by *Keiran O’Sullivan and Zanh Liis
90316.05
Following: Running For Her Life
-=County Cork, Ireland, Earth=-
90316.05
Following: Running For Her Life
-=County Cork, Ireland, Earth=-
Keiran walked slowly through the field, seeing Liis standing alone now in the distance, and Will Lindsay approaching him. As they met halfway between Liis and car, Keiran extended his hand, and shook Will’s with a single pump.
"William."
"Keiran."
"Keep in touch, no?”
“I will,” Lindsay replied. He walked past without another word, and the hum of a transporter behind Keiran signaled his departure.
Liis remained motionless but was well aware of Keiran’s approach, as the heavy tromping of his boots felled the tall grass between them.
He wrapped his arms around her from behind when he reached her, and gave her a gentle squeeze.
She was cold, and wet, and he wanted nothing more than to get her to a place where she'd be warm and dry but he knew that until something meaningful was done or said that she wouldn't be willing to go anywhere.
He only wished he knew just what that meaningful thing was that she needed him to do or say, so he could waste no time in saying or doing it.
He waited a moment to see what she would do next, if she would react to his touch at all but she just remained motionless. He circled around to face her and looked down to see if he could draw her eyes up to his.
Instead, she closed them tightly. “Tucker Brody,” she said softly.
Keiran was all too aware of her history with the man who carried that name.
She had met Brody, a TI psychiatrist, in the last timeline she'd experienced in the paradox but she had not told him anything about a recent meeting with the man.
“What about him?”
“The last room I was sent into, at TI.” She opened her eyes at last and lifted them to his in slow motion, as if the effort took all of her strength. "Tucker Brody was waiting for me inside of it."
Keiran nodded. Talking to a man like Brody was nothing unusual given the events that she had been through, even if it was not pleasant. “Ok,” He answered, as an indication that she should continue.
“I… I…” She stammered. “I can’t quite explain how I felt. The way he looked at me. But Keiran...that man, he's out to get me. He said that he feels I'm unfit, and he plans to do everything and anything he can to take me from our ship and crew.” She shivered, from cold and from dread, knowing deep inside that there was more to his mission than that.
Something about his desire to take from her all she cared about was intensely personal.
"This is not the same Brody I knew before- he's changed here. There is nothing but darkness in him."
“The man must be outta his mind, Liis. Who bloody well cares what he thinks? As long as William Lindsay and Gemini Lassiter are runnin’ the show over there, Brody’s chain is tight. Besides, he’s probably just doin’ his job. Tryin’ to see how far he can push ya. I wouldn’t be surprised if Gem herself put him up to it.”
“No,” Liis’s shook her head and her lip curled into a smirk intended not to express amusement, but rather simply that he did not understand. “I’ve seen Brody just doing his job. This was not a man doing his job. The Brody I spoke with in this time is on a vendetta.”
“What reason could he possibly have for that? He only just met you here, isn't that so?” Keiran asked, trying to use a degree of logic to calm her fears.
“I don’t know." She admitted. Her voice bore the weight of her burden as she struggled to carry it. She dropped her gaze, examining the ground below; futilely seeking answers there that she'd managed to find nowhere else. "But I know what I saw.”
Her words and the way she said them, both, chilled Keiran to the bone. While he could think of no reason what so ever for Brody to carry a grudge against Zanh Liis, he also knew that when his wife had determined in her mind someone’s intentions, she was never wrong.
“The song in the car was just the last straw. Brought out another set of memories, so clear, and I.” She shrugged, and crossed her arms tighter over her chest. "I don't have to explain that to you, though, of all people. Do I."
Keiran closed his eyes and heaved a deeply troubled sigh.
Indeed, she did not.
It took him a moment to compose himself before he could continue. "If he tries a damn thing, Liis,"
“I know, I know,” She could only imagine the hell Keiran would put Brody through if he so much as harmed a hair on her head.
“Maybe he is just blowing smoke, doing his job, as you say. Full of sound and fury, signifying nothing." She wanted to believe that more than anything else right now but her heart, and her instincts, simply would not let her lie to herself- or to Keiran.
"I don't want to let him get to me. I don't want to give his threats any weight. But when I remember how much we've lost before," her hands now grasped his arms desperately, almost violently, as she struggled to feel her hold on him with hands gone as numb as her soul.
"When I remember, Keiran, I’m reminded of just how much we still have to lose.”
