90401.14
-=/\=-
-=Quarters of the Captain, USS Serendipity=-
Keiran O'Sullivan walked their new quarters again, making another round of ever-closer inspections of the finest details of the place. Overall, he found that the work had been done quite well.
Still, as with any new construction there were tiny flaws and imperfections which would need to be attended to and remedied before he'd be completely satisfied.
Things had to be just so, because this was where she would be living.
"So, she was really pissed off was she?" Liis asked, her voice filtering down from the loft as he paced the space below. She was in the process of getting dressed for the evening's festivities and every time she reappeared, she'd added another article of clothing.
"You've no idea. Rarely have I ever seen Gem angry as she was."
"Well, we were on our honeymoon for cryin' out loud. A honeymoon, I might add, that we voluntarily suspended the first time to come running the moment Starfleet called."
"True. But it was the launch celebration for the new flagship that we missed while we were wanderin' around Mizen Head. That's why she's so angry."
"Bullshit. It's the launch of her baby boy's new career as First Officer of that flagship that we missed and that's why Gemini Lassiter is so angry with me."
"Not so much with you, exactly," Keiran said thoughtfully, as he adjusted a picture frame that he'd placed on the table in the entryway.
Within the frame was a favorite picture of his that Eilish had snapped of Liis at the wedding. In the image, she'd been caught in a moment of quiet contemplation. The look on her face, while not a smile, showed a contentment that reached to the very heart of Keiran, every time he saw it.
He turned the frame to face a little to the left, then the right, then decided he liked it best the way it'd been before and put it back where it was at the beginning.
"She could never really be mad at you, or at Will. She adores you and that's plain. She's angry with me for keeping you away. Well, I'm sorry." Liis gestured at him from afar with one of her socks and he laughed.
"No, yer not." He knew that fact made Lassiter even more irritated.
"You know what? You're right. I'm not. This time, I won and she lost. She'll just have to get over it."
"Don't count on it. If there's one thing ya need ta know about Gemini Lassiter is that if she feels slighted, she isn't quick ta forget it."
"Whatever. She can add it to the list. Another reason not to like me. As long as you like me I don't care what anybody else thinks."
"Like ya? Don' know. Gettin' used to ya, maybe." Keiran teased, only because the very idea he could ever do anything less than adore her was utterly ridiculous.
He ceased his white-glove inspection of the room for the time being and approached the foot of the stairs, peering up at the bedroom she had once again disappeared back into.
"Aside from the upstairs bathroom door stickin' shut, is there an'a'thin' else I need to put on the list for the maintenance crew? 'Cause I want to be sure that it's all..."
She came back to the edge of the railing, buttoning her shirt as she walked. He found the action quite disarming and his words ground to a halt. "...perfect."
"It is perfect." Liis assured him. "I can fix the door myself, Keiran. Two minutes and a little sandpaper, it's no big deal."
"You'll do no such thing. The Captain of the Serendipity has much more important things to do with her time than fixin' an uneven door."
"I do?" She rolled her eyes up toward the ceiling, feigning innocence as to what he was implying. "Like what?"
Keiran's low, wicked laughter rumbled, and just as he was about to take to the stairs and make a specific suggestion, the door chime rang.
It was the first time the door chime had rung since they'd returned and Keiran forgot that he'd changed it to emit a short series of musical notes instead of the expected, computerized beeping.
He looked up and catching sight of the shock on Liis' face, feared the worst. "Ya hate it."
She shook her head emphatically from side to side. "No. I love it."
The tone sounded again, and she turned back from the railing. "See who it is will you?"
"Yes Ma'am." When the doors parted, the very last person Keiran expected to see standing at his door was the very first person to call there.
"Keiran."
O'Sullivan blinked several times in quick succession as he instantly recognized their visitor.
He couldn't remember the Vedek ever voluntarily calling him by his given name before- not unless he felt forced to do so out of dutiful politeness. The name held no such underlying tone of disdain now when the man spoke it, however, and the simplicity of the act and the apparent ease with which Jariel performed it took Keiran by surprise.
Leaning against the door frame now, intrigued by the obvious changes in the man on the other side of the threshold, Keiran folded his arms and propped one booted foot over the other casually. He tilted his head down in a nod of respectful greeting, before responding in kind.
"Camen."
Jariel immediately extended his hand, and Keiran grasped it firmly, pumping once in a definitive, powerful shake.
