950: Purgatory: Two

by Wren Elton and Keiran O'Sullivan
90914.13
Immediately After Part One

-=Personal Quarters of Rada Dengar; USS Serendipity=-

Wren’s eyes were aflame with directionless rage she was desperately trying to force to the direction of Zanh Liis.

Just seconds earlier she’d felt so alone in a melancholy world, unable to sense the many souls moving on with their lives all around her as they spoke and laughed and so wrongly got their chance to love.

Then the darkness was interrupted by a piercing light in the distance which grew to the point of eruption into rage as she recognised who it was and suddenly she knew there would be time to mourn later.

In this moment she knew nothing to be more true than that that woman, his supposed Captain, hadn’t been there to protect him when she should have. Then she’d thrown him to the wolves just to cover up her own mistakes.

Wren had never been a violent woman, never one with any desire to cause harm, and yet in this moment and with complete certainty she wished to inflict upon Zanh Liis any pain she possibly could. Instinctively and without fear her hand raised swiftly into the air, as she cared nothing in that moment for the superior training Liis had surely received.

She wanted to slap it down viciously her face, possibly the most humiliating injury she felt she could inflict. However her hand hovered in mid-air then dropped back down. She would not let any more be taken from her than already had been.

It seemed the two intruders on her suffering had known she wouldn’t do it, as while by instinct Zanh had raised a hand slightly as if to block her emotions contained no fear of pain. She was surprised, even shocked, but her feelings were never definable as fear.

Wren knew this was a side of her neither Liis nor Keiran had ever seen before, few people had. Yet she’d have expected with their experience that they could have predicted her anger better than they did.

Did they not know that even the most gentle of people could only be pushed so far? Surely she’d never have ended up here if that weren’t true of Rada.

“Get out of here right now!” Wren screamed, blocking the door and pointing in the direction of anywhere but here. “This is not your ship anymore.”

Neither person moved, though on the inside they were questioning whether they should leave or stay on the outside all Wren could feel was the universe so desperate to rip away her control now mocking her by stopping them doing what she’d asked. Well, she would take back her control.

Keiran was about to speak, she was sure about what, and she wanted to get there first. “Don’t you dare,” she spat at him. “Don’t you dare even start to tell me to calm down!”

Calm was certainly not any of the hundred emotions she was feeling right now, her mind was far too inhospitable an environment for anything so comforting to survive. She realised her breathing was getting heavy and that any chance she had at controlling anything in her life which was rapidly spiralling out of control, would be lost in an instant if she couldn’t even control herself.

She turned away, turning her back to them, hoping that having Liis out of her line of sight might do something to help her ignore that she was here. She took a few rushed steps inward and began to sort haphazardly through the nearest box, just trying to do something that would make it seem like she had any reason to turn away than because she couldn’t face them any longer.

Instantly she began to regret what she’d done as she felt them getting closer to her. They’d entered this place, what once had been theirs, and though both respectfully remained close to the door all Wren could feel was their intrusion, dirtying up her memories. In that moment she felt her hatred for both of them equally as much. Rapidly she abandoned what she was doing and turned an about face, focusing now on O’Sullivan.

“Of all people you should have known better than to let this happen.” She said with bitter disgust, revealing to him that she knew well things that he could never have been completely sure that she did. “What did you think? Did you think you’d just come here and tell me ‘it’s not that bad really, happens to the best of us’?” She added with harsh sarcasm, barely covering the feeling that she should be sobbing now rather than yelling.

Everything about how she stood, from the contemptuous look barely serving to hold back to the tears to the special effort she was struggling to find as she tried desperately to keep her shoulders raised, was designed to antagonise him. Yet neither Keiran nor Liis would offer any such response.

Calmly the Irishman waited, not replying any quicker than he needed to as he might have done if he were wanting to argue.

“Am not here to tell ya that yer pain is lessened because of what pain I once felt.” Keiran quietly assured her with a slight shake of his head, knowing that it’d certainly have offered him no comfort when he stood where she now did. Gently after that remark he squeezed Liis’ hand.

Wren didn’t want to admit it but while she wouldn’t listen to Liis, something perhaps Liis understood based on her keeping quiet, something in the way Keiran had spoken had gotten to her.