The thought of Brody using Keiran as a weapon against her was simply unbearable. She cared little about her own reaction to it or possible suffering, though she knew it would crush her.
It was the idea of Keiran being made to suffer, for any reason, that created a panic in her she could not suppress or control.
She feared what Brody may do to her as well. There was a time where she could have endured any amount of pain anyone tried to inflict on her. Not because she had the strength to get through it, but because she simply did not care what did or did not happen to her.
Now, with the knowledge that as Zanh Liis goes, so goes the heart of Keiran O’Sullivan, she was left feeling concern for her own well being for the first time in her life, even if only because she knew it meant the world to him.
Why, she may never know. But, it did.
“Maybe you should stay here, in Ireland. Where it’s safe." She announced suddenly. "The next time the Sera returns to Earth, we can…”
Keiran reached out, grasping her firmly by the arms. “Liis! Now ya know I’m never gonna even consider that.”
"You know as well as I do how dangerous it is out there. I'm serious about this. One wrong decision on my part, one momentary lapse in reason or the smallest error in my judgment and you could get hurt." It had never left he for a moment since she'd heard it, what Will had said about the compasses indicating how questionable Keiran's survival had been on the last mission.
She couldn't stand the thought of sending him anywhere, on a mission for the Project or for the Sera herself, where such extreme risk could present itself again.
“Then I guess I’m gonna get hurt,” he replied instantly, without hesitation or regret.
Liis knew it was senseless to argue with him. This was a man who had made it his life’s purpose to show her love and devotion every day of his existence and place himself firmly between her and anything even remotely resembling a problem. He was never going to stay on Earth and sit on a lonely porch in Ireland, when home for him was wherever she was. No matter the risks of going with her.
She’d be lying if she said she could really leave him behind and press on with a stiff upper lip. She was only flesh and blood after all and even she, as much as she hated ever admitting it, had limits to what she could take.
“I’ll keep a weather eye open, Liis, I can promise ya that. Brody won’t so much as leave TI to have lunch without me knowin’ it." Keiran vowed. "I know you're afraid. But ya have to know there's no way in hell I'm goin' to leave your side or let you go again, not so long as I'm still breathin'.”
Keiran was dead serious and she knew it. She was just completely terrified that the seriousness of the consequences of this decision could mean that he would end up leaving her side again- for good.
"I promise you," Keiran repeated, running his hands up and down her arms to try to warm her. "If I have any reason to believe Brody is a threat to Zanh Liis, that makes him a threat to the Alchemy Project itself and my position aboard ship will afford me all the tools necessary to be sure he'll be dealt with so swiftly he'll never see it comin'."
One thing she knew to be consistent about Keiran from every time in which she'd known him -as her Jump partner and as her husband- was that once he had set his mind on a decision the choice was made, the word was given, and both were final.
“All right,” she agreed. rather unconvincingly. He knew her voice well enough to know her feelings didn’t match her words. If the Brody situation was going to be handled, he’d have to prove to her over time that he was going to take care of it.
"We should head back. I think i's gonna rain again soon." He looked up into the swirling skies above. "Am gonna need ta build ya a garage now, yeah?" he thought out loud.
“Can you afford the labor?” Liis allowed herself a small joke to try to lighten her mood, knowing he would most likely leave the task to his brothers and that when next the returned home, a garage would simply have appeared on the property as if by magic.
“Well I know a few O’Sullivans who dabble a bit in construction,” he began, taking her arm and leading her back towards the car, “They’re an unruly and uncouth lot, but the promise of a pint usually keeps them motivated enough to get a job done.”
“Just a pint?”
“Maybe two,” Keiran grinned. "When yer ready, I have a bit of a surprise for you up on the ship."
"Oh?" Liis felt unsure she was up to any more surprises in the near future, even happy ones.
"Yeah. Trust me, you're gonna love it."
By the time they reached the car Liis was racked by chills and trembling hard,
She was frozen to the core, and she looked at Keiran with far-away eyes as he opened up the driver's side door for her.
Then she shook her head, her lips turned downward, and she said something that worried him more than anything else he'd heard her say this day.
"Maybe you should drive."
************************
*Keiran O'Sullivan
and
-=/\=- Zanh Liis
USS Serendipity NCC-2012
*Keiran O'Sullivan
and
-=/\=- Zanh Liis
USS Serendipity NCC-2012