Their eyes met, and neither looked away or seemed uncertain, anymore; such a change, Keiran thought, from the moment they had stood at odds across a table in the conference room- the last time they had spoken to each other, if Keiran remembered correctly- and Jariel had declared that he refused to accept Zanh Liis' affection as a victory by default simply because Time and History expected it.
Keenly observant of all around him, Keiran immediately noticed that Jariel was holding something in his other hand. It was a scroll of paper tied with a thin, fraying red ribbon, and Keiran had no doubt whom it was intended for.
"I was asked to see to it that this was delivered," Camen paused, seeing that Keiran's eyes had fixed upon the object he held.
How Jariel would choose to refer to Liis in Keiran's company was a question to which the Irishman didn't have to wait long for an answer.
"Would this be a convenient time for me to speak to your wife?"
"The Captain is gettin' dressed for the party," Keiran replied, also choosing his words carefully. Uncertain in this moment how Jariel still felt about Liis, the last thing he would ever want to do was make a point to the man of the fact that this time, things had turned out differently than in all others before it. "I can see that she gets it."
Standing at the top of the stairs, Liis looked down upon the scene unfolding at the door-momentarily frozen in place as she found her heart seemed to be caught in her throat.
She hadn't been there when any of the confrontations between the two of them had happened- she'd either been somewhere else or unconscious in Sickbay- and this was the moment that she had wondered about when Jariel said he wished to return to the ship. If these two men who, because of her, could not peacefully coexist in any other time could finally do so in this one, knowing what they knew now about how things had unfolded in the alternate branches of history.
"Thanks, but I'll save this for another time." Jariel nodded slowly and turned to go.
Liis started to speak, but stopped. For an instant she stumbled over the words, beginning to first say Camen's name in an attempt to detain him but then changing tack mid-thought,
and Keiran's instead.
"Keiran, it's all right." Hearing her voice echoing down from the loft, both men looked up at her. "Please. Show the Vedek in."
Keiran shrugged slightly. "Won'cha come in then?" His tone elicited a small laugh from Jariel.
"Thank you, I'd like that."
Liis descended the stairs very slowly, with carefully measured steps, readying herself for whatever was to come.
Keiran showed Camen into the study and gestured toward the couch opposite Liis' desk. "Take a seat. Can I offer ya a cuppa tea?"
"No, thank you, I really can't stay long." Jariel was growing more concerned about Fleur by the moment. She'd been down on the planet alone for hours- and a part of him, even though just a very small part, was beginning to wonder if she wasn't having second thoughts; thinking of staying there in favor of returning to life aboard Zanh Liis' starship.
"Very well." Keiran watched as Liis stood in the doorway and read her expression clearly. This was a conversation meant for two people, and he was not one of them.
"I think I'll...just head down to the holodeck and start greeting the early arrivals, no?" Keiran moved toward Liis and he resisted the urge, as strong as it was, to touch her arm as he moved past.
"I won't be far behind you." Her eyes reassured him, and Keiran couldn't help but notice how the attire she'd chosen for the evening, the costume of an aviator from the early days of flight, suited her soul. She wore an elegant, billowing white silk scarf draped around her graceful neck, she wore her favorite leather jacket as part of the outfit, and she looked every bit the free-spirit ready to take to the skies.
She looked every bit the woman who had stolen his heart- in more times than just this one.
"Lovely place you've got here." Camen said quickly, gesturing with open arms to all around them as O'Sullivan retreated.
Liis felt her cheeks start to burn. "Keiran's doing. I had no idea he was redecorating until I got back last night and saw the results."
"He did a fine job." Jariel concluded. "It suits you."
Liis waited until she heard the door close behind Keiran before directing her eyes toward Jariel. She analyzed his features quickly and accurately; something was troubling him.
This was the moment she had waited for. The one she knew was coming.
The one beyond the initial, polite reintroduction that she was certain would go almost exactly as the one they'd gone through the motions of this morning in the corridor, had.
That moment had been controlled, it had been formal, and it had been, to her mind, insufficient after all they had been to each other.
"Sit down." She didn't mean to make the request sound like an order, yet it did. "Please," she added hastily, in a much softer tone. His pacing was making her anxious.
Jariel exhaled a deep sigh and instead of taking to the couch, sank down into the large, overstuffed chair situated in the far corner of the room, at the point where two bookcases intersected.