“No,” she said, quickly adding what she felt must be the truth but without quite the determination in her words she had before. “You’re just trying to tell me you understand.”

She refused to allow him any time for a response; he’d not be allowed to make her feel any less certain. Her eyes fell to the ground, her words getting quieter with sadness slowly replacing anger.

“You couldn’t understand though. This is just what Temporal Investigations does, isn’t it? When a timeline’s not going the way you want you just wipe it away. Then when it comes to doing the same thing with a man it’s really no different. You just wipe him away. You don’t care.”

Were Wren not trying now so hard to repress the sensations from the world around her then she’d have felt horror radiating from Liis that she could think such a thing. Keiran felt such a horror too, but his was tempered with understanding from having been there.

Patiently, he sighed. “I think ya know that’s not true.”

As understanding as it was, this was not what Wren wanted to hear.

“No.” She snapped, anger building up once again, still in no mood to listen to excuses or apologies and certainly not for understanding. “All I know is that he was taken from me. Every part of him that belonged to me was snatched away and every part of me that was his is now gone. That doesn’t just…that can’t just…” tears began rushing back to her eyes but she forced them back down.

“That doesn’t just happen by accident. Someone must have caused it. Someone must be to blame. I…I can’t be…”

She didn’t have to finish; Liis could hold herself back no more.

“Listen to me, Wren.” Liis said, taking the Betazoid by the arms. “This was not your fault. Maybe it was the Domox. Maybe it was Lassiter. Maybe it was mine.” Any other time Keiran would have damn sure Liis knew that it wasn’t hers, though for just this moment he held his tongue and let her finish what Wren clearly needed to hear. “But it sure as hell wasn’t yours.”

As Wren desperately tried to maintain her composure and before her own emotion took over again she allowed herself just a glimpse into what Liis really felt, and that really did get to her. She felt the flames of rage that had surrounded her shrink away and with them gone she could once again see the world in a familiar light.

Zanh would confess genuinely to actions which could never really be her fault and O’Sullivan was so kind to her, Wren couldn’t hate either of them now; just like she never had before.

She noticed once again just how much her head had begun to throb and she took it into her hands, knowing she couldn’t be certain of anything anymore. Then slowly she raised her head back up and softly asked, “What are you really doing here?”

“We’d like to help if we can.” Liis offered, gently and sincerely.

Wren’s eyes seemed to scoff at her as if asking just how she could possibly felt she could help, then they turned back down with embarrassment as Liis gestured towards the boxes indicating she’d help her pack his things if that was all she could.

It wasn’t much but Wren knew the offer for help was genuine, even if she couldn’t bear to have them here with her much longer.

"I'm sorry," Wren said quietly, her hands wringing together tightly as she spoke, "I know you mean well, but I'd like you to leave."

Liis’ eyes were downcast too, focused now without truly paying attention to the pattern of colors in the carpeting that she'd never noticed before was there. "I truly am sorry, Wren," she said softly. Wren's own emotions were shouting at her so loudly however that even the genuine regret she heard in Zanh's voice and sensed in her spirit were no consolation at all. "If there had been any other way."

"Captain, please," Wren pleaded, using Liis’ old rank as a way to show her that she really did respect her strength of mind, even if that knowledge had been nearly washed away in the flood of emotion; even from her own memory. Her voice would have to do because Wren couldn’t let Liis see her face with all the strength of her anger gone.

She was again nearing her breaking point that life now seemed so desperate to thrust her towards, and it was a matter of pride with her that Zanh not see her reach it. "I want to finish this now. Alone."

Liis moved to the door, and paused there when she didn't immediately see Keiran join her. He held up a hand, a simple gesture that she understood so well because she understood him so well.

He wasn't finished here, and he was asking her to go on without him.

Keiran turned sympathetic blue eyes toward the young woman before him. He was no telepath, but he could feel the pain radiating from the core of her, and it was a pain he recognized immediately.

It was a pain he knew all too well.

He had realized, hearing her speak moments before, that he was probably the only person on the ship, maybe anywhere for that matter, who truly did grasp what she was going through because it was a nightmare he'd himself had to live through. He knew what it was like to lose someone you loved dearly to the ravages of memory resequencing.

