the pain she experienced when he'd gone missing on that Jump.
How she'd paced back and forth beneath the Poplar that was, at this moment, mere miles away from her. How she had hoped as she had never hoped for anything that she'd have one more chance to tell him she was ready to stop running.
In light of the memory, such a clear and vivid warning from her own soul in addition to Will's deceptively simple directive to her, Liis asked herself again why, even now, it was so damned hard to stand still.
-=/\=- Zanh Liis
Commanding Officer
USS Serendipity NCC-2012
Commanding Officer
USS Serendipity NCC-2012