Liis stepped toward him but then stepped back, deciding instead to sit on the edge of her desk at a comfortable physical distance from his location. "What is it, Jariel?"
"I have something for you." He held the scroll out to her, and she hesitated to take it until he added, "It's from Timal."
Neither of them seemed in a hurry to give up their respective position in the room and so Jariel simply tossed the scroll to her. She caught it and analyzed the ribbon. "What is this? An overdue report card?" She jested. "He wants me to take Ancient Bajoran History again. I did very nearly fail the class. I never could remember who came first, Kai Atronisius or Kai Trulenna."
"He wants to see you, Liis."
Liis felt the lump in her throat grow exponentially, and said nothing.
"He's very curious to meet your husband."
Liis laughed a low, deep and singular laugh. "Is he."
"Yes, but that's not all." Jariel hemmed, but knew she had to know the truth. "He very nearly died from the fever. He's becoming more frail by the hour it seems and he said that he wanted to see you before." He didn't finish his sentence.
"Oh, he's just being dramatic." Liis waved dismissively, because that was what she needed to believe; that Timal was indestructible. Even though she knew from the last time she'd seen him with her own eyes how fragile he had become.
She set the scroll aside to read later, and the motion stirred up the leaves of the small tree displayed on the opposite side of the desk. The leaves rustled, and the sound caused a chill to run through her.
"He's not immortal, Liis. No matter how much we wish him to be." Jariel said sadly. "You really should think about making the trip home sooner rather than later. If you don't, you will regret it."
He didn't say I might regret it. Liis thought. He said I would.
"I'll see what I can do, and I'll be sure to get in touch with him in the meantime."
"Thank you."
"No need to thank me, Jariel. Timal raised us. I owe him more than I could ever," she brushed her fingertips over the scroll, saying no more.
Jariel didn't immediately rise as she'd expected him to, and that instant of hesitation on his part gave her the green light to ask him what it was that really had him shaken beyond Timal's failing strength. "Out with it."
Jariel head snapped upward, stunned as he was by her sudden forthrightness. Every conversation they'd had between the time the Sylph had arrived and the day he left Betazed, they had done nothing but dance around each other, the real issues and the truth they both knew in their hearts. She had seemed so unlike herself.
This was the Zanh Liis he remembered from his youth- the one who would not take 'No,' or 'I don't know' for an answer.
He lifted and dropped his shoulders in a gesture of discomfort beneath her analytical gaze. "What?"
"What do you mean what? Something has you in a much different frame of mind than you were when we bumped into each other in the hallway. What happened?"
Jariel ran both hands back through his curls and sighed, looking down at the floor. "I'll never be able to keep anything from you. Will I Zanh Liis?"
"You never could. Why would you think you could start now?"
All right, Jariel thought. She wants me to tell her, I'll tell her.
"I asked Fleur to marry me."
"Congratulations." Liis smiled softly, and with all sincerity. She finally abandoned her perch on the desktop and moved closer, but Camen waved her off.
"Hold that thought. She didn't say yes yet."
Liis was now the one who gave an incredulous sigh. "You're kidding me."
"No," Camen droned, "I am not."
"Okay."
Liis was startled by this, but when she stopped to really think about it a moment, she wasn't truly surprised. Le Marc had been witness to years of history between her and Camen- and now that they were back aboard her ship, perhaps Fleur was worried.
"Maybe she just needs time, Jariel. The past few months have been quite an experience for all of us."
"But she should know by now," he answered with marked frustration, "that I'm not the same man I was when last I walked the halls of this ship. That going home changed me, yes, but that I was changed before I ever set foot back on Bajor."
He drew a breath and continued. "And what's more, I realized once I got there just how little I knew about myself, and about you, Liis. How much we had both changed but stubbornly refused to see it for so long. Then I realized how little I knew about Fleur."
He folded his hands and looked up at Liis at last.
"I love her, I just don't know how to make her understand that. To convince her that to me, the only time that matters is now. The future I want for us and our family."
Liis realized something suddenly that Jariel was overlooking. She parted her lips to speak but instead held up a single index finger. She spun and headed for the door. "Wait. I'll be right back."
She hurried upstairs and retrieved an item from her suitcase, rushing back down the stairs so quickly she had to pause before continuing to catch her breath. "This belongs to you."
She held out a device of some sort toward him, and Camen regarded it with curiosity. He was almost afraid to touch it.