Not so very long ago I was standing where you are. he thought. On the edge of an abyss so dark and deep that you don't even want to begin to try to stop it from taking you.

He watched her a moment as she stared blankly into the distance, moving somehow while nearly standing still; gathering up a few simple trinkets from shelves where they'd been artfully scattered on display. Memories, he was certain, belonged to every item no matter how insignificant they might seem to a casual outside observer.

His own mind began to list off the things that had been hardest for him to hold on to, and those even harder to let go of.

"Wren."

She looked up at O'Sullivan with an entirely different expression than the one she had last shown Zanh Liis. Wren had always liked Keiran; any time they'd interacted he'd always given off such deep and genuine emotions. Unusual for a man so haunted, she thought, but that was O'Sullivan in a nutshell. The man was unusual, and she liked him.

Still, she was in no mood to be counseled, formally or otherwise. "I really," she said much more pleadingly than she'd spoken the same words earlier, "need to be alone right now."

"Won't stay long." Keiran promised, and he meant it. He sighed and paced away, and she felt the shift in his emotions vividly as for a moment she gave up trying to block out all around her in denial of the reality of her situation. "But, I do have somethin' to say."

"Say it then." Wren commanded, adding more gently, "please."

"You see a lot more aboard this ship than ya let on, Wren Elton. 'Tis a part of yer charm and wisdom, the way you keep what you learn to yerself."

"I don't know what you mean." Wren dismissed him absently with a wave as she placed one of Tam's PADDs into the box she'd filled before and couldn't stop herself from taking the sea shell out again. She held it in her hand, tilting it alternately toward and away from the light, watching the colors and remembering the way that similar colors made the waters of San Francisco Bay shimmer on a particular evening, years ago...

Keiran turned back toward her, holding his hands out before him. "You know exactly what I mean. You're fully Betazoid. We both know what that means. You know just about ev'ra'thin' that happens aboard this ship, only you're wise enough to keep it to yerself because ya know just how important the work is that's done here. You want to stay, so you take it in as you must, because it's who, it's what 'cha are to take it all in." His features changed into an expression of the slightest smile. "One would have to blame Salvek for being logical or Reece for being...Reece before they could blame you for knowin' more than ya say."

Wren would ordinarily have smiled at such a remark, but nothing could make her smile tonight.

"You know what happened when the Sylph came." O'Sullivan stated, his words certain, not questioning.

Wren nodded.

"What's more, you know just how painful the experience of losing her was for me. You read it in me, clearly, every time I walked in'ta the room." Keiran knew this to be true, because he remembered the unspoken concern in her eyes when they'd meet, on days when even though things in his life were finally going the right way, the past was there at every turn trying to drag him back into that abysmal darkness.

Early mornings after late and sleepless nights she'd see him, in the cafe early before anyone else, and she'd always just bring him his coffee without intruding upon his solitude as he stared out the window, pretending he was reading reports.

They both knew better, but she had always respected his need to deal with his feelings, and his memories on his own.

"I know you want to be alone, and I'll leave ya alone. But before I do you have to understand somethin'." Keiran approached her now and slowly took the box from her left hand, the shell from her right, and put both down on the nearest table. Then he gently placed a hand under her chin and encouraged her to look up at him.

"There is no map for this. There is no..." he shook his head, trying to find the words for emotions that she was already sensing. She fought the stinging of tears in her eyes as his pain merged with her own in her thoughts, and she understood so clearly that he did truly know what she was battling here. "...absolute. There is only uncertainty, and waiting. It's sort of like..." he paused, wondering if she'd spent enough time on Earth to understand the religious term he was about to use. "Purgatory."

Wren's eyes now spilled over with tears she could no longer contain.

"You may think that there's only one place you can go from here, but I'm tellin' you," Keiran's voice was barely a whisper as he put a hand on her shoulder to reassure her. "There may still be a chance for redemption yet. To save what you," he struggled to continue, surprised suddenly how difficult it was for him to speak of these all too familiar emotions, even now. "...and Rada have had. Or to start again."

"Start again." Wren pulled away and began picking up items to pack much more quickly now. "I don't want to start again. I want what was taken from me." She trembled, the twisting anger rising in her again though she still couldn't even begin to think whom she should direct it to.

Zanh Liis? She was sure now that it really wasn't her fault. She was only doing what all Starfleet captains do. In fact, according to what Wren had been told, Zanh had been the staunchest advocate that she and Rada had had when it came to respecting his rights and feelings about her care when Wren couldn't speak for herself.

She found, in the end, that it came back to being herself that she hated most. Hadn't she been the one who insisted that she and Tam would only stay with Rada if he remained in Starfleet? Why had she done that? If she hadn't, if she'd allowed him to resign his commission as he had first wanted to do when they'd reunited, none of this would've happened. None of it would be...

...none of it would be the same.

If she'd done that, then the Domox would've continued on in their quest, and they'd likely have succeeded. They may have managed to hunt down and exterminate every telepathic race in the Alpha Quadrant for all anyone knew; it was Rada alone who had in the end stopped that from happening. And his motivation in stopping them was, above all else, saving her from the fate they'd condemned her to.

That was what hurt her the most, she realised now. The fact that he was in the condition he was in only because he loved her.

"Don't do that." Keiran warned, causing Wren to wonder suddenly which one of the two of them it was who was fully telepathic. "Don't blame yourself."

"How can I not?" Wren paced away again, her self-loathing evident in her tone. "If not for me, he wouldn't be-"

"You can't know that," O’Sullivan objected. "God in Heaven, if you only knew how many times I damned myself for things I'd done...and said, and not done and not said. Some things lie beyond our control, Wren. You will quite literally drive yourself mad if you continue on this way." He again forced himself into her line of vision, but Wren finally closed her eyes tightly shut and held her head in her hands, desperate to avoid his steady stare.

At last O'Sullivan sighed, and with a gentleness surprising for a man of his size, he pried her hands from her face. He cut to the heart of the matter, as he always did, with one simple question. "You want him back, then?"

Wren's expression was one of frustration bordering on insult. Wasn't that obvious?

"Then there's only one thing ya can do." O'Sullivan announced with the conviction of a man who knew exactly what it was he was saying. "Wait."

"Wait?" Wren threw her hands up into the air in frustration. "For what? For his resequencing to break down and for him to go catatonic again? They told me that I can't risk trying to make him remember."

"You can't risk forcing him to remember. That's why, hard as it is for you and your boy, ya have to move out of this place at least for now. But." He sighed, running his hand back through his hair now, as he realized that he was walking a very dangerous line here.

He may be giving her false hope that would prove far less kind later on than a clean break would now.

But as he looked upon her, so broken and beaten down, knowing the pain she was suffering he found he just couldn't do anything else.

There was one other thing, too, that she didn't know that Keiran felt she must before he finally left her alone to her grief.

"Wren, I was the one had to tell Rada."

"Tell him what?"

"That you were hurt."

Wren had never stopped to consider what Rada's initial reaction might have been. O'Sullivan's words now did what nothing else had been able to do thus far. They stopped her thoughts cold. "You did?"

"Aye, that I did." Keiran began twisting the ring on his left hand. He closed his eyes and uttered a short and silent prayer that he was doing the right thing, telling her this.

"What did he?" Though her emotions precluded her from fully asking the question, her meaning was clearly understood by the man she asked it of.

"What did he do?" Keiran finished it for her, and then he exhaled slowly. He felt his hands begin to tremble and he clasped them behind his back in an attempt to try to hide it. To conceal what was, he should have known, impossible to hide from a full telepath. Still he tried in vain to keep from her just how brutally the darkness of his own past still relentlessly hounded him, always and only one step behind the kinder reality that constituted his own personal 'present'.

"He did what you must now do." Keiran said softly. He felt he'd intruded here upon her grief long enough and stepped forward, activating the door to leave her to her thoughts, and her sorrow. "The best that he could."

----------------------------

Wren Elton
Manager, Afterthought Café
USS Serendipity NCC-2012

and

-=/\=- Captain Keiran O’Sullivan
Currently Between Assignments
Temporal Investigations/ The Alchemy Project