It was entirely unfamiliar to him so he didn't know how it could possibly belong to him. It had a dark face with some sort of instrumentation upon it and wires hanging from the back of it...just trailing there like ribbons from the tail of a kite.
It looked somehow...unfinished.
"I...stole this." Liis confessed. "Well, I didn't really steal it, oh hell, never mind. Long story short, the Director of the Department of Temporal Investigations knows that I, so it's all right. Anyway."
She urged him to take it, holding it closer to him. "Go on."
Jariel took the device into his hands and rotated it. Before he could ask, she answered.
"It's your 'clock'. From The Clock Room at TI." She tilted her head and looked at him sideways. "When I went back, I checked to be certain and I was right. It was dark."
"Meaning?"
"Meaning it's really over, Jariel. You, me, we're both free. From here on out, History has no say in what we do. Our lives...are our own again."
Camen felt his stomach twist as his breath deserted him. Could it really be so?
"I have no more compass," she continued. "They took it from me after...well...that's a story for another day." Her voice dropped to a whisper. "Keiran's compass, too. Gone. But what we do have are memories, of what was, and how different life could be than what we are blessed to have now."
Liis knew that while Jariel had not experienced the paradox or the second encounter with the Sylph as she and Keiran and others had, that he still had enough memories given back to him by them the first time to tell him all he needed to know.
"Fleur hasn't seen what we have. The only time she has ever lived in is now," Liis dropped down to one knee, looking up into his face as he continued to direct his eyes distantly toward the clock, and the floor beyond.
Her hair spilled forward as she leaned closer to him; her long scarf fell over his knees and pooled on the floor around her. "And in that now, until not so long ago, she believed that she didn't stand a chance with you. Even though you and I both know that was never true. She always did."
Camen opened his mouth to object to the insinuation, but then closed it again just as quickly, because she was right.
"Show her this clock, Jariel. Explain to her." Liis raised her arms and gestured toward the grand new quarters that Keiran had taken such care in designing for her. "Explain to her...all of this. And if all else fails," she held her hand out toward him, and displayed the rings he'd only caught a glimpse of earlier in the day.
He focused upon them now, taking in the seal upon the signet ring.
"Tell her that every time she looks at me, she should look at my left hand, and know that she has nothing to fear from me. That I love you, yes, because I have always loved you and I will always love you in a way." Liis was in deep now, there was nothing to do but honestly play the conversation out to its conclusion. "But that my heart belongs to Keiran, just as I know yours belongs to her."
Camen set the clock down onto the arm of the chair, suddenly rose, and pulled Liis up along with him and into an embrace.
He rested his head on her shoulder, a sensation he found as comforting as it was familiar. "I love her so much, Liis. Why won't she believe it?"
"The only thing she doubts is herself. She's never doubted you." Liis explained. "If you want her to believe it, then she will believe it. Because it's the truth and you won't stop telling her until she believes it."
They stepped back from each other now, and truly for the first time sized each other up.
Liis thought back suddenly to the boy she'd met when he was only six, and how he had grown into the fine, complete man at last that she always knew he would be. The man with no doubts as to what he wanted, and no fear of pursuing it.
"Go after her." Liis advised. "I promise you, she hasn't gone far. She's just waiting to see if you'll be over her shoulder when she finally stops running."
"Only for the rest of my life." Jariel vowed, with tears in his eyes. He retrieved the clock from the armrest and looked down at it, then up at Liis again. "Thank you, Liis. For this. For." He thought of all the years of time she had traversed to allow him to have the life he had today. "For everything."
He placed a gentle kiss upon her cheek, and without another word, he was gone.
Liis reached over and retrieved her combadge from the desktop, tapping it. "Zanh to Parrish."
[Yes, Captain?]
"Did Fleur Le Marc return from the surface yet?"
[Yes, Sir, about twenty minutes ago.]
"Thank you. Zanh out." Liis closed the channel and addressed the computer. "Computer, locate Fleur Le Marc."
^Fleur Le Marc is in the Arboretum.^
"And Jariel Camen?"
^Jariel Camen is on deck four.^
"On his way back to quarters. Perfect." She tapped her badge again. "Zanh to O'Sullivan."
[Here. Ever'a'thin' all right?]
"Fine. I just wanted to let you know I'm running a little behind. I need to make a quick stop before I join you."
-=/\=- Zanh Liis O'Sullivan
Commanding Officer
USS Serendipity NCC